Chapter 5
Kang Yul had been mature for his age from a very young age.
In a world where supernatural phenomena were commonplace and even looking after yourself was a struggle, parents abandoning their children was nothing unusual.
When you grew up in an orphanage, constantly having to watch your step, you learned whether you wanted to or not.
That crying alone wouldn't change the world.
And before long, you naturally came to understand your own circumstances.
You learned to accept reality as it was and fight tooth and nail to survive within it.
'One of the few precious lessons I learned by getting beaten by the orphanage staff.'
Are you watching, orphanage teacher?
Thanks to your teachings, I've grown into such an adaptable kid.
Thanks to you, I dreamed of becoming a Hunter—a 3D job—from a young age, didn't I?
Ah, but I can't say I'm grateful. Let's never meet again, you piece of shit.
…Anyway.
The story had gone a little off track, but this was what Kang Yul wanted to say.
'At this point, wouldn't you say my life has turned out pretty well?'
Kang Yul briefly listed the things that had happened recently.
1. Awakened as a Hunter, said to be a blessing
2. Owns a personal gate he can open and close whenever he wants
3. Has a skill that lets him browse the Gallery freely inside a gate
4. Guaranteed daily income of at least 500,000 won just by digging up and selling dirt
He probably wouldn't have any trouble living a life of leisure if he retired right now.
A life where a few swings of a pickaxe brought in 500,000 won every single day.
If this had been Kang Yul a week ago, he might've thrown everything away, thinking this was a pretty decent life, and settled into the modest life of an ordinary citizen.
Yes, if this had been a week ago.
'I should keep looking for posts written by other supernatural beings.'
'They might be dangerous, so I need to approach them as cautiously as possible… Ah, but since there's a record of the deposits, I need to register as a Hunter too, don't I?'
'And I need to upgrade my mining equipment and get proper Hunter gear… This isn't the time to celebrate making 500,000 won.'
The Kang Yul of today was fundamentally different from the Kang Yul of a week ago.
He'd already come back alive from the brink of death once.
And after tasting the dopamine rush that felt like his brain was melting, he could no longer dream of a modest life as an ordinary citizen.
Of course.
'First, I'd better register before I'm caught as an unregistered Hunter. The question is whether to go with the Association or a corporation… To stay inconspicuous, the Association seems better.'
But at this point, Kang Yul hadn't noticed this change in himself at all.
#####
The Hunter verification process was over in no time.
"Yes, Mr. Kang Yul. We've confirmed mana in your body, and you've been registered as a Mage."
That was only natural, since the procedure wasn't complicated to begin with.
Once you awakened as a Hunter, you always had mana in your body. All you had to do was place your hand on the mana plate developed by the Association to confirm it.
'The Association doesn't really ask about your class or skills.'
If he'd joined a corporation, he'd have been hired as a 'salaried employee,' and a detailed examination would've exposed everything from his class to his skills.
But since the Association was a government agency, it guaranteed Hunters a certain degree of autonomy unless they signed an 'exclusive contract.'
And that was also why I wanted to join the Association.
If my class and skills became known, there'd surely be a huge uproar, so the Association was the ideal place to keep them hidden.
"I'll go over the precautions that Hunters affiliated with the Association need to know."
The verification itself hadn't taken long, but listening to the receptionist's explanation afterward took much longer.
Even if he knew it all already, the procedure required him to hear the explanation in person and sign the contract, so he had to listen to the end.
"First, Hunters affiliated with the Association are required to assist with gate operations designated by the Association once a month. Failure to do so will automatically revoke your status as an Association-affiliated Hunter."
Help the Association once a month.
Considering the Association's founding purpose—to prioritize rescuing civilians caught up in supernatural phenomena—it was an obvious condition.
The Association was always short-staffed and tried to recruit as many people as possible. After all, a single awakened Hunter was far more valuable than ten ordinary people.
'Well, a rookie Hunter like me, who only just awakened, will probably be assigned to support.'
Still, registering came with various benefits, including tax deductions.
And apparently, once you built up a record of service, you could get permission to enter gates managed by the Association, which seemed to be quite lucrative.
I heard quite a few Hunters signed exclusive contracts with the Association, since it let them save people and make money.
'This doesn't have much to do with me, since I have a personal gate, though.'
Anyway, as for the remaining precautions…
"Also, any disadvantages resulting from the loss of your license will be entirely your responsibility, Mr. Kang Yul, so please take special care not to lose it."
That was a warning that if you messed around with your Hunter license, all the responsibility would fall on you.
"Also, using skills in public without a special reason, threatening ordinary people, and attacking other Hunters are prohibited. Please be aware that if you engage in any of these actions, Hunters under exclusive contract with the Association will be dispatched immediately."
This was a warning aimed at Hunters who couldn't control their emotions and ran wild like unruly colts.
Quite a few people believed Hunter awakening was a blessing that heralded a new humanity, and some even harmed ordinary people.
'Posts about Hunters under exclusive contract with the Association beating cultists to a bloody pulp used to stay near the top of the Hunter Gallery for quite a while.'
They'd beaten them so thoroughly that I remember feeling satisfied just watching.
"Do you have any questions?"
"No, I don't."
Anyway, after hearing all the precautions, Kang Yul finished registering as a Hunter by signing the contract and returned home.
"Home really is the best…."
Kang Yul collapsed onto his bed and looked at the money in his bank account as he thought.
He was exhausted from going out for the first time in a while, but now no one would be too suspicious even if 500,000 won was deposited into his account.
And once he had a record of entering a gate, even the slightest suspicion would disappear.
So he needed to find a suitable gate, but…
'…For now, I want to focus on exploring my gate.'
It wasn't urgent, so he decided to think about that later.
Right now, the only thing on Kang Yul's mind was finding undiscovered rare resources as soon as possible.
So, for that very purpose…
'Well… how about doing some shopping?'
He could get money one way or another, so he decided to take his time shopping for mining equipment.
######
It had already been two weeks since Kang Yul had shut himself away in the gate.
Kang Yul's daily routine over those two weeks had been so monotonous that it was no exaggeration to say it consisted of only three things: mining, eating, and sleeping.
But thanks to his blood-and-sweat… no, sweat-soaked efforts, Kang Yul had made far more progress exploring the gate than before.
Rrrrrrr-!
Rrrrrrr-!
Rrrrrrr-!
Rumble…!
Each time Kang Yul pressed the button on the portable rock drill in his hands, the cavern wall crumbled and he moved forward.
Compared to before, when he'd desperately hammered away for three hours just to dig a crude little tunnel, it was like night and day.
Rrrrrrr-!
"Damn…! This thing feels amazing in my hands!"
The equipment was heavy, and he still had to shovel and carry away the dirt piling up on the floor.
He also still had the hassle of installing supports to keep the tunnel from collapsing.
But one click of the button on the rechargeable, portable mana-powered rock drill did the work that would've taken Kang Yul a whole month of hammering, so that much was well worth putting up with.
"Phew… This thing is worth every bit of its 3 million won."
To be precise, with the set of drill bits attached to the front, it cost well over 4 million won.
But that was an amount he could easily make back in a week, so he didn't mind.
Ah, for the record, the reason he said a week was the box's usage limit.
He'd found out later that transactions through the box could only be made once a day.
And if you asked for something more valuable than what you'd paid, you lost the transaction opportunity altogether.
On the other hand, asking for something equivalent in value was also a huge mess, since only part of some unknown item would arrive.
'Thanks to that, I learned it was better to get money and buy what I needed myself than to ask for some item whose identity I didn't even know.'
So he had to make do for about ten days without the rock drill, and maybe because he'd struggled so much back then, he felt even more attached to this one.
'How do I put it? It makes you instinctively show it respect.'
After going through that backbreaking work once, he couldn't even imagine mining without this rock drill.
Even the trouble of shoveling the dirt off the floor and installing supports felt like nothing in comparison.
He wanted to give the drill a name, but didn't, thinking it was just another piece of equipment he'd eventually move on from.
'If only I could break off a piece of that unidentified bone, I'd name this thing in a heartbeat.'
Unfortunately, even this expensive rock drill couldn't break that enormous bone.
He'd tested it on the very first day he bought the drill, but he couldn't even leave a scratch, let alone a crack.
Since then, he'd mostly left it alone, treating it like the endgame farming material near a base in a game.
"Gotta progress up the tech tree properly."
Rrrrrrr-!
So please, just…
He kept mining for a while, thinking, Could I finally find some minerals, an ore vein, or at least a different layer of rock instead of weathered soil?
Clang-!
"!?"
For a moment, he heard a sound unlike any he'd heard so far.
It sounded like metal striking metal.
"D-did I find something?!"
After digging around it a bit more with the rock drill,
Kang Yul dropped the drill as if throwing it aside and began digging at the spot with his bare hands.
His fingers tore in the process, and blood flowed, but he didn't care.
What mattered to Kang Yul right now wasn't the wound on his hand, but whether there was something valuable buried there.
'Copper? Iron? Gold? Or maybe a gemstone?'
As he carefully brushed the dirt aside, wondering what on earth was buried there…
Something orange-colored, about the size of a watermelon, soon emerged.
'A gemstone…?'
Kang Yul ran his hand over the mineral's surface and examined it closely.
It looked more like quartz, which was more brittle than hard metal,
but judging by the metallic clang he'd heard when it struck the rock drill, it didn't seem like a mineral with particularly low hardness.
He wondered if it might be a unique mineral found only in this gate.
'I should dig it out first.'
Kang Yul brought over the geological hammer he'd bought for this very moment and carefully began extracting the mineral.
He carefully tapped and dug around it, doing his best not to damage the mineral.
About ten minutes later,
Crack-!
'Hmm… It isn't very heavy.'
Kang Yul lifted the mineral he'd dug out. It was far too light for metal, so he thought, 'Could it be a gemstone after all?' and turned it this way and that, when…
He suddenly noticed a faint shape at the mineral's center.
'What is this…?'
Its rough outer surface made it hard to see clearly, but at a glance it looked as if something was curled up inside.
He tried rubbing the mineral's surface as if polishing it to get a better look, but that only got him so far.
Then he wondered if shining his headlamp on it might make the shape clearer, so he aimed the light at it, and at that moment…
Ding-!
[You have discovered 'Mountain-Eating Worm - Bakai'.]
[It will awaken from its slumber and follow you once the conditions are met.]
"Mountain-Eating Worm Bakai…? "
What the hell was that…?
No, more importantly. If it was a bug embedded in an orange-colored lump…
'…Could this be amber, not a mineral?'