Holy B-Class Life

#014

“……”

Was it Dan Joo-hyuk?

He said he left a business card, but I had left it in my room. While Yoon Pa-ran hesitated to answer, the phone kept ringing.

You have some interesting equipment.

“Ah.”

Damn. Come to think of it, I had to retrieve the equipment Dan Joo-hyuk took.

Yoon Pa-ran roughly messed up his hair as he recalled his equipment. If Dan Joo-hyuk had checked the status window of his equipment, that would also be a dangerous situation.

Items dropped by monsters usually had curses on them. And these curses became more powerful the higher the item’s grade and the closer the gate was to breaking.

*The item has been exposed to death energy for a long time.

*A curse has been bestowed.

Such items commonly had these phrases added to their status windows. Based on this, it was generally accepted that the longer a dead monster possessed an item before dropping it, the stronger the curse became.

The fortunate thing was that hunters were immune to curses of their own rank. So Yoon Pa-ran, who was publicly a B-rank hunter, should only be immune to curses on B-rank equipment.

Considering this fact, it was very strange that all the equipment he had was A-rank.

“Sigh……”

Of course, even higher-ranked equipment could be used after removing the item’s curse.

Removing a curse required a special item called [Broken Grace Fragment]. It was a small stone fragment that could be obtained by killing monsters or roaming gates.

The stronger the curse, the more stone fragments were needed, so the price of grace fragments was always expensive.

That’s why Yoon Pa-ran was still using his equipment without removing the curses. Especially since he only bought cheap ones with particularly difficult and nasty strong curses, it was even more inconvenient.

It doesn’t seem like my fingers were broken.

While Yoon Pa-ran was lost in thought, text messages kept coming in. It was ridiculous how the sender was urging him, certain that Yoon Pa-ran had woken up, having gotten information from somewhere.

I’ll come to you.

“Damn it.”

Finally, Yoon Pa-ran’s eyes flashed angrily at the text message the guy sent, and he immediately called. He couldn’t let the guy keep coming in and out of this place where his siblings were.

“Hunter Yoon Pa-ran.”

“What.”

“I thought you’d forgotten how to read due to your injury aftereffects.”

“Just tell me what you want.”

His head was throbbing with pain. There were many things to talk about, but for the first time in Yoon Pa-ran’s life, he just wanted to run away. Whether this was a hunter’s intuition or something else, he didn’t know.

Dan Joo-hyuk didn’t nag about how Yoon Pa-ran was supposed to contact him when he woke up.

He just chuckled and said concisely:

“Let’s meet.”

With a confident voice, unlike Yoon Pa-ran.

❖ ❖ ❖

“Tell me the place.”

As soon as he named the time and address, the phone was abruptly disconnected, and Dan Joo-hyuk stared at it blankly.

“……”

For someone who had been asleep for a long time, Yoon Pa-ran’s voice sounded the same as usual. The same voice that was highly wary of him.

It wasn’t an injury severe enough to be unconscious for so long, could it be a penalty for skill transfer? As Dan Joo-hyuk pondered, he suddenly recalled a day from the past.

The day he first became aware of Yoon Pa-ran.

‘I look forward to working with you on this gate too, Hunter Dan Joo-hyuk.’

Has it been about 4 years since then?

The more meaningless life felt, the faster time seemed to pass around him. Perhaps it was because even counting what was inside felt pointless.

Anyway, that day was like any other. The civil servant from the Gate Management Office bowed so much it was almost annoying, and Dan Joo-hyuk deliberately ignored it.

At that time, out of boredom, he had even tried fighting other S-rank hunters, but it wasn’t very effective. Even if they were of the same rank, they were equally trivial.

The inside of the gate was similar. Although the gate’s wavelength seemed a bit off, making him expect something, it soon led to such an ordinary conquest that he forgot what he had been expecting.

Out of habit, he went to the very front and used a provocation skill. He mechanically blocked dozens of attacks that came at him. Until the last entity remained.

‘……’

Suddenly, even blocking the monster’s attacks felt pointless.

If I survive fighting like this, what comes next?

Living itself was no longer a sufficient reward for Dan Joo-hyuk.

The attack of the monster, filled with vicious energy, was fierce. The fleeting moment of hesitation passed as slowly as an eon.

Dan Joo-hyuk impulsively watched as one of the monster’s awl-like appendages rushed towards his face.

‘What are you doing.’

At that moment, a low voice echoed in his ear.

A sword quickly intervened between Dan Joo-hyuk and the monster.

The one who intervened and blocked the monster’s attack seemed to be struggling, lacking strength. A youthful face, about a head shorter than him, tore through Dan Joo-hyuk’s dazed vision.

It was Yoon Pa-ran.

‘Don’t just stand there like an idiot.’

‘……’

Despite struggling so much to defeat a monster that was already cornered, Yoon Pa-ran spoke plainly and disappeared.

‘……’

It was quite a fresh experience. It was also absurd to the point where unpleasantness outweighed the novelty.

Yoon Pa-ran moved without looking back, seemingly aware of what he had just done. While shooting an ineffective stream of water at another monster.

Dan Joo-hyuk stared blankly at that poorly aimed skill for a while.

‘Aaargh! Save me!’

‘Hold on a little longer. Support is coming soon!’

The surroundings were still noisy. The gazes of hunters waiting and staring at the back of Dan Joo-hyuk’s head felt like dull blades against his skin, but still.

Not blocking that one attack wouldn’t have made a big difference. His damnably tough body wouldn’t have died from just that level of assault anyway.

So Yoon Pa-ran’s meddling didn’t hold much significance for Dan Joo-hyuk.

‘……’

However, it did remind him of at least one thing. That passively taking a monster’s assault was equally meaningless.

After that, Dan Joo-hyuk didn’t do such useless things anymore. Even if it meant idly killing time at home, he didn’t try anything like that again.

A few weeks passed, with Yoon Pa-ran’s existence completely forgotten.

‘Hunter Yoon Pa-ran.’

The next time he met Yoon Pa-ran was at another A-rank gate. As soon as he saw that pale face, he remembered the absurd incident from that day.

Calling out to him was an impulsive act. But soon enough, he easily recalled why he had called out to Yoon Pa-ran.

That day, Yoon Pa-ran’s dash to the front line where Dan Joo-hyuk was, was clearly an overreach. A mere B-rank had no business intervening. Just like how all other hunters didn’t dare cross the line Dan Joo-hyuk had drawn and simply waited.

He looked quite young, so Dan Joo-hyuk intended to warn him to be careful if he wanted to survive long.

Unlike that time, there was no exhilaration of battle now. So he thought Yoon Pa-ran would understand well, pressured by the intimidating atmosphere, unlike that day.

It was a rare act of kindness from him, but another unexpected event occurred.

‘What are you talking about?’

Yoon Pa-ran looked at Dan Joo-hyuk as if seeing something completely foreign.

‘You, do you know me?’

As if he had completely forgotten about that day’s incident, Yoon Pa-ran frowned. As if Dan Joo-hyuk, who had suddenly approached him, was picking a fight.

He remembers getting quite annoyed, for the first time in a very long while.

It was around that time that he started observing Yoon Pa-ran closely.

“……”

After that, it was similar every time.

Gently provoking Yoon Pa-ran somehow became a habit for Dan Joo-hyuk. He naturally started keeping an eye on Yoon Pa-ran, and in doing so, he was able to notice subtle aspects of Yoon Pa-ran’s skills.

And now, with this mutated gate as a turning point, things have become truly interesting.

Dan Joo-hyuk was the only one who walked out of this gate on his own two feet. The world was truly shocked to see him emerge with only Yoon Pa-ran slung over his shoulder.

The gate was cleared but left open without closing. This was because Dan Joo-hyuk had reported that there were still a few hunters alive inside, and everything inside needed to be thoroughly investigated.

Among the surviving hunters, no one had witnessed what happened between Yoon Pa-ran and Dan Joo-hyuk.

It was truly fortunate for them. If anyone had, they would have lost the life they were barely clinging to as the price for witnessing.

“Hmm……”

Dan Joo-hyuk slowly rose and leisurely fiddled with Yoon Pa-ran’s equipment. He had taken them off under the pretense of being helpful, as more excuses were better for blocking any avenue of escape.

From the Gate Management Office to the higher-ranking Special Administrative Safety Department, they showed enthusiasm about thoroughly investigating this gate anomaly. Thanks to that enthusiasm, they discovered an unexpected fact while collecting the bodies of the hunters.

The pit in the first safe zone that Yoon Pa-ran and he had discovered. Among the pile of corpses there, they found bodies of those classified as missing persons.

If they were just missing persons, the Gate Management Office wouldn’t have been this upset.

The missing persons found there were all civilians, not hunters.

Even though those who weren’t hunters couldn’t even enter gates in the first place.