How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

17. Ice Ability User Baek Dan-bi – [2]

All messengers, including text messages, KakaoTalk, and the Hunter-exclusive app, were shouting one sentence. ‘Citizens should evacuate, and hunters should assemble.’

“Yes, we are ready. Let’s go!”

Sung Moon-young immediately called the association staff to inform them that our team was ready.

When we ran to the designated place, a dedicated helicopter was waiting.

Even though we had completed helicopter boarding training for this day, some people gasped in awe. Even veteran Jang Byung-gon.

“I never thought I would ride a helicopter while working as a hunter…”

The helicopter carrying us headed to the destination.

Until then, everyone didn’t show much anxiety. There was even time to talk amidst the sound of the propellers.

“Are you nervous?”

Sung Moon-young shouted, and Jung Jin-young shouted back.

“Yes, a bit…!”

“I’m a bit excited! It’s our first mission! What should I buy first with the money? Just imagining it makes my heart race!”

Lee Jong-ho was laughing, saying that his heart was pounding because of the tension.

A strange sound mixed with the noise of the propeller.

It sounded like a siren. Looking down through the window, cars with flashing lights were racing in one direction, emitting loud lights.

A few years ago, I would have thought they were tow trucks, but not anymore.

“They’re hunters.”

Like tow trucks, they acted similarly. They all flashed their lights and blared their sirens, forcing nearby vehicles to yield. Some cars even invaded the sidewalk, trying to go as fast as possible.

In the past, tow trucks were notorious, but now hunters have inherited that reputation. Jang Byung-gon clicked his tongue.

“They say the countryside gets chaotic every time something happens because of the hunters. It’s true, it’s a real mess…”

Is he belittling Incheon compared to Seoul?

“What makes Seoul so great that they can respond in an orderly manner?”

When I retorted grumpily, Jang Byung-gon hurriedly explained.

“It’s not that Seoul is great, it’s just inevitable. Seoul has a large population and a lot of money to hire hunters, so they can assign hunters to specific districts.

But in places like Incheon, the population is smaller and there’s less money to hire hunters, so they can’t do that. Hunters have to cover the entire area. That’s why it’s always such a mess. The situation is tough, so there’s no choice. Everyone wants to leave the countryside and go to Seoul…”

For the same reason, in places like Incheon, the area that one awakened person has to cover is much larger than in Seoul, so contracts with local hunters are particularly avoided, Jang Byung-gon added.

Feeling displeased, I turned my gaze away. I kept glaring at the hunters below.

Seeing that chaotic scene, one thought became firm.

Whether they carried guns or had been hunting for a long time, non-awakened people couldn’t be trusted.

They were all trying to get to the scene as quickly as possible, but they were such a disorganized bunch…

Of course, this was too regretful a thought to have with my comrades beside me, so I tried to shake it off.

And anyway, I soon lost even the leisure to continue such thoughts.

“Oh, damn…?”

My chatting comrades fell silent and groaned.

I stopped all thoughts and closed my eyes tightly.

It felt like an abstract video was playing in my head. All sorts of emotions and metaphors of all kinds of concepts were rampaging in my head.

Jang Byung-gon also muttered with a frown.

“We’ve entered the gate area. Damn, this is the first time it’s been this intense… Don’t worry too much, you’ll get used to it soon.”

The stronger the aftermath of the gate, the larger the gate that opened, and more monsters usually poured out from it, I had learned.

This seemed to be quite large, and I was already feeling uneasy.

Glancing at Baek Dan-bi, she was the only one among us who looked calm. Pretending to be indifferent, I gradually felt better. When my mind was somewhat clear,

“Oh, over there!”

Seong Moon-young screamed and pointed out the window. I looked out the window and widened my eyes.

A small apartment complex with 12-story buildings.

People were climbing up to the rooftops of each building.

And below them, monsters were lurking, barely visible.

With the superior vision of a body enhancer, I could see that the monsters resembled hyenas.

The monsters were climbing the walls, heading for the 12th-floor rooftops. Even from a distance, their climbing speed was disturbingly fast.

At this rate, they would reach the rooftops in a matter of seconds. I didn’t even want to imagine the fate of the people who had taken refuge on the rooftops.

“I’ll let you know the assembly point later via radio.”

Seong Moon-young raised an eyebrow at my words.

“What?”

There was no time for a long explanation.

I flung open the helicopter door. As I did, I saw the apartment where the monster was about to reach the rooftop.

Ah, one of them had just climbed onto the rooftop. It charged at the residents who were backing away…

“Hyung?”

And then I jumped out of the helicopter. In my left hand was a hunter rifle, and in my right hand, I gripped a specially made combat hammer from the city, entrusting my body to gravity.

“Hyung—”

There was no need for a parachute. As my body accelerated in an instant, I swung the hammer down.

And in the moment of teleportation, the hammer I swung hit the target precisely. With the speed and weight of the fall. ‘Bang!’

“Ah! Ah! Oh…”

The man who had been screaming widened his eyes at me. To be precise, he was probably shocked by the monster’s corpse, which had been crushed without a trace by my hammer.

To ease the tension, I opened my mouth.

“Incheon forever.”

“What?”

“Incheon forever!”

“What? Oh, Incheon forever…”

The victory chant should suffice. I stood up and placed the hammer on the ground.

Then I picked up the 55kg hunter rifle.

On the opposite apartment wall, a group of monsters resembling hyenas were climbing up. I aimed the hunter rifle at them and fired without even aiming.

Soon, the 30mm cannon shells fired with a burst of flames began to tear the monsters apart. One shot shattered one monster. The sound of their bodies exploding and the gunfire echoed in almost the same rhythm.

The dying monsters couldn’t even let out a final scream. Only the sound of gunfire and flesh bursting continued to ring out.

*

Gates can open anywhere. They can open inside abandoned buildings, deep in the underground parking lots of apartment complexes, or even underwater or inside reservoirs.

Therefore, it is very difficult to discover exactly where a gate has opened, but it is very easy to notice that a gate has opened nearby.

Inside the gate, the thoughts of the intelligent beings that have lived on this land so far are accumulated. It is a place where all kinds of metaphysical things such as emotions, concepts, and symbols are accumulated.

The moment the gate opens, the things accumulated inside pour out.

Thus, the nearby intelligent beings are swept away by waves of emotions, concepts, and symbols. Even while asleep, the information flooding into their brains forms bizarre nightmares, causing them to wake up with a start.

It takes quite a while for the gate to expand to a size where monsters can escape. So, there is time to escape when you realize that a gate has opened.

However, it is not enough time.

People who couldn’t escape from this neighborhood are screaming on the rooftops of apartments and commercial buildings.

Everywhere you look is pandemonium.

Another piercing scream echoed from the rooftop of a building. Monsters were climbing the walls to attack the people there.

All hunters know these monsters well.

Deathclaws. The most common monsters.

But just because they are common doesn’t mean they are weak. Excluding the gigantic supernatural monsters, Deathclaws are notorious for having killed the most people and the most awakened ones so far.

Deathclaws have long hooked claws on their feet, which are surrounded by energy like a mirage.

Field blades.

A monomolecular cutter created by gathering fields, it literally cuts through anything.

There are no exceptions to what gets cut. Whether it’s titanium or concrete, it gets sliced just by touching that blade. It goes beyond the concept of a simple monomolecular cutter, as it has been learned that even the exceptional field abilities that block missiles are cut without any problem by the field blades of the most insignificant Deathclaw. It’s at a level where you wonder if it’s cutting through space itself.

Of course, the muscles of a body enhancer are nothing more than tofu in front of a kitchen knife compared to those claws.

So, if you let those things approach, both ordinary people and I will inevitably die.

Keeping that fact in mind, I fired the hunter rifle again and again.

‘Bang!’ I shot a Deathclaw that was just about to put its body through the window, shattering it to pieces. I set the control lever to burst fire and shot several more to pieces in an instant, but still, there were too many Deathclaws climbing the walls of the apartments.

I kept shooting and roared at them until my throat was torn.

“Look at me, you b*stards―!”

I’m not some tank in a game. This roar doesn’t have a taunt function that draws all the aggro of nearby enemies.

However, the infrasound embedded in it made them hesitate for a moment.

And the gazes of a few Deathclaws running on the ground turned towards me. They charged at me.

The fact that I was on the rooftop of a twelve-story apartment building didn’t matter to the Deathclaws. They clung to the wall at the height of the second floor with a single leap and started climbing the wall.

Like an adventurer climbing an ice wall with ice axes in both hands, the Deathclaws did the same. They drove their cutting claws into the wall, twisted to fix their bodies, and then drove their claws into a higher position, climbing the wall in an instant.

No, the expression ‘climbing’ doesn’t fit. They were practically running up the wall.

I was not leisurely pouring bullets into them from the rooftop railing, like pouring oil on soldiers climbing ladders on a castle wall.

As I mentioned earlier, those b*stards climbed the wall at a speed almost as fast as a human running. They reached me faster than I could shoot them to pieces.

Meanwhile, the mental net I had spread warned me of danger. The presence of those approaching from the blind spots was caught in the net.

In an instant, the Deathclaws reached the rooftop and leaped at me from all directions.

And I teleported. Not too far, just to the rooftop of the adjacent apartment, as there were people I needed to protect behind me.

As soon as my view changed, I pulled the trigger again. Thus, I shredded the ones gathered where I had been.

“Here! Here!”

People shouted from behind me. It seemed they were calling out to the rescue helicopter.

Soon, the rescue helicopter began to take the survivors on board one after another.

Ah, not only the rescue helicopter but also an attack helicopter arrived. Look at that majestic steel raptor flying with a grand propeller sound.

Even the Deathclaws seemed to find it threatening. I saw a group of Deathclaws scattering to avoid the machine gun fire from the attack helicopter.

I thought that one helicopter might be able to protect this entire area.

“Huh?”

Someone groaned. And I saw the scene that surprised them.

A Deathclaw running on the ground. At first glance, it looked no different from the other Deathclaws, but this monster leaped off the ground.

No, it would be better to say it shot into the air.

Its leap reached the helicopter flying higher than a four-story villa. It thrust its claws into the helicopter’s outer wall, and its body eventually entered the helicopter.

The attack helicopter shook violently.

And I teleported into the attack helicopter.

The view changed abruptly.

“Ah! Ah!”

I saw the machine gunner, whose belly was split open, spilling his intestines, and the helicopter pilot, who was at a loss for what to do with his comrade’s situation and his impending fate.

And a large, fat Deathclaw.

When it saw me, I grabbed the surviving pilot and the dying machine gunner and teleported.

On the apartment rooftop, in front of the people gathered and waiting for rescue, I shouted.

“When the helicopter arrives, take these people first!”

As I set them down, there was a loud explosion. Glancing over, I saw the helicopter crashing.

And the Deathclaw inside?

It survived. And it was unscathed. Neither the impact of the crash nor the explosion and resulting flames could harm a single hair on its body.

The Deathclaw that emerged from the burning helicopter looked around. Then, as if it had found its prey, it started running somewhere, at a speed that almost looked like teleportation.

Rescue helicopters arrived one after another. While those helicopters took the people on the rooftop and flew away, I stood guard nearby.

“Thank you so much!”

As the words of gratitude faded into the air, the radio buzzed.

“Hyung! We’ve gathered! The location is―”