novelraw Chapter 66
Chapter 66
Chapter 66
The next morning, I headed to the training room the Association provided. A sharp medicinal smell tickled my nose.
“Jung Oh-hoon.”
“You told me to come, yes? So I came!”
He shouted that, then held a cup out to me.
“What is this?”
“This would be my breakfast. Third year running actually. They say starting the day with the same menu is good for your health.”
I stared at the black liquid steaming hot, with an egg yolk floating in it, and had complicated feelings.
Between Han Sang-ah and this new guy, neither of them looks remotely normal. Still, I don’t have a reason to refuse food someone’s offering.
“So, what do you think I’m lacking? I’m dying to hear the opinion of the famous, brilliant Hunter Yoo Chan-seok.”
“Well, if you were a patient, multiple organ failure.”
At that, Jung Oh-hoon went, huh?, fished out his phone and tapped around, then looked at me like he couldn’t believe it.
“Hey, Chan-seok. The only way to read that is there’s not a single part of me that’s fine.”
So I’m not Hunter Yoo Chan-seok anymore, I’m just Chan-seok now? Friendly guy huh. If he’s going to call me that, I’m not staying polite either.
“Mr. Jung, you got that correctly. If you’re done stuffing your face… I mean if you’re done drinking, get inside.”
Han Sang-ah was already inside the room, training with a sword.
“Take off the coat.”
The coat she was wearing came from the Refrigerator stock. Training while wearing something that strong won’t count as training.
After my words, she obediently took the coat off.
“Wow, I thought so yesterday too, but you’re incredibly beautiful.”
That was Jung Oh-hoon to Han Sang-ah. This punk talks down to me, but uses honorifics with her.
“I get that sometimes.”
That was her response. Hearing it, Jung Oh-hoon let out a faint, Oh… In the meantime, Han Sang-ah moved the dozens of egg trays stacked in the room.
“What’s that for?”
“Hunter Jung Oh-hoon should do it too, shouldn’t he?”
At that, I went, Ah.
“Right.”
I spoke, and Han Sang-ah addressed Jung Oh-hoon.
“You’ll need to put in a lot of effort. But if you invest enough time and work, you’ll become someone I can trust at my back.”
“That, I’m looking forward to.”
She tilted her head slightly and answered.
“It’s better if we never have to fight back to back. As that means our lives are on the line.”
“That’s not the only time people can stand back to back.”
She gave him a look that said he was hopeless.
“I don’t even need to check to know you’re taller than I am, Hunter Jung Oh-hoon.”
“…”
While the two of them took a moment to get friendly, and while Jung Oh-hoon got a feel for what kind of person Han Sang-ah is, I finished setting up the regimen he’d be put through.
“Mr. Jung, quit the smooth-talking and get over here.”
“Smooth-talking?!”
It is smooth-talking. Seriously, even after learning that Han Sang-ah’s the granddaughter of the Geumyang Group’s owner family, boldly hitting on her like that is something else. I’ll give him that.
“Smooth-talking, smooth-brain or whatever, just get over here already.”
He came to me without fuss. I looked at the mountain of eggs and explained what he’d be doing from now on.
“You’re joking, right?”
Instead of answering, I called Han Sang-ah over. She lifted a hand and tapped the shells of thirty eggs on a tray with her index finger.
When we cracked all thirty, a perfectly blended egg mixture ran out, good enough to cook into a rolled omelet on the spot.
“Now you see that I’m not joking.”
“You, you…!”
In response, I just brought over another tray and slammed it with my palm. That was that.
“Damn.”
Jung Oh-hoon kept quiet, but Han Sang-ah looked a little miffed in her pride. She cracked her own, and the well-mixed egg batter poured out in ribbons.
“…”
“Go on. We brought a ton of eggs anyway. If it’s not enough, we can get more.”
All the egg mixture we made was slated for the Association cafeteria. Maybe it’s because of the carnage I saw in Europe, but I’ve gotten a lot more serious about food.
“What about you two?”
“We’ve got our own work. Until you reach somewhere around Han Sang-ah’s level, think of yourself as married to those eggs.”
I’d already taught him the trick and the method. The rest depends on his talent and how much time and effort he puts in.
Han Sang-ah drew her sword. Facing her, I raised my spear and spoke.
“You’ve got two basics more or less down.”
Observation and control. She no longer moves on pure instinct, and she can precisely regulate the output her body can produce.
“Only one basic is left.”
Prediction. In other words, laying the board, then setting the pieces.
“You need to go beyond just recognizing the opponent’s movement.”
I need to deliberately guide the opponent to move where I want. More precisely, I need to force them into moving in the way I want them to.
“As always,”
I spun the spear once. Her stance shifted immediately.
“You’ll get the gist once we clash.”
I slid across the floor and swept my spear toward her.
“…”
No need to go fast. This isn’t a spar, and the goal isn’t to overwhelm her with my magic. I barely used any magic at all as we traded attacks and counters.
With crisp clacks, my spear and her sword collided.
After about ten exchanges, my spear was at her throat.
“Tell me what went wrong.”
“The things I can do kept on narrowing.”
“Good.”
I nodded. If she’d been trading with me unconsciously, by pure instinct, she wouldn’t have answered like that.
It would’ve just been, I came to, and somehow I’d lost.
“It’s like chess, janggi, or Go.”
You build your attack and defense step by step and keep reducing the opponent’s options.
“But that sounds like something you only use in a war of attrition. Will it be useful for me?”
I nodded.
“If you’re after a one-strike kill, then you either drive the opponent into a state where they can’t dodge, or at least make it hard for them to avoid, then hit.”
“Got it.”
“Go beyond observing the opponent. Try to predict what they’ll do next. It’s fine if you’re wrong. You won’t die for being wrong here and now.”
Make mistakes in a real fight and you die. So you make lots of mistakes here. It all stacks up and becomes capital.
“At first, you’ll take more hits from me than before.”
With that warning, I continued training with her. About five hours later, her body was covered in bruises.
“Mr. Jung, stop spectating and focus on your eggs.”
Meanwhile, Jung Oh-hoon had been staring, dazed, at our bout.
“Ah, sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s just, my eyes were having a feast…”
He finished, then turned back to the eggs. I looked at the bruised Han Sang-ah and spoke.
“That’s it for this part today.”
Among the basics, the task she needs to focus on most is output control. If your motto is one-strike kill, mastering your own power is obviously most important.
I glanced over at Jung Oh-hoon, grunting with an egg and a needle in hand. Truth is, the training I just did with Han Sang-ah is the one he needs most.
A long-range sniper is someone who can attack one-sidedly from a position where the opponent can’t reach him.
Predict the enemy’s movement, use your shots to control them, and land effective hits.
He doesn’t need to master the egg drill to her level. Strictly speaking, once you reach a certain point, its priority falls back.
But if I run the same training with him, my bar for him will be much higher than what I demand of her.
“What’s that?”
He reacted when I pulled out another box.
“Time for medicine.”
Tonics from the Geumyang Group. He watched me take out the contents and frowned like he didn’t get it.
“You take this stuff? Looks more like energy drinks than elixirs. At your level, they probably won’t help much.”
“That’s true for other Hunters at my level.”
They help me to a point. I downed the liquid in a small vial. The faint mana in it won’t become mine anyway.
It just speeds up the current, the river of mana flowing through and out of me. He watched for a moment, then went back to his eggs with a grunt.
“…”
It’ll take a while to reach passing level. It’s not that he lacks talent, but compared to Han Sang-ah, his aptitude is a bit lower. That much is true.
Still, at least he looks serious. That’s something.
About three hours later, he stood perfectly still, staring at an egg without moving a muscle. He burned three hours like that.
“Hey.”
“He’s fine.”
Han Sang-ah started to say something, but I stopped her. He isn’t sleeping on his feet.
“Leave him.”
If this is the way he needs to train, it’s better to let him. By now he’s probably shattered hundreds of eggs in his head.
After a few more hours, he finally moved his hands.
“It looked like he failed in my eyes.”
I answered her simply.
“Yeah. His mind can accomplish it, but his body can’t.”
He only imagined sticking the needle into the eggs over and over. In his head, he’s cracked enough to fill a truck, but he’s barely attempted it with his body.
Now he just needs to get his body to follow what his head’s thinking.
“Mr. Jung, how about we eat and then continue?”
“In a bit. I’ll take care of myself.”
At that, I rose without another word. As I stepped out, someone came toward me, dragging a big box.
“It's the Miracle Junkyard. Hunter Yoo Chan-seok, the gear you used before is finished with repairs.”
“Oh.”
I took the gear out of the box and inspected it. The work was clean. It had been smashed up pretty good.
“How much did the repairs cost?”
He laughed awkwardly.
“As you know, the plate material embedded in your gear is pretty exceptional.”
I didn’t expect it to be cheap. I’d torn the armor plating off a secret weapon Korea had been developing and had it made into plates.
“It was completely destroyed, so… we melted it down and remade the sheets. That does lower performance a bit.”
So they added various materials to reinforce performance. I looked at the invoice he handed me and let out a small sigh.
“Disgustingly expensive.”
“Uh… I’m sorry.”
For a life saved, I guess it’s cheap. I can’t pretend I didn’t rely on this armor in Bratsk after all.
I held out my phone. What can you do, even if it hurts, you have to pay.
“Oh, and… try not to worry too much about it.”
“Huh?”
What’s he talking about all of a sudden? Don’t worry about what?
“Oh, you didn’t know? It’s blowing up right now.”
I stared at the video he pushed toward me. A platform kind of like old YouTube.
And on it…
[Shocking! The reason a less-than-a-year Hunter can play hero]
That was the title on the screen.