Chapter 1
Cheon U-bin, called humanity’s hero.
The man considered the strongest hunter in name and reality swallowed hard, his face tense.
Because a rabbit “monster” with red eyes was blocking his path.
*It looks freaking vicious.*
There was a reason he bothered to call a mere rabbit a “monster.”
The bastard was over two meters tall.
And that was measured from the top of its head; if you included the ears, it easily looked like it would hit three meters.
Even Cheon U-bin, who had hunted monsters for twenty years, was seeing one like this for the first time in his life.
“Hey…?”
Grrrr…
Space shuddered with a metallic ringing at the rabbit’s growl.
Every hair on his body stood on end, and a chill ran down the back of his neck.
Cheon U-bin forced his trembling lips into a smile.
“You’re a rabbit, but you sure growl viciously?”
Kraaaaak!
The rabbit’s maw split open wide, and a vicious, bizarre shriek poured out.
Cheon U-bin quickly thrust both palms forward.
“Sorry! Rabbits can growl a little viciously, right! Yes! I was being narrow-minded!”
That was when the bastard coiled its legs.
Sensing danger instinctively, Cheon U-bin threw his body aside with all his might.
Kwa-bang!
Could the expression “in the blink of an eye” ever fit so perfectly?
The giant rabbit really had passed him and embedded itself in the cliff face in the time it took to blink.
If he hadn’t dodged, it would have meant at least twelve weeks of recovery.
Cold sweat trickled down Cheon U-bin’s back at that overwhelming speed.
*What kind of clusterfuck is this…*
He’d never heard of a max-level rabbit monster like that.
He must have killed tens of thousands of monsters with his own hands by now.
Yet he’d never even seen anything similar to it.
Cheon U-bin desperately steadied his trembling heart.
*Calm down. It’s just one monster.*
He was the man called humanity’s hero.
Though his condition was the worst, he had no intention of losing to a mere rabbit.
Heeh—
At that moment, the rabbit slowly turned its head.
The bastard, its head twisted 180 degrees, was grinning grotesquely.
His hair stood on end once more, but Cheon U-bin gritted his teeth.
“You think I’d chicken out just because of that? Come at me! Tonight’s dinner is rabbit stew!”
Cheon U-bin screamed like a madman.
That was when growls came from all directions.
Grrrr…
Grr-uk, grrk!
Red glints of light burst from all over the cliff faces.
He had thought there was just one max-level rabbit; he was wrong.
Even the ones visible to the eye right now numbered in the dozens.
“Ah…”
Cheon U-bin, his eyes darting every which way, suddenly started running.
“No! Isn’t this too much! Fuck!”
He absolutely couldn’t win against this.
It wasn’t a matter of condition.
No matter that he was called humanity’s hero, the greatest hunter.
Facing dozens of those rabbits, he clearly wouldn’t even be able to retrieve his bones.
He could bet his entire fortune that he’d become finely minced meat paste within three minutes.
Kwoong! Kwa-ang! Kwuung! Kwang!
A chase unfolded against the backdrop of a dark canyon.
The giant rabbits launched themselves as if their bodies were missiles, destroying everything they crashed into.
Cheon U-bin, moving his legs like crazy to survive, thought:
Just how had he ended up facing such a worst-case scenario?
*You goddamn bastard! If I get back, you’re fucking dead!*
* * *
He still remembered it clearly.
Age 8, the day of the elementary school entrance ceremony.
That day, Cheon U-bin lost his mother.
It was the doing of a hideous monster that had burst out of a place called a rift.
The rest of his family, excluding Cheon U-bin, didn’t even survive that year and were all killed by monsters.
The world was swept into chaos.
Cutting-edge weapons developed alongside Earth’s history couldn’t inflict any significant damage on the monsters.
It was because of the special power called “mana” that the monsters possessed.
To oppose them, humans needed mana too.
“I awakened! Look at this!”
“It’s a superpower! I can use superpowers too!”
Was it a blessing from God?
Before long, people who awakened mana like the monsters began to appear.
Whether it was misfortune or fortune, 8-year-old Cheon U-bin was one of them.
Cheon U-bin had to fight to survive.
Humanity was driven to the brink, to the point that he had to grip a knife with his young, childish hands.
And so, twenty years passed.
Cheon U-bin became humanity’s hero.
The boy who had faced monsters to survive had transformed, before anyone knew it, into a hunter who sought out and killed monsters.
Thanks to his exploits, humanity’s front line, which had only been retreating, could once again advance forward.
However, Cheon U-bin, called a hero, hadn’t always done the right thing.
In truth, he carried quite a lot of problems with him.
Perhaps because he had lived a life akin to war since childhood.
He was somewhat twisted somewhere inside.
His speech and actions were rough, and because of that, trivial incidents frequently escalated into major accidents.
But despite these troubles, he was a hero nonetheless.
Because the problems Cheon U-bin caused were nothing more than minor deviations compared to the benefits he brought to humanity.
In fact, almost all citizens of the Republic of Korea supported Cheon U-bin.
No, the whole world supported him.
That day was such a day as well.
The day he went to destroy a monster nest for humanity.
Kwoong—!
A giant monster with eight arms collapsed.
At the same time, system alarms rang out.
[Lion Chieftain marvels at your achievement!]
[The Grand Duke of Hell proposes a contract to you!]
[The Conqueror of the Cruel Plains takes an interest in you!]
[The Pure Guardian of the Nation proposes a contract to you!]
Cheon U-bin waved his hand irritably and turned off the alarms.
“Not buying. Not buying.”
The ones he had chased away like street peddlers were Constellations.
Constellation (聖座).
Transcendent beings that appeared alongside rifts and monsters.
A contract with a Constellation was what every hunter dreamed of, but for some reason, Cheon U-bin hadn’t contracted with any Constellation until now.
“These fucking Constellations sure love to throw a fit every time I visit a nest.”
His body felt as heavy as lead from the nest assault that had gone on for several days.
Since the assault was just finished with that battle, he intended to return immediately.
“Let’s head back! Gotta hurry up and have some chicken feet with soju!”
“Yes, sir!”
Along with the hunters and soldiers who had come for the nest assault, Cheon U-bin boarded the return vehicle.
This nest assault had taken place in Pyongyang, the capital of the fallen North Korea.
It wasn’t that far from Seoul by distance, but the return would take quite a bit of time.
Because the roads were cut off and rough from the war with monsters, and minor battles could break out during the return.
*Let’s just rest for now.*
This assault had been especially tough.
He felt somehow that nest assaults were getting harder as time went on.
Cheon U-bin rested his exhausted body against the seat and closed his eyes.
“Hunter Cheon U-bin.”
A voice called out the moment he closed his eyes.
Looking at his watch, about fifteen minutes had passed.
“What.”
“It’s a rift.”
“Was there originally a rift here?”
“No, sir. It’s a new one.”
It was a rift that hadn’t been there on the way over.
It seemed to have formed while they were assaulting the nest.
Cheon U-bin got out of the vehicle and approached the rift.
“Tch… What shit luck.”
Of all things, the rift was bisecting the road exactly.
Cheon U-bin looked down into the rift.
Fwiiiiing—!
A fierce wind blew.
The ground was split as if from a massive earthquake, and a deep abyss existed below.
And undulating purple waves.
A chill he couldn’t explain made Cheon U-bin scrunch up his face.
“Tch.”
Even after twenty years, almost nothing had been revealed about rifts.
Why they occurred.
By what principle they opened and closed.
Why monsters burst out of them.
Humanity hadn’t figured out anything.
However, there was one certain thing.
Not a single human who had gone down there had ever come back.
“Hunter Cheon U-bin?”
He felt a presence behind him.
It seemed they had come looking for him because he hadn’t returned after checking the rift.
Cheon U-bin spoke while still looking down at the rift.
“Let’s take a detour and go around.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell everyone to stay sharp. Something feels off.”
Something was ominous.
He felt like he would get sucked into that rift.
Cheon U-bin’s intuition was no ordinary intuition.
His intuition, strengthened by his superpower, occasionally showed a strength akin to clairvoyance.
That intuition of his was screaming.
To get away from this place quickly.
To get far away from that rift.
“Cheon U-bin.”
It was then.
He felt a mana reaction from behind.
Cheon U-bin quickly turned around.
“Wait, you bastard…!”
“Farewell.”
Kwoong!
When he came to his senses, his body was already falling below the cliff.
No matter that he was humanity’s hero, he didn’t have the ability to fly.
As he fell endlessly, many thoughts flashed through his mind.
What kind of superpower was it?
A power to push the opponent?
What was the reason for this?
A personal grudge?
*No, none of that matters.*
Cheon U-bin shook off all his thoughts.
Right now, only one thing mattered to him.
*Who are you.*
Who had done this.
He had to know who to take revenge on.
Cheon U-bin glared and looked at the man who pushed him.
The man waved his hand at the falling Cheon U-bin.
His pupils were rolled back, showing only the whites, and a twisted smile hung at the corners of his mouth.
“You’re fucking deaaaaaad—!”
Cheon U-bin’s roar echoed throughout the cliff.
* * *
Back to the present.
The chase between Cheon U-bin and the rabbit horde was still ongoing.
Kwoong! Kwa-bang!
Dodging falling boulders, Cheon U-bin clenched his fist tight.
*When I get back, you’re fucking dead!*
He didn’t know who it was, but he would never let them go.
He would find them somehow.
He would find them and shove them into this damned rabbit hell!
Cheon U-bin vowed it over and over.
Kwa-baaaang!
A rabbit crashed down right in front of his nose.
The ground shook with a roar like a bomb going off.
Cheon U-bin gulped and quickly changed direction.
*Focus on surviving for now.*
Revenge was only possible if he survived.
Even if he had fallen into a rift with a 0% survival rate, he had no intention of giving up.
*If only my condition were normal, things would be a bit better.*
Cheon U-bin let out a bitter laugh.
Right now, he was exhausted, injured, and unarmed.
But monsters didn’t care about such circumstances when attacking.
So no matter the situation, he had to do his best to fight back.
Cheon U-bin’s mind raced quickly.
*Thirty-seven rabbits total. I absolutely can’t win in a frontal fight. Plus, I don’t know the geography of this place.*
The more he thought, the more hopeless it seemed.
The enemy was strong.
There was no information.
His body was in the worst condition.
In this situation, Cheon U-bin had only one thing left.
*Twenty years of experience fighting monsters.*
For twenty years, he had clashed with monsters and analyzed their habits.
Gathering information on prey was a hunter’s essential virtue.
Though it was his first time meeting max-level rabbits, Cheon U-bin had grasped quite a lot in a short time.
*They move in a pack and are highly intelligent. But their bonds aren’t particularly strong. Rather, it feels like a business relationship formed out of necessity. They’re teammates while simultaneously being competitors.*
It wasn’t a common case among monsters, but not unheard of either.
Cheon U-bin recalled monsters with similar traits and thought about how to defeat them.
*This type… when a truly strong one appears, they scatter like a ragtag mob.*
He needed a stronger monster.
One overwhelmingly strong.
He needed a monster that the rabbit horde couldn’t defeat even if they attacked together.
Honestly, he doubted such a monster existed, but this was inside a rift.
A place where nothing that popped out would be strange.
*Please! Please come out!*
Cheon U-bin ran toward where his intuition guided him.
How long had he run like that?
*That’s it!*
A giant monster came into view.
It looked to be about ten meters tall.
Its appearance resembled a bear, but it had three heads.
When it moved, it felt like a giant building was moving.
Uooooooh—!
The giant bear roared.
It was an incredible noise befitting its size.
Cheon U-bin covered his ears and scrunched his face but cheered inwardly.
*This is the one!*
This monster was definitely the guardian that would slaughter the max-level rabbits!
*Good. Now I just need to circle around this bear and make it fight the rabbits…*
At that moment, Cheon U-bin’s eyes widened as if they would pop out.
Srrk! Shwaaaa—!
The bear’s three heads were severed simultaneously, blood spraying in all directions.
Thud! Splorch! Splatt!
A chill ran down his spine at the sound of the severed heads embedding in the ground.
The massive body slowly collapsed.
Standing atop it was a monster resembling a praying mantis.
Kiiing… Kiiing…!
The rabbit horde, upon seeing the mantis, immediately turned tail and fled.
They were running, terrified of the overwhelming apex predator.
*Thank goodness.*
There had been a variable in the middle, but ultimately, he had succeeded.
Now he just needed to find an opening and escape.
But as they say, human affairs never go as planned.
Cheon U-bin was immediately faced with a new problem.
Srrk—
The mantis’s martial prowess.
Its prowess far, far exceeded expectations.
Srrk. Srrk.
Every time its blade arms swung, rabbit heads were lopped off left and right.
The mantis cheerfully harvested rabbit heads as if they were ripe fruit.
At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Cheon U-bin’s head parted ways with his body.
“Heh heh…”
Was it because the mantis’s blade artistry had reached the realm of art that it was so moving?
Cheon U-bin felt somehow like he might cry.
It had been only about thirty minutes since he fell into the rift.
In that short time, Cheon U-bin was learning with his entire body what it meant to have a “fly’s life.”
*Can I survive here…?*
From humanity’s hero to a mere fly.
Cheon U-bin’s rift survival record began rather miserably.