The Hunter with No Backup Came Looking for Me (1)
The office door opened, and an unfamiliar girl stepped inside.
The civil affairs office was as quiet as ever that afternoon.
By that hour, the star hunters who came to throw their weight around were all busy with broadcast schedules, and I was taking advantage of the lull to sip Mocha Gold and watch the clock until quitting time.
The one who broke that peace was her.
Maybe she was twenty-two, tops.
She was small, with a resolute look to her, but the dark circles under her eyes suggested she’d barely slept in days.
She wore a hunter jacket and carried a sword bag over one shoulder.
It was rare for a hunter to come to the civil affairs office of her own volition.
Usually they came to throw their weight around, or to dump the cleanup after some disaster onto us.
Lately, with the gallery buzzing about me, there had also been the occasional reporter or curiosity-seeker loitering around to satisfy their interest.
People like that always left after one hard glare.
But this girl’s eyes didn’t belong to either of those groups.
She had the face of someone who had come after making up her mind about something.
“Are you Chief Kang Taehyun?”
There was tension in her voice.
Her gaze on me flickered somewhere between hope and doubt.
Maybe I was the legend from the rumors, maybe I wasn’t.
That was the tension in her eyes—the hope that I might be that legend, and the doubt that came from seeing a shabby old man in a wheelchair sitting in front of her.
She was caught between those two things.
“If you’re here to file a complaint, take a ticket from over there and wait your turn.”
“I’m not here to file a complaint. I came to learn.”
I paused with the Mocha Gold halfway to my lips.
“Learn what.”
“How to fight without turning the System on.”
So this was finally that day.
The gallery had been noisy these past few days.
The rumor about the wheelchair-bound old man who’d taught the two Baekho geniuses had spread enough to make the papers, after all.
I just hadn’t expected it to actually knock on the door of my civil affairs office.
I figured everyone was just shouting into the void about it for fun, and that no one would be serious enough to seek out a shabby old man in a wheelchair in person.
But this girl seemed to be an exception.
Even so, Ye Jin didn’t look completely certain I was the one she was looking for.
She knew the rumors about Baekjeong and all that, but it was obvious she was still half-convinced that the old man in front of her might not really be that legend.
Fair enough.
They said he was a legend who saved the city, and yet here I was, a wheelchair-bound old man drinking instant coffee.
I wouldn’t believe it either.
My face might be absurdly youthful, like I was in my early twenties, but at thirty-nine, I was already a walking fossil by hunter-industry standards.
In an industry where your prime was brutally short, like a pro gamer’s, I couldn’t exactly complain about being treated like a retiree.
And with a wheelchair on top of that, it would’ve been stranger if people didn’t call me an old man.
Still, whether I was real or not didn’t seem to matter much to her.
Her expression said that just the fact I was someone who had taught Yu Seoa and Jin Seojun was enough.
“You came to the wrong place. I’m just an old guy who handles complaints.”
“I’m Ye Jin from the Eunha Guild. C-grade.”
Ignoring my words as though she hadn’t heard them, she introduced herself clearly and carefully.
She looked prepared to be turned away, but determined to say everything she had to say anyway.
“A month ago, I lost two teammates to a Mutant.”
I set the paper cup down.
Eunha Guild.
It was a name I’d never heard before.
It was probably one of those backwater mid-sized guilds that didn’t even make the same league as the five major guilds with executives barging into the association chairman’s office.
You could tell from Ye Jin’s appearance alone.
Her jacket looked worn enough to be a few years old, and her sword bag was cheap, too.
It was a world away from the gleaming gear worn by the aces of the big guilds.
The life of a hunter in a small guild was obvious without even asking.
They got stuck with the dangerous Gates the big guilds had passed over, paid miserable rates, received only half-baked training in System operation, and got almost no support when things went wrong.
It was the job where you did the most dangerous work for the least reward.
So losing teammates probably wasn’t even her fault.
She had likely been shoved into that dangerous Gate because her guild was small to begin with.
“The System said it was safe until the very end. It didn’t even sound one alarm. But people died.”
Ye Jin’s voice trembled faintly.
“I couldn’t do anything there. The System said there was no threat, and then my teammate was torn apart right in front of me. My mind went blank. I just froze. If my senior hadn’t shoved me aside and taken the claws instead, I would’ve died too.”
She never once looked away from my eyes while she spoke.
“He’s in the hospital now. He might be able to hunt again, or he might not. Since we’re a small guild, there’s barely any support for treatment costs.”
I listened in silence.
It was a heartbreaking story, but she wasn’t trying to milk sympathy out of me.
She was just explaining, as completely as she could, why she had come.
“I watched videos of Hunter Yu Seoa and Hunter Jin Seojun. They didn’t die in front of Mutants even with the System turned off. I heard their teacher was the chief here.”
Ye Jin bowed deeply.
“Please teach me. So next time, I won’t have to hide behind someone else’s back.”
I let out a long sigh.
Annoying.
Honestly, very annoying.
Even teaching two disciples had my shoulders stiff as hell every time I had to toss pebbles at them, and the thought of adding a third was enough to make me want to weep.
My Mocha Gold consumption was only going to go up, too.
Turning her away was the right answer.
I don’t accept you. You came to the wrong place. Go home.
That one line would’ve ended it.
“I’m not taking you in. I’m not built to teach anyone. As you can see, I can barely keep this old body in one piece.”
“But you took in Hunter Yu Seoa and Hunter Jin Seojun.”
“Those two rolled in on their own. I tried to drive them off.”
“I rolled in on my own too.”
I was speechless.
She had more bite than she looked like she would.
When I didn’t answer, Ye Jin pressed forward one step more.
“I’ll wait as long as it takes. If it can’t be today, I’ll come again tomorrow. I’ll keep coming until you accept me.”
She wasn’t bluffing.
Her eyes said she truly meant it.
Looking into them, I couldn’t easily tell her to go away.
I knew those eyes.
The eyes of someone who had no choice but to cling to the last straw.
The eyes of someone who believed there was no path unless this one worked.
They were the same eyes I used to see in the mirror all the time twenty years ago.
And people with those eyes really do come every day.
You drive them off, and they come back. And come back again.
Then, bit by bit, they gnaw away at your peace.
It would be faster to settle things properly once and for all.
Whether I accepted her or not, I should end it today.
I looked at her for a long moment, then asked, “Do you know what guild Yu Seoa and Jin Seojun belong to?”
“...Baekho Guild.”
“Right. Baekho. The top guild in the field.”
I took a sip of Mocha Gold.
“If they mess up while learning from me, they still have Baekho behind them. If they get hurt fighting with the System off, or if the guild takes issue with them, Baekho will catch them. That means there’s a net waiting to catch them if they fall.”
Ye Jin’s face hardened.
She seemed to have guessed where I was going.
“But you’re with Eunha. A small guild. If something goes wrong with you, who’s going to catch you?”
“...”
“What I teach isn’t safe. It’s ripping away the safety device the System gives you and climbing a cliff with nothing but your bare body. The first generation did that until they died or ended up crippled. Like me.”
I tapped my wheelchair lightly with the back scratcher.
“If you learn it properly, you might stop dying in front of Mutants. But if you learn it wrong, you’ll end up just like this. And then there won’t be any Baekho, and Eunha won’t be able to take responsibility for you. No one will be there to catch you.”
I wasn’t saying this because I was cruel.
Quite the opposite—I was asking because I understood the danger better than anyone.
I was proof, with my own two legs, of what happened to the generation that crossed disasters without safety rails.
Most of my comrades died.
Some of the survivors lost their legs, or their senses went crazy, or they lost their emotions.
That was the bill for those who fought without the System.
Yu Seoa and Jin Seojun had Baekho to cover that bill for them.
But for a small-guild hunter like her, the bill would be entirely her own.
“Once you step in, you can’t step back out. Rewiring the instincts you built on relying on the System takes time, and if you learn only halfway and stop, you’re likely to die as someone who’s neither here nor there.”
I looked her straight in the eye.
“Even so, you still want me to teach you? Even without any backup?”
Silence fell over the civil affairs office for a moment.
Ye Jin didn’t lower her head.
Even though I had asked her a question that gave her an easy way out, she didn’t take it.
After a long stretch without speaking, she finally opened her mouth.
“...I came to learn because I have no backup.”
“What?”
“If I had a net like Baekho, I’d probably just safely dig into System meta too. But I don’t have a net. For a hunter in a small guild, System meta is a road that can never take you anywhere near the big guilds’ heels for your whole life.”
Her voice grew clearer and steadier.
“Inside the System, strength is determined by money and affiliation. Capital to recruit hunters with good stats, connections to secure good Gates. I don’t have either. No matter how well I can read the System, I’ll never beat the big guild aces backed by money. That’s the rule of System meta.”
Her fist clenched tight.
“But outside the System, money and affiliation don’t matter. I can get stronger with nothing but my own body. That’s the first ladder I’ve ever seen. The only path where someone like me, with no capital and no connections, can rise through effort alone.”
Ye Jin bowed again.
“I know what it means to fall and have no one catch me. I saw that when I lost my teammates. I know that if a small-guild hunter dies, the world won’t even run a single news article.”
When she raised her head, her eyes were wet, but the tears didn’t fall.
“But if I don’t climb, I’m at the bottom anyway. If things stay like this, I’ll freeze again in front of the next Mutant, and this time I won’t even have a senior to save me. If that’s how it’s going to be, then I’d rather climb even if it means preparing to fall. At least then I won’t die frozen in place.”
When she finished, Ye Jin drew in one shaky breath.
She looked like someone who had just vomited up every word they’d ever stored away.
I stared at her quietly.
I had asked her for resolve, and she answered with resolve.
I didn’t know her talent.
I still didn’t know her aptitude.
But one thing was clear.
At the very least, this girl understood exactly what she was putting on the line.
The most dangerous people are the ones who leap without knowing, and the most teachable are the ones who leap knowing full well.
Ye Jin was the latter.
The fools who rush in blind break at the first hurdle.
But those who rush in knowing the risk already know where they’ll break, and hold on anyway.
The ones who survive are always the latter.
Besides, there was something Ye Jin had that Yu Seoa and Jin Seojun didn’t.
Desperation.
Talent can be taught, but desperation can’t.
It belonged only to those who had lost something.
And desperation sometimes goes farther than talent.
Talent stops when it meets its limit, but desperation takes one more step even there.
That extra step is what makes the difference between life and death outside the System.
I let out a long sigh.
“Ha... you’re really making this annoying.”
“Then...?”
“Mocha Gold.”
“...Pardon?”
“Bring me a box of Mocha Gold every time you come. Original, not Gold Label. That’s your tuition.”
Ye Jin’s eyes widened.
It took her a moment to understand what I meant.
“You’re... taking me in?”
“I said I wasn’t, but you’re not leaving. It’s too much trouble to throw you out. Just come bring me pebbles instead.”
“Pebbles?”
“You’ll know when you come. Now go. I’ve got to clock out.”
“Then... can I come starting tomorrow? What time should I—”
“So many questions. Ask them when you get here. Go.”
For the first time, the shadow on her face lifted.
She looked like she might cry, but she held it in and bowed her head.
“Thank you. Seriously, thank you. I won’t make you regret this.”
“I already regret it. Third one, too.”
“...I’ll work hard!”
Ye Jin gave a deep bow and left the civil affairs office with much lighter steps than when she’d entered.
After the door shut, I finished the rest of my now-cold Mocha Gold.
I had a third disciple now.
Thinking about throwing pebbles for three people made both my arms ache in advance.
Still, as I watched the spot where she’d gone, I found myself thinking something else.
A guy with no backup can sometimes go farther than a guy with plenty of it.
Yu Seoa and Jin Seojun were overflowing with talent.
But overflowing talent also comes with room to stop before the end if you really want to.
Because they have Baekho’s net.
Ye Jin doesn’t have that luxury.
For her, this is the last rope, and people who grab the last rope don’t let go.
I knew better than anyone how frightening someone with nothing left to lose could be.
Because twenty years ago, that had been me.
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