How to Live as a Fencing Genius Hunter - Chapter 10

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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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How a Fencing Genius Lives as a Hunter
Chapter 10
Tutorial (2)
“Disembark! Disembark! Disembark!”
We stepped off the bus into a cordoned-off lot ringed with construction barriers.
“Trainees who are ready, proceed to entry!”
Before us hung an oval Gate, as if something had torn violently through the air itself.
[Pumpkin Forest (C-Rank)]
My Status Window Ring vibrated faintly like a smartphone, projecting a hologram into my field of vision.
“This… this is a real Gate.”
“Do we die the moment we go in?”
“Who’s moving with us?”
The Awakeners glanced nervously at one another.
I ran my palm along the grip of my Épée, my eyes fixed on the Gate.
“At last.”
Real Orcs and Goblins and Jack-o’-Lanterns waited inside.
My heart hammered against my ribs—one sliver of fear drowned out by the rest, which was nothing but anticipation.
As an athlete, I had wielded a blade and taken pride in fencing as sport.
But there remained in me an appetite for victory not yet satisfied by facing Kim Kang-o, a hunger to unleash my power freely.
“Trainee 213, Jeong Jae-ha, entering now.”
I drew my Épée and stepped toward the Gate.
“W-wait, I’m coming too! Please, let me come with you!”
Lee Hae-il rushed up beside me, his voice urgent.
“Come with me?”
I looked down at his tousled fringe.
I thought back over what he’d shown me these past two weeks.
……
For all his secrets, Lee Hae-il was a sincere and passionate swordsman.
“Then lock the safety on that gun, keep it slung behind your back, and ditch the bayonet.”
“Huh?”
“I’ll watch the front. You focus on the sides.”
“No, but—isn’t it okay to fire until the Jack-o’-Lanterns show up?”
“Want to split up instead?”
“Should I leave the gun here?”
If he wanted to share both my danger and my glory, he had earned the right to walk alongside me.
“Jeong is going in.”
“Should we head in too?”
“Yeah, come on. We have to go anyway—might as well stick with Jeong.”
The other trainees poured after us.
“I won’t refuse you to join. But I have one condition: don’t touch your guns until I give the word. Not even to adjust them.”
I made sure that instruction was clear and accepted them all the same.
I loved the blade, not the danger.
Being surrounded by dozens of Orcs and Goblins was not something I intended to experience.
“Let’s go.”
I stepped through the Gate.
My vision darkened, and my Status Window Ring pulsed.
[Pumpkin Forest (C-Rank)]
[Registered Gate. Loading Minimap data.]
[Tutorial Quest: Secure the Seedling of a Jack-o’-Lantern.]
[Quest Alert: Proceed to Sector 3.]
A cascade of holograms flooded into one corner of my sight.
“That’s a lot of text.”
“A Minimap? Oh! There’s an actual map!”
The Awakeners turned their heads this way and that, absorbing the holographic messages.
[Minimap]
I looked at the rectangular window that appeared in my upper right field of vision.
It was the same map Hong Si-yu had shown me before.
The map was divided by a crosshair into zones colored green, yellow, and red, with my position marked by a blue dot.
The moment I registered my location on that grid—
“Whoa!”
We stood inside the Pumpkin Forest.
A cool woodland thick with dusky mist.
According to the map, our position was in the green zone at the outermost edge of Sector One.
“Wow!”
“It’s a real Gate.”
“Fascinating.”
“Let’s hurry! If we’re not careful, they’ll strip all the seedlings!”
“Surely the Orcs won’t come pouring out in droves?”
Awakeners clustered in small groups came flooding in behind us.
Armed with guns and blades in every hand, eyes bright with fear and caution, the crowd moved toward the yellow zone.
“I’ll say this once more.”
I moved immediately as well.
Seeing the Awakeners all drawing their guns, lingering near the entrance clearly served no purpose.
“No one touches a firearm without my permission.”
* * *
Hong Si-yu had calculated that roughly thirty percent of the model prisoner Awakeners would die in this Tutorial.
‘Thugs and crooks.’
While many assume criminals fight with uncommon ferocity during wartime, history had consistently proven that penal battalions were shockingly ineffective.
‘I didn’t like this system from the start. No matter how badly we need Hunters, handing out Awakening Elixir to scum like them is a waste. Now someone like Jeong Jae-ha—that’s different. Who even drafted this policy?’
The people who truly fought well were diligent civilians trained to cooperate with their teams, not reckless gangsters who played by their own rules.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
[Aaaahhhhh!]
[Grrraaaahhh!]
[Mom!]
And now, ten minutes since the Tutorial began.
“Tsk.”
Hong Si-yu found himself revising his assessment.
‘Not thirty percent—half of them are going to die.’
In stark contrast to the Iron Blood Guild’s failure video that had been shown to them, the trainees repeated the same mistakes.
[Young-min hyung!]
[Run! You bastards, run!]
Just then, trainee number 125, Ju Young-min, appeared on the monitor.
An Awakener with a Marine Corps background, he’d received a dishonorable discharge for violence within the barracks, then went to prison after committing violence again through his alumni association.
[Xuuuuuuu—!]
Apart from that violence, he had talent with both broadsword and marksmanship, and was considered a promising prospect.
Yet now he was fleeing madly, chased by a horde of Goblins and Orcs.
Upon encounter, he’d charged boldly and cut down a dozen Goblins in a flurry, but faltered against the Orcs.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Eventually he fired his gun to bring down an Orc, and a Jack-o’-Lantern awakened.
[More coming! Four Orcs! Goblins… there are too many to count!]
[This won’t do. Seong-min!]
[Yes?]
[You hold them off!]
[Ahhh!]
With that, Ju Young-min brought his broadsword down on his fleeing teammate’s ankle, and the man crashed to the ground.
“Wow. There’s no way we can use that one.”
“Should we throw him into an underground mine or something?”
“Decision made. We’re not putting him in a combat unit.”
The scouts clicked their tongues.
“Didn’t I tell you? Weak and cowardly.”
Su Seong-min, a scout for Saebyeol, laughed with easy disdain and shrugged.
“Lee Chae-yun, Jeong Ho-min, Yang Hyeok—what good is getting ahead? They’re all the same breed. If he’d done that outside the Gate, it would be a crime on its own.”
She took the mouse from Hong Si-yu’s hand and began cycling through the different screens on the sixteen-panel monitor.
“What are we relying on to bring people like that? No matter how short-handed we are, there’s supposed to be a minimum threshold.”
The other scouts looked back and forth between Su Seong-min and Hong Si-yu.
“Give me some merit.”
Su Seong-min smiled slyly.
“Unpaid service—extend the internship period, and give me the right to deploy them in overseas Gates. Let me be able to send them into Sealed Black Gates too.”
Hong Si-yu was certain that Su Seong-min had wanted this from the beginning.
‘Doesn’t matter to me.’
What’s there to care about with a bunch of criminals? It’s not like I chose to cross over here.
‘I didn’t want any of this.’
Yet the pull Su Seong-min had on me felt deeply repugnant.
“You’re saying we’re all weak and cowardly?”
“I’m not going to deny it.”
“Watch to the end before you talk.”
Hong Si-yu snatched the mouse from Su Seong-min’s hand.
He zoomed in on the monitor showing Jeong Jae-ha.
* * *
We moved without stopping.
[Entering Zone 1, Yellow Area.]
Hong Si-yu had said the Beasts in Pumpkin Forest roamed in groups of a dozen or so.
As long as we took them down before other groups could join and kept moving, we could clear it safely.
About ten minutes into our march.
“They’re coming!”
Lee Hae-il pointed to the side.
“Waaaagh!”
The Beasts appeared from the flank of our group.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A hulking figure well over two meters tall charged forward with the speed of a fencing champion’s lunge.
[Orc (E)]
The Status Window hologram displayed its classification and rank.
The Beast before my eyes bore a malice that mere letters couldn’t capture.
Grayish-green forearms thick as a bodybuilder’s torso; a pig-like snout reeking of rotted garbage; in its claws, a Scimitar with an edge sharpened to a sickly blue.
“Shrieeek! Shriek!”
[Goblin (F)]
Behind the Orc, dozens of Goblins with the build of elementary schoolers, pointed ears, and sharp noses followed wielding daggers.
Orc and Goblin—these kindred species taken together were collectively called Greenskins.
Along with Jack-o’-Lanterns, they were the most common Beasts.
I’d hunted specimens recreated by Ji In-hwi’s Golem dozens of times in training, but this was my first encounter with the real thing.
I wondered if this would be fun.
Anticipation flared like wildfire.
“Stay calm, everyone! Don’t touch those guns!”
I turned, aiming the Épée.
“I’ll handle the Orc—”
I’d planned to deal with the Orc myself and leave the Goblins to the other Awakeners.
“It’s an Orc!”
“Aaaaagh!”
“Damn it! Die!”
Rat-a-tat-tat!
But before I could finish speaking, the Awakeners on the flank pulled their triggers.
“Let’s thin the numbers first! Keep shooting until the captain is clear!”
Jang Young-jun, who’d been sticking with Kim Kang-o, shouted at me to fire as well.
“What?”
I wondered if there was something wrong with my eyes or their heads.
Maybe I hadn’t made myself clear.
I thought I’d told them not to shoot two or three times already.
“Did you watch the video of the failed hunt with your nose holes instead of your eyes?!”
Yet nothing changed about what was unfolding before me.
Rat-a-tat! Tat-tat!
The MP5 Submachine Gun blazed.
A dozen-odd Goblins fell to the ground.
The Orc, shielding its face with both arms, shrieked in agony.
Relief spread across the face of the Awakener who’d come up from the ranks of street thugs.
“Huh?”
That relief lasted less than a second.
Click, click!
The Submachine Gun fell silent with the sound of a jam.
The bullets from the other guns barely flew ten meters before dropping like BB pellets.
“What the—?”
“Why isn’t it coming out?”
“Is it broken?”
Whoosh!
Inside the eyes, nose, and mouth of the Jack-o’-Lantern caught on a distant tree, orange flames ignited.
[“Uh, hahahaha!”]
Along with a horrifying laugh, the flickering flames spread rapidly.
Whoooosh!
At last, the fully awakened Jack-o’-Lantern descended as though separating from the thorny tree.
Beneath it, countless thorny vine tendrils stretched out, tangling together to form four arms and two legs that rose upright.
“Ah…….”
The thug-turned-Awakener’s face went pale.
We’d all learned this lesson more than once.
The Jack-o’-Lantern could steal the heat from gunfire.
Guns were useless in this area now.
“Grrr!”
The Orc rushed forward, raising the Scimitar high.
“Damn it!”
The thug tried to block with the gun he was holding, but the Orc’s Scimitar shattered it like straw and came down on the thug’s head.
“What—”
Crack!
His skull split open like kindling, then was cleaved clean through from crown to groin.
Something crimson and wet mixed with something pale and desiccated, pouring downward in streams.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
“Wh-what—!?”
“Damn it! Jin-woo!”
It happened in mere seconds after the Orc emerged.
The Awakeners descended into panic, scattering in confusion.
Many threw down their guns and blades, fleeing back the way they’d come.
Before I could even be angry at those who’d escalated things, I was startled and tense myself.
No professional ever imagines seeing a person bisected like that.
“Make way, please.”
Yet I straightened my chest.
I pushed through the panicked Awakeners and stepped forward, directly in front of the Orc.
A pro could laugh once more, fear and tension notwithstanding, and a Hunter had learned that showing your back to a Monster was far more dangerous—so I stepped forward instead.
“Sir! Are you insane!?”
Lee Hae-il called out to me with worry thick in his voice, trying to grab my arm.
“Watch carefully. I’ve taught you this.”
“Sir! Damn it, no. Please—”
“Showing your back is even more dangerous.”
I brushed past him without breaking stride.
“Grrr!”
The Orc warrior turned its head toward me.
Those eyes, brimming with savage bloodlust, made my heart clench tight.
Thump-thump!
The moment I’d stepped into my first tournament came back to me.
“Yes!”
I laughed to shake off the tension.
“Come on.”
The Orc warrior stepped closer, raising the blood-smeared Scimitar high.
I stepped closer too, leveling the Épée at him.
Given the circumstances, we dispensed with salutes and formal courtesy.
No referee, no “Are you ready?”
“Get out of the way!”
“I-I forfeit!”
But I saw the path through the shoulders of people rushing away from me.
A corridor two meters wide and fourteen meters long stretching before me.
The Piste.
A towering challenger stood on the far end, but beyond that waited brilliant victory and noble glory.
“Roooaarrr!”
The challenger charged forward with a footfall that seemed to shake the earth itself.
He raised his Scimitar as if to cleave me diagonally in two.
Rippling muscles and sinews, knotted like rope, spoke to the raw power his frame possessed.
But only technique honed enough to overcome strength earns the name of technique.
“Parade Neuvième Riposte.”
Ninth position, guarding shoulder and throat, then the counterattack.
I swung my Épée with a fervent hope—would my technique work even against a true monster?
[Temporary User Jeong Jae-ha Unique Skill]
[Parade Neuvième Riposte]
Holographic text shimmered at the edge of my vision.
Shiiing!
Just as when I’d deployed the lunge earlier, practice one motion a hundred times, a thousand times, and there come moments—rare, precious—when perfect timing blooms.
That timing now enveloped my body.
Clang-clang-clang!
I deflected the descending Scimitar in a diagonal arc.
Sparks erupted along my Épée’s length.
The supple steel bent as if it would snap, yet held firm.
I guided the Scimitar past my shoulder and drove my Épée toward the Orc warrior’s throat.
Thud!

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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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