Chapter 160 – That's What Everyone Says

Everyone says that.

“A tiger? Did you say you’re a tiger? No. You’re a little kitten. A fluffy one. But you’re not cute.”

“Is that the best you can kick? My pet rabbit could do a better back kick than you.”

“Form? Form is good. You mean drawing a line, right? This is your limit, right here.”

“Are you just coasting through life ’cause you were born? What a hack. Yeah, I’m insulting you. Hack. Hack!”

I knew I’d made the right call with Henri.

Lee Ja-rang, whose physique was overwhelming, was completely exhausted.

After running the guy ragged, Henri finally flashed a satisfied smile.

“This is… racial discrimination. Lee Ja-rang is telling you. I’ll make you an internet star overnight.”

In response to Lee Ja-rang’s words, Henri showed him his phone.

A post was up on his social media.

-First day in my second home, Korea.

-S o m e t i m e s… I shed sweat….

A photo was posted with that caption. It was a selfie with everyone training hard in the background.

⨽Korean patch already complete! Complete!

⨽Global Super Hunter Henri is active in Korea, is this for real? This is epic.

⨽Add this to the national pride list!

⨽Wow, the delivery man leaves and the chicken man arrives.

⨽Is Hanul Guild for real? Don’t they have three S-ranks now?

⨽Isn’t their guild the strongest now?

⨽This is great to see. Hunter Henri, welcome to our country!

Henri had already posted it on social media himself.

One of his hobbies.

It was taking selfies.

In reality, he was running his team into the ground, but the selfie only made it look like everyone was diligently focused on their training.

“That’s a fraudulent selfie.”

“Every selfie in this world is a fraud.”

Having completely wrecked Lee Ja-rang, Henri looked for his next target.

Everyone avoided his gaze.

One thing not many people knew.

The reason Henri had that insane physique was none other than his relentless training.

I didn’t make him team leader simply because he was an S-rank or a famous hunter.

It was because I judged he was more than capable of taking my place.

“Tae-yang.”

“Yes, Team Leader.”

Kim Tae-yang’s expression stiffened slightly.

The dream-like feeling of being on the same team as the hunter he admired had long since vanished.

“Are you messing with me?”

“What?”

“Hyunbin. The weight the Director told me is different. Why is it different?”

“I’m not feeling my best today…”

“I have a magic spell that’ll make you feel better. It’s about to unfold before your very eyes.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Yep, I’m gonna show you now.”

“You understand Korean! Don’t! I said don’t!”

“Stay still. I’ll make you feel better.”

Having switched from Lee Ja-rang to Kim Tae-yang, Henri was diligently wrecking him.

I’m quite satisfied just watching.

“Ugh. I’d rather be sparring…”

Tae-yang whined. In response, Henri grinned, revealing his pearly whites.

This is all good. But I can see one weakness in Henri.

“Ugh, this is hard.”

Katrinne had also been dragged to the training grounds. This kid’s basic stamina was so poor it was a headache.

Honestly, since she’s my kid, I can’t be too rough with her.

I’d pushed her pretty hard in my own way, but she hadn’t broken through her limits.

Muscles are supposed to tear and be torn to grow stronger.

“No. You still have to do it.”

“Ugh.”

Henri lowered the speed on Katrinne’s treadmill to its minimum. He put on a YouTube video she liked in front of the machine, turned on a fan for her, and presented her with a straw-equipped Iced Americano.

“You must train, no matter what.”

“Sigh… I guess I have no choice. I’ll have to do it, even if it’s hard.”

Seriously.

I should have known when this guy prepared fake dumbbells made of styrofoam instead of real ones.

Thanks to Katrinne, Henri’s wife was cured of her mana-stone disease. He had since become one of Katrinne’s devotees.

That Katrinne was happily playing on a treadmill that issued delivery coupons with every step she took.

Seeing her smile with an “all according to plan” expression made my stomach churn.

There’s one more thing that’s bothering me.

“What are you doing over there?”

“…”

Why is a celebrity known as the Flower of France, the Dancing Empress, brazenly standing in someone else’s guild, in someone else’s team training grounds?

She’d also racked up 500 million views on YouTube with a video titled ‘Goddess of the Sword’.

When she was wielding a sword, her face was full of life, but when she put it down, she just looked dazed.

The French woman, who had been staring blankly at me, turned on a translation app on her phone and approached me.

“What do you want?”

The French woman typed something into the translation app and pointed the phone at me.

Soon, a female mechanical voice was directed at me.

[Director Nam.]

How absurd. Does she need her other arm broken to come to her senses?

I don’t need her to say it to know why she’s here. This is something I can figure out without putting it in my inventory.

For this girl, Henri must be her only savior.

I know this feeling well.

I was always a savior to someone, always the focus of someone’s gaze.

She wants to watch over the benefactor who kept her alive, who created a real world for her, as he makes a new start.

Watching Team 3 get run into the ground by Henri, I feel like I didn’t misjudge him.

At first, I was worried his gentle side would make it difficult for him to be a team leader, but when I extracted his memories, his time in the special forces was incredible.

I made the decision on the spot based on that alone.

“Who’s stronger, Tae-yang or Ja-rang?”

Henri asked, looking at the two of them.

“Obviously, it’s Lee Ja-rang. The blondie only has strong hair.”

“Ha, what’s this thick-lipped bastard talking about? Haven’t we fought three times so far, and I won all three? Do you have the memory of a goldfish?”

“Lee Ja-rang was never knocked down. Is a victory by decision a real victory? I’m asking if your fists are made of cotton.”

In the end, the two of them climb into the ring.

That’s Henri for you.

His skill at fanning the flames and getting them to fight is quite something, huh?

I’m satisfied.

[Was it you, by any chance?]

Before I knew it, the French woman was beside me, using her translator.

She’s looking up at me with a blank expression. What is she thinking?

I want to use Insight, but after seeing her past, I’ve lost the will to scrutinize everything.

“What are you talking about?”

[Thank you.]

She says something cryptic. But I knew what she meant.

The French woman, Audrey, is a melee dealer with excellent search abilities thanks to her father.

Thanks to being locked in a small warehouse and starved, this child had no choice but to listen to the world outside the warehouse with her ears.

Even after growing up and possessing talent that rivaled her father’s, she never once stood up to him.

Because of the fear engraved into her very bones since childhood.

And now, the shell that had enveloped her has been shattered.

That’s what she’s thankful for.

[Maybe later. Much later, can I join this guild too?]

She uses the translator and stares blankly at me.

This girl is a diamond in the rough.

Henri, the strongest in France who overwhelmed her father, Jean-Pierre, has stopped growing.

A talent greater than that of the two Kims on my team. A talent still in its raw form is right before my eyes.

It would be a lie to say I’m not tempted.

“I’ll think about it when you get good at Korean.”

I answered her with such arrogance.

If people found out that a mere hunter from a small country said this to world-famous hunters, would they find it absurd?

Then, suddenly, my vision shifted.

*Fzzt-!*

I heard static, and my vision blurred.

When I closed and opened my eyes, I was standing not in the guild, but in some strange place.

A gray, static-filled view.

I’d felt this once before, so it didn’t feel too jarring.

Ruins were everywhere.

Like a country at war, the sound of gunfire echoed from all directions, screams overlapping with more screams.

*Drip, drip.*

Someone in front of me was bleeding.

She opened her mouth to say something, but her voice didn’t reach me.

Because her neck was broken.

Pain lingered on the face that had been as expressionless as a doll’s. She looked up at me, tears streaming down.

“This time for sure.”

Someone walked over from behind the corpse.

I know who it is.

A man with such a plain appearance that you wouldn’t remember his face even if you just passed him by.

A murderer who felt all the more cruel because of it.

“Now, this is my victory. Hero.”

In the gray-tinged world, Kei, the leader of the Villains, was smiling, his golden, cross-shaped pupils gleaming.

This guy is weaker than me. Much weaker.

And yet, he’s revealed himself before me. How am I supposed to take this?

Just then, I saw someone behind Kei.

*Fzzt-!*

Someone whose face was covered in red static was standing next to Kei, looking at me.

My vision flipped back, and my consciousness returned.

[Please take good care of Mister Henri.]

The French woman who had met a gruesome death in my future sight was holding her translation app up to me.

It doesn’t feel good. Even if we weren’t close, seeing someone I recognized dead in front of me.

‘He’ll appear before me in person.’

It’s strange that the guy who has been hiding in the shadows until now would show himself to me.

I’d cleaned up a good number of Villains, but that guy Kei kept stirring things up and inciting people, so these secret organizations kept popping up, which was a pain.

Network.

Did they like the suspicious name that sounded like a multi-level marketing scheme?

‘First, I need to tell Ria to report on the current status of the Villain organizations.’

It’s time to start the fishing I had the elf, Ria, prepare.

It was the moment I was leaving the training grounds and glanced over at Tae-yang sparring.

*Fzzt-!*

What, again?

Future sight activated once more.

This time, too, it was an unknown place.

“Do we just have to hold out until the Director arrives?”

Kim Tae-yang said bravely. But his body was already at its limit. Blood was pouring endlessly from a deep wound in his abdomen.

No matter how much of a regeneration-type hunter he was, this was fatal.

Most likely, Tae-yang…

Even as he was dying, the kid firmly believed I would come.

“There was something I wanted to say…”

This time, the person changed again.

The one gasping for breath and dying in my arms was Seo Hyun-ji.

Covered in a mix of blood and tears, she quietly breathed her last.

What is this situation?

Why is everyone dying?

My team.

My comrades.

I never raised my juniors to be weak.

I believe that these guys can defeat any powerful enemy.

And yet, they’re all dying.

Who the hell is doing this?

-You.

Then, an unpleasant, foul.

A cloying voice transmitted directly into my mind.

-Will not be able to change the future.

Darkness. Darkness itself overturned the ashen world of my future sight.

Two enormous, bright yellow eyes, large enough to be mistaken for half-moons, were staring at me.

My vision returned.

It’s nothing more than a future that hasn’t happened yet.

It’s unpleasant. Disgusting.

The trauma I had painstakingly stitched up and disinfected is rearing its head.

I was just watching as people I knew, people I was close to, died helplessly.

“Can’t change it?”

A laugh escaped me.

“That’s what all the bastards who stood in my way said.”

The ones who said that are all dead now.

I left the training grounds.

There was much more to be done.