VHN 6

Did Ryu Tae-yeong say he was twenty-seven? If I thought about it by incident, I could probably figure out the exact date. The moment I was about to open my mouth, I felt a pain as if my insides were being torn apart.

Warning.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

‘Shit… That fucking hurts.’

Is this what it feels like to be hit in the stomach with a hammer? The pain was so terrible that I couldn’t even scream. To think it would screw me over physically like this. While I gritted my teeth and endured the pain, Ryu Tae-yeong asked again.

“What do you mean by that?”

“……”

I didn’t know what would come out if I said any more here. I didn’t think it was such a big disruption of the narrative, but the penalty was considerable. Honestly, if a guy I just met told me I was going to die soon, I’d take it as a threat, not a prophecy.

However, the Status Window was still displaying the warning message. When I didn’t correct myself, the warning window filled my vision as if it were glitching.

Warning.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

Do not damage the ■■■■■■■.

‘Is this Status Window going to physically manifest something later? I want to punch it so badly.’

I gritted my teeth, swallowed the pain, and stammered.

“…Just kidding.”

“……”

The pain subsided only after I barely managed to say it was a joke. I stealthily checked my forehead with my hand and found it was covered in cold sweat.

Only then did I have the leisure to look to the side. Of course, Ryu Tae-yeong was looking at me as if I were crazy. If I joked about someone dying soon, I’d think I was insane too. But Ryu Tae-yeong wasn’t exactly friendly to me in the first place, so I didn’t add any further excuses.

“Don’t you have a sense of humor?”

“I don’t joke about people’s lives.”

“A joke is better. It would be even more gruesome if it were serious.”

As I muttered without much thought, Ryu Tae-yeong’s jaw tensed with a grinding sound.

Well, Ryu Tae-yeong wouldn’t like joking about people’s lives. But whether Ryu Tae-yeong liked me or not didn’t matter much. After all, I wouldn’t be involved with Ryu Tae-yeong much in the original story.

How would Ryu Tae-yeong’s expression change if he knew that these words weren’t an insult but a concern for his safety?

Anyway, the fact that my condition was being controlled by a penalty for a single word was a more serious problem than such curiosity.

‘I think I need to do a few experiments.’

Just as I was thinking of a few methods in my head, the car stopped.

“…Seo Je-hyun. Get out.”

The place we arrived at was the Awakened Registration Center, where they could test for Awakening and Awakening stats.

Following Ryu Tae-yeong from the parking lot into the center, I found that the place was already packed to the entrance.

“Are you sure I can get tested today?”

I put my hands in my pockets and looked at Ryu Tae-yeong askew. Ryu Tae-yeong told me to wait a moment and disappeared from his spot.

‘I know where he’s going.’

If a member of the Gate Special Task Force judges that a Hunter’s rank is high, the Hunter can be given priority for rank testing, whether they are unregistered or misclassified.

The reason was simple. If a strong Hunter registered at a lower rank or didn’t register at all, there could be a great danger if that Hunter went crazy. And unfortunately, there weren’t many people in the world as virtuous as me.

‘I’m barking up the wrong tree.’

Whether I destroy the world later or not, what rank would I get other than F if I were tested now? I have a few high-grade skills, including the ‘Mimic’ skill, but with my current body, I’d only be able to barely ‘mimic’ them like I did earlier.

If it had been a tentacle attached to the Kraken’s body instead of a severed tentacle, I would have been screwed.

According to Kwon Tae-han’s description, he felt mana circulating in his body, but when I used the skill earlier, I didn’t feel anything like that, perhaps because the situation was too urgent. I only had the sensation that I had ‘mimicked’ Ryu Tae-yeong.

‘I need to do some training.’

The world has changed drastically, so my body needs to be able to keep up in order to survive. Besides, whether I want it or not, as long as I have the Status Window and penalties, I’ll inevitably be involved with Kwon Tae-han no matter what.

It was hard to imagine how much I’d have to push my body to raise my rank from F to at least B, not just by one or two ranks. Even if I were confident in my strength or fighting skills, I couldn’t just overpower Hunters who were using skills.

Then I should at least beat up the Status Window to get some information.

If I wrestled with the Status Window here, I’d be sure to become a crazy bastard, so I needed to move to a private space.

‘My house is gone, so… shit, should I book a hotel or something?’

Just as I was frowning and taking out my phone to book a hotel, one of the Status Windows that I had been skimming through caught my eye.

Name: Do Ye-hyun

Age: 20

Rank: D

Title: –

Main Skills: Moonlight’s Blessing (S), Raging Wave (B), Fight Poison with Poison (A)

Maximum Growth Rank: A

What is this?

‘That’s showing up?’

I couldn’t help but let out a hollow laugh. Then Do Ye-hyun flinched, looked around for the source of the laughter, and met my eyes. He’s perceptive? How did he know I was laughing because of him and glare over here?

Do Ye-hyun’s current rank is a whopping ‘D’, which may seem relatively weak, but in fact, D is not a commonly seen rank. Most are non-Awakened, with the occasional Hunter being mostly F, some being E, and a few who boss around those E’s and F’s being D-rank.

In other words, there’s no reason for someone who is D-rank to cower like that and be wary of his surroundings. Is he just a cowardly person? No… Considering that this is the Awakened Registration Center, it’s more likely that he doesn’t know his own abilities.

Do Ye-hyun looked at me and reflexively took a step back. His eyes were full of wariness.

‘I’m F-rank, though.’

He’s two ranks higher and still scared.

Moreover, the skills that guy has are like winning the lottery.

Moonlight’s Blessing (S), Raging Wave (B). Don’t assume that these vague skill names mean they’re light or water attribute skills.

Moonlight’s Blessing is a spotlight, and Raging Wave is a kind of tsunami. But neither is threatening. No, quite the opposite. Both are Healing Skills.

And the former is a high-intensity single heal, while the latter is an area heal.

There are many Healing Hunters, but they don’t go into combat and mostly work in hospitals. They’re busy healing the Hunters who get injured every day. But healing is only a follow-up measure. What’s actually helpful in a Dungeon is a healer who can immediately heal Hunters and enter Gates.

But it’s almost impossible to fight while protecting healers in dangerous Dungeons, so aside from a few Guilds that have combat-capable healers, they’re using potions.

However, Moonlight’s Blessing, one of the Healing Skills that Do Ye-hyun has, even allows for self-healing. That means he doesn’t need to be protected. Moreover, he doesn’t heal other Hunters one by one when they’re injured, but shoots an area heal? That’s cheating.

Also, looking at the Fight Poison with Poison (A) skill, if he uses it well, a healer can also deal damage.

But there was one thing that was strange. It was his face and the name Do Ye-hyun.

‘I’ve never seen him before.’

The skills are familiar, but the name is new to me? How can that be? These aren’t common skills. And no matter how concise the description is, there would have been a few descriptions of his appearance if he was that pretty. A height of around 180, a noticeably pretty face, and even a name that’s appropriately impactful and unique, so why wasn’t he described?

Hmm… I searched my memory and recalled the person who had Do Ye-hyun’s skills. He didn’t have Fight Poison with Poison, but he had Moonlight’s Blessing and Raging Wave.

Im Hae-kyung. An S-rank Hunter who runs Comet, the number one Guild in the country, and mainly uses… psychic abilities, including mind control. But he’s not bad at hand-to-hand combat either. He’s quite well-built. And above all, he had those two skills.

‘Hmm?’

But there’s something else strange. What that guy had was Moonlight’s Blessing and Raging Wave, but they were A-rank and C-rank respectively, lower than Do Ye-hyun’s skill ranks. But it’s unlikely that two people would coincidentally have these uncommon skills at the same time.

‘Ah, could it be.’

The realization slowly dawned on me. I slowly raised the corners of my mouth and stared at Do Ye-hyun.

‘That bastard had his skills stolen?’

Im Hae-kyung’s ability is psychic.

Fire, healing, psychic, skills mostly appear with similar attributes. It doesn’t make sense in the first place for a psychic Hunter like Im Hae-kyung to have such strong healing skills as a secondary ability. I thought Im Hae-kyung was just set up as a suspiciously overpowered character, but was there a backstory?

The thrill of inferring something that wasn’t in the original story was greater than I thought. In other words, it’s proof that this world is bigger than I thought, and that it’s truly a ‘running’ world.

Despoilers. There are those who are sometimes called that. It wasn’t an attribute that everyone had, but an attribute that only appeared in some Hunters. If they killed a Hunter, they could take some of that Hunter’s skills. The skills they could take were limited depending on how strong their rank was. Perhaps Im Hae-kyung had to lower the skill ranks in exchange for killing Do Ye-hyun and taking both of his skills.

‘If that’s true, he’s a psycho.’

Im Hae-kyung was thirty-three years old when he appeared. Considering that he appears in the middle of the story, there would be a twelve-year age difference with Do Ye-hyun. To prey on a kid like that.

How could he have such bad luck? I smiled at Do Ye-hyun with a cheerful feeling. Do Ye-hyun bit his lip and turned his gaze to the side as my smile deepened. He definitely seems cowardly, so there must be a story behind it.

A healer… Am I a ‘Despoiler’? If so, it would be a good time to kill him now. Right now, when he can’t use his abilities properly and is still clueless.

“Seo Je-hyun. I will guide you separately. Follow me.”

At that moment, Ryu Tae-yeong’s voice was heard. He was looking at me from the side, having arrived at some point, so I had no choice but to turn my gaze.