'Even so, just in case...'
Just to be sure, he anonymously posted on a Hunter-exclusive café.
[Title: Something strange happened.] [Content: Suddenly, I can see my stats like in a game, and I've been able to raise my stats. Has anyone else experienced something like this?]
Comments exploded beneath the post.
└Anonymous: LMAOOOO get a grip dude └Anonymous: Isn't he just insane? └Anonymous: He's lost it. └Anonymous: You've been playing too many games... └Anonymous: Are you perhaps a cartoonist? └Anonymous: Go to a nearby hospital ASAP └Anonymous: I'd like to hear the details. └Anonymous: They shouldn't just let anyone in just because they have a license, they really need to clean out this café...
Dozens of comments, all with roughly the same content.
"Ugh."
Jin-Woo sighed. He'd spent quite a bit of time but had nothing to show for it. At the café, he'd even been pointed at and called a crazy person. If there was this little information even after going this far...
'I have to assume my case is the only one.'
One of a kind. The only Hunter in the world! How much help this phenomenon would be, where the limit of his growth lay—he'd need more time to find out, but for now the sound of it wasn't bad. He looked around and noticed it was already deep into the night.
"How did it get so late..."
Jin-Woo furrowed his brow. Having sat in front of the monitor for so long, his eyes felt hazy. He rubbed the space between his brows, stood up, and stretched his body out. He twisted and moved his body this way and that several times. While bending his side into a right angle, he spotted two boxes on the floor.
"Oh."
Random boxes. Two small boxes wrapped in plain wrapping paper tied with ribbons—the kind of thing you'd only see in a game.
'They must've fallen off the bed when I was freaking out earlier.'
He'd completely forgotten about the reward boxes. Jin-Woo picked up the nearest one and opened it.
"...A bandage?"
He stared at the thing that looked, at first glance, like a bandage, and green text appeared.
[Item: Bandage] An ordinary bandage. Good for putting on small wounds. Can be stored in inventory.
"It really is just a bandage."
He'd half-hoped it might have some special function like the treasures you could find in Dungeons, but no such luck.
'Well, I've never heard of bandages dropping from Dungeons either...'
With a mix of disappointment and lingering hope, Jin-Woo opened the other box. Inside was a ballpoint pen. He looked it over, pressed the tip to extend the ink cartridge, but this too was just an ordinary pen.
[Item: Ballpoint Pen] An ordinary ballpoint pen. Good for taking notes. Can be stored in inventory.
It seemed the random boxes really did spit out all manner of random items, quite literally.
"Hmm..."
Still, it wasn't a complete loss. He hadn't exactly needed a bandage or a pen, but thanks to those two things, he'd discovered the existence of his inventory. Since no info appeared when he looked at the other items in the room, it seemed to be a feature exclusive to items from random boxes.
"Inventory."
When he called up the inventory, a graphic warehouse with dozens of slots materialized in the air. Like the storage of a Level 1 user, it should have been completely empty—but it wasn't. In the very first slot of the inventory he'd expected to be empty sat one familiar item.
"That's...?"
Jin-Woo pulled it out. Ding.
[Item: Kim Sang-Sik's Steel Sword] Attack Power +10.
It was the sword of Mr. Kim that he'd picked up in the underground temple. He'd thought he'd left it behind inside the Gate.
"Good to see you again, buddy."
A laugh escaped Jin-Woo's lips. Having survived a brush with death together, reuniting with it felt genuinely good. And it was also an item too precious to just leave as a lost object in this pocket dimension.
'Didn't Mr. Kim say he bought this thing for three million won?'
A Hunter's weapon may look ordinary on the outside, but it isn't. Magical beasts can't be harmed by weapons that aren't infused with mana. Naturally, weapons made to fight such creatures come at a steep price.
'I'll be using this for a while.'
He'd been fighting empty-handed because he couldn't afford a Hunter-grade weapon. It was a cheap longsword, but at this point, he was grateful for anything.
'It's mine now.'
Mr. Kim might foam at the mouth and come charging at him to get this sword back. He was the kind of selfish person who'd abandon the benefactor who saved his life and run away. But this sword, and this opportunity, were both things Jin-Woo had earned by trading his life. He had no intention of giving it back easily. Jin-Woo's gaze turned sharp. In the underground temple, Jin-Woo had learned two things. One was that he needed to become stronger. He'd nearly died multiple times because he was weak. And it wasn't just that. He'd seen the young choir boy heading to his death and hadn't stopped him, even knowing the outcome. He'd known what Mr. Song was doing to Mr. Kim was wrong, yet couldn't intervene. Knowing what the right thing to do was in order to survive, he'd still closed his eyes and pretended not to see. If he didn't want to feel ashamed, he had to grow stronger. And the other thing.
'Unnecessary kindness is not worth giving.'
What had returned after his kindness was the betrayal of his companions. The three of them had abandoned him when he could barely move. He'd called out desperately, but not a single one came back. They didn't even remember who had saved their lives.
'Give and take.'
He would never again invite a crisis upon himself with unconditional goodwill. What mattered most wasn't his own life above all else? That was the lesson Jin-Woo had only been able to learn with death staring him in the face. Stronger. More ruthless.
"I can do this."
Jin-Woo was one of those people who rarely forgot something once he'd learned it.
***
Inside a pojangmacha. Nurse Choi Yoo-Ra was catching up with a friend she hadn't seen in a while, chatting away into the late hours.
"Oh, right."
Yoo-Ra suddenly remembered that her friend worked for the Hunter's Association. She herself had been able to get into a Hunter-designated major hospital largely thanks to her friend.
"You know a lot about Hunters, right?" "As much as anyone, sure. Why?" "Are there Hunters with an ability that heals wounds quickly?" "You mean the healing-type Hunters? One recovery spell and any wound is as good as new~!" "No, no. I'm not talking about magic or anything. Like, subconsciously." "Subconsciously?" "For example, if they were unconscious, or... asleep."
Her friend shook her head.
"No way. That's called regeneration—an incredible ability. Even among top-tier A-rank and above magical beasts, only the rare special ones have it." "None among humans?" "Right. I've never heard of a Hunter with that ability." "Is... is that so?"
Had she been mistaken after all? Yoo-Ra nodded. Just then, her friend spoke up.
"But... who knows? Maybe S-rank Hunters could do it."
At her friend's words, Yoo-Ra looked up.
"S-rank?" "S-rank Hunters include a lot of monstrous people, and there's hardly any information made public about them. What was it? They say Hunter Baek Yoon-Ho of the White Tiger Guild can actually transform into something like a monster."
But Sung Jin-Woo was an E-rank Hunter. Hunter ranks were published on the Association's website, so anyone could easily look them up. Curious because of that morning's events, Yoo-Ra visited the Association site and looked up Sung Jin-Woo.
'His rank is way too low to have a special ability like that... Ah!'
Hunter reawakening! Come to think of it, the other day—or was it yesterday—when she'd passed by Jin-Woo's hospital room, she remembered hearing him talking about something called reawakening.
'Could he have reawakened as a higher-ranked Hunter?'
Ordinary people could never dream of befriending an S-rank Hunter, let alone meeting one even once. S-ranks were few in number, and all of them were absurdly busy. But what was this—an S-rank had become her patient. A Hunter who'd just risen from E-rank to S-rank.
'If not many people know his true value yet...'
If she scored some points now, maybe she'd get an opportunity too. Chance to build a relationship with an S-rank Hunter didn't come along often. Higher-rank Hunters were people others couldn't meet even if they paid good money. A smile gradually spread across Yoo-Ra's face as she let her imagination run wild.
"Oh my, girl. What's gotten into you? Why are you grinning like that in the middle of our chat?" "Ah, no. It's nothing."
Despite shaking her head repeatedly, the smile on Yoo-Ra's face was hard to wipe away.
8. Level Up!
"Oh my, look at that man." "Was his body always that fit?"
Two young nurses whispered to each other as Jin-Woo passed them in the hallway. Jin-Woo pretended not to hear and returned to his room. It had been one week since he started his Daily Quest. Various changes had begun to appear. One of them was the change in his body. Jin-Woo stood in front of the mirror in the corner of his hospital room.
"Hmm, hmm."
He examined his physique in the full-length mirror. Feeling a bit embarrassed doing something that seemed more fitting for a college girl, he cleared his throat a couple times before he could finally face the mirror straight on. But sure enough... it was different. His body was changing.
'Muscle has been added.'
The most striking change was the increase in muscle. Fat had melted away and muscle had started to build. His shoulders had broadened as a result, and his overall frame was bigger than before.
'But it doesn't look bulky.'
Muscle in the right amounts in the right places. If he had to sum up the overall impression, it would be 'lean-looking'? Even as a man, he thought it looked good, so the young nurses whispering behind his back wasn't exactly surprising.
'This must be why.'
Jin-Woo pulled up his status window. Ding.
Name: Sung Jin-Woo Level: 1 Job: None Title: None HP: 100 MP: 10 Fatigue: 0
[Stats] Strength: 31 Endurance: 10 Agility: 10 Intelligence: 10 Perception: 10
(Available stat points: 0)
[Skills] Passive Skills: (Unknown) Lv.MAX, Tenacity Lv.1 Active Skills: Dash Lv.1
Strength had already crossed 30. Without knowing how efficient the other stats were, he'd decided to funnel all his points into Strength for now, since it gave the most clearly visible results. And strength was also what helped most when fighting magical beasts.
'No way just a few days of exercise would reshape his body like this.'
That left one possibility: as the Strength stat kept climbing, his muscles were reshaping themselves to extract maximum efficiency. He couldn't think of any other explanation. He'd briefly worried that he'd invested too much into Strength alone, but looking at his transformed body put those worries to rest.
'Still, it is pretty conspicuous.'
The nurses were talking about him more and more often. As women in a profession that dealt with the human body, they had a keener eye. With his sharp hearing, Jin-Woo caught every mention of his name whenever it was spoken nearby.
'Time to check out of here soon, I guess?'