Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 106

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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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106
Jin-woo’s lungs burned as he pushed his heavy body forward, driving himself toward the abandoned building in the neighborhood. Long-distance running had always been a chore, but this wasn’t about preference—a photo had arrived on his old phone showing a red bird he’d befriended on the Rear Mountain, bound tightly with cord.
“Oh, you’re fast! Birds all look the same, so I wasn’t sure if we caught the right one, but looks like we did.”
Jin-wook laughed with his friends as he watched Jin-woo burst in, drenched in sweat.
“The bird… what about it?”
“Hey, you trained it well, didn’t you? We brought traps and a slingshot, but when I scattered some breadcrumbs, it didn’t fear people and just clung to me.”
“Where is it?”
“Jin-woo, if you’re going to eat like that, you need to pay for your meal.”
“…I fought more than I ate. I’ve paid my share.”
“Man, that’s the longest sentence I’ve ever heard from you. But seriously? Still not enough.”
“I don’t have any money.”
Jin-woo had tried working part-time since studying wasn’t his strength. Whenever he went looking for work, people would take one look at his face and suddenly claim they’d already filled the position. Even when he managed to find odd jobs at construction sites, he’d be cursed for being slow and fired quickly.
“Either extort someone or steal it. Figure it out.”
“The bird… let it go.”
Jin-woo stepped forward.
“Stay put!”
As Jin-woo approached, Jin-wook thrust the bird into his hand. It was bound so haphazardly that its wings would be damaged if left like this. No—it looked like it would die.
“Ah… fine. I’ll get the money. Just release it first.”
“How are you going to get it?”
“…”
There was no way to get money. I didn’t want to rob anyone either.
“Let’s just fight for a bit.”
Jin-wook swung a wooden club at Jin-woo’s legs first, and the others rushed in to beat him along with him.
Jin-wook’s gang just wanted to vent their frustrations. Though Jin-woo was in terrible pain, he endured it, thinking that once they got their anger out and released the bird, it would be over.
After a few minutes of beating, the attackers grew more exhausted than their victim.
“Huff… huff… damn bastard won’t even scream. If you don’t want to keep getting hit, bring money.”
Jin-wook and his friends threw the bird to the ground and walked past the fallen Jin-woo.
“…”
Jin-woo caught the bird in both hands.
He carefully untied the mangled cord.
Had it been bound too long? Was it injured when they threw it? The bird wasn’t moving.
“Wake up. I’ll give you food.”
With bloodied hands, I pulled out breadcrumbs from my pocket and offered them, but the bird didn’t move.
Jin-woo’s memory of what happened next was hazy. When I came to, police had shot me with a taser, and beneath me lay a person whose face was so crushed it was unrecognizable. It was Jin-wook.
Jin-woo was arrested for this incident and sent to the Special Juvenile Detention Center for assault.
Though I had taken more hits than Jin-wook, I was the one sent to prison because of how badly he was injured.
It was a special detention center because I had awakened that day. I was severely injured too, and fortunately my awakened abilities were weak—otherwise Jin-wook’s skull would have been completely shattered.
On the day Jin-woo was brought in, Jin-wook’s heart stopped once before paramedics revived him. All his teeth were gone and his eardrums were ruptured, making a normal life difficult from then on.
Jin-woo thought it was fitting. I had repaid what the bird had suffered.
Jin-woo didn’t really understand what was scary about prison, so even being told he was going to the Special Juvenile Detention Center didn’t faze him much.
No one in the detention center dared to touch Jin-woo—word had already spread about him.
He kept his head down during yard time, studying as instructed, feeding birds. Though he’d always ranked near the bottom in his regular school due to poor aptitude, the detention center housed far more incompetent inmates than him, so his grades improved. Studying had become almost enjoyable.
During breaks, he exercised and scattered breadcrumbs across the yard to gather birds, but none grew as close to him as that dead bird had.
Ironically, Jin-woo’s life in detention proved easier than his life outside. But a year vanished in an instant, and whether he liked it or not, the time came to leave.
“Ma’am, where is my mother?”
“How would I know where your mother is?”
When he returned home, a middle-aged woman he didn’t recognize answered the door. His mother had moved without a word while he was inside. Given that she’d never visited him once, the move seemed inevitable to Jin-woo. He felt no real anger. You can only resent someone if you had a bond with them, and Jin-woo had merely been a burden to his mother.
With nowhere to go, he drifted aimlessly. While homeless, he managed to scrounge a few discarded triangle kimbap from other homeless men, but it barely filled his large frame.
Jin-woo attempted to find part-time work at various places. But just as before, no one would hire him—not looking as shabby and unwashed as he did now.
On his way back to the park where the homeless men gathered, he spotted a flyer advertising job openings at a Detective Agency.
“Well… it probably won’t work out anyway.”
The words “experience and education not required” seemed to stand out larger than the rest.
“Hello.”
“Welcome… Please, come in. What brings you here?”
Jin-woo thought this man had an even more unpleasant expression and larger build than himself. That man was Hyung-bin.
“I saw the job posting outside.”
“Ah… I see.”
“Do you have any openings? I’m quite strong.”
“Can you use a computer?”
“Yes. I know Word and Excel.”
He’d learned it in detention. He enjoyed computers—even if he wasn’t particularly skilled, it was easier than talking to people.
Hyung-bin hesitated.
“Damn. I was hoping to hire a pretty female accountant this time…”
Min-woo sniffled from behind. He already knew what decision Hyung-bin would make.
“Have you eaten?”
Hyung-bin placed a hand on Jin-woo’s shoulder. That massive hand, like a pot lid, enveloped my shoulder. Jin-woo felt as though this solid grip was steadying him, anchoring someone who’d lost his footing.
Is this what it would feel like to have a real father?
* * *
Though Jin-woo disliked fighting and running and most other things, he couldn’t give up now—not when Hyung-bin had given him this chance. He didn’t want to disappoint him.
This was different from before, when he’d been pushed into things he hated without even realizing it. Now Jin-woo moved by his own will.
“I’m sorry!”
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!!
Jin-woo had decided he would no longer call Yang Sang-heon “hyung.”
Before, he’d been shooting to miss, but after getting scolded by Lee Ji-seok several times, he was now firing at Hyung-bin’s group with genuine intent—all while apologizing.
Jin-woo had also leveled past 20 as a D-rank Hunter, so rifle bullets fired from a distance could no longer pierce his armor and muscle, but the pain was incomparably greater than the beatings he’d taken from wooden clubs before.
Since his sluggish body couldn’t dodge bullets, he summoned the mana-formed bird to use as a shield. But it was too fragile—it vanished after taking one or two shots.
Jin-woo needed something stronger to protect himself. He wished there could be another person like Hyung-bin in his life.
[Your Summoning Skill has advanced from E-rank to C-rank.]
His F-rank Summoning Skill had risen to E while following Lee Ji-seok, but now it jumped two entire ranks at once.
“Summon!”
Jin-woo imagined Hyung-bin and summoned the bear.
The massive bear wasn’t particularly fast, but when struck by bullets, they embedded themselves in its body like they were sinking into slime before dropping out the bottom. The bullet holes sealed shut, giving Jin-woo his very own tank.
I tried it on a whim, and hawks were summoned simultaneously. Compared to before when I could only summon one hawk at a time, this was significant progress.
It seemed like I could summon up to five hawks if I just summoned hawks.
Jin-woo thought to himself. If this is the case… wouldn’t I not have to fight directly? If I have a tank and dealers?
“Jin-woo! What is that?! It’s awesome!”
Min-woo approached and tapped his shoulder as he passed by.
“Ooh~ that’s cool, but it looks a bit… rough. Hahaha.”
Si-hwan spoke.
“Hey man, no matter how it looks, you shouldn’t talk about it like that.”
Jin-woo decided to take the fact that Hyung-bin was the model to his grave.
* * *
“So he modeled it after Hyung-bin. I was most worried about Jin-woo, but it turned out well.”
Ratatatat!!
“What did you say?!”
Yang Sang-heon couldn’t hear my words over the rifle’s suppressed fire, but he didn’t stop shooting. It wasn’t out of resentment—he was simply venting the stress he’d accumulated over the days on Hyung-bin’s group.
It wasn’t just Jin-woo who had developed. The relentless obstacle courses had advanced everyone who participated in the training.
Shield-using mages reinforced their shields to block bullets.
Warriors saw their stats rise and skill grades increase, becoming overall faster and more resilient.
Hyung-bin’s stats rose, and with the Guardian skill inflating his stats, his body became even more durable—bullets couldn’t pierce through him.
Min-woo’s transformed body became harder as his skill grade rose. Moreover, before, even when reinforced, since it was part of his body, there was pain. Now it felt like separate tissue, like fingernails or hair, so it didn’t hurt. When broken, new ones grew back like shark teeth. Essentially, he no longer suffered permanent loss of body parts. Of course, they didn’t regenerate as quickly as mine, so if they were severed, he’d be combat-ineffective for a while until they recovered.
Si-hwan showed the most development after Jin-woo. When Si-hwan shouted in frustration at Yang Sang-heon shooting, his skill level rose—it was an attack using concentrated sound waves to render enemies immobilized. Since Si-hwan still had low proficiency and Yang Sang-heon’s level was high, it only caused him some difficulty, but used properly, it could rupture eardrums and shake the head to cause immobilization.
Si-hwan also developed the skill defensively. When he spread sound waves broadly forward, a barrier of sound formed that blocked most attacks like a shield. The downside was that when he ran out of breath, he couldn’t maintain either the shield or attacks, but his stamina rose significantly during this training, allowing him to maintain it for tens of seconds to several minutes.
Ye-seul didn’t learn skills requiring self-sacrifice like in her past life, but her shield was reinforced. Also, perhaps because she was paired with the Oh Brothers, she acquired chain healing and defense buff skills. Now she could simultaneously heal multiple people while providing defense buffs. It reflected Ye-seul’s nature of wanting to protect everyone.
The villains all grew stronger too. The other villains simply became stronger, but Shin Mu-yeol achieved a higher level of concealment. Now even his footsteps were invisible. The problem was that I could detect him through several methods beyond visual means, so I had no trouble embedding bullets in him. I gave the child sexual abuser special treatment without reservation.
All ten showed remarkable growth. Through this training, I discovered that when training at high intensity in mud mixed with mana while receiving the World Tree’s vitality, evolution was possible.
Now if I refined the training process to be more humane and trained hunters, I could produce many more high-level hunters. Since there were limits to what I alone could accomplish, this was a greater achievement than my own development.

* * *
While the Mud Academy achieved results, I showed no noticeable progress.
“You really are stupid.”
Eres, who had knocked me down, poked my forehead repeatedly as she spoke.
For days now, sparring with Eres, my bones shattered into fragments and my organs were torn to shreds, yet I hadn’t awakened any new skills.
I thought about what the problem was. It seemed that deep in my psyche, I believed Eres would never kill me, so without a sense of crisis, my skills weren’t improving.
“Well, if it doesn’t work like this, then that’s your fate too.”
Eres cleanly gave up and dusted off her clothes. She went back inside to watch cartoons and neither asked for another sparring match nor picked a fight.
Separate from my training, it was time for the Villains team and Hyung-bin’s team to spar.

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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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