Chapter 6

Chapter 6
"You crazy bastard! Who told you to pull the trigger without permission?!"
Choi Yura hurled curses at me.
"You were going to kill them all anyway!"
I shouted back.
To be fair, a fight had been inevitable anyway.
The gang of Wreckers wearing Pepe the Frog masks were an especially rotten bunch even by Wrecker standards, the kind of bastards who never knew when to stop.
And Choi Yura was also a Hunter famous for her temper. Once vicious words had been exchanged, killing each other was simply the next step.
Choi Yura knew that too.
She had only been startled because I had pulled the trigger out of nowhere without even a warning.
And given Choi Yura's personality, the fact that I, not even a Hunter, had started the fight on my own was probably another reason she was furious.
"You! Just wait until this is over!"
"Are you going to kill me too?"
"Yes!"
"Help! A Hunter is trying to kill a civilian!"
I shot back at Choi Yura's threat with shameless boldness.
What was done was done.
Well, once everything settled down, I could probably get away with taking a punch or two.
"You little fucker!"
"Kill that son of a bitch first!"
The Wrecker bastards, despite being Hunters, were using firearms too.
BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG!
The bullets they fired came screaming in.
A few of the Wreckers advanced under their allies' covering fire, closing in on the boulder where Kim Duhyeon and I were hiding.
"Not a chance."
RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE!
Right then, a chain came flying in and swept over the ones laying down covering fire.
"Aaagh!"
"Goddamn it!"
The men providing cover fire hurled themselves away in a panic.
Choi Yura's chain was infamous for being vicious beyond compare.
Even a mere graze would tear away not only skin, but muscle as well. The moment it wrapped around someone, they would be shredded to pieces, and losing an arm or a leg would be the least of it.
If it coiled around the neck, the head would come clean off. And unless someone's defense was strong enough to withstand it, their waist would be sliced straight through, cleanly splitting upper and lower body in two.
So even the Wrecker bastards had no choice but to grit their teeth and avoid the chain at all costs.
Thanks to Choi Yura, I was able to lift my head from behind the boulder and pour bullets into the Wreckers charging toward us.
RATATATAT!
"Aaagh!"
"Urk!"
As the muzzle of the Bren 2 spat fire, the Wreckers advancing on us were riddled with bullets and dropped.
"That bitch!"
"Ugh!"
Maybe because they were wearing Pepe the Frog masks, the Wreckers hopping this way and that to avoid Choi Yura's chain really did look like frogs.
At a glance, it might have looked ridiculous, but my face remained stiff.
I had already blasted one of them away with a shotgun and emptied a full-auto barrage into the spot where they were clustered, yet we still were not in a particularly favorable position.
If this had been a firefight between Non-Awakened people, more than half of them would already have been dead.
But our opponents were Hunters.
They were not the sort of bastards who could be put down with one or two bullets.
"Khk!"
The bastard who had been blown away by the shotgun earlier was slowly getting back to his feet.
He was covered in blood, but he did not seem to be in mortal danger.
Most of the others who had taken a hail of bullets were also still alive and moving just fine.
Only one Non-Awakened man, unlucky enough to take a bullet to the head, had gone down for good.
It looked like Choi Yura had been hit a few times too, but she showed no sign of struggling.
Well, that made sense.
Even a lowly 1-Star Hunter was protected by an invisible, intangible barrier extending about a meter around their body, and that barrier greatly reduced the force of bullets.
Unless they were unlucky enough to take a headshot, even a 1-Star Hunter could easily withstand a bullet or two.
In the case of a 3-Star Hunter, even 7.62mm rifle rounds had a hard time inflicting fatal injuries. And once someone passed 5-Star, their barrier had strengthened enough to deflect even most large-caliber rounds.
That was why the surprise barrage of bullets I had poured into them had achieved so little, and also why the Wrecker bastards had not been particularly wary of an opening firearm attack in the first place.
Some people even said that if a Non-Awakened person wanted to kill a Hunter, it was more reliable to drop the gun, pick up a knife or an axe instead, get within at least one meter, and fight in close quarters.
That was the difference between Hunters and the Non-Awakened.
From a Non-Awakened person's perspective, Hunters were hardly any different from monsters.
***
Just as I had expected...... no, as I knew from experience...... Choi Yura was struggling.
Even Choi Yura, who was considered exceptional among 4-Star Hunters, was outmatched when it came to taking on three 3-Star Hunters and a large number of 1-Star and 2-Star Hunters all at once.
Grinding her teeth, Choi Yura swung her chain, but the Wrecker gang, perhaps because they had worked together for so many years, skillfully picked her apart.
But this was no time for me, a Non-Awakened person, to be worrying about Choi Yura, a 4-Star Hunter.
CLICK, CLICK!
I had thought I had brought plenty, but before I knew it, I had run out of rifle rounds.
BANG! BANG!
I fired my pistol as a stopgap, but the bastards were shooting back too, so even sticking my head out felt dangerous.
"A-ammo!"
Kim Duhyeon, who was taking cover behind a tree across from me with an unnamed married couple, shouted in distress.
"Use these!"
I threw the Glock 23 and the shotgun toward Kim Duhyeon.
"What about you?!"
"I'll manage!"
I shouted that back and pulled out the axe I had used when cracking Goblins' skulls.
This might actually be better.
There was no weapon better than an axe for making sure a Hunter's breath was cut off for good.
I listened.
I heard approaching footsteps.
'Three, two, one.'
I timed it and sprang out, swinging the axe.
"Oh?"
The Wrecker bastard who dodged my attack smirked as though I were laughable.
He wore a Pepe the Frog mask that looked like it had died by hanging.
"Cute."
Yes, I was sure I did.
He looked to be around 2-Star. From his perspective, I probably did look cute.
That was the reality. To a 2-Star Hunter, a Non-Awakened person was nothing more than a toy.
To even stand a chance at all, you needed to be, at minimum, a professional-level fighter or a special forces soldier trained specifically in killing techniques.
"How should I kill you? Should I slit your throat, or cut off your limbs?"
The Wrecker bastard lowered his gun and drew a combat knife from his waist.
SWISH, SWISH!
"......"
He waved the knife playfully, making threatening noises with his mouth.
"SWISH-SWISH! SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!"
"......"
"This bastard...... you're not scared?"
"......"
"I wonder whether you'll still have that filthy expression after I cut open your belly and pull out your guts."
The bastard came at me, slashing with the knife.
I met him with my axe.
CLANG! CLANG!
"Khk!"
When the axe and knife collided, my grip felt like it was being torn apart, and my forearm went numb.
"Oh, not bad? SWISH-SWISH!"
"......"
"You little bastard, and here I am playing with you!"
Perhaps because it annoyed him that I showed no sign of fear at all, he got worked up on his own and started lashing out wildly.
"Ugh!"
Focusing solely on defense, I waited for my chance.
I concentrated on luring him in, pretending to be flustered, pretending to be panicked, stumbling around and deliberately exposing openings.
'One chance. If I'm lucky, two.'
STAB! STAB!
Even as the knife plunged into my thigh and shoulder, I kept acting.
"Ah? I said I was going to pull your guts out, didn't I?"
"......"
"Then I should split your belly open first, shouldn't I?"
The bastard swung the knife wide.
Now.
In a flash, I lowered my stance and hooked his leg.
THUD!
The bastard sprawled awkwardly on the ground.
CRACK!
I brought the axe down on his head with all my strength, but perhaps because he was a 2-Star Hunter, the blade did not sink in deep enough.
It only bit about three centimeters into his skull.
But that was fine.
My attack was not over yet.
I locked his neck between both legs.
"You son of a...... urk!"
As he thrashed, the strength in my legs gradually began to give out.
I knew.
I knew that simply choking him would not be enough to finish him off.
That was why I had prepared a gift.
Clamping down on his neck with every ounce of strength I had, I tore off his mask.
I pulled the pin from a grenade, forced his mouth open, shoved it deep down his throat, and whispered to him.
"Goodbye."
"......!"
One, two...... now.
BOOM!
The moment I threw myself away, the grenade exploded and his head burst apart like a watermelon.
"Huff...... huff!"
Without even taking the time to check the corpse, I first scanned the area around me.
RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE!
Choi Yura was still swinging her chain and fighting the Wreckers.
BANG-BANG-BANG!
BOOM!
Kim Duhyeon and the older man were firing as a two-man team and putting up a decent resistance.
"Khk!"
I pulled out a tourniquet, cinched it tightly around the thigh that had been stabbed by the knife, and ran to help Kim Duhyeon and the older man.
But the Wrecker bastards were not our only enemies.
"SKREEEE!"
"KIIEEK!"
Yeah, I figured as much.
Monsters were rushing in.
***
As always, gunshots call monsters.
The noises that arise during a firefight...... weapons clashing, shouts, screams, explosions...... all of them tend to lure monsters in.
"ROOOAR!"
"SKREEEE!"
As several dozen monsters of all kinds burst onto the scene, the fight turned into utter chaos.
The clash between us and the Wrecker bastards became a three-way battle, and the dead began piling up.
"Aagh!"
"D-damn it! Gah!"
A few of the Wrecker bastards were brought down by monsters.
"Aaah!"
And in the middle of that, even Choi Yura was struck by a 3-Star Wrecker and sent flying.
Our side's greatest source of strength had effectively been knocked out of the fight.
The worst possible situation.
But there was no need to despair.
I could feel Ether slowly filling me.
A soft golden light wrapped around me.
'Huh?'
My awakening in my previous life had not been like this.
Back then, a blue light had shimmered around me just like everyone else.
'Could it be......'
A faint trace of hope bloomed in my chest.
'Please, a Damage Dealer. Please.'
I did not want to awaken into a non-combat Hunter role again, a Supporter like I had been in my previous life.
I had no desire to spend my life backing up Damage Dealers, being treated like a tool, being used, and being threatened.
'Please, anything but a Supporter. Anything but that......'
I prayed desperately.
I hoped that desperate wish would be heard.
And I hoped it would come true.
As I felt my heart growing hot, I took off my Plate Carrier, loosened my shirt, and looked down at my chest.
Because every Awakened bore, in the exact center of their chest, a crest corresponding to their role.
In other words, by seeing what kind of crest had been engraved there, I would be able to tell what role I had awakened into.