Chapter 2

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　　Seong Dohyun

　　(photo.jpg)

　　Name: Seong Dohyun

　　Height/Weight: 5 feet 10 inches / 121 pounds

　　Family: None

　　Education: Korea Ability Academy

　　Rank: S-Class (details undisclosed)

　　Skills: Undisclosed

　　1. Details: A hunter who miraculously survived a dungeon break at age fourteen and awakened as an S-Class. He is a top-tier hunter whose skills rival Baek Eunseong’s, but he is more famous for doing absolutely nothing with that power. Currently unaffiliated. Aside from taking jobs from the association as a freelance hunter, he spends his time tailing Baek Eunseong and sabotaging his work.

　　"…I see."

　　So that’s why that guy yesterday told me to stop following Baek Eunseong around.

　　I was about to close the browser when I paused and stared at the expressionless face of Seong Dohyun in the photo. As my golden eyes met his, memories embedded in the original Seong Dohyun’s body surged up.

　　Seong Dohyun really, truly, absolutely hated Baek Eunseong.

　　He didn’t just hate him from afar, either. He hovered around him, picking fights over every little thing. And not even in a straightforward way—he would poke and prod just enough to avoid getting sued, acting in the pettiest ways possible.

　　It was a good thing Baek Eunseong usually just snorted and let it slide. If it had been any other hunter, Dohyun would have been punched in the face at least once.

　　The reason Seong Dohyun hated Baek Eunseong that much was obvious.

　　Because Baek Eunseong was better than him—better than "Seong Dohyun."

　　What a twisted little bastard. I clicked my tongue and closed the browser.

　　"Finished reading?"

　　"Yes."

　　I headed for the door, then let out a small sigh when I saw people flinch away from me.

　　Judging from how everyone instinctively hunched their shoulders when our eyes met, this guy must have had a habit of shoulder-checking people.

　　You idiot… I sighed again and made my way to the association president’s office. Curious voices popped up all around me.

　　"Why’s he so quiet today? I thought he’d throw a fit over yesterday."

　　"I heard he got hurt pretty bad."

　　"Guess even he knows what shame is."

　　Their snickering voices hit my ears.

　　[Walls Have Ears (And So Do I)]

　　It was because of this skill.

　　Come to think of it, I should probably check what his other skills do, too.

　　I pulled up my status window and stared at it, then greeted the man walking into the president’s office.

　　The man with graying hair shrugged off his cloak and looked at me with a grave expression. According to Seong Dohyun’s memories, this man was the association president.

　　"So, you’re saying you don’t remember anything?"

　　"Yes."

　　Amnesia.

　　I decided that was the easiest way to adapt to this novel world.

　　No matter how perfectly I acted like Seong Dohyun, there would definitely be people who found something off.

　　Turned out, I didn’t need to worry.

　　"You don’t remember you’re a hunter either?"

　　"No."

　　"Then that’s fine."

　　In this world, no one gave a damn about Seong Dohyun.

　　Even if I climbed onto the president’s desk and started dancing, people would just shrug and say, "Well, it’s Seong Dohyun."

　　Honestly, I wasn’t sure they even believed the amnesia story. The secretary standing beside the president was openly watching me like I was a ticking time bomb about to go off.

　　So many people reacted like this that it was obvious: Seong Dohyun had lived like absolute trash. But since he was one of the few S-Classes, they had turned a blind eye up to a point. And he had clearly milked that for all it was worth.

　　"How about your skills?"

　　"I don’t know. Could you lend me a training room so I can test them?"

　　"Fine. Use it, and keep tomorrow night free."

　　"Yes."

　　Thanks to Tree.wiki, I had already checked up on Seong Dohyun’s public info, so I could accept the request without batting an eye.

　　Honestly, with things like this, I didn’t even need the amnesia excuse.

　　Frowning, I paused at the door and pricked up my ears.

　　"He really does seem off, doesn’t he?"

　　"I think so too. He only ever took jobs that involved Baek Eunseong, but this one has nothing to do with him."

　　"Whether he really lost his memory or not, it’s good for us. Work him to the bone before it comes back."

　　Apparently, in the original story, Seong Dohyun had thought of the president as a trustworthy adult and relied on him a bit. But from the other side, the president just saw him as a cash cow.

　　I sighed and headed for the training room.

　　What was I supposed to do now?

　　Was I really going to live out the rest of my life as Seong Dohyun?

　　After changing into training gear, I pulled up my status window.

　　[Awakened: Seong Dohyun / S-Class]

　　I stared at the three letters of my name with a complicated expression. This world already recognized me as that Seong Dohyun. In other stories, they at least put something like "(Possessor)" in parentheses.

　　[Skills: Splish Splash (S) / Walls Have Ears (And So Do I) (A) / Heavenly Conduct (S) / Ariadne’s Thread (S)]

　　"Let’s see…"

　　I crouched down and tried each skill one by one, getting a rough feel for them.

　　Every entity, including people, had its own kind of "flow," and I could interfere with that.

　　Splish Splash was the skill I’d used to blow up the wolf heads earlier—shaking the flow to attack. Walls Have Ears was a passive skill that drew every sound-based flow toward me.

　　Heavenly Conduct let me play with the flow coming off a target however I wanted. When I asked permission and tried it on a person, it was basically a lullaby. There didn’t seem to be any real restriction on waking a stopped flow back up, either.

　　"Ariadne’s Thread" turned flow into visible threads that showed me the path I needed to take—a kind of guide.

　　The president watched me messing around with the skills for a while, then called me over. He said the best way to learn was in the field and suggested I come along on a job.

* * *

　　Monsters were forcing their way out through the cracks in the seal blocking the dungeon.

　　Yesterday it was wolves walking on two legs. Today, it was flounders.

　　I looked away from the gaping fish heads gripping tridents as I opened my skill window.

　　So… what do I do? Do I take the first swing? Or should I let the president go first since he outranks me?

　　I was still hesitating when one of the flounder heads opened its mouth.

　　I jumped back in surprise, but the other hunters around me just clapped their hands over their ears. Seeing their smirks, I sensed something was off and hurriedly covered my ears too, but—

　　SCREEEEECH!

　　"Ahh…"

　　Too late.

　　The ear-splitting scream rattled my brain. I dropped to my knees, eyes watering from the pain in my ears.

　　Through the blur, I glared at my skill window and hurriedly turned off [Walls Have Ears]. Only then did I manage to pull myself together.

　　When I finally staggered to my feet, the smirking bastards were openly laughing at me.

　　So they knew Seong Dohyun had sensitive hearing and didn’t bother to warn me…

　　Was he really hated that much?

　　I tried to reconstruct how the original had lived, then gave up.

　　Whatever.

　　They started it.

　　Wiping my tears, I glared in turn at my skill window, the flounder heads, and the two idiots still grinning.

　　[Heavenly Conduct]

　　As I hummed a lullaby, waves rippled out from under my feet. The fish monsters that had been charging at us with shrill squeaks collapsed one by one. The same went for the jerks who had been laughing at me.

　　"Dohyun!"

　　The president called out urgently, but nope. Skill’s off. I can’t hear a thing. And they threw the first punch.

　　[Splish Splash]

　　I followed up with another skill. Ripples formed around the flounder heads, deepening until they twisted into a single thread.

　　I grabbed the thread and yanked hard.

　　The flounder heads followed my hand like fish caught in a net. I gathered them into a tight ring like a donut, then kicked the two grinning idiots straight into the middle.

　　[Heavenly Conduct]

　　I used the skill again to wake the sleeping flounder heads, and the idiots snapped back to consciousness too.

　　The rest went exactly as expected. The moment they clapped their hands over their ears, the flounder heads started screaming. The two of them writhed in agony, tears, snot, and every other bodily fluid streaming down their faces.

　　"Seong Dohyun!"

　　I watched them with a blank expression until the president grabbed my shoulder and shouted. Reluctantly, I flicked my fingers.

　　The ripples pouring out of the flounder heads suddenly surged. A moment later, the monsters collapsed, blood trickling from their noses.

　　The two idiots crawled out of the pile of corpses and scuttled to the corner, unable to even meet my eyes.

　　Go on, laugh again. I smirked as I looked around. The other hunters were staring at me with a mix of envy and fear.

　　It felt… good.

　　I knew Seong Dohyun was strong, but damn, I was really strong.

　　Impressed with my own power, I kept fighting off the flounder heads. One that had been trying to flee suddenly turned and lunged at me.

　　I raised my arm to block the trident it swung, grabbed the shaft, and swung it in a wide arc.

　　I watched as another hunter finished off the flounder I’d sent flying. The president walked over.

　　"…You okay?"

　　At his question, I glanced at the spot where I’d been hit, then nodded.

　　It didn’t hurt at all.

　　"Think you can handle this?"

　　"Yes."

　　Handle it? I was having the time of my life.

　　Maybe it was because I was S-Class, but getting hit didn’t hurt, and controlling my abilities was way easier than I’d expected.

　　It felt like I’d grown invisible extra limbs. It didn’t feel real.

　　And more than anything… it was fun.

　　Yeah. It felt like playing a game.

　　"Seong Dohyun, get over here."

　　"Why?"

　　I pushed my hood back and looked at the president. The adrenaline from fighting monsters still buzzed faintly under my skin.

　　That’s how fun it was to go head-to-head with them.

　　The president took a couple of steps back and scratched his forehead as he looked at me, covered in blood.

　　"You need to be less reckless."

　　"I swear, anyone watching would think I walked in here voluntarily."

　　The association president was the one who had dragged me all over the place, insisting I "needed practice since I’d lost my memory." I ignored him as he clicked his tongue, checking my body for injuries. In the heat of battle, your senses dulled. It was common to get hurt and not even notice until later.

　　The president tossed me a potion.

　　"Your heel is injured."

　　I glanced at the association hunters receiving treatment from the healers, then looked down at my beat-up sneakers.

　　Honestly, I had looked into other guilds out of sheer annoyance at being treated like this. In the original novel, Seong Dohyun had been content to use his immense power solely to torment Baek Eunseong. But since I’d gone to the trouble of possessing an S-Class body, I intended to squeeze every last drop of value out of it.

　　Unfortunately, thanks to the mess the original Seong Dohyun had made of his reputation, every major guild refused to take me. A couple of places had suggested I try being a mercenary, but that didn’t appeal to me either.

　　Everyone else who approached me was just trying to stick a straw in my back and bleed me dry.

　　For all my complaints, the only one who actually worried about Seong Dohyun, about me, was the president.

　　I really should have listened when he told me to be less reckless.

　　"Hunter Seong Dohyun!"

　　I froze as a pitch-black shadow engulfed me in an instant. It wasn’t until my arm was bitten off and my leg snapped that reality hit.

　　The moment I realized this wasn’t a game but real life, a horrible terror crashed over me.

　　Ridiculously, that was the moment it sank in: this wasn’t some in-game avatar. It was a real, physical body.

　　The character Seong Dohyun could die as many times as you liked in the story, but if he died here, I died too.

　　In that instant, I missed my original world so badly it hurt.

　　I didn’t want to die in a place like this. If I had to die, I wanted to do it back in my old room, with all my limbs attached, nothing in particular hurting, just… peacefully.

　　And then it happened.

　　Hands suddenly shot up from the ground, sweeping away the monsters surrounding me.

　　Cowering in fear, I scooted backward on the ground.

　　"What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

　　What I saw then wasn’t Baek Eunseong looking at me with disgust, nor the mangled monsters in his hands—

　　[Access Condition Achieved!]

　　—but golden letters flashing right in front of my eyes.

* * *