Hyun-jun closely trailed the Rune Rabbit.
He tried to use the kitchen knife, but he felt he might let it slip away if he swung.
‘I have to grab it.’
Hyun-jun reached out his hand.
It was a precarious distance, just barely out of reach.
‘Please!’
He kicked off the ground even more powerfully.
The distance closed in an instant.
Hyun-jun reached out and grabbed the thing.
Right after, he lost his balance and fell.
Because his speed had been considerable, he rolled several times.
“Ugh!”
He almost lost the Rune Rabbit, but he barely managed to tighten his grip.
‘I-I caught it.’
He really caught it.
Much more easily than he'd thought.
‘I caught it.’
His first successful hunt.
Hyun-jun's heart began to pound in a different sense.
“I really did it!”
Hyun-jun burst out laughing.
The doubt he hadn't been able to shake to the end, even with an objective indicator like Runes.
That doubt was completely resolved.
‘I can work as a Hunter too.’
The past five years flashed before his eyes like a revolving lantern.
Nights he couldn't sleep, worrying about hospital bills.
Days he couldn't bring himself to face his sister because he felt sorry.
It felt as if all that sorrow was washed away by the single fact that he had succeeded in a hunt.
“Heh...... hahaha!”
It was the moment he finally grasped the hope that had been flickering before his eyes.
Something seemed to surge up in his chest.
His eyes grew hot, but this was no time to be crying unsightly.
“Squeak! Squeeeak!”
The Rune Rabbit struggled in his grip.
Hyun-jun set his emotions aside and took out his weapon.
“How dare you interrupt such a moving moment.”
“Squeeeak!”
“Die!”
About to vigorously attack the Rune Rabbit, Hyun-jun froze in an awkward posture.
“Squeeeeeeak!”
The Rune Rabbit's thrashing was no joke.
If he wasn't careful, he might get hurt trying to kill the thing.
‘I need to kill it in one go.’
He had to stab its throat.
If by mistake it was still breathing, the Rune Rabbit would make an even more violent fuss than now.
‘What should I do?’
There was no answer in this state.
Hyun-jun carefully brought back old memories.
How to deal with Rune Rabbits.
There had definitely been content on it in strategy videos for beginner Hunters.
‘Rune Rabbits are hard to kill in one go under normal circumstances. So they said to capture it first using traps or by herding it.’
The capture was a success, at least.
What came next?
‘Knock it out.’
It depended on the number of people mobilized for the hunt, but alone, they recommended knocking it out and then finishing it off.
Hyun-jun grabbed the Rune Rabbit's long ears with one hand.
Then he slammed it onto the ground with all his might.
“Squeak-!”
The Rune Rabbit's cry cut off.
At the same time, its struggling stopped.
Hyun-jun raised his arm, lifting the Rune Rabbit to eye level.
“It's properly knocked out.”
The Rune Rabbit hung limp.
Hyun-jun carefully ended the Rune Rabbit's life with the kitchen knife.
“Whew, now it's finally quiet.”
Hyun-jun flopped down on the grass.
With the thing he'd been most worried about successfully done, the tension drained away and his body went limp.
Giggles kept leaking out between his lips.
“I'm a Hunter too.”
He was no longer an incompetent Awakened.
Wherever he went, he could now proudly introduce himself as a Hunter.
“F-Grade Hunter Go Hyun-jun.”
It was the lowest Grade, but it didn't matter.
It wasn't because of the Duplicate Skill.
Simply being able to call himself a Hunter was satisfying enough.
“Heh-heh-heh.”
Like someone who'd had a good dream, Hyun-jun basked in the afterglow for a while, then sprang up.
“Let's dress it.”
Now it was time to settle up.
Hyun-jun began collecting the loot.
First, he pulled out the Rune Fragment embedded in the Rune Rabbit's forehead.
Next, he separated the Rune Rabbit's hide.
Since he knew a lot of theory and had some porter experience, he didn't hesitate much with the knife.
“Hides sell pretty well too.”
Rune Rabbit hides had a unique color, so a fair number of people sought them out.
Lastly, there was the F-Grade Mana Stone located near the heart.
“I'll ditch the meat.”
He could sell it if he wanted, but the price wasn't that high compared to the trouble of carrying it.
So, skip.
“This alone is enough.”
Mana Stones were a major energy resource.
Even F-Grade ones fetched a decent price.
Rune Rabbit hides also traded at a considerable price thanks to their distinctive dark color.
The highlight was the Rune Fragment.
Gathering 10 could make a single Rune.
“How much would this come to?”
Hyun-jun roughly calculated based on the market prices in his head.
Having worked at the Exchange, he came up with the price quickly.
“Probably around the mid 30,000 won range.”
Hides varied in price depending on quality, and in good condition like this one, he could aim for up to 10,000 won.
“Good thing I captured it first.”
If he'd chased it and swung his knife first, the hide would have been badly damaged.
It wasn't an intentional choice, but the result was good.
“Next are the Mana Stone and Rune Fragment. An F-Grade Mana Stone is 10,000 won. An F-Grade Rune Fragment is 15,000 won.”
F-Grade Rune Fragments actually weren't that expensive compared to their rarity and the effort involved.
That was because there were dozens of types of Runes, and the result when synthesizing a Rune from Rune Fragments was random.
“Since there's a certain gambling element, this price is actually about right.”
That was why many people called hunting Rune Monsters a waste of time.
Rune Monsters were already harder to catch than ordinary monsters.
Rather than catching them, it was more efficient to farm Mana Stones from ordinary monsters and sell them.
“But me? I'm different.”
When he could catch Rune Rabbits this easily, why bother fighting other rabbit monsters?
And those things even attacked, at that?
“If you've only got high Agility, this is perfect.”
Looking at the loot in his hands, Hyun-jun's lips curled up.
He'd secured at least 30,000 won with a single hunt.
He couldn't help but smile.
“If it took about 5 minutes to catch and dismantle it. 360,000 won an hour.......”
It was an insane income, enough to drive him out of his mind.
Hyun-jun clicked his tongue in astonishment.
“My stamina will drain, so realistically it won't even be half that, but.......”
Even half was something.
That was earning a whole day's wages in an hour.
“There's a reason Hunters' income is so high.”
Hyun-jun packed the loot into his bag.
“So what now?”
He had achieved his goal for entering the dungeon today.
But leaving like this felt like a waste.
“My body's still fine, too.”
Earlier, he'd just lost strength for a moment as his tension released.
Now he'd recovered and was no different from usual.
“Hmm.......”
The deliberation wasn't long.
“I'll catch more.”
The moment he became certain of a future as a Hunter, the path Hyun-jun would take was set.
‘Greater power. More money.’
Money followed strong Hunters in equal measure.
Hyun-jun had no intention of standing still even for a moment.
‘Securing Runes comes first.’
F-Grade Runes to use for duplicating.
For growth, he needed to obtain a Rune for each stat first.
***
“Argh!”
Baek Je-jung, who would soon turn twenty, exploded in anger.
Behind him stood two friends with dejected faces.
The three's gazes were all directed at the same place.
There was a Rune Rabbit there.
“Squeak-squeak-squeak!”
The Rune Rabbit wiggled its butt in front of them as if showing off.
Unable to bear it, Baek Je-jung threw himself at it, but it lightly evaded him with a hop, hop.
“Aaaaaargh!!!”
Having fallen flat on the ground for nothing, Baek Je-jung let out a roar.
To catch a Rune Rabbit, they'd surrounded it, set traps, and tried every move there was, but in the end, they failed to catch it.
“Why isn't it working?!!!!”
The two friends approached and put their hands on his shoulders.
“Even though you, me, and him have only been Hunters for a week, I can tell this is something only idiots would do.”
“Let's just give up. I think it's right to stop this dumbass stuff now.”
Their appearance, a mess of dirt and dust, showed how grueling the Rune Rabbit hunt had been.
Baek Je-jung immediately objected to his friends' words.
“Give up here? No way!”
How much time and money had he spent for this?
He'd blown all his allowance to buy Runes of Agility, and even bought and set up expensive snares and traps.
He'd even gotten tutoring from a track athlete for smooth drive hunting.
Yet the result was failure every time.
They'd been hunting for hours, but hadn't caught a single one.
“Je-jung. What's the point of this crap?”
“To catch them and make Runes!”
“Wouldn't it be faster to just buy them?”
Despite his friends' words, Baek Je-jung shook his head.
“That's got no romance.”
Making Runes from Rune Fragments he'd obtained himself, and growing stronger.
Baek Je-jung considered that act, which the world called the height of inefficiency, to be romance.
“Think about it. Things other people get easily with money, we make by suffering and gathering them one by one ourselves. How cool is that?”
“Cool, my ass. It's just a goddamn ordeal.”
“Ah, ah, how did I end up with a blockhead who lives and dies by romance as a friend and get caught up in this mess?”
“Ha, you bastards really don't get it at all. Do you know how many experiences are disappearing these days because of the value of convenience? We're not just losing experiences, we're losing the new perspectives we can gain from that inconvenience.......”
That was when it happened.
Zoom!
Something shot past them like an arrow.
It was a Rune Rabbit.
“Oh, oh! Chase......”
Swoosh!
Before Baek Je-jung could even shout to chase it, something else passed by.
A figure bigger than the Rune Rabbit.
It was a person.
“Wh-What's so fast?”
The speed of 99 Agility was bewilderingly fast to Baek Je-jung, a Hunter of one week.
‘I feel like I've absorbed a decent number of Runes of Agility myself, but he's several times faster than me.’
-Squeeeak!
The distance between the Rune Rabbit and the man shrank by the moment.
Before long, the Rune Rabbit was caught.
“Whoa.”
Looking at the man who had stopped, the three of them gaped.
“Th-That's possible?”
“No, what happened to the Rune Rabbit's evasive maneuvers?”
A Rune Rabbit first fled in a straight line, then after a certain amount of time, it veered left and right to perform evasive maneuvers.
But this time, the Rune Rabbit was caught before it could even perform its evasive maneuvers.
It meant he was so fast the Rune Rabbit couldn't react.
“Who's that guy?”
“How many Runes did he absorb?”
Je-jung got up.
“You guys wait here. I'll go ask him.”
Questions filled his head.
Je-jung tried to resolve that curiosity himself.
-Squeeeak!
But just then.
Another Rune Rabbit passed in front of the man.
“W-Wait......!”
Before Je-jung could call out anything, the man kicked off the ground, chasing the Rune Rabbit.
“Ha.......”
Without even thinking of following, Je-jung watched the man's back grow distant.
There were complicated emotions in his eyes.
Je-jung had always pursued romance in life.
As his parents wished, telling him to try everything he wanted, he had lived like a free spirit without being chased by anything.
That was why he valued romance more than anyone.
“Should I...... just buy Runes......?”
But today, for the first time, a crack formed in that value system.
The difference he'd witnessed firsthand was far too enormous to keep holding on to romance.