Chapter 3: Appointed as Hunter’s Lust Manager (3)

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

“Shh! How dare you call Hye-eun-nim an aspirant? She’s someone who will be active as a trainee Hunter starting from high school!”

“Enough, you don’t have to hype me up like that. It’s not like I’m the only one who’s awakened.”

After finishing my career counseling session with my homeroom teacher, I was on my way home a little later than usual when, naturally, my footsteps led me towards the voices of Kang Hye-eun and the other students coming from inside our classroom.

Because we lived next door and were pretending to date. The moment I tried to slide open the classroom door to ask Kang Hye-eun if she wanted to go home together, my movement instinctively stopped at the sudden sound of my name.

“But, you know, Taekyung.”

Flintch.

“I’ve thought about it carefully, and he won’t be able to awaken as a Hunter, right? Honestly, seeing how hard he tries is almost pitifully diligent, but I’ve never once heard of a male Hunter awakening~.”

“…Still, the effort itself is quite cool, isn’t it? Even if it’s a bit pitiful seeing him get beaten up every single day with a perfectly fine physique. Hye-eun, you’re dating Sung Taekyung because you like that side of him, right?”

“Ah~. If it weren’t for Kang Hye-eun, Taekyung would be mine to raise! If only I had awakened as a Hunter half a year sooner!”

“Hey, hey. Don’t cross the line. Hye-eun will get angry again.”

“But Kang Hye-eun, are you really dating Taekyung because you like him? Or did it just happen because you’re childhood friends and hang out together?”

“W-well, that is to say…”

I didn’t think I had a hobby of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations usually, but this time was an exception.

Besides, Kang Hye-eun was already someone I cared about to some extent. I couldn’t help but cautiously look forward to her evaluation of me coming from her mouth.

Until now, I had just been happy with that one word Hye-eun gave me back in elementary school, but I was purely curious if she was still cheering for my dream after 3 years had passed.

…However, as soon as I heard the words that came out of Kang Hye-eun’s mouth afterward, my heart started pounding in a direction different from expectation.

“W-what’s cool about it! What’s cool! Despite having no talent, what’s cute about headbutting a rock meaninglessly?! It’s not cute at all, just foolish?! I’m dating him only because it’s pitiful if he’s left like that!”

“……?”

“If it stays like this, it’s obvious he’ll never awaken as a Hunter, no matter what, and spend his life just being called an aspiring Hunter before ending up as an old bachelor, right? I-if that happens, it’s pitiful, so I’m just trying to support him out of childhood friendship! Not love… Ah, no! It’s pity, pity! So don’t you guys needlessly ruin your lives by looking down on Sung Taekyung, okay? Huh?! I warned you!!”

“Hye-eun’s panic button has been pressed again.”

“She’s really fucking hilarious every time she shows this kind of reaction, heh heh.”

…To be honest, it wasn’t an unexpected reaction.

In this world, being a male Hunter was usually treated like this. The existence of male awakeners itself was like a unicorn in legends, so it was natural in a way that Hye-eun thought I wouldn’t be able to awaken.

Still, couldn’t she have at least said a word or two sincerely, telling me she believed in me? It was unavoidable to feel a bit sad like that, though.

I hadn’t failed to notice her feelings of goodwill and affection towards me, but what I wanted wasn’t that simple affection, but trust-trust that I could truly become a male awakener.

Since she, who I thought believed in me differently from others until now, showed that kind of reaction, it was unavoidable that disappointment rose in my heart upon seeing it.

‘Taekyung’s future dream is to be a Hunter? Really?’

‘Yes. It’ll be tough, but I’ll somehow become a Hunter so that people like my parents never appear again.’

‘Then will you enroll in the nearby Hunter specialized middle school too?’

‘Yes. Fortunately, they say they accept even male Hunter aspirants if their grades are good enough. Once I get in, I’ll have to find a way to awaken somehow.’

‘Then I want to be a Hunter too! I’ll enroll in the Hunter specialized middle school too and become partner Hunters with Taekyung!’

I was quietly imagining a future where I, too, would someday complete my Hunter awakening like Hye-eun, become partners, and break through gates and clear dungeons together.

However, upon realizing that Hye-eun didn’t particularly consider whether I awakened or not important, I suddenly felt empty.

The shock of having my expectations betrayed by the childhood friend I trusted the most was enough to change my resolve, which had been thinking, ‘I’ve tried enough.’

‘Whether it’s the first or anything else, it’s fine, so I have no choice but to somehow awaken and make her see again.’

Giving up on enrolling in a general high school, which was the content of that day’s career counseling, I chose to enroll in a Hunter specialized high school, which almost everyone, let alone my homeroom teacher, had dissuaded me from.

Because I thought that once I somehow awakened, I would be able to be confident in front of Hye-eun again.

I hadn’t expected at that time that that impulsive choice would become the worst judgment I would come to regret repeatedly in the future.

Seoul Gangdong District, Hunter Training Specialized High School.

Among the numerous Hunter training high schools famous for more than nine-tenths (90%) of their graduates awakening as Hunters, Gangdong District’s Hunter Training Specialized High School was the elite of the elite.

There were largely three reasons why Gangdong District’s Hunter Training Specialized High School became a prestigious Hunter high school.

First, top-tier Hunter awakening facilities where all kinds of ability awakenings could be tested.

Second, the best practical, tailored teaching staff composed of former and current Hunters who had already graduated from Gangdong District’s Hunter Training Specialized High School.

Third, a student curriculum that advanced in a step-by-step manner after completing a solid foundational education starting from middle school.

Because these three things were perfectly equipped, Gangdong District’s Hunter Training Specialized High School came to be called a prestigious high school. Recovery-type Hunters were also stationed there to prepare for any injuries sustained during training.

What is learned at this high school is only one thing: to somehow focus solely on ability awakening by completing Hunter awakening training, which amounts to as many as a thousand types just by rough counting.

Anyway, the first condition to be active as a Hunter was to awaken, whether it was a good ability or a trivial one.

Training regarding close combat, such as swordsmanship or spear techniques.

Training regarding mystical powers, such as magic or sorcery.

Training in handling sniping weapons, such as guns or bows.

Training in developing recovery abilities by serving gods.

Training in handling vehicles. Training in strengthening physical abilities. Training in efficiently conducting underwater combat. Training in drawing out the power dormant within. Training in controlling gravitational force or electromagnetic force. Training in cultivating resistance against mental attacks. The ability to handle power extracted from animals. Training in using power extracted from monsters. Training in recombining the constituent materials of objects. Even the ability to handle mysterious beings summoned from another world as one’s own summon.

Truly, it was perfectly fitting to call it a ‘department store of everything’ for ability awakening, equipped with conditions that allow awakening all kinds of Hunter abilities to the extent that any ability can bloom.

Of course, there was no need to complete all over a thousand awakening trainings; once one’s own ability awakened, the rest of the educational process naturally did not proceed.

If one awakened quickly, they could engage in activities as a school-recommended trainee Hunter during the remaining school term, or apply for early graduation if they wished; it was permissible.

Even if one couldn’t awaken during the school term, graduates could use the awakening facilities for up to 2 years afterward, making it an impossible environment to not awaken if one had the will. My decision to enroll was also underpinned to some extent by the mindset that something would somehow work out in such an environment.

‘Surely, with over a thousand trainings available, I can achieve one awakening among them.’

No matter how much physical ability differences exist between men and women, there must be limits.

It’s true that the possibility of male Hunter awakening is slim, but it isn’t impossible, right?

I enrolled with the mindset that, in the worst-case scenario, I would somehow try to bloom even by doing all over a thousand trainings, but naturally, reality did not flow as loosely as I thought.

Female classmates I’d seen since middle school gradually started awakening after finding their own fields, and students whose abilities were delayed were somehow made to awaken through the teachers’ intuitive focused training.

As people around me overtook me one by one, and later on, even juniors who enrolled later finished awakening before me, I was still spinning a hamster wheel that wasn’t moving forward.

…And it would have been fortunate if it were only that.

The secret sexual harassment from the girls, which had continued since middle school, seriously started escalating upon entering high school. From some point on, when it became impossible to resist even one girl with strength, the girls truly started using me like an object for simulated sexual acts.

Several girls would suddenly rush at me, pretending to tickle me while groping various parts of my body.

During the training time for changing into gym clothes, almost every time I suffered ‘ice cream’-having my pants pulled down.

Candid photography was almost at daily levels. There were photos taken secretly, and photos taken openly.

The corner of my desk that I used wore down and disappeared unusually quickly compared to other desks, and a lot of my personal belongings also disappeared.

From the fact that they mainly disappeared-writing utensils like pens that were long and thin-I could roughly guess their intention.

These kinds of events were unpleasant disturbances to my concentration, even when I was supposed to be focusing solely on Hunter awakening training with all my might.

Of course, as I am also a man, I couldn’t honestly say that such lewd pranks from high school girls didn’t arouse me at all.

…But no matter what, there had to be limits.

Even if it didn’t matter to them because they had already awakened or seemed like they would awaken soon, these actions were a waste of time for me, who didn’t show even a hint of awakening.

Even the teachers, all alike, mostly didn’t know about these actions, or if they did, pretending not to see was the common choice.

Perhaps they just let it be because sacrificing just me increased the entire class’s achievement rate. Rather than pouring effort into a male Hunter aspirant without the possibility of awakening, it would have been much more efficient to use me for student stress management to make it easier for the other girls to awaken.

Occasionally, some teachers gave advice or help so I could cope with this kind of bullying, but I can certainly say now that most teachers did not.

And I too had no choice but to remain silent to the flooding tide of all sorts of teasing and molestation, as staying at this high school was overwhelmingly advantageous for Hunter awakening.

Since the entire school was involved in this matter, reporting the damage would likely result in me being transferred instead. More importantly, I didn’t want to cause a noisy dispute by involving the police during my high school years, the prime time for awakening.

Of course, as a price for that, I had to endure the sinister clutches of women approaching me almost alone.

At first, the number of people tormenting me like a toy increased from a few to the whole class, and later on, it didn’t take long for it to spread to the whole grade, the whole school.

Fortunately, perhaps the girls had at least some conscience, as they didn’t cross the final line. Acts like being forcibly anally raped in front of everyone, having my clothes stripped off, or my naked body shamefully displayed-that these line-crossing acts did not happen was at least some comfort.

Anyway, because of that experience during high school years, my wariness towards women increased.

I wouldn’t say it’s particularly gynophobia, but at least I developed a habit of unconditionally suspecting women who approach me abruptly.

I also came to know that female Hunters in this world tended to see men as objects to release their surging sexual desires, even more so than men in the original world saw women. Especially among them, female Hunters called ‘Animal Type’ were unable to control their sexual desires even more than ordinary women.

The physical strength advantage through awakening, the deepening instinct as females the more they fought risking their lives in places like dungeons or gates. These various environments perhaps created the abnormal sexual desire of female Hunters.

I wasn’t particularly defending the actions they took towards me, but roughly, I understood it like this regarding women’s sexual desire being stronger than men’s in this world.

Fortunately, this kind of group bullying almost disappeared starting from mid-term of the second year, second semester, and somehow stabilized. Because Kang Hye-eun, who was mostly handling only external schedules due to her trainee Hunter activities, started coming to school diligently around that time, the behavior slowly stopped too.

That the bullying ended from the point Hye-eun started attending school properly again was fortunate news for me too. If I had shown this state to Kang Hye-eun, not someone else, I would have been too embarrassed to ever lift my head again.

The news might have reached the ears of Hye-eun’s mother, who always worries about me, so I hoped that at least wouldn’t happen.

Of course, just because the people who bothered me disappeared didn’t mean I had awakened my abilities.

For 3 years during my attendance at the Hunter Training High School. And even for 2 years after graduation.

Despite attending school every day without rest on holidays or weekends, and attempting all kinds of Hunter training that could be performed at the Hunter Training High School, I could not achieve any ability awakening until March 2077, when I turned 22.

And now, 3 months after the day I could no longer attend school, I have become a jobless freeloader at home, merely consuming the inheritance my parents left behind day by day.

“Ha, life really sucks.”

Lying on the bed, looking at the ceiling, I silently sank into regret over the wasted past years.

If I hadn’t insisted that I could somehow awaken, if I hadn’t forcefully enrolled in the Hunter specialized high school out of stubbornness, at least the current me wouldn’t have fallen into this shut-in loser life.

I didn’t know that a single word heard during a mentally sensitive period would roll into such a big snowball.

If I hadn’t overheard those words then, the current me would normally have enrolled in university and be spending the first semester of my third year.

Thinking about it, those words Hye-eun said weren’t particularly meant to insult me or think of me as insignificant. By the time one is a middle schooler, their mind has matured compared to elementary school days, so she was essentially just stating the obvious knowledge-‘Men cannot obtain awakening abilities’-as a normal observation.

Thus, while wasting a total of 5 years-3 years of high school and 2 years after graduation-the fortune my parents left behind was slowly starting to show its bottom. The 22-year-old jobless Sung Taekyung, having achieved nothing, wasted time today too, powerlessly scrolling through his smartphone under the covers in his room.

『Awakening conditions have been confirmed.

Subject: Sung Taekyung has been appointed as Hunter Lust Manager, effective immediately.』

“……What?”

Until this phrase suddenly appeared on the smartphone I was blankly scrolling through.