Hunter Minjun, So You're A Man Of Ability?

Today’s Gate happened to sit in the middle of a busy shopping district. Gates opened with no regard for time or place, so every now and then one turned up even in a neighborhood like this. The saving grace, if there was one, was its rank: a D-Rank Gate sat near the bottom of the scale, the risk of a Gate Break was low, and nobody had gone so far as to evacuate the area.

“Excuse me, but would you happen to be Hunter Yun Minjun?”
“Ah, yes. And you are?”
“Kim Junhwi. Looks like the others haven’t got here yet.”

Kim Junhwi, another member of the clearing party, gave me a good-natured smile and held out his hand. He made a striking Hunter. His face looked young enough that he might only just have come of age, while the body beneath it was a hulking slab of muscle.

“Have you had lunch, by any chance?”
“I grabbed something quick at a convenience store on the way. How about you, Hunter Junhwi?”
“I went all in. Gukbap.¹ You won’t get hungry?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got a few emergency rations stashed in subspace, too.”

We traded quick introductions and a little small talk to scrub off the awkwardness, and before long two young women and a man came walking toward us. Nothing on their faces announced them as Hunters, yet all three gave off a curiously Hunter-like air.

“Is this the Antman Gate party, by any chance?”
“Yep.”

Sure enough, they were the rest of the clearing party.

“Sorry, we’re pretty late, aren’t we? Have you been waiting long?”
“Not at all. We only just got here ourselves.”

With everyone assembled, we swapped names before heading in. All three newcomers were D-Rank, somewhere in their mid to late twenties, and their positions balanced out nicely. One thing about them, however, was unusual.

“The three of you are siblings?”
“Yes. Amazing, isn’t it?”
“It is! Wow, so that can actually happen. You hardly ever hear of three siblings all awakening.”

Seo Yuhyeon, Seo Yura, Seo Yuseon.

The three of them were brother and sisters.

I’d met Hunters of every stripe clearing Gates, but never a case like this.

“I like to think it’s fate, a gift from heaven.”

Seo Yuseon, the youngest of the three, gave Kim Junhwi and me a foxlike smile. If Sia had seen it, she might well have grumbled to herself, Isn’t that woman trying to seduce Oppa?

“But three Hunter siblings, you’d think somebody would’ve written an article. How come I’ve never seen one?”

Come to think of it.

Once Kim Junhwi said it, the same thing struck me as strange. If I’d been a reporter, I wouldn’t have let a story that interesting slip past me. Something about it sat wrong with me.

“There were interview requests, but we turned them all down. None of us is really the type for that sort of thing.”

Seo Yuhyeon answered smoothly, as if he’d fielded the question many times before.

“Ahh.”
“Let’s save the rest of the chat for whenever we get a breather inside, and go in for now.”
“Sounds good.”

Before entering, we checked one another’s identities thoroughly in case anything happened, then geared up. Over the top of my gear I strapped on the wearable cam Sia had specially made, and then I stepped through the Gate.

With every preparation complete, we began working our way through it in earnest.

Maybe because we hadn’t run into monsters straight away, the mood stayed good and everyone was full of energy. Not long after we’d set out from the entry point, though, Seo Yura, the middle sibling, fell into step beside me with a question.

“Hunter Minjun, that gear of yours. Where did you buy it, if you don’t mind my asking?”

I’d felt her stealing glances my way ever since I pulled my gear out and put it on, so evidently it had caught a fair amount of attention.

“I didn’t buy it. It was a gift.”
“A gift?”
“Yes. From my girlfriend.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, but for a second the air around us seemed to shift.

“Your girlfriend gave you all of this? Isn’t it all expensive gear?”
“I don’t really know myself, but I imagine it probably is.”
“Wow… I’d love to walk around in gear like that.”
“Your girlfriend’s a legend.”

All four of them looked genuinely envious. A dragon had hand-picked this gear for me, so of course it was good. I’d been amazed myself when I saw what it could do, and I made a note to go to Sia later and thank her all over again.

“Your girlfriend isn’t some third-generation chaebol heir, is she? Or a rising star at one of the big guilds?”
“Or maybe she’s a famous celebrity. Ha, so you’re a man of ability, Hunter Minjun.²”
“Oh, come on. Nothing like that.”

Since I couldn’t tell them the truth, I laughed it off.

“Then what about this wearable cam?”
“Ah, this. My girlfriend gave me this too. She said to record everything so the two of us could watch it together later and look for things to fix.”

Moments earlier Kim Junhwi and I had been speaking formally to each other, but somewhere along the way he’d started calling me Hyungnim like an old friend³, making no effort to hide his envy. He seemed to be the sociable sort, and the three siblings weren’t much different.

Only, maybe it was just my imagination, but they seemed more interested in the gear Sia had given me than in our Sia herself. They were trying not to show it, but I could feel the two sisters stealing glance after glance at my gear; only Seo Yuhyeon, out in front, kept his eyes ahead. They must have taken quite a liking to what I had on.

It’s nice that they like the gear Sia gave me… but those looks are way too blatant.

However much they liked it, being stared at that hard put me on the spot.

Suspicious.

The moment the word occurred to me, the conversation from before we entered came back. Three Hunter siblings, whatever their ranks and whatever their classes, should have turned up at least once in some internet article or on television. I felt bad for thinking it of the three of them, but something felt off.

Anyway.

We pressed on, trading small talk, and before long a pack of Mega Antmen came into view.

“Antmen spotted, eight o’clock.”
“Hunter Junhwi, let’s you and me dive in.”
“We’ll handle covering fire from back here.”

With the plan briefly settled, I adjusted my grip on my sword for the real fight.

Now for the real thing.

There was nobody beside me to coach me on drawing out the sword’s power, and advice wouldn’t have helped much mid-fight anyway.

Domination and will. Those are the keywords.

Sia’s advice, and Rokan’s teaching.

I had to call all of it to mind, draw out as much of the sword’s power as I could, and somehow find the feel of wielding the Dragon Word.

Kim Junhwi, our tank, charged in first. I followed a moment later and started swinging.

— KEEEEEE—!!!

The Antmen’s shrieks rang out as the fight began in earnest.

I swung my sword with the will to dominate anyone and anything burned into my chest, by turns lofty and fierce.

“Whoa. That’s killer, Hyungnim.”

At first Kim Junhwi had been scrambling just to block the Antmen’s attacks, but he must have found some breathing room, because he struck up a leisurely conversation in the middle of the fight.

“You too, Junhwi.”

He grinned at my answer and threw himself into blocking harder than ever. Meanwhile the three siblings backed us up from the rear with heals, buffs and ranged attacks that landed at just the right moments.

The Antmen weren’t about to take our offensive lying down, but the gap in strength was so wide that we wrapped up the fight without taking any real damage. Afterward we gathered up the spoils and decided to catch our breath for a while.

“I did wonder, but they really were Antmen after all, Hyungnim.”

We’d never agreed to be hyung and younger brother, but once again Kim Junhwi called me Hyungnim as naturally as anything. Now that I thought about it, he’d been doing it ever since we entered the Gate.

“Sorry?”
“You took ‘em down so easy I figured they weren’t Antmen, just plain old ants.”

When I gave him a look that said I didn’t follow, he added the punchline, brazen as you like.

“You don’t have to go that far… but thank you.”
“Just drop the formal speech with me, Hyungnim.”

Whatever else could be said about him, this guy had an astonishing knack for getting along with people.

“Hmm. Would it be all right if I dropped the formalities once the clear’s done?”
“Ah, sure. Whatever’s comfortable for you, Hyungnim. And all three of you are older than me anyway, so feel free to talk casually with me too.”

Kim Junhwi turned his charm offensive on the three Seo siblings, striking up the same warm, chummy conversation he’d had with me.

“We’ll drop it after the clear as well.”
“Ah, by all means.”
“Sorry, I just need to step away to the bathroom for a minute.”

Whether Kim Junhwi’s chattiness was quietly wearing on her or she genuinely needed to go, Seo Yuseon excused herself, saying she’d only be gone a moment.

“I’ll come with you.”

Seo Yura followed her younger sister off.

“While we’re at it, I’ll go use the bathroom too. Be right back.”

And with that, even Seo Yuhyeon, the party leader, left his spot.

With all three Seo siblings gone at once, Kim Junhwi and I traded awkward looks.

“Junhwi.”
“Yes, Hyungnim?”
“Did you get any odd feeling off those three, by any chance?”

With the three of them conveniently away, I seized the chance and whispered it to him.

“What sort of odd feeling?”

I told Kim Junhwi what had bothered me about the Seo siblings. Three Hunter siblings were rare, yet neither of us had heard of them anywhere, and they’d stared at my gear with a strangely blatant interest. On top of that, and maybe it was just my imagination, the way all three had left at once felt off too.

“I don’t know. It didn’t strike me that way.”

Kim Junhwi evidently read them differently. Had I been oversensitive? Was I seeing meaning where there wasn’t any?

I don’t think so, though.

Kim Junhwi might not see it, but I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling.

“…”

Perhaps because it was a heavy subject to raise during a break, the mood grew even more awkward. Pushing the conversation further felt like too much, so I figured I’d spend the rest of the break swinging my sword and working on the feel of it.

A thicket some two or three hundred meters from Minjun.

After checking that nobody was looking their way, the two sisters lowered their voices and whispered together.

“So what do you reckon.”
“Hah, dunno. Looks fucking rough to me.”

They had certainly left saying they needed to relieve themselves, but nothing about them suggested it. Their movements were furtive and careful, and their voices had sunk as low as they would go. From the look of them alone, they might have been villains plotting something.

“When the hell is he coming? We haven’t got time.”
“Fuck knows. Reckon the prick’s off having a smoke?”
“Ugh, that chain-smoking bastard. Can’t he hold out even that long?”

They’d said they were going to the bathroom, so why were they waiting for Oppa? And hadn’t the three of them split off in different directions?

“You two are the ones who smoke. Chain-smokers. I quit.”

Seo Yuhyeon got the jab in as he joined them late, and the two sisters glared at him with faces like they’d chewed shit.

“Sure. And a dog’ll give up shit.⁴”
“Still, smoking’s a hundred times better than juggling a pile of girls and cheating on every one of them, like you.”

Seo Yuhyeon raised his middle finger and growled, but the two women brushed him off as though it were nothing.

“No time, so just the point. Do we hit them today or not?”
“We hit them, obviously. That Kim Junhwi or whatever doesn’t look like much, but Yun Minjun, that prick’s the real prize. Looked to me like he’s got himself a full set of the flashiest gear going.”

Seo Yuseon wore the look of a hyena that had spotted plump prey. Beside her, Seo Yura gave a sly smile.

“He’s no young master. More of a pet fawn, isn’t he? Looks like what he’d latched onto wasn’t a girlfriend but some rich sucker of an ahjumma.⁵”

The three of them had passed themselves off as ordinary Hunters, but in truth they were Villains, wanted for several weeks now, all on the same charge.

Robbery-murder inside a Gate.