Lee Kanghyun, the mysterious S-rank Hunter shrouded in secrecy.
Not a single Hunter anywhere in the world did something as insane as raiding a high-ranking gate alone. Even S-rank Hunters got injured during raids. It was common sense to enter with at least one healer.
But Lee Kanghyun was different.
He was the only person who had entered high-ranking gates alone no fewer than forty-two times and walked back out every single time with all four limbs intact.
The world was curious about Lee Kanghyun.
Just what kind of transcendent Ability did he possess that made such a thing possible?
And yet, the true face of that S-rank Hunter amounted to this.
Lee Kanghyun wobbled as he tried to balance on one leg while putting the other into his pants. It would have been easier to bend over while dressing, but instead he stubbornly remained upright and merely wiggled his foot around.
Because bending at the waist was too much trouble, he was going through even more trouble instead.
Kang Yujun watched the precarious sight with obvious frustration.
“Kanghyun. Watch your balance. If an S-rank Hunter gets a concussion from hitting his head while changing clothes, it’ll be a national embarrassment.”
“You think I’m that much of an idiot?”
Lee Kanghyun was dumbfounded.
I’m lazy, not stupid.
He finished pulling up his pants.
“Hurry up and get dressed already. A slug would move faster than you.”
A hoodie and sweatpants.
Kang Yujun looked Lee Kanghyun up and down in his stereotypical unemployed-neighborhood-layabout outfit and sighed.
“You’re not seriously going like that, are you? What if you run into reporters?”
“What reporters? I’m not a celebrity.”
“You’re hotter than a celebrity right now. The nation’s resident bum is finally escaping his room to enter a gate. That’s front-page material.”
“Resident bum, my ass. More like national trash.”
“Hey, why do you say things like that about yourself…?”
Lee Kanghyun shrugged.
It’s true.
He was long past the age when something like that could hurt him.
Looking as though every second of this was killing him, he began rummaging around for socks.
Soon he pulled a random pair from a drawer.
They didn’t match.
One was white. The other was black.
Finding the matching ones sounded annoying, so he simply put them on as they were.
Kang Yujun opened his mouth to point it out, then stopped himself.
Lee Kanghyun probably wouldn’t listen anyway.
“By the way, do you even have a weapon?”
At Kang Yujun’s question, Lee Kanghyun shook his head.
A weapon? Like I’d have one of those.
Given his Ability, he almost never had any reason to use one.
Right. The basic item the Association gave me right after I awakened should still be lying around somewhere. When did I last see it?
Lee Kanghyun thought hard for a moment, then shuffled toward the sink.
“Oh. Found it.”
What he pulled from the cabinet was a dagger.
“This.”
“What is that?”
“A dagger. C-rank, if I remember right.”
“That’s all you have?”
Lee Kanghyun nodded.
Kang Yujun pressed a hand to his forehead.
A Hunter who had awakened five years ago didn’t own a single proper weapon.
How did that make any sense?
“Why was it in the kitchen?”
“I never used it when I went into gates. I used it as a fruit knife.”
Kang Yujun fell silent at the answer he could never have imagined.
A C-rank dagger.
As a fruit knife….
Kang Yujun simply gave up trying to understand Lee Kanghyun.
“You must’ve gotten items from all the gates you cleared. What did you do with those?”
“Sold them.”
“All of them?”
Lee Kanghyun nodded.
“Then what the hell have you been killing monsters with all this time?”
“I don’t know. I just handled it somehow.”
Kang Yujun decided he would no longer ask Lee Kanghyun any more questions.
Asking this guy anything was a waste of time.
Clicking his tongue, he opened his inventory.
“Seriously… I’ve lived long enough to think I’d seen everything, but I’ve never met a bastard like you. Just use this for now. It’s my spare, though I don’t know whether it’ll suit you.”
A black longsword suddenly popped out of thin air.
Despite Kang Yujun calling it a spare, it was an A-rank masterpiece worth several billion won.
He tossed the solid, weighty sword to Lee Kanghyun, who caught it reflexively.
But instead of drawing it, Lee Kanghyun planted it against the floor like a cane and leaned on it.
“Heavy.”
“Of course it is. Do you know how much that thing costs? Infuse it with mana and it’ll get lighter.”
“Using mana sounds like too much work….”
“Hey!”
Kang Yujun’s shout echoed through the cramped room.
At the mere thought of going outside, Lee Kanghyun’s soul had already halfway left his body.
Kang Yujun grabbed him by the back of the neck, opened the front door, and dragged him outside.
“Can we please move a little faster, Kanghyun? Please.”
He had even lost the patience to wait for the elevator.
Kang Yujun immediately turned and strode down the stairs instead.
“Ah, wait. Hey. I’m gonna fall!”
Forced to walk backward, Lee Kanghyun’s foot slipped dangerously close to the edge of a step.
The sword clattered against the stairs as it dragged along behind him.
Watching Lee Kanghyun practically slide down the staircase, Kang Yujun snorted.
“If an S-rank Hunter is going to fall over just from walking backward, hand in your Hunter license. That would be the best thing you could do for the people.”
“I can do that?”
Lee Kanghyun’s eyes lit up.
“Sure. Have fun in the military.”
Lee Kanghyun’s lips immediately snapped shut.
Having expected exactly that reaction, Kang Yujun let out a quiet laugh and picked up his pace.
When they pushed through the shared entrance on the first floor, a black foreign car was parked by the curb.
Kang Yujun yanked open the passenger door and shoved Lee Kanghyun inside.
“I’ll even personally drive you there. Consider yourself honored.”
The moment he got into the car, Lee Kanghyun ignored him and sank deep into the passenger seat.
Seeing him practically melt into a puddle, Kang Yujun clicked his tongue.
As he started the engine, he jerked his chin toward him.
“Seat belt.”
“Too much trouble. If we crash, the car’ll break. I won’t.”
“Traffic laws aren’t decorative. If we get caught, there’s a fine.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“Stop paying fines already. What kind of person starts paying ten billion won in fines at twenty?”
“That was exaggerated. It wasn’t ten billion.”
Lee Kanghyun bristled.
This one was genuinely unfair.
Do you know how dumbfounded I was when I first saw that post?
Even Lee Kanghyun, who despised anything troublesome with every fiber of his being, had briefly considered suing the person who wrote it for spreading false information.
Of course, pursuing a lawsuit sounded far too troublesome, so the thought remained a thought.
“I only paid one billion.”
Lee Kanghyun said it proudly.
Swallowing a sigh, Kang Yujun reached across and yanked the passenger-side seat belt over him.
He genuinely wanted to smack Lee Kanghyun over the head.
Click.
In the end, Kang Yujun forcibly buckled him in himself.
Ah, uncomfortable….
But Lee Kanghyun didn’t have the energy to struggle over it, so he chose to sit quietly without undoing the belt.
“Oh, sure. One billion. Barely anything. Our Kanghyun is such a model citizen. Someone should give you an award.”
Kang Yujun stepped on the accelerator with heavy sarcasm.
The car glided smoothly forward.
As soon as they started moving, Lee Kanghyun closed his eyes and began nodding off.
The ride was far too comfortable.
The soft leather seat seemed to be sucking his entire body into it.
He wanted to melt right into it and become part of the seat forever.
“Hey, Lee Kanghyun. Wake up.”
His ears automatically filtered out the noise disturbing his rare moment of rest.
“I said wake up. Lee Kanghyun. Wow, how does someone fall asleep the second the car starts moving? I know you’re not asleep. Get up.”
But ignoring someone only worked for so long.
Kang Yujun kept chattering noisily beside him, so Lee Kanghyun graciously answered.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“We need to discuss the operation.”
“We just go in and beat everything to death.”
“You think an A-rank gate is some hill behind your house? Going in without even knowing what monsters are inside could get us killed.”
“I’m going into an A-rank gate?”
“I’ve told you that several times already. Hey, when someone talks, listen. Please.”
Lee Kanghyun genuinely had nothing to say to that, so he pretended not to hear and looked away.
Believe it or not, even he possessed something resembling a conscience.
“Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. A-rank gate.”
“I heard you. Can I sleep now?”
“No, for fuck’s sake….”
Kang Yujun stared at Lee Kanghyun with an expression that clearly said, How can someone be this useless?
“Fine. Whatever. Do what you want. Want me to give you a sleep mask too?”
“You have one? Yeah, I’d like that.”
Kang Yujun’s face twisted.
Oh. He was being sarcastic.
Lee Kanghyun realized it belatedly.
Not my problem.
A little over an hour must have passed when the car stopped.
Kang Yujun grabbed Lee Kanghyun by the shoulder and shook him.
“Lee Kanghyun. We’re here. Wake up.”
“Mmm….”
Lee Kanghyun waved a hand as though telling him to fuck off and turned away.
Kang Yujun folded his arms and watched him for a moment before flicking him hard on the forehead.
Snap.
The sharp sound rang through the car.
Lee Kanghyun shot upright as if he’d been electrocuted.
“Fuck! What the hell?”
“Watch your language. You’re a grown man.”
Lee Kanghyun said nothing and glared at him.
“We’re here. Get up.”
Rubbing his forehead, Lee Kanghyun looked out the window.
The sight beyond the heavily tinted glass was enough to blow away even his brief burst of anger.
A long police line had been stretched across the area in front of the shimmering gate.
The crowd packed behind it looked like a swarm of ants.
Reporters carrying cameras.
Clout-chasing streamers broadcasting live.
Even civilians who had simply come to watch.
Camera flashes burst constantly, making the place look like a nightclub.
“Did you tip off the media that I was coming here or something?”
“Why the hell would I do that? This is the only high-ranking gate that’s appeared around the capital region lately. Looks like people guessed you’d come here and swarmed the place. I told you, you’re hot right now. People are even betting on whether you’ll go to the military or enter the gate.”
They’re betting on it now?
Between the National Assembly members and everyone else, apparently people really had nothing better to do.
“This is hell.”
“Don’t think of it that way. Think positive. Those people are all your fans.”
“Fans, my ass. Every one of them probably wants to watch me get fucked.”
Lee Kanghyun sank deeper into the seat again without a care.
“I’m not getting out.”
“What?”
“How am I supposed to walk out there right now? They’ll come up to me asking for interviews and shit. I’m not going. I’d rather starve to death in this car.”
Kang Yujun stared at him in disbelief.
At this point, he was looking at Lee Kanghyun the way someone might look at a child throwing a tantrum in a store because they refused to buy him a toy.
“You’re doing this again. What about the military?”
“I’ll go into the gate after the crowd leaves.”
The longer a gate remained unattended, the more dangerous it became.
Once its danger level rose past a certain threshold, the gate would rupture and monsters would pour out into the outside world—a phenomenon known as a gate break.
That was why the standard procedure was to enter a newly discovered gate as quickly as possible.
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah. We’ve still got a few days before it breaks.”
“It’ll keep getting more dangerous until then.”
“I can clear it anyway. It’s not much of a threat.”
Kang Yujun looked down at him for a moment, then shrugged.
“Guess it can’t be helped.”
Lee Kanghyun gave him a suspicious look at how readily he backed down.
What the hell is he plotting now?
Meanwhile, Kang Yujun opened the driver’s-side door without hesitation and stepped out.
A roar erupted from the crowd.
As soon as Kang Yujun got out, he waved toward the cameras pointed at him.
A flawless professional smile.
Lee Kanghyun found it intensely irritating.
His brow knotted.
Ugh. He’s ruining my appetite just by looking at him.
Just then, Kang Yujun, who had seemed to be heading toward the gate, circled around toward the passenger side instead.
Knock, knock.
Then he tapped on the passenger window.
What the hell is he doing?
Lee Kanghyun flinched, folded his arms, and sharply turned his head away.
Kang Yujun bent down toward the window and shouted at the top of his lungs as though speaking through a megaphone.
“Hunter Lee Kanghyun! Are you nervous? It’s all right! The entire nation is cheering you on! Oh, could it be that you’re too scared to come out?”
“……!”
The crowd reacted immediately.
The murmuring outside began to swell.
That fucking lunatic.
Lee Kanghyun stared at the window in horror.
Kang Yujun, wearing the most benevolent smile in the world, was pumping a clenched fist in the air and shouting things like, “You can do it, Lee Kanghyun!”
That wasn’t encouragement.
It was a public execution.
If Lee Kanghyun kept refusing to get out, tomorrow’s headline was obvious.
[S-Rank Bum Lee Kanghyun Sobs in Terror Inside Car… Hunter Kang Yujun Offers Tearful Encouragement]
The mere thought was so horrifying that Lee Kanghyun shuddered involuntarily.