Chapter 9

Chapter 9. Forming My First Party

I was leisurely drinking coffee at a café when I received a call from an unknown number.

"Yes, hello?"

—Hello, I'm calling regarding the party application you submitted on the Hunter Community.

It had been less than ten minutes since I applied, yet the party leader had already contacted me.

Since the departure was tomorrow, time was probably tight.

—Would you be able to meet right now? We're a bit pressed for time.

When you find a party, a meeting is mandatory.

You need to see them face-to-face to gauge what kind of people they are and decide whether to go with them or not.

"Yes, I'm available. I'm near Seodaemun—where are you located?"

—Near Suyu Station. I can take the subway and come your way.

"Are you with your party members right now?"

—Yes, we're checking various things since we're leaving tomorrow.

"Then I'll come to you. I have a car."

—Oh, okay. I'll send you the address of the café where we can meet by text.

The party members seemed to be young folks.

Whether the call had been on speaker or not, I heard small whispers like "Wow, he has a car. Must be an adult," "Lucky. I need to buy a car soon too," "Can we ride in his car tomorrow? We'll save on taxi fare."

'How cute.'

And so I headed to the café near Suyu Station, following the address sent via text.

When I called to say I'd arrived and climbed to the second floor of the café, three young men and women looked at me.

Two men and one woman.

"Seon-u?"

A young man holding the phone he'd had against his ear approached from the stairs.

He seemed to be the party leader I'd just been speaking with.

"Yes, that's me."

"I'm Kim Myeong-hun, the party leader for this expedition."

"Yes, nice to meet you."

"Come this way. I'll introduce you to the party members who'll be traveling with us."

I followed his guidance toward the table where the prospective party members were sitting.

On the way, thanks to the excellent hearing I'd gained through two awakenings, I caught the voices of other customers nearby.

'Those people must be Hunters.'

'Are they meeting for a party? That's interesting.'

'I'm so jealous... I want to be an Awakened too. I heard your body gets healthier and your skin improves.'

'What's there to be jealous of? Do you know how high the Hunter mortality rate is?'

According to statistics, the rate of ordinary people becoming Awakened is below 0.1 percent.

Roughly one in a thousand.

Currently, the number of Awakened Hunters in Korea is approximately 43,000.

There were originally more, but over 4,000 have already died.

'A lot died during the early Rift crisis.'

The early days, before the Hunter Association and Rift Management Bureau were established.

Rifts had opened all across the country, and Monsters had poured out.

The military and police were hastily deployed but couldn't handle it, so Awakened who had only recently awakened were sent in, and due to lack of experience, many casualties occurred.

And even now, the mortality rate for Hunters who venture into Rifts to hunt remains very high.

In total, over 5,000 Hunters have died so far.

Despite those dangers, Hunters flock to Rifts like moths to a flame.

'Like these kids.'

The young folks were standing up to greet me as I approached.

"Hello?"

A large fellow with a freckled face that looked like a Caucasian mixed-race greeted me.

"Nice to meet you, welcome."

The other person was a bespectacled woman.

She was below average height, quite short.

"Yes, hello. I'm An Seon-u, and I'll be traveling with you."

"I'm Han Joel, the Tank."

"I'm Jeong Ye-rim, the Healer."

After brief introductions, we sat down, and party leader Kim Myeong-hun gestured toward the other two as he spoke.

"The three of us first met in a first-floor Rift party and have been traveling together for six months. Age-wise, I'm the oldest at twenty, and the other two are nineteen, so we treat each other like friends."

"I see. You saw my age on the application, right?"

"Yes, you're thirty-one."

Sitting with these young folks, I suddenly felt like an old-timer.

Not only was I overwhelmingly older, but my Hunter rank was the lowest—a Porter.

"Since you're older, please feel free to call us by our names. Would it be okay if we called you 'hyung'?"

"Yes, if that's comfortable for you."

"Please speak casually to us, hyung."

"All right. I'll speak casually."

And just like that, shortly after meeting, we settled on how to address each other and switched to casual speech.

Is this how kids these days are?

They really like things fast and rational.

Soon, Kim Myeong-hun explained the party plan and the supplies that had been prepared so far.

Here came the main point.

"With the bag included, the luggage will weigh about 40kg—is that weight okay for you, hyung?"

Forty kilograms is nothing to an Awakened.

Even an F-rank Porter can handle up to 60kg of luggage without difficulty.

That's precisely why it's a problem.

"You're planning to stay in the Rift for nine days and go all the way to the second floor with only 40kg of luggage?"

At my question, Kim Myeong-hun looked flustered for a moment before shaking his head and speaking.

"The three of us will each carry a small backpack of 10kg."

They could each carry their own luggage.

For Hunters, 10kg wasn't heavy at all.

However, the problem was that wearing a bulky backpack interfered with combat.

That's why it's standard for the Porter to handle all the luggage.

"You should just leave everything to the Porter. Why do it that way?"

"Well..."

When Kim Myeong-hun hesitated to answer, Tank Han Joel spoke up instead.

"Most of the Porters we've traveled with so far complained about the luggage being too heavy. A lot of people looked down on us because we're young."

Healer Jeong Ye-rim added her own comment.

"Right, so we've just been dividing up the luggage a little bit to avoid stress recently."

All three were young.

That's why the Porter Hunters must have looked down on them.

"I don't mind, so leave all the luggage to me and pack whatever else you need to bring. I can handle it all."

"What...?"

"We appreciate you saying that, but you want us to pack even more? Even now, the luggage adds up to 70kg."

"It'll be heavy. And quite bulky too."

Actions would be faster than words.

I cast Acresia in a small form above the table.

The party members looked surprised.

"Oppa, is that a Subspace skill?"

"Subspace Storage...?"

The party members were astonished.

"Right. Subspace Storage."

"Wow! Hyung, you're an S-rank Porter."

Kim Myeong-hun gave a thumbs-up.

Indeed, a Hunter with Subspace Storage is an S-rank Porter.

Having Subspace Storage makes you fairly high-grade personnel among Porters.

"Then oppa, can I really pack more stuff?"

"Pack it. There's plenty of space."

"Awesome! I'm packing a thick sleeping bag. The thin one was tough on my back against the ground."

And so the party members excitedly began listing additional items to pack.

Meanwhile, I asked something I'd been curious about.

"But why are you pushing yourselves to go all the way to the second floor? Is there another reason?"

When I asked, Han Joel answered.

"To make a lot of money."

Making good money is nice.

But you only have one life.

What good is money if you die?

Maybe it's the age gap of twelve years, but my old-fogey instincts were kicking in.

"Money's good, but isn't the second floor too dangerous with such a small group?"

"It's okay. We have a good role composition with DPS-Tank-Healer, and since we've been working together for a long time, we work really well together—on par with an average C-rank party."

"Really?"

Like the sarcastic comments on the party recruitment post suggested, they didn't seem to be just a reckless youthful hot-blooded party hoping for suicide.

"Hyung, you said this is your first time when you applied, right? Don't worry! We'll definitely keep you safe, hyung."

In their eyes, I was no different from a newbie Hunter.

Well, I had undergone Second Awakening, but I'd never properly hunted a Monster yet, so I was indeed a beginner.

"Thanks. As I wrote in the application, once we reach the second-floor outpost, I'll stay at the outpost until we return."

"Got it."

For second-floor parties, Porter Hunters sometimes accompany hunts and sometimes stay at the outpost.

Usually, Porters accompany veteran parties that hunt far away, while Porters for parties that hunt nearby stay at the outpost.

And so we made plans to meet again tomorrow and left the café.

My impression of meeting my first party's members was this:

'I thought they might look down on me a bit or ignore me for being a Porter, but there was no sign of that at all. They seem like pretty decent kids.'

If I had to find one flaw, it would be this: they seemed to have confidence in their abilities, which made them appear a bit too fearless.

***

The next place I headed was a Hunter Shop.

A four-story building with large floor space that sold everything related to Hunters.

There were only three Hunter Shops in the country, and this was the largest.

After parking, I showed my Hunter ID at the entrance and went in.

On the Hunter Community, they said staff members don't attend to low-rank Hunters.

True to that information, no one paid any attention to me.

'Even better.'

I freely looked around the store.

The first floor sold various auxiliary items.

It had been ten months since the Rift crisis began.

Just ten months had passed, yet seeing this store made me realize how excellent humanity's adaptability was.

'Potions made from Troll blood, antidote potions that can neutralize the poison of thirteen types of Monsters.'

There were Hunters with crafting skills who specialized in making such potions.

Besides them, there were Enchanters who imbued abilities into items, and blacksmith-type Hunters who made weapons.

This store operated on goods made by those Hunters.

Additionally, there were doping drugs that temporarily increased strength or made one forget pain.

Banned substances that athletes used were being openly sold to Hunters.

'It's a life-risking job, so I understand.'

However, even for Hunters, to ensure they only used them in emergencies, sales were limited to one month's supply.

I excluded the doping drugs and instead put various types of potions in my basket.

'I only picked one of each kind, but it adds up to over 3 million won.'

Climbing the stairs, the second floor was an armor shop.

'It looks like some medieval cosplay store.'

From heavy armor from medieval times to light armor. Leather armor.

There were also robes and hats that Mages might wear.

'Should I get Ria a suit of armor?'

Ria's armor had been irreparably damaged and discarded, so she currently had none.

Even if she returned to her world, it would probably be hard for her to get armor made.

Since she was a fugitive being chased by pursuers, she'd need to move secretly and wouldn't have time to craft armor.

'But the price... it's insane.'

The women's light armor I was looking at cost 17 million won.

Heavy armor was even more expensive.

'It's like the price of a used car. If I want to buy it for Ria when she returns, I'll need to sell a lot on this expedition...'

I put off buying my own armor for now.

Next, I went up to the third floor.

I might not know about armor, but I needed at least one decent weapon.

'Should I get a longsword or a spear?'

As I was alternating between holding the two weapons and pondering, someone approached and spoke to me.

"Are you unsure which type of weapon you should use?"

A very deep-toned voice.

It was an elderly gentleman with a very strong impression.

"Yes, I'm debating between a longsword and a spear."

"What is your Hunter rank?"

"E-rank."

"E-rank, I see. That's why you're looking at weapons with long reach. Do you have combat experience?"

"None. I haven't even been inside a Rift yet."

It was true that I'd never entered through official procedures.

My fight with the High-Grade Harpy couldn't even be called combat since I'd just been one-sidedly beaten.

He looked me over carefully from top to bottom, then spoke.

"Hmm, I see. From my perspective, you did look a bit more natural holding the sword, but still, for protecting yourself while keeping enemies at bay, the spear would be better."

He accurately understood the reason I was debating between the two.

"I'm more drawn to the spear for the same reason."

As a chef, I wanted to use knives only for cooking.

"You seem to have a good eye for weapons, sir—is there a spear you would recommend?"

"No."

"Pardon?"

"I said no."

What's with this old man?

As I stared at him in disbelief, the old man continued.

"I only mean there isn't one here. A good spear."

"Ah..."

"Not here—you have to go upstairs for that."

Upstairs was the VIP floor.

A floor not just anyone could enter.

"Let's go."

"What? Where?"

"You asked for a recommendation, didn't you? Let's go upstairs."

"I'm not a VIP, so it's impossible for me to go up."

As far as I knew, you had to be at least an executive of a major guild or a minimum A-rank Hunter to be recognized as a VIP.

"It's fine if you come with me."

"What..."

I'll follow him for now.

As we went up, a staff member stopped us at the entrance.