How to Live as a Fencing Genius Hunter - Chapter 11

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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 Prodigy Lives as a Hunter
Chapter 11
Tutorial (3)
It was a memory from my kendo days.
Being young, I mostly cut straw bundles, but because I showed such early aptitude, I progressed to bamboo quickly enough.
‘Jae-ha. Want to try this?’
‘Yes!’
The moment came back to me—the first time I’d cut bamboo instead of straw.
‘Wow.’
That sensation of hard wood catching against the blade with each strike, the pleasant recoil traveling through my wrists, the finishing blow that felt less like cutting and more like cleaving.
Thunk!
When I drove the Estoc through the orc’s throat, that memory surfaced.
“Kaaaaaah!”
Even after a month of cutting down golems that Ji In-hwi had created, the real thing was different.
Crackle-crack!
Muscle fiber that even bullets couldn’t penetrate.
As the Estoc tore through it, the sound was like cutting rope.
The needle-like blade didn’t sink in easily, catching instead with each thrust, forcing me to push with all my strength to drive it deeper.
Yet I remembered cutting that bamboo on the first strike.
And today, I believed this same attack would kill the orc.
“Kaagh!”
The orc’s eyes filled with blood as it raised its left hand.
Despite its grotesque grip trembling, it tried to bring that fist down on my head.
It was a tactic I’d never encountered in any match.
Empowered by a body that transcended human limits, it counterattacked even as its throat was pierced through.
I’d landed the decisive point, yet the beast still held the offensive. A ghastly affair indeed.
Whoosh!
The fist came flying.
I was certain a glancing blow would shatter bone.
But I’d spent my career in a sport where even a touch meant losing points.
“Hah.”
Whether it was that fist or an opponent’s blade, the rule was the same: nothing could make contact.
I executed a side step, the Estoc still buried in the orc’s throat.
Balestra.
Time seemed to slow.
The bony knuckles protruding from the orc’s fist, its bleeding throat, Lee Hae-il screaming behind it, my own body launching forward—all of it felt like slow-motion footage from a high-speed camera.
The orc’s fist grazed past my cheek with inches to spare.
Thud-thud-thud!
The diamond-shaped blade lodged in the orc’s neck twisted as I pivoted, tearing the wound wider.
A fountain of hot blood erupted.
“Kraaaah!”
The orc let out a shriek entirely different from before and dropped the Demon-Sealing Sword.
The fist that had been about to pulverize my skull trembled in empty air, then went limp.
Finally, the light faded from the orc’s eyes.
In this contest between life and death, victory was mine once more.
Shwick.
I withdrew the Estoc.
Hhhhhhh.
“Wow.”
At that same moment, I felt an intangible force flowing into me.
[‘Orc (E)’ has been defeated.]
A sense of fullness—as if I’d just finished a satisfying meal—intertwined with the elation of victory in a match.
This must be that phenomenon I’d heard about when I Awakened.
When an Awakener kills a Monster, they absorb some of the creature’s Mana, experiencing something akin to the leveling-up in games—or so it had been explained.
Perhaps the effect was stronger because it was my first time.
My body felt distinctly lighter.
I turned my gaze toward the goblins.
“Squeee-eek, squeak!”
“Warrior, it’s dead!”
“Squeeeee-eek!?”
The goblins’ eyes, which had been blazing with confidence mere moments ago, faltered.
“Grab it! Eat!”
Yet these creatures possessed a ferocity that rivaled any fighter worth their salt.
The goblins bared their yellowed, pointed teeth and swung their daggers at me.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
Four of them rushed me at once.
I drew a breath, preparing to unleash a chain of consecutive strikes.
[Temporary User Jung Jae-ha Unique Skill]
[Attaque composée]
Watching the goblins’ positions, I traced the trajectory my Estoc would need to follow.
With four goblins, I’d need at least four consecutive thrusts to drop them all.
Even that was no simple rhythm to maintain.
The human body is built to unleash its full power only once per breath.
Most fencers could manage around five attacks in a single breath at maximum, and I hadn’t yet exceeded ten.
My physical abilities had certainly improved since then, but the imbalance in my left and right legs posed a question I couldn’t ignore.
Yet I had never once turned away from such a question.
Hah!
I hardened my gaze and channeled my strength into my right leg.
The instant I was about to unfold the four-part Attaque composée—
“Watch out!”
Lee Hae-il swept his Cavalry Sabre across and drove it down beside me.
Shhhhack!
Coup de taille.
The horizontal cut of sabre technique I’d taught him over the past two weeks landed with sharp precision.
“Kaaaahhh!”
“Shriek!?”
One goblin’s arm went deep, another’s torso—both fell.
They weren’t dead from a single blow, but I had turned combatants into the wounded, and the difference between those two states was vast.
The gap between them was like heaven and earth.
Thud!
I drove quick thrusts into the brows and throats of the two goblins charging from my left, sending them down.
Hardly what I’d call a combination attack.
“You didn’t run?”
I stepped back and drew level with Lee Hae-il, both of us leveling our blades at the goblins that remained.
“How could I run and leave you behind, sir!?”
Lee Hae-il answered, drenched in cold sweat.
…….
Honestly, I was surprised.
I wouldn’t have been disappointed if he’d fled.
I was comfortable with the tension of battle itself, with the act of swordplay, and I coveted the Status Window Ring.
There were several reasons not to run, so I stood my ground—running was the more natural choice.
But Lee Hae-il didn’t run.
“Thank you.”
Whatever his reasons, whatever he’d done in the past, it deserved recognition.
“Your Coup de taille just now was solid too. Next time, ease up a bit on your wrist tension.”
“Are you serious? You’re watching my technique in the middle of all this!?”

* * *
The orc had led roughly thirty goblins in its charge.
Gunfire had dropped about ten; Lee Hae-il and I had cut down four more, leaving barely half standing.
“Hey? We might actually pull this off?”
“Not many of those bastards left!”
“Clear the Tutorial, head for the big leagues!”
“Drop the guns! Guns! Didn’t you hear what Jung said?”
“Says the one who fired the most shots!?”
Shock or no shock, every Awakener here had spent the past month training against golems that mimicked monsters.
Once I killed the orc and Lee Hae-il joined the fight, no small number of them regained their nerve.
Those wielding two-handed weapons like the Naginata moved particularly fast into position.
Slice! Sliiice!
The Naginata in an Awakener’s grip carried enough force to cleave a goblin clean in half with a single stroke.
“This is manageable!”
“Close in! Close in and thrust!”
The remaining goblins fell away rapidly.
“Don’t hit the ones with burns!”
“That’s it! Done! They’re all dead!”
Then the Awakeners behind us gripped their firearms tighter and stepped forward.
The ostentatious way they slid fresh magazines into their weapons was deeply ominous.
“Don’t shoot!”
I spun around and shouted.
“It won’t work! We went over this! Did you sleep through the video!?”
“This is for Jin Woo!”
They pulled the triggers.
Whether they didn’t hear me or simply chose not to, I couldn’t tell.
I’d heard that when fires break out, panicked people can’t pull the safety pin on an extinguisher.
They flail around and end up hurling the whole thing into the flames — maybe this was something like that.
Click, click-click!
Of course, only the hollow clatter of the firing pin echoed out.
“Again?”
The thug Awakener, apparently having learned nothing from the death before him, furrowed his brow.
“That bastard just charges itself up!”
It was exactly the expression I wanted to make.
Whoosh!
Behind the goblins, the bright light of the Jack O’ Lantern erupted, scattering across the fog-shrouded forest.
That soft orange glow, diffused through the water vapor in the air, seemed visible from impossibly far away.
[“–, -.”]
The Jack O’ Lantern’s maw stretched wide open.
[WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!]
[Alert! Pumpkin Shrapnel anticipated.]
My Status Window flashed the warning.
“Get down!”
“What, sir?”
I grabbed Lee Hae-il and hurled us both to the ground.
Boom!
An instant later, burning fragments erupted from the Jack O’ Lantern’s jaws.
They spread in a wide arc across the empty air like a shotgun blast, sweeping across the Awakeners.
Radiation of heat energy absorbed from the firearms.
The same Pumpkin Shrapnel that had ravaged the Iron Blood Guild’s Hunters.
“Ahhhhh!”
“It’s hot!”
“My legs!”
The Awakeners sprawled across the ground, burning fragments embedded in their flesh.
“Shriek!”
The goblins rushed in, driving daggers deep into their bodies.
“Lee Hae-il! Save whoever you can.”
“What will you do, sir?”
“I’m taking down that pumpkin bastard!”
I hauled Lee Hae-il to his feet and sprinted forward.
I had to finish this before those Awakeners got off another volley.
Judging by how the light had dimmed, the Jack O’ Lantern couldn’t fire its Pumpkin Shrapnel indiscriminately.
[“—, -.”]
The Jack O’ Lantern swung its maw toward me.
Screech!
Its angular, tooth-filled jaws yawned open again, about to spew those blazing fragments.
The radius was so vast I saw no way to evade it.
So I had to finish it before it could fire.
Thud!
I poured everything into my legs.
An unprecedented surge of power and a simultaneous sense of danger — that this power wouldn’t last — flooded through me.
I drove off the ground with my right leg, throbbing painfully from within.
My leg nearly gave out on the spot, but that perfect feeling — the kind that comes once in a thousand moments — found me again.
[Temporary User Jung Jae-ha’s Unique Skill]
[Flèche Thrust]
Haaaah!
I shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bowstring.
[“—-!”]
The Jack O’ Lantern’s thorny vine whip fell toward my head, swept across my legs, came down on my shoulders.
Rather than dodge or block, I simply accelerated further and left it behind.
Screech!
I caught a glimpse of glowing fragments smoldering within the creature’s gaping maw.
I drove my blade into that open mouth as I crossed past it.
Crack!
The creature’s head snapped skyward, pierced through on my sword.
Boom!
The Pumpkin Shrapnel burst upward like celebratory fireworks heralding my triumph.
The explosion tore through the side of its face where my blade had split it open, and a third of the monster’s skull flew away.
“Hah, ha!”
As the Jack O’ Lantern staggered on its massive frame like a wounded beast, the goblins protecting it came rushing in.
I pivoted toward them, eyes wide.
The one in front would likely either leap to strike at my face or crouch low to come at my ankles.
“Screee!”
The foremost goblin chose the leap.
I timed it perfectly and drove my Estoc through the bridge of its nose.
Crack!
The creature essentially headbutted my blade with all its force.
When I felt solid bone shatter like ice at the blade’s tip, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ha, hahahahaha!”
My mouth curled upward and my cheeks burned from the strain.
I’d never felt this in any competition.
Not that I’d wanted to break someone’s bones.
It was simply the fact that no one in fencing could rival me anymore.
It wasn’t a matter of strength or technique.
It was a matter of whether you could predict.
Even if I’d lost my champion’s title someday, it wouldn’t have been because an opponent used a technique I hadn’t foreseen.
It would have been because someone came along who could execute the techniques I already knew—faster, more skillfully.
I would have gone on racking up mundane victories until such an opponent appeared.
Terribly, unbearably tedious.
“I made the right call taking the Awakening injection.”
But being a Hunter felt different.
Monsters possessed techniques and tactics entirely alien to those of humans.
I had to face them with methods equally unfamiliar.
Goblins were so small they’d either charge at a crouch, or I’d exploit that instinct and they’d leap instead.
So I had to suppress my movements, strike fast and clean, and unleash continuous attacks.
Orcs required circling to find weak points given their durability, while the Jack O’ Lantern demanded dodging its spiny tentacles and shattering its head.
I wielded what I did best as a weapon, growing to understand a world I’d never known.
Nothing could be more exhilarating than this.
If this was what being a Hunter meant, I could do it for life.
“This excitement has no end.”
Crack! Crack! Crack!
I felled the goblins one after another, then pivoted on my left foot.
I drove several more thrusts into the Jack O’ Lantern’s neck.
Not long after, a joy far greater than when I’d killed the Orc swept through me.
* * *
The control room outside the Gate.
“Number 213’s completely changed.”
“He seemed so gentle, but this is unexpected.”
“That can’t be an act. Hunters who try to maintain an image in actual combat all die in an instant.”
The scouts seated around the long table clicked their tongues as they watched the screen.
[Ha, hahahahaha!]
Jung Jae-ha had just felled the goblins and finished off the Jack O’ Lantern.
His face, carved sharp as a blade, was grotesquely spattered with blood and the creature’s fluids.
‘I knew it.’
Hong Si-yu smiled inwardly with contempt, his tone taking on a theatrical edge.
“So tell me—do you still think this cohort is uniformly weak and cowardly?”
The answer was already decided; they merely had to speak the lines he’d written for them.
Any industry veteran in this era couldn’t help but be charmed by such a newcomer.
“Team Lead Soo Seong-min.”
The captain of the Police Supernatural Crime Unit spoke first.
“The average standard has certainly declined. Number 213 warned us about firearms twice, three times over, yet they didn’t even pretend to listen.”
“No.”
“It sounds like you’re ready to give up on recruiting entirely. That being the case, there’s no hope of swaying the chairman. So we’ll just take him with us.”
“Wait. That is, I mean—”
“The Police Department will place Number 213 as our top special recruitment priority.”
She simply threw back the words Soo Seong-min had spoken minutes before.
“There are always exceptions—”
Soo Seong-min’s face flushed crimson.
“Samjung First Leaf will also extend a special recruitment offer to Number 213, independent of the comprehensive score.”
“The Murim Guild will place Number 213 as our top recruitment priority. That swordwork—a fatal blow to an orc in a single stroke on the first real engagement, that evasion technique against the Pumpkin Shrapnel. There’s nothing to fault.”
“Iron Blood Guild will waive any intern period for Number 213. Swordsmanship aside, the judgment itself is professional caliber. We’ll offer the same salary and incentives as established Hunters from day one, plus dormitory accommodations.”
Recruiters from other guilds and corporations followed suit, their language shifting to pure business vernacular.
“These bastards……!”
Soo Seong-min trembled visibly, glowering at the other recruiters.
‘The top guild must have taken the lead on this.’
Hong Si-yu guessed what had transpired among the scouts.
‘Since they’re criminals anyway, they figured they’d lowball their offers.’
He could read the whole script now.
‘I show them one impressive trainee, and suddenly they’re all changing their tune.’
They’d dangled Soo Seong-min in front of everyone, but the moment Jung Jae-ha appeared, they were all pretending they’d never made a promise.
Hong Si-yu smirked once more.
“……Right. For a trainee, he does handle a sword.”
Soo Seong-min nodded reluctantly, as if he couldn’t quite deny it.
“A sword?”
“He’s probably got a few credentials. But isn’t it too early to hype him up like this?”
He ground his teeth and lifted his chin again.
“Since an Awakener Hunter will be working alongside non-Awakener Hunters, we need to evaluate leadership qualities too.”
Soo Seong-min spoke as though there was still room for doubt.
“Number 213 warned everyone twice, three times not to fire carelessly, yet the other Awakeners just went ahead and blasted away.”
“That’s true.”
“Let’s see how Number 213 handles it. We already have plenty of combat specialists who can’t function in society, don’t we?”

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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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