The F-Rank Hunter Defies Fate Chapter 4.1

‘May I Reach You’

You can now catch a glimpse of a slightly deeper secret. If you’re curious about all the secrets of the world, lend me your ear.

Oblivious to Harang’s feelings, the status window began to glow. This was a completely different attitude from the cursory explanation it had given him when he first awakened. It was as if it were begging him to use it, which only made him feel more defiant.

“I won’t.”

Harang shook his head firmly. He would have to try it someday, but he did not want to test it right now.

“What is it?”

The culprit who had made him choose a reward in a daze asked. Harang grumbled as he confessed what had happened to him.

“Mr. Baek Hunter just cleared this place, didn’t he? A pop-up appeared and gave me a reward too.”

As he continued his explanation in order, Yoogeom twitched an eyebrow. Feeling as though he was being rushed to speak faster, Harang recalled the pop-up window he had just seen.

“It told me to choose between a secondary skill and experience points.”

“And?”

A strange light gleamed in Yoogeom’s eyes. For a reward from just the 3rd floor, it was incredibly good. Since Min Harang had said his level was 6, this meant he would be skipping a whole 14 levels at once. Harang, oblivious to Yoogeom’s interest, let out a short sigh.

“No, I was going to ask Mr. Baek Hunter when he came. Whether there was a time limit for choosing, and if not, if I could choose later.”

“Is there a need for that? It’s a secondary skill.”

It seemed Yoogeom had thought the same thing Harang had when he saw the options. Harang’s feelings were hurt by his attitude, which seemed to ask what there was to even think about.

Yoogeom had been climbing for years, so he was probably used to clearing the Tower and its reward system, but for Harang, everything was a first. When there was something that looked so obviously good, as if it were the only right answer, he couldn’t help but be concerned.

“Fine, I chose the secondary skill. Happy now?”

He had originally wanted to express the anxiety that had suddenly bubbled up, but Yoogeom’s casual attitude wounded Harang’s pride. Harang tucked in his pouting lips and kept his silence.

Thanks to that, it was Yoogeom who was now walking on eggshells. Yoogeom still could not understand why Harang was in a bad mood despite having leveled up, or why he was dissatisfied despite having obtained a secondary skill for free.

One thing was certain: the sixth sense he had honed by traveling back and forth through the Tower warned him not to reveal his inner thoughts. So, Yoogeom asked nonchalantly.

“Shouldn’t you be happy you learned it so quickly?”

His neat voice contained only pure curiosity. Harang, who had been feeling hurt until then, thought of the age difference between Yoogeom and himself. The hunter who was not only the number 1 ranker but also responsible for South Korea’s national security was two years younger than Harang.

‘What am I doing, getting worked up over a kid younger than me?’

He had been prickly because it was a series of firsts for him, but since the other person had yielded first, he could not keep being stubborn.

“The skill is strange.”

As he mumbled his answer, Yoogeom frowned. Yoogeom had been an S-Class from the moment he awakened. He had been managed by Cheolmin even before he started his activities, and the only people he had encountered under him were the so-called elites.

Naturally, it was difficult for him to understand what Harang was talking about. Was it because the skill was different from what he had expected? All Yoogeom could imagine was that he was disappointed because its destructive power was too low.

Harang, who had dealt with many people over a long time, could guess what Yoogeom was thinking to some extent, even if not precisely. Sigh. An unprompted sigh escaped him. This was like telling a university professor, ‘I’m not sure why this is the answer.’

“Its name is….”

He felt that if he said the name now, Yoogeom would sympathize with him too. But the pride he had left on the floor vehemently refused to let him utter the skill’s name.

And for good reason.

Do you wish to use the skill ‘May I Reach You…’?

Every single word was embarrassing. And what was with that ellipsis? Harang, too, wanted to stop arguing.

“I said I won’t.”

As rage welled up from within, Harang shook his head wildly. Then, Yoogeom’s lips parted.

“I’ve been feeling this for a while now.”

“Feeling what?”

“Why do you talk to your status window?”

Harang’s body stiffened like someone who had been caught practicing dancing after closing their door. Even though it wasn’t his own doing, it was extremely embarrassing.

Harang knew. It was something worth being curious about. Among the hunters he had seen so far, none had ever spoken out loud.

It was not because Clearance Team 1 was composed only of high-rank hunters. After the dawn of the Great Hunter Era, Harang had secretly watched a few related Witube channels. To state the conclusion, even those who were F-Class like Harang used their skills without any special preparation.

He had tried his best to hide the fact that he was the only one who did it because it was embarrassing, but Yoogeom asked as if he already knew everything. If that was the case, there was no longer a reason to be a ventriloquist. Wouldn’t it be better to just be bold about it?

“I have to do something for my skills to activate. Otherwise, the status window doesn’t listen to me.”

As he spoke, his sense of injustice doubled. He had heard that once you awaken as a hunter, you can use the status window freely, but for Harang it was the exact opposite. Strange restrictions limited his words and actions, and there had been times when he broke out in a cold sweat because a skill activated on its own.

“What’s the status window like?”

Yoogeom responded seriously to Harang’s words, his brow deeply furrowed. Harang could tell he was being sincere without needing to use an item. However, accepting it in his head was another matter.

While maintaining his number 1 rank, Yoogeom had seen not only rankers but hunters of all stripes, but he swore he had never seen a case like Min Harang’s. Both the strange skill and the disobedient status window felt bizarre to Yoogeom.

“My skills keep activating on their own. The secondary skill I just got, you know? A notification popped up asking if I was going to use that too.”

“Then why don’t you try using it?”

Yoogeom replied nonchalantly to the confession Harang had made after much deliberation. He was confident, even though he did not know what type of skill it was or what effects it had.

“What if it’s an attack skill?”

Even though he knew from its name that it couldn’t be, Harang raised his chin defiantly. Yoogeom was unfazed by his persistent gaze.

“It doesn’t matter. You think I can’t even dodge something like that?”

Now that he had put it that way, Harang felt tempted as well.

“Then… should I really use it?”

Then again, with only one person in the world who knew he was a hunter, where else would he be able to test it?

“M-May I Reach You…!”

The moment he shouted the embarrassing name, a warm breeze began to blow. It was not his imagination; a warm energy was truly flowing from Harang’s entire body.

His fine hair fluttered, and the warm energy headed straight for Yoogeom. It was like a scene taken right out of a shonen manga transformation sequence.

Skill activation failed.

Due to the extreme difference in class, you cannot peek into the target’s inner self.

The extremely embarrassing situation ended, regardless of Harang’s will. When he used his primary skill, it ignored class differences and items, but it seemed that was not the case this time.

Shocked, Harang’s eyes darted about aimlessly. He did not know why he needed to check someone else’s inner self, but to think that this kind of thing was his skill. He did not want to believe it.

‘If I have to read minds, shouldn’t I be more stealthy about it?’

The cringe-worthy effect, far from fostering his pride as a hunter, fanned the flames in Harang’s heart, which he had just barely managed to calm.

[Ah, can you hear me?]

At the same time, the status window began to speak to him. Until now, it had acted as if it had a will of its own but had never spoken to him directly. But the sentence being typed out, one letter at a time, was clearly meant for Harang.

Engulfed in shock once again, Harang met Yoogeom’s gaze with trembling eyes. Judging by Yoogeom’s solid eyes, it seemed he was the only one who could see it.

[Ah, it would be more correct to say, ‘Can you see this’! I am ‘Mingming,’ the guide of planet E-3800. This is my first time communicating with Earth, so I’m super-duper nervous!]

“What is this….”

[You have no idea how frustrated I’ve been. You’re the only mortal on the right frequency, Mr. Min Harang, so why have you only started the tutorial now?]

Before Harang could ask anything, ‘Mingming’ chattered on. It was not a sound he could hear, but sentences that appeared, so Harang’s eyes naturally grew busy.

[Well, since you’re here now, I won’t drag this out. Let’s see, the current Tower clearance progress is… you’ve completed up to the 79th floor?]

Mingming seemed to have a very impatient personality. By the time Harang had barely finished reading, the next line would follow immediately.

[Objectively, I can’t say you’re slow, but for now, you’ll have to try a little harder. Otherwise, planet E-3800, that is, Earth, will disappear without a trace.]

Contrary to its cheerful tone, the content was grim. The Earth would be destroyed? Harang had unwillingly learned a secret of the Tower. And he was the first on Earth to do so.

“Mr. Baek Yoogeom.”

It was an absurd statement, but if he was going to be like that, their very existence did not make sense either. Had the world ever been ordinary since the Tower’s appearance? Harang, unable to hide his anxiety, called out to Baek Yoogeom.

Because the hunter in front of him had suddenly started talking to himself, Baek Yoogeom, who had been standing there like a decorative screen, asked with his eyes. What is it this time?

“They say… the Earth is going to be destroyed.”

[I never said it would be destroyed, though?]

When Harang summarized their conversation into a single sentence, Mingming hastily created a new one. Even though it was just text, he could keenly feel its incredulity.

‘Disappearing without a trace is the same as being destroyed.’

Scoffing inwardly, Harang narrowed his eyes and tried to guess Mingming’s identity. An alien? Or a god? Harang, whose maternal grandmother had been a shaman, had little aversion to spiritual beings.

Besides, after awakening as a hunter, something—be it an ancestral spirit or what have you—had shown its temper through the status window before. Mingming was probably one of them.

He came up with various hypotheses, but he could not find an answer right now. Harang, who had lived his life with a wall between himself and hunters, chose the faster path instead of racking his brain for nothing. That was, to pass the buck to the number 1 ranker.

“It’s not destruction, they said the Earth will disappear without a trace.”

“What are you looking at as you say that?”

As Harang spoke, shooing away the status window like a fly, Yoogeom asked with a serious attitude. As if to prove he had not become the number 1 ranker for nothing, he was trying to discern the truth even in this ridiculous situation. He was certainly more reliable than some unknown entity.

“It was the skill I just got. I tried using it on you, Mr. Baek Yoogeom, but it didn’t activate because of the class difference. But then, someone suddenly started talking to me.”

[I am not ‘someone,’ I am ‘Mingming.’ I was the most outstanding among the guides, I’ll have you know!]

Unlike Baek Yoogeom, who could not see Mingming’s words, the guide seemed to be able to butt into the hunters’ conversation as it pleased. Seeing the status window trembling as if in a rage, Harang gathered his thoughts.

At first, he was startled when it suddenly said the Earth would perish. But even if he learned the inside story, what could he, with his 6 points in Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina, possibly do? It might be a different story for the number 1 ranker, though.