Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - chapter 18
After clearing the sixth gate of the day, I came out. Since the short winter sun hadn’t set yet, it was still bright.
With Sangheon and his father handling retrieval, the speed of hunting was incomparably faster. The workers were all soaked in fatigue, but the work was always cleanly handled, and their commission was lower than other companies.
“At this rate, I could run eight times a day.”
I decided to increase the number of gates per day—then suddenly my ears got insanely itchy.
“Someone must be bad-mouthing me.”
“Good work.”
A Hwagok Retrieval employee was waiting in front of the gate for me to come out.
“I scattered twenty-five trackers. Here are the rest.”
Saying he’d scattered twenty-five trackers meant I had roughly twenty-five spots where I’d tossed corpses and items together. I handed him the pouch with the remaining trackers.
“Thanks.”
“Starting tomorrow I’d like you to ask the boss if we can handle eight sites a day.”
“E… eight sites in one day, sir?”
My words were so unexpected the employee was appalled.
“Yeah, please just ask.”
“Y-yes… understood.”
His face turned ashen for an instant, and he bowed his head deeply.
—
“You okay?”
Sangheon was waiting in front of the gate like a half-zombie.
“How are you okay, hyung? If you run eight gates a day, you’re the fastest Awakened in Korea.”
“Really? Since we’re at it, should I go harder and make it ten?”
“Ugh. Hyung, I swear it’s not because I’m tired—it’s because I’m worried about your health. How about taking it easy? Take tomorrow off. And I wasn’t going to say this, but… my father seems really exhausted too.”
Sangheon pleaded desperately.
He pointed to President Yang unloading from the truck behind him. His face was pasty, almost sooty—he did look worn out.
Money is great, fast promotion is great—but at this rate my new companion’s father in this life might work himself to death.
At first I’d considered using other companies, but I’d never heard of anyone as honest as Sangheon’s. Skimming here and there is standard practice with others; if not for them I’d have had no choice, but now I had zero intention of switching.
“Then I’ll only run five a day from now on. I’ll spend the rest of the time training at home. Monday through Friday, five runs a day. That doable?”
“Yes! It’s doable! Father will be thrilled.”
“Good. And you—come train with me.”
“Sorry? I didn’t catch that?”
“Come to my place after you finish retrieval. We’ll train.”
“Uh, I was going to rest after retrieval…”
“No. I’ll coach you. Start tomorrow. If you’re weak, I’ll worry. If you run into another Choi Miran, or get hit by punks like Choi Cheol-min, how am I supposed to face your father?”
He tried to wriggle out of it, but I simply notified him.
—
“Use your weapon and your skills—come at me.”
We faced each other in the yard in front of my house.
“Huh? You’re not using a weapon, hyung?”
He drew his sword, then looked at me standing still. He seemed reluctant to attack someone he knew—someone unarmed—with a weapon.
“I’ve seen you fight. Don’t worry, just come.”
“Still… huh!”
Since he kept hesitating, I rushed in and swept his legs to knock him down.
“Ow.”
He groaned and got up off the ground.
“If you won’t come, you’ll spend until sunset getting hit today.”
“Phew… then here I go.”
He steeled himself and charged, bringing down a sword wrapped in light. It wasn’t full power, the line was obvious, and he swung from a distance where, even if I didn’t dodge, it would barely nick my skin.
I couldn’t tell if he was soft-hearted or just too gentle.
I stepped in and reached for the blade of light.
Seeing my hand go for his sword, he panicked and tried to stop, but halting mid-swing isn’t easy.
With an Agility at least two to three times his and hands tempered by Hardened Body, I caught his sword bare-handed without difficulty.
“Hy… hyung! Are you okay?! Huh…?”
My hand should have taken light-attribute damage, but it was fine; my palm, which should have been cut, didn’t even have a drop of blood.
I swept his legs again and he toppled with a strangled yelp.
“Hyung, did you have to knock me down just now?”
He got up from the ground with an indignant face.
“Taking hits is part of training. If it bugs you, dodge. And you’re thinking wrong about a couple things. First, don’t assume Awakened are unarmed just because they’re bare-handed. My body is tougher than most guns or blades. Skills are weapons.”
“Yeah… I was being way too soft.”
“Second, skill application. Given your mana and your skills, instead of loosely sheathing your sword in a wide layer of light, you should compress it sharply and focus it thinner. So thin it’s almost invisible.”
“Hyung, skills are automatic. How is an Awakened supposed to tweak them?”
Judging from his look—‘why ask something so obvious?’—he hadn’t been hit enough yet.
“No—how you use a skill changes its rank. Your skill isn’t some low-potential dud.”
That won’t be common knowledge until later. Right now, people think skills and stats level randomly with use or level-ups. But if you train and focus deliberately to develop a skill, sometimes the rank rises—a fact that will be revealed in a few years. The growth is usually tiny, and methods unclear, so it stayed unknown.
Of course, with my Regeneration, my growth explosively outpaces other Awakened.
Even after I explained, doubt still filled his eyes.
“You don’t have to believe me. Just get hit. You’ll figure it out by getting hit.”
“W-wait! Aagh!”
He screamed and ran, and I stuck close on his heels. It’s hard to pull punches cleanly, but I’d stocked up on potions so even if I misjudged and something broke, it’d be fine. What else am I earning money for?
This is all for my little bro. If he’s running with me, he can’t be getting smacked around out there. It’s absolutely not because I want him to suffer the rough training I did.
—
At first I just rushed him and pounded away, but that didn’t train me.
Only when a desperate Sangheon finally started counterattacking did I close my eyes and fight by sensing his presence—both offense and defense.
I focused on the sharpened hearing, touch, and intuition empowered by Keen Senses.
When I closed my eyes, the soft-hearted Sangheon slowed his attacks again. I felt the general direction and kicked his side; only then did he fully bare his fangs and strike.
I could sense roughly where an attack would come from, but not the blade’s precise path, so minimizing my movements to dodge wasn’t easy.
I could have leapt back to avoid him, but I wanted to raise Keen Senses, so I stayed close and concentrated on reading the sword’s trajectory.
In the end, there was a thud as his sword smacked my arm. It didn’t cut, but it was a hunter’s full-force swing, so it hurt. Even so, I moved my arm in the opposite direction at impact to soften the blow and countered.
After I started fighting with my eyes closed, he landed more clean hits, but because I couldn’t gauge distance with my eyes, I also got hit harder and more often.
“Sangheon, this training ends only when your attack power rises enough to at least scratch me.”
I charged at him, panting, and said it as he gasped for breath.
—
Days passed: gates by day, training by evening.
I hit level 15 in the orc gate and couldn’t level there anymore, so later I brought Sangheon into the gate to join the fights.
On day one of training, he could barely beat a single orc, but now he could take two—and if he pushed it, even three at once.
After clearing several gates together, Sangheon—who’d been close to promotion—advanced from F to E rank, and I advanced to D rank.
While waiting for our new Awakener IDs to be issued, we paused gate runs and devoted time to sparring. Thanks to that, Hwagok Retrieval had an unexpected vacation.
In the middle of relentless training—shhk!—his sword cut across my chest. The power was still weak, and I’d felt and dodged the line of the blade, so the wound was very shallow. But a wound at all meant he’d compressed the light on his sword and increased its power.
“I did it!! Oh—are you okay?”
He’d been beaten so much that he cheered at drawing blood, then snapped to and checked on me.
“Don’t worry. It’s already healed. And nice work. Your skill rank went up, didn’t it?”
“Yes! One rank—up to D. I can’t believe skill rank rises like this. Not that the process was ‘easy’ by any stretch.”
He shivered. There aren’t many who can teach this. If there were a visible XP bar like a game, effort would feel manageable. But few keep sprinting toward a finish line with no visible distance or direction.
“C… can we stop now?”
He watched my face, probing.
“What are you talking about? At this level, it won’t help much. You need more focus. And your swordsmanship needs work too.”
He recoiled in dismay, but the training continued.
After that, he couldn’t compress the light any further, but having the confidence to wound me improved his movement bit by bit.
[Keen Senses has increased from C to B.]
With our joint training, my skill rose as well; now I could dodge even blades swung from behind.
“Shall we stop here? From now on, polish it in real combat.”
Our two-week crash course ended. Panting hard, Sangheon just lay spread-eagled on the ground.
“I’ll wash up; you wash and rest too.”
Leaving him there, I went to bathe my training-filthy body.
When I came out, he was collapsed in front of the fridge, trembling, frothing at the mouth. Scattered beside him was the ‘drinking water’ I keep at home—spiked with poison.
“Hey! Hey! You okay?! Wake up!”
I slapped him hard several times, but there was no response.
My poison resistance has gotten so high that lately I’ve been drinking a pretty potent mix—looks like he’d drunk that. Since it had raw extract in it, the paralysis was severe. If left alone, he might go into cardiac arrest, so first I poured a potion into his mouth.
His complexion improved a little, but since it was poison, not injury, a potion couldn’t fully neutralize it.
I loaded him into the car and floored it toward the hospital.