Twenty-five years ago, a great upheaval struck Earth, and humanity was greeted with a tremendous threat.
As monsters ran rampant, the Awakened appeared like a beacon of hope during those dark times.
Just as the world was beginning to find stability thanks to their existence.
The government found a way to effectively nurture these Awakened.
Hunter Academy.
Packaged nicely, it was the training of Awakened Hunters, but the true intention was to attract heavy investments—as it would be an enormous national loss if they awakened only to die immediately.
Whatever its actual purpose, the Academy received a great deal of support.
Who would oppose raising professional Hunters who would protect their very lives?
Even in the political sphere, consensus crossed party lines, so it did not take long from Hunter Academy's establishment to the admission of its first freshmen.
And I am a graduate of the 14th class—the one called the Golden Generation—even among Hunter Academy graduates.
[Hunter Academy 14th Class Graduate, Lee Ganghyeon]
Of course, I was last place.
Still, a graduate is a graduate.
* * *
If I graduated last place from the Academy's Golden Generation, then naturally, there was also a first place.
—Today, we've invited a very special guest. I'm sure you're all curious as to who it is.
They say speak of the tiger and it appears; sure enough, the valedictorian was appearing on the TV screen right on cue.
—It is none other than the Paladin who protects our nation like his name suggests—Kim Suho!
As the host said this and solicited a response, the audience was shown clapping and laughing.
—Hahaha, it is an honor to be welcomed like this.
When that bastard with a face like a male courtesan smiled and spoke, the cheers grew even louder.
Light brown hair and a handsome face to boot.
But he even had the skills to back it up—who could possibly hate him?
Kim Suho.
An A-rank Hunter.
The eldest son of the Holy Guild Master, the number one guild in the nation.
Hunter Academy 14th class valedictorian.
Just looking at these specs alone was astounding, and indeed, the world was unfair.
He had all of that and had even been to the continent of El Dorado.
Moreover, unlike me, who was driven out for being powerless, Kim Suho had entered the White Order, the continent's sole religious order, and was even formally ordained as a Paladin.
It was a widely known story that he had been bestowed a holy sword in that process.
Ah, of course, though the holy sword was a mass-produced model, it had exerted an enormous influence on his achieving the rank of A-rank Hunter.
After such a man returned to Earth, it was only natural that he came to be called a Paladin.
Furthermore, he was even given the title of a promising talent who would lead our nation going forward.
—Mr. Kim Suho recently accomplished the incredible feat of solo subjugating a C-rank dungeon....
The host was listing Kim Suho's achievements one by one, recalling them with excitement.
I had no intention of disparaging his achievements either.
Dungeons were places inherently full of variables.
Because monsters of various attributes appeared, clearing a dungeon alone was quite a difficult task.
In fact, unless there was an extreme difference in rank, it was nearly impossible.
And yet, he had single-handedly conquered a C-rank dungeon.
Even a kindergartener could see it was an achievement worthy of applause.
It was certainly so, however.
—Ah! Come to think of it, I heard there were even rumors that Mr. Kim Suho was an angel during his Academy days? I heard he guided fellow students who couldn't adjust well... My, how....
—Haha, an angel? Not at all. I merely did what was naturally expected of me.
As Kim Suho showed a gesture of modestly stepping back, the host joked that too much humility is poisonous. And naturally, she guided the studio audience to laugh.
What a load of crap.
But in my eyes, Kim Suho looked pathetic.
What? There were rumors he was an angel during his Academy days?
That he helped his classmates adjust?
Just which world's Kim Suho was he talking about?
I could say for certain that it was absolutely not the case.
The reason I could answer with such certainty was because there were circumstances to justify it.
If the Kim Suho on screen were truly a man with such angelic character, I wouldn't have spent all four years of my Academy life getting beaten up.
That bastard was a privileged elite drenched in elitism.
He was the type who saw those without ability as bugs and tried to trample them.
By Kim Suho's standards, someone like me fell into the bug category.
A Hunter without a status window.
Having awakened but lacking a status window was a sin.
I made an enormous effort not to get expelled from the Academy immediately.
I thought that if I were driven out even from here, I would truly have nowhere left to go, so I reduced my sleeping time to keep up with classes.
It would have been nice if I had merely looked like a hardworking cadet, but in Kim Suho's eyes, that didn't seem to be the case.
A gaze as if looking at a bug.
That bastard tried to find fault with me over every trivial matter whenever he saw me.
And so I lived being treated as less than human until graduation.
—Then, could you perhaps record a video message for a friend who received your help? If that friend is watching this somewhere, wouldn't they be delighted?
No, not at all.
Far from feeling delighted, I felt like I was going to vomit.
At the host's words, Kim Suho's lips curved slightly upward. Then he looked straight at the camera.
—Yeah. Friend, are you doing well? It's already been four years since we graduated from the Academy. Let's meet up sometime and....
I turned off the TV without listening to the end.
It was nonsense not worth hearing.
Where does he get off acting nice?
Let me say it again: Kim Suho was essentially in the position of a school bully who trampled on other weaklings at the Academy.
For Kim Suho, who had led the violence within the Academy, to say such things on broadcast?
Anger welled up inside me.
"He's stacked iron plates on his shamelessness, he really has."
Shameless bastard.
Since he doesn't have a thing called a conscience in his heart, he can run his mouth on TV without hesitation.
I was overflowing with the urge to write an exposé post about Kim Suho on the internet right this instant.
If my grip on reason had snapped, I would have written and uploaded it long ago.
But my reason stopped my actions.
Whether it's a regular school or Hunter Academy, those who have awakened are apex predators at the very top.
There were probably countless others like me who had been victimized by them.
Yet the reason they stayed silent wasn't because they were fools.
Among the Awakened, the rankers could make an ordinary person crumple on the spot with a flick of their finger.
In such a world, what would happen if you exposed what was done to you?
If you were lucky, it might end in immediate death, but the world wasn't so forgiving.
If I uploaded a post about Kim Suho right now?
It would draw public attention for the moment.
But only for that moment.
Soon, that attention would gradually dry up, and the Holy Guild that Kim Suho belonged to would begin moving in secret.
Down that path, wouldn't I be dragged off somewhere and tortured to my heart's content until I begged them to kill me?
The world was too harsh for any single topic to keep burning indefinitely.
Above all, the ones who protected people from monsters right now were the Hunters; if they were ostracized, the outcome was obvious.
Their own lives would be in danger immediately.
Everyone knew this fact.
So past events were simply buried in one's heart, and bastards like Kim Suho lived on as images whose pasts had already been whitewashed.
"Huu...."
A sigh escaped me.
I resented myself for being unable to do anything even in this situation.
No matter that my status window had appeared late, I was at a level that couldn't even reach Kim Suho's feet.
Just the other day, after taking a mana examination, I ran into a fellow classmate, Kang Jinsu.
Even he had been in the lower-middle ranks during our Academy days, yet he had become an existence I couldn't hope to match.
He had become a civil servant working at an Awakened Center, so he didn't do anything beyond speaking to me, but I felt my powerlessness once again.
"But this is still the beginning."
What comforted me was that I had obtained a status window.
Without even this, the probability of closing the gap would have been zero percent, but now it had risen even to 0.1%, so it wasn't entirely impossible.
Though it was a distant future, the possibility of me growing stronger still existed.
Therefore, I had to prepare now.
As an F-rank Hunter, it was too much for me to hunt monsters immediately.
For the time being, I would work as a porter to earn money.
The money earned would become equipment, and that equipment would target monsters' lives.
Dead monsters would leave me experience points.
Little by little, very slowly, I would move forward. I would build my strength.
If there ever came a moment when I surpassed them.
Then I would become the predator that devours you.
* * *
Celia was busily moving about the dungeon.
"Yes, please make this area into a wider, round clearing-like shape."
Having successfully concluded a contract with the merchant guild a few days ago, the dungeon interior was currently under construction.
Celia's top priority was expanding the dungeon's size.
The dungeon she envisioned needed, first and foremost, to be large.
Only then would it take time for intruders to reach the dungeon's core, and it would be easier to defend before that.
To carry out the expansion, she had hired craftsmen affiliated with the merchant guild.
The labor force consisted of skeletons, orcs, golems, and the like. The ones worthy of being called craftsmen were the two dwarves managing and supervising them all.
'As expected, handing over the Paladin was the right call.'
The priest and paladin who had dared to invade the Lord's dungeon without a hint of fear.
The priest had been sacrificed, and the paladin had been imprisoned within a dream, left in isolation.
The paladin had been something of an awkward asset.
Unable to release him, yet difficult to put to proper use.
Then, while making a deal with the merchant guild, she thought of selling the paladin.
Celia had also heard that humans were not goods traded in significant quantities on the merchant guild's side—after all, humans were overflowing all across the continent.
However, humans belonging to an order like the Paladins were different. They were goods that held rare value.
Moreover, the paladin she had prepared was the very picture of perfection in pristine condition. Well, it was only natural, as she had subdued him by manipulating his dreams.
As expected, the merchant guild expressed their intention to purchase the paladin at the highest price.
Celia made a counterproposal here.
She asked that dwarves be included among the craftsmen needed for the construction.
The merchant guild was a group that pursued profit.
They wouldn't readily dispatch high-class personnel like dwarves to a dungeon conducting its first transaction.
But Celia used the paladin as bait to draw the dwarves into working on the dungeon's construction.
The presence or absence of dwarves made a definite difference.
Thanks to them, even as the required time was drastically shortened, she could feel the quality rising sharply in real time.
"Hehe, I hope my Lord is pleased to see this."
Thinking of the newly changed dungeon made her smile.
Celia thought only of her Lord and was loyal to him alone. Therefore, she believed that her Lord's joy was her joy.
"That aside, it won't be long now."
In a few days, the concealment effect placed on the dungeon would end. The dungeon construction currently underway was expected to finish around the same time.
On the day all preparations were complete, Celia would commence her full-scale activities.
Her expression flushed with anticipation at the thought of being able to offer her Lord plentiful sacrifices.
"I shall be the one to create the day when all people look up to the greatness of my Lord."