Chapter 2: Appointed as Hunter’s Lust Manager (2)

Since Hye-eun’s Mother temporarily became my guardian, everything flowed quite smoothly.

Against the insurance company that tried to cut down the payout with strange clauses, she protested properly and actually managed to get a larger sum than I was originally supposed to receive. Although she has retired now, she was still an S-class Hunter back in the day. Considering the ripple effect even a single word from her could cause, the insurance company had no choice but to back down. Of course, just because they changed their attitude didn’t mean my trust in the insurance company would return, so besides my parents’ death insurance, I canceled my personal accident insurance that was taken out in my name as well.

“Thank you, Hye-eun’s Mother. You saved me.”

“Right, Taekyung-ah. Then shall we stop by the post office first on the way?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s check first if there might be any remaining deposits under your parents’ names. There might be deposits your parents left behind at banks other than their main one. And we should also handle the automatic utility bill payments that go out every month….”

Even after receiving the insurance money from the company, Hye-eun’s Mother taught me various ways to live on my own, and her help didn’t really come with any specific price or benefit for her. She gathered all of my parents’ savings remaining in other bank accounts, not just their main one, into a single account so I could use them easily. After my parents passed away, she handled the utility bills that had naturally piled up and also taught me how to pay them going forward. In addition to that, she taught me about the various grants and benefits I could receive as someone who lost my parents to monsters, so thanks to Hye-eun’s Mother’s sincere help, I was able to spend the latter half of my childhood safely. Perhaps because she had worked in a related field in the past, she was incredibly knowledgeable in these matters. Thanks to that, I could handle the tasks piling up before me smoothly without any hitches, without getting ripped off right under my nose.

In that way, I always felt deep gratitude towards Hye-eun’s Mother, who helped me materially and spiritually even though I wasn’t her own child. Along with that, I quietly nurtured a new dream that had formed in my heart. A dream to become a Hunter like her when I grew older, and ensure that no one would ever again lose their family to monsters like I did.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Having properly decided to become a Hunter, when I moved from elementary to middle school, I enrolled in a specialized Hunter training academy located in Gangdong District, Seoul, near my house. To that specialized Hunter training academy, which promised a continuous educational path from middle school through high school and guaranteed a way to make a living as a Hunter upon graduation. Despite the dissuasion from Hye-eun’s Mother and my homeroom teacher, the reason I insisted on enrolling in the specialized Hunter training academy was twofold.

One was that I didn’t want to give up the dream that arose from the various events I experienced when I was young. The other was simply because, up until that point, I thought being a male Hunter was somehow possible.

Since I had decided to become a Hunter, I naturally didn’t skip market research. In that process, I was aware that the number of male Hunters was overwhelmingly smaller compared to female Hunters, but the conclusion I drew from that self-satisfying research was merely the trivial one that male Hunters ‘exist, somehow’. Although this world I was reborn into wasn’t one where I could freely utilize knowledge from my past life, having lived more years than others, I was confident I could quickly get my act together and put in the effort sooner.

Fortunately, it seemed this world also had policies similar to affirmative action for minorities, so enrolling in the specialized Hunter training academy wasn’t too difficult even for me, a male. Apparently, a few years prior, some group called the ‘Male Human Rights Protection Union’ or something similar had requested the creation of a male-only admissions track at the specialized Hunter training academy. Thanks to that, I enrolled in the specialized Hunter training academy much more easily than my childhood friend Kang Hye-eun, who was struggling with the entrance exams at the same time. I probably thought back then that I would definitely overcome the penalties male Hunters faced and proudly make a name for myself.

…Of course, that expectation had already been shattered to pieces by the time I spent 3 years at the Hunter training academy.

When I realized the reality that the few male Hunters were almost all D-class, and only a handful could reach C-class Hunter status, I could only despair at my foolish judgment. Moreover, among that small number of male Hunters, not a single one had successfully awakened their abilities. For female Hunters, it was practically unheard of not to have awakened abilities; they all fought using their awakened powers. Whereas for male Hunters, they had to rely entirely on their physical stats to push through against monsters. Simply put, these were people with unbelievably good physical abilities, to the point where their entire bodies were covered in muscle. Those considered ‘inherently strong individuals’ were just forcing their bodies to the limit while engaging in Hunter activities. Alternatively, to receive benefits like the ‘male Hunter quota system’, there were only male Hunters who, despite lacking ability, were just listed on the roster and engaging in Hunter activities – practically no different from idols. No matter how much they trained or exercised, they were not even worth a punch compared to awakened female Hunters. This was the reality for male Hunters in this world.

Furthermore, the middle school I attended, being a specialized Hunter training institution, boasted an extreme female majority with a 1:999 male-to-female ratio. As the only male student in the entire school, it was a completely unsuitable environment for me to survive. It seemed the girls at this age were in their mischievous phase. The entire student body’s interest in the opposite sex was focused entirely on me, so during that time, I inevitably became the target of all sorts of sexual harassment among the girls. Passing through hallways or classrooms, they’d casually touch my butt or chest while pretending not to notice, or suddenly shove their butts down onto me while I was sitting. Or, asking whose breasts were bigger between themselves and a friend, they’d grab my hand and force me to touch them. Acts like these were countless.

Yeah. It’s true that at first, I pretended not to notice and even enjoyed it. Even though this world I was reincarnated into had reversed concepts of chastity between men and women, my consciousness had lived longer in the original South Korea. No matter how many times I was reborn, the concept of chastity ingrained in my memory was not something easily changed. Yet, my body was that of a middle schooler in the midst of uncontrollable sexual urges, so every time the girls played mischievous tricks on me, I’d secretly get an erection under my desk. When I returned home, recalling the scenes, the number of times I masturbated was not small either.

…Realizing that showing such an ambiguous attitude in the initial handling of the situation was wrong came much later. When I didn’t resist their sexual harassment or assault much, just laughing it off vaguely and letting it slide without much complaint, it seemed the girls began to perceive such actions towards me as ‘acceptable’. As a result, not just the girls in my class, but girls from adjacent classes or other grades too frequently came to my classroom to grope me or make me touch their bodies; the frequency increased. And around that time, I too gradually started getting tired of the sexual harassment. Once or twice a day, I thought I could go along with such lewd games, but when such acts happened every single break time, even I couldn’t help but feel discomfort. Besides, because I was male, I couldn’t awaken my abilities, so I was the type of student whose poor practical scores had to be compensated for with written exams. To someone like me, the girls who approached me every break time, stealing my time, had become annoying and bothersome beings from some point on. Moreover, the girls who treated me like public property and sexually harassed me also started awakening their abilities one by one. Consequently, my strength, which allowed me to resist even a little, could only grow weaker and weaker relatively speaking.

I could endure those 3 years of middle school life largely thanks to the help of my childhood friend Kang Hye-eun. If, by any chance, the girls’ pranks seemed likely to escalate, she was the one who intervened and stopped them. That was her.

“Hey! I told you not to keep bothering Taekyung-ah!”

“Kang Hye-eun’s here, scatter!”

“It was just getting fun!”

Kang Hye-eun was among the first of her peers to awaken her abilities. I heard she was probably receiving private training at home from Hye-eun’s Mother too. Inheriting the bloodline of an S-class Hunter and receiving private training from one, she was bound to become strong naturally. Not to mention the difference in power between awakened and non-awakened individuals, Kang Hye-eun at the time was already pushing her way into the ranks of considerably strong Hunters among her awakened peers.

Eventually, unable to watch the pranks against me escalate further, Kang Hye-eun outright declared me her boyfriend. After that, those bothersome pranks were essentially almost eradicated. It seemed the logic of power was the most effective for kids at this age, more than anything else. Of course, even though she declared me her boyfriend, we weren’t actually dating. Obviously not. I, who was solely focused on awakening as a Hunter, couldn’t afford to waste time dating her like a couple.

For reference, the reason I say the sexual harassment and bothersome pranks were almost eradicated is because, after all, they hadn’t completely disappeared. The target of those pranks had changed from the entire student body to just one person, though.

“Taekyung-ah, Taekyung-ah. Did my breasts get bigger again this morning?”

“Yeah, yeah. I heard that before too.”

“Don’t just say it so nonchalantly, touch them and see. How much bigger have they gotten compared to last time?”

“Ow! Kang Hye-eun, stop it, I told you! Aren’t you ashamed to have your breasts touched by a guy’s hand?!”

“Why should I be ashamed to be touched by you, Taekyung? We haven’t known each other for just a day or two.”

If you were a guy, it might be a similar feeling to showing off your chest muscles to a childhood friend. To be honest, even these kinds of pranks were bothersome to me back then, but receiving them once or twice a day was fortunately within the acceptable range. For one thing, since Hye-eun declared me her boyfriend, I needed to act like we were dating a little even in front of other girls. And besides, it was true that thanks to her making me her boyfriend, I didn’t have to deal with other girls anymore. Anyway, if I was going to be bothered by someone, being bothered by Kang Hye-eun, whom I’ve known for a long time, was slightly better. Having inherited her mother’s genes, Hye-eun was also among the prettiest girls her age. More importantly, she and I had known each other for many years as childhood friends, and although I didn’t show it, I felt quite a bit of affection towards Hye-eun back then. Everyone else opposed my enrollment in the Hunter specialized middle school, but the only one who agreed was my childhood friend Kang Hye-eun. Regardless of the possibility of success, the fact that she supported my dream itself was the greatest validation to me back then.

“You must be happy, Hye-eun? Having a boyfriend who’s also aspiring to be a Hunter.”

…My relationship with her became awkward because of something that happened at the end of the semester, right before transitioning from the Hunter training middle school to high school.