Chapter 4-5 – Hunter Has Been Appointed – 3
Chungwoon Hunter Training High College.
Chungwoon was one of the most prestigious hunter training high college. It was famous for having more than 90% of its graduates become hunters.
There were three major reasons why Chungwoon Hunter Training High College earned such a reputation.
First, it possessed a high‑end hunter awakening facility capable of testing and awakening all kinds of abilities.
Second, it had the best practical instructors, made up of active and retired hunters who themselves graduated from Chungwoon.
Third, the curriculum followed a cascading structure. Students first received a solid basic education in college, then gradually advanced into specialized training.
With these three elements perfectly in place, this private hunter training high college naturally became known as a prestigious institution.
There were always recovery hunters stationed on campus, ready to treat any injuries that occurred during training.
There was only one thing to learn in this high college.
By undergoing as many as a thousand hunter awakening trainings, students had to focus solely on awakening at least one ability.
Close‑combat training such as swordsmanship and spearmanship. Occult power training such as magic and witchcraft. Sniper‑type training for weapons like guns and bows. Recovery‑type training that involved serving Gaia, the god of the earth, and learning to heal others. Vehicle handling training. Physical strengthening training. Effective underwater combat training. Training that focused on drawing out the hidden power sleeping inside one's body. Training to manipulate gravity or electromagnetic forces and bend them to one's will. Mental‑type training to resist and even wield spiritual or psychological attacks. Training to handle power extracted from animals and turn it into one's own strength. Training to use the energy drawn from monsters as a source of combat ability. Training to recombine and reconstruct the components of matter into new forms.
There was even training for summoning and controlling mysterious beings from another world as personal summoned beasts.
Truly, the conditions were set for awakening every possible type of hunter ability, to the point where any ability could bloom. Calling it a department store for awakening powers was no exaggeration.
Of course, one didn't have to complete all thousand awakening trainings. Once a single ability awakened, the rest of the curriculum would no longer apply.
During the remaining college years, students could work as probationary hunters under the school's recommendation, or they could apply for early graduation if they wished.
Even students who failed to awaken during college were allowed to continue using the awakening facilities for the next two years after graduation. With that kind of environment, if someone had the will, it felt almost impossible not to awaken at all.
My decision to pursue this school was partly influenced by confidence that I would do well in such a place.
'There are over a thousand kinds of training, so how could I not awaken at least one of them?'
Although there was a clear difference in physical ability between men and women in this world, I felt there had to be some limit to that difference.
It was true that the chances of a male hunter awakening were very low, but it was not completely impossible.
Even in the worst case, I entered with the determination that I would complete all thousand trainings if I had to and force something to bloom.
Of course, reality did not unfold as easily as I had imagined.
The girls who had been in the same class as me since middle school gradually awakened and discovered their own specialties.
Those who were delayed in awakening still managed to bloom their abilities thanks to intensive training guided by experienced instructors.
Before long, everyone around me awakened one after another. Later, even younger juniors who joined the school after me had already awakened before I did.
Meanwhile, I was just like a hamster running on a wheel that never moved forward. I was just endlessly repeating the same effort with no result.
… Honestly, I would have been much happier if that was the only problem.
The secret sexual harassment from girls, which had already been happening since middle college, began slowly escalating after entering high college.
At some point, it became impossible to resist even a single girl using pure physical strength.
The girls literally began treating me like a pseudo‑sexual object.
A few would suddenly jump on me and grope my entire body, pretending it was just playful tickling.
During training sessions when we had to change into gym clothes, they sometimes called it an "joke" and pulled down my pants without warning.
There were also countless voyeur shots taken of me. They acted like they knew exactly when I wouldn't notice.
The corners of my desk wore out much faster than others. A lot of my belongings went missing as well, mostly writing tools like pens and markers.
Even if I focused entirely on awakening training, I barely had enough time as it was. These constant disturbances became unpleasant obstacles that made concentration nearly impossible.
Of course, since I was a guy too, I sometimes felt flustered and aroused by the girls' dirty pranks. To be honest, I was annoyed, but a part of me reacted physically. But no matter what, everything should have limits.
They didn't care because they had already awakened or were close to awakening. But for me, who showed no signs of awakening at all, their actions were wasting my precious time in many ways.
Eventually, they crossed a boundary where reason began overpowering sexual desire.
Even when teachers saw this kind of behavior, most either ignored it or even encouraged it.
Perhaps they simply allowed it because if I was used as a sacrifice, the overall awakening success rate of the class would increase.
It would have been much more efficient for them to use me as a tool to relieve students' stress. With that, other girls could awaken more easily, instead of wasting effort on a male student who had almost no potential of awakening.
For me, staying in this high college was overwhelmingly advantageous if I wanted even the slightest chance at a Hunter awakening. So, I had no choice but to endure and stay silent through all kinds of harassment.
Since the entire college atmosphere was involved, if I reported anything, there was a high possibility that I would be transferred out.
More than anything, I didn't want to waste my high college years, the most important time for awakening, by getting involved in disputes.
Of course, I almost had to accept the shady witchcraft and harassment from the girls who approached me in return for staying silent.
At first, only a few students treated me like a toy. However, the number kept growing until eventually the entire class participated.
It didn't take long for the bullying to spread throughout the entire grade, and even throughout the whole college.
Fortunately, the girls seemed to have at least a minimum conscience. Or maybe they simply lacked the determination to commit actions that would leave clear evidence.
I was not forcibly assaulted in front of everyone. They also never stripped my clothes off to expose my naked body shamefully.
This kind of bullying gradually decreased around the middle of my second year's second semester. The school atmosphere slowly stabilized.
It stopped around the time Hyeeun, who had been busy with trainee hunter work and often absent, started attending college regularly again.
In my heart, I felt relieved. It seemed the students had finally grown tired of tormenting me.
If Hyeeun, of all people, had seen me being treated like that, I would have been too ashamed to even look at her.
Hyeeun was always worried about me. She might have even heard something from her mother if it continued any longer.
Of course, just because no one was blocking me anymore didn't mean I had awakened any abilities.
I spent three full years at the academy. Then another two years after graduation. I attended college every single day without rest, even on holidays and weekends. I tried every type of hunter training available at the Hunter Training High College.
Yet, I still had not awakened a single ability until March of 2077, the year I turned twenty‑two.
Now, I had become nothing more than an unemployed parasite who survived by consuming the inheritance my parents left behind.
…
…
[MC POV]
"Ha… What kind of life is this?"
I was lying on my bed and staring blankly at the ceiling. I silently regretted all the years I had wasted.
'That day in the second semester of my third year in high school… If I hadn't happened to overhear Hyeeun's conversation on my way home, would my life be a little better than this?'
Hyeeun would not have given me that psychological shock. I would not have believed so strongly that I could become a Hunter. I probably wouldn't have gone to the Hunter Training High College.
At the very least, I wouldn't have ended up rotting away in a corner of this room.
But I didn't blame Hyeeun.
I overheard that conversation purely by chance. And it was entirely my own decision to attend a Hunter training school.
Most of all, Hyeeun always treated me kindly to my face. Whatever she might have thought behind my back, the Hyeeun I saw was still the same childhood friend I had once liked.
I also came to realize that there were countless women in this world who were far worse than her.
I didn't develop a phobia of women because of those experiences. However, I did form a habit of becoming unconditionally suspicious of any woman who approached me without hesitation.
I learned that women in this world looked at men more as tools to satisfy their intense sexual desires, much more than men in my original world ever viewed women.
And among them, female Hunters had even less control over their desires than ordinary women.
Their physical strength increased through awakening, and their lewd instincts grew stronger the more they risked their lives in dungeons and gates. All of these conditions together created something like a warped and uncontrollable lust within female Hunters.
I had no idea about any of that at first. Yet I spent three years trapped in a chaotic den filled with those female Hunters and aspiring Hunters… no, five years if I counted the time after graduation.
What I gained from all that effort was not a Hunter awakening, but the realization that the more I got involved with such women, the more my instinctive distrust of female Hunters and money‑hungry individuals grew deeper.
The inheritance my parents had left behind for me had already run out during those twelve foolish years.
I, Seong Taekyung, a twenty‑two‑year‑old unemployed failure, spent another day doing nothing but lying in my room. I was scrolling through my smartphone beneath the blanket.
Suddenly…
[Awakening conditions have been confirmed.
Target: Seong Taekyung
You are hereby designated as a Hunter — Sexual Desire Manager.]
"…What?"
That text suddenly appeared on the phone screen that I had been idly scrolling through.