How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

19. Ice Ability User Baek Dambi – [4]

When the academy instructor taught how to deal with various monsters, most of the content was about Deathclaws. It was natural since they were the monsters we would face the most.

And about the Flame Spirit?

The academy instructor, who taught about the Rock Spirit for about a minute, saying there wouldn’t be much chance to face it, pointed to a picture of the Flame Spirit and said this.

“If you run into this b*stard, quickly ask a nearby colleague to shoot you in the head. It’s better to go early and comfortably than to burn to death, right?”

Was that remark directed at the non-Awakened hunter aspirants present at the time, or did it include me, the only Awakened one there?

I don’t know.

I spoke into the radio.

“I’ll go. Please make sure to send the transport plane…”

After that, it wasn’t easy to teleport.

It was because I had overused teleportation. How many times had I even used teleportation outside my line of sight?

Even though I was dizzy, my head was spinning too much. Damn it.

I didn’t realize it when adrenaline was pumping, but now that the hunt was over and I was relaxed, my body staggered on its own.

Because of that, I failed to teleport once before finally reaching the rooftop of the apartment.

“Mom…”

“I love you, okay? I love you…”

Even in the midst of dizziness, the survivors on the rooftop already seemed to be in a state of panic.

No wonder, as the floors of the apartment were exploding one by one.

I don’t know much about fire spirits, but it’s not hard to guess what it’s doing now. It seems to be setting the entire apartment on fire to block any escape routes.

Another floor exploded noisily. It felt like being in a war zone.

In the midst of that, a man on the rooftop looked at me. He recognized me.

“Hunter Kim Geuk?”

“Yes, Incheon Manse.”

“Can you teleport us…”

I had to save my strength to refuse. I shook my head, and the man tried to persuade me, but I was too dizzy to hear what he was saying.

I tried to go down the rooftop stairs to do my job, which was to hunt the spirit alone.

It soon became clear that even that was impossible.

The stairs were filled with heat and smoke. I couldn’t suffocate to death before meeting the spirit, so I went back up to the rooftop and shouted.

“The spirit will come up later. Everyone hide to the sides. Hide to the sides!”

After shouting that a few times, everyone did as they were told. And I closed my eyes to recover my concentration a little.

The walkie-talkie rang loudly.

“Hyung! The fire spirit appeared! Are you going to fight it?”

It was Seong Mun-yeong’s voice. I answered as briefly as possible.

“I think I have to.”

“Can you win? That fire spirit, isn’t it a monster that a body enhancer can’t do anything about?”

This b*stard.

I couldn’t understand what kind of answer he wanted. Was he trying to criticize me even though he couldn’t help? He must have been worried and wanted to say something, but honestly, it annoyed me.

That’s why non-awakened people are hopeless. If they can’t help, they should at least cheer, but how dare they…

Following that, a voice came through the radio, belonging to someone who wasn’t an Awakened, but was treated worse than one by society.

“Mr. Kim Geuk? If you’re going to face the Fire Spirit, take me with you.”

I blinked even as I kept my mouth shut, feeling a surge of irritation.

Baek Dambi, this woman who usually kept her mouth shut, suddenly saying something like this?

“Have you ever… caught a Fire Spirit?”

“I haven’t… seen one, but…”

Her voice was breaking up. I could also hear her panting. What on earth was she doing right now?

For some reason, I looked down towards the building and frowned.

Someone was running towards the building, panting heavily.

It seemed to be Baek Dambi. She was trying to get as close as possible to make it easier for me to teleport her. This showed that she wasn’t just making empty promises about helping me.

But could she really help me? I didn’t have the luxury to question her further.

After a brief hesitation, I teleported and arrived in front of her.

“Uh…”

Baek Dambi stopped running and stood next to me.

I looked at her, feeling dizzy from the vertigo.

Baek Dambi, she was holding a large water bottle in her arms, making it hard to believe she had run all the way here. Why did she bring that in the first place? Was this crazy woman planning to douse the Fire Spirit’s flames with water?

Before I could ask anything, Baek Dambi spoke first.

“You look really bad…”

Her gaze alternated between my face, with parts of my ear and cheek missing, and my left hand, with three fingers cut off. I spoke softly.

“It seems like the bleeding has stopped.”

“Yes, but…”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Are you really going to fight in that condition?”

“What about you? Why are you suddenly volunteering to do something?”

“Just, well…”

“Anyway, you’re saying you’ll fight with me, right?”

Baek Dambi nodded, and I didn’t want to waste time with small talk. I grabbed her shoulder and teleported back to the rooftop.

I didn’t know what she was thinking, but if she turned out to be useless, I could just throw her off the apartment building. According to her own explanation of her abilities, she wouldn’t die from something like that.

Baek Dambi immediately started doing something.

“I’ll try my best to make sure we burn less…”

Baek Dambi splashed the bottled water she was holding at me. As the water scattered in the air and met her gaze, it turned into tiny ice shards, which then clung to my body under her command.

She said she would help me burn less. I guess this is what she meant. It must be exhausting to use her power indirectly due to the limitation of not being able to use it directly on an awakened one’s body, but she seemed quite skilled.

And then I took a moment to rest. Among the people begging me to teleport them, those endlessly murmuring “I love you” to someone on the phone, and those praying, I closed my eyes and stayed still for a moment.

I couldn’t rest for long.

Before long, people’s screams echoed.

“Ah!”

I turned my head in the direction of their gaze.

A crimson light source climbing the smoke-filled rooftop stairs came into my blurry view. Each of its steps was accompanied by flames and smoke.

A fire spirit was coming up.

Through the smoke, the figure of the creature climbing the stairs appeared as a burning silhouette. It looked like a mass of fire was coming up. It probably was.

Just by looking at it, you could tell it was a monster impervious to bullets or machine gun fire. They say high-explosive shells can break its form with their blast pressure, but it’s such a rare monster, and I’ve heard there are few success stories since it can explode a tank’s engine and ammunition with just a glance.

Will an ice user’s power work on that thing? I don’t know. I won’t have high expectations.

I resolved to face it alone.

Before confronting it, I took one last look around.

First, the audience, well-placed on both sides. I don’t like their frightened expressions, but anyway.

The ring girl, I don’t know why she’s wearing a crop top instead of a tank top, but she’s standing well over there…

Good, everything is perfectly prepared. I closed my eyes and opened them again to overcome my dizziness.

I am standing in the octagon.

“Th-th-th. Th…”

I played my entrance song with my mouth and glared at the opponent who had climbed into the octagon.

Just now, a fireball hyena set foot on the rooftop.

It’s a fire spirit.

Its head and body, limbs, and tail were all made of flames. Its golden, blazing eyes and nostrils flashed on its fiery face.

Judging by its appearance, it must be a spirit born from a Deathclaw that awakened to fire abilities and spiritually evolved. Its characteristic hook claws gleamed with a force field.

“Incheon forever.”

I tried to touch gloves before the match, but the referee was nowhere to be seen.

And the spirit didn’t wait for the referee’s signal. It acted first.

The fire spirit opened its burning jaws wide. Something dark red swirled inside its mouth.

Whatever it was trying to do, it didn’t look good. I had to make a quick decision.

Should I prepare to dodge to the side?

No. There are spectators standing on both sides.

As I took a deep breath in preparation for the clash, a thick and fierce stream of flames burst from the spirit’s mouth.

The flames were too thick, way too thick.

Seeing the flames filling my vision, I moved unconsciously. Charge.

I ran straight ahead. With my eyes closed, I relied on the information provided by the mental net.

“Ah!”

The sight of me running head-on towards the stream of flames must have been unsettling for the spectators.

Even as my whole body was burning, the screams echoing from behind were delightful. The fact that they empathized with my pain meant they were cheering for me. I am this popular.

I ignored the pain of my skin peeling off and my blood boiling, fueled by adrenaline. I kept pushing off the ground.

Finally reaching the spirit, I swung my hammer down. Strong enough to accompany the blow with a shockwave, strong enough for the shockwaves to extinguish the flames.

‘Bang!’ Indeed, the hammer blow and the resulting shockwave shattered the spirit’s form. The stream of flames it was spewing also ceased.

So, did I kill it?

No. I didn’t completely extinguish its flames.

The flames scattered by my blow gathered again in one place. The hyena’s form reappeared before my eyes. The spirit, regenerated in an instant, swung its hooked claws and slashed my chest.

The blood that spurted out evaporated immediately in the flames.

Gritting my teeth, I swung my hammer down again. ‘Bang!’

As the shockwave shattered the spirit’s form once more, I felt a coldness enveloping my body, easing the pain.

I opened my eyes slightly to see what was happening and was surprised.

A blizzard had explosively started to rage…

The ring girl had intervened in the battle. It would have been better if I could have done it alone, but I won’t blame her.

Even in the swirling blizzard, the spirit’s flames remained intact. The spirit, whose body had begun to recover, was glaring at me.

However, its size had noticeably decreased.

The reformed flame spirit charged at me.

And I swung my hammer down even harder.

‘Bang!’ Once again, the spirit’s form crumbled without fail. The shockwave from the hammer blow extinguished the spirit’s flames and scattered the flames that made up the spirit.

The flames that were pushed far away were caught in the area where the blizzard was strongest. Steam erupted explosively, engulfing the spirit’s flames.

Meanwhile, the spirit was regenerating in front of me again. But unlike before, it was a pitiful flame, and something translucent was glimmering within it.

It was clear at a glance that it was the final flame.

When I swung my hammer again, the flame that was about to burn for the last time in front of me was extinguished.

Soon, the raging blizzard subsided. I turned around in the steam.

I took in the sight of the survivors, barely visible through the haze.

The cheers of the crowd echoing within me overlapped with the shouts of those in reality. My name was chanted continuously like a reverberation.

“Kim Geuk! Kim Geuk! Kim Geuk―!”

As the spirit of the fallen elemental seeped into me, I raised my arm high to declare victory.

Then, as I came to my senses, I saw Baek Dambi’s face. She had taken off her sunglasses, revealing her expression.

Surprisingly, Baek Dambi looked excited. It was the first time I realized that she could make any expression other than annoyance or irritation… She was clenching her fists and making a determined ‘aja’ expression.

Then our eyes met.

Baek Dambi seemed to think I looked terrible. She flinched and hurriedly asked,

“Are you okay? No, don’t answer. Oh my, your entire skin is burnt. Seeing the blisters forming immediately, it doesn’t seem like it’s burnt to the core, but still…”

It was the first time I saw her fussing like this.

Despite feeling dizzy and in excruciating pain from the burns all over my body, I suddenly found her cute.

Was it because the spirit of the elemental had seeped into me, transferring its heat? For the first time since my awakening, I felt something heating up between my legs, which had always been limp.

Drunk on the feeling of victory and something indescribable, I laughed. Baek Dambi, who had been watching me anxiously, awkwardly laughed along.

I won.

*

“He was unbelievably tough, wasn’t he? As you all saw in the footage from the broadcast helicopter, he didn’t die even after being hit by machine gun fire like rain. From what I saw at the scene, it seemed like an awakened one from abroad had already shot him several times before I engaged. Yes, the one who was criticized for dying so pathetically despite being paid so much.

At the point when that awakened one hit him with a few shots, that b*stard with the force field should have been shattered to pieces. No one could have expected such a tough guy to appear, so it was really bad luck. I don’t know his original nationality, but judging by his last moments, he was definitely an honorary Incheon citizen. Let’s have a moment of silence for him.”

“At the academy, they taught us that when a gate opens, seeing about ten Deathclaws come out is a lot, right? But seeing dozens of them swarming in one place was just absurd.”

“Did I take down more than two-thirds of the ones that crawled out of the gate by myself? How can you verify that… Ah, it’s obvious which ones were blown up by the machine gun fire, isn’t it? Yes, my will to protect Incheon is that strong.”

“Honestly, I feel like I did most of the work, but my team members definitely helped too. When I was fighting that b*stard with the force field, I almost cried from the support fire. I was worried because there were some older members in the team, but they all did their part well, contrary to my concerns, so I’m happy.

I and these people learned at the Bupyeong Hunting Academy. It’s about a five-minute walk from Bupyeong Station, and the curriculum is solid and the price is reasonable for what you get…”

“Oh, and Baek Dambi. Honestly, I didn’t expect much, but she was amazing. When she introduced herself, she said she had reached the realm of elementals. At that time, I didn’t understand what kind of nerdy thing she was talking about.

But seeing her this time, I can see why she introduced herself like that. You all saw that incredible blizzard in the video, right? That was Baek Dambi. The situation was a bit special, but anyway, she was a huge help. If possible, I’d like to keep her around in the future.

So, if you have any shame, those who tried to slander her and break the contract… The Seoul scum hiding in Incheon should hang themselves and apologize immediately. What? The ones doing wicked things in Incheon are all from Seoul. I know everything.”

“Oh, am I the first in the country to capture a fire elemental? Really? Then do I get some kind of title? If I can’t get a real title, can I at least get a title in Dungeon Fighter Online? I’d like a top-tier one with +22 fire resistance. I’m on the Cain server, and my adventure team name is…”

“A++ grade hunter Kim Geuk, praised for exceeding expectations despite Incheon’s financial difficulties, having been brought in for over 50 billion won… Yes, that’s right. I’m that great. Don’t forget that Park Mi-hyung, a member of the Incheon City Council, invited me here to be a hunter.”

“Long live Incheon! To all the residents of Incheon, I hope you can overcome these tough times. If you survive through the hardships, you’ll eventually be the winner. What? People outside of Incheon? Well, they can live or die as they please… Once again, let’s chant the spell of victory. Long live Incheon!”