TRG04

Chapter 4

‘How long do these types of buffs usually last?’

I couldn’t recall exactly, but I remembered hearing that even the buff skills of S-rank professional Buffer Hunters didn’t stretch much past an hour. It stood to reason, then, that Hunter Yoon Ju-young’s Stealth skill wouldn’t exceed an hour either.

‘If I compare the remaining time until the Gate’s entry restriction is lifted against the duration of the Stealth skill… even by the most generous estimates, it’s not enough.’

Furthermore, things were bound to get ugly once Yoon Ju-young’s Stealth wore off. It would be one thing if I were hiding in this rock crevice alone, but trying to hide with him meant the scent of blood pouring from his abdomen would be impossible to mask.

Magic beasts inside dungeons basically have blood-scenting as a passive skill. It was better for my peace of mind to discard any optimistic delusions that the creature might somehow miss the smell.

‘What do I do…?’

The thought of stepping up to hunt it myself crossed my mind, but I immediately shook my head. Impossible. If a B-rank Hunter couldn’t take it down, what could I possibly do?

Maybe if I had an Awakening skill with a specialized edge, there might be a glimmer of hope… but unfortunately, my Awakening skill was… well, it certainly was “specialized,” just not in a helpful way.

I narrowed my eyes and opened my Status Window. The translucent blue screen, visible only to me, displayed brief information about ‘me.’

<Status Window>

Name / Age: Yoon Seo-hee (尹胥喜) / 27

Awakened: Y

Rank: EX

Awakened Skills: * —Dominator’s Garden (?) * —Mana * Asterism (C) —

‘Even looking at it again, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with this.’

From the rank to the skills, every line was a technicolor disaster.

Instead of a specific letter like C or S that others had, my rank was the inexplicable EX (Extra)—essentially “off the charts.” Then there was the unranked skill sitting in my primary slot.

Honestly, when I first saw my Status Window, I was incredibly excited.

Think about it. Doesn’t it sound like a protagonist from a fantasy novel? Anyone would get their hopes up seeing a unique trait that no one else possesses.

But those expectations were utterly crushed before long. The reason was brutally simple.

The skill never activated.

Actually, to be precise, the skill would activate, but no effect ever manifested.

The world is vast and skills are many. While some skill names like “Stealth” are intuitive, there are plenty like mine where the effect is impossible to grasp. Such skills are usually “Unique Skills”—either the first of their kind or exclusive to one individual—and in these cases, the Status Window doesn’t provide a description initially.

These skills only reveal their descriptions after the user manages to trigger the effect in some way. Unfortunately, I fell into that category.

In the Hunter industry, skills with unknown effects and no visible way to trigger them are commonly referred to as “Trash Skills.” No matter how good the potential effect might be, what use is a skill if you don’t know what it does or the minimum conditions required to use it?

‘This is driving me crazy. Is there really no way…? Huh?’

“Hunter Yoon Ju-young?”

I had just run out of the potions I was pouring onto his abdomen. While rummaging through my inventory for a new bottle, I noticed something strange. I hurriedly pressed my ear to his mouth.

“……”

No breath. Forgetting to breathe myself, I moved my ear to his chest. Fortunately, his heart was still beating.

Respiratory distress due to excessive blood loss? Does that happen?

I’m not a doctor, so I wouldn’t know. All I knew was that you’re supposed to perform CPR on someone who isn’t breathing, though I had no idea if that applied to someone with a hole in their stomach bleeding out.

“Yoon—Mr. Yoon Ju-young! Wake up! Hey!”

I slapped his cheeks a few times and shouted his name, but there was no response. Relying on the Stealth skill, I practically screamed, but he remained still.

Damn it. Do I have to do mouth-to-mouth? Is that even allowed right now?

I glanced down at his abdomen. Beneath his torn shirt, I could see the wound where the skin was barely, crudely knitting back together. It seemed my cheap potions weren’t entirely useless, but blood was still surging from the areas that hadn’t healed yet.

‘To hell with it.’

It’s all or nothing. Doing something has to be better than doing nothing. I uncorked a fresh potion, dumped the entire bottle onto his wound, and immediately began CPR.

How many chest compressions was it? How many breaths? Damn it, I couldn’t remember clearly in the heat of the moment. I think it was around thirty.

I urgently pumped his chest thirty times, then pinched his nose and delivered rescue breaths. After repeating the cycle a few times…

“Cough! Ack…!”

“…! Mr. Yoon Ju-young, can you hear me?!”

His breathing returned. I leaned in close to his mouth; I could definitely feel the air this time. Wow, this man really just took a round trip to the afterlife.

I tried to steady my trembling hands and regulate my own breathing. With my own life on the line, if Yoon Ju-young had actually died…

I didn’t even want to think about it. The idea of someone dying because of me was the absolute worst-case scenario among all possible disasters.

“Hunter Yoon Ju-young, stay with me. You can’t die. If you die, I’m… I’m going to just give up and die too. You hear me?”

“Cough, Wheeze…!”

“Don’t you dare think about dy—”

Before I could finish, something like a hot draft poured down from above. In an instant, a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature crawled down my spine. Holding my breath, I slowly looked up.

It was there.

‘Madness.’

Between dozens of pitch-black, needle-like fangs, a monster flicked its long tongue, staring right at us. It was the Red Chimera.

“Aaakh!”

Like most people when a ghost suddenly jumps out in a horror movie, I screamed and reflexively pulled Yoon Ju-young into a tight embrace.

Thanks to that, the dying man let out a faint groan. It sounded like he was gasping that he couldn’t breathe, but unfortunately, I wasn’t in an environment where I could cater to the whimpers of a dying man.

‘Crazy, did the Stealth skill run out?’

Thinking about it, it was about time. If even top-tier S-rank Hunters maxed out their buffs at an hour, it was a miracle a mere B-rank had lasted over ten minutes.

I gritted my teeth and pulled Yoon Ju-young closer. Meanwhile, the red Chimera was dripping saliva, trying to wedge its face into the crevice between the rocks where we were hiding.

‘The only saving grace is…’

Fitting for a boss of a low-difficulty dungeon, the Red Chimera was remarkably stupid. It was wasting effort trying to force its head into a gap far narrower than its skull.

‘What do I do?’

Its lack of intelligence had bought us some time, but it didn’t mean our chances of survival had suddenly spiked.

As soon as that red lizard squeezed its few remaining brain cells to just smash the rocks or fire those long tentacles at us, this brief reprieve would be over.

‘And there’s nothing I can do with the time I’ve bought.’

It would be a different story if I had a hidden trump card, but all I had were a few bottles of cheap potions and a dying B-rank Hunter in my arms.

I gritted my teeth and glared at my Status Window in resentment once more.

<Status Window>

Name / Age: Yoon Seo-hee (尹胥喜) / 27

Awakened: Y

Rank: EX

Awakened Skills: * —Dominator’s Garden (?) <Available> * —Mana * Asterism (C) —

Even the other C-rank Hunters around me didn’t have skills they literally couldn’t use. I couldn’t understand why I was the only one like this.

Especially that skill with the grand-sounding name. My initial Awakening skill, “Dominator’s Garden,” with its unknown rank and effect, was the sole object of my resentment.

‘I didn’t even want anything grand. If only I had even a discarded passive like “Increased Gathering Effectiveness”… Huh?’

Wait. Something was different. I squinted and looked at my Status Window again.

Awakened Skills: * —Dominator’s Garden (?) <Available> * —Mana * Asterism (C) —

“Available?”

Letters that had never appeared before were now sitting right next to my familiar skill. I mouthed the word to myself. ‘Available’…

‘It’s available? Now?’

It had never worked before, so why now?

I blinked dumbly at the screen. Then, startled by the hot breath hitting me from above, I jerked my head up.

Finally giving up on shoving its massive head into the crevice, the Chimera was sprouting those tentacle-like appendages from its back.

‘It’s now or never.’

I didn’t know the effect, the conditions, or the side effects. It was a complete mystery, but this was the only gamble I had left.

I glared at the lizard as it aimed its leathery tentacles toward us, and I shouted with every ounce of desperation and hope I had left.