The Hunter's First Blood
“Sigh. It’s stiffer than I thought.”
Yeon-seong had assumed the bow wasn’t anything special, but drawing the string proved far from easy. The bow itself trembled violently in his grip, making the target he was aiming at feel like it was the one moving.
Still, he recalled something he had seen long ago on television and mimicked it—holding his breath at the right moment. When the feeling struck, he released the string.
Ting.
With a light sound, the arrow flew forward, clearing the target entirely before striking the wall beyond and clattering to the ground.
“Didn’t even graze it. Was I too far away?”
First things first—know your limits.
Kang Yeon-seong took a few more steps forward and fired again, but the second shot also missed. Yet moving any closer would barely count as archery anymore. He stubbornly stayed in place, struggling to hit the target until he finally managed to land a single arrow.
Since the target was made of metal, the arrow didn’t embed itself but bounced off cleanly. Still, when he walked up to inspect it, he could clearly see a small dent where it had struck.
“I hit it.”
Even though anyone else might have laughed at such a meager result, he felt strangely pleased. Kang Yeon-seong gathered the arrows one by one and continued practicing without pause, even as his inexperienced fingers split open and began to bleed.
“Why are there so many cars?”
Kang Han-seong grumbled as he veered onto a side road, only to find it just as congested. Even though they weren’t deep in the city center, a surprising number of vehicles and people were moving about.
The cars traveling in groups were packed so tightly that there was barely any empty space. Most of them had no roofs—or had deliberately removed them—so counting the people inside was easy.
But these groups weren’t all part of one organization. From a quick glance, each group seemed to consist of about ten people. While many were ordinary civilians, each squad still had at least five hunters.
Convenient.
Thanks to the visible colors of their auras, he could roughly gauge their levels. However, finding a Level 2 hunter was surprisingly difficult. Most were Level 1, and the civilians traveling with them appeared to have gained almost no experience points.
After taking in the strangely familiar yet alien scenery, Kang Han-seong glanced at the rearview mirror and spoke.
“You sure just the two of us will be okay?”
He knew his older brother wasn’t the type to show off or act tough, but seeing all those large groups moving together while they were only two people made him a little uneasy.
“As long as the location and conditions are right, there won’t be any problems.”
At Tae-sung’s firm tone, Han-seong nodded lightly, as if pushing down the concern that had briefly surfaced, and pressed harder on the accelerator.
They were leaving the city center behind, but the outskirts of most cities had already been claimed by other hunting teams. As a result, the easily accessible roads near the downtown area were mostly occupied by others.
If they went any farther, they risked leaving the city entirely. So they circled around the outskirts instead. Yet every time they found a decent-looking spot, another group had already settled in and was hunting.
At this rate, they would either have to head into the monster-dense zones that most hunters avoided or leave the city altogether.
“The battery’s running pretty low, hyung.”
“There are two spare batteries under the back seat.”
“Oh. Then we’re good.”
With a more relaxed expression, Han-seong drove farther out toward the edge of the city.
Here and there, they witnessed people fighting each other instead of monsters—most likely clashes between outers and city residents.
“Turning.”
“Go ahead.”
There was no reason to get involved, so they took another detour. As they continued, however, they began seeing outers more frequently.
Someone had once joked that the outers living on the city outskirts were actually doing them a favor by keeping most monsters from entering the urban areas.
But a lawless person was still a lawless person.
A few of them turned their gazes toward the vehicle, but none dared to charge forward and pick a fight after locking eyes with Kang Tae-sung, who stood in the cargo bed.
“Slow down a bit.”
“Huh? Got it.”
Suddenly, Tae-sung told him to reduce speed. The implication that he should be ready to jump out at any moment made Han-seong nod with a tense expression, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what was happening.
“……”
Standing in the cargo bed, Kang Tae-sung narrowed his eyes and stared down the road ahead.
The various buildings still blocked a clear line of sight, but he could sense the distinctive stench of monsters drawing closer. He could even smell blood on the wind.
And soon, the sounds of chaos reached them.
“So that’s what it was.”
“Whoa.”
When they stopped the car at the intersection, they could see a group fighting—or rather, desperately struggling to survive—far down the road to the left. One person was buying time at the front while the rest scattered in every direction, trying to flee.
“They’re going to die at this rate.”
Han-seong spoke while watching the distant scene through the driver’s side window. Tae-sung observed the same scene with an indifferent gaze.
A man who already looked heavily injured was facing off alone against a monster nearly one and a half times his height with a massive build. Though the defender himself wasn’t short, the creature towered over him. The monster, standing roughly three meters tall, was none other than an orc.
“Didn’t expect to see an orc in a place like this.”
Han-seong had seen orcs a few times during his military deployments. Although his experience had mostly involved handling their corpses, he knew they were infamous for their incredible vitality. There had been cases where strike teams withdrew after assuming the creatures were dead, only for the orcs to rise again.
It wasn’t just their tenacity. Most of their bulk was pure muscle, and they possessed just enough intelligence to make them dangerous opponents.
The lone man blocking the orc’s path was in terrible shape. Blood poured from multiple wounds. Judging by the amount he had already lost, he wouldn’t last much longer.
The others who had been fighting alongside him had already fled. It was unlikely he had chosen to stay behind on purpose. More likely, this was simply a temporary hunting party rather than true comrades.
Tae-sung casually picked up one of the old spears lying in the cargo bed and hurled it with a sharp flick of his wrist.
The throw carried so much force that the stationary vehicle rocked violently for a moment. The spear tore through the air with a sharp whistle, flying like an arrow.
It struck perfectly into the orc’s exposed side—just beneath the arm it had raised to deliver another crushing blow to the struggling human.
KWAAAAAANG!
The sudden impact sent the orc stumbling backward. It roared in agony from the spear embedded in its flank, but it couldn’t pull the weapon free and could only flail in place.
The man who had been fighting it whipped his head around in shock, then quickly lowered his head and fled with desperate speed. His movements were surprisingly agile for someone who had clearly lost a dangerous amount of blood.
“The human will to survive really is something else.”
“Let’s go.”
Han-seong, who had been watching with a hint of admiration, slowly pressed the accelerator again at his brother’s command and drove off.
“Couldn’t you have killed it?”
“I could have, but I don’t have an easy way to hand the kill over to you. An orc would be too much for you right now.”
Beast-type monsters were easier to manage, but orcs were the type that rampaged wildly until their final breath. There was too great a risk of Han-seong getting hurt.
They moved on to another area.
It appeared to be what remained of an old commercial district. Beyond the mostly collapsed buildings stood a department store that had once been quite popular. Though smaller than a typical department store, it still had everything one might need.
Now, however, one entire wall had caved in like a slice taken from a cake, exposing the interior. Below the wreckage was an enormous pit leading underground. It was far too large to be a simple parking entrance, and the exposed dirt floor made that obvious.
“It’s a miracle the rest hasn’t collapsed yet.”
When Han-seong commented while looking at the scene from afar, Tae-sung told him to stop the car.
“Hmm?”
Han-seong obeyed his brother’s instruction. A moment later, when Tae-sung told him to turn the vehicle around, he did so without question.
After they had taken a different route, Han-seong glanced at the rearview mirror again.
“What was that about?”
“There’s something underground over there.”
Tae-sung explained that exposed soil was usually a bad sign.
“Normally, mana breathes in harmony with the earth. But in cities, the ground is sealed off by concrete, asphalt, and bricks, preventing that connection.”
“Ah.”
That was why monsters rarely ventured deep into urban areas. Han-seong nodded, realizing something he hadn’t known before.
The ground back there had been torn open. That meant something was living beneath it. The fact that the earth had been deliberately exposed to allow mana to flow suggested that whatever was down there might actually reside underground.
“It’s either a fairly strong creature with some intelligence, or there are multiple monsters living there,” Tae-sung added.
He quietly checked the system’s minimap and marked the location on the displayed map.
After traveling a bit farther, they finally found a suitable spot—an open intersection with no other hunters or outlaws in sight. All the nearby buildings had collapsed except for one three-story structure that had once housed a dental clinic, a pharmacy, and a law office.
They parked beside it, got out, and confirmed the building was empty before taking up position near a second-floor window.
“Wait here.”
“Okay.”
Han-seong nodded. Tae-sung then leaped straight out the window and vanished somewhere. Surprisingly, he returned much faster than expected.
He was dragging a wolf behind him by one leg. Its limbs were twisted at unnatural angles.
“You said you’d cut them, but you just broke their bones.”
Guess it’s the same thing.
Han-seong muttered to himself as he extended the spear he had assembled while his brother was gone out through the window.
The wolf, placed directly beneath it, thrashed viciously. But with its limbs broken, it couldn’t move properly. It could only twist its head—the only part still intact—and snap its sharp fangs repeatedly at the empty air.
Thud!
“Ugh.”
Han-seong thought he had stabbed it properly, but the sensation felt like piercing frozen meat, so he let out a small groan. It wasn’t that he had missed—the creature’s body was simply too tough.
This must be what his brother had called physical reinforcement. According to Tae-sung, the effect would last as long as the creature kept receiving damage, so Han-seong didn’t stop. He kept stabbing again and again.
Then, at one point, the spear finally sank in with a wet schlick.
“Oh ho.”
Now that he was finally making progress, Han-seong’s expression brightened. He gripped the spear with both hands and drove it down repeatedly, like pounding rice in a mortar.
He wasn’t sure how many times he had stabbed it, but when Tae-sung raised a hand to signal that it was enough, Han-seong steadied his slightly ragged breathing.
The wolf’s corpse soon dissolved into particles, leaving behind various byproducts in its place.
In the same manner, Tae-sung continued to hunt down wolves, wildcats, grotesque lizard-like creatures, and burly wild dogs. He would half-kill them wherever he found them and bring them back like deliveries.
“Ugh, this is embarrassing.”
But when Han-seong realized that the time it took him to finish the monsters off was far longer than the time his brother spent catching them, he smiled awkwardly and muttered those words.
============== Author’s Note ==============
Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day.
See you next time…