My Skill Book, My Way - Episode 4
Episode 4
Choe Hyeongcheol was a so-called back-alley doctor whom I had come to know after settling down here.
His main customers were Hunters of B-rank and below.
Because he treated Hunters, for whom getting injured in battles against monsters was an everyday occurrence, at a low cost, low-ranking Hunters often visited him.
Several years ago, having no money, I had first visited Hyeongcheol instead of a hospital, and somehow we hit it off; now we were at a point where we cursed at each other without reservation.
After confirming that Jinhee was safe, I was face-to-face with Hyeongcheol in the clinic.
"The guys who went after your sister tried to use you as bait for monsters in a dungeon, and you had your throat torn out by a mantis, but when you woke up, your body was perfectly fine?"
I nodded at Hyeongcheol's words.
"Are you telling me to believe that right now?"
"It's the truth, so what do you want me to do about it?"
Seeing Hyeongcheol furrow his brow, I made a face too, but his reaction was only natural.
After all, even I couldn't believe my throat was reattached at first.
"If you don't believe me, go to my house. There are two corpses strewn about."
"Hmph."
Hyeongcheol folded his arms and leaned back against the chair.
"How could a D-rank Hunter whose only Skill is that trashy thing called 'Record' kill two B-rank Hunters?"
"Watch your mouth."
"Did I say anything wrong?"
I had also thought my Skill was trashy, but hearing it from someone else's mouth was quite a blow.
To stop Hyeongcheol from spitting out more words of disbelief, I summoned the book.
At that, Hyeongcheol's eyes went wide.
"What did you just do? You didn't have any Skills other than Record, did you?"
"Right, I didn't."
I opened the book and held it out in front of Hyeongcheol's eyes.
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-Status-
Yi Hwajin
HP: 100/100 MP: 30/30
Vitality: 5 Strength: 3 Magic: 3
Mental Strength: 4 Senses: 3
Unique Skill: [Edit Lv.1]
Exp: 300
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"Vitality, Strength, Magic... Don't tell me this is a Status window?"
Hyeongcheol, who was not a Hunter, looked at the book with fascination.
"But I've never seen other Hunters pull out a book like this."
"Well, of course. I only saw it for the first time today too."
"What?"
Hyeongcheol made an expression as if asking what nonsense I was talking about.
"Normally, Status doesn't appear like this. It pops up right in front of your eyes. Like in a game."
"Then what is this?"
"After I died and came back to life, it changed into this."
"...Let me see it a bit more."
Saying so, Hyeongcheol reached his hand toward the book.
"Huh?"
But his hand passed straight through the book.
"What?"
Hyeongcheol tried to touch the book several times to no avail.
"So just as I thought, no one but me can touch it."
In the case of Status windows, no one else could see or summon them.
Thinking that the book was created from a transformed Status window, it made sense that Hyeongcheol couldn't touch it.
"Tch."
Hyeongcheol leaned back against the chair as if deflated.
"So this Status window turned into a book is the reason you could defeat B-rank Hunters?"
I nodded and turned the page to show him.
"Words? What is this?"
"I can combine these to create Skills."
"Hey."
Hyeongcheol made a face again.
"Don't talk so carelessly just because I'm not a Hunter. Despite appearances, Hunters are my main customers. Did you think I don't know the common sense that Skills are determined the moment one awakens as a Hunter?"
As expected, simply showing him the book wasn't enough to make him believe.
I sighed and stood up.
"Follow me."
I went out behind the building, and showing Hyeongcheol, who had followed, the page with the [Shatter] Skill.
"As you know, I only had the [Record] Skill. But after the book appeared, I made a new Skill."
I dismissed the book and picked up a club.
"Shatter."
With a loud "Boom!", a crater formed in the dirt ground.
Perhaps because the ground was soft, the crater was larger than when I had used the Skill in the dungeon or at home. It looked as if a huge chunk of iron had fallen from a great height.
I fastened the club to my waistband and turned to Hyeongcheol; he was standing there with his mouth agape.
"It's really a Skill."
"Do you believe me now?"
Hyeongcheol nodded.
***
"He's dead?"
As a husky female voice echoed throughout the room, the people standing in rows inside the spacious room flinched.
In the center of the room stood a tall man, Haesu, in a cowered posture.
He couldn't raise his head properly and was staring at the floor.
Grrrr.
Far in front of Haesu, a huge wolf with purple fur was baring its fangs.
It was so massive that it looked like it could swallow three or four humans in one bite.
Beside the wolf stood a woman in a tight suit. In the spacious room filled with dozens of people, she alone was seated.
"Who killed them?"
Every time the woman spat out a word, Haesu trembled.
"I-I don't know yet."
Haesu barely squeezed out his voice and raised his head.
"The two of them never showed up no matter how long I waited, so I went to that D-rank Hunter's house and found their corpses. The Hunter's sister is definitely an ordinary person, and the D-rank Hunter should have been eaten by the Boss's mantis, so I too don't know what happened..."
"Boss."
The man standing closest to her, aside from the wolf, put his phone in his pocket and opened his mouth.
"Information has come in that someone saw that D-rank Hunter running away carrying his sister."
"..."
The woman opened her eyes slightly wider for a moment before returning to the calm expression from moments ago.
"Did you properly confirm that the mantis ate that D-rank Hunter?"
"Th-that is..."
Haesu couldn't answer.
"Fenrir."
The moment the woman called, the wolf shot toward Haesu like lightning.
"Aaaargh!"
Haesu's scream spread through the room. One of his arms had been torn off.
"Sumin."
Without so much as twitching an eyebrow at the screams filling the room, the woman called out to someone.
"Yes, Boss."
The man who had provided him with information about Hwajin answered.
"Release all the hounds. Bring that D-rank Hunter named Yi Hwajin and his sister before me."
She stroked the fur of the wolf that had returned to her side. The wolf, which had been baring its fangs, closed its eyes and lay down as if it were a puppy.
"If you fail to catch him, there's no need to procure Fenrir's feed this week."
At her words, the people in the room flinched.
"Auugh..."
Haesu's groans, as blood poured from his shoulder, didn't stop.
***
Hyeongcheol, having witnessed the Skill, closed the shop door and pulled down the shutter.
After returning to the clinic, Hyeongcheol turned to me with a more serious face.
"So, what are you going to do from now on?"
I could tell Hyeongcheol's voice was laced with worry.
"Even if you say you don't care about the police since they're only nominal, if you really messed with Jang Soyu's subordinates, you can't keep living around here."
He was right.
The police couldn't touch Hunters arbitrarily.
This was because special laws applied to Hunters, who reduced the number of monsters appearing in dungeons.
Simply put, it was a law stating that public authority wouldn't touch a Hunter unless it was a major incident big enough to overturn the country.
The problem was that woman called Boss.
Jang Soyu.
She was the only S-rank Hunter in the area and commanded over fifty Hunters of A-rank and below; in other words, she was like the boss of an organized crime syndicate made up of Hunters.
The market where I traded monster materials belonged to Jang Soyu, so I too was within her sphere of influence.
Under the pretext of protecting the Hunters, Jang Soyu collected stall fees as well as transaction fees.
Even so, the merchants couldn't rebel in the slightest.
Of course, the biggest reason they couldn't rebel was fear. Merchants and Hunters who fell out of Soyo's favor disappeared before long.
The thought that they too might have become food for the mantis sent chills down my spine.
"What are you going to do? If you're going to leave here, it's best to leave right away, but for you..."
Hyeongcheol trailed off and closed his mouth.
That's right. Even if I tried to run, I had Jinhee.
Jinhee couldn't walk. Escaping the Hunters' pursuit while taking her along was difficult.
Not only would our escape be slow, but we would also stand out too much. Even if we somehow got out of the area, we would be caught before long.
"Hyeongcheol."
"No."
Before I could even bring up my request after calling his name, Hyeongcheol cut me off.
"I treated your wounds, but I can't help you any further. I'm not a Hunter, just a powerless back-alley doctor. I don't have the courage to go against that woman directly."
"I know you're a commoner, so shut up and hear me out first."
Hyeongcheol pursed his lips as if wondering what I was going to say.
"I'm not asking for unconditional help. Have you thought about investing in me?"
"What? Invest?"
"Do you know the average number of Skills an S-rank Hunter has?"
"There are great individual differences, but don't they usually have more than three?"
I summoned the book.
"You see this thing called 'Exp,' right?"
Hyeongcheol nodded.
"This point is used to create Skills. I started with 300 points, and after creating the Shatter Skill, it dropped to 200 points."
"But now it says 252 points, which means you can acquire Exp too."
"Right. I could gain points when I killed monsters, and when I killed Soyu's subordinates. And..."
I flipped through the blank pages in the back of the book to show him.
I saw Hyeongcheol's gaze change.
"What do you think? Want to bet on me? You want to stop paying stall fees, don't you?"
Hyeongcheol also paid a fairly high stall fee to Soyu's gang. I remembered him cursing about how they took almost half his revenue.
And I knew Hyeongcheol's grievances weren't just about that.
"You can't have any good feelings toward that woman either."
Hyeongcheol had merely hinted to Soyu's gang who came to collect the fees that the stall fee was too high, but after that, the number of Hunters visiting his clinic dropped drastically.
Because of that, Hyeongcheol's clinic was now on the verge of closing.
"...It's an interesting story, I'll give you that."
Hyeongcheol folded his arms.
"But you'll need quite a lot of time to make enough Skills to break Soyu's gang. Moreover, no matter how many Skills you have, you're alone. They have dozens of people."
"That's why I'm calling it an investment. Because there's risk."
I looked straight into Hyeongcheol's eyes and said.
"While I earn experience points in the dungeon, hide Jinhee."
"Don't talk nonsense. How would I..."
"I don't care if it's a basement or a warehouse. Hide Jinhee for just a week. If it's you... if it's you and those people, it's possible."
"..."
Hyeongcheol didn't answer. But he didn't refuse outright either.
"A week is too long. Once they start investigating, they'll quickly find out about your relationship with me."
"Then four days. Even four days would be fine."
"Where are you planning to go? You can't go to the dungeon you always go to."
"There are a few dungeons I went to before settling down here. I'll go to the closest one among them."
Hyeongcheol stared straight at my face. It was a gaze as if trying to figure out whether I was lying or not.
"...Sigh. You wouldn't abandon your sister and run."
Hyeongcheol opened the bottom drawer attached to his desk and took out a box.
Hyeongcheol took a key from his pocket, inserted it into the box, and turned it.
Inside the box was a bundle of money. Hyeongcheol took some out and threw it to me.
"Take it. It's investment capital. You can't even enter a dungeon empty-handed, can you?"
"..."
I was speechless at Hyeongcheol's unexpected action.
"I'll somehow hide your sister for 5 days. In return, make sure to grow stronger and come back. Please make sure we can recover more than what we invested."
Hyeongcheol smirked.
"...Thanks."
I put the money in my pocket and said in a small voice.