The First Hunter Chapter 2: The Mark of the Awakened (1)

1.

Level B2 was calm after the storm of blood and screams.

When the tension left, fatigue rushed in, and of course, the result was sleep.

There were people who passed out even without noticing, and others, who couldn’t fall asleep due to being way too tired, tried to sleep with assistance from alcohol taken from the liquor sections.

While the superstore was filled with the sound of sleep, some peacefully sleeping and others snoring loudly, Kim Taehoon enjoyed a cup of coffee, which was a far cry from sleeping.

Literally, enjoyed.

He held a sip of warm coffee inside his mouth, breathed through his nose to the inside of his mouth and slowly exhaled, the way Kim Taehoon drank coffee was different from people who just drank coffee to get some caffeine in their system.

It was also Kim Taehoon’s sole hobby.

Kim Taehoon always drank coffee right before or after combat. He either prepared for or wrapped up a fight by drinking coffee.

It was no different this time.

‘Eight people have a similar mark on the back of their hand, this included the survivors and the deceased.’

He started to find people who had the same mark after he discovered the mark on his hand.

He had to look sideways to sneak a peek at the back of the hands.

It totaled nine people, including Kim Taehoon himself. Five males, four females, it wasn’t found on young children but was found on the elderly.

But there was nothing definite since the size of the group was too small.

‘Only in part, not entirely, and Bhang Hyunwook’s mark is similar to mine, not the same.’

One thing for sure was that each mark had individual differences, just like fingerprints.

‘If this is like a fingerprint, it means it could represent individual traits… but why only for a few people, not for all of us? Is it only for the chosen ones? Or something ominous? A sign of disease?’

It was Bhang Hyunwook who solved his questions.

Seemingly cooled down a little bit, Bhang Hyunwook approached Kim Taehoon wearing his baseball jacket again, tapped the back of his right hand with his left fingers and said.

“Sir, I figured this thing out.”

“What?”

“This is a stat meter, statistics about our abilities and strengths.”

Bhang Hyunwook showed Kim Taehoon a picture he took on his smartphone. In the picture, which was a close up of the mark on his hand, there were translucent words he couldn’t see before.

[Basic ability]

Strength: 16Stamina: 13

[Special ability]

Energy : DDefense: F

[Acquired ability]

None

Kim Taehoon didn’t say anything after looking at it.

Click!

Instead, he took a photo of his hand and checked the picture right away.

[Basic ability]

Strength: 19Stamina: 21

[Special ability]

Energy: FMagic: FTelekinesis: ADefense: FMagic Resistance: F

[Acquired ability]

None

Bhang Hyunwook made a surprised face after he looked at Kim Taehoon’s abilities.

“You are supernatural? With different ranks….. A must be the best rank, right?”

But Kim Taehoon didn’t respond to Bhang Hyunwook’s reaction. He took another sip of coffee and started to think while he enjoyed the aroma.

‘It’s similar to a game system.’

It wasn’t so hard to understand.

It was a common ability stat system seen in many games.

What strength and stamina meant were obvious.

What you have to worry about was the two kinds of abilities classified as a special ability, energy, and telekinesis.

‘Is energy like a palm blast from some martial art novel?’

Energy seemed like a concept from martial arts novels.

Nothing was different for magic either. It would be something for performing magic, a fuel for anything like that.

Telekinesis was the easiest to understand. Novels, movies, comics… it was one of the most common supernatural abilities people learned about.

‘Did I have telekinetic powers?’

The problem was, the supernatural abilities were now with Kim Taehoon.

He knew one thing for certain.

‘I never had  it.’

Telekinesis was something he didn’t have before.

He never had anything like A-rank telekinesis. He couldn’t assume what kind of ability it was, or even what level he had reached.

Of course, it was new to him.

‘The world changed… I’ve changed too.’

As the world changed, it was proof that humankind was also adapting to go against the monsters.

To sum up, the mark on the back of the hand was a symbol of success when adapting to the monster era on Earth.

‘The awakened….’

The mark of the awakened.

This was not what was important at this moment.

The moment those monsters appeared the logic and order in this world, which had existed previously, were now outdated perspectives.

Therefore Kim Taehoon set aside that reality. Realistic, or not, it didn’t matter.

What’s important was, do I have this ability for real?

And.

“Bhang Hyunwook, have you ever used this ‘energy’ before?”

If it were real, how do I use it, that’s the only thing that mattered.

“Probably… No, I’ve used it before.”

Bhang Hyunwook already knew how to use this mysterious energy ability.

“Just a second.”

He responded then disappeared for a moment before coming back with 2 apples.

He threw one to Kim Taehoon, took the other apple in both hands and split it in half.

Not a bad grip.

Bhang Hyunwook showed off his grip power, threw away the apples in his hands and looked to Kim Taehoon.

Kim Taehoon threw back the apple he had just caught. Bhang Hyunwook, as a baseball player, caught the apple in the air with his right and immediately squeezed it.

Squeeze!

Bhang Hyunwook’s hand crushed the apple like a press.  

Kim Taehoon’s gaze changed.

“I thought I misunderstood at first, but there was a very clear hand impression on the bat where I grabbed it. I realized it then. This is not a misunderstanding, I really have some power like a superhero.”

“What kind of power?”

“Like, something is wiggling inside your stomach.”

Kim Taehoon focused on feeling his stomach listening to that.

‘Definitely something is… in my gut.’

Like Bhang Hyunwook said, he felt something existed.

“Something similar to an eel?”

But unlike what Bhang Hyunwook said, what Kim Taehoon felt was more like a mudfish than an eel.

‘Must be the rank difference’

Bhang Hyunwook’s Energy rank was D, Kim Taehoon’s was F.

There should be differences.

Kim Taehoon’s stared intently at the apple Bhang Hyunwook had just split in half.

‘Telekinesis’

Everyone had that thought back in school days.

What if I had telekinetic power and could move an object with my mind just by staring at it?

A funny and embarrassing experience.

But now, Kim Taehoon was trying to do the exact same embarrassing thing you wouldn’t even do when you’re younger.

He sent his thoughts to the apple to move it.

He tried to move it and then crush it.

Crushed!

Then the apple half started to get crushed like a piece of toilet paper. The apple shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball.

Kim Taehoon’s eyes went wide in surprise. It was the most surprise he had displayed in the last ten years.

“Whoa!”

Surprising.

Not even just surprising. His heart started to pound at this absurd reality.

Just with a thought, with thinking alone, using willpower to grab it, the apple was crushed to the size of a ping-pong ball?

‘This power… dangerous.’

But Kim Taehoon didn’t go overboard with the power. He had learned things from his life. You can’t find something important or the core of a problem while drunk with pride.

Kim Taehoon tried his best to ignore his pounding heart and started to find the core to this problem, and he succeeded.

‘The most important thing was… To find how to improve the rank and numbers,

What the important part was;

‘A game… ’

Kim Taehoon started to analyze the situation more like a game.

What if this were all a game?

In his mind, a few hypotheses came up.

He came up with an idea to prove one of the hypotheses right now.

‘One of the biggest traits of a game was… When you get rid of a monster you get an item and experience points.’

He looked around and saw the dead monster bodies.

Kim Taehoon stood up.

“Bhang Hyunwook.”

“Yes”

“Take that monster’s corpse and follow me”

“Huh?”

Bhang Hyunwook blinked his eyes at Kim Taehoon’s unexpected order.

Follow him with a dead monster’s body? That’s hard and dirty work with all the blood, why should I?

However, Bhang Hyunwook’s confusion was short lived.

He never had the right to ask why to Kim Taehoon since the first encounter.

At least in here, he shouldn’t doubt what Kim Taehoon ordered him to do.

“It, it will be heavy, how should we move it?”

All he needed to know was one thing, what obstacle had to be to overcome to perform Kim Taehoon’s order.

“Put it in the shopping cart.”

“Right! Then where to?”

Kim Taehoon scanned around before he answered.

What he was going to do was something he shouldn’t do in front of everyone else.

At the same time, it needed professional tools.

Fortunately, this level of the superstore had what Kim Taehoon wanted.

Kim Taehoon’s gaze stopped right there.

“Meat department.”

“Huh?”

“Bring it to the meat department.”

“Bring the monster’s body to the meat section… huh!”

Bhang Hyunwook’s face turned pale after he realized what Kim Taehoon intended.

End

Chapter end