Chapter 1
Slurp...
I stuffed my mouth with noodles.
While my jaw worked tirelessly, my eyes remained glued to my phone.
An SNS account was open on the screen.
The account had only five posts, all featuring photographs of large sculptures.
I tapped the most recent post and scrolled past the words 3 Comments.
The detail is seriously insane. Is something like that even possible to make by hand?
Nah. These days, all sculptures are mass-produced in Chinese factories. There's no way someone could make something like that by hand.
It looks impressive, but can anyone actually make a living from sculpting these days?
"Haa..."
I let out a deep sigh.
Thud.
Then I simply fell backward.
As I lay there, everything that made my already cramped rooftop room feel even smaller came into view.
Sculptures covered with tarps.
Even the smallest one was about the size of a human torso. There were far more of them than the five I'd posted on SNS.
They were also the reason I had to curl up when I slept, hunch over when I ate, and press myself against the walls whenever I wanted to move around.
But I couldn't just throw them away because a few people on SNS had made fun of me.
Contrary to what those comments suggested, these were works I'd created with my own hands, pouring my sweat into every one of them.
"I don't even have enough money to hire a factory, and they're accusing me of using one... Tsk."
My exhausted voice echoed through the empty room.
"Ah, damn it. As if being too poor to sculpt as much as I want wasn't miserable enough."
After grumbling a few more times, I sat up again.
This time, I picked up my noodles with considerably more aggression.
Slurp, slurp...
Before I knew it, I'd left SNS and opened a video platform.
A list of trending videos immediately appeared.
[S-Class Hunter Park Mina Interview! What Does the World Look Like to an S-Class Hunter?]
[This Monster Poops When It Gets Angry. #Woo Sinho's Monster Exploration]
[World Mysteries Episode 21: What Happened at the Gate That Appeared in a Small American Town!]
Gates had opened, and strange creatures known as monsters had emerged from them.
Hunters, the people who fought those monsters, now held tremendous influence over the world.
In this great age of Hunters, how were fine artists supposed to survive?
People said that making a living had been difficult even before the Gates appeared, but since their arrival, life had become nothing short of hell for artists.
Actors, idols, and television personalities were at least somewhat better off.
After all, mass media wasn't something that would easily disappear unless civilization itself completely collapsed.
However, things had become much more difficult for fine artists who rarely appeared on television and whose audiences had always been relatively small.
Classical musicians, painters, and dancers were among those struggling the most.
In the past, members of the upper class would attend their performances and support them financially. Their patronage would then attract the attention of the middle class.
The problem was that a large portion of society's upper class now consisted of Hunters.
And most Hunters were primarily interested in Gates and monsters.
As a result, fine art had gradually been pushed out of the public's attention.
That didn't mean Hunters were necessarily obsessed with fighting.
What I meant was that, for various reasons, they were constantly pursuing efficiency.
Hunters had spent their lives searching for efficient weapons and strategies to survive. Perhaps it was only natural that they would also seek efficiency in their everyday lives.
The problem was that these Hunters, who had risen to positions of influence, appeared in various media and constantly judged everything according to efficiency.
Naturally, people around the world began doing the same.
Is this efficient?
Isn't this a waste?
These questions became the standards by which they judged practically everything.
Of course, works of fine art, which offered little in the way of practical efficiency, were pushed aside.
Many people even criticized artists for refusing to face reality and continuing to live in their dreams.
If that was the situation for fine art in general, what about traditional sculpture, which had already been a declining field before the Gate era?
Sculptors had long suffered from the disgraceful reputation that their works were mass-produced in Chinese factories.
Apart from a handful who had already established their reputations, hadn't most sculptors probably starved to death while clinging to their creations?
Perhaps life would have been easier if they could simply abandon art and pursue an efficient career like everyone else.
But artists were the kind of people who stubbornly insisted on exhibiting their work even in an era when attracting three visitors was difficult.
They were already so captivated by art that they couldn't escape it.
Like wild animals caught in traps, they simply continued creating, unable to free themselves.
That was what it meant to be an artist in this era.
Even when they heard through acquaintances that another artist had starved to death, these hopeless people would simply have a drink and declare,
"Ah, screw it. I might as well starve to death too. If an artist dies while creating art, isn't that the perfect way to go?"
They really were beyond saving.
And right here, we have another sculptor who's on the verge of starving to death.
That's right.
Me.
Grrrrumble.
"My stomach sure knows how to make itself heard."
Tears welled up in my eyes.
It had already been two days since I'd eaten a proper meal.
My stomach kept alternating between numbness and sensitivity, occasionally breaking into a noisy song.
"Should I try looking for work at a building restoration site?"
It certainly wasn't easy work.
Although sculpting had given me plenty of strength and technical skill, I couldn't afford to injure my hands or arms if I wanted to continue sculpting.
Naturally, being careful slowed down my work.
To make matters worse, the head of the labor agency looked at me as though I were an idiot when he discovered that I was being so cautious because of art.
Gradually, I was pushed aside whenever better-paying jobs became available.
In the end, I usually received only a miserable daily wage.
And even that disappears as soon as I buy a few sculpting materials.
Still, those jobs were the only reason I could continue sculpting and at least afford cup noodles.
All right. I'll go see the head of the labor agency first.
He might think I was pathetic, but at least he never turned me away.
The moment I stepped out of my rooftop room, piercing sunlight struck me.
There were so many things blocking the windows inside that I'd almost forgotten how bright it was outside.
"Ugh."
I felt like a vampire.
My head was slightly dizzy, and I repeatedly squeezed my eyes shut before opening them again.
My vision was so blurry that everything in front of me looked indistinct.
A large garbage bag, a drying rack, a broken electric fan, and a shattered flowerpot containing a rubber tree.
The sky was blue, and in the middle of it, a tiny black dot was gradually growing larger...
Huh?
What's that?
The black dot rapidly increased in size.
For a moment, I was startled, thinking that it might be a Gate. Fortunately, my vision soon cleared enough for me to realize that wasn't the case.
"Oh, it's just an ordinary flying monster."
Oh...
Huh?
"Ah, damn it!"
I immediately turned and ran.
My survival instincts forced my exhausted body into motion.
Whoooosh!
The sound of something slicing through the air came from frighteningly close by.
Terror washed over me along with the deafening noise.
Unfortunately, I'd run in the opposite direction from the stairs, leaving me with nowhere else to escape.
As I desperately searched for a way to survive, I spotted the rooftop of the neighboring villa.
Like most residential neighborhoods filled with villas, the buildings were separated by only a narrow alley.
Can I make that jump?
A parkour video I'd watched sometime in the past suddenly came to mind.
The fact that the person in the video had been a trained professional didn't matter right now.
What mattered was that the technique was something a human being could perform.
And what happens if you can't do it? Are you just going to die?
The moment I felt the monster's hot breath against the top of my head, I pushed off the railing and jumped.
My feet kicked helplessly through the air.
For a brief moment, I felt a chilling sensation between my legs.
Then...
"—!"
I plunged straight down.
The fleeting sensation of my toes brushing against the opposite railing made my blood run cold.
As I fell backward with my stomach facing the sky, I caught sight of the flying monster that had been chasing me.
Apparently, it had accelerated to catch me and couldn't change direction in time.
It flew straight past the building and disappeared.
By the time that thing comes back looking for its prey, I'll already be dead.
