A Hunter on Borrowed Time Keeps Surviving - Chapter 37

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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 37.
The gunshot hammered against his eardrums.
Siul narrowed his eyes at the space ahead, every muscle tensed.
“…Done.”
Beyond the mist, a faint pulse of mana flickered and died.
The teal-blue targeting reticles hovering in Siul’s vision shrank from seven to six.
An enemy had been struck by the Hidden Bullet and erased.
‘That was my last precious shot. I’m glad it counted.’
Siul exhaled slowly, relief washing over him.
His hypothesis held: the Hidden Bullet could find invisible targets.
Even with the Barrier warping the space itself, as long as he had the targeting lock, he could strike true.
‘I don’t know who helped me, but at least I’ve saved one of them.’
But that brief joy shattered as his expression hardened.
Click—. Click—.
When he pulled the trigger of the Hidden Roulette, only the hollow whisper of empty air answered.
The cylinder was vacant—nothing to even look at.
‘Nothing but a hollow shell.’
S+ Rank weapon or not, the criticism was fair enough.
A Hidden Roulette without Hidden Bullets was exactly that—an empty tin.
【Reload Cooldown: 167 hours 59 minutes】
Siul raked his fingers back through his hair, grimacing.
‘Of all the moments to run dry…’
The Supernova Team had seven members besides Siul himself.
He’d just erased one party member’s threat, which meant six remained.
‘Heo Min-ho and the A-Rank members should be fine. But the rest…’
In a one-on-one fight, they couldn’t hope to defeat a Danger Rank 9 monster like the one from before.
In the worst case, the person he’d just saved could be Heo Min-ho himself.
“Zero, you seeing anything?”
He asked on a hunch, but all that came back from Zero was a dejected whimper.
‘So even a monster like Zero feels the Barrier’s full effect…’
If that was true, there was only one way to break through this situation.
‘I need more Hidden Bullets.’
The reload cooldown still had a week left.
But there was another way to obtain Hidden Bullets without waiting out the cooldown.
“If I request Roulette Time, you can start it right away, right? I’m doing it now.”
Siul made his declaration to the Hidden Roulette.
The weapon shuddered in his palm.
Burst!
A teal-blue radiance unfurled from above the gun barrel.
The light crystallized into a holographic disc hanging in the air.
Siul stepped closer to examine the wheel.
It was divided into exactly three segments by teal lines etched against a black background.
One segment read “Success,” another read “Failure,” and the third read “Showdown.”
【Per your request, I shall now proceed with Roulette Time.】
【The outcome will vary according to the value the roulette produces.】
【I shall explain the three options on the wheel.】
Success: Hidden Bullet instant reload
Failure: Cooldown skip opportunity forfeited
Showdown: Result of random game determines success/failure
Siul finished reading the explanation and let out a dry laugh.
“I thought this wasn’t a gambling weapon, but I’ve been had?”
It was pure chance.
A gamble where effort meant nothing, where fortune alone dictated the outcome.
Except for one option.
“If Showdown comes up, what—I have to play another game?”
Spinning the wheel wouldn’t be the end of it in that scenario.
And since that secondary game was also random, he had no way to predict or control it—which grated on him.
‘Never mind. This isn’t the time to be picky.’
Siul swallowed his complaints in the interest of speed and gave his consent.
“Spin the wheel now.”
The system window blinked briefly and responded.
【Roulette Time begins.】
Whirrrr—!
The wheel began spinning wildly.
The cyan needle swept across three options in sequence.
Success, Failure, Showdown.
It moved too fast for the eye to follow.
“Please be success….”
Siul whispered the words like a prayer.
Beside him, Zero pressed both front paws together in silent supplication as well.
“Oh!”
As the wheel’s rotation nearly ceased, the needle pointed to Success.
Siul and Zero brightened, their bodies wiggling with joy.
In that moment, the needle gave a sharp twitch.
It skimmed past Success, swept through Failure….
“Showdown?!”
Siul and Zero held their breath as they confirmed the result on the now-motionless wheel.
Just then, a cyan holographic screen appeared once more.
【The Showdown has been determined. Transferring to the game arena.】
The moment the message appeared, the atmosphere in the space transformed instantly.
The movement of the mist and the flow of mana in the air seemed to freeze.
Even Zero’s wings ceased fluttering.
“King…!”
His bark cut off mid-sound, yet impossibly, Zero’s body remained suspended in the air despite his wings being motionless.
【While the Showdown is underway, time does not flow in reality.】
With that clarification, the true game was about to commence.
Whoooooom!
A dizzying light erupted beneath Siul’s feet.
The ground cracked open, and the Dimensional Space unfolded.
‘What is this…!’
* * *
When Siul regained his senses, he found himself standing in a different place.
An endlessly flat black ground. The sky was black too.
A desolate landscape with only sparse starlike lights scattered across it.
A single figure stood before him—or rather, a black shadow in human form.
It wore a wide-brimmed hat, a long coat, and a revolver was holstered at its waist.
The silhouette of a stereotypical cowboy.
‘Where is this… what is that thing….’
Siul glanced around in confusion.
Then game instructions materialized in the empty air.
【Showdown Event: Single Duel】
The game begins with both players standing back-to-back. After taking five paces, the first to shoot the opponent wins. You must use your own firearm.
As Siul read through the instructions, he frowned.
His eyes swept over the cowboy shadow standing before him.
“You want me to have a shootout with a gunslinger?”
Siul clicked his tongue in disbelief.
The showdown was a test of timing and accuracy with revolvers—the kind of thing that belonged in a Western film.
Naturally, this was not a favorable scenario for Siul.
The cowboy shadow, meanwhile, gave no response.
It simply tilted its head and turned its back toward Siul.
As if to say: whenever you’re ready, we’ll begin.
“…This is ridiculous.”
Siul was not confident.
His primary weapon was not a firearm, and his opponent looked far too practiced with a gun.
Yet there was no way to request a different game.
‘God help me….’
Siul already felt a throbbing in his head as if the bullet had already struck.
【Once both players have their backs turned to each other, the Showdown will begin.】
Reluctantly, Siul approached the shadow and pressed his back against it.
It was cold. Icily cold, with none of the warmth a living human should possess.
‘Even more terrifying.’
Siul cracked open the cylinder of the Hidden Roulette in his hand to check the rounds.
There was a single bullet nestled inside the otherwise empty chamber.
‘So I have to finish this with just one shot… This isn’t a Hidden Bullet, is it?’
They wouldn’t have allowed a round with guaranteed accuracy in a game like this.
That meant he had to gundown the cowboy shadow with pure skill alone——
‘A direct confrontation won’t work.’
The opponent was unmistakably a gunslinger incarnate.
The odds were heavily stacked that he’d be faster at every movement—drawing, spinning, aiming, firing.
‘Think. Use your head. Combat isn’t fought with the body alone.’
Siul knew from hard-won experience that strategy mattered just as much as raw power.
If he couldn’t win on skill, finding another way was the wiser play.
【Beginning now.】
The moment the notification appeared, the shadow took its first step.
Siul moved in kind, matching the pace.
The instant their backs separated, every nerve in his body channeled into his ears.
There was no set speed for the five paces.
So he had to read the opponent’s rhythm and adjust—speeding up or slowing down on instinct.
When Siul heard the soft footfall, he quickly took his second step, then moved in near-perfect synchronization for the rest.
‘There’s confidence in those movements. He believes he’ll win.’
Siul’s eyes turned cold as ice.
By the third step, fourth, and finally the fifth, his mind was running at full throttle.
Whip! Click!
At the fifth step, the cowboy shadow pivoted with lethal grace.
With ghost-quick hands, he drew and leveled the barrel at Siul with the precision of a blade.
Bang—!
Fire erupted.
But it did not come from the shadow’s gun.
“Kugh…”
The cowboy shadow groaned and bowed his head.
Dark blood poured from his left side, staining his waist.
“…Nice hit.”
Siul curved his lips upward, congratulating himself on the successful shot.
He said it with his back still turned to the shadow.
“Krhk…!”
The cowboy shadow coughed blood.
Siul was bleeding too.
He had never turned around at the fifth step.
Instead, he’d pressed the Hidden Roulette’s barrel against his own abdomen.
And without hesitation, he’d pulled the trigger.
The bullet punched through his stomach—flesh tore, blood sprayed, and the violent recoil threw his body.
But that was precisely what Siul had calculated.
The Hidden Roulette’s power was so tremendous that even after boring through his stomach, the bullet’s trajectory would remain true.
And true it was—the round never slowed.
Piercing through Siul’s abdomen, it traveled clean through and into the shadow’s flank as he was twisting to draw.
By not turning around, Siul had fired that half-beat earlier—the deciding factor.
Thud!
The cowboy shadow crumpled to the ground.
Only then did Siul turn to face the system window, as if to confirm.
“The rules said you had to hit your opponent with your own gun. So shooting myself first with my gun doesn’t break that, right?”
While Siul posed the question, his abdomen finished regenerating.
Fully healed, he met the confirmation message with a satisfied grin.
【You have won the Showdown.】
The stars above the black sky flickered like celebratory lights honoring his victory.
【Roulette Time Success!】
【Hidden Bullet now automatically reloaded.】
Click, clack—!
The Hidden Roulette’s cylinder spun rapidly.
At that same moment, cracks began spreading across the black arena floor.
Teal-bright fractures spiderwebbed in all directions.
* * *
Siul stood upon the marshland once more.
The mist surrounding him remained unchanged.
The faint ripple of mana sensed beyond the haze was the same as before, and Zero continued to flutter his wings in that same posture.
“Zero, did I just… disappear somewhere and come back?”
“Wark?”
Zero tilted his head, his expression saying he had no idea what Siul meant.
‘Did time in reality really not flow while the showdown was happening…?’
It felt like a dream to Siul, but there was something more important now.
When he opened the cylinder of the Hidden Roulette, six rounds gleamed, fully loaded.
“So I wasn’t just imagining things.”
Siul smiled and closed the cylinder.
Without hesitation, he raised the Hidden Roulette.
【Targets confirmed.】
Five targets materialized within the mist.
One of them had disappeared.
It seemed one of his teammates had brought down an enemy.
‘One bullet saved.’
【Please fix your gaze on your desired target for clear identification.】
“No need. I’ll hit them all anyway.”
Siul pulled the trigger in succession, as though pressing a blade to each invisible enemy’s throat.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Five cyan trajectories traced their paths through the air.
With each target that vanished, Siul sensed an instant kill.
When the last target disappeared, the mist that shrouded everything convulsed.
A deep, resonant roar erupted.
A fierce wind tore through.
The gray veil was swept away along with the mist.
Zero struggled beside him, fluttering his wings with effort as he cloaked himself in Invisibility, and Siul crouched low to keep from being blown away.
Beyond the dissipating mist, silhouettes of people came into view.
They looked exhausted, but all of them stood firm and unbroken.
The Supernova Team faced each other, all intact.
The Doomed Hunter Continues to Survive
Author |
Kutsummatsu
Publisher |
(주) Samyang C&C
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Editorial Department
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Submissions |
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No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of Samyang C&C – 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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