How to Live as a Fencing Genius Hunter - Chapter 22

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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
Episode 22
Demon Realm (4)
Environment was a crucial factor for any fighter.
Home advantage, host-country advantage—these terms didn’t exist for nothing, and teachers didn’t drill competitors on adapting to unfamiliar terrain in away matches without good reason.
Especially for someone like me, accustomed only to one-on-one duels in narrow passages.
I still wasn’t adept at fighting multiple opponents alone.
So I’d engineered an environment where I could duel one at a time.
The active space had shrunk, yes—but that disadvantaged these larger creatures and their greater numbers far more than it did me.
If anything, I didn’t find the narrowness constraining at all.
The piste was only two meters wide, and there was no space to maneuver beyond blocking or executing hair-thin dodges.
Only a tight corridor where one could parry or slip past by the slimmest margin.
I was a fencer who’d trained on corridors like this.
“Hah, hah.”
I dispatched the orcs cleanly and wiped the sweat streaming down my face.
Then I turned my gaze toward the Demons perched on the rocky columns, watching me all this while.
[Fire Demon (D-Rank)]
A creature of higher Rank than me, a D-Rank.
It towered a full head above even the orcs—easily two and a half meters tall—with a crown-like pair of horns jutting from its skull.
The thing stared directly at me.
[Warning! Beware of “Majestic Explosion.”]
As the status message appeared, the space before me shimmered like heat haze.
The Demon’s crimson mouth split into a ghastly grin.
[Lunge]
In the next instant, I surged forward with my Estoc leading.
Boom!
A tremendous detonation roared from behind my back.
Searing heat and a shock wave slammed into me, lifting my body briefly off the ground.
That was the power Demons wielded.
According to what I’d learned at the Training Academy, creatures emerging from Gates fell into two broad categories.
Demonic Beasts with abnormal physical prowess, and Demons with abnormal supernatural abilities.
Demons were composed entirely of elements, and they could manipulate those elements at will.
Earth Demons could crush a person’s bones with a glance alone; Fire Demons could trigger explosions with nothing more than a look.
Without Mana running through one’s body as an Awakened One, you’d be dead the moment their gaze fell upon you.
Of course, I was an Awakened One capable of contending with these creatures.
At least I wouldn’t end up flying into the Lava Lake.
That fact was rather satisfying.
I planted my feet mid-air with a spinning kick, steadying myself.
Tap-tap-tap!
I landed on one of the rocky pillars jutting from the lava lake like a stepping stone, twisted sharply, and bled off the impact.
Then I launched myself hard toward the Demon.
[Warning! Beware of “Molten Claws.”]
As I closed in, the Demon raked out its claws.
Those nails glowed a molten red, extending dozens of centimeters—like five short swords brandished at once.
The Demon lowered its body as if to charge, crossing its claws.
[Warning! Beware of “Breath of Flame.”]
It was all a feint.
Whoooosh!
The Demon unleashed a pillar of fire over ten meters high.
If I hadn’t twisted my body hard with a Balestra, I would have been incinerated.
Even so, my Tactical Combat Suit melted away, and my skin beneath flushed a painful red.
Yet through the pain, a faint smile crept across my face.
First: this thing truly was a demonic monster.
Second: when I’d fought the Amber Weird Dragon, I thought I was done for—but now I could endure this.
Pride at my own growth and relief at my opponent’s strength kept me swinging my blade relentlessly.
[Attaque Composée]
I unleashed nine consecutive thrusts in a single breath.
A combination I’d only managed to pull off in training until now—never in actual combat.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
One, two, three.
The demon’s eyes, brow, and philtrum—I pierced them all.
Four, five, six.
The shoulders and heart, the lungs—none could be spared.
Seven, eight, nine.
The pit of the stomach, the abdomen, the thighs—I’d have been remiss to overlook them.
When you don’t know where the weak points are, stabbing everywhere becomes the strategy.
[“–, —!?”]
The demon’s massive frame, easily two and a half meters tall, lurched violently.
From the nine holes torn into its body, flame and lava cascaded down without end.
And yet perhaps demons were beings without vulnerabilities at all.
Whoooosh!
With the roar of ascending flames, a searing white light blazed from within the demon’s body, and in the next instant, every wound had mended itself.
[“Insolent, thieving wretch!”]
The demon’s smile turned contemptuous, almost sneering.
“Magnificent.”
I lifted my head and answered.
It wasn’t bluster—it was sincere.
This, too, was exactly as I’d been taught.
Demons, being elemental-based creatures of mana, could suffer “exhaustion” but not “injury”—so the instructors had explained.
At the same Rank, Demonic Beasts might be stronger, but this was precisely why Demons were far more dangerous.
No matter how worn or torn they became, so long as their will remained, they could fight to the bitter end. It was truly magnificent.
I wanted that power too.
And now I understood how to obtain it.
“Let’s play, then—and play beautifully!”
[Advance]
I stepped forward, launching myself at the demon.
Shriek! Shrieeek!
The creature swung its arm in a massive arc, raking toward me.
Five orange streaks, blazing hot and trembling, fanned out like wildfire dancing in the night.
A single contact with those claws meant a mortal wound.
Then the solution was simple: don’t let it touch me even once.
[Parade Sixte Riposte]
[Parade Carte Riposte]
[Parade Octave Riposte]
I parried the claws striking at my right torso and thrust at its chest.
Thwack!
The claws raking my left side, the nails surging upward in panicked desperation—I brushed them aside with equal ease and counterattacked.
“You arrogant beast!”
Just as the creature possessed its inborn gifts, I too had honed my own skills across time.
[“—, -!?”]
The Fire Demon’s eyes flew wide, bewildered.
“Insane, is he insane? What is that? What the hell is that bastard doing right now?”
“He’s dodging all of it?”
“Did he get some secondary awakening of Neural Acceleration? We all took the same Awakened One serum, didn’t we?”
Behind me, the novice Hunters babbled in shock and confusion.
This was a style of movement only someone versed in systematic modern martial arts could display.
They wouldn’t know it, but ancient swordcraft was simpler than one might expect.
There was a simple trick: ‘Mark three points on the sole of your foot in a triangle, center your weight in the middle, step from that foundation, and your overhead strikes gain tremendous force’—nothing more.
Not the jumbled nonsense invented by some mad eccentric of a minor sect, but the closely guarded secret transmitted through centuries by a prestigious Japanese school of the blade.
Those ignorant of this technique typically died on the spot when facing swordsmen of this lineage, for they exerted only enough force to parry the overhead strike itself—which was why the secret had never spread.
Swordcraft was murder, after all, and such knowledge was lethal.
But an age of peace came, and swordcraft became sport.
Protective gear appeared, technical exchange between schools became easier, and techniques that would once have been called “secret transmissions” proliferated enormously.
By the time modern fencing arrived with high-speed cameras analyzing every frame of both fighters’ movements, it had devolved into a battle of memorization and reflexes.
[“—!”]
Click-clack! Click-clack!
[“–, –!”]
Click-click-click-clack!
Even if the creature was larger and faster than me, its movements were far too straightforward.
So long as my physical ability sufficed to track its motions with my eyes, I could evade every blow.
I wore the creature down with meticulous precision.
“I can keep dodging all day. How long can you keep healing?”
Even if its essence wasn’t biological, the body still functioned as one.
I targeted the vital organs methodically—eyes, shoulders, thighs—anything critical for attack, defense, and mobility.
Bang! Bang! Bang!

Pale white flames erupted in rapid succession inside its body.
[“Rank and file, all of you!”]
It shrieked in alarm.

“Keeeeeek!”
“Shrieeeeek!”
Fire Bats swarmed skyward in response.
They came at me in overwhelming numbers, trying to tear me apart.
But that didn’t bother him one bit.
“Don’t worry, boss!”
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
Lee Hae-il emptied his Machine Gun magazine in one sustained burst.
He’d become a well-rounded newcomer—sharp in swordplay, marksmanship, healing, and theory alike.
“Shrieeeek……!”
The bats shrieked as they plummeted into Lava Lake.
Ordinarily, a Flame Demon might have unleashed an explosive counterattack.
Squelch! Squelch! Squelch!
[“—, —!”]
But if my opponent could still marshal that kind of power while taking blade after blade through its eyes, I’d concede the match right here.
Snap!
How many times had I struck now?
Its shoulder crumbled to ash instead of regenerating this time.
[“To a mere thief!?”]
It staggered backward, gripped by something like terror.
There was bewilderment there—the creature couldn’t accept what was happening.
I felt it too, that intoxicating turn of fortune.
A Demon that detonated in explosions, that wielded flaming claws, that healed its wounds instantly.
The fact that I’d driven such a formidable thing back this far filled me with pride.
“Hyah!”
I launched myself forward like an arrow, deploying the Fleche.
My target was its heart.
Crack!
The Estoc that Ji In-hwi had forged shattered the Demon’s stony carapace and pierced through.
I pressed forward, my body breaking through the creature’s form entirely.
Lava and flames sprayed in every direction.
Only then did I see it—a pale flame burning quietly deep within the Demon’s core.
That was the Demon’s very essence.
When that too scattered from my blade’s edge, the same euphoria from the Tutorial washed over me.
“Hah… hah.”
I steadied my breathing, riding the high.
[Flame Demon Assault Commander (C-Rank)]
Then a massive shadow flickered past through the tunnel on the far side of the Cavern.
……
By the feel of it, a creature roughly on par with the Amber Weird Dragon.
It seemed their side had watchers or superiors too.
* * *
“You all right?”
I made my way back to Lee Hae-il.
“Of course I’m fine. Wouldn’t I be? After all, I’m that legendary genius broadcaster who blasphemes even the heavens, am I not?”
Lee Hae-il emerged from between the rocks with a grin.
The only Demonic Beasts left alive in the Cavern were a handful of Fire Bats hiding in the corners.
We’d done well enough to call this a victory.
“Ugh… ugh!”
“It hurts! It hurts!”
Lee Hae-il and I faced the same situation.
There were four Demons total, and we each confronted one.
Lee Hae-il and I, Jung Ho-min and Jeon Gal-pa’s group, the other reformation-type rookies, and the panic-stricken Hunters—every group fought a Demon.
I finished my battle with barely a scratch on my skin.
Jung Ho-min and Jeon Gal-pa’s group lost one; among the other reformation-type hunters, one more died; and from the panic group, only a single person survived.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Watching that person scream continuously made me wonder if “survived” was even the right word.
“Good work.”
I looked at Lee Hae-il and offered a bitter smile.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Shhhwoooosh!
The rock that had been damming up the river of lava earlier had melted completely, and the water level that had risen so dramatically now dropped back to its original height.
Among the dissolved rocks, translucent crystals began to reveal themselves, glowing softly.
Mana Stones.
“Look at that, sir!”
“Beautiful.”
“If we had a camera, this would be broadcast-worthy for sure! I’m dying to film it!”
I couldn’t believe this was the first day.
Now I understood why the pay was so generous.
Now I understood how this guild—how South Korean society itself—treated lower-ranked Hunters.
As long as we could harvest Mana Stones, it didn’t matter if we died doing it.
As long as society could be protected, it didn’t matter.
The pro-streamers who’d panicked at some player’s swordplay, the judges who’d handed down a ten-year sentence to me while considering “public sentiment” to quell election-season controversy—they came to mind.
Then and now, to people like them, we were nothing but expendable supplies.
But I would become an executive at Satebol, and I would face Chae boldly again.
I had to reclaim everything I’d lost that day.
To do that, I needed to be promoted at Satebol, and to do that, I needed to establish my position in the Demon Realm.
And to do that, I had to leave a profoundly deep impression on the existing team leaders.
The kind of impact I’d made on my first day when I’d beaten the coaching staff 15 to 0 in a shutout game.
Tap, tap.
“I said I wouldn’t open this until everything was captured.”
“Yes. Everything has been captured.”
“What?”
As that thought crossed my mind, I knocked on the rock wall.
“What?”
An invisible force collapsed the entire wall.
Choi Jong-hyuk stood there, and behind him was Yeo Baek, whom I’d seen earlier.
Even better.
Since she was a formidable B+-Rank Hunter, even someone like Choi Jong-hyuk would have to show her at least minimal respect.
“That was quite enjoyable.”
I laughed openly, half-sincere and half-performed.
“How did you finish so quickly?”
Choi Jong-hyuk raised an eyebrow as he asked.
“I…….”
I recounted how I’d swept away the Orcs with lava.
“……And further inside, I spotted a C-Rank Demon. If you permit it, I’d like to attempt hunting it.”
And with that, I made my move.

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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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