Auto Hunting (Web Novel KR)

No. 116

It was exhausting, sure. However, what Yoo-seong was doing right now was probably the most enjoyable work he’d done ever since he had arrived in Japan.

“Huh… Huh!”

Using Auto-Hunt, he had been doing a simple yet repetitive task for the last few hours.

“Huh… Huh!”

Despite being exhausted, Yoo-seong was concentrated on the task itself. Then, finally…

Bloog-!

He dug out a large rock and placed it on the side. A loud voice of relief spewed from the hole that had been behind it.

“Oh, we’re saved!”

“Rescue!”

“We survived!”

A family had been trapped in the basement of the collapsed building. Everyone had tears on their grimy faces.

Amid the tearful joy, the head of the family noticed something.

‘He doesn’t look like he’s from the rescue team,’ the father thought.

In fact, the young man in front of him looked bizarre. The armor he wore was broken and tattered in several places. His nose was broken, and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

Anxiety then passed through the father’s head. Suddenly, Yoo-seong’s hand reached out to him, holding out a cellphone.

-I will guide you outside. Trust me and follow me.

Simple Japanese sentences spoken through a translator app.

The father hesitated for a moment, but his ten-year-old son immediately jumped up.

“Oh! He’s that hunter! I saw him on Twitter!”

“Hey, what are you…?” The father tried to quiet his son down.

“Dad, I saw him! He is that hunter from Korea!”

With new eyes, the father looked Yoo-seong up and down once more. He quickly realized his son was right.

Yoo-seong held out his cell phone again.

-Let’s go.

Then he began walking out of the hole he’d made. The father and son watched his back.

Oh Yoo-seong.

Every person in Japan who had a phone knew him. He was that foreign hunter who had insulted Yasuo Nakai a few days ago. Just this morning, even though he was not permitted to do so, he had used his power and intervened in an operation.

The news said he was currently under Metropolitan Police Department investigation. However, public opinion about him on social media seemed different from what the news was saying.

-Without this person, many people would have died.

-The grandmother who had been lying in the street…

There were several eyewitnesses, along with the pictures that they took at the Tokyo crack. Everyone was testifying to support what this young hunter had done.

Still, many people would find out that traditional media was more credible.

Soon, articles posted on the internet about Oh Yoo-seong’s deeds in Tokyo were taken down.

Oh Yoo-seong was a foreigner, first of all. On top of that, he was an arrogant foreigner. Therefore, it was easy for the father to think that Yoo-seong was a bad guy. However, now… This bad guy had saved him and his family.

After a few moments of consideration, the father led his son by the hand and followed Yoo-seong. Soon, the man realized something.

The passage Yoo-seong had made was narrow, just enough for one adult to pass through at a time. Rubble could fall at any time and cause a cave-in.

However, his wife and his two children had no fear on their faces as they followed Yoo-seong. He was obviously their rescuer, but they had only met him a few seconds ago.

‘How could they trust this stranger so completely?’

However, the man set his doubts aside and continued to follow. What mattered most was that his family was safe. And before long…

“We’re out!” his son screamed with joy.

The man felt the night air as he walked out of the narrow passage. After a few hours of being trapped underground, they were finally outside again.

The father looked around. It was as if they had climbed up to a post-war area.

Several high-rise buildings had been reduced to rubble. He could hear the noise of rescue workers working against time. Overall, the situation wasn’t getting better.

Usually, in such a large-scale disaster, hunters would have been in the field to help out. However, apart from Yoo-seong, there wasn’t any other hunter in sight.

‘We weren’t rescued late,’ he realized. ‘Down there, there are other families trapped like we were.’

The father turned his eyes toward Yoo-seong.

Yoo-seong was already starting to build another passage. He hadn’t even thanked him.

“Wait a second!” the father yelled out, causing Yoo-seong to turn his head.

Then the father bowed deeply.

“Thank you. Thanks to you, my family is safe…”

Before the man could finish, a loud voice interrupted.

“Got you!”

The man looked up. On a pile of rubble located a little higher than them, hunters were arriving one by one.

“He is here!”

“We found him!”

The hunters were dressed in operational attire, their faces drenched in sweat.

‘Did I do something wrong?’ the father thought. ‘Why were they looking for me?’

He thought this because there was no one else in that area other than him and Yoo-seong. The hunters were glaring at them with murderous expressions, but there was no reason for them to be this angry at Yoo-seong, who was helping in the rescue.

It had to be him. But what had he done?

More and more hunters arrived until, before long, they were completely surrounded.

“You were hiding there all this time?!”

“To think that we haven’t rested for hours trying to find you…”

“It would be better to surrender…”

“You are surrounded. Even if you try to fly away…”

Dozens of hunters were making threats in Japanese. It was as if they weren’t looking at fellow humans but had cornered a vicious beast.

“Hey, hey,” the father intervened. “What is this about?”

His children were trembling with fear.

A team leader began firing instructions. “There are civilians here. Take them away. You, call the Chairman and the Director and tell them we found him.”

Like the other hunters, he was soaked in sweat. The father knew this hunter’s name.

‘Hashima.’

Everyone in Japan knew his name.

The Dragon of Tokyo.

Top-notch skills, often compared to the Korean Lee Jae-hak.

This was a hunter who was proud of his skills. He was one of Tatsuo Sukune’s favorite dogs.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for quite some time.” Hashima grinned at Yoo-seong as he spoke in Korean.

“It seems that you didn’t learn proper etiquette in the countries you’ve been to. Here you have to pay the price,” he added.

Yoo-seong did not answer. He slowly looked around the siege surrounding him.

“You have to go with us. You have no choice. The Chairman said that if you refuse to surrender, we won’t have to persuade you for long.”

Soon, ordinary-looking people began approaching them. Yoo-seong realized they were police officers in plainclothes.

Needless to say, they had planned well to prevent Yoo-seong from fighting back.

“If it’s unavoidable, well…” Hashima shook his head. “I have to get some necessary information from you first. Like how you got out of the facility. And how you could make items appear and disappear from your hand.”

Yoo-seong opened his mouth for the first time. “It’s terrible,” he said as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. “I thought that Tatsuo Sukune and I had settled things. But it seems that his hand is itching to steal again.”

“You dare speak that way?!” Hashima seethed with anger.

“Do I have to see that old man again? Why?” Yoo-seong spat on the floor. “I want to refuse. I hate seeing that face. Age hasn’t been kind to him.”

“You crazy bitch!”

It wasn’t Hashima who had made the outburst.

Among the hunters surrounding them, there were some who spoke Korean. Hashima didn’t stop them as they launched towards Yoo-seong. However…

“Wait! Wait for a second!”

There was an unexpected interference – the father, the head of the family Yoo-seong rescued.

His wife and children were already in a safe place. Even if the man didn’t understand the Korean conversation between Hashima and Yoo-seong, he knew one thing for sure.

Hashima was angry at Yoo-seong.

From his simple point of view, he could only think of one possible reason. It must be because Yoo-seong had used his ability without permission.

However, hadn’t Yoo-seong saved his family with it?

He wondered before how his family could believe in Yoo-seong just like that. Now, he understood it himself.

It was because Yoo-seong was sincere.

Besides the commitment to save lives, the father couldn’t feel anything else from Yoo-seong.

“This guy saved my family and me! Is that illegal? I could be wrong, but… I can testify for him! If this could be solved in court…” he began yelling desperately.

Hashima sighed and shook his head. Immediately, one of the police officers grabbed the man.

“Huh? Ugh!”

The man almost choked as he was grabbed violently by his neck. Suddenly, the police officer heard a voice within his head.

“Hey.”

It was Yoo-seong’s voice, speaking in awkward Japanese.

“Let him go now.”

‘What the…?’ The police officer was bewildered at how Yoo-seong seemed to be speaking from within his head.

However, he simply laughed it off after a few moments.

“What will you do if I don’t let him go? Huh? Can you do anything to me?” he yelled at Yoo-seong’s still figure.

“What?” Yoo-seong acted confused. “Why do you think I’m going to do something?”

“Huh?” The police officer was further confused.

But before he could respond…

Pagak-!

A rock the size of a fist hit his head.

It wasn’t strong enough to injure him but sudden enough to make him let go of the man in his arms. It wasn’t Yoo-seong who hit him, though.

“What are you guys doing?!” the furious police officer yelled out.

He received no response, but his eyes widened at the sight unfolding before him.

He was not the only one who was astonished; other police officers in his squadron, as well as the hunters that came with them were too. Rescue workers had stopped what they were doing and were moving toward them with angry expressions.

“Hey!” Hashima stepped forward to meet the crowd. “Is there a problem?”

He knew that as soon as these ordinary citizens saw his face, they would be assured that nothing strange was happening.

He was a top, respected hunter, after all. However…

“You shameless bastard!” one of the rescue workers yelled out.

“What?” Hashima was baffled.

“After not showing your face for hours, you dare come here and take that hunter who was helping us?!”

“You call yourself heroes? Pieces of shit!”

“He alone saved over two hundred people in three hours! Where were you guys?!”

One by one, rescuers and victims began screaming in frustration at the hunters.

And it didn’t end there.

“You dogs left Tokyo before the operation even started!”

“There were no cracks of this scale outside Tokyo! Where the hell did you guys hide?!”

Grimy faces covered with dust and sweat were raging in front of Hashima and his crew.

“Where were you?!”

“Why did you leave your city?!”

The hunters, including Hashima, subconsciously began taking steps backward. It was the first time Hashima had received such abusive language from the public since his debut.

However, it was a natural consequence of their actions.

A few hours after a disaster, they had been following Chairman Tatsuo’s instructions to catch a single hunter. In the meantime, the hunter they were looking for had his exhausted arms digging through the dirt to save lives.

More than the rescuers he had been working with, there had been hundreds, no, thousands of eyes witnessing what he was doing.

Jiiing-!

Although the Queen’s Hug was now torn and dirty like a rag, the action camera attached to it was still functioning.

It was on livestreaming mode.

A few days ago, Yoo-seong had become an SNS star. Tens of thousands of followers were watching his work right now.

Their reaction was explosive.

No…

The word ‘explosive’ wasn’t enough to describe it.