Unique Rank Hunter
They say “never say never” for a reason — and that reason was me.
At the clerk’s shout, the whole place broke into a restless murmur.
“Hey, that’s Do Jinwoo.”
“Drops out of competition and the next thing he does is become a Hunter… Guess even national team athletes sell out for money. Tsk tsk.”
In a way, the reaction made sense. How was I supposed to tell them the real reason — that an incurable condition had forced me into retirement?
That single sentence refused to leave my mouth. I’d brushed it off with a clumsy dodge, and that had become the decisive reason everyone saw me as a money-grubber.
I pleaded with everything I had.
“Quickly… please check me as quickly as you can…!”
“Y-yes! Right this way for the examination!”
Maybe my desperation got through. The clerk led me straight to the testing room.
The examination room I arrived at looked nothing like what I’d imagined. I’d expected something grand — instead, there was nothing but a single chair.
“This is the examination room…? Not a torture chamber?”
“It is the examination room. Even if it doesn’t look like one.”
…?
I stared at the clerk with a face that screamed total incomprehension, and he promptly sat me in the chair.
This really does look like I’m about to get tortured.
This wasn’t an electric chair, right?
I sat there fidgeting until someone walked in. An incredibly beautiful woman looked at me with an expression that said, plain as day, that she did not want to be working.
“We’ll begin the first exam immediately. Hold this black sphere and close your eyes.”
“What is this?”
The older sister let out a sigh and explained in the most halfhearted way possible.
“The Tower basically doesn’t allow ordinary weapons. In the past you had no choice but to climb bare-handed. This is a stone taken from the Tower and refined. For some reason, it turns into a weapon.”
I had no idea what that meant, but apparently that was how it worked.
“First Hunter aptitude exam, starting now.”
With the beauty’s drained voice, the pitch-black darkness before my eyes transformed in an instant into a space where everything shone with light.
“You should see a glowing sphere. That’s Do Jinwoo’s mental image — reach toward the sphere, and if something catches in your hand, grab it and pull it out.”
A glowing sphere…?
I couldn’t understand a word she was saying.
“Where’s the sphere…? I don’t see anything.”
“……Excuse me?”
The beauty was just as flustered as I was.
“You know — the sphere glowing all by itself?”
“Huh?”
Was this a side effect of the exam?
The whole place was already glowing — and I was supposed to find something that shone even brighter?
Becoming a Hunter was harder than I thought.
“…What color is everything around you, by any chance?”
The beauty’s voice shook so hard her words barely held together.
“Everything’s glowing! How am I supposed to find a sphere that shines even more in a place like this?! Are you messing with me?!”
After a short breath, she continued.
“…It seems Do Jinwoo has entered his mental world itself. Reach out toward wherever feels right. Something will catch.”
“What happens if I enter my mental world?!”
“What do you mean, what happens? It just makes it a little easier to find. You’re not that different from anyone else.”
So much for getting excited over nothing.
I set the disappointment aside and, following her instructions, stretched my hand into empty air.
Clench—
There was no visible form, but at my fingertips I clearly felt something foreign.
“I think I’ve got it.”
“You may open your eyes.”
Coming from that blindingly bright place, the examination room looked dim. And in my hand—
“That’s Do Jinwoo’s new Avid. Something like a friend that will climb the Tower with you.”
A pretty stylish gun rested in my grip.
A stylish pistol.
“W-wait… I’m a rifle shooting athlete?!”
“Deep down, it seems your heart was calling for a pistol. I’ll show you to the next examination room.”
Damn it…!
I knew how to shoot a pistol, sure, but a pistol could never be a man’s soul gun!
Grumbling as I walked, I arrived at the second examination room — and this one finally looked the way I’d always imagined. Dozens of monitors large and small, an enormous mana measuring device, a massive electronic board.
The higher the mana you measured here, the higher the Hunter rank — the license that marked how strong you were. It made sense; high mana determined combat endurance and the power of your Avid.
Please… just give me average or above…!
Before long I had fully entered prayer mode. Watching me, the beauty sighed and looked thoroughly unimpressed.
“…What are you doing? Other examinees are waiting, so hurry up and take the test. Praying won’t change anything. Mana capacity is decided from birth.”
Ignoring my prayers like that. Surely the almighty God of Guns would still bestow grace upon me.
“Place your hand on the measuring device.”
“Do I need to circulate mana or anything?”
“Do you even know how? Just stand still.”
She wasn’t wrong, but it still somehow rubbed me the wrong way.
The moment I put my hand on the mana meter, the machine erupted into a noisy racket.
C-could it be? Am I one of the few S-ranks in Korea?!
A moment later the clamor died as if it had never happened.
“Exam’s over. This is… a little surprising.”
“What?! D-does that mean I’ve become an S-rank?!”
At my full-of-hope excitement, the beauty let out a short laugh.
“You’re a rare E-rank.”
Ah.
So I was nothing more than an E-rank human…
Even though my shooting skill was S-rank.
“I’ve put your status window up on the board. Check it.”
Oh…
Looking at the numbers alone, they seemed pretty high!
“You’re saying these numbers aren’t high? They’re insanely high!”
What answered my hope was another sigh from the beauty.
“We have a system that draws out a Hunter’s potential. We used that on you, and you’ve blossomed as a Hunter. For awakened stats, though, you’re not much different from an ordinary person. Maybe a slightly stronger civilian?”
I was left speechless. Still, I wasn’t a complete ordinary person, so I’d let it go.
“Next is the final gate. Follow me.”
Every post online said that finishing two exams got you your license. I had never heard of a third.
“There was nothing online about a third one?”
I asked the beauty carefully. Half of me was worried something had gone wrong; the other half fluttered with the thought that maybe I was special.
“The third is an E-rank exclusive examination room.”
Ah.
That explained why it never showed up. Hunters who got at least D-rank never needed to set foot in a room like this.
Before I knew it we had arrived at the third room. This time it was an empty space with nothing in it at all.
“Draw your Avid. From this point, the F-rank exclusive exam to prevent pointless casualties begins.”
She only told me to draw my Hunter weapon, my Avid — not a single word about how the test would actually work.
Seeing the small pistol in my hand, the beauty gave me a thumbs-up.
“I wish you luck.”
With that, she left the third examination room.
Eliminate 3 D-Rank Monsters: Silver Wolves
The instant the voice came from the speaker in the corner—
Grrrr…
Three Silver Wolves appeared.
The Silver Wolves are hologram-projected monsters, so there is no risk of real injury. However, if you fail to defeat all three — or if you are judged dead — Do Jinwoo’s Hunter license will be revoked.
“…Damn it.”
What kind of logic was this?
Tell the weak ones to stick together in groups, or at least give them survival tips. Instead they toss three monsters stronger than me into the room and go, “Can’t kill them? License revoked~” — who would enjoy that?
Thankfully, what I held in my hand was a product of science, the concentrated beauty of human ingenuity.
“Before a gun, everyone is equal!”
Knowing there was no real risk of death let me relax a little.
The Silver Wolves were vastly larger than big dogs, with a look that barely even registered as wolf. Whether they understood the danger of a gun or not, they only tested me from a distance and didn’t charge.
Then the answer was obvious.
“You’re nothing but moving targets!”
Bang—!
I pulled the trigger on the one that looked the softest. Something like energy drained out of my body.
So every shot burns mana?
If that hypothesis was right, the number of bullets I could fire was extremely limited.
The doctor’s warning that my hands would shake and I wouldn’t shoot like before proved completely empty — I cleanly put a round through the Silver Wolf’s head. Precision shooting might be hard, but hitting a target clearly wasn’t a problem.
“Grrrr…!”
“Hey… if you take a bullet, you’re at least supposed to go down, right?!”
The Silver Wolf that had been shot in the head was basically an impregnable fortress. It barely looked like something that had been hit.
There should at least be a scratch…
This is exactly why I don’t shoot pistols!
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
This time I fired three rounds in succession. Even a Silver Wolf seemed to struggle against bullets flying at hundreds of meters per second. It went fully Red Wolf and collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud.
Whether they were furious over their packmate’s death or not, the remaining two Silver Wolves charged with eyes locked on killing me.
They’d forced my awakening, sure, but my body was no different from an ordinary person’s. The kind of movement S-rank Hunters pulled off in comics was far beyond the likes of me.
“Aaaagh! Shit, you said this was a hologram?! Why the hell does it hurt?!”
In the end I had to sacrifice my left hand. I frantically smashed the wolf’s temple with the grip, and the Silver Wolf seemed to feel pain — it put distance between us.
“Ha… badly raised bastard. Go drink some more of your mom’s milk!”
Against the wound bleeding from the heavy grip strikes—
Bang—!
My bullet drove into the Silver Wolf’s temple.
One Silver Wolf left.
“Ha… making a living is hard.”
Having lost both its packmates, the last Silver Wolf came at me even faster than before. Jaws wide open, red palate ready to swallow me whole—
“Open wide. Bullet’s going in.”
Bang—!
I drove the final bullet — the one my Hunter license depended on — straight into it.