🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 04
“Goodness, he just won’t stop crying.”
On a winter day when snow was pouring down, a seven-year-old little kid who had entered the orphanage cried constantly.
Even the veteran caretakers, who had raised dozens—hundreds—of children, found it difficult to handle.
Except for when I fell asleep from exhaustion after crying, I was either sniffling or crying no matter what I was doing.
They worried endlessly that I might be sick somewhere, since I had lost my parents, shut my mouth tight, and cried desperately without speaking.
However, they say that once I started talking again, those worries completely disappeared.
“It’s too noisy.”
“My nose hurts.”
“It tastes strange.”
It turned out that I had developed hypersensitivity as an aftereffect of being sucked into a Gate.
Eventually, classified as a pre-awakening candidate, I was transferred to a Hunter training center, where I grew up enduring grueling training.
But even after reaching adulthood, I never awakened, and I ended up being reduced to nothing more than a hypersensitive freeloader.
The only one in the training center who failed to awaken, I was always the target of bullying. While my peers entered prestigious guilds and lived in luxury, I was cast out into society—without having received any of the education necessary for an ordinary person.
For someone who wasn’t a pre-awakening candidate but an ordinary civilian, extremely heightened senses were nothing but poison.
“I hesitate to suggest this… but how about getting a prescription for a Hunter-grade sedative? It’s illegal and rather expensive…”
There was no way I could afford Hunter medication when I couldn’t even function properly in society because of my hypersensitivity. Besides, I was an ordinary person.
“Then at least try smelling Heragen oil. Even Hunters use it in dungeons for emergencies, so it won’t be completely without a calming effect.”
A bottle of oil the doctor handed to me.
That became the turning point that determined the direction of my life.
[A comforting fragrance for the sensitive, Wihyang]
With my heightened sense of smell, sharper than others’, I opened a healing therapy shop called “Wihyang,” where I make and sell oils and perfumes.
It was because I wanted to help ordinary people and Hunters who suffer from hypersensitivity like I do.
…and now, I was found collapsed in front of my shop.
By Mimi, the black stray cat I feed.
Miyaaa-.
Thud, rub. Thud, rub.
Watching Mimi rub against my calf, demanding food, I slowly closed and opened my eyes.
Why am I here…? And not even on the shop sofa, but lying in front of the door like a homeless person?
“So…”
Without any sense of embarrassment, sprawled out on the pavement, I tried to retrace my recent memories.
I was sucked into a Gate. I awakened. And with that power, I found the exit.
[Gate Clear! Would you like to receive your reward?]
And I saw the Gate clear message I had thought I would never see in my life.
…it didn’t feel real. Just a strange sensation, like I had dreamed it.
Hesitating, I moved my lips and spoke a certain word.
“…Status window.”
Flash—!
A status window appeared before my eyes.
^[Name: Ye Bitna]^
^[Hidden Class: Novice Owner of a Healing Therapy Shop]^
“It’s real…”
When I found the exit, I thought I wasn’t in my right mind and had hallucinated—but the square status window with cat ears attached was sparkling diligently in front of me.
The status window I had seen when I was first sucked into the Gate had been an utterly ordinary rectangular shape.
But the one that appeared when I used my awakening skill to find the exit was a bit… strange.
Just like now.
Two cat ears attached to the top corners of the status window?
^[Title Acquired: Guide of the Labyrinth]^
^[Remaining Stat Points: 1]^
“Why did the shape of the status window suddenly change?”
I couldn’t be certain, but there was one suspicious thing.
Right before the Gate exit appeared, inside the moving maze wall, a black cat statue had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
The moment I saw it, I instinctively knew it was related to the exit.
Sure enough, the moment I touched the cat’s head, the exit appeared. And at the same time, the status window changed its appearance.
“There’s no rule saying a status window can’t evolve… right. Yeah.”
Miyaaaang!
Since I remained lying there without moving, the hungry cat’s voice grew sharper.
^[Hidden Class: Novice Owner of a Healing Therapy Shop]^
“Shop owner, huh… Is it like a peddler?”
Like an NPC you meet in a game, or maybe similar to a monster that carries a treasure bundle?
Even while attending the Hunter training center, I had never heard of a class like this.
Aside from special classes like summoners or enhancers… there were others?
“And an out-of-standard class at that?”
“It feels like I pulled something incredible… but I can’t tell whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
I moved my index finger and scrolled down the status window.
“Maybe the description will give me a hint…”
^[Healing and therapy for those weary from daily life! The peace of Earth and the salvation of humanity are…]^
“…Mimi, I’ll give you food.”
Miyaaaang—!
Quietly, I pressed the X button on the status window and got up.
I’ll just pretend I never awakened.
“Ah, haha. Ahahaha! Our Hunter Kang is so! So very witty too! Ahaha!”
“……”
“Isn’t that right, Ian! If not Hunter Kang, then who cleared the Gate! Huh?”
Kahaha!
Chairman Maeng let out a hearty laugh, but his eyes trembled pitifully.
He sat before a cold-faced Hunter, gazing at him desperately as if pleading for him to say it was all a joke.
But only heavy silence flowed from Jinseo’s lips.
Chairman Maeng ignored the chill running down his spine and turned to Ian beside Jinseo.
If anyone would call that unfunny remark a joke, it would be Ian—Hunter Kang’s personal secretary-like aide.
“……”
Ian shook his head awkwardly.
In that instant, Chairman Maeng’s heart plummeted to the ground.
“H-Hunter Kang! Say it yourself! I-if it wasn’t you, then who cleared the Gate…! Ugh!”
“C-Chairman!”
Unable to withstand his skyrocketing blood pressure, Chairman Maeng clutched the back of his neck.
Jinseo, from beginning to end, maintained his cold expression.
“I already told you. I wasn’t the one who cleared it.”
“…Then who was it!”
“A woman. Most likely an unregistered Hunter.”
“Unregistered?”
“Even though I was looking at her directly, as if she were an ordinary person, I couldn’t detect any magic power.”
With Jinseo’s vivid testimony, the room gradually fell silent.
“I came here to ask you to find that Hunter. She disappeared the moment we exited the Gate.”
“Ha…”
Chairman Maeng staggered and pressed his forehead.
“R-right now, the President and representatives from every country are flying in to meet you…!”
“Tell them to go back.”
At the sense of darkness clouding his vision, Chairman Maeng groaned.
The entire world was watching Korea right now…! If it turned out that it wasn’t Kang Jinseo but some unknown Hunter who had cleared it…!
And there was no way Kang Jinseo would ever participate in falsely taking credit…!
Damn it! This is humiliating!
At that moment, Ian spoke.
“If someone escaped Hunter Kang Jinseo’s detection, there’s a high probability she’s an SS-rank Hunter. If that’s really the case…”
“SS-rank…?”
“Yes. The first of its kind in the world.”
“The first in the world…”
After blinking and organizing his thoughts for a moment, Chairman Maeng suddenly shook his cheeks and shouted an order.
“Immediately! Find that Hunter immediately and bring her before me! And don’t let a single word leak to the press!”
Jinseo leisurely exited the chaotic Association President’s office. Naturally, Ian followed beside him.
Ian handed him a carton of fresh milk and asked,
“You couldn’t even detect her and lost her—what makes you think the Hunter Association can do any better?”
“170 centimeters, long straight hair, thin build.”
“There must be tens of thousands of women like that in Korea.”
“Find her. Or the Gate will burst.”
“……”
If a Gate that even Kang Jinseo, the world’s most renowned Hunters, and the few Hunters with detection skills couldn’t clear were to burst…
It could very well be humanity’s end.
No matter what, they had to find that incredible Hunter.
“So how exactly are we supposed to find her…”
While Ian pretended to cry, foreseeing endless overtime, a message arrived on Jinseo’s phone.
After confirming that the sender was a certain guild leader who often bothered him, Jinseo was about to lock the screen—then paused upon seeing the preview.
[Thank you for clearing the Gate, Hunter Kang ><! Thanks to you, our training center alumni gathering will proceed as scheduled! Participant list: Ye Bitna, Kim Woojin, Kim Seongtae, Na Iran….]
Training center alumni gathering and Ye Bitna.
Those were the words that caught his attention.
Normally, he wouldn’t have spared such a gathering a glance, but this time was different.
For a fleeting moment, the back of the woman he had lost in the Gate overlapped with the back of a certain girl he had once met at the training center.
That girl who had always gazed out the large window.
As the back view he had tried so hard to forget resurfaced, the calm waters in Jinseo’s chest began to ripple faintly.
