The Skill Maker Chapter 1

Awakened while Threading Beads (1)

TLed & Edited by: TheNo1Fan

The night was late yet the street was still brightly lit and there were still people here and there. They seemed like Hunters who had just finished their hunt. You could tell they were Hunters because of their armor and unusual weapons which looked like it came from a fantasy world or a game.

Covered thick with blood, they looked like they recently came out of a dimensional gateway. You could also see most people evading them as they went their way.

As Hyeon Su was thinking about what kind of dimensional gateway was around here, it popped up in his head that not long ago a Grey Rank dimensional gateway had formed.

‘……’

From a distance, Hyeon Su stared at the Hunters who looked like they had just finished a hunt. Looking at the Hunters pa.s.sing by, envy was evident in his eyes.

They obviously were not high ranked Hunters as they should be coming back from the Grey Rank dimensional gateway. However,  he even envied that.

Nevertheless, Hyeon Su quickly shook off his regret. A Hunter was a tree he could not climb [1]. If he kept being envious pointlessly, it would just hurt him inside.

Especially after tasting the sweet honey but being unable to eat it [2] made him envy even more. It was better to rather focus on other things.

“Gotta go to my part time job……”

“Oh, you came?”

As he entered the convenience store, the previous worker Min Su greeted him.

After he received some duties from Min Su, he sat at the counter and took out some beads.

Bead Threading

In between the part time work during the day and the part time work during the night, there was this time which was ambiguous and awkward. Although resting was good but using that time to earn money was better.

His cute sister, Hyeon Ah, who was an apple to his eyes, was currently in Year 11. Soon it would be time for her to go to college. In other words, the time where money was going to be needed was coming closer.

Hyeon Ah said that as soon as she graduated from high school she would start working but Hyeon Su opposed that idea. Her suffering was sufficient enough for him.

Anyway, as Hyeon Su was trying to find a way to find a way to use this time that was strangely floating around, he looked towards a side job.

At first he didn’t mean to thread beads. It was because as he was looking around he found it was the only thing he could do.

A side job of using a computer. Disqualified. There was no side job that used antique computers. Due to that, a lot of side jobs were disqualified en ma.s.se.

The one after was a translations and study room type of side job. However it was not the type of side job for Hyeon Su who barely graduated from high school.

What was left was the crafting type of side job.  However, among all the different crafting type side jobs, the one that wasn’t bulky and didn’t take up too much of an area to complete was bead threading.

The money earned wasn’t a lot but even earning a tiny sesame seed amount of money still had its uses when ama.s.sed.

Gather dust become mountain [3] wasn’t a parable for nothing.

Moreover, the more time you spent on the side job the more money you earnt so it was perfect for such an awkward time.

Since sometime ago, he was researching on how to use the shortest amount of time to the greatest effect. This was because if he threaded more in the same amount of time he earned more. Anything was good as long as it raised the amount threaded.

Therefore Hyeon Su was racking his brains for the most suitable and efficient method. He had tried different hand positions when he picked up the beads and even tried changing the angle, yet there wasn’t a method that made him think, “Ah! This is the one.”

All this was for when there were no customers and he could thread at least one more. However the images of the Hunters he saw before he arrived kept flitting around in his mind. As there was no point in being envious he decided to shake it off but when does one’s heart do what they want it to do.

“What’s the point in thinking about it. Let’s just work.”

-Now that we look back, quite some time has pa.s.sed since the world has changed Professor.

-Hoho, indeed, it has already become like that. When the first gateway opened we really wondered what would happen to our world.

-Haha, even someone at your level, Professor, felt that?

-I was only a greenhorn researcher back then.

As he finished his part time job and arrived home late he knew that the TV was on.

“Oppa[4], you’ve arrived?”

Hyeon Ah came out to greet him. It seemed like school had finished early. However, something seemed strange. Hyeon Su quickly searched the house.

Just as expected.

“Hyeon Ah, you’re doing my job again. I told you in time to go and study.”

“Ahaha. Ab-about that……”

There were beads scattered in all directions on the floor. It was the side job that Hyeon Su usually did. She probably did it with the intentions of helping her pitiful brother who worked all day even a little.

-As the early days of confusion have been controlled, all the nations have been pouring their all into cultivating their leading Hunters.

“……Ait! Sorry, oppa, i’ll change the channel”

“……It’s alright. You can watch it.”

“But……”

“It’s really alright. Okay?

Hyeon Su showed his sibling a lopsided smile. However Hyeon Ah still kept fidgeting and couldn’t become calm.

“More importantly, are you hungry? Oppa will cook you a delicious ramen.”

“N-no. I already ate. I’m not even hungry.”

“You need energy apparently if you want to study. It’s not enough to have just meals that the school provides. Just wait a bit. I’ll make it tasty.”

‘If you have ramen at night your face bloats……’ Hyeon Ah mumbled quietly but she was smiling brightly with her teeth showing as Hyeon Su was taking care of her.

“Whew……”

Hyeon Su, who had just barely changed the mood, swiftly headed towards the kitchen. Even if you called it a kitchen it was an extremely small s.p.a.ced area.

-Swahhhhh

As he was preparing to cook the ramen by pouring the water into the small pot, he kept hearing the sounds from the  TV.

-As time goes by, there is hardly anyone who Awakens that is a civilian. The ones under systematic supervision are where the most Awakened come from.

-What you’re talking about is each nation’s management of a Hunter Training Inst.i.tution

-That’s right. At a young age they take an apt.i.tude examination to confirm their potential, and then putting them under systematic supervision has been statistically proven to have various benefits. Of course we can’t say there aren’t exceptions but that’s exceedingly rare.

Bogul bogul[5]

The water had boiled

Hyeon Su skillfully poured in the flavouring from the ramen package that had been opened before and put in the noodles into the soup, which contained the spread out flavouring,.

A smell from the ramen which could stimulate anyone’s appet.i.te wafted out. To boil the noodle just right. Hyeon Su, to achieve the finest taste, timed himself.

-The tested potential when they were young continues. In other words, there are many cases where the children who had a high potential for growth become strong Hunters. Needless to say though if you just believe in that and laze around people will catch up to you quickly.

-If we look at it like that the world of Hunters is similar to the general populace.

-Hoho. Isn’t hard work needed everywhere? Well. Their unique skill depends on the situation. We could also say it’s, most of the time, a skill owned only by themselves. However skill acquisition is another problem in itself.

-Do we have to rely on luck?

-Calling it luck…… Anyone can acquire their skill if you’re potential is approved and you get systematic supervision but there is a little bit of deviation. Well. Although some time has pa.s.sed not everything has been found out yet. THe Hunter Training Inst.i.tution being systematized and the world being stabilized is something we can call a miracle.

“It’s perfectly cooked. Good.”

He turned off the gas at a good point in time.

The hard boiled type of ramen he and Hyeon Ah enjoyed had been completed. Even the smell was killer.

“Hyeon Ah, the ramen is finished!”

“Okay, Oppa.”

Hyeon Su poured the fairly hot ramen into a small bowl, put it on top of the table, and came out. During all that, the 2 men’s conversations from the TV kept on going.

-That is the core. People who know may already know but it’s the Secondary Awakening. Prior to the Secondary awakening, the people are only a little more outstanding than ordinary citizens

-Yes. All things considered it’s also a system that has a lot of talking going on around it.

-The Secondary Awakening is so important that you can only be called an authentic Hunter after it……As you know it’s not a small amount of money that’s being put in as well. There’s a lot of arguing back and forth about the issue.

-Yes. There are a lot of arguments saying that they are only monopolizing those so called people.[6]

-The government’s actions shouldn’t be something that people don’t understand. Even Awakening one person into a Hunter is a job that requires an extremely large amount of patience. It also takes more money than developing a fighter plane pilot. To see how expensive the Secondary Awakening’s costs are, we have to see it in that kind of context.

“Here, Let’s eat.”

“Thank you for the food.”

In a cute way, Hyeon Ah put both her hands together in front her and closed her eyes briefly before starting to suck up the delicious ramen.

Slurp, Slurp.

“Ah, It tastes so good!”

I don’t know who’s sister she is but she is really cute. It looked like once she grows up and goes to college, there will be a lot of boys who will follow her around and say that they like her. But first, if they want to date my sister they’ll have to pa.s.s my test first

After being satisfied with the way she was eating her food, he then picked up his own chopsticks

-That’s it. From a young age they must steadily develop their abilities, receive training, increase their efforts until and finally pa.s.sing the Secondary Awakening Examination then a person can become a true Hunter. They are the the current human kind’s bastion.