Chapter 4

“Goodness, she just won’t stop crying.”

On a winter day with snow falling in thick flurries, a seven-year-old girl arrived at the orphanage—and she cried constantly.

Enough to exhaust even the veteran caretakers who had raised dozens, hundreds of children over the years.

Aside from the times she cried herself to sleep, she was apparently either on the verge of tears or already weeping, no matter what she was doing.

They had been terribly worried—afraid something might be physically wrong with the girl who had shut her mouth and done nothing but cry herself raw, shattered by the loss of her parents.

But once I started speaking again, all those worries apparently vanished.

“It’s too loud.”

“My nose hurts.”

“This tastes strange.”

As it turned out, I had developed hypersensitivity as an aftereffect of being pulled into the Gate.

Eventually classified as a pre-awakening candidate, I was transferred to a Hunter training facility, where I grew up amidst grueling drills and hard training.

But I never awakened—not even after I came of age—and I ended up being written off as nothing more than a hypersensitive freeloader.

The only one in the facility who never awakened, I was always a target for bullying. While my fellow trainees all made it into prestigious guilds and lived comfortably, I was cast out into society. Without having received a single piece of education fit for ordinary life.

For someone who wasn’t a Hunter, an acutely sensitive nervous system was nothing but a curse.

“I feel a bit awkward saying this, but… have you considered getting a prescription for Hunter-grade nerve stabilizers? They’re illegal, and the price is a bit steep, but…”

There was no way someone like me—someone whose hypersensitivity made it impossible to hold a normal job—could afford Hunter medication. And besides, I was a civilian.

“Then at least try inhaling Heragen oil. Hunters use it in dungeons as an emergency measure, so it should have some calming effect.”

A single bottle of oil, held out by the doctor.

That was the moment that set the direction of my life.

[Wihyang — A Scent of Comfort for the Oversensitive]

I opened a healing therapy shop called Wihyang, where I used my keener-than-average sense of smell to craft and sell oils and perfumes.

I wanted to help people like me—civilians and Hunters alike who suffered from hypersensitivity.

…And now, here I was. Found collapsed in front of my own shop.

Mrrrow.

By Mimi, the black stray cat I fed.

Thud, shhh. Thud, shhh.

Watching Mimi rub herself against my calf, demanding food, I blinked slowly—eyes opening and closing in a daze.

Why am I out here… and not even on the shop sofa, but lying in the doorway like a homeless person.

“So… let me think.”

Without a shred of shame, sprawled across the pavement, I tried to piece together what had just happened.

I’d been pulled into a Gate. I’d awakened. And with that power, I’d found the exit.

And I had seen a Gate Clear message—something I’d never expected to see in my life.

…It didn’t feel real. Just a strange, dreamlike sensation, like none of it had actually happened.

Hesitantly, I moved my lips and spoke a word aloud.

”…Status Window.”

Fwah—!

The Status Window bloomed open before my eyes.

“It’s real…”

I had thought I’d been out of my mind when I found the exit—that I’d hallucinated the whole thing—but there it was, a square Status Window with little cat ears on top, blinking cheerfully in front of me.

The Status Window I’d seen when I was first pulled into the Gate had been a perfectly ordinary rectangle.

But the one that appeared after I used my awakening skill to find the exit was… a little off. Odd.

Exactly like this.

Two cat ears, perched on the upper corners of the window. Just sitting there.

“Why did the Status Window suddenly change shape?”

I couldn’t be certain, but I had one theory.

Just before the Gate’s exit appeared, a black cat statue had materialized out of nowhere inside the shifting maze walls.

The moment I saw it, I’d had an instinctive feeling that the statue was connected to the exit.

And sure enough—the instant I touched the cat’s head, the exit opened. And at the same time, the Status Window changed its appearance.

“I suppose there’s no rule saying a Status Window can’t… evolve. Right.”

Mrrrow!

Since I wasn’t moving an inch, still lying there, the hungry cat’s cries were growing sharper by the second.

“Shop owner, huh… Like a traveling merchant, maybe?”

Something like an NPC you’d encounter in a game, or a monster wandering around with a treasure pack?

Even after all my time at the Hunter training facility, I’d never once heard of a class like this.

Beyond the special classes like Summoner or Enhancement Mage… there were others?

‘And it’s an off-the-charts class at that?’

“It feels like I’ve pulled something incredible… but I can’t tell whether it’s good or bad.”

I moved my index finger and scrolled down the Status Window.

“Maybe the description will give me some idea…”

”…Mimi. I’ll get you your food.”

Mrrrow—!

I quietly pressed the X button on the stat window and pushed myself upright.

I’ll just pretend I never awakened.

---

“Ah, ha ha. Ahahaha! Our Hunter Kang has quite the—what a sense of humor! Ahahaha!”

”…”

“Isn’t that right, Ian! Who else but Hunter Kang could possibly clear a Gate! Right?”

Kuhahaha!

Chairman Maeng let out a booming laugh, but his eyes were trembling pitifully.

He was looking at the cold-faced Hunter seated across from him with a desperate, pleading gaze—please, just tell me it was a joke.

But from Jinseo’s lips came nothing but heavy silence.

Chairman Maeng forced himself to ignore the chill creeping down his spine and turned to Ian, who sat beside Jinseo.

Ian, who served something like a personal secretary to Hunter Kang—surely he would be willing to say that the unfunny joke was just a joke.

”…”

Ian shook his head, his expression pained.

In that instant, Chairman Maeng’s heart plummeted straight to the floor.

“Hunter Kang! Say it yourself, Hunter Kang! Just who on earth, if not you, could have—urk!”

“C-Chairman!”

Chairman Maeng couldn’t contain his skyrocketing blood pressure and grabbed the back of his neck.

Jinseo, for his part, had maintained the same cold, impassive expression from start to finish.

“As I already said—it wasn’t me who cleared it.”

”…Then who?!”

“A woman. Most likely an unregistered Hunter.”

“Unregistered?”

“I was looking right at her with my own eyes, and yet I couldn’t detect any mana. Like watching an ordinary person.”

With Jinseo’s vivid firsthand account, the room gradually fell speechless.

“I came here to ask you to find that Hunter. She disappeared the moment we exited the Gate.”

“Ha…”

Chairman Maeng staggered and pressed a hand to his forehead.

“R-right now, the President and representatives from every country are flying in just to meet you…!”

“Tell them to go home.”

The sense of darkness closing in made Chairman Maeng groan.

The entire world was watching Korea right now…! If it came out that not Kang Jinseo but some Hunter of unknown whereabouts had been the one to clear it—!

And that Kang Jinseo would never play along with wearing a false crown…!

Damn it all! The embarrassment of it!

That was when Ian spoke up.

“If she managed to slip past even Hunter Kang’s detection, there’s a high probability she’s an SS-rank Hunter. And if that’s really the case…”

“SS-rank…?”

“Yes. A first-in-the-world rank.”

“First in the world…”

Chairman Maeng blinked a few times, sorting through his thoughts—then suddenly, his jowls shaking, he barked out a loud order.

“Right now! Find that Hunter right now and bring her before me! Not a word to the press!”

Jinseo glided out of the chaos of the Association chairman’s office. Ian, naturally, walked beside him.

Ian handed him a fresh carton of milk and asked,

“Even you couldn’t detect her and lost her—what makes you think the Hunter Association will do any better?”

“170 centimeters. Long, straight hair. Slender build.”

“There must be tens of thousands of women like that in Korea.”

“Find her. Or the Gate explodes.”

”…”

If a Gate that not even Kang Jinseo—or any of the world’s most renowned Hunters, or the rare few with detection skills—had been able to clear were to detonate…

It could very well be the end of humanity.

They had to find that remarkable Hunter by any means necessary.

“But how are we supposed to find her…”

As Ian made a show of near-tears, already sensing endless overtime ahead, a message arrived on Jinseo’s phone.

He checked the sender—some guild leader who never stopped pestering him—and was about to lock the screen, when he stopped at the preview that had appeared.

The alumni reunion. And Ye Bitna.

Those were the words that caught his eye.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have given such a gathering a second glance. But now was different.

Because for a fleeting moment, the back of the woman he had lost sight of in the Gate had overlapped with the back of a girl he’d once known at the training facility.

The one who was always gazing out the large window.

As that long-forgotten image surfaced, the still waters within Jinseo’s chest stirred—just faintly, just barely.