The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low Chapter 17

After business hours, inside the empty hangover soup restaurant. Wijae was sitting at a neatly wiped table, staring intently at his phone, deep in thought. On the screen was a Knowledge ON question-and-answer thread with several replies and comments.

“If it’s a somewhat well-known Hunter and the evidence is clear, an Awakened Management Agency Hunter will come right away.”

Wijae flopped down flat on the table. Damn it, South Korean civil servants working overly hard was the problem. If he reported it, it seemed there was no way to resolve it quietly. If he reported Lee Sayoung for obstruction of business, it wouldn’t be surprising if the director of the Awakened Management Agency came in person.

Wijae, his face thoroughly scrunched up, pressed his cheek down and scrolled down the screen with his fingertip. The frivolous nonsense below the kind answer he’d just read was mostly impossible to carry out. What? Tell them the initials? Sorry, but if he carelessly cleaned out that bastard, South Korea might split in half.

The rank 1 position is originally that kind of seat. Over his every move, the fight between those who curse him and those who defend him continues endlessly. Wijae knew this well from having experienced it to the point of exhaustion in the past. No matter how obnoxious Lee Sayoung was, he couldn’t cause a volcanic eruption on the internet just for his own comfort.

Magic stone recorders were too expensive, and an interview was absolutely not something he’d do even if he died, unless he’d gone mad. Wijae, who had been scrolling down and down, unconsciously banged his head on the table. Startled by the sound, he checked the table, but fortunately it hadn’t cracked. Wijae, who had rubbed the spot his forehead had touched with his hand for no reason, laid his phone face down and flopped down again.

‘It’s a dilemma….’

The reason Cha Wijae was agonizing like this wasn’t for any other reason…

It was because of one detestable bastard who had come sweeping into the peaceful life of a hangover soup restaurant part-timer.

∞ ∞ ∞

The hangover soup restaurant, being a place famous as a Hunter tasty spot, had quite a few guilds that prepaid and left. It was a practice that arose because there were more than a few Hunters who threw tantrums saying carrying a card around was annoying, and because when sudden calls came, they’d dash out without even properly putting down their spoons, let alone paying. It was to the point that when Wijae first learned the work, he received the prepayment ledger handover first, so prepayment was nothing special. But he’d bet his life on it—the crazy bastard who shoved a card forward saying he’d prepay fifteen million won out of the blue was the first since the shop opened. No, since when was fifteen million anyone’s dog’s name?

Cha Wijae raised his axe-eyes toward Bae Wonwoo, who had come bringing an unnecessary lump, and released his killing intent just a tiny bit.

‘Rein in this crazy bastard.’

With roughly that meaning.

But perhaps ‘a tiny bit’ was only Wijae’s opinion—Bae Wonwoo, who had jumped about 0.5cm in place, equipped sharp perceptiveness like an AI that had received a system update and earnestly talked Lee Sayoung out of it.

“Let’s pay quickly and get back to the guild. You said you’re fucking busy.”

“I’m not particularly busy.”

“You said you have to go to the Awakened Management Agency. Didn’t you have a meeting with Jeongbin?”

“I can postpone it.”

Lee Sayoung was composed even in the face of an interview with the Awakened Management Agency, which others would rather die than do. Bae Wonwoo, seemingly deciding this wouldn’t work, changed tactics and subtly inserted his own ulterior motive.

“Hey, with the money you’d prepay fifteen million, buy me new armor. I heard there’s a Hong Yeseong equipment auction in Songdo.”

“How do you buy equipment with a mere fifteen million? Are you a beggar?”

Wow… fucking obnoxious.

Every single word coming out of that cheeky mouth was a work of art. Not just Wijae but everyone who heard the conversation at that spot must have thought the same. May Lee Sayoung’s card melt away just like the precious 6,900 won ladle that died gloriously that night…. It was the moment Wijae was thinking that and holding out, not accepting the card before his eyes.

Bae Wonwoo spread his right hand wide and cried valiantly.

“…Five hundred!”

“Hm?”

“Just swipe exactly five million. I’ll come for team dinners often with my team members. Fifteen million is too much.”

“Hmm.”

“With fifteen million, even eating hangover soup three meals a day, that’s 333 days worth!”

He could eat plenty. He’s already doing that. Lee Sayoung, who had been looking at Bae Wonwoo as if dumbfounded, glanced at Wijae. When their eyes met, Wijae promptly put on the smile of a part-timer seasoned by social life. Swipe it quickly and get lost. With roughly that meaning.

Sayoung, pretending to deliberate for a moment, soon nodded.

“Well, sure….”

The bastard jammed the card into the calculator and, locking eyes with Wijae, added.

“When it’s all used up, tell me. I’ll prepay again.”

Please just get lost.

And so Lee Sayoung, as if paying the price for ruining that day’s business, swiped the five million won prepayment and then left the spot more easily than expected. Compared to the intense encounter, it was a trivial farewell. Would he go like this and sneak back at night? Wijae waited all night in the small room with a ladle just in case. If even a single strand of that bastard’s hair showed, he was determined not to let it slide.

Fortunately or unfortunately, the mishap of Lee Sayoung returning late at night did not occur. Instead,

“Srrng, th’s s’p’s t’be h’t.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Th’ s’p is t’ h’t f’r m’.”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

After that day, he started coming regularly to eat hangover soup as if clocking in!

Ignoring Bae Wonwoo’s whispered words through gritted teeth, Lee Sayoung—who understood only Wijae’s words, equally grinding his teeth, with remarkable accuracy—pulled a disposable spoon set out of thin air. This bastard started carrying his own personal spoon, saying he couldn’t bear to deduct the spoon cost from the prepaid amount. Was a ttukbaegi too much for him? Damn bastard. Does his inventory never run out?

Fine, let’s generously say his inventory never runs out and he happened to have extra disposable spoons so he carried them around. Let’s say the bastard developed a taste for hangover soup.

But he couldn’t stand how every time Lee Sayoung appeared, all the surrounding tables emptied in a circle. Those Hunters, famous for their uselessly strong egos and not listening to others, practicing social distancing so diligently and earnestly without anyone telling them to! Wijae let out a hollow laugh.

‘Fuck, this is blatant obstruction of business.’

The hangover soup restaurant’s pride was its high turnover rate and low prices, but whenever Lee Sayoung appeared, a Lee Sayoung ZONE formed and it was nothing short of a disaster. Forget turnover rate—naturally, the shop’s sales plummeted too. Even if it was somehow still running thanks to the heavy hangover soup maniacs…. At this rate, he’d lose even the regulars.

Thanks to this, Wijae had recently been looking up all sorts of things on portal sites—abusive Hunters, laws related to reporting Hunter crimes, the Awakened Special Act—and had finally reached a conclusion.

‘To resolve this matter… I need to become a Hunter again, or I need money!’

It might seem like a sudden outburst, but Wijae had his own reasonably rational reasons.

To publicize Lee Sayoung’s rampage, solid evidence was needed. With only ambiguous testimony, he could face a backlash for falsely accusing South Korea’s rank 1 Hunter of crimes.

The most certain method is to release a recording file containing Lee Sayoung’s misdeeds. But as the Knowledge ON answerer said, with an ordinary recorder, he couldn’t even manage the first step of evidence collection against an S-rank Hunter. An S-rank Hunter is a being who can instantly notice and destroy a recorder or camera.

That means he needs something not easily broken—an item made from dungeon byproducts, or a recorder that can’t be detected…. Actually, such items are hard to obtain, and besides,

‘Fucking expensive.’

Back when he was Hunter J, he hadn’t really felt it, but items made from dungeon byproducts were disgustingly expensive. Enough that Cha Wijae, a modest hangover soup restaurant part-timer, couldn’t buy one even if he saved money his whole life!

He didn’t ask for much from his wages—he only took exactly as much as he needed from the shop’s profits, and that was actually enough. He had nowhere to go anyway, and he just needed to cleanly rotate a few sets of clothes and one pair of sneakers. If Lee Sayoung hadn’t barged into the second act of Cha Wijae’s life, he wouldn’t have had to worry about any of this.

…Should I register as a Hunter?

He’d just need to go to the Awakened center, have his abilities measured, and be assigned a rank, but… what if J’s data, which he didn’t know about, hadn’t disappeared and remained? And even if he somehow made it to the ability measurement, what if he couldn’t control his strength at that moment? What if he hit as weakly as possible but the measuring device shattered?

In that moment, his quiet life crosses the River Jordan. It was too much to ask for a power-hiding person. The one fortunate thing was that when he awakened, the Awakened Management Agency hadn’t yet collected detailed Awakened information, so he didn’t even need to forge an ID.

“If only that bastard Lee Sayoung didn’t exist….”

Recently, Wijae was vaguely coming to understand why other Hunters didn’t even want to approach Lee Sayoung. Lee Sayoung is a snake. A snake that prowls around its prey and slowly constricts its body.

Even though he could openly threaten him with what happened that night, look at him continuing to visit the shop and subtly pressuring him. Whatever his intention, Lee Sayoung hadn’t asked Wijae for his name again since the day he first visited the hangover soup restaurant. It was also impossible to tell whether he’d already figured out his identity or not.

Lee Sayoung’s current behavior was similar to poking a finger at a quiet water surface. Water that had been calm ripples greatly from even a single small movement of a finger. Even if there’s no great impact, the way he keeps testing him like that is somehow…

Unpleasant.

It felt like being a beast whose territory had been invaded. Wijae, who had been glaring at the air with a deeply furrowed brow, suddenly put his hand into his inventory.

The inventory was crowded with empty potion bottles. All of them were the ones he’d used in the Incheon Rift. Things he should throw away but had put off and put off and couldn’t throw away. And the black longsword he’d picked up in the Rift, the Basilisk’s fang. Wijae glared at the Basilisk’s fang and then turned his gaze elsewhere. Among the lined-up potion bottles, something shining was visible.

A golden gem about half the size of a thumb.

It was a magic stone.

In the past, there was nowhere suitable to use or sell magic stones, so he’d stuffed them in his inventory or somewhere around the house, but these days, magic stones were used in many places, weren’t they? From what he’d overheard from the hangover soup restaurant regulars, there seemed to be quite a few pieces of equipment made by processing magic stones.

“…Should I sell one?”

If he sold this, it seemed he could buy a pretty decent recorder too?

Wijae subtly took out one magic stone from his inventory and began polishing it briskly with his apron.