Chapter 356: Graduation (2)

And, that evening.

“Min-ah, bye~.”

“Taekyung, bye~. Don’t go wandering off somewhere, get home safely~.”

“I got it already.”

“Just in case, I’m asking, your home address is still the same, right? Next door to Hye-eun’s place?”

“Yeah. I’ve lived there my whole life without ever moving, so don’t worry.”

“Okay. Then I’ll tell them that too~.”

“…Huh?”

After finishing the party outing with Han Min-ah, who kept saying something incomprehensible until the very end.

After parting ways with her at the crossroads, I headed home alone.

Since I didn’t have any plans to spend the year-end with anyone in particular, there was nowhere else for me to dart off to.

Besides, on a day like this, there’s nowhere to go even if I wandered around alone.

It was the year-end, so I did try suggesting to Han Min-ah that we spend it together. Though she rejected it with a strangely obvious air.

She kept making incomprehensible excuses like, ‘I can’t intrude and ruin things on a day like today,’ or ‘Anyway, I can’t today,’ and the conversation just fizzled out.

Maybe she thought I’d be spending the year-end with Hye-eun. Unfortunately, Hye-eun genuinely seemed busy until tomorrow, not lying.

「I’m sorry, Taekyung-ah. I can’t be with you for the year-end or Christmas this year.」

“It’s okay. And we couldn’t meet on Christmas recently because our schedules didn’t match, right? Can’t be helped.”

I heard that Eunyoung Noona had an alibi from an event she’d worked at since her active days, so she couldn’t get out of it. There was no way I could stubbornly insist otherwise.

On top of that, Cha Yuri was busy working with the special effects team for year-end events, and Hwayoung Sunbae wasn’t even reachable. She probably had a lot of work making hangover remedies and such because it’s the end of the year.

Even Eunyoung Noona said she had plans to spend this year-end with her friends from her active days, so it seemed I was destined to spend this year-end completely alone.

It couldn’t be helped, as I didn’t have any special plans or many connections.

Well, there’s a saying that a Hunter’s year-end is in February, and this time of year is usually when Hunters get busy with external events.

If my active period had been just a year earlier, I would have been called upon like other Hunters.

And even if I wasn’t drafted for event or festival support, the Hunters remaining in dungeons worked relatively harder during the year-end and New Year season due to the reduced number of available personnel.

Since I officially became a Hunter this year, I should start getting used to this atmosphere. Who knows, maybe next year I’ll be running around busy like everyone else.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel particularly lonely today.

I wondered if making some festive year-end food might lift my spirits, so I headed towards the large supermarket. I needed to buy dinner ingredients anyway.

Eating something decent for dinner would probably make me feel a bit better.

My plan was to have some delicious snacks with a drink alone, watch the bell-ringing ceremony, and then go to sleep. With that decided, I entered the large supermarket near my usual route home.

I browsed the aisles casually, tossing a couple of bags of snacks suitable for munching into my shopping basket.

“For dinner tonight~ what should I make~.”

As I wandered around the supermarket, humming a little tune, my feet somehow led me to the seafood section deep inside the store.

As soon as I saw the mountain of oysters piled high, for some reason, my steps slowly came to a halt right there.

‘I should eat something good for stamina tonight. And maybe take a nap if possible….’

…I don’t know why Han Min-ah’s words from earlier suddenly popped into my head the moment I saw the oysters.

Oysters are definitely good for boosting stamina. There’s that story about the famous Casanova eating 50 oysters every night.

Of course, whether I, who had finished all my plans for the day and wasn’t going out again, actually needed stamina replenishment is another question.

As I hesitated in front of the seafood counter, caught in a quiet internal conflict, I heard a supermarket employee’s voice from my right.

“Welcome~! Do you need anything?”

“…Give me half a pound of the shucked oysters here.”

“Yes, certainly~!”

As if possessed, I put 200g of oysters straight into my basket and immediately started pondering how to use them for dinner.

Should I mix them with scallions and onions in a seasoned sauce for oyster salad? Or maybe an oyster ajillo pasta simmered in garlic oil would be nice.

While thinking of a few oyster recipes in my head and adding other suitable ingredients to my basket, I moved towards the liquor section to grab some beer.

On my way, in the ready-to-eat meal section, one particular dish caught my eye more than usual today.

「Grilled Seasoned Eel 1 pack ₩20,000 -> ₩17,000」

“……”

I don’t know why things like this are catching my eye so much today.

Eel would be good for dinner too. It’s tasty and good for recovering stamina.

Since the dish was already prepared, just eating it with warm rice as a side dish was practically like having eel over rice.

The 15% time sale because it was evening was a small, welcome bonus.

‘Something good for stamina tonight….’

…And why does Han Min-ah keep popping into my head every time I almost forget about her?

Since the dinner menu was already decided, I had to wrap up my grocery shopping for the evening here, even if it was a bit disappointing.

Although my income had increased recently due to my Hunter activities, spending ₩20,000 on a single meal was still quite a burden.

With a slight sense of regret, I put down the eel pack I had picked up and added four cans of beer from the liquor section.

Before heading to the checkout, on a whim, I glanced back at the ready-to-eat meal section. There, the eel pack was still sitting there, with its price adjusted further down.

「Grilled Seasoned Eel 1 pack ₩20,000 -> ₩15,000」

…Looks like a staff member came by while I was away.

While it still wasn’t exactly cheap, a 25% discount was a price I could reasonably accept.

In the end, after a brief deliberation, I finalized my grocery shopping for the evening by adding the grilled seasoned eel pack.

Well, I could always eat one of them later as a midnight snack.

「D-rank dungeon, Dark Forest, Sector C.」

January 1st, as the new year dawned. It was late night, long after the midnight bell ceremony had even finished.

It was a dungeon where neither Hunters nor monsters normally operated at this hour, but that night, a slightly different atmosphere permeated the Dark Forest.

-Pah!

‘Keeeeeek!’

As soon as midnight struck, two rookie Hunters appeared, turning the once peaceful Dark Forest into a noisy chaos.

Due to the sudden intruders, the monsters were moving chaotically, letting out cries and screams.

“Seon-ah! Two are heading your way!”

‘Kieeeeeeek…!’

“…Yes, Unnie.”

Hearing her Unnie’s voice, who darted freely through the dungeon, her long white rabbit ears fluttering, the fox-eared girl nodded slightly and replied in a small voice.

Han Seon-ah lunged forward towards the goblinas charging at her with clubs, her sharp claws hidden beneath her fists aimed at the monsters’ necks.

Swiftly dodging the clubs of the two goblinas, her claws grazed across both monsters’ necks.

‘Kiuk….’

‘Keuek…?’

From the necks of the two goblinas muttering in confusion, unaware of what had happened, two streams of blood soon spurted out.

The sharp wounds left by grazing the monsters’ necks, and the dark red bloodstains now adorning the fox-eared girl’s claws, indirectly told the story of the battle that had just taken place.

In that split second, Han Seon-ah’s movements, dodging the goblinas’ attacks while simultaneously striking, were incredibly agile, almost unbelievable for a D-rank Hunter on her first day.

“Good job, Seon-ah!”

“Yes. You be careful too, Unnie.”

While the monsters hesitated for a moment, stunned by Han Seon-ah’s sharp moves, a group of goblinas charged towards Han Jin-ah.

Dodging the monsters attacking from three directions at once, the rabbit-eared girl launched herself into the air.

Mid-air, she spun around once, and her kick, upon landing, completely crushed the head of one goblina.

‘Ke…ek?’

‘Keu, keuek!’

Facing the other goblinas, who faltered in confusion at what just happened before their eyes, she launched her next attack.

Using her right foot as a pivot, she swung her leg like a whip in place, striking the sides of two goblinas’ heads.

The powerful leg strength of the American Rabbit was more than enough to send two D-rank monsters flying.

‘Keu…keu….’

‘…….’

The two monsters, knocked down by the kicks, lay sprawled on the ground, unable to get up.

These two D-rank Hunters, who had debuted less than an hour ago, had become the Dark Forest’s little nightmares, mercilessly slaughtering monsters.

Power of the Wild: Han Jin-ah, using the American Rabbit’s powerful leg strength to evade attacks and crush monsters with kicks.

Likewise, Power of the Wild: Han Seon-ah, using the Black Fox’s power for swift movements and sharp claws to bring monsters to their demise.

As twins who had grown up together for years since birth, their coordination was perfect, even on their first dungeon entry today.

Their objective for entering the dungeon today, ‘hunting 20 monsters,’ was already nearing its final stage.

“How many more are left?”

“Including the one you just caught, Unnie, that makes fifteen.”

“So, only five more left? Since it was twenty combined.”

“Yes.”

Other Hunters might not understand why they entered the dungeon so late at night just to catch twenty goblinas.

But regardless of what others thought, this hunt held a meaning more important than anything else to the two of them.

It was Sung Taekyung’s promise: once they became official Hunters and defeated 10 monsters, he would take their first time.

Training relentlessly for the past three months with only that promise in sight, the two were pouring all their effort into hunting monsters, suppressing their heat symptoms with medicine until the very end.

“I’m saying this again, no cutting in line. You know we agreed to lose our virginity together with Taekyung Oppa, right?”

“…I know, Unnie.”

Harboring a lewd desire to lose their first time to their Unnie’s male friend.

The two girls in heat continued their hunt to reach the required number of monsters until the very end.

Little did they imagine that this hunt would be the prelude to the commotion that would unfold tonight.