Die Trying
After I finished off the Dirty Kraken, my standing as a hunter climbed even higher.
In Busan, the nickname Haeundae's Savior was more famous than the name Choi Yongki.
And in Dio Guild, my call sign finally came out.
The monster from Greco-Roman mythology.
The origin of the name Typhoon.
Typhon.
Typhon was said to tear through mountains and the earth, breathing fire as he went.
They said that wherever Typhon passed, not even a shadow remained.
Legend had it that no matter how mighty a god might be, none could stand against Typhon.
That’s a little much.
Call signs were usually chosen as nicknames that suited a hunter best.
I had gone to the capital after annihilating a monster on the level of a near-apocalypse-class threat and done it with my head held high.
That just means the impact of what I pulled off was that huge, I guess.
And so my call sign was—
“Yo. Typhon Choi Yongki.”
Someone called out to me from the end of the hallway.
A man raising one hand high as he swaggered over like a thug.
Dio Guild’s mad dog.
Taros, Na Sang-min.
For some reason, Na Sang-min was grinning from ear to ear.
“Hunter Na. You look happy. Bright smile first thing in the morning, huh.”
“Don’t I always smile? I’m the Smile Man.”
“Ah, yes...”
Na Sang-min dragged the corners of his mouth upward with both hands.
Far from the Smile Man, he just looked terrifying.
“Yongki. Did you see the guild rules changed?”
“The year-end evaluation?”
“Exactly! That’s the one! If you get a good result there, apparently they’ll even give you a higher percentage... Tch. Never mind. What am I doing talking like this to a kid?”
Na Sang-min, who had been babbling away like a maniac, abruptly changed the subject.
“The other day I went to see a fortune teller, and she said a benefactor would come to me this month.”
He glanced around and lowered his voice.
“I think that benefactor might be the newly appointed Dio Guild chairman.”
I managed to keep my expression under control and listened in silence.
“The chairman, huh. Word is he’s pretty young. I like that. He’s got drive! He’s capable! He’s fiery! I can tell he and I would get along. I’d love to have a meal with him sometime.”
He ran wild and caused trouble wherever he went, but Na Sang-min was surprisingly attentive when it came to climbing the ladder.
“But damn it. The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. If he’s the chairman of Dio Guild, shouldn’t he at least come greet me properly first? I’m an S-class hunter, for crying out loud.”
His habit of exploding without warning was still alive and well.
“Anyway, starting with Go Pil-hun, those bastards in charge are all unbelievably rude. Right? Or am I wrong?”
I nodded in agreement.
The bastard at the top is me.
...I swallowed that comment down hard.
“That’s right. That Dio Guild chairman bastard has absolutely no manners.”
When I agreed with him so forcefully, Na Sang-min smiled in satisfaction.
“Heh. So you’ve finally grown up now that you’ve been promoted!”
He laughed heartily and slapped my shoulder.
Because of my accomplishment in wiping out the Dirty Kraken, my rank had gone up by two grades.
I was now a proper B-class hunter.
From B-class upward, the benefits became much greater.
Military exemption, discounts on public transportation, free use of guild-related facilities, bigger performance bonuses, and so on.
The higher you climbed, the more benefits you got.
And in Na Sang-min’s case, as an S-class hunter...
He’s basically on the level of a National Assembly member.
Na Sang-min rolled his neck from side to side.
“Okay! It’s been a while. Let’s loosen up.”
Usually, I was the one who contacted Na Sang-min first.
I’d beg him for special training, and he’d usually agree with obvious reluctance.
This time, though, he had made the suggestion himself for once.
“We’re going hard as hell today.”
Na Sang-min’s eyes burned.
I couldn’t help but snort.
He’s probably preparing for the year-end evaluation.
There’s a saying in the hunter world.
If you rest for one day, you know it.
If you rest for two, your teacher knows it.
If you rest for three, your comrades know it.
If you rest for four...
The monsters kill you.
No matter how strong an S-class hunter was, the moment he got lazy, he would start to dull.
The pay raise had been the trigger, and it had poured fuel all over Na Sang-min’s fire.
“Good. This time, I’m reaching S+ for sure!”
Getting from F-class to E-class was easy.
Going from E-class to D-class was easy too.
It started getting hard once you reached D-class and tried to move up to C-class.
The higher you climbed, the harder each single step became.
And once you hit S-class, just adding the plus sign after it came with agonizing pain.
Of everyone I had ever met so far, the only one who had reached S+ was Yohan, the First Apostle and creator of Ganro-ryu.
But Yohan had forcibly pushed his abilities higher through black magic.
Na Sang-min, on the other hand, had walked the straight and narrow with complete fairness and consistency.
He’d even maintained his S-class rank after switching weapons from a sword to a spear.
He never took any shortcuts.
A hunter who simply kept grinding forward in silence...
That’s pretty admirable. Surprisingly diligent, too.
I was certain the truly stronger man was Na Sang-min, not Yohan.
Suddenly, I found myself wondering.
Between me and Na Sang-min...
If the two of us fought, who would win?
“This year I’m hitting S+, and next year I’m going SS. Heaven above, earth below, I alone am supreme! I’ll become the one and only hunter in all of Korea.”
Na Sang-min burned with fighting spirit as mana flared out from his body.
The aura blazing around him was no joke.
The air grew heavy, and it felt as though gravity itself was pressing down on my body.
In an instant, chills ran down my spine, and cold sweat broke out at the nape of my neck.
“...”
Still too much.
The more experience I accumulated.
The stronger I got.
The better I could gauge just how powerful my opponent really was.
The easygoing, foul-mouthed older-brother look he usually wore was only a surface layer.
If Na Sang-min went all out...
Even a hundred lives wouldn’t be enough.
I shook my head to myself.
Don’t get cocky. I’m still nowhere near ready to take on this bastard.
I reached out toward the hallway.
“Then let’s go, Hunter Na.”
“Hold on. Someone else is coming. We’re all going together.”
“Someone else is coming too?”
“Yeah. They volunteered.”
Na Sang-min was a good man, but he wasn’t a kind one.
He wasn’t the type to be generous enough to let just anybody tag along for special training.
Who the hell was it?
“Did they offer to pay for the training or something?”
“What?”
I’d muttered it without thinking, but Na Sang-min had caught it.
“Nothing.”
“Oh. There he is.”
When I turned my head, a familiar figure came into view.
A hunter with white hair streaming behind him as he walked.
Lee Ji-jun.
“Good afternoon, Hunter Na.”
Lee Ji-jun greeted Na Sang-min first, then looked straight at me.
“...Yongki.”
He curled his lip.
“Congrats on the promotion. We’re only one rank apart now.”
Lee Ji-jun was an A-class hunter.
I was a B-class hunter.
He was still above me, but for some reason he looked anxious.
“I’ll be S-class soon. There’s no way you’ll ever catch me.”
I shrugged.
“Yeah. Then I’d better work harder too.”
The black-haired me, the mad dog with the wild white mane, and the white-haired one.
The three men walked down the hallway together.
Lee Ji-jun said, “Hunter Na. What exactly does the special training involve? Is there a curriculum or a program?”
Lee Ji-jun usually trained at private facilities, paying a fortune to professional trainers.
This was his first time training with Na Sang-min.
“Heh. Who knows? Ask him.”
Na Sang-min pointed at me.
I smiled meaningfully and said, “There is one. It’s called the bucket training method.”
“The bucket?”
“Did you eat lunch?”
“Yeah. I had steak.”
“Would’ve been better if you hadn’t.”
“Why?”
I ignored his question and stepped into the training room.
“Gaaahk!”
“Blegh!”
Lee Ji-jun and I both bent over buckets and vomited.
Lee Ji-jun swallowed a ragged breath and stared at me as if he’d seen a ghost.
“...I-Is this really training? It feels like I’m just going to die.”
“You get used to it. Come hungry next time. An empty stomach’s easier.”
“Damn it.”
Na Sang-min sat on the floor and stretched.
He split his legs wide into a clean side split.
Then, lying face-down, he slowly lifted both legs upward as if he were weightless.
The so-called scorpion pose.
Lee Ji-jun and I stared at Na Sang-min in silence.
Incredible.
Na Sang-min was training at a level one and a half times higher than ours, and he still looked perfectly fine.
Rather than collapsing, he calmly moved through yoga poses and caught his breath.
Na Sang-min got to his feet and grabbed a silver spear.
A long weapon with a faint blue sheen to it, known as the Silver Mad Spear.
A silver spear gone mad.
Was there a weapon that suited Na Sang-min better than this?
“Hup!”
Flames burst at the spear tip.
He swung it so fast the shaft seemed to split into dozens of copies.
No—was that really the solid spear shaft...?
It looked like it was bending like a snake.
Lee Ji-jun clicked his tongue.
“...What the hell. Is he even human?”
Na Sang-min spun the spear once and stopped moving.
“Hey. You rookies. How long are you planning to sit there? How many times do I have to hit you before you get your asses up?”
“No, sir!”
“We’re up!”
I gripped Heoksikdo, and Lee Ji-jun held a blood knife in both hands.
The method was simple.
Na Sang-min attacked, and we blocked it.
Silver Mad Spear came crashing down on my head.
“Kuh!”
I deflected it with Heoksikdo, but the recoil sent me flying backward.
“Again. Back to position.”
At his bark, I snapped back up.
Lee Ji-jun did the same.
Every time Na Sang-min’s spear carved an arc through the air, we went down without fail.
“Again.”
“Again!”
“Again!!!!”
Na Sang-min shouted until the veins in his neck stood out.
We were all drenched in sweat, our training uniforms soaked through.
My hands were trembling.
The flesh between my thumb and forefinger had split open, and blood was leaking out in thin streams.
Lee Ji-jun gritted his teeth and bore the pain.
My stomach churned.
I felt like I was going to throw up again.
My ragged breathing climbed all the way up to my chin.
“Kuh...”
Lee Ji-jun dropped to one knee.
“...Is this what you call training? This is just torture.”
I completely agreed.
He really does push us too hard.
But I couldn’t deny Na Sang-min’s training.
If it hadn’t been for him, I never would’ve grown this much in such a short time.
Na Sang-min stood before us, facing us squarely.
Then he said something strange.
“The process of getting stronger is a chain of madness and desperate struggle. Heh. If you’re careless, you really will go insane.”
In other words, fall into deviation and break your own mind.
Was that what he meant?
“Passion doesn’t last. It isn’t reliable. If you want to become a master...”
Na Sang-min thrust his spear straight forward.
“Die Trying. Work at it until you die.”
The training room fell silent.
Maybe it was a short speech, but it seemed to move Lee Ji-jun quite a bit.
Luckily, he’d perked up.
Lee Ji-jun, who had been panting like he was about to die, lifted his head and whispered low enough that Na Sang-min couldn’t hear him.
“Yongki. You’re the kind of guy who goes looking for suffering, huh. And of all people, your teacher had to be a lunatic like that.”
I reached out a hand toward him.
“What can I do? He’s the strongest guy in our guild.”
Lee Ji-jun took my hand and got to his feet.
“Again!”
At Na Sang-min’s shout, hell opened up once more.
By the time every drop of moisture had left our bodies, my mind was hazy, and I couldn’t even move a single finger.
“That’s enough for today.”
Na Sang-min turned away with his spear in hand and strolled out of the training room.
Lee Ji-jun fell into a deep sleep.
Probably better not to wake him.
If he slept well and woke up now, he’d probably feel better than before.
Just like Na Sang-min did.
I pulled out a thick new training uniform and draped it over Lee Ji-jun.
Then I looked out at the night sky through the building’s glass wall.
Soft moonlight leaked through the clouds.
My stomach was pressed flat against my back.
“Man, I’m hungry.”
My legs were wobbling, and I felt like I could collapse at any second.
When I went home, finished my shower, and closed my eyes, I’d probably pass out dead to the world for more than ten hours.
And yet...
For some reason, my mind was still crystal clear.
The reason I’d been powerless in my previous life was that I hadn’t been able to live the life I wanted.
I had liked working in the factory well enough, but not enough to devote my entire life to it.
This life...
I had found something worth pouring everything into.
I would become the strongest hero.
And someday...
The clouds drifted slowly apart, revealing the full moon.
The nickname I had earned from the Dirty Kraken battle was Haeundae's Savior.
Bathed in brilliant yellow moonlight, I let myself sink into the moment and spoke.
Let’s save humanity.