Volume 1, Episode 2
002
Korea Hunter Association Headquarters.
Weeeeeeeeee!
An emergency siren began to blare loudly throughout the Hunter Association building.
An urgent red light dyed everything inside the Association.
“An S-Rank Gate has manifested!”
S-Rank Gate.
A Gate that had revealed itself only once before. Unlike ordinary blue Gates, it radiated a red glow.
When an S-Rank Gate appeared in the past.
‘Chaos.’
The world had experienced chaos, literally.
Have you ever deeply contemplated the word destruction?
Humanity thought of destruction when the S-Rank Gate appeared.
‘Enemy.’
An enemy that could never be overcome.
A cataclysm.
An S-Rank Gate was effectively synonymous with the destruction of the world.
-Uwaaaaaack!
Back when an S-Rank Gate first appeared.
The number of dead Hunters and humans reached five percent of the total population.
They had barely managed to overcome it through the sacrifices of countless Hunters.
But.
‘Right now.’
Those terrible events, like a nightmare, were about to unfold once more.
“Everyone, stay calm!”
Gim Seungmin, team leader of the Hunter Management Division at the Hunter Association, shouted urgently at the bewildered staff.
Swish.
Every staff member at their desks focused their flustered gazes on Gim Seungmin.
“There’s no need to panic just because it’s S-Rank! If you all follow my orders from now on, we can block it sufficiently well!”
Gim Seungmin shouted loudly, his voice ringing thunderously through the hall over the blaring emergency siren.
“So all of you, get your heads in the—”
Just as Gim Seungmin was about to open his mouth again toward the staff.
Screeeeeech!
A bizarre, ear-scratching sound filled the hall.
And a moment later.
“……!”
Every device began to shatter.
Like falling dominoes, sparks flew up in sequence from every piece of equipment.
All screens that had been on simultaneously turned completely black.
Everything had become completely unresponsive.
“Damn it! What the hell! What happened!”
Gim Seungmin shouted, rapidly looking around.
“Th-the Gate Mana Detection Gauge… it exploded.”
One staff member immediately reported to Gim Seungmin in a flustered voice.
“Wh-what?”
Upon hearing the staff member’s words, Gim Seungmin’s face was dyed with bewilderment in an instant.
Tap tap tap!
Gim Seungmin hurriedly moved his feet somewhere.
The place he moved to.
Tap.
It was none other than in front of the exploded Gate Mana Detection Gauge.
“Th-this can’t be…”
Gim Seungmin muttered in a voice that seemed lost.
‘If it burst…’
Gate Mana Detection Gauge.
This was a machine designed to withstand the mana of Gates up to S-Rank.
The fact that it had burst meant.
“Immeasurable….”
With this machine, the rank of the currently manifested Gate was immeasurable.
Which meant.
“…This Gate is… at least Double-S Rank.”
Everyone present who heard Gim Seungmin’s words froze in their spots.
Clatter.
Gim Seungmin dropped the ballpoint pen he had been holding to the floor.
“…….”
Only a heavy silence permeated the hall.
No one could even open their mouths.
No, to be precise, they couldn’t even think of opening their mouths.
All thought had stopped in an instant.
‘At least SS-Rank Gate.’
Having just heard the earth-shattering news that the Gate that appeared moments ago was at least SS-Rank.
“…Contact everyone immediately.”
Gim Seungmin muttered in a low voice.
“Follow the emergency response manual and contact everyone immediately!”
If an SS-Rank Gate had truly appeared, then the destruction of the world was truly only a matter of time.
“Y-yes sir!”
The staff moved in perfect unison upon hearing Gim Seungmin’s words.
Just as they were organizing the situation like that.
“Uh… uh….”
One staff member let out a bewildered voice upon seeing something.
It was a staff member who was in charge of duties assisting the Gate Mana Detection Gauge.
Zzzing.
The screen of the computer in front of the staff member had turned back on.
“T-Team Leader…!”
The staff member shouted upon seeing the computer screen.
“The Gate reading has vanished…!”
“What?”
Gim Seungmin quickly ran over and checked the computer screen.
‘Really…’
An unbelievable sight had occurred.
The reading of the Gate they had thought to be at least SS-Rank had vanished without a trace.
He checked and rechecked several times, but the result was the same.
‘…This is absurd.’
Just what the hell had happened moments ago?
* * *
“I… Seo… Jun….”
A distant human voice.
“I… Seo… Jun.”
That was his name.
“Kuhuk!”
Along with a massive headache that gripped his head, memories surfaced.
Memories he had forgotten over time, in order to survive.
-Uwaaaaaack!
Horrific memories of having lived as a test subject in an unknown facility.
-Where in the world is this…?
Nightmarish memories of the day he first fell onto the land of monsters, Planet Lumer.
-Seojun! I Seojun!
Precious memories of when he had lived fully as a human, and so on.
“Keuk!”
Various forgotten memories surfaced in his mind.
The more they surfaced, the more he involuntarily squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his head with both hands.
It was because an unbearably immense pain, unlike anything he had ever felt, came over him.
Along with that, a voice that buzzed incessantly rang in his ears.
[You have awakened as a Player.]
[You have acquired the body of Final Boss Aion.]
[Earth is currently a Grade 3 world.]
[A penalty is applied due to the imbalance between body and world.]
[All stats are being downgraded….]
[Downgrading….]
[Downgrading….]
A voice that rang in his ears countless times.
Grind.
As if the intense pain wasn’t enough, with an unknown voice constantly ringing in his ears, his mind grew hazy.
Distant.
He felt as if his mind was splitting apart.
‘What the hell.’
What was that voice?
He couldn’t understand it at all.
Because these were phenomena he had never experienced in his life.
He merely thought of it as an existence that tormented his ears incessantly, that confused his mind.
“Uu… uhk.”
I Seojun forced himself to pry open one eye.
‘……Where is this?’
A small space of roughly three pyeong.
The first things to enter his blurry vision were a grey mattress, a brown-tinged table, and a chair.
“Hah… hah….”
I Seojun forcibly raised his upper body, leaned against the wall, and barely managed to catch his breath.
After a brief moment.
Swish.
Once he finally came to his senses, his blurry vision became clear.
He looked ahead.
At that moment.
“……!”
His pupils dilated upon confirming what he saw in front of him.
“Kuh….”
A smooth exosurface like the carapace of a Raineton.
Upon seeing it, another memory surfaced in his mind.
He knew what that was.
‘A mirror.’
Something that reflected his own appearance.
“……!”
But within that mirror was not the appearance he had in his rising memories.
‘This is…!’
Unlike the appearance he had originally known, there were no horns, but he was certain.
The appearance currently reflected in the mirror was…
Clang!
The King of Lumer, Aion.
“Uwaaack!”
Conflicting emotions shook I Seojun’s heart.
‘Who am I?’
Who was he right now?
Was he I Seojun?
Or was he Aion, the King of Lumer?
Thud. Thud.
His entire body, bearing the appearance of Aion in the mirror, trembled like crazy.
“Hah…. Hah..”
I Seojun leaned his body against the wall, placed his hand on his forehead, and took rough breaths.
As he regulated his breathing, he tried to calm his trembling body.
After a brief moment.
“Hah….”
A single thought began to dominate his entire body and mind.
‘Right.’
The sound of I Seojun’s ragged breathing gradually subsided.
‘It doesn’t matter what I am.’
The driving force that had moved I Seojun, from Planet Lumer, no, even before that.
“I… survive.”
Survival instinct.
Srrrrk.
Just as I Seojun’s eyes began to be dyed red.
He felt a presence and heard a voice.
“Hyung-nim, this bastard’s awake?”
* * *
Several humans were surrounding I Seojun.
“You’re up?”
A man with a scar etched on his face.
Gim Donguk spoke with feigned curiosity in his eyes.
“Yes. When we came, he was already awake.”
The one who had first found I Seojun bowed toward him and spoke.
Swish.
Gim Donguk, bending at the waist and making eye contact with I Seojun leaning against the wall.
“This bastard’s eyes are completely gone crazy?”
He brought his hand to his temple and spun it around as he spoke.
“Did we pick up the wrong one?”
They didn’t seem to pay any attention to I Seojun.
They spoke as if he was a person not present in this place.
“Who cares. Look.”
Grin.
“He’s got a good face, doesn’t he?”
Snake-like gazes swept over I Seojun from top to bottom.
“If we sell this guy, it’ll fetch a decent sum, right?”
The man who spoke licked his lips.
“I suppose so.”
One by one, they began to form nefarious smiles at the edges of their mouths.
“There are plenty of perverted Hunters out there.”
“Right. I heard his identity hasn’t been checked either?”
“Yes.”
Tap, tap.
The scarred man, Gim Donguk, prodded I Seojun with his foot.
“Perfect.”
And then he opened his mouth in a satisfied tone.
“He must be a missing person who disappeared during the Great Disaster of the past.”
The fellows watching this scene nodded their heads.
“Must be?”
“This time, unlike last time, we picked up a real proper one.”
Gim Donguk placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Good job.”
He lightly tapped the shoulder.
“……!”
At that, the man’s face was dyed with bewilderment.
Because Gim Donguk was someone who had never praised him before.
“I went out of my way to praise you. What’s with that expression?”
“Ah, no, Hyung-nim. It’s not that, it’s just that it’s the first time I’ve heard such words from you….”
“You should praise what’s praiseworthy. Right?”
“Th-thank you, Hyung-nim! I’ll work even harder from now on. Please watch over me.”
“Then find a buyer right now.”
“Understood, Hyung-nim.”
The man answered energetically and bowed his head deeply.
Swish.
And then he slowly reached his hand out toward I Seojun’s hair.
“Hey.”
A grinning face.
“You heard what we said until now, right?”
It was at that moment.
Crack!
I Seojun’s hand grabbed the guy’s arm.
“Hah.”
The reason I Seojun had stayed still until now was because of the voices noisily buzzing in his head.
And because it was the language of his homeland, which he hadn’t heard in so long.
But now.
“One person….”
His head was quite clear.
“One person….”
It was no different.
Whether the monsters of Lumer.
“Wh-what are you….”
Or the humans before his eyes.
Shliiick!
I Seojun’s hand blade shot out quickly.
Squelch!
The sound of piercing flesh.
I Seojun’s arm protruded through the chest of the man who had reached out to grab his hair.
“I’ll let just one live.”
I Seojun knew what had to be done in this situation.
The strongest villain in history had returned.