## Chapter 75 – 075. E-Rank Hunter
075. E-Rank Hunter
Yesterday, to celebrate Oh Junhyuk becoming an E-rank hunter, we drank and partied all night.
First, we went to a barbecue restaurant, then a karaoke bar, and finally a club.
The club, which I hadn’t been to in a while, was more disappointing than I expected.
I did get hit on by some women. Well, I am a hunter now. Plus, I’ve gotten better-looking than before I became a formal hunter.
Oh Junhyuk went to a motel with a girl he clicked with, and I went home alone.
‘She wasn’t really my type.’
She was pretty. She had a certain charm, having put some effort into her appearance.
But her breasts were small.
‘If her face was celebrity-level or her butt was amazing, maybe…’
I can enter the vampire detective world. There, I can have relationships with women who are as beautiful as they can possibly be. There’s no need for me to get hung up on a girl I met at a club. I’m not that desperate.
I go into the vampire detective world to have sex whenever I get the chance, so there’s no way I’d ever be starved for women.
‘And I didn’t get a good feeling from her.’
Vvvvvvv.
My smartphone vibrated. When I checked, it was a message from Oh Junhyuk.
Oh Junhyuk – Yo, did you get home okay?
Sung Yujin – Yeah. Just woke up.
Sung Yujin – How was the girl you went to the motel with yesterday?
Oh Junhyuk – Don’t even get me started, man.
Oh Junhyuk – I saw some yellow powder when she took a condom out of her handbag.
“Yellow powder, so flash powder? …Heh.”
I let out a hollow laugh.
Flash powder is a drug.
More accurately, it’s a powder made by grinding the petals of a C-rank plant-type monster called Perelplecia.
You can eat it as is, mix it with water, or inject a concentrated form with a syringe. Flash powder takes effect no matter how it enters the body.
The concentrated liquid is called Heaven Flash.
The side effect is that it slowly destroys your mind. Flash powder is banned in all countries. It’s highly addictive, and at some point, your mind becomes so damaged that you can’t even recognize your parents.
Sung Yujin – So, did you do it?
Even though Oh Junhyuk loves women, I didn’t think he’d sleep with a girl who does drugs. But he exceeded my expectations.
Oh Junhyuk – Yeah.
Oh Junhyuk – I just pretended not to notice and did it.
Oh Junhyuk – She was drinking water in the middle of it.
Oh Junhyuk – It was surprisingly good. Her juices were flowing when I pounded her.
Oh Junhyuk – Her grip got better when she drank water. But I didn’t kiss her lol
I paused.
He said it was good even though he did it with a girl who took drugs?
Oh Junhyuk isn’t the type to lie about something like this. If he said it was good, then it really was good.
‘The girl who hit on me yesterday came with Oh Junhyuk. That means she probably had flash powder too… Damn it! What does it feel like? Why did I come straight home yesterday!’
I clenched my fist and banged my head. I avoided the woman who approached me, and now I couldn’t satisfy my surging curiosity.
Sung Yujin – What are you doing now?
Oh Junhyuk – Eating hangover stew.
Oh Junhyuk – I’m dying from the hangover lol
Sung Yujin – What about the girl? Did you just send her away?
Oh Junhyuk – Of course, it’s just a one-night stand with a girl who does drugs.
Oh Junhyuk – I ran away right after she fell asleep.
Oh Junhyuk will be fine in the future.
Actually, Oh Junhyuk, being a club regular, has experienced this kind of thing a few times.
Sung Yujin – So, women are all over you now that you’re E-rank?
Oh Junhyuk – Yeah lol. I was surprised yesterday too.
Oh Junhyuk – I’ve been slacking off with my hunter work because it was annoying.
Oh Junhyuk – I regret not becoming E-rank sooner.
Oh Junhyuk – You should do your hunter activities diligently. Don’t regret it like me.
Sung Yujin – Yeah.
Sung Yujin – I was planning to anyway. I awakened a bit late, you know.
Sung Yujin – My goal is to become an E-rank hunter by the end of this month.
With my current skills, E-rank is no problem.
Jin Seyoung said that if you only consider my Yeongcheon style skills, excluding my physical abilities, I’m D-rank.
‘But there’s a huge wall between D-rank and C-rank.’
My current physical ability is upper F-rank. I’m not too far behind E-rank.
Oh Junhyuk – Oh, really?
Oh Junhyuk – With your skills, E-rank is a given.
Oh Junhyuk – But what about your performance points?
Sung Yujin – 730 points.
Oh Junhyuk – You’ve been a hunter for about three months, right?
Sung Yujin – Yeah.
Oh Junhyuk – That’s a normal pace. You must be going out consistently?
Sung Yujin – Yeah. I just put together a public party and go to dungeons.
I’ve been going to dungeons once or twice a week with public parties.
The profits weren’t that great, but I went to accumulate performance points. I’ve also been building connections through public parties. Well, there’s no one I’m actually in contact with.
Oh Junhyuk – But it’s impossible to become E-rank in a month.
Sung Yujin – No, it’s possible.
Oh Junhyuk – Are you going to go to dungeons every day? Stop it. Rest is important for a hunter.
Sung Yujin – I’m going to E-rank dungeons.
Oh Junhyuk – You have the skills, but E-rank hunters won’t want to take you.
Sung Yujin – Hehe. I have a way.
After chatting with Oh Junhyuk a few more times, I started getting ready to go out.
I’m going to enter an E-rank dungeon starting today.
•••
“Sung Yujin-ssi?”
At the sound of someone calling my name, I looked up from my smartphone.
A young man who didn’t seem much older than me approached and greeted me. He was large and wearing armor.
“Yes, I’m Sung Yujin.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Ki Busun, the leader of the ‘Starting Today’ party.”
He extended his hand. I put my smartphone in my pocket and shook his hand briefly.
“Please take care of me today.”
“Haha. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re safe and sound!”
Ki Busun said cheerfully.
I followed him to the dungeon entrance.
There were two other members in the ‘Starting Today’ party. And one of them was someone I knew.
“Is that person today’s passenger?”
It was a man with a short buzz cut. He was holding a spear.
“Let’s hurry to the dungeon… Oh, Sung Yujin-sunbae?”
A woman with red hair recognized me. She was wearing leather clothes and had a sword at her waist.
I was a little surprised to see her. She was a junior from the same hunter department.
“Lim Soyeon? Aren’t you F-rank? Oh, are you a passenger like me?”
“No, I’m a member of this party. I never thought I’d see you here, Yujin-sunbae!”
Lim Soyeon said cheerfully.
She’s a freshman at Gukcheon University. In other words, she’s my junior.
We weren’t that close. We just greeted each other.
“Oh? What a coincidence! This is Sung Yujin-ssi, our passenger for today.”
“I’m Sung Yujin. Please take care of me.”
I greeted them. I was meeting the man with the spear for the first time, regardless of Lim Soyeon.
“And that stoic guy over there is Lim Sungui. He’s Soyeon’s older brother.”
Ki Busun told me the man’s identity.
“I’m Lim Sungui. You’re my sister’s senior? Please take care of my sister. She’s a bit clumsy.”
He lowered his head and greeted me, dropping his guarded demeanor.
“There’s no need to bow like that. Soyeon and I aren’t that close. And Soyeon is doing well as a rising star in our hunter department.”
I gave her some lip service, and Lim Soyeon smiled awkwardly. I could easily give some simple lip service. It didn’t cost me anything.
And it wasn’t actually a lie.
Lim Soyeon is what you would call a pyrokinesis, someone who can control flames at will. Her red hair isn’t dyed; it naturally turned red when she awakened.
‘Hair or eye color changing upon awakening… that means she has talent.’
I had a brief conversation with them.
I had no ulterior motives towards Lim Soyeon.
Lim Soyeon has a cat-like face with upturned eyes. She’s of average height, and her breasts are B-cup. Her red hair reaches her collarbone, a typical medium-length style. And she has a mole near the left side of her lip.
‘If her body was amazing, maybe… but she’s not my type.’
I had no intention of playing around with my dick in real life. I could end up attracting annoying women.
After the conversation, we entered the E-rank dungeon, ‘Ruins of the Wild Dogs.’ It’s a dungeon where E-rank monsters called Infected Wild Dogs appear.
“Let’s go into the dungeon! Of course, Sung Yujin-nim doesn’t have to do anything!”
Ki Busun said cheerfully. Ki Busun was a D-rank hunter.
“If an F-rank like me gets involved, I’ll just be a hindrance. I trust you all.”
Among hunter parties, there’s something called a performance taxi. It’s when you receive money to accept one person into your party. In game terms, it’s similar to a high-level player boosting a newbie’s level for money.
‘I paid 3 million won to use the performance taxi. It’s not a lot of money for me.’
I’m a member of this party, but I don’t have ownership of the monster byproducts. I only get the dungeon entry, dungeon hunting time, and performance points for the hunt.
In return, I don’t have to do anything. I just have to quietly follow them.
‘If I can get 400 performance points for 6 hours of hunting, it’s a win for me.’
F-rank dungeons give around 50-70 performance points per day, while E-rank dungeons give 300-400.
Infected Wild Dogs have poison, even among E-rank monsters, so the performance points are higher, and I can expect more than 400 points.
‘My performance points are 700 now… I have 2,800 left. I just need to use the performance taxi about 7 more times.’
Actually, I didn’t plan on using the performance taxi from the start.
I applied to a public E-rank dungeon party to gain some experience. Theoretically, hunters could enter dungeons one rank higher than their own.
But there are E-rank hunters everywhere in this world. From the perspective of public parties, there’s no need to take the risk of accepting an F-rank hunter.
Even if I tried to form a party to enter an E-rank dungeon myself, no one applied. F-rank hunters didn’t feel the need to risk entering E-rank dungeons for performance points like me.
‘Wow, this is easy.’
I was following them while reading a novel on my smartphone. I need to look at creative works during this spare time. My entertainment app is limited to the creative works I’ve seen.
‘Oh. This character illustration… I like it. Her breasts are huge!’
I glanced at the battle situation of the ‘Starting Today’ party.
Ki Busun was a tank and a dealer. The Infected Wild Dogs were dying to Ki Busun’s sword and shield. Wearing steel armor, he wasn’t afraid of the Infected Wild Dogs’ claws or teeth at all.
‘……His shield skills are excellent. It wouldn’t be easy to beat him in a fight.’
He’s quite skilled, even among D-ranks.
‘Is he doing a performance taxi job because of his schedule?’
It’s hard for D-ranks to gather public parties. Most of them have fixed parties, and D-ranks are where the riffraff get filtered out.
Fixed parties have set schedules, and I heard that some D-rank hunters run performance taxis when their schedules are free to earn some extra money.
‘Lim Sungui. That guy is no joke either. He’s supposed to be E-rank, but he’s almost D-rank.’
Even if you’re D-rank, you’ll become monster food the moment you let your guard down in an E-rank dungeon. But Lim Sungui quickly identifies Ki Busun’s crises and assists him. When Ki Busun misses a monster or gets surrounded, Lim Sungui moves quickly to help him.
Lim Soyeon’s role was to collect monster byproducts.
They’ve worked together more than once.
‘…They do their jobs without even having to say anything. That’s the advantage of a fixed party.’
Public parties are noisy.
The party leader tells you to do this, do that. They tend to order the party members around a lot. If I showed off my skills by drawing my sword and hunting monsters, they would either be wary of me or try to suck up to me to make connections.
‘Should I join a fixed party?’
It’s annoying to form a public party every time I go to a dungeon.
“Yujin-sunbae. What are you looking at?”
“A novel.”
“A novel? Is it interesting?”
“No.”
I answered honestly.
This novel was boring. The author is Korean, and the novel is written in Korean, but it has a strong Japanese vibe.
“…Then why are you reading it?”
“Because the female characters are pretty.”
I answered honestly.
Most of the heroines and supporting characters in this novel were busty.
“Were you always like this, sunbae?”
“Yeah.”
I answered casually. I had no interest in Lim Soyeon at all.
“……”
“……”
Silence fell.
After a while, I approached Ki Busun, who was resting.
“Ki Busun-ssi. I’d like to fight an Infected Wild Dog one-on-one. Is that possible?”
“Ah. It seems like you’re itching for a fight. Yes, it’s possible.”
Ki Busun smiled kindly and nodded.
“We have antidotes, so feel free to fight as much as you want.”
In conclusion, I couldn’t fight as much as I wanted.
The Infected Wild Dog couldn’t avoid the Yeongcheon style’s practical techniques and died with a single slash.
‘…At least, I don’t think I’d lose if I fought one-on-one head-on.’
I lost interest in the Infected Wild Dogs.
After that, Ki Busun’s eyes sparkled as he asked me various questions. He seemed to be interested in my skills. I gave him some vague answers and picked up my smartphone.
‘Hmm. Is the pink-haired character’s pubic hair pink?’
It was a very important consideration.
‘If her hair is rainbow-colored, is her pubic hair rainbow-colored?’
