Chapter 42 – Hunter Team’s First Mission
#Yuna Seo
“I will check the party composition. Tanker and leader Kim Ye-na, wizard Park Ha-rin, healer Lee Ji-yoon and…”
The receptionist, who was looking down at the LCD screen, raised his head, unable to hide his surprised expression. Then, several times, I looked at the faces of the four party members, including me.
“Is there something wrong with the commission documents?”
Lee Ji-yoon approached the reception desk and tilted her head. She had a gentle face that seemed to have no intentions. The receptionist, who saw the look on his face as if he would open his heart if he wasn’t careful, came to his senses and gave a sales smile.
“No. However, I hesitated for a while because I hadn’t heard that the party that had the honor of being the top of the academy jockey that had graduated this time filled up the vacancy. Sorry.”
“Aha, rumors spread really fast in the hunter industry. It’s only been a few months since I graduated.”
Now I can see why I was able to talk to myself who was being bullied. If you were the head of the academy, you would have had a lot of personal connections while you were in school, so even if it was just a temporary invitation to a party, I wasn’t someone who could be ostracized.
A certain kind-hearted woman Hunter talked to me and laughed happily, so the academy graduates didn’t let me join the party for a while. She didn’t even glance at me as I passed her when she was barely able to get back to her hunter job.
Lee Ji-yoon was finishing his explanation to the receptionist while pondering the deep-rooted discrimination against the academy.
“-That’s why I scouted Seo Yuna here as a temporary party member.”
“Temporary. I mean.”
The receptionist, who cut off the word as if emphasizing the word “Temporary,” Looked at me for a moment before moving the electronic fan corresponding to the smart device.
“Seo Yuna, a long-distance dealer who is a temporary party member. She’s in a party of four, and they’re all E-rank hunters. The quest you are accepting is to defeat the small group of goblins that appeared near the gate that recently occurred. Please check and sign.”
After signing the contents of the request, brief precautions, and a memorandum stating that the Hunter Association is not responsible for the threat to life, the smart watch wrapped around the wrist of leader Ye-na Kim rang.
“Then I hope you have a safe trip.”
The receptionist nodded and said hello. All the requests that she could do alone were handled by unmanned devices, but when she received a formal mission as a party, she was treated differently, starting with trivial things.
“Then Seo Yuna. She um… Can I call her Yuna-san?”
“Yes. I will call you Jiyun.”
“Will Yuna need time to prepare her items separately in preparation for her request?”
It was a simple mission for a day trip. However, unlike the girls who use her sword and magic, long-distance hunters needed time to prepare consumables such as arrows.
A total of six rifle magazines were stored in her front vest pocket. Two magazines for the secondary weapon pistol. And three fragmentation grenades. She thought it was enough firepower against a small group of goblins.
“I guess I just need to bring an energy bar and bottled water.”
“Then we will share what we have. While the sun is still up, we’ll get it done quickly and come back!”
She nodded her head at her eager look. And she felt a strange feeling under her feet the moment she left the Hunter Association. She stopped and looked down, but nothing caught her eye.
I looked down at my shadow, which had been shortened by the rising sun. Maybe it was because of the mood, it seemed to be a little wriggling. Thinking it couldn’t be so, I chased after the temporary party member who had moved a little further away.
Vans with the association’s logo stamped on the side were standing one after another at the hunter’s stand. The party members who arrived first opened the door of the van in the front and climbed in naturally.
“Yuna-san, please get on.”
I knew there was support from the Association for Hunters performing party missions, but it was the first time I actually boarded it. She tried not to be intimidated and boarded carefully to avoid clashing her weapons.
When the party leader, Kim Ye-na, touched her smartwatch to the terminal in the center of the seat, the van’s windows darkened like the windows of an airplane, blocking her view from the outside.
[Database connection complete. Check mission receipt records. Start moving to your destination on autopilot.]
When I looked at the driver’s seat, the steering wheel turned on its own and the vehicle started to move, but the other three party members focused their attention on the terminal that the smart watch contacted.
“…Begin briefing.”
As if responding to Kim Ye-na’s words, a map of the mission point and a stereoscopic image displaying the location of the last goblin group came to mind.
[This is the 42nd gate observation point. A group of goblins that escaped the army’s blockade were identified. The number of objects is about twenty. The armament is poor, so leave it to the F-E rank hunters. More.]
Silence fell with the words “Briefing over” Coming from the car’s speakers. After looking around, he turned his gaze to Ji-yoon, who seemed the easiest to talk to.
“Is the original official mission briefing this short?”
“Well. I don’t know if we’ve done anything great either, but maybe it’s because we’re goblins and we don’t think it’s that important?”
It was a plausible story, so she agreed and buried herself deeply in the chair. After meticulously servicing even the weapons stored in the bag on my back, the vehicle I was riding in came to a smooth stop.
Ye-na Kim, putting her shield in front, got out of her car first. As soon as she got off, she looked around her with her shield firmly covering her body and nodded her head to mean that it was okay.
“Jiyoon. Stay close behind me and look to the left. Harin is the rear guard. Yuna-san, look to the right.”
“I know.”
As soon as everyone got out of the vehicle, they formed formation according to the leader’s instructions. The doors of the van we rode in automatically closed, and as soon as the engine turned off, a thin protective film was created. The van was a means of escaping by coming here when the mission was over or a crisis situation occurred.
Hearing the chirping of the birds, I put her control rods to safety, loosening her body so that she could shoot at any time. And she asked a question to the leader, who was contemplating where to start the search from the front.
“Just in case, have you ever gone on a mission with a hunter who handles ranged weapons?”
“…I’ve been paired up a few times for training at the academy.”
Excluding Jiyoon, the two people who spoke in short language from the beginning were awkward. I said, thinking that I should make it easier to talk.
“Then, before shooting, I’ll tell you where to shoot, so don’t move your body that way.”
“…Okay.”
The leader nodded, as if I didn’t think much of it if I suddenly switched to short language, and slowly walked towards the forest.
The sunlight was so intense that it stung the skin, breaking through the leaves. Faced head-on with the refreshing forest-smelling wind, I looked out for goblins crouching beyond the bushes.
“Stop.”
The party, stopped by the leader’s voice, closed the gap and formed a triangle with Jiyoon, the healer, in the middle. Harin, the wizard, narrowed her eyes and glared over the bush.
“Yena. How many did you see? I can’t see it at all.”
“…There was a shiny object that reflected the sunlight.”
She listened to the conversation between the leader and the wizard, changed the control wheel to continuous fire, and adjusted her breathing so that she could shoot at any time.
The fire attribute, which works well for most monsters, could not be used because of the forest. Instead, each bullet in the first magazine loaded was given the ice attribute.
“Could it be a puddle?”
When Jiyoon gave an optimistic opinion, Harin, the wizard, took out her smartphone and tapped it quickly, then shook her head.
“It hasn’t rained in this area in the past week.”
“…Assign target point to alpha. Keep advancing as far as Alpha.”
After aiming at the point named Point Alpha with the short one-handed sword in the other hand holding the shield, the leader moved forward, deliberately scratching the floor with the shield, wondering if he was being guided by a trap.
Drruk- Drruk- Tuk-
There was a point where the sound dragged on the ground stopped for a moment. The shield scratched the trap made by weaving grass stems on the floor.
“Prepare.”
In line with the leader’s brief warning, the goblins hiding around began to reveal their heads one by one. He said, watching the goblin through the dot sight.
“Is it okay if I shoot?”
The leader shook his head as if telling him to wait.
“Harin?”
“It’s not my specialty, but I can deal with goblins by using wind magic.”
“Attack. I will block anything that approaches.”
As soon as the leader gave the order, he pulled the trigger. The head of the goblin in front flipped back and rolled to the ground.
“Wow, as rumored, Yuna-san’s gun really works.”
Instead of answering Jiyoon’s exclamation, he injected ice-based lead bullets into the new goblin’s head. Frost formed around the wound as if it had been hit by a magician’s ice pick, and he collapsed.
“Wind. Become sharp claws and claw your enemies!”
The goblins, who had lost three of their comrades in an instant, screamed and ran quickly. The leader thrust the tip of his shield into the neck of the nearest goblin, breaking his neck.
Thinking that the name of the head of the academy was not a lie, he trusted his party members and aimed at the madly running goblins.