Chapter 6 - Hunter Examination (1)
Hunter Examination (1)
━
Lv. 25
[Strength – 10] [Agility – 25]
[Vitality – 19] [Mana – 10]
Stat Points – 0
Good Karma – 9250
Evil Karma – @#%^@#TF
Owned Traits
└ Heavenly Slaughter Star (EX), Mark of Eternity, Ignition (B), King of the Dead (C)
━
The status window he checked before entering the Association.
Not only had his Agility increased significantly—
his Vitality had risen as well.
And that wasn’t all.
His Good Karma had already reached 9250.
That was the result of saving people at Bukhansan yesterday.
“I’m here to take the Hunter Examination.”
The first-floor lobby of the Association building.
“What’s your name?”
“Lee Jeon-seok.”
The woman at the desk tapped on her keyboard.
She seemed to be checking whether he was registered.
Soon, the guide spoke again with a professional smile.
“You’re confirmed. Please wait briefly in the examination room on Basement Level 2. The proctor will come shortly.”
“Understood.”
Lee Jeon-seok followed her instructions and boarded the elevator.
Ding—.
B2.
He pressed the button for Basement Level 2.
The elevator began to descend.
“Looks like you’re taking the exam this time too?”
A man riding with him spoke up.
A man with a horn growing out of the left side of his head.
Of course, he wasn’t a monster.
Some traits occasionally altered one’s appearance.
It seemed the man had a trait related to horns.
“Yes.”
Lee Jeon-seok nodded briefly.
“We might not end up on the same team, but let’s do our best.”
The man extended his hand as he spoke.
Lee Jeon-seok took it.
Ding—.
The elevator stopped.
“Well then.”
The man exited first.
A slimy grin plastered across his face.
Left alone, Lee Jeon-seok stared at the hand he had just shaken.
Fwoosh—.
He activated Ignition.
His right hand burned with dark crimson flames.
On the back of his bandage-wrapped hand, a strange pattern—a mark—appeared.
It soon burned away like ash consumed by fire.
“……”
Lee Jeon-seok exited the elevator late, staring at the man’s back as he walked ahead.
A man with a kindly-looking face.
But his eyes were not smiling at all.
The instinct born of experience warned him.
Alarm. Danger. Threat.
That man felt unsettling.
That was why he had used Ignition.
Ignition could erase curses or curse-related marks.
At first, he wondered if it didn’t work on himself since his burn hadn’t disappeared—
But seeing the man’s mark erased, that didn’t seem to be the case.
The reason the burn on his right hand remained was likely because it was a curse inflicted by Ignition itself.
‘You’re pulling something unpleasant.’
Lee Jeon-seok shook his hand as if brushing off dust.
The flames flickered out like a candle.
By then, the man had already entered the examination room down the hallway.
Lee Jeon-seok followed him inside.
The room resembled a classroom.
Desks were lined up in neat rows.
Everything, however, was white—devoid of color.
The man took a seat at the very front.
Other examinees were already seated on both sides of him.
Whether he lacked a sense of personal space or was simply shameless—
The fact that he deliberately chose the center seat meant only one thing.
“Let’s do our best.”
As expected.
The man extended his hand to the examinees, asking for handshakes.
The examinees awkwardly accepted.
Nothing was visible to the naked eye.
But a curse had surely been engraved on them as well.
Lee Jeon-seok observed them from the very back seat.
“……”
Was he trying to sabotage the exam, or was he trying to benefit alone?
Lee Jeon-seok didn’t know what the man was thinking.
But one thing was certain.
His intentions were not good.
They were clearly malicious.
If he stopped it and returned it instead—
Would that count as Good Karma, or Evil Karma?
‘I’m looking forward to it.’
Lee Jeon-seok stared at the man as if gazing at prey.
His pupils split and glinted like a serpent’s.
“Looks like everyone’s gathered.”
At that moment—
Someone opened the examination room door and entered.
A woman in a black suit with white hair.
A gold badge was pinned to the left side of her chest.
She appeared to be the proctor.
“I am Anya Ivanov, the supervisor for this Hunter Examination.”
Judging by her white hair, she seemed to be a foreigner.
Based on the name, perhaps Russian?
‘I’ve never heard that name before.’
A face as beautiful as a sculpture.
And if she was a proctor-level Hunter, he should’ve heard of her at least once—
Yet Lee Jeon-seok knew nothing about Anya Ivanov.
That meant only one thing.
‘She either died before I became active, or retired and disappeared somewhere.’
Either way, it wasn’t important.
“We’ll begin with the written exam. You’ll have a total of 60 minutes, and as you all know, this will test your fundamental knowledge related to Hunters.”
She continued explaining the exam.
Slowly distributing the test papers as she spoke.
“Even if you score highly, if your morality score is low, you may still fail—please keep that in mind.”
Naturally.
If someone lacking conscience—morality—were to wield power freely with a Hunter license, disaster would follow.
“Then, we will now begin the written portion of the Hunter Qualification Exam.”
The test papers were handed out, and the exam began.
Anya sat down and scanned the room.
Her blue eyes were cold-blooded to the extreme, making even calm examinees feel tense.
Of course, this did not apply to Lee Jeon-seok.
He had already taken the Hunter Exam once in his previous life.
He naturally knew all the answers.
In effect, it was an open-book test.
He completed everything in under 20 minutes.
Time remaining: exactly 40 minutes.
‘How boring.’
Lee Jeon-seok yawned repeatedly, resting his chin on his hand as he stared blankly out the window.
Forty minutes later—
The written exam ended, and Anya collected the papers.
※ ※ ※
The results were announced faster than expected.
Exactly 10 minutes after submission.
A large screen descended from the ceiling at the front of the room.
Anya operated a remote, and the screen lit up.
The displayed results:
[1st – Lee Jeon-seok – 100 points (Pass)]
[2nd – Kim Man-jin – 85 points (Pass)]
[3rd – Min Seok – 84 points (Pass)]
[4th – Bin Hyo-seok – 76 points (Pass)]
Scores and rankings appeared in order.
The examinees immediately began murmuring.
All because of the first-place score.
“Crazy, a perfect score?”
“The morality questions aside, some of those were really hard…”
“Did he cheat or something?”
Suspicious whispers spread.
Then—
“There was no cheating, so please rest assured.”
At Anya’s words, the examinees fell silent.
This was the Association’s proctor speaking.
No one dared to argue.
Her authority stood like a towering mountain.
Moreover, there was no way a proctor would miss cheating by a mere examinee.
The room grew quiet.
Anya continued.
“As you can see, anyone below 50 points has failed.”
50 points.
A surprisingly low passing line.
But a low cutoff meant the exam itself had been difficult.
[17th – Man Deok-jin – 47 points (Fail)]
[18th – Son Seo-yoon – 42 points (Fail)]
[19th – Yoo Han-bin – 40 points (Fail)]
The failed examinees appeared on screen.
Nearly half had failed.
Not even a 50% pass rate.
“No way!”
“I failed?”
“I studied so hard…”
Disappointed voices filled the room.
Some even showed irritation.
Lee Jeon-seok stared at them.
‘There’s always at least one like that wherever you go.’
He shifted his gaze to Anya.
He was curious how she would handle them.
His eyes carried the look of an observer.
It was unsettling—repulsive.
A bad habit of his.
In Avīci, a world where only endless pain existed, Lee Jeon-seok had survived by constantly thinking—anything to distract himself from suffering and boredom.
Why did that person die?
What sin brought them to hell?
Did the torturer possess reason?
What exactly were grim reapers?
He thought endlessly.
That habit became observation.
Watching wandering souls, torturers, and occasional grim reapers—
forgetting pain, even briefly.
“Those who failed, please exit through the rear door.”
Anya’s eyes flashed.
Momentum—presence—energy.
An intangible force filled the examination room.
The failed examinees fell silent.
Heads lowered.
Their irritation vanished.
As expected of a high-ranking Hunter.
She subdued people with her gaze alone.
“…Damn it.”
The failed examinees left, resentment written on their faces.
“Now, we will proceed to the practical exam.”
Anya spoke coldly, as if they had never existed.
※ ※ ※
The practical exam was held on Basement Level 4.
A vast, empty space like an open field.
Nothing but gates stood there.
Yes.
Gates.
Multiple types of dungeons existed on B4.
All of them were low-tier F-rank dungeons.
Anya explained they were artificial dungeons created by the Association for examination purposes.
“Starting from the lowest-ranked examinee, you may choose a dungeon and enter. Even if you fail the clear, it will not result in automatic disqualification—but successfully clearing it will grant bonus points.”
She explained the practical exam in front of the lined-up gates.
Nothing particularly important.
Basic information.
It had even been covered in the written exam.
“Then…”
She began the test.
The first to enter was, as stated, the lowest-ranked examinee from the written exam.
With a tense expression, he entered the dungeon.
In his hand was a long steel sword.
A test weapon rented by the Association.
Lee Jeon-seok was holding a dagger slightly longer than a utility knife.
“Please proceed with the dungeon clear.”
The examinee entered the dungeon.
A screen descended from the ceiling, displaying him.
Perhaps hearing them—
━Yes…!
The examinee nodded.
He began advancing slowly.
And there was someone watching closely.
Someone with a particularly unpleasant gaze.
‘Kim Man-jin.’
Second place in the written exam.
The man who had engraved strange marks under the guise of handshakes—on Lee Jeon-seok and others.
What exactly was he aiming for?
Lee Jeon-seok followed his gaze to the screen.
Just then, the examinee encountered a monster.
[Goblin Lv. 5]
A common green brute.
It seemed the examinee had chosen the “Standard” dungeon.
‘Standard is the safest and easiest.’
Goblins were weak.
Short, thin bodies.
Rusty daggers were their only weapons.
For an Awakened, they were fairly easy opponents.
However—
━Aaaagh?!
The very next moment—
The examinee allowed himself to be hit by that easy monster.
He moved sluggishly, clumsily.
Seeing this, Lee Jeon-seok chuckled inwardly.
‘So you were planning something interesting.’
A childlike smile—
as if he had found something amusing.
The reason it felt eerie might have been his clouded pupils.
Lee Jeon-seok glanced at Anya.
She showed no reaction.
She simply watched the screen.
‘…So she knows and is letting it happen?’
There was no way she didn’t know.
She was the proctor.
Someone of her level could easily sense whether a trait was activated and what kind it was just by reading mana flow.
Unless the opponent was far stronger and deliberately disrupted mana—
But Kim Man-jin was just an examinee.
Yet she remained silent.
Which meant—
‘She’s allowing it on purpose.’
In that case—
‘I’ve got a good idea.’
Lee Jeon-seok turned his gaze to Kim Man-jin.
Thought turned into action.
Perhaps due to habits engraved by the Heavenly Slaughter Star—
Lee Jeon-seok tended to solve things with his body rather than words.
He suddenly approached Kim Man-jin.
“W-What are you doing?”
Kim Man-jin panicked at the sudden situation.
It happened in an instant.
Kuwung—!
Lee Jeon-seok swept Kim Man-jin’s legs and pinned him down—
Then pressed the dagger in his hand against the man’s throat.