A Hunter on Borrowed Time Keeps Surviving - Chapter 5

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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 5.
Inside Min Hyungshik’s Barrier Shield.
Boulders that had plummeted from above were piling up like a mountain against the transparent membrane.
The barrier’s surface was covered in a dense web of hairline fractures, and beads of sweat dripped steadily from Min Hyungshik’s chin.
Yet even in this despair, Sioul stepped forward.
“Dohyun, what are you doing? Open the Mini Gate now.”
Park Dohyun wavered.
“The, the Mini Gate? Right now?”
Certainly, if they used the Mini Gate, they could reach the Middle Zone where Hyowon was waiting in one leap.
Escape from this hellish Boss Room.
But using the Mini Gate also meant leaving someone behind to face this nightmare alone.
“I’ll stay. Please don’t worry—just go.”
The air inside the barrier froze.
“What did you just say?”
“Are you joking right now?”
“You’ll die if you stay here alone!”
His teammates cried out in alarm.
One grabbed Sioul’s arm in protest; another watched the Giant Golem raise its limb beyond the barrier wall, eyes widening in horror.
Boom—!
Magical power poured from the red core, coiling around the boulder.
That massive stone which had cracked the barrier before was readying itself again.
“You can’t, Sioul! If we get hit one more time like that…!”
“The team leader’s barrier has reached its limit. You all know that, don’t you?”
No one dared refute Sioul’s words.
In fact, Min’s body was trembling like an aspen leaf.
“Don’t worry. I won’t die. If anything, I’ll be faster taking care of these things alone.”
Sioul spoke with remarkable composure and detachment.
Even smiling.
“Go. I’m sorry, but if you’re here, you’ll only slow me down.”
He even made such a brazen declaration.
‘What is this guy…? How can he say something like that so casually in this situation…?’
The team members were baffled.
A mercenary hunter whose name none of them had ever heard of was telling them all to leave and trust only him—their minds reeled.
“Dohyun, take out the Gate Disc.”
“…You’re serious?”
Park Dohyun questioned, his voice wavering in protest.
But then Min Hyungshik broke into the exchange.
“Follow his lead.”
Everyone turned to stare at Min Hyungshik in shock.
Min Hyungshik was the kind of person who cared for his teammates excessively.
A true leader who would throw his own body in front of harm to save anyone falling behind.
For him to agree to leave Sioul behind was unthinkable.
The team members exchanged uncertain glances.
“Team leader, if we leave him alone….”
“Team leader Min, we should all go together….”
“No.”
Min Hyungshik’s single word cut through his teammates’ objections like a blade.
He fixed Sioul with eyes where veins had become prominent.
Those eyes held the unwavering resolve of someone who had already made their decision.
“He’ll be fine. We can trust him and go.”
Min Hyungshik reassured his team with words full of conviction, but his mind was coldly turning over what he knew of Sioul.
‘He’s a Special Hunter affiliated with the government.’
What Jang Jinyoung had told him flashed through his thoughts.
Sioul was a top-tier Hunter of S-Rank level who operated without an official Badge, moving in secret as a Special Hunter.
‘If he’s a Special Hunter, his abilities are beyond question. His saying we’d be a hindrance must mean he’s hiding explosive strength.’
Min Hyungshik locked in his decision.
“Park Dohyun! Open the Mini Gate!”
With the team leader’s command falling, Park Dohyun could hesitate no longer.
Whoosh!
Park Dohyun opened his inventory.
He pulled out the second Gate Disc, paired with the first one he’d installed at the dungeon’s midpoint.
Park Dohyun set the second disc on the ground with trembling hands.
Whirrrr—.
As he poured in Mana, the disc’s patterns blazed with light.
“Everyone, come up onto this!”
Park Dohyun’s shout sent his teammates moving forward with heavy steps, and Min Hyungshik arrived last.
Sioul alone stepped back, holding his ground.
“I trust you.”
Min Hyungshik met Sioul’s gaze and nodded.
Sioul answered with a smile.
「 Transferring from Gate 2 to Gate 1’s location. 」
The moment the warp began, his teammates’ expressions darkened like never before.
Some had reddened eyes; others looked at Sioul with gazes heavy with guilt.
“You have to come back alive—really, you have to…!”
Park Dohyun’s voice trembled with tears as he pleaded.
Sioul said nothing, walking forward without turning back.
Fwoooosh—!
The disc released a burst of blue light.
In an instant, his teammates’ forms were swallowed by the glow, and the Boss Room held only Sioul.
Crunch-crunch-crunch…!
Min Hyungshik’s Barrier Shield crumbled.
The moment the barrier fell, the pressure from outside rushed in all at once.
The scent of stone dust.
Thick Mana and suffocating weight.
And then.
Whooom—!
A massive boulder hurled by the Giant Golem.
Crash-crack!!
The boulder struck Sioul’s body dead on, and his head burst open without mercy.
“Kuo-ooo!!”
“Kuo!!”
“Kuo-ooo-ooo!!”
The Golems on the second-floor railing danced like monkeys, delighted.
They pointed and cackled at the human corpse that stood rigid despite its missing head.
Squelch!
Then, suddenly, a head erupted from the empty neck.
Sioul’s head had regenerated as if by illusion.
“This never gets easier. Regenerating feels absolutely foul every time.”
Sioul tapped his smooth cheek lightly with his palm, speaking as he did.
The Giant Golem and its subordinates went rigid, shock washing over them.
His head had clearly burst open.
How could he possibly be alive?
How could he regenerate?
They were completely stunned.
“Well then.”
Sioul spoke in a single breath and drew his Longsword from his inventory.
His gaze held not fear, but exhilaration.
“Let’s see what happens when monsters fight monsters.”
* * *
Hunter Association Headquarters.
B3 Gate Management Department Conference Room.
A single frozen video frame hung on the large screen at the room’s center.
The resolution was poor, and the image shook severely.
“I’ll play it again.”
A Gate Management Department employee pressed the remote.
As the footage began, the view of Hongdae Intersection appeared on screen—a city street in ordinary daylight.
Smack in the middle of a typical urban neighborhood, in that ambiguous afternoon hour outside commute times.
Then the air currents twisted ever so slightly.
“Right here.”
The employee rewound the footage to slow speed.
0.3 seconds… 0.7 seconds… 1 second.
In that brief instant, a warp portal ringed in blue light tore open on the street, then vanished as if nothing had ever occurred.
“That’s everything we captured in observation records. The energy signature is also different from a normal Gate.”
A graph materialized beside the screen.
It was a grotesquely distorted waveform—utterly unlike the mana curve that typically appeared when a Gate opened.
“Are you suggesting this might be a Black Gate?”
The head of the Gate Management Department, seated at the head of the table, posed the question.
“I cannot say with certainty… but these are not normal readings.”
The executives arrayed around the conference table stiffened visibly.
A Black Gate.
Probability of occurrence: 0.00001%.
There were even rumors that when one did open, it brought not merely dimensional distortion but outright catastrophe.
“You’re telling me such a thing appeared in the heart of the city, and it was only open for one second?”
“Impossible.”
The staff member manipulated the screen once more.
“I’m not sure if ‘fortunate’ is the right word, but we did find one piece of evidence to work with.”
This time, he expanded the CCTV footage to a wider view.
It was the scene immediately after the warp portal had vanished.
A figure had appeared in that spot—someone who had not been visible on screen moments before.
“Please pay attention to this man.”
Every eye in the conference room converged on a single point.
He wore an ordinary black athletic suit.
His hair was disheveled, his expression vacant.
He looked like any young man you’d see on the street.
“A Hunter?”
“No equipment visible.”
“But he came out of the Gate—he can’t be a civilian.”
As the staff member pressed the remote, the man’s face zoomed into focus.
“I swear I’ve seen that face somewhere before.”
“Right? There’s something familiar about him.”
“Like I’ve encountered him recently or something…”
Similar murmurs rippled through the conference room.
“Is he one of ours? Why does everyone act like they know him?”
A middle-aged executive rested his chin in his palm and voiced the question.
Yet no one offered a definitive answer.
“Have you run an identity check?”
“The CCTV footage is too degraded. It’s difficult to locate him with that footage alone.”
“Contact the Special Hunter Headquarters. Those people can do what’s supposedly impossible.”
“Yes, understood.”
The conference room descended into murmuring speculation about who the man in the footage might be.
The Association members had not the faintest idea.
They did not realize that this man on screen was the same person who had received a Medal from the Hunter Association not long ago and walked away with a reward of seventy million won.
* * *
The Boss Room in the Rocky Gorge was eerily silent.
The only sound was the creaking of the Golems.
On the second-floor landing, the Golems that had been hurling boulders moments earlier now sat slumped on the ground, one and all.
Their stone chests heaved with labored breathing, faint traces of mana leaking weakly through the seams in their forms.
Energy depleted from endless combat.
The description fit perfectly.
The first floor presented no different a scene.
The Giant Golem knelt on one knee, its head bowed.
The Core that had blazed crimson in its chest now flickered dully.
And there in the center of the Boss Room lay Sioul’s corpse, crushed flat as scrap metal.
His arms and legs were bent at grotesque angles, his chest cavity completely collapsed.
But it did not last.
Crrck!
With a sound like a metal spring snapping back into place, the flattened body convulsed.
Sioul’s body launched off the ground.
His twisted limbs straightened, his sunken chest expanded and filled once more.
Bone and muscle, skin and sinew knitted themselves back together, restoring him to his original form in mere seconds.
“Phew.”
Sioul exhaled lightly and rolled his neck, finding it unharmed.
The Giant Golem’s eyes narrowed at the sight.
“Kuooooooo!!”
A roar that mingled fury with fear.
‘What the hell is this thing?! Why does it keep getting back up no matter how many times I kill it?!’
It seemed to bellow in that vein.
Sioul watched the creature’s indignant response and let out a short laugh.
“Tired already? Then….”
Sioul pushed off the ground.
He surged forward with lethal speed, charging straight at the Giant Golem.
Normally, the Golems perched on the second-floor railing should have hurled rocks at this moment.
An automatic response to protect their boss.
But none of them moved.
Their arms wouldn’t rise.
They had no strength left.
They were simply exhausted from the endless battle.
The Giant Golem was no different.
It wrung out what remained of its vitality and threw a final punch.
‘Too slow.’
Sioul twisted his body slightly, letting the Giant Golem’s fist pass cleanly by.
At the same moment, his silvered blade flashed.
He drove the B-Rank Longsword deep into the Giant Golem’s chest.
The creature’s massive frame lurched backward.
A ten-meter colossus of alien flesh was pushed down by a single lean human frame barely one hundred and eighty centimeters tall.
Thud!!
The entire stone chamber shuddered.
Sioul pulled the blade free and stepped onto the Giant Golem’s chest.
Beneath his feet, the Core’s light flickered weakly.
It still clung to life, but could fight no longer.
Sioul looked down at the Giant Golem and spoke.
“Weaker stamina than I expected. Were those stones on its body fat instead of muscle?”
Furious, yet powerless to move.
The Giant Golem could only draw shallow, struggling breaths.
A light breeze.
Sioul glanced up at the second floor.
Fifty Golems were crawling clumsily and flinging themselves over the railing’s edge.
A desperate bid to protect their boss.
“This is hilarious. It’s like watching some kind of game show.”
Sioul stood waiting for the turtle-slow Golems, a smile playing on his lips.
“Come on. I’ll keep fighting until you all drop.”
It was a lie.
A tasteless deception from someone who knew he would not die.
A limited-term Hunter who continued to survive.
Author |
Kutsumattsu
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Samyang C&C Corp.
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Editorial Department
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Samyang C&C Corp. – Dream Books
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G720:N+A063-20260731071
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Copyright © Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Dreambooks.

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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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