How To Survive as a Class a Hunter

41. S-Class Hunter Kang Joon-chi – [4]

And Kang Joon-chi requested.

“Take me to a doctor who operates without a license.”

“What?”

“I said, take me to an unlicensed doctor. A doctor that the government doesn’t even know exists… That way, we can be sure they haven’t been influenced by the government, right?”

I was willing to do anything this friend asked, but… No matter how much I wanted to help, this was a difficult request to fulfill.

“Didn’t you say your internal organs were damaged? Was it your lungs or your heart?”

“So what?”

“Just by looking at you, it’s obvious you’re in a terrible condition. How can an unlicensed doctor fix that? Even in a big hospital, there’s no guarantee the surgery would be successful.”

“Then a healer… If we find one who operates secretly…”

I barely held back a sigh.

“Awakened individuals with such lucrative abilities never hide their powers or operate secretly. They would have already been affiliated with a big hospital.”

“Still… I can’t go to a big hospital. If I go to a big hospital, my medical records will be sent to the government. Then they’ll find out that my force field was easily penetrated by a force field blade…”

“You can’t reveal your weakness?”

“Right. I’ve heard that the government is gathering awakened individuals to form a special unit? Anyway, if they train someone with a force field blade ability to counter me…”

“It’s already well-known that a force field blade can cut through even the most solid force fields. Is there really a need to hide it?”

“Still, they can’t know that even my force field can be penetrated!”

I continued to try to persuade him that looking for an unlicensed doctor or a hidden healer was unreasonable and that he needed to go to a big hospital, but it didn’t work.

Kang Joon-chi kept insisting that he absolutely couldn’t go to a big hospital.

“The moment I go to a hospital, the injury is so severe that the police will come to investigate. And once the police see my face and report it to their superiors, who knows what the government will do!”

This was also stubbornness born from his paranoia. I held back another sigh and said.

“No matter what the government does, no matter what the police do, I’ll stop them.”

“What?”

“I’ll guard the entrance to the operating room, and if anyone tries anything funny, I’ll kill them.”

Was it just bravado? Kang Joon-chi asked suspiciously.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“I killed someone a while ago. He was an exoskeleton ability user at Sowol Station. I killed him with a single kick.”

“Oh, the guy who almost cut your neck in half…”

Muttering that, Kang Joon-chi fell silent for a moment. Maybe he was trying to believe what I was saying.

Or maybe he was thinking, ‘Come to think of it, this guy has killed someone. And I’m also a person…’

He didn’t have the luxury of being lost in thought for long.

I sensed something moving in my mental net.

It was a Deathclaw. I had already detected a few of them in the mountains while checking Kang Joon-chi’s position, so I had my mental net spread out the whole time we were talking.

And then a Deathclaw leaped out of the bushes.

It was a leap aimed at the wounded Kang Joon-chi. The speed of that leap was really like an arrow… Damn it, even though I’ve gotten quite used to their speed, I still find dealing with these guys the most difficult and annoying. The pressure that someone’s head might fly off if I let my guard down or make a mistake is still hard to bear.

I didn’t show that fact. I swung the hammer I was holding in advance, and the hammerhead hit the back of the Deathclaw that had reached right in front of Kang Joon-chi’s nose.

The Deathclaw, whose back skin and spine were crushed together, died without even a scream.

Kang Joon-chi, who realized the situation belatedly, alternated between looking at me and the Deathclaw with wide eyes.

And I said, trying to look as confident as possible, with a deliberately indifferent expression and voice.

“Alright, did you see that?”

“What…”

“If any b*stard tries to mess around, I’ll kill them right away like this monster. And this time, I definitely saved your life, right?”

If I had wanted to kill you, I would have had the opportunity just now without dirtying my hands. I hinted that I was genuinely willing to save your life, and he seemed to understand roughly.

“Yeah, I really owe you my life. Damn, look at those muscles. Seeing the veins bulging in your arms from exertion is scary enough to make me piss myself…”

“Where are you going?”

“Incheon St. Mary’s Hospital.”

“Why Incheon? Ah, well… If it’s a hospital in Incheon, the government wouldn’t have interfered in advance. Even if they did, it would have been in a hospital in Seoul or Busan…”

“Probably. So, shout ‘Long live Incheon’ in advance.”

“Crazy b*stard, they say you force everyone to shout that crazy thing, and it’s not a lie…”

“Long live Incheon, hurry.”

“Yeah, damn it… Long live Incheon.”

In the end, Kang Joon-chi had surgery at the hospital. As promised, I stood guard in front of the emergency room, occasionally glancing at how the surgery was progressing.

While the doctor performing the surgery was giving various instructions, a woman reached out her hand following his words.

She touched Kang Joon-chi’s severed organ. Green smoke emanated from her hand, infusing an unknown energy into Kang Joon-chi’s organ.

It was a healing ability. Knowing that there was such an ability user in this hospital, I brought him here on purpose.

When you hear that ‘an awakened one cannot directly use their ability on another awakened one’s body,’ you might think that abilities don’t work on awakened ones at all, but that’s not true.

An awakened one can only not set the origin point of their ability on another awakened one’s body. Once the ability is activated, it can be applied to another awakened one’s body without much trouble.

For example, the force field blade ability can cut through another awakened one’s body, and my teleportation can move another awakened one’s body. The force field blade ability manifests from one’s own knife or claws, and my teleportation manifests through my body.

Similarly, the healing energy was clearly affecting Kang Joon-chi, as it originated from the hand of that awakened one.

I could see with my own eyes that the severed part, temporarily reattached with forceps, was instantly reconnected.

After some time, the surgery was completed, and as soon as the anesthesia wore off, Kang Joon-chi left the hospital. It was a reckless departure without even properly completing the hospital procedures.

“Shouldn’t you rest after such a major surgery?”

At my question, Kang Joon-chi grimaced.

“Forget it. How can I trust and eat the food they give at the hospital?”

“What’s wrong with hospital food?”

And it wasn’t that Kang Joon-chi didn’t want to eat tasteless healthy food. He spoke in an unnecessarily solemn voice.

“I never accept food from anyone. I even avoid ordering delivery as much as possible.”

“Then how do you manage your meals? Do you prepare everything yourself?”

“No, I wander around the streets and eat at a place I randomly find.

“Anyway, thanks to you, I survived. This grace must be repaid… No, no. I must repay the debt immediately.”

“Repay immediately?”

“You said you spent all your fortune to build a high-rise apartment for ice ability users. So now you’re broke and need to take out a loan to build the apartment, right?”

“That’s true, but are you going to give me money?”

“Of course. I have plenty of money.”

I was about to ask for something other than money but stopped. After organizing my thoughts for a moment, I nodded.

“That would be great.”

“Alright, wait a moment… I can’t transfer the amount I want to give you via bank transfer. I’ll go to the bank and transfer it when the sun rises, so wait, okay? Anyway, thank you so much for helping me…”

*

The next day after parting ways with Kang Junchi, I was mentally shocked when I saw the amount Kang Junchi had sent.

I conveyed my shock through a Huntweb message.

Ⓐ BabyBerserker: Junchi uncle sent a lot of money?! BabyBerserker is not a cheap girl who is swayed by money, but still, I am so touched right now ♥♡♥!!

Ⓢ Kang: (Thumbs up)

Ⓢ Kang: But this crazy guy, after seeing my face in person yesterday, he still did this ㅎㄷㄷ

Ⓢ Kang: I still vividly remember your muscular figure, and seeing this, I can’t hold back anymore

The price of construction materials had skyrocketed so much that the money I had was not enough to build the high-rise apartment I wanted.

So, I had planned to take out a loan and use the money I would earn next year to complete the construction, but Kang Junchi sent an amount that even surprised me. It was enough to buy all the materials needed for the construction before the prices rose even further.

I was happy that one of my worries had disappeared, but I thought.

Was it a good thing that I didn’t ask Kang Junchi to help with my sister when he said he would repay the favor?

At that time, I felt an impulse to ask Kang Junchi to get my sister out of prison.

If Kang Junchi had walked into the prison and brought my sister out, it might not even be considered a jailbreak.

The government and the media do not want to publicly reveal that the existence of an awakened being thoroughly ignores the principle that everyone is equal before the law. That’s why whatever trouble Kang Junchi causes, it doesn’t make the news.

So even if Kang Junchi had brought my sister out, it might not even appear in an internet article…

However, I ultimately did not make that request for two reasons.

First, my sister will be out of prison soon.

Her sentence has less than two years left.

Considering she killed five people, she is getting out quite quickly. Is it because the prison is overcrowded and they are reducing sentences for various reasons to empty the cells?

Also, considering there was no evidence but the government policy required a guilty verdict, or maybe because she was a victim of bullying, the judge initially gave a short sentence.

So, I judged that there was no need to ask an S-class awakened being to get my sister out when she would be released soon.

And the other reason is that I thought Kang Junchi might not take the request well.

I met him in person yesterday, and contrary to my thoughts, Kang Joon-chi was not a thorough outlaw, nor was he an invincible superhuman who looked down on the government.

Didn’t he seem to perceive the government as quite threatening? Even more so, having once nearly died and come back to life, his wariness towards the government must have grown even more.

In this situation, Kang Joon-chi might be reluctant to commit the noisy illegal act of breaking into a prison to help a woman escape. He would think that doing so would only increase the government’s threat assessment of him.

Anyway, the Kang Joon-chi I met in person was quite different from the person I had imagined.

Apart from the human affection and sense of kinship I felt towards him, that point was certainly disappointing.

Just as powerful awakeners in the Third World and Indonesia overturned the existing system, I thought Kang Joon-chi would play that role in Korea. I expected that when the day came when the awakeners felt dissatisfied with the current system and rose up all at once, Kang Joon-chi would step forward as everyone’s representative.

Now it seems it was a vain expectation.

Kang Joon-chi was excessively ordinary and excessively a petit bourgeois, far from being a revolutionary or usurper who would overthrow the country.

Look at what he does, worrying that someone might poison his meal. Instead of choosing to trample the government that he thinks might try to kill him, he chooses a very passive form of resistance by just walking into any store and ordering food.

I can roughly guess why Kang Joon-chi is so petit bourgeois. He is probably quite satisfied with his current situation.

He had a long period of miserable and shabby times in his life. The secret to passing the civil service exam in one year must have come from the desperation to find a way to make a living somehow.

Compared to those desperate times, now as an S-class hunter who can transfer over a hundred billion won just to save his life?

From Kang Joon-chi’s perspective, his situation must seem perfect, with no room for further improvement.

So, he might not think he needs to gain anything more by overthrowing the state.

Even if he has anti-Korean sentiments and calls Koreans sea lice or whatever, he might be so satisfied with his life in Korea that he has no thoughts of leaving for a foreign country where he can’t even communicate.

However, there are still expectations for Kang Joon-chi.

The hallucination I saw… In that hallucination, which seemed to be a future faced by another me, Kang Joon-chi was alive and well.

Did the Kang Joon-chi in the hallucination also almost die while going into the mountains to abuse Deathclaw? It seems likely.

And seeing that the Kang Joon-chi in the hallucination and I were strangers, it would have been difficult for him to find someone to help him. That’s because there aren’t many anti-government awakeners he could trust.

So, the Kang Joon-chi in the hallucination, whose life was in danger, probably had no choice but to call 119. And after being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, he would have survived after undergoing surgery in fear. Thus, his distrust of the government would have significantly diminished.

But in this world, the Kang Joon-chi believes he survived because I, a fellow awakener, protected him. So his paranoia that the government is trying to kill him remains.

So someday, if he finds himself in a situation where that paranoia is further stimulated…

*