Super Force. Its official name was the Supernatural Ability Special Forces.
This was where Hunters served during their mandatory 39-month term of service.
And I had been assigned to the 1st Recruit Battalion of the Supernatural Ability Special Forces, my number was 44.
Why does even my number have to be like this?
It felt like terrible luck.
(T/N: The number four rhymes with “death” character)
Anyway, even though this was a “special forces” unit, if you looked at the overall structure, it wasn’t all that different from ordinary recruit training. From the nation’s perspective, supernatural ability users weren’t Hunters so much as soldiers fighting monsters as the enemy. Of course, that didn’t mean everything was the same. For ordinary people, physical ability differs by sex, but for awakened Hunters, sex makes no difference. The system’s stat values override innate biological differences.
Because their baseline physical conditions are already far superior to those of ordinary people, supernatural ability users complete the basic military training that regular army recruits undergo in just two weeks. For the awakened, it’s easy to raise stamina and strength up to a certain level simply through training. So the real purpose of this basic training is just to push everyone up to that minimum threshold.
Morning roll call followed by physical training that starts with running. In the afternoon, even individual combat drills. And as a bonus, there was CBR training that left your eyes streaming with tears and your nose running, in preparation for chemical and biological attacks. Trying to cram what ordinary recruits do over five weeks into two was inevitably exhausting, but undeniably effective.
It had only been two weeks, yet everyone could now carry around a forty-kilogram field pack without much trouble.
Should I be thanking Yu Hanul for this?
I had surpassed that minimum threshold long ago, so physically, it was never that hard for me. Mentally, however, was another matter entirely.
This is the worst.
Drill training alone was horrific enough. Marching in rows and columns, moving at commands like “fall in” and “dismiss” made my brain feel like it was turning into mush, and it was infuriating that if even one person lagged behind or broke formation, everyone got punished together. The drill instructors’ constant shouting was enough to make my ears go numb. They said this was still much better than the army of the past, but even so, I had no idea why I had to be doing this at all.
If a mage has to go through this, then the whole raid has already failed.
Crawling forward under barbed wire while lying flat on the ground, I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly I was doing with my life. At times, I even thought it wouldn’t matter if this whole world just went to hell.
The system reminds “Jeong Daon” of the quest “Doing Good Deeds Will Bring Blessings¿”.
Quest, my ass. I might have been a Demon Lord in my previous life, but right now I was just an ordinary recruit. What did it matter? The number
Recruit 44
was burned into my brain and wouldn’t come off.
I think my intelligence is actually dropping.
The one saving grace was that time genuinely passed quickly. Eat, train, shower, sleep. The days flew by. And today, starting from the third week, training would diverge based on each individual’s ability traits. It sounded grand, but in the end, it was just about teaching swordsmen and mages systematic combat methods for fighting monsters. Before being assigned to their units, they needed to at least understand the basics of combat.
Since the goal of supernatural ability users serving the state was to manage dungeons and maintain public order during their term, getting used to operating as part of a group was the top priority.
“Did you see Lee Pyeonghwa during meal distribution earlier?”
“You’ve seen her online that many times and still couldn’t recognize her? She’s seriously tall.”
“Better get your fill now. Once she gets assigned to a unit, her rank’ll be so high you’ll never see her face again. Even more so once she’s back in civilian life.”
“Fuck, I’m so jealous.”
“I can’t even stand looking at her. I’m stuck doing this shit forever.”
“Not forever. It’s thirty-nine months.”
“Thirty-nine months is way too long. Even for special ability users. We should sue the Human Rights Commission.”
“Human rights, my ass. We’re all about to get wiped out by monsters. Do you really think they’d hear that case?”
“True. And the instructors being this mild right now is probably because of Lee Pyeonghwa and Jeong Daon, right?”
“Obviously. If they met them in the field, they wouldn’t even be able to make eye contact. The instructors are, what, B-rank at best.”
“Pisses me off. Lee Pyeonghwa aside, I can’t even tell if Jeong Daon actually has any ability.”
“So what? The system stamped her approval. Low-tier Hunters like us just go out there and die—”
The two fellow recruits chatting while washing their hands in the restroom locked eyes with me and immediately shut their mouths.
Well, it’s not like they were insulting me directly.
And compared to the nasty reputation I’d heard, the instructors really weren’t that harsh. Like they said, my rank, and Lee Pyeonghwa’s, probably did influence their attitude. Still, there was an unpleasant feeling I couldn’t quite shake…
This really is like high school all over again.
Hearing people whisper about you like that doesn’t feel good.
No, thinking about it, this might not even be about age. It could just be the nature of humans as a group. And since most Hunters begin their mandatory service as soon as they turn twenty, it’s not like they’ve had much time to mature mentally, either. Seen that way, it was even more horrifying.
No, forget that. I just really, really hate group life.
“Man, mages really do have terrible stamina.”
After washing my hands and entering the barracks, I saw Lee Pyeonghwa patting the back of someone who was lying face-down. “Seunghui, your back is totally knotted up. Your shoulders were already rolled forward, too.”
“Then what am I supposed to—hey, Lee Pyeonghwa! That hurts, it hurts, stop!”
“Bear with it. If you don’t loosen it up now, it’ll last forever—”
Crack!
“Aaaah—huh?” As if the knot in the muscle had just released under Lee Pyeonghwa’s hands, the recruit who had been lying there screamed, then tilted their head in confusion. “It feels like it’s all gone? Wow, that feels amazing.”
“Right? For all that I look like this, the one thing I learned best as an athlete is how to do massages—”
“Hey. Hey.”
At that moment, the recruit who’d been getting the massage tapped Lee Pyeonghwa lightly. They had noticed me standing at the entrance of the barracks.
I raised a hand and pointed. “That’s my spot.”
Lee Pyeonghwa had taken over my place while pounding on the other recruit’s back.
“Oh, sorry.”
The recruit who’d been laughing with Lee Pyeonghwa quickly got up and returned to their own spot. And while I went back to my place and lay down, Lee Pyeonghwa, who had been laughing just a moment ago, kept staring at me.
Right. Somehow, because Lee Pyeonghwa had sat next to me during the enlistment ceremony, the two of us ended up assigned to the same squad. Not only did we share the same barracks, but for about twenty out of twenty-four hours a day, we were constantly in each other’s line of sight.
So did we get close?
Not at all.
If I’d known this would happen, maybe I should’ve at least returned the greeting.
People who train together all day and share the same room usually end up bonding. But there are exceptions.
That exception was me.
“Hey. Hey. Let’s go talk outside.”
“No. Roll call’s soon,” Lee Pyeonghwa said firmly.
In this barracks—no, in this entire intake of recruits, the center was obviously Lee Pyeonghwa. Having been an athlete since childhood, she was used to both hierarchical command structures and communal living, and she was good at forming social relationships. On top of that, she’d even been appointed squad leader.
Having someone like that as a leader does make things easier.
Sure, like I’d overheard in the restroom, there were people who found Lee Pyeonghwa annoying. But none of them would dare say anything to her face. Not only was her individual skill exceptional, but she also had leadership. She took care of the recruits whose performance lagged behind.
Something like that had happened during training today, too.
“Starting today, we’ll conduct anti-monster combat drills based on what you’ve learned in theory. Understood?”
“Yes, understood!”
“Louder. Put some strength into your voices!”
“Yes, understood!”
“During training, instructors will not intervene unless it’s an emergency. Assume you’re inside a dungeon and make your own judgments. Understood?”
“Yes, understood!”
After the usual military-style call-and-response—
Even though it was called anti-monster training, it wasn’t anything particularly special. Of course, they weren’t using real monsters. They placed a bundled-up mass of cloth in the center and pretended it was a monster. One by one, the swordsmen would rush in, strike, and pull back, and then the mages behind them would fire off first-circle spells in succession.
The important thing was that the swordsmen’s hit-and-run timing stayed consistent, and that the mages’ magical attacks were cast evenly, and quickly. All of it had to be carried out precisely in time with the shouted commands.
To my eyes, having actually fought real monsters, it looked like child’s play. But the recruits here were people who had never once faced a monster before. It was only natural that some would fumble even with this level of training.
There were recruits who stabbed their swords into the cloth “monster,” panicked, and fell over, or crashed into others. The mages were just as clumsy.
“Get your head in the game! Are you trying to burn your comrade’s head off?”
“I’m sorry!”
The swordsmen attacking at close range have to withdraw before the monster can be targeted, but if a mage casts their spell just because they’re ready—before the swordsmen have pulled back—an accident is inevitable. Even the training instructors standing nearby looked visibly tense.
Another key point was that while the mages in the front row were attacking, the mages in the back row had to quickly recover their mana. In other words, they also needed to practice regulating their mana so they could attack at least three times.
Of course, that was easier said than done.
“Haah—huff…!” One of the mages standing in the same row was gasping for breath.
It was a common situation. An environment full of pressure and stress, where mistakes weren’t allowed. And spells being used for the first time.
In the system, first-circle spells have tutorials and can be learned quickly, but that alone isn’t enough to prepare someone for real combat. No matter how low the mana cost of a first-circle spell is, if you’re not used to circulating mana through your mana circuits, it’s easy to suffer from mana depletion. And in an environment like this, even more so.
“Recruit number 105! Breathe in!” the training instructor shouted.
But once the mage started gasping for air, they couldn’t even straighten their posture. They clutched at their chest and—
“I-I can’t do it!”
In the end, they collapsed right there.
Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a serious problem. This wasn’t a real dungeon, just training, and mana depletion itself is temporary. It gets better with a bit of rest.
The problem was that everyone here was a supernatural ability user who had awakened not that long ago. On top of that, continuous training since the morning had drained everyone’s stamina, dulling their judgment. For a moment, everyone froze, unsure of what to do in this situation.
“Choi Jisu!” Lee Pyeonghwa shouted. She had just stabbed the cloth bundle acting as the monster and had pulled back to wait.
“Pull your comrade out of the formation!”
That was the correct response. If this were a real monster subjugation, the attack couldn’t falter or stop just because one mage went down. The fallen person should be dragged out of the formation by their squadmate for emergency treatment, while the rest of the group returned to the attack—that was standard procedure. They’d even learned, in theory, that this was how they were supposed to respond before doing this training.
“Move, move!”
And fortunately, thanks to Lee Pyeonghwa, the training quickly returned to normal before the instructors had to intervene. Seeing how things stabilized so quickly with just one word from her, her leadership was undeniable. Someone that outstanding was bound to create an unspoken hierarchy even among fellow recruits.
And after the training ended, the instructors’ praise for Lee Pyeonghwa followed.
“Recruit number 43. That was a good call.”
“Thank you!”
Naturally, even in the instructors’ eyes, Lee Pyeonghwa was a standout talent, so the overall training atmosphere could only improve. On top of that, once they returned to the barracks, she mingled easily with the others. Anyone could tell that the center of this intake would be Lee Pyeonghwa. In every sense, it was a story that had nothing to do with me.
When the day finally ended, and roll call was over late at night, I stared blankly at the barracks ceiling. The sound of the other eight people breathing in their sleep felt unbearably unpleasant.
I still have to do this for seventeen more days.
No matter how I thought about it, this was insane.
Quietly, I sat up.
I don’t think I can sleep like this.
I’d endured enough already. I just planned to step out and get a bit of night air.
Snap.
I quietly snapped my fingers. A small swirl of mana rippled outward. It was a very simple first-circle illusion spell. To anyone else, it would look like I was lying there with the blanket pulled up over my head. Since it was only a first-circle spell, it was just a basic visual illusion. If someone touched it, they’d realize immediately that it was fake. But no one was going to bother me until morning.
After casting an invisibility spell, I slipped quietly past the drowsy night watch and left the barracks.
Behind the building, where thick bushes grew, there was a large tree I’d noticed since the day we arrived. I quickly climbed up and settled into a spot among the branches.
A deep sigh escaped me without my realizing it. “I can finally breathe.”
The tree was hard, and the air was still cold, but with no one around, it felt incredibly comfortable. The headaches that had plagued me for the past two weeks seemed to ease a little.
I’d lived in an orphanage until middle school, but back then I hadn’t awakened, so my senses hadn’t been this sharp. Now that I was awakened, other people’s presence bothered me far too much.
Without some kind of escape like this, I really couldn’t—
“Jeong Daon.”
Honestly, the sound of that voice nearly made my heart drop. Startled, I looked down, and someone was standing beneath the tree, staring up at me.
It was Lee Pyeonghwa.