My Gun Can Pierce Through Hunter Story Clichés!

“Hey. You need to give me a quest. How can you just let me go like that?”

“Pardon?”

“I’m talking about quests, quests.”

“Q-quests, you say?”

“You know, those things you call extermination missions. Something like that.
Preferably hidden ones, okay?”

The gatekeeper was confused, unable to follow the conversation.

To the gatekeeper, Han-wol was always hard to keep up with, but today seemed even worse.

“Tiger extermination, something like that, don’t you have any?”

Whether aware of the gatekeeper’s struggle or not, Han-wol continued to extract quests.

“T-there aren’t any such things?
As you know, thanks to your magic handguns, we don’t have extermination missions anymore…”

“Why not? If there aren’t any, you should make some. Come on, hurry up.”

Han-wol made an unreasonable request, as if hassling a junior.

The gatekeeper was dumbfounded but couldn’t respond rudely to Han-wol, who was like a superior.

In truth, Han-wol had often extracted quests in this manner at the Pig’s Den as well.

“W-well, I’ll personally give you a tiger extermination mission…”

Then.

[Quest generated!]

[Title: Tiger’s Den Gatekeeper’s Request?]

[Description: Han-wol intimidated the Tiger’s Den gatekeeper to forcibly extract an extermination quest.
The gatekeeper had nothing to give but couldn’t disobey Han-wol, so he decided to offer his precious lunch.
Anyway, exterminate the tigers in the Tiger’s Den and seize the gatekeeper’s innocent lunch.]

[Quest Rank: Normal]

[Objective: Tiger extermination]

[Reward: The gatekeeper’s innocent rice ball, moderate experience points]

‘Normal, huh. Still gives experience points though.
And the reward is lunch? Why does he have so little to offer?’

Han-wol inwardly scolded the innocent gatekeeper.

x x x

“It’s not hidden, damn it.”

When Han-wol suddenly raised his hand, the gatekeeper cowered, tightly shutting his eyes and raising his guard.

The gatekeeper thought this was similar to when he first met Han-wol.

While the gatekeeper was cowering, Han-wol suddenly took out a plastic container.

‘Right, I can’t just take an innocent kid’s food.
My favorability would drop too. What a hassle.’

He wondered if this is what managing favorability in games was all about.

“W-what’s this…?”

“It’s for you to eat.”

“Did you make it yourself?”

“Where else would I have bought it from?”

For reference, what Han-wol was holding was food left by his cousin Hye-jin this morning.

“Y-you even did this for us…!”

The vigilante members sniffled, tearfully expressing their gratitude.

[The Seoul Village West vigilante members trust you more.]

[The trust of the Seoul Village West vigilante members has reached a certain level.]

[You can form and command squads primarily consisting of highly loyal vigilante members.]

[Loyalty list: …………………]

Han-wol secretly grinned while looking at the system window that appeared in front of him.

“Did something good happen? You’re smirking…”

“Just seeing you guys happy makes me happy too, you fools.”

Han-wol said, though he didn’t mean it.

“Master!” “Waah!” “Take me with you!”

And the vigilante members who were completely deceived.

Han-wol cleared his throat with a “Ahem” and turned back toward the entrance.

“Anyway, enjoy the food and just throw away the container.
I’m really leaving now.”

“Ah! Please wait a moment.”

The gatekeeper suddenly called out to Han-wol as if he had remembered something important.

[Undetermined Quest generated!]

At those words, Han-wol’s eyes widened and he stopped walking.

And he turned around again to listen.

“Actually, this is something that’s only circulating among us, and we were going to keep it hidden to avoid causing confusion…
But since you’re like a brother to us, I’m telling you specially.”

Han-wol silently nodded.

Then the gatekeeper continued quietly.

“Well… it seems a ‘Purple Tiger’ has appeared.”

“Purple Tiger?”

“Yes. But the strange thing is…”

The Purple Tiger, true to its name, is a very rare subspecies with a purple coat.

As a subspecies, it possesses a much more agile nature than ordinary tigers.

This is because the Purple Tiger contains the essence of wind, which is why it can also use wind magic.

‘A magic stone with an element, huh.’

Han-wol immediately had a sense of it upon hearing the gatekeeper’s story.

“So what’s strange about it?
If it’s well-known enough, isn’t the Purple Tiger itself normal, even if rare?”

“But the one my colleague discovered was using fire magic.”

“Fire?”

The story started to become increasingly interesting.

“Yes, fire. It definitely looked like a Purple Tiger, but it was hurling fireballs!
He ran away in a hurry, clutching his frightened heart, and then immediately assembled a dispatch team to go back, but strangely, they couldn’t find a trace of it!
We went several more times after that, but in the end, we never saw it even once.”

“And? Tell me more. What’s the problem?”

Han-wol judged that there was more to the story.

“Well… the numbers don’t add up. The number of missing persons.”

“Missing persons?”

“Yes. Outsiders might not know, but we don’t just stand around all day for nothing.
We record how many people enter and exit each day.”

“So. The number of people coming out has decreased?”

The gatekeeper nodded affirmatively.

As he continued the story.

“Originally, if a hundred people entered in a day, at least ninety-eight would come out, but at some point, it started decreasing by one, and now not even ninety-five come out.”

“The numbers aren’t that different.”

“That’s why we’re racking our brains.
No one listens to us, saying we’re making a fuss over just a few missing people.”

It didn’t seem like much—the daily death rate increased from one or two out of a hundred to three or four—so in some ways, the reaction was understandable.

But percentage-wise, probabilistically, it wasn’t a figure to be taken lightly.

The probability had suddenly doubled.

“Maybe it increased temporarily and then stopped?”

If that were the case, it could be an event that can happen probabilistically.

“But if that were the case, I wouldn’t have brought it up at all.
It’s been ongoing for quite a while, right?”

“Yes. It’s already been almost three months.
Actually, we encountered that strange Purple Tiger because we went to check what was going on.”

“So you think that Purple Tiger is the culprit?”

“Yes. It’s definitely not an ordinary one.
The fireballs it shot were so big, it seems like a regular Purple Tiger wouldn’t even compare.
We managed to return alive thanks to the magic handguns you gave us, but it’s certain that others have all been devoured.”

“Hmm…”

Han-wol organized the story and stored it in his mind.

“Who else knows about this?”

“Just us and you, Master.”

Ding!

[Title: The Tiger’s Den Gatekeeper’s Real Request]

[Description: A rare named monster, the Purple Tiger, has reportedly appeared in the Tiger’s Den.
Originally, the Purple Tiger is a wind animal.
But the Purple Tiger discovered this time is a more dangerous one with the power of fire.
However, only a few vigilante members have seen this fire Purple Tiger.
Since then, there have been no sightings at all.
Did they really not see it again, or did they see it but couldn’t return alive?
Thus, the number of missing persons in the Tiger’s Den is gradually increasing, whether people realize it or not.]

[Quest Rank: Undetermined]

[Objective: Undetermined]

[Reward: Undetermined]

Han-wol told the gatekeeper to wait a moment and checked his smartphone.

‘Undetermined Quest’

He searched various search engines like Naiver, Gocle, Daum, but couldn’t find any useful information.

‘Since there’s no “First to…” title, it’s not completely the first… but there’s absolutely no information.’

He also searched about the Tiger’s Den, but there was not a single piece of content related to what the gatekeeper had told him.

Han-wol decided he couldn’t obtain any more information and closed his phone.

At that moment.

Ding!

[Title ‘First to Receive an Undetermined Quest’ acquired!]

Han-wol was slightly dumbfounded when he saw the text that suddenly appeared.

‘Do your job properly, you fool.’

Han-wol lightly scolded the ‘being beyond comprehension’ inwardly before speaking again.

“Well, I understand for now, and I’ll keep it in mind.
I should go now. Need to hunt.”

“Yes, Master. Take care of yourself.”

Han-wol said goodbye and immersed himself into the portal.

x x x

In an instant, the background changed, and the location was a vast cavern plaza.

This was the 3-Star hunting ground of Seoul Village West, the Tiger’s Den.

“Buy potions! Potions!
Not those unnecessarily expensive corporate potions, but these affordable and good quality potions here!”

“Weapon repairs available.
Those with worn durability, please come.
Those with broken weapons, please come too.”

“3-Star Taoist looking to play. Any good parties?”

“Our party is about to depart if you join, how about it?”

“Ah. What’s your party composition?”

Unlike the deserted Pig’s Den, it was bustling with players from the start.

There were various players, from those seeking parties to those buying and selling materials.

‘Thought it was a market.
It’s so noisy here.’

Han-wol, disliking the crowd, started to move with quick steps.

‘Can’t hunt in such a crowded place.
Need to move quickly.’

At that moment.

“It’s dangerous without equipment like that.”

There was a woman who spoke to him as she crossed in front of Han-wol.

‘Who is this woman? Is she selling something?’