The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low Chapter 2

At a glance, in a corner of an old alley, there was a restaurant operating without even a signboard. The only clue to guess what kind of place it was was a ‘Hangover Stew’ sticker on the iron sliding door that creaked every time it opened or closed, but the inside of the restaurant was full. As busy as the interior was, there was also a considerable line of people outside the door.

The only menu items offered were the 15,000-won hangover stew and alcoholic beverages. On the wall near the menu board, faded posters and signed laminated papers were haphazardly taped up. Of course, they weren’t celebrity autographs…

Great Hangover Stew Place – Hunter Bae Wonwoo

It’s a great place for seasoned cabbage stew! – Hunter Yang Hyejin

They were Hunters’ signatures.

And there was a black-haired young man nimbly weaving through the packed crowd. Wearing a gray hoodie and a black apron with a soju brand logo on it, he carried a tray full of bubbling earthenware pots in both hands while swiftly navigating the narrow shop.

“Here’s your hangover stew.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Boss, two hangover stews for us!”

“Yes.”

“Please add two extra bowls of rice too.”

“Yes, coming right up.”

The young man memorized the seats with a glance and busily headed toward the kitchen. Just then, a man with a buzz cut behind him asked in a booming voice.

“Excuse me, can we get more soju?”

“No, you can’t. That’s your second bottle.”

“What do you mean? It’s only our first bottle?”

“I saw you put the empty bottle into your inventory earlier. No, you can’t.”

The young man pointed with his index finger to the side of the sparse menu board. The phrase scrawled in black marker on an A4 sheet seemed to show the author’s firm resolve.

Soju limited to two bottles per table

※To prevent troublemakers and fights

The young man collected the empty bowls and earthenware pots from the next table and entered the kitchen. When the man sheepishly produced an empty soju bottle from thin air, the man sitting across from him chided him with an “I told you so.”

“See? I told you it wouldn’t work. That part-timer knows exactly how much everyone’s had. Two bottles, no exceptions.”

“He’s got eyes like a hawk, a hawk. I put it away faster than I dodge monsters. Is he a Hunter or something?”

That’s right.

But the man across shook his head.

“Team Lead Han asked, and apparently, he’s a regular civilian.”

“What? Come on. Isn’t that the trend these days? Hidden-power Hunter. Or maybe he’s unregistered?”

“Come on, the fines for unregistered people are huge. And if he were a hidden-power Hunter, he’d be raking in the dough running dungeons. Would he be crazy enough to work as a part-timer at a hangover stew place?”

The young man’s back twitched for a moment, but the buzz-cut man didn’t seem to notice. He nodded in agreement.

“True. Those power-hiding types are desperate to look cool somehow.”

“Team Lead Han has his eye on him, hoping to recruit him if he awakens. He says if he’s this good before awakening, he’ll be at least B-rank after….”

Leaving the murmuring Hunters’ voices behind, the young man entered the kitchen, poured water into the sink, and smirked. I awakened before you, probably. You’re talking about bringing in some distant Hunter senior…

Young man. Name: Cha Wijae. Possessor of visual acuity sharp enough to catch sly empty soju bottles like a ghost, and superhuman strength capable of carrying several bubbling earthenware pots at once. Despite being a Hunter who hid his power, there was a reason he didn’t chase the easy money running dungeons and instead settled in this old, decrepit shop.

∞ ∞ ∞

A few months ago, Wijae opened his eyes to find himself in some kind of dump. How long had he been unconscious? He blinked his barely opening eyes for a while, and his severely distorted senses slowly began to return.

“Where is this, ugh…!”

The moment a foul stench hit him, gweooek, stomach acid came rising up. He hadn’t eaten anything in particular, but his exhausted body retched continuously like a mad clean freak. The world was spinning, and he didn’t have the strength to lift a single finger.

Unfamiliar monsters endlessly pouring out from a white-ruined wasteland. Yes, he remembered fighting the basilisk that appeared last, and driving his sword into its head. And then…

When he finally managed to look up, he saw a massive black hole situated in the middle of the dark blue night sky. An existence that had appeared as if to bring about the end of the world, but was now so natural that one couldn’t imagine the sky without it. Commonly called a Black Hole.

You can’t see the Black Hole from inside a rift. That meant he had returned to reality. Once his consciousness cleared somewhat and he grasped the situation, the next thing that rushed in was a physiological need.

“I’m hungry…”

He had to eat something. Wijae pushed himself up using the trash scattered haphazardly beneath him. Leaning against a filthy wall to catch his breath, he was exhausted from vomiting earlier, and he pushed his limp body along the wall like a mollusk, moving forward.

Forcing his staggering legs to keep walking, the smell of meat broth wafted from somewhere. Wijae instinctively snapped his eyes open and looked around. He saw a lone light flickering at the end of that alley. Wijae kept rolling limply toward it.

What he arrived at was a shabby-looking restaurant with no sign. Through the glass of the iron sliding door, an elderly woman sat alone. The grandmother, who had been sitting with her back to the door peeling garlic, slowly turned her head at the sound of a presence. Wijae leaned his face against the glass and mumbled.

“Are you… serving… now…?”

Of course, he was covered in wounds, skin and bones, and standing on trembling legs, so it probably sounded like “Aarrre yuuu… seeervin’… naaow…?” but he had no time to be self-conscious. Despite his appearance like a homeless man who had barely escaped a psychopathic killer, the old woman didn’t scream but instead stood up and opened the door for him.

“What’re you standing there for? Hurry up and get in.”

Warmth and the smell of meat broth enveloped Wijae as they emanated from inside. Wijae looked down at the owner-grandmother with a stunned face.

“What’s with that state you’re in? Were you rolling around in a dirt field? Did you come back from a dungeon or somethin’?”

“Uh… uh…”

Clicking her tongue, the old woman gestured for him to sit anywhere and disappeared into the kitchen. After a moment, a bowl of rice and a bowl of milky white beef bone soup were placed in front of Wijae.

“Hurry up and eat. The hangover stew’s gonna take a while.”

“……”

“If you’re not gonna eat it, I’ll throw it away.”

Staring at the bowl with a bewildered expression, Wijae finally bowed his head and looked back at the grandmother. The old woman turned around as soon as she finished speaking, returned to her spot, and started peeling garlic again.

With food in front of him, his appetite surged incomparably more than before. As if possessed, he ravenously emptied the bowl. As the milky white beef bone broth entered his empty stomach, he felt his body, which had been shivering from the cold and hunger, gradually warm up. Wijae thought that perhaps the light he’d seen in the alley was this grandmother’s halo, as he scooped up rice and mixed it into the soup.

After quenching his immediate hunger, the restaurant’s interior gradually came into focus. A CRT television on a shelf, faded soju posters and an old wall-mounted fan, a large wall calendar given out by some association—it was an old, established eatery that fully bore the marks of time.

How much time had passed since I entered the rift? Wijae looked closely at the calendar.

’20… what year was it?’

He blinked his eyes wide in disbelief. The year written on the wall calendar was a full 8 years ahead. Thinking he might have misread it, he rubbed his eyes, but the printed characters on the paper wouldn’t change.

Wijae held his breath. The sense of reality he’d barely regained was about to leave home again. Feeling confused, he scooped up another spoonful of the broth pooled in the tilted earthenware bowl. His head was spinning, so he thought he’d at least settle his stomach.

Just then, a calm narration came from the CRT TV on the shelf.

―…Today marks 8 years since a Rank 5 rift occurred in the West Sea.

…8 years? Wijae slurped down the broth once more.

―The rift was suddenly upgraded to Rank 1, prompting the government to deploy S-rank Hunter J, 14 A-rank Hunters, and 30 B-rank Hunters as reinforcements. The rift was sealed a week later. However… the Hunters dispatched there tragically did not return.

ID photos of familiar people scrolled across the screen. These were the people he had desperately searched for among the piles of corpses.

Wijae felt a sudden pang in his chest but ignored it and continued watching the TV with a nonchalant expression. After the photos of the B-rank and A-rank Hunters passed, finally, a photo of S-rank Hunter J was displayed alone.

―Three months after the rift’s sealing, the Awakened Management Agency acknowledged that all Hunters who entered the rift were deceased.

With those words, the screen changed. Wijae put an empty spoon, not even scooping up broth, into his mouth.

‘All deceased?’

Everyone, including S-rank Hunter J, was dead?

He kept moving his hand, spooning at the air without realizing it. On the changed screen, a middle-aged man was now giving closing remarks.

— Song Joheon | S-rank Awakened | Samra Guild Master —

“Without J, this country would have had no future. Eight years ago, we lost a hero in Incheon. J and the 44 Hunters who bravely entered the rift. They gave us a future. We have a duty to look forward and move ahead.”

The man with a somber expression spoke solemnly to the camera.

―This concludes the documentary commemorating the 8th anniversary of the West Sea Rank 1 Rift, “To J.”

A caption at the bottom of the screen read, ‘This program was produced with the support of the Pado Guild and the Awakened Management Agency,’ and the screen briefly went dark. Wijae replayed his memories several times to confirm he had heard correctly.

Three months after the rift’s sealing, the Awakened Management Agency acknowledged that all Hunters who entered the rift were deceased.

Eight years ago, we lost a hero in Incheon.

The 8th anniversary commemorative documentary, “To J.”

Was this a dream? If he closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, would he wake up? But even by his own judgment, this place was reality. The Black Hole he had seen earlier, his stomach filled as much as the empty earthenware bowl, and the spoon he had unconsciously dropped with a clang all proved it.

Wijae, unable to hide his bewilderment, clutched his head. The claim that all Hunters dispatched to the Incheon rift were dead was, to his knowledge, absolutely not true. No, it couldn’t possibly be true.

Because Hunter J, Cha Wijae, was the sole survivor, right here, eating his bowl of soup!