A Hunter on Borrowed Time Keeps Surviving - Chapter 42

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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 42.
Moving boxes had claimed nearly every inch of floor space in the Jatji-bang.
Large ones, small ones, some still unfolded, others waiting only for tape.
Si-ul crouched among them, folding a shirt with deliberate care.
His hands moved without pause, but the rhythm was slow.
His thoughts kept drifting elsewhere.
‘Six years I’ve lived in this place.’
With each section of the wardrobe he emptied, the years flickered past like scenes in a lantern show.
It wasn’t as though the memories were all good ones.
Yet the joy he’d felt when, after the Orphanage, after the Gosiwon and the semi-basement, he finally secured a proper room—that remained whole in his heart.
‘Leaving now, though I can’t say why, but it feels like the time has come.’
His bank account had swelled to holdings in the hundreds of millions.
So absorbed in Quests and rapid growth, the only rewards reality had offered him were beef and beer.
‘I’ll be dead in a few months anyway—was I too careless with myself?’
Si-ul’s gaze drifted to the Death Notice Date screen hovering in miniature at the edge of his vision.
【Remaining Time: 113 days, 16 hours, 35 minutes】
Seventy days since the Terminal Condition had begun.
More than two months and ten days.
‘Once August passes, barely half the time is left….’
The pressure was beginning to tighten around his chest.
Doubt gave way to self-recrimination.
‘Can I really find the Judgment Dragon within the time I have left…?’
His ultimate goal was to defeat the Judgment Dragon, but before that—even finding it seemed suddenly impossible.
The root of this collapse of confidence lay in his meeting with Kim Dong-jin that afternoon.
— A word of advice: if you wish to challenge an SSS-rank Dungeon, you must gain power. As a Freelance Hunter, you will never reach that goal otherwise.
Without power, there is no opportunity.
That warning had lodged itself deeply in Si-ul’s mind.
He sat with the folded shirt resting on his knees, lost in thought.
He didn’t believe everything Kim Dong-jin had said.
There was no proof that Kim Dong-jin had truly been a Special Hunter, no verification of how much of his story was fact—none of it had been confirmed.
Moreover, for a stranger he’d just met to casually speak of state-level prohibitions—normally, he should have dismissed it outright.
……
Yet it was difficult to dismiss entirely.
Kim Dong-jin was an Awakener with the bearing of one who wore a Medal Badge on his left chest.
Would such a powerful figure pose as a Special Hunter and make state-level jokes to Si-ul without purpose?
‘It doesn’t add up.’
Not all of it was true, but none of it seemed entirely false either.
Si-ul thrust the hoodie into the box and tapped the edge with his empty palm.
The box shifted slightly.
“Woof!”
Zero poked his head out from where he’d been hiding inside, barking brightly.
“How long have you been in there?”
Zero chirped with laughter and leaped into another box.
The chaos of moving preparations seemed like a playground to him.
“Someone’s having fun.”
Thanks to Zero, Si-ul managed a small smile.
He stood and ran a hand through his hair.
Dwelling on thoughts wouldn’t yield answers.
Better to examine what could be verified now.
“Quest window.”
At his call, a holographic screen unfolded.
【Quest Consecutive Success Count: 10】
When no active Quest was ongoing, the default screen displayed his accumulated consecutive success count.
Si-ul’s eyes moved downward across the display.
【Next Reward Tier】
【13th / 15th / 17th / 20th】
“…it keeps going.”
Even after receiving the tenth reward, the sequence hadn’t broken.
The intervals between bonus tiers remained unchanged.
‘Does this mean the Quests will continue even after I reach S-rank Awakening Grade…?’
This was a crucial piece of the puzzle.
The limit of an Awakener’s grade was known to be S-rank.
Beyond that—SS-rank or SSS-rank Awakeners—the world had no record of their existence.
But if the Quest didn’t stop and continued to progress, Si-ul would surpass S-rank and reach into a tier that didn’t exist in this world at all.
‘Could something like that actually happen?’
The system defied common sense so thoroughly that believing in possibility rather than impossibility had proven more accurate.
The thought was intriguing yet deeply unsettling.
Buzz.
“……?”
His phone vibrated on the table.
The sudden call shattered Si-ul’s reverie.
It was Heo Min-ho.
“Min-ho?”
— I apologize for calling so late. Are you able to talk right now?
“Yes, that’s fine.”
Heo Min-ho paused a beat before speaking carefully.
— You remember what you said before? About wanting to work as a mercenary with our team on the next S-rank Dungeon?
“Yes, I did.”
For Si-ul, raiding with the Choshinseong Team offered the ideal environment—securing S-rank Dungeons while monopolizing the Boss.
It was certainly wise to extend that arrangement as far as possible.
— I talked it over with the higher-ups about that….
At the hesitant note in Heo Min-ho’s voice, Si-ul quickly grasped the conclusion.
— They’re saying further mercenary participation in S-rank raids won’t be possible.
Si-ul leaned against the window frame and answered plainly.
“I see.”
He wasn’t particularly shocked.
It was the response he’d anticipated.
— I’m sorry. I did my best to persuade them… but from the Daeho Guild’s perspective, repeatedly giving S-rank Dungeon opportunities to someone who isn’t a member creates problems.
Even without explanation, Si-ul understood.
Having participated in two S-rank raids as a non-member was already an extraordinary exception.
That exception had been possible largely because Si-ul served as Do I-hyeon’s accompanying Hunter.
The buzz around being a monster rookie had probably helped as well.
But accounting for all that, it seemed the decision had settled on “no further access.”
“It’s fine. When the opportunity comes up next time, we’ll run together again. It was good experience.”
Normally, he would have immediately worried about how to secure the next S-rank Dungeon.
But even if he somehow found another Dungeon and advanced to S-rank, what came after would be an even bigger problem—so his demeanor had actually grown calmer.
— Thank you for understanding. Let’s grab a meal sometime.
“Sounds good.”
The call with Heo Min-ho ended there.
Si-ul stood before the window, gazing up at the full moon in silence.
Behind him, Zero was wrapping himself in packing tape, playing mummy.
“If I can’t even secure S-rank Dungeons, there’s no way what comes after will be easy.”
Si-ul muttered, resigned.
Even if Kim Dong-jin’s words weren’t true, one thing remained certain: the Gates ahead would be infinitely harder to obtain than anything he’d faced so far.
Just as they had been to reach this point.
‘I thought I could keep growing if I just fought thousands and thousands of times, smashing my head against the wall.’
But reality proved far harsher than his determination.
He’d come to feel, in his very bones, that beyond a certain threshold, growth demanded status and power as essential elements.
‘This won’t work. I have to fight harder battles ahead, and if I can’t even get to them because the path’s blocked…’
Si-ul sensed instinctively that this moment demanded a major change.
And after a long while, he steeled himself, picked up his phone, and scrolled through his contacts.
His finger scrolled down several times before stopping at one name.
He pressed the call button.
The dial tone rang twice, then connected.
“Is this Kang Ho-cheol?”
— This is the first time you’ve called my personal line. What brings this on?
“There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
— Go ahead.
Si-ul hesitated for a few seconds before speaking.
“You mentioned that becoming a Special Hunter enables rapid growth. That applies to challenging SSS-rank Dungeons too, right?”
He didn’t mention his meeting with Kim Dong-jin.
To question the veracity of the information Kim had given him risked exposing a security breach that could harm Kim gravely.
Instead, he posed a direct question to clear up his doubts.
He asked plainly: if he became a Special Hunter, would he truly have the opportunity to enter an SSS-rank Dungeon?
— My answers to you are limited, I’m afraid. But on this one point, I can speak with certainty.
Through the phone came Kang Ho-cheol’s animated voice.
— I’d stake my reputation on it: becoming a Special Hunter is the fastest path to challenging an SSS-rank Dungeon.
Si-ul’s pupils trembled.
Kang Ho-cheol had delivered the words with such finality that they could have caused serious trouble if he’d misspoken.
That unshakeable conviction reached Si-ul as the answer he’d been waiting to hear.
“I see.”
The tangled knot in Si-ul’s mind unraveled at once.
He’d barely glanced at Kang Ho-cheol’s offer of a Special Hunter position before.
The tedious assignments and suffocating restrictions would clearly have held him back.
But if he could meet the Judgment Dragon sooner.
And if he could grow stronger faster to bring that creature down.
Then the secondary hardships were something he simply had to bear—he understood that now.
“I know I’m late coming forward, but Kang Ho-cheol, if it’s not too late… would now be acceptable?”
The decision didn’t take long to make.
A hunter on borrowed time had nothing but fearless audacity and reckless nerve.
“I want to become a Special Hunter. Tell me how.”
Si-ul’s declaration met silence on the other end of the line.
Then Kang Ho-cheol’s bright voice burst through.
— Not late at all.
* * *
The Government Special Hunter Headquarters was unnaturally quiet, despite the midday hour.
People came and went, certainly, but they spoke little and moved quickly.
“Hm?”
The receptionist at the front desk looked up as Si-ul approached.
Si-ul stood before the counter.
She’d seen him several times during his Black Gate investigation attendance.
“There’s no interview scheduled for today. What brings you in?”
Instead of answering, Si-ul slid a prepared document across the desk.
The receptionist picked it up, and her hand trembled slightly.
Her eyes darted between the paper and Si-ul.

Recommender: Kang Ho-cheol
As the receptionist grasped the situation, Si-ul recalled the conversation he’d had with Kang Ho-cheol days ago.
— I presented it to you as a scout’s offer, but the truth is that Special Hunter status isn’t something you can simply join just because you’ve been recommended.
You had to pass an official examination.
The real barrier, though, was the qualification requirements.
The basic condition: an Awakening Grade of A or higher.
On top of that, you needed a recommendation letter from an active Special Hunter to meet the eligibility criteria.
When Si-ul heard this explanation, he asked with a note of concern.
His official records listed his Awakening Grade as D—wouldn’t that make him ineligible?
Kang Ho-cheol answered with a laugh.
— The opposite, actually. A hunter whose official records say D-grade but whose actual grade is A or higher? We prefer those kinds.
Once you become a Special Hunter, the government manipulates your information for the sake of future operations.
Hunters like you, with incorrectly registered data, are actually the type we welcome.
Si-ul recalled those words now and offered a faint smile.
“Documents confirmed.”
The receptionist finished reading and arranged the letter neatly.
She pressed a red stamp onto the paper and handed it back to Si-ul.
“We’ll begin processing. You’ll receive notification about the examination separately.”
The hunter on borrowed time kept living on
Author |
Kutsummatsu
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(주) Samyang C&C
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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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