S-Classes That I Raised to Devour - Chapter 61

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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 61. Automatic Restraint (1)
Invitations to the opening ceremony were sent to both Dae Han Je Il Geom, Director of the Hunter Association, and Cheon Mu-jong, President of the Hunter Association.
But neither of them could attend, no matter how much they wanted to.
“I never saw this coming.”
At Cheon Mu-jong’s remark, Im Hye-rin muttered with a serious expression as well.
“Why is Magic Girl suddenly so fixated on Seoul?”
Sending Magic Girl—a walking time bomb—to North Korea to eliminate her. The perfect plan: dispose of a troublesome Boss Monster, retaliate against North Korea, all in one stroke.
Everything was prepared, and they were about to execute it, when the plan hit a wall from the very start.
Magic Girl had flatly refused to leave Seoul.
“If only you would explain why not…….”
Even the person with the highest affinity for Magic Girl got only silence in response when he asked.
Im Hye-rin and Cheon Mu-jong felt a headache coming on. Magic Girl was losing control more and more. Now she barely even communicated.
“Wouldn’t a Named-class be manageable? Based on our assessment of Magic Girl’s combat ability, our calculations suggest we could subdue her without any casualties.”
One of the recently joined advisors presented an alternative based on a report.
The senior advisor shook his head without even looking at the report.
“We publicized Magic Girl as Named-class out of concern for public anxiety. She is Lord-class. The data you measured was merely the result of her restraining her power as much as possible.”
If people learned that a Lord-class Boss Monster—capable of annihilating an entire city with ease—was casually strolling through downtown, wouldn’t everyone be terrified?
It was only because the Hunter Association publicized her as Named-class and kept her under strict surveillance and vigilance that the citizens accepted the situation.
“L-Lord-class? I had no idea…….”
The advisor who had proposed the raid immediately backed down.
It had been exactly one hundred years since Monsters and Awakened Ones appeared in this world.
Every emergence and disappearance of a Lord-class Boss Monster left a massive mark on history.
Eleven years ago, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse—the Plague Knight—appeared in South Korea.
The South Korean government, then at the height of its power, immediately launched a raid, and the price was…….
One million civilian casualties, twenty-three A-rank Hunters killed in action. A massive city named Ulsan was completely erased from the map.
That was the true specification of a Lord-class Boss Monster. And they wanted to fight such a creature here, in the heart of Seoul, the most densely populated city in the nation?
It was madness.
Even a victory would not be a victory.
So the Director of the Hunter Association and the President of the Hunter Association both wanted to scream and tear their hair out.
In such a situation, who could spare attention for a Hunter Management company opening ceremony?
It was only because it was Chae Mujin that they sent wreaths and representatives at all.
“A few days ago, Magic Girl kept disappearing and reappearing suddenly. Did something happen then?”
“Not aside from then. But we couldn’t figure out where Magic Girl went at that time.”
Magic Girl had met Chae Mujin. But neither the Director of the Hunter Association nor the President of the Hunter Association could know this fact.
If Magic Girl wanted to hide, even those two could not discover her, and the same held true for scientific instruments like satellites.
In the end, neither realized that Magic Girl had met Chae Mujin and was staying in Seoul at his request.
“We need to quickly draw up new contingencies. We’ll have to prepare for the worst-case scenario.”
“A raid should be a last resort.”
While the heads of the Hunter Association and the Hunter Association, along with their advisors, agonized over what to do about Magic Girl,
Guild Hunters were beginning to take serious notice of Chae Mujin.
* * *
The Dae Han Twelve Branches.
Among the twelve guilds representing South Korea, Iron Fist held the lowest rank.
Uniquely, Iron Fist’s guild headquarters was not an office building or commercial space, but a training hall.
It was not founded to recruit strong men or talented individuals, but to accept martial artists and aspiring practitioners who walked the path of fist alongside its master.
“Master has returned!”
The guild members and students immediately stopped their training and lined up by the entrance.
Soon, as Ho Yeon-geol, master of Iron Fist, appeared, they thundered out in a resonant voice:
“Welcome, Master!”
The roar from hundreds of Hunters made the very earth and sky tremble.
Ho Yeon-geol nodded to acknowledge the greeting and headed straight to the back courtyard.
In the courtyard stood several wooden training dummies, standing firm. Despite being struck countless times by the students’ fists and feet, they bore blood and flesh fragments yet neither bent nor broke.
Such was the durability and resilience of the wood they were made from.
Crack.
Ho Yeon-geol merely squeezed a wooden dummy lightly, and its arm snapped.
The students watched quietly. It was not compulsion, but instinct—the instinct that saying a word here meant death.
Ho Yeon-geol was not particularly angry, nor was he displaying overwhelming force.
He was simply destroying wooden dummies with an invisible fist.
The students wondered if Ho Yeon-geol was trying to teach them something, but only one person understood otherwise.
Im Ho-yeon, who held the title of Vice Guild Master but was known as instructor, approached and spoke carefully.
“Master. Did something happen at the opening ceremony? I sense restlessness in your fist work.”
“Mm…. I had a light sparring match with a junior named Chae Mujin, and he keeps lingering in my mind.”
After his sparring match with Chae Mujin ended, doubts overwhelmed Ho Yeon-geol.
He understood that Chae Mujin had applied a Movement Speed Buff to him, and probably an Attack Speed Buff as well, which caused the confusion.
‘But when exactly?’
No matter how hard he tried to recall, he couldn’t figure out when the buff was applied.
And that wasn’t all.
‘If the buff had remained constant, I should have noticed by the second time.’
But the second time, he also had no idea, and only after launching the third attack did he realize it.
That he had been afflicted with a buff that destroyed his sense of speed and distance.
‘Which means Chae Mujin didn’t apply a single buff to me.’
He had applied the buff right before I moved, right before I attacked. Timed to end exactly when my attack concluded.
Could such a thing even be possible?
Tap.
Suddenly Ho Yeon-geol flicked his index finger against Im Ho-yeon’s forehead.
“Why didn’t you dodge?”
“Pardon?”
“Perhaps you didn’t see it coming the first time.”
Poke.
This time he pressed his other index finger against the instructor’s solar plexus.
“But why couldn’t you dodge the second time?”
“W-well, because I didn’t know your intent, Master.”
“Exactly the point.”
We discussed doing a sparring match, but I never said when it would begin.
‘Yet Chae Mujin figured it all out. When I would attack, and where I was targeting.’
The Im Ho-yeon before him was a Hunter—a Level 212 B-rank Hunter. He learned techniques from Ho Yeon-geol and prided himself on being far stronger than other B-rank Hunters. Yet he couldn’t dodge his fingers.
But Chae Mujin saw through it. And he toyed with me.
‘Is it a Skill? No, that can’t be. Supporters can only learn Skills related to supporting.’
Swordsmanship or magic don’t suddenly appear as options for Supporters.
A job class works precisely that way. If a Skill were used, Mana would necessarily fluctuate, yet I felt nothing from Chae Mujin.
‘Truly remarkable. Could it be… Mana Control?’
When a Skill is used, the fluctuation of Mana is a reaction force.
Just as ripples form when you swirl your palm in water.
But masters of Mana Control can eliminate such ripples.
By doing so, they leave no trace that a Skill was used.
‘And a man barely in his twenties pulled it off.’
The surprise didn’t end there. Of the five exchanges, Ho Yeon-geol had attacked in the first three, but Chae Mujin had attacked in the remaining two.
At those times, Ho Yeon-geol had blocked quite easily, yet something felt off.
‘If he had been able to apply a buff to himself at that moment?’
Chae Mujin’s movements were not slow, but neither were they particularly fast. At best, they resembled a C-rank Hunter’s speed.
But if he had applied tremendous Movement Speed and Attack Speed Buffs to himself then?
‘Could I have actually stopped him?’
Ho Yeon-geol had received buffs from Chae Mujin and had barely managed to keep up with the speed.
That showed just how massive the amount of buff he had received was.
Of course, Chae Mujin had admitted it himself—that he couldn’t apply buffs to himself.
‘Why did he say such a thing?’
He had openly declared his own limitation. It was like announcing that his gun had no bullets.
‘But perhaps that’s precisely why he said it.’
If you know a gun has no bullets, you needn’t fear the gun.
A gun is, after all, nothing more than a launching mechanism for bullets.
So when I let my guard down and approached—
“Bang.”
Ho Yeon-geol shot at Im Ho-yeon with a finger gun. The instructor simply blinked, bewildered.
“You just died, instructor.”
At the word “died,” the instructor laughed awkwardly.
“If Master Ho decided to kill me, who could survive?”
“Chae Mujin.”
“…Pardon?”
“And remember the name Arc Management well.”
The instructor found it hard to believe. Ho Yeon-geol was a tough man. Not just in words, but in deeds.
Yet such a man was telling him to remember Chae Mujin, a mere Supporter, and Arc Management, an unfamiliar Hunter Management company.
‘Just what happened at that opening ceremony……!’
The instructor’s curiosity was soon answered.
A person with the most YouTube subscribers in Korea uploaded a video.
A vivid three-minute short video of Chae Mujin and Ho Yeon-geol sparring.
The video’s title was “The Opening of Hunter Management Arc Begins.”
It marked the moment when the entire nation came to know the name Chae Mujin, and when Hunter Management as a new industry gained fame.
And fame brings interest, and interest brings fans.
Both kinds—the good and the bad.
* * *
A stuffy basement reeking of damp earth.
Four people played mahjong by the light of a single candle.
Among them, a man with four cigarettes in his mouth at once spoke up.
“A Supporter getting famous? The world really is ending.”
“Did you watch the whole video? It’s sleight of hand. The Supporter’s movement wasn’t the real action.”
Skeleton spoke. He wasn’t wearing a skeleton-shaped outfit—he was an actual skeleton.
Then Werewolf knocked Skeleton’s head clean off as he spoke.
“Shut your skull mouth. He really is a Supporter. He’s registered as one on Hunternet. There’s even a record of him passing the official Hunter exam as a Supporter.”
“You mutt. Do that to my head one more time and I’ll make you Undead.”
As Skeleton retrieved his head, the only woman among the four swept her tiles away and spoke.
“Ron. All Simples and All Terminals. 3,900 points. You’re too loud, I can’t concentrate.”
A woman who looked as ordinary as any you’d find in any company, yet all three immediately apologized.
“Sorry.”
“He started it.”
“I thought you’d be interested too, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Idiot. Office only cares about Cheon I-hwa.”
The woman called Office flicked her fingernails dismissively.
“I am interested.”
“Ah, so that’s your taste.”
“No. I watched a video with Cheon I-hwa in it.”
The video she referred to was an interview after the Dungeon Clear.
“Cheon I-hwa seems to be infatuated with Chae Mujin.”
“Huh? That empress has a crush?”
“You’ve never experienced love, so you wouldn’t understand. But I know. That look in Cheon I-hwa’s eyes. Eyes that had fallen in love.”
“Caha, I’ve dug out hundreds of eyes if we’re talking about them, but I’ve never heard of eyes like that.”
“Just watch. This is what love-struck eyes look like.”
Office pulled out a photograph and gazed at it meaningfully. In the photo was Cheon I-hwa.
“I’ve finally found the thread to unravel my beloved.”
“Kehehe. This Chae Mujin bastard’s days are numbered. He’s been marked by the empress of assassination. Should I buy his corpse off you?”
“I need every piece from head to toe. I’m planning to send them to Cheon I-hwa. One piece a day.”
“Need help? He’s apparently the head of that Hunter Management thing. He’s famous now, so he won’t be going around alone.”
“Not necessary. I’ll do it my way.”
She stood up and got straight to work.
She went to what she estimated was the location of Arc Management’s headquarters.
As she mingled with the onlookers and leisurely surveyed the surroundings,
“I was wondering when you’d show up.”
From the voice alone, Office knew who it was. She slowly turned, and her expression hardened.
“Chain Sickle Jenny. I said if you crossed my sight, you’d die.”
“Oh my, were you planning to monopolize such a tasty meal? How greedy of you.”
Clink.
Below her chest, Office’s Dagger and Jenny’s Chain Sickle locked together.
So discrete that no one passing by noticed anything.
“You’re still an idiot. If we fight here, we both die.”
“When do you ever run away? Seems you’ve gotten confident in your skills.”
“I’d lose, I know. But I can take an arm, and once you lose an arm…….”
Jenny stepped back and pointed to a rooftop hundreds of meters away.
Office, maintaining her vigilance, looked toward the rooftop Jenny indicated and understood at once.
“A sniper… protecting Chae Mujin?”
“I thought so too, but it turns out that’s not it.”
Office’s mind had been focused on Chae Mujin. So she hadn’t noticed what she normally would have.
But now, hearing Jenny’s words and looking around again, the world appeared different.
Two assassins disguised as onlookers.
One hiding underground.
Two watching from afar.
Including herself and Jenny, seven assassins had gathered at this very place.

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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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