Chapter 1
“An Awakener?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t you working as a Hunter?”
“I don’t have the money.”
“You can’t get a loan?”
Hyeon-jun hesitated at the manpower agency manager’s question before answering.
“My family already has a lot of debt.”
“Why? Did your family business fail or something?”
A business failure.
If that were the problem, Hyeon-jun would have preferred it. A business could fail several times for all he cared.
He gave a bitter smile.
“It’s because of my mother’s hospital bills.”
“...She must be seriously ill.”
The manager looked awkward. He bought a cup of instant coffee from the vending machine and handed it to Hyeon-jun.
“Drink. It’s cold today.”
“Thank you.”
“What’s your Trait? You didn’t write it on your résumé.”
Hyeon-jun glanced nervously at the manager before answering in a small voice.
“Bird... Hunter.”
“What the hell is that? Does it make you good at catching chickens?”
“S-Something like that.”
“I figured it would be something strange, but...”
The manager’s reaction was lukewarm.
Hyeon-jun quickly added,
“But I have a Strength Rune and a Vitality Rune! Only one of each, though...”
“Well, that’s something.”
“Please give me any job you have! I can work really hard!”
Hyeon-jun was desperate.
His mother’s hospital bills.
His younger sister’s school expenses.
Interest on their loans.
Even excluding his own living expenses, money leaked out from every direction.
He was surviving day by day on daily wages.
Missing even a single day of work could be devastating.
“Hmm...”
The manager checked the schedule.
Hyeon-jun held his paper cup and watched him anxiously.
Please...
This was already the fourth manpower office he had visited.
Dawn was beginning to break outside the window.
If he couldn’t find work here either, he would lose an entire day’s income.
If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve built connections with more manpower agencies earlier.
The agency near his house had suddenly shut down.
He had worked through them until yesterday, only for the place to close overnight.
“Sir, I really don’t care what kind of work it is. Please.”
“All right. Just wait a little.”
Every second felt like an eternity to Hyeon-jun.
The longer he waited, the colder his blood seemed to become.
After some time, the manager ended a phone call.
“There happens to be an opening for a porter. But since you only have one Rune in each stat, they said they won’t pay you the Awakener bonus.”
“That’s fine! I’ve never been paid an Awakener bonus anyway!”
If this were a game, he was basically a character with only one point each in Strength and Vitality.
He was an Awakener in name alone.
Being treated like a proper Awakener was something he had never even dreamed of.
“Head over there right away.”
“Thank you!”
Hyeon-jun gulped down the still-hot coffee and sprang to his feet.
The year 2000.
Along with the beginning of a new millennium, strange changes swept across the world.
Towers rose from the earth.
Labyrinths burrowed deep underground.
Gates appeared anywhere humans could set foot.
And then came Awakeners, people with bodies that surpassed ordinary humans and abilities that seemed like magic.
The world had fallen into chaos.
But thirty years later, all of it had become part of everyday life.
[Naturalized Hunter Michelle Hong Successfully Reaches Highest Floor of American Tower. United States Claims First-Place Buff Once Again.]
[Still No News From Newly Discovered Floor of Daejeon Underground Labyrinth. Is the City of Bread Doomed?]
[Seongsam Aegis Announces First-Half Recruitment.]
[South Korea Records Lowest Number of Awakeners Among OECD Countries for 30th Consecutive Year.]
[Author of ‘100-Day Awakening Method’ Booked on Fraud Charges.]
In such a world, countless people dreamed of becoming Hunters.
Hunters were among those who led the world.
They were also symbols of wealth and high income.
However, only a chosen few could actually become Hunters.
The world called those chosen people Awakeners.
“Of course, not every Awakener becomes a Hunter. Like that guy over there.”
Inside a dungeon.
A group of Hunters were gathered together during their break.
A middle-aged Hunter pointed behind them.
Hyeon-jun, the porter who had joined their party that day, sat there.
“Huh? Really? Why not?”
“There are two main reasons. The biggest one is a lack of talent.”
Not every Trait was specialized for combat.
Some people awakened non-combat Traits.
Depending on how they used them, those Traits could still be useful, but they usually weren’t enough to become a Hunter.
Running onto a battlefield with a calculator would only add another number to the casualty statistics.
“Wow, I didn’t know that could happen. I thought every Awakener got a combat Trait like mine.”
“Becoming a Hunter is something only the chosen among the chosen get to do.”
“What’s the second reason?”
At the young rookie Hunter’s question, the middle-aged man made a circle with his fingers.
“Money.”
“Money?”
“If you have money, you can compensate for a certain amount of lacking talent.”
“How?”
“Wow. You really don’t know anything, do you? How the hell did you pass the written Hunter license exam?”
“I mostly guessed. As long as I can fight well, that’s enough, right?”
“If you want to live a long life, study a little, you idiot.”
“Hehehe. Then teach me, mister.”
The youthful Hunter smiled shamelessly.
The middle-aged man sighed as though he had no choice and continued explaining.
“Awakening gives you a Trait, sure, but it also gives you a kind of ‘qualification.’”
“What qualification?”
“The qualification to become stronger. You know that once you awaken, you can absorb items called Runes, right?”
“Of course I know that much.”
“If you have enough money, you can simply buy Runes and absorb them. There’s a limit depending on the grade of your awakened Trait, but even an F-rank can reach a level where they can work as a Hunter.”
The young man frowned slightly.
It looked like something was about to come to mind.
“Ah! Isn’t the basic setup needed to start Hunter work called a beginner setup?”
“So you’re not completely clueless. Do you know how much it costs?”
“Was it ten million won?”
“Double that.”
The young man clicked his tongue.
“That’s expensive.”
“That’s the cost of doing it cheaply. The more you care about quality, the more expensive it gets. And come on, you brat. Twenty million won is cheap if it can change your entire life.”
Twenty million won.
Even for an ordinary person, it could be considered cheap if it completely changed the direction of their life.
Considering the opportunities that came with becoming a Hunter, it was even cheaper.
But that wasn’t true for twenty-four-year-old Go Hyeon-jun.
That’s an amount of money I can’t even dream about.
His family already owed hundreds of millions of won.
The debt didn’t decrease.
It only kept growing.
Hyeon-jun slept less and worked himself to the bone every single day without a day off.
Yet after paying fixed expenses such as hospital bills, his bank account was always empty.
To him, twenty million won might as well have been two billion.
“If everyone’s finished resting, let’s move out!”
The break ended.
The Hunters began moving.
Hyeon-jun also hoisted the heavy backpack onto his shoulders again.
Porter payment: 250,000 won.
It was higher than an ordinary day-labor wage.
Considering the danger of an E-rank Closed-Type Dungeon, it was a reasonable amount.
“Thank you.”
