Chapter 31

Chapter 31

It was not particularly rare for fights to break out between Prospective Hunters who had entered the Special Force Training Center.

They were all excited by the thought of becoming Hunters, and many of them had lost family members or people close to them when they Awakened, so they were extremely sensitive.

An unconscious sense of rivalry was also widespread among them, so even when it had nothing to do with choosing a Team Leader, many tried to confirm the pecking order through fistfights.

Oh Taegwon was probably that type of person.

He had probably read the news articles about me and worked himself up with competitive spirit on his own, so how delighted must he have been when I appeared right in front of him?

“Get up, you bastard. Let’s have a fight.”

Oh Taegwon barked at me again.

“Follow me.”

“Where?”

“Hmm. The rooftop?”

Oh Taegwon thought for a moment before answering.

“Why go all the way to the rooftop? Let’s just settle it here.”

“In this cramped place?”

“How much space do we need for a quick fight?”

In the world of Hunters, and especially here at the Special Force Training Center, avoiding a fight when someone picked one with you only made things more troublesome.

Everyone would see you as weak, then ignore you and harass you.

“What do you want to use? Fists? Weapons?”

“Let’s use fists.”

Oh Taegwon tilted his head from side to side and edged closer.

It looked as though he had done a bit of combat sports in his younger days, but what could I say?

I had studied everything from boxing to jiu-jitsu and MMA since I was young.

SWISH!

The moment Oh Taegwon thrust out his fist.

THWACK!

My calf kick struck Oh Taegwon’s calf.

“……!”

Oh Taegwon’s face twisted in pain.

GRIT!

Oh Taegwon endured the pain and charged at me again.

THWACK!

“Urgh!”

THWACK!

“Hrk!”

THWACK!

“Eeeeegh!”

After being hit by three calf kicks in a row, Oh Taegwon let out a pain-filled growl.

Limp, limp…….

Oh Taegwon approached with an abnormal gait, then slowly collapsed to the floor.

“Go to the infirmary already.”

Just as I said that and turned around.

“Who said this was overrrrrrr!”

Oh Taegwon, wrapped in Ether, sprang to his feet and swung a greatsword at me.

Had he lost his mind……?

He even brought out a Spirit Sword?

CLANG!

I pulled out the Butcher of Madness and blocked the greatsword.

“Urgh!”

I had blocked the greatsword with an axe, yet Oh Taegwon was the one who was pushed back.

Greatsword or whatever, how could a mere 1-Star Spirit Sword withstand a 4-Star Spirit Sword?

WHOOOSH!

I swung the Butcher of Madness at Oh Taegwon.

“Hah!”

Startled, Oh Taegwon raised his greatsword and blocked my attack, but he could not avoid paying the price.

SNAP!

The upper part of the greatsword broke off.

I did not stop.

I kept swinging the axe at Oh Taegwon, and every time I did, the greatsword broke piece by piece until only the handle remained.

“What do you want me to do?”

SCRITCH, SCRITCH. I scratched my head with the axe and asked Oh Taegwon.

“Do you want me to slice your neck, or split your skull?”

“Th-That is.”

“Tell me. Which one do you like?”

“Uh. Um.”

Oh Taegwon hesitated and could not answer.

The eyes that had been burning with a competitive spirit until just a moment ago were now trembling wildly.

“I-I am sor……ry.”

“What was that?”

“I am sorry!”

Oh Taegwon squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.

“P-Please spare me!”

“No.”

“Pardon……?”

“I have no intention of sparing a man who bares his teeth at me.”

“A-Are you really going to kill……?”

“Yes, I am going to kill you.”

The axe blade lightly grazed Oh Taegwon’s neck.

DRIP!

Bright red blood streamed down.

“Hiiiiiiiik!”

Oh Taegwon rolled his eyes back and collapsed with a thud.

“Tsk.”

My tongue clicked on its own.

How could someone who wanted to become a Prospective Hunter have such weak mental fortitude……?

“Someone take him to the infirmary. He will not die even if you leave him there, but he will bleed quite a bit.”

After saying that, I lay down on the Field Cot again.

“Um……”

“Do you have something to say?”

“Will you be the Team Leader, Eunseong, sir?”

The guy who seemed to have an Assassin Role Category asked me.

“No. I absolutely hate bothersome things like that.”

“Then who should be the Team Leader……”

“Decide among yourselves. No, wait.”

My gaze turned toward Jeong Hobin.

“You do it, Team Leader.”

“Me……?”

Jeong Hobin pointed at himself and widened his eyes as if asking what I meant.

“You do not want to?”

“Ah, no. I will do it.”

Perhaps my question had sounded like a threat, because Jeong Hobin promptly accepted the Team Leader position.

“Since you are the Team Leader now, you should hurry and move.”

“Pardon?”

“A team member is injured. Are you going to stand by and watch? You need to take him to the infirmary quickly.”

“…….”

Jeong Hobin cursed at me with his eyes.

“His Spirit Sword was destroyed too, so he probably suffered a fairly large loss in Ether. If you do not take him to the infirmary quickly, he might have to be admitted to the intensive care unit……”

“Please help me.”

“Ah, yes.”

With help from the Assassin guy, Jeong Hobin hoisted the unconscious Oh Taegwon onto his back and headed to the infirmary.

I felt Ra Sihyeon staring holes through me, but I ignored it cleanly.

What are you going to do just because you glare at me……?

‘I am still sleepy even after all this. Hah.’

Although it had only been a scuffle with a snot-nosed brat, it would not have been strange if it had woken me up. Yet the moment I lay down, drowsiness poured over me.

***

Thirty minutes later.

Instructor Kim Sangeung appeared with Oh Taegwon.

Perhaps because he had lost a lot of blood, Oh Taegwon’s complexion had gone deathly pale, but the neck that had been cut by my axe had healed cleanly without a single wound.

It was probably possible because he had gone to the infirmary and received treatment from a Hunter with a Healing ability.

I wondered if they really had to erase even the scar.

The scar should have remained so that he could look at it and take it as a lesson.

“Trainee Cha Eunseong.”

“Yes, Instructor.”

“Well done.”

“Pardon?”

“I would have been disappointed if you had gone easy on a man who cowardly used Ether and even swung a Spirit Sword, but you handled it appropriately.”

“Haha……”

“Why did you not kill him?”

It was not me who was surprised by Instructor Kim Sangeung’s question, but Oh Taegwon.

“If it had been real combat, I would have killed him.”

“Have you killed people before?”

“About seven or eight……”

My team members’ faces turned blue.

No matter how much they had been recognized as promising prospects with excellent potential in this Cohort, they were still fledglings who had never been deployed to actual combat.

To team members like that, my words must have sounded rather frightening.

Though once they became active Hunters, they would realize that people ended up killing other people as casually as eating meals, for all sorts of reasons.

“Then why did you spare him?”

“Whether I like him or not, he is on the same team as me, so I judged that there was no need to go as far as killing him.”

“That is a flawless answer.”

Instructor Kim Sangeung nodded with an expression that seemed to say, As expected.

“Listen carefully, all of you. Trainee Eunseong is right. Team members who belong to the same team may get into fistfights with one another. But if you start killing one another, then you cannot call that a team. Remember that inside a Gate, the only people you can trust are your own team members.”

That was half right and half wrong.

Inside a Gate, the only person you could trust was yourself.

Cases of team members betraying one another were extremely common, after all.

Of course, from an instructor’s standpoint, he had no choice but to speak in principles, so he could not point that much out and move on.

“Trainee Oh Taegwon.”

“Yes……?”

“Never ambush a comrade again. If you do something like that one more time, you will die by my hand first. Understood?”

“Y……Yes, sir!”

Oh Taegwon stood at attention and shouted.

“Good. Did you choose a Team Leader?”

“Yes.”

“Who is Bravo’s Team Leader? As expected……”

Just as Instructor Kim Sangeung’s gaze came to rest on me.

“I agreed to take the role.”

Jeong Hobin quietly raised his hand.

“Why are you the Team Leader?”

“Pardon?”

“Should Trainee Eunseong not be the Team Leader?”

Instructor Kim Sangeung questioned Jeong Hobin as if interrogating him.

“Trainee Eunseong said he did not want to do something like being Team Leader, so I ended up taking the position. Haha……”

Jeong Hobin gave an awkward laugh as he answered.

“Trainee Eunseong.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you not become the Team Leader? That is unlike someone who once aspired to become a naval special warfare officer.”

“I thought that if I became the Team Leader, I would have more things to take responsibility for than benefits to enjoy.”

“So you do not want to take responsibility?”

“Yes, well. That is it.”

“Hmm.”

A faint hint of disappointment appeared on Instructor Kim Sangeung’s face.

“It is not too late even now. Do you have no intention of taking the Team Leader position? I think you would be able to lead your team members well.”

“I am sorry, but I have no intention of doing so. And I do not think it would be courteous to the person who has already been selected as Team Leader.”

Jeong Hobin tried to open his mouth, but when his eyes met mine, he shut it tightly.

“If that is what you want, then there is nothing I can do. Tsk. What a shame.”

“Thank you for thinking highly of me.”

When I gave a slight bow, Instructor Kim Sangeung sent me a look from beneath the brim of his low-pulled cap.

‘You little brat, are you really going to be like this?’

I pretended not to see it and turned my gaze away from Instructor Kim Sangeung’s eyes.

No matter what, I was not becoming the Team Leader.

What was I supposed to do with a bunch of chicks……?

I had already had more than enough of cleaning up after others, and I did not want to do it anymore.

Unless I was given suitable compensation, that was.

***

Even though it was the first day of entry, the training proceeded at a breathless pace.

Of the fifty-minute training sessions, thirty minutes were theory lessons, and simple practice took place during the remaining twenty minutes.

For Prospective Hunters who had just Awakened, it was priceless training, but not for me.

These were things I had done as naturally as eating meals over the past ten years, so there was nothing new to me. On top of that, I knew more practical tips from the field than what the instructors were teaching.

Perhaps because of that, drowsiness poured over me like mad, and it was extremely difficult to focus on the training.

If it had at least been physical training, it might have been a little better, but since I was sitting at a desk listening to theory lessons, I could only nod off like a sick chicken.

“Trainee Eunseong.”

“……Yes?”

“Are you supposed to doze off during training? When you are learning knowledge that concerns not only your life, but also the lives of your comrades?”

Instructor Kim Sangeung glared at me with a frightening gaze.

“I am sorry……”

“If you are that sleepy, stand at the back and listen, or go out and wash your face.”

“Yes.”

Seizing the chance, I headed to the restroom.

I thought a bit of fresh air and washing my face with cold water might wake me up……

“Hoo.”

After washing my face with cold water, I looked into the mirror in front of the sink, and a sigh came out on its own.

What in the world was I doing here with these chicks……?

Soon, the Large-Scale Transference Phenomenon would happen on Jebudo.

“I wish someone would attend the training for me……”

It was a thoughtless mutter to myself, but suddenly, the Deck of Infinity revealed itself, and one card slipped out from within it.

• Shall I attend in your place?

The [Mutation] card asked me.