Second Life of a Dragon Raising Hunter

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Chapter 63

Just as expected, around lunchtime, an alert chimed from the terminal. Someone had arrived. Yeon-woo, wiping the sweat from his brow with a wet towel, skillfully operated the terminal to open the door.

Whoosh, with the sound of air releasing, Kim Yoo-min walked in.

Her footsteps were somewhat lackluster, and her long black hair swayed wearily. Her complexion was pale, and dark circles under her eyes indicated that she hadn’t been sleeping well lately.

Seeing her in a more serious state than expected, Yeon-woo rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

‘Is it worse than I thought?’

[W-What’s wrong?]

Both Shar and Yeon-woo, feeling a peculiar pressure emanating from her lack of energy, hesitated. Fortunately, Yeon-woo, regaining his senses first, greeted her.

“Y-Yoo-min? Did you… not sleep well last night?”

“Hey, Yeon-woo… I’ve just been having trouble sleeping lately.”

It didn’t seem like just trouble sleeping, but I swallowed the words deep in my throat. Times like this required a steady head. If I got swept up in the gloomy atmosphere, all the promises I had made with Kim Hyun-soo would surely fall away.

“What’s going on? You haven’t even been coming to the morning training that you usually love.”

“I think I’m just a little tired…”

Kim Yoo-min glanced at Yeon-woo as if weighing his reaction, before quietly adding,

“…I have some worries.”

It wasn’t surprising that Yeon-woo rushed to her side upon hearing this. After all, he had shared promises with Kim Hyun-soo.

Kim Yoo-min has worries? Solving them would surely tie directly to keeping the promise made with Kim Hyun-soo.

“What kind of worries? Come on, friends should confide in each other. Spill it!”

Seeing the situation unfolding, Shar brought over two glasses of water. Kim Yoo-min accepted the glass nervously, and Yeon-woo patted the seat beside him with his palm.

As she instinctively curled up beside him, Kim Yoo-min took a moment to gauge the atmosphere.

It made sense. If she could just say it in an instant, it wouldn’t be a worry to begin with. Yeon-woo, taking a sip of his water, decided to break the ice.

“Before that, let’s catch up. How have you been for the past week?”

“Uh? Well, I’ve just gone about my usual routine… attending classes and training.”

“Really? Have you improved a lot? Huh? I’ve mastered the Aura Blade, you know. I might just wipe the floor with someone like you.”

Kim Yoo-min’s eyebrows twitched.

“…Huh? Just the Aura Blade?”

“Hmm~? I wouldn’t say that if you hadn’t been slacking off on your training, Yoo-min~!”

Yeon-woo began poking at Kim Yoo-min, who was already showing a frustrated expression.

Naturally, the tension began to rise in her voice, which had been hesitating and dripping with gloom. Anger, after all, tends to bring about undesirable situations, but it might occasionally ignite a person’s motivation too.

“Want to throw down? Huh? Want to throw down?”

“Why would I?”

“Scared?”

Crack, the silence suddenly shattered into a moment of stillness.

…An eerie calm filled the Body Training Room, making it feel like time had come to a standstill, enveloped by a silence that seemed to intangibly fill the space.

‘Ah.’

It seems I just hit a forbidden button.

The reason the Body Training Room was constructed spacious enough for multiple people to train wasn’t for no reason. It was made so that groups could train together.

In essence, it was built with sparring in mind. This wasn’t just specific to the Nangong family’s training rooms; all Body Training Rooms were designed this way.

At the center of that Body Training Room stood Yeon-woo and Kim Yoo-min, facing off. Kim Yoo-min was barehanded, while Yeon-woo wielded a doppleganger weapon transformed into a wooden sword.

The situation couldn’t be better. Kim Yoo-min had no gloves, while he did. It’s true that the presence of a weapon doesn’t necessarily point toward a significant advantage in the realm where they could both use Aura, but it was a minor difference that could matter.

But did that mean he could beat Kim Yoo-min? That would be hard to say.

The only reason he could claim a narrow victory or a draw during the spar with Namgung Seong was that he understood and utilized the nuances of his opponent well, while Namgung Seong had willingly imposed numerous constraints on himself.

However, expecting Kim Yoo-min to engage his opponent without holding back like Namgung Seong would be unrealistic.

‘She must be furious.’

Of course, even in her rage, she’d keep it from becoming fatal, but Kim Yoo-min was a monster who ranked in the top 1% among Hunters, so no matter how he tried to cover with battle experience, defeat was almost certain.

‘Still, I guess I can give it my best shot.’

He didn’t know what worries Kim Yoo-min held, but he anticipated that this spar would somehow assist in venting those worries.

Humans are inherently simple creatures, often finding relief from their troubles through mere physical expression—smashing things around them is one way to let it out.

So maybe thinking he’d become the noble sacrifice this time wouldn’t be so bad after all.

‘Not bad? Ha!’

What’s so not bad about getting beat up to a pulp?

Types like Kim Yoo-min, who just barreled through with pure physical ability without fancy techniques, may be okay to face as a Hunter, but sparring against them would be challenging.

As he pondered this, Shar, standing between Yeon-woo and Kim Yoo-min, shifted his gaze back and forth.

“Ready!?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Alright, let’s see how much you’ve improved!”

With that, Kim Yoo-min cracked her knuckles. It was an aggressively charged posture that bore a striking resemblance to the way she had been not long ago, and it made Yeon-woo feel at ease as he pointed his wooden sword.

“Get set.”

Kim Yoo-min extended her arms forward and lightly clenched her fists. Her stance resembled a boxing style, not taking any quick steps but rather bending forward as if preparing to charge.

“On three—”

A hollow silence.

“Go!!”

As Shar’s arm shot up, Yeon-woo leaped back while swinging his sword at an angle. It was to interrupt Kim Yoo-min’s advance and establish a more favorable distance. However, the expectation hit true; Kim Yoo-min, crouching forward, retreated a step.

As the trajectory of the sword passed, Kim Yoo-min, who hadn’t halted, again surged forward, compressing the space between them in an instant. Like a bullet, her body shot right into close range.

“What the hell, you’re so fast!!”

“Basic stuff!”

Her body, enhanced by Aura, delivered punches at a blistering pace. He managed to deflect the first few hits with the sword, but as the speed increased, Yeon-woo was forced to defend, evade, and retreat.

No matter how he tried to block with his sword, it became impossible to keep up with her speed, causing Yeon-woo to stagger backward. A quick glance behind him showed the wall of the training room had crept dangerously close.

Turning back to Kim Yoo-min’s direction, he realized In-young was no longer there. He hurriedly dropped his gaze, spotting Kim Yoo-min sharply crouching forward with her fist poised at her side.

‘This is bad…!’

Had she sneaked in through the opening in his vision? Was that an uppercut? Or maybe a body blow? Without the luxury of discerning the type, she suddenly kicked high up with her leg.

Thud!!

The body blow collided with the sole of her foot. The issue? Kim Yoo-min held the thickly formed Aura Blade in her right hand. Despite pouring out all his Aura, he felt it shatter against the Aura encasing her fist.

In a panic, Yeon-woo swung his sword. He struck directly at her shoulder, but the thick barrier of Aura absorbed the impact.

Of course, whether he managed to land a hit on Yeon-woo or not wasn’t so important. What mattered was that he channeled force into his sword, raised his leg, and swiftly dodged to the side.

However, the undeniable advantage of unarmed combat was speed. The recovery from the attacks was swift, and when entering a melee, the sword would become exceedingly disadvantaged.

Even more so, Kim Yoo-min’s gaze wasn’t the least bit ordinary. In terms of being special, the Student Council President’s eyes were more formidable, but as far as being engaged in a person-to-person combat, Kim Yoo-min’s perceptiveness should never be underestimated.

It was like she possessed draconic eyes, granting her an almost supernatural insight to detect the slightest movements of an opponent’s body, even in the absence of any magical effect.

Even though it had only been a few years since she began serious training, her name was often mentioned among the strongest at the Academy, and that was entirely due to those eyes.

Her black pupils were locked onto Yeon-woo, as if they could pierce right through him.

‘This is giving me chills, for real.’

It wasn’t an ideal position for Yeon-woo, as he realized he couldn’t trace Kim Yoo-min’s moves, even by merely observing how she utilized her Aura.

She easily deflected Yeon-woo’s sword with her palm, lightly shaking its trajectory, moving in and throwing punches at him, even amid multiple feints—but every attack was met without fail.

In a pure brawl, she’d clearly rank in the top five. However, considering her abilities, it wasn’t all that surprising, so it didn’t feel overly problematic. The real issue lay elsewhere.

Aside from the initial body blow, she hadn’t attempted any serious offensive, and even when he deliberately left gaps, she didn’t engage aggressively.

Moreover, she halted her final strike right in front of him, leaving him on the verge of a chin shot with his elbow raised for a block.

Lowering his sword towards the ground to signal the spar was over, Yeon-woo regulated his heavy breathing, then cautiously asked,

“…Hey, can you not hit people?”

“Ugh…”

Staring straight ahead, Kim Yoo-min, who didn’t seem at all exhausted, merely averted her gaze, as if dodging the question.

This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence.

It often happened to rookie Hunters who believed being a Hunter only meant fighting monsters. They would, at some point, become intimidated by the tangible malice of humans and end up dropping their weapons.

Of course, Yeon-woo would never have imagined that such a situation could apply to someone like Kim Yoo-min before the regression…

‘Was it like this before the regression? I don’t think so…’

With no means to know what things were like before, the pressing concern was to figure out how she got to this point.

“What… what happened that made you like this? You didn’t even go to the Gate over the weekend.”

Upon hearing this, Kim Yoo-min shot him a resentful glance. What had he even done wrong?

“You swinging that around at people like this…!!”

“Ah.”

Oh…

Come to think of it, that had happened. He recalled swinging his sword with the intent to kill Darius in front of everyone. He suddenly realized that if someone as perceptive as Kim Yoo-min had witnessed such a thing, incidents like this could definitely unfold.

“What on earth? Why swing something like that at people? It’s just a spar… Was it really necessary to do that?”

Kim Yoo-min’s expression betrayed some sense of injustice. Honestly, it was Yeon-woo who wanted to yell back that it was he who felt wronged, but he could at least comprehend her feelings.

That was because the existence of the Demon King’s Church was concealed from the outside world. Even if one held some ranking among Hunters, it was information that had to be kept secret.

Spreading tales of betraying humanity and serving the Demon King would only serve to demoralize everyone.

To be honest, the easiest way to deal with such matters would be to toss them right in front of the Demon King’s Church. However, being in a position where one had to ask to get along wouldn’t make such action very reasonable.

“I just need to tell you one thing, Kim Yoo-min. Being a Hunter isn’t as easy as you think.”

Despite everything else, he felt that this was something worth saying. She might be shocked, and there was a possibility that one day she might even consider quitting being a Hunter if it was too much, but there were times in life when one had to receive a preventive dose of reality.

In the first place, Kim Hyun-soo hadn’t asked him to turn his sister into a great Hunter; he had merely asked him to get along well with her. Kim Hyun-soo would surely wish for his beloved sister to lead a life she truly wanted to live, regardless of talent or potential.

(To be continued in the next episode)