Chapter 004
“Sigh, she just won’t stop crying.”
On a snowy winter day, the seven-year-old kid who came to the orphanage was full of tears.
It was to the point where even veteran childcare workers, who had raised hundreds of children, found it exhausting.
They said that except for when she fell asleep from exhaustion, she was whimpering or crying no matter what she was doing.
There was no end to the worry that I might be ill, as I had shut my mouth from the shock of losing my parents and did nothing but cry like my life depended on it.
However, they said that all those worries vanished once I started speaking again.
“It’s too loud.”
“My nose hurts.”
“This tastes strange.”
As it turned out, I had developed sensory hypersensitivity as a side effect of being sucked into a Gate.
Eventually, classified as a ‘Prospective Awakened,’ I was moved to a Hunter Academy and grew up undergoing grueling training.
But having failed to awaken even after reaching adulthood, I was reduced to nothing more than a sensitive parasite.
As the only one in the Academy who didn’t awaken, I was a constant target of bullying, and while all my peers joined prestigious guilds and lived grand lives, I was discarded into society. Without having received a single bit of the education required for an ordinary person.
To a commoner who isn’t a Prospective Awakened, an extremely keen sense was nothing but a poison.
“I’m not sure if I should be saying this…… but how about getting a prescription for Hunter-grade sedatives? It’s illegal and quite expensive, but…….”
There was no way I, who couldn’t maintain a proper social life due to my sensitive senses, could afford the price of Hunter medicine. Besides, I was just a civilian.
“Then at least try smelling some Herazen oil. Hunters use it as an emergency measure in dungeons, so it should have some calming effect.”
The single bottle of oil the doctor handed me.
That became the turning point that determined the direction of my life.
[A Comforting Scent for the Sensitive: We-hyang]
I opened ‘We-hyang,’ a healing therapy shop where I use my superior sense of smell to create and sell oils and perfumes.
It was because I wanted to help civilians and Hunters who, like me, suffer from sensory hypersensitivity.
……And right now, I was found collapsed in front of my shop.
Meow—.
By Mimi, the black stray cat I feed.
Nudge, rub. Nudge, rub.
Watching Mimi rub her body against my calves for food, I slowly closed and opened my eyes.
Why am I here……. And why am I lying in front of the door like a homeless person instead of on the shop’s sofa?
“So, let’s see…….”
Ignoring the shame of being sprawled out on the street, I retraced my recent memories.
I was sucked into a Gate, I awakened, and I used that power to find the exit.
[Gate Cleared! Would you like to receive your reward?]
I even saw the Gate Clear message, something I thought I’d never see in my life.
……It didn’t feel real. Just a bizarre sensation, as if I had dreamed it.
Hesitantly, I moved my lips and spoke a certain word.
“……Status Window.”
Flash!
The status window appeared before my eyes.
^[Name: Ye Bin-na]^
^[Hidden Class: Novice Owner of a Healing Therapy Shop]^
“It’s real…….”
I thought I had seen a hallucination because I wasn’t in my right mind when I found the exit, but a square status window with cat ears was blinking industriously before me.
Clearly, the status window I saw when I was being sucked into the Gate was a perfectly ordinary square shape.
However, the status window that appeared when I used my Awakening skill to find the exit was…… a bit strange.
Just like now.
To think there were two cat ears attached to the top corners of the status window.
^[Title Acquired: Guide of Labyrinthos]^
^[Remaining Stat Points: 1]^
“Why did the shape of the status window suddenly change?”
I couldn’t be sure, but I had one suspicion.
Just before the Gate exit appeared, a black cat statue had randomly appeared inside a shifting labyrinth wall.
I had an intuition the moment I saw it that the statue was related to the exit.
Sure enough, the exit appeared as soon as I touched the cat’s head. And simultaneously, the status window changed its appearance.
“There’s no law saying a status window can’t evolve…… I guess. Sure.”
Meow!
As I remained motionless while lying down, the hungry cat’s voice grew sharper.
^[Hidden Class: Novice Owner of a Healing Therapy Shop]^
“A shop owner……. Is it something like a traveling merchant?”
Like an NPC you meet in a game, or maybe similar to a monster that carries a treasure bag?
Even while attending the Hunter Academy, I had never heard of such a class existing.
Besides special classes like Summoners or Enhancers…… there was something else?
‘And an out-of-spec class at that?’
“It feels like I’ve pulled something incredible……. but I can’t tell if it’s in a good way or a bad way, this.”
I moved my index finger to scroll down the status window.
“Maybe I’ll get a better idea if I look at the description…….”
^[Healing and therapy for those exhausted by daily life! The peace of Earth and the salvation of humanity is……]^
“……Mimi, I’ll give you your food.”
Meow—!
I quietly pressed the ‘X’ button on the stat window and stood up.
I’ll just act as if I never awakened.
* * *
“Ah, haha. Ahahaha! Our Hunter Kang is! He even has an excellent sense of humor! Ahahaha!”
“…….”
“Isn’t that right, Lee Ahn! If not Hunter Kang, then who else could clear the Gate! Eh?”
Khahaha!
Chairman Maeng laughed boisterously, but his pupils were trembling piteously.
As if casting a desperate look at the cold-faced Hunter sitting before him, begging him to say it was just a joke.
However, only a heavy silence flowed from Jin-seo’s mouth.
Chairman Maeng tried to ignore the chill running down his spine and looked at Lee Ahn, who was sitting next to Jin-seo.
Since Lee Ahn was like Hunter Kang’s personal secretary, he felt the man might at least tell him the unfunny joke was a joke.
“…….”
Lee Ahn shook his head with a troubled expression.
In that instant, Chairman Maeng’s heart plummeted to the floor.
“Hunter Kang! Say it with your own mouth! W-who on earth besides you could have cleared the……! Ugh!”
“C-Chairman!”
Chairman Maeng clutched the back of his neck, unable to handle the surging blood pressure.
Jin-seo, meanwhile, had maintained a chilled expression from beginning to end.
“I’ve already told you, I wasn’t the one who cleared it.”
“……Then who was it!”
“It was a woman. I suspect she’s an unregistered Hunter.”
“Unregistered?”
“No mana was detected, as if I were looking at an ordinary person, even though I was looking at her with my own eyes.”
At Jin-seo’s vivid eyewitness account, the room gradually fell into a stunned silence.
“I came here to ask you to find that Hunter. She vanished the moment we left the Gate.”
“Sigh…….”
Chairman Maeng stumbled, holding his forehead.
“R-right now, not only the President but also representatives from various countries are flying in to meet you……!”
“Tell them to go back.”
Chairman Maeng groaned, feeling as if his future had turned pitch black.
The whole world is watching Korea right now……! If it’s revealed that it wasn’t Kang Jin-seo, but some unidentified Hunter who cleared it……!
And that Kang Jin-seo will never participate in the act of wearing a false crown……!
Damn it! How embarrassing!
Just then, Lee Ahn spoke up.
“If she was able to evade Hunter Kang Jin-seo’s detection, there’s a high probability she’s an SS-rank Hunter. If that’s truly the case…….”
“SS-rank……?”
“Yes, the world’s first rank of its kind.”
“The world’s first…….”
Chairman Maeng, who had been blinking and organizing his thoughts, suddenly shook his cheeks and barked out orders.
“Immediately! Find that Hunter right now and bring her before me! And don’t breathe a word to the media!”
Jin-seo leisurely exited the chaotic Chairman’s office. Naturally, Lee Ahn was by his side.
Lee Ahn handed him a fresh carton of milk and asked.
“Even you couldn’t sense her and lost her; do you think the Hunter Association stands a chance?”
“170cm, long straight hair, slender build.”
“There must be tens of thousands of women like that in Korea.”
“Find her. Or the Gates will explode.”
“…….”
If a Gate that neither Kang Jin-seo, nor the world’s renowned Hunters, nor the few Hunters with Exploration skills could clear were to explode…….
It could truly be the end of humanity.
That incredible Hunter had to be found at any cost.
“I’m asking how we’re supposed to find her…….”
While Lee Ahn was feigning tears, sensing an infinite cycle of overtime work, a message arrived on Jin-seo’s phone.
Confirming the sender was a certain guild leader who pestered him, Jin-seo was about to lock his screen, but he paused at the content in the preview.
[Thanks for clearing the Gate, Hunter Kang ><! Thanks to you, our Academy alumni reunion will proceed as scheduled! Participant List: Ye Bin-na, Kim Woo-jin, Kim Seong-tae, Na Yi-ran…….]
‘Academy Alumni Reunion’ and ‘Ye Bin-na.’
Those were the words that caught his eye.
Normally, it was a gathering he wouldn’t have given a second thought to, but things were different now.
Because the back of the woman he had lost at the Gate had momentarily overlapped with the image of a certain girl he had met at the Academy.
That girl who was always looking out the large window.
As the image of that back, which he had tried so hard to forget, resurfaced, the calm ripples in Jin-seo’s heart began to stir.
