A Hunter on Borrowed Time Keeps Surviving - Chapter 34

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 34.
“You didn’t kill the dungeon boss because you were in a bad mood? That’s your reason?”
Siúl’s brow furrowed as he pressed for clarification.
It was the sort of thing an ordinary Hunter might be criticized for, but for Jang Jin-yeong—an executive at a major guild—it was absurd beyond measure.
“Our guild has a standard expression we use whenever something like this happens….”
Heo Min-ho got that far before one of the party members grabbed his shoulder in urgent protest.
“Hey, hey! That’s…!”
“What? What do you mean?”
Siúl’s eyes pressed him—tell me too, they urged.
Heo Min-ho, looking flustered, continued.
“We call it a Foolish Whim.”
For a moment Siúl’s eyes went blank, then a snort escaped him and he broke into laughter.
‘I forgot. That’s what he’s famous for, isn’t it?’
Jang Jin-yeong. His name had spread widely through the industry—not simply because of his title.
Seven years ago, he debuted as a Hunter and immediately shook the industry, earning the title of that year’s phenomenal rookie.
His rise to become the flagship Hunter of the Daeho Guild had been brilliant, and his skill was beyond dispute.
The problem was that his foolish temperament had become even more famous than his ability.
He absolutely refused to do anything that didn’t suit his mood.
With a volatile temper, he clashed with ordinary citizens most days of the year.
A perpetual troublemaker in the Hunter community.
The Daeho Guild had repeatedly debated whether keeping him as both flagship Hunter and executive made sense.
‘I actually threw alcohol in that man’s face. Now that I think about it… it gives me chills.’
When they first met, Siúl hadn’t known he was the famous Jang Jin-yeong, but he’d heard enough rumors circulating through the industry to recognize the name.
‘Someone like Jang Jin-yeong could absolutely have decided not to kill the boss because he was in a bad mood.’
Thinking of it as a Foolish Whim, the contradiction evaporated.
Having sorted his thoughts, Siúl spoke again.
“So you’ve finished clearing the normal monsters then? Since you said the boss was nearly subdued, the minions in the Boss Chamber must be cleared too?”
Heo Min-ho skimmed the records on his Tablet before answering.
“Yes, that’s right. We just have to walk through the open dungeon and hunt the boss—that’s all we need to do.”
Heo Min-ho added with an embarrassed smile.
“Honestly, it’s like we’re just adding a spoon to a raid Jang Jin-yeong has already completed—we’re just getting credit for the clear.”
The conscience pricked, but at the same time, it was undeniably an opportunity to covet.
It made sense now why the Supernova Team would enter another S-Rank Dungeon despite the tight schedule—just four days away.
‘Fighting the boss at peak condition with everything else already cleared—who wouldn’t want that?’
For rookie Hunters eager to raise their profile, there was no more desirable opportunity than this.
That Siúl had been invited along wasn’t because they needed help, but because they wanted to share the spoils.
‘Good people. They didn’t want to get ahead of me just from inflated records—they asked me to come along deliberately.’
Siúl was well aware of the Rookie Award candidate list and the recent exploits of the rookie Hunters.
Though the award meant nothing to him, he found himself surreptitiously checking it regardless.
He knew that Siúl himself was expected to rank first solo, and that Heo Min-ho followed closely behind him.
‘Ambitious enough to want it.’
Heo Min-ho wanted to compete fairly, so he proposed sharing the opportunity with Siúl.
Having belatedly grasped his intent, Siúl nodded with a smile.
“Understood. I’ll go. Thank you for the offer.”
* * *
Late evening, Siúl lay on the bed in his Rental Room, scrolling through his Smartphone.
Beside him, Zero had stopped chewing a dog treat and passed out.
“Grrr… woof….”
Zero’s soft snoring echoed in a steady rhythm.
Siúl chuckled quietly and scrolled through the Hunter community forum on his phone.
‘There’s still no mention of the S-Rank Dungeon Perfect Clear.’
Seeing the quiet forum, he felt somewhat relieved.
This raid was quite a significant event.
The collaboration between the Supernova Team and the phenomenal rookie, combined with their extraordinary results.
If word of this record spread, the community forum would explode—as certain as fire.
‘No mention at all—so we’re still in the record processing period?’
It took time for raid results to be registered with the Hunter Association and for official records to be compiled.
That process appeared to be ongoing.
Siúl turned off his phone and gazed at the ceiling.
‘As long as I keep operating this way, there shouldn’t be any problems….’
An uneasy feeling crept up again, unbidden.
The more people who learned about this, the greater the risk of information exposure.
The government had even asked him to be careful until their investigation into the Black Gate was finished.
Of course, they had no authority to stop a full-time Hunter’s personal activities.
‘More reporters keep following me, and people mention my real name more often on community forums.’
Siúl was just as uneasy as the government was concerned.
But there was no choice.
Someone with a terminal condition couldn’t afford to waste time—he had to seize every opportunity.
‘Whatever. Once I go S-Rank and move overseas, things will quiet down. Besides, from SS-Rank on, I’ll have to operate internationally anyway.’
He thought that shifting his stage abroad would naturally let his fame in Korea fade.
Reassuring himself this way, Siúl pushed himself up from the bed.
‘But right now… this other problem comes first.’
Siúl, perched on the edge of his bed, shifted his gaze.
Slide—.
He opened the cylinder of the Hidden Roulette he’d taken from his inventory.
The sparse chambers were revealed.
Only one bullet remained.
“This is really awkward.”
Siúl scratched around his neck, his expression troubled.
Normally, he should have already used this bullet.
The Hidden Roulette’s mechanics required expending all bullets before the cooldown began.
So when the raid with the Supernova Team ended, he’d planned to fire the remaining bullet anywhere just to activate the cooldown.
It was better to waste a stray bullet and start the cooldown early than to hold onto an incomplete set—or so he’d thought.
But an unforeseen problem had emerged.
‘Of all things, the next Dungeon is scheduled four days from now.’
The Hidden Roulette’s cooldown was one week.
Play it safe and wait for the next opportunity, or seize this one chance that might never come again? At this crossroads, Siúl chose the latter.
He’d decided to hold onto the one remaining Hidden Bullet for now.
“Having even one bullet left is better than having none at all.”
Siúl spun the barrel as he mumbled.
“And if I land it right, I might be able to take down the boss with just one shot.”
The Hidden Bullet’s power was guaranteed.
As long as the enemy wasn’t something like Balrog—something without a weak point—he had a real chance.
“Who knows? If luck is on my side, maybe I’ll be able to fire six more shots?”
Siúl laughed playfully while manipulating the Hidden Roulette.
The system tooltip appeared on touch, and he read the description text once more.
His eyes traced the very last line of the description.
[If you request Roulette Time and win the game, you can skip the reload cooldown.]
It was certainly an intriguing ability.
But he still had no real sense of it.
What exactly was Roulette Time, and what kind of game would it be?
‘At the very least, it’s an unknown card I can still play as a final gamble.’
Siúl closed the Hidden Roulette’s cylinder and slipped it back into his inventory.
* * *
“Your additional order of premium pork cutlet and katsudon are here!”
Siúl and Do Yi-hyeon sat across from each other at the Japanese restaurant, sharing a lunch meal.
A wooden board with neatly arranged sushi and a bowl of steaming udon broth sat on the table, with more plates being added beside it.
“I’m sorry. Because raids have been popping up back-to-back, I think I’ll have to push back the next paired-Hunter schedule to next month.”
Siúl apologized repeatedly as he pushed a plate of food toward Do Yi-hyeon.
“That’s totally fine! You’re treating me to such delicious food anyway!”
“Feel free to order anything else you’d like.”
Do Yi-hyeon’s eyes lit up.
“Can I order extra shrimp tempura?!”
Siúl laughed and immediately raised his hand to signal a staff member.
“One large order of shrimp tempura, please.”
Once the order went in, Do Yi-hyeon swallowed hard and picked up his chopsticks again.
“Oh right, I ran into Director Jang Jin-yeong at the Company Headquarters yesterday. He was asking how you were doing.”
Siúl, mid-bite of udon, looked up.
“Me?”
Do Yi-hyeon mimicked Jang Jin-yeong’s distinctive stern expression and tone.
“That fellow goes to lick the honey I spread for him, doesn’t he? Tell him to enjoy it! Ha ha ha!”
Siúl mimicked the impression so perfectly that Jang Jin-yeong’s voice seemed to echo in his ears.
“I’ve heard rumors about that dungeon too. They say that’s the one where Jang Jin-yeong stopped his raid because of a… a change in his emotional state?”
Do Yi-hyeon had softened the phrasing, but Siúl corrected him with the blunt truth.
“Right. A Foolish Whim, they say—he didn’t kill the boss and just walked out.”
…….
Do Yi-hyeon laughed awkwardly and pressed on.
“I heard a little about it when I met with Jang yesterday.”
“Heard what?”
“Why he didn’t kill that boss.”
Siúl’s chopsticks stilled.
“…Why didn’t he kill it?”
Siúl had figured it was either laziness or a fit of temper.
But the tone of Do Yi-hyeon’s story felt different somehow.
“You saw in the manual that one of the boss’s abilities is Transformation, right?”
“Yes. It can transform into not just people it’s directly seen, but also those connected to them.”
“That’s exactly what made Jang so furious.”
Do Yi-hyeon paused, glanced around, then lowered his voice.
“The dungeon boss transformed into the face of Jang’s dead brother.”
Siúl’s eyes widened.
“…What did you say?”
According to the record, Jang Jin-yeong’s reason for halting the raid was listed as “preemptive psychological damage prevention due to boss’s Transformation ability.”
The justification looked solid on paper, but since Jang had walked out of the Boss Chamber looking perfectly fine, the guild had written it off as another Foolish Whim.
Yet hearing Do Yi-hyeon recount what actually happened, it was clear there had been real and significant psychological trauma to prevent.
“Jang reasoned that the boss must have the ability to see the dead. It seems it saw the spirit of his dead brother haunting Jang’s vicinity and transformed into that shape.”
Siúl’s expression hardened considerably.
He listened in silence, his full attention on Do Yi-hyeon’s words.
“Hunter Siúl, you should steel yourself mentally just in case. Who knows what face that demon might wear next?”
Siúl had already reviewed the boss’s abilities in the manual and prepared himself against psychological attacks.
He’d even done mental imagery training, imagining whose face among those close to him the thing might wear to shake his resolve.
But the notion that it transformed into the faces of the dead struck Siúl with an entirely different force.
‘Not a living person… it takes the shape of the dead?’
The mere thought of it felt deeply wrong.
Now he understood why Jang Jin-yeong had said he found it too disgusting to kill.
But the real problem was that this ability posed a serious threat to Siúl himself.
‘I hope I don’t see that face… I hope I don’t see theirs.’
A single face flickered through Siúl’s mind.
Someone who had left him with a wound that would never fade in a lifetime.
Someone whose mere memory could pierce his chest.
That irreplaceable person existed in Siúl’s heart.
Terminal Condition Hunter Continues to Survive
Author |
Kutsumattsu
Publisher |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Editorial Director |
Editorial Department
Published by |
Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books
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7F Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
UCI |
G720:N+A063-20260731071
Blog |
blog.naver.com/dreambookss
Twitter (X) |
@dreambookss
Submissions |
[email protected]
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. – Dream Books.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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