D-Rank Constellation Hunter… Stuck Without Internet! - Chapter 6

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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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Chapter 6
What in the world is he saying right now? I stared at him for a long moment, genuinely unable to comprehend that sentence.
Had the humans of this world been granted the ability to see the future? No matter how hard I racked my brain or searched, there was no Hunter with such a power.
That meant he had essentially declared before a Constellation that he would die tomorrow of his own accord.
I was so flabbergasted that my head began to ache in a purely conceptual way.
[ What do you mean by dying? ]
[ If you think I’ve been following you around to kill you, that’s a complete misunderstanding. ]
[ I like you. ]
When a Constellation expressed favor so directly, most people did not refuse.
They might feel fear, yet they would either grow arrogant at the prospect of such power taking their side, or become excited at discovering their own latent potential.
Occasionally, those who believed they were being mocked would cast suspicious glances.
‘A Constellation would never choose someone like me. Even if one did, that Constellation couldn’t possibly be good or strong.’
That sort of sentiment.
And Ha Gyuhyuk, whose eyes were fixed blankly on the screen, wore that same expression.
It was the weight of gloom I had witnessed countless times before on the faces of other clients.
I deliberated for a moment.
Whether I should comfort him, or whether I should reprimand him for daring to mention death in my presence.
Both were troublesome options.
The easiest path would be to lose interest in him and seek out a new client.
‘Perhaps another Constellation would have done so. And if this weren’t Earth, I would have done the same.’
Had I grown attached to the lifeforms of this world?
My memories of being human were so distant they felt like someone else’s story, and my life had ended without fanfare before I even reached twenty-five years old, so that couldn’t be it.
I was simply curious about this being.
I had seen those who reproached him for thinking I would choose him, and those who said a Constellation of my caliber was unnecessary and demanded I bring someone stronger.
But this was the first time I had encountered someone who was certain of their own death and asked me to find someone else instead.
[ Who told you to die? ]
[ Or are you cursed? ]
If he died without resolving my curiosity, it would be unbearably painful.
He hadn’t accumulated nearly enough karma to become even a member of the Customer Management Team working beneath a Constellation, let alone become one himself.
If he died now, it would be permanent death, and my questions would remain lost in mystery forever.
I needed to find answers before such a tragedy could unfold.
And if he seemed interesting, I would let him die as things stood; if that displeased me, I would have to keep him clinging to life a while longer.
Ha Gyuhyuk’s lips moved.
– I’m a D-rank Hunter. If I enter even a C-rank Dungeon without someone to protect me, my life hangs by a thread. But tomorrow, someone is offering me a large sum of money to enter a B-rank Dungeon. I’ll probably be the first one discarded.
[ Then just don’t enter that Dungeon. ]
[ Are you worried I won’t give it to you if you ask me for it? ]
[ I’m not such a stingy Constellation, nor am I one so poor. ]
Ultimately, what his words implied was clear: he wasn’t dying because he wanted to.
I couldn’t understand it at all. If this were a matter of money, couldn’t he simply ask the Constellation here for it?
Something like: grant me the authority to not enter tomorrow, or bestow upon me wealth and honor enough to live idle for a lifetime.
Honestly, there’s little merit in sponsoring someone like that for my own gain.
But if it was a client candidate I’d taken a liking to, even briefly, I wouldn’t hesitate to provide support.
What psychology lay behind his refusal?
Ha Gyuhyuk stopped eating and stared at our chat window for a long while.
– I’m going to rescue an A-rank Hunter trapped in that B-rank Dungeon. And that Dungeon has a structure where one life must be sacrificed in exchange for extracting another.
I’m not a fool. I’ve lived for an extraordinarily long time.
I rested my chin in my hand and gazed at the screen.
So he’d been hired as a sacrificial offering to take the A-rank Hunter’s place in that world.
Dungeons are observed as anomalous phenomena born from the incomprehensible laws of the universe.
From the Constellations’ perspective, they’re dismissed as worn-out clichés, but for humans, they’re crises that have become reality and part of their very existence.
They want to select and save the humans who would be more useful.
An utterly predictable development.
I could fabricate a thousand plausible rationalizations for it right now.
The reason humans preferred stronger, higher-ranking Hunters was obvious without needing to ask.
[ I roughly understand why you were chosen and what you said by now, but I still don’t see why you have to go. ]
[ If you don’t go, humans will just find someone else to put in your place anyway. ]
‘Ah, could this A-rank Hunter be someone precious to you? Someone you love?’
That would make sense.
And I’ve always found stories of people sacrificing themselves for those they love quite moving.
There have been times I’ve gone out of my way hoping such tales between two beings would have happy endings.
Constellations are ultimately beings who pursue ‘narratives’.
We grow passionate about stories of love, friendship, miracles, and willpower.
Such narratives appeal to my sensibilities.
[ Is this person someone precious to you? ]
[ Then tell me. ]
– No, I didn’t know them before they went missing, and I don’t know them now. I’ve only seen them once or twice on TV in passing.
My expectations, which had been spinning a magnificent love story in solitude, shattered in an instant.
Then what was it? What reason could drive someone to throw away their own life for a stranger?
Noble sacrifice? Someone seeking to save others through their own sacrifice wouldn’t wear such a gloomy expression.
– If I try to live, someone will definitely have to be sacrificed instead. I don’t have the confidence to bear that guilt and keep living. And among the people I know, I’m the most useless. It’s only natural that the already useless ones get discarded first.
“No, this isn’t right.”
Words that belittle one’s own life like this shouldn’t come from a human’s mouth.
They only have one life, don’t they?
Even when I had clients in a world where dying twelve times still granted a thirteenth life, I’d never encountered anything like this.
Ha Gyuhyuk is kind, yet his self-worth is so low.
This maddening combination had ultimately led him to the absurd conclusion that ‘I’m the most suitable sacrifice.’
In the end, I could neither comfort nor observe nor intervene. What I chose was shallow anger and sorrow.
“This is the problem with short-lived species. By the time they try to shake off one despair they’ve experienced, they’ve already aged. And they’re still so young!”
And a lifespan that makes the remaining time feel so scarce.
The world scrambles to protect that brief existence and judges which beings are more worthy.
I cannot blame them. They are each simply finding their own way to survive.
I have no intention of extending their collective lifespan.
After all, even this world is merely one fleeting moment among countless lives to me—a blink of an eye and it passes.
Their final day would end in an instant, no different from if I merely observed another client and returned.
[ I will watch over you tomorrow. ]
But Constellations have a saying they favor.
‘The fleeting moment we saved for them ultimately becomes the history of that world.’
Ha Gyuhyuk stared at my message in apparent bewilderment.
It was only natural. He must have thought that at this point, even if a Constellation were displeased, they would abandon him.
Yes, I was certainly displeased. By his incomprehensible despair and resignation.
That he had rejected my patronage with nothing but such despair infuriated me beyond measure.
Now that a god’s hand had touched him, I had no choice but to show him that even death was no longer his to command.
Moreover, I would demonstrate how easily that despair he clung to could scatter away from the most trivial of circumstances.
– What do you mean by watching…?
[ I will examine why you keep grinding through people in that Dungeon instead of actually clearing it. ]
[ Look, child. I will watch over you with benevolent eyes. ]
Merely a B-rank Dungeon.
A place that, in the end, exists at the level of humans.
[ You will not be able to die as you please. ]

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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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