Trait Plunderer Episode 2
#2 BORN TO KILL (1)
It had been eight years since the Great Cataclysm arrived.
People had grown familiar with dungeons and monsters, and most of the stolen land had been reclaimed.
For now, it seemed humanity had overcome the dungeons.
Therefore, people thought humanity's future was bright.
Save for one.
If you excluded Gang Jun, who had just succeeded in regressing.
'So it's 2020... Two years remain until the Second Great Cataclysm.'
Gang Jun, who had been looking at his smartphone, turned his hands over and checked his arms and body.
Fingers stretched straight without a trace of fractures or even calluses.
Thin arms and body that looked far from athletic.
Clean skin without a trace of discoloration.
He touched various parts of his body.
'Did I really return to the past?'
Had he really been this frail ten years ago...
Gang Jun surveyed his surroundings and figured out where he was standing.
Clink!
Cheers!
The raucous voices of people and the cheerful sound of glasses clinking.
This place, filled with the smell of meat cooking, was a grilled meat restaurant in Jongno.
"One Chamisul here!"
"One serving of samgyeopsal, please!"
Gang Jun barely remembered that he had worked part-time at a grilled meat restaurant ten years ago.
Gang Jun back then had been nothing special.
He had merely been an ordinary—no, poor—twenty-two-year-old young man.
"Hey! I said Chamisul! Is that bastard deaf or what..."
A man with a square face openly berated Gang Jun.
Gang Jun felt the man's face was familiar.
"Gang Jun! Why are you spacing out?!"
"......."
At the owner's urging, Gang Jun obediently picked up the Chamisul and approached the table where the square-faced man was.
"Hey... Do you have a dick in your ear? A customer's talking and you don't move your ass?!"
The square-faced man's pronunciation was a bit slurred.
Gang Jun set the soju bottle down with a clunk and stared intently at the man.
That's right.
This guy was exactly the one who had changed my life.
Gang Jun was certain.
"What the hell is this bastard staring at? You got a problem? You little shit..."
"Ah, oppa, stop it."
"You be quiet."
"Oppa. Stop it..."
"Shut the fuck up, bitch!"
"......."
The man vented his anger at the woman sitting at the same table and sprang up from his seat.
"You little shit, do you know who I am? I'm a high-and-mighty Superhuman! A Superhuman! You fucking bastard who doesn't know shit..."
The man tapped Gang Jun's cheek, toying with him.
Gang Jun was still looking straight into the man's eyes.
"...Oh? You won't lower your eyes?!"
'Hurry up and hit me. Hurry up and smash my jaw....'
Gang Jun shouted inwardly.
However, the owner soon jumped out and stopped the man.
"Ah, customer. I'm sorry. This kid doesn't know any better..."
"Fuck... I'm holding back for the owner's sake. Hey! You, go buy some cigarettes."
The man whipped a 5,000-won bill at Gang Jun.
The bill fluttered and fell to the floor.
But Gang Jun didn't pick it up.
'How do I get hit?'
Because his mind was filled entirely with the thought of taking a hit.
Finally, Gang Jun opened his mouth.
But what came out of Gang Jun's mouth wasn't 'words'.
Ptooey!
It was 'spit'.
"......."
People's attention was already focused on them because the square-faced man had been making a commotion.
Gang Jun's outrageous act was enough to freeze the surrounding air.
"......."
"......."
The man was so flustered that his eyes went round, unable to say anything.
"Hey. Aren't you angry?"
"......."
A scrawny-looking guy had spit on him.
A sense of humiliation he hadn't experienced since becoming a Superhuman swept over the man.
It happened to be a day when he was in a bad mood after fighting with his girlfriend.
He had been in the mood to beat someone to a pulp, and now this crazy anchovy-looking bastard was practically begging to get hit.
"You tiny dick bastard!"
Without mercy, the man put all his strength into his fist.
Pow!
Gang Jun took the man's fist and collapsed.
Thud! It felt like the world was crashing down.
The whole world seemed to spin before his vision soon went dark.
Before he knew it, Gang Jun was passing through countless stars.
He experienced racing at incredible speed, soon seeming to reach the end of the universe.
Ding!
[The Cosmos System has been activated!]
[You have been chosen as an Awakened of Earth!]
The 'Cosmos System' that appears upon Awakening.
Then, Gang Jun's status window appeared.
+
[Name: Gang Jun]
[Constitution: Lv20]
[Strength: Lv18]
[Agility: Lv21]
[Mana: Lv12]
[Traits]
- Assassin (A)
- Tartarus's Mask Shaman (S+)
[Skills]
- Divine Kill Lv1 / 0%
- Mask Crafting Lv1 / 0%
- Mask Arts Lv1 / 0%
+
'I gained one more trait? Thanks to that, my stats are cheat-level for someone who just awakened.... Let's take care of this bastard first.'
Gang Jun recalled the time of his first awakening.
He had awakened then too after being hit by this man's fist.
The situation was exactly the same, except that back then he had been hit for buying the wrong cigarettes.
"Oh ho...? You've got more grit than you look, huh?"
The man was confident he could knock out a healthy ordinary man with one punch.
So he found it strange that Gang Jun stood up unharmed.
Gang Jun opened his mouth nonchalantly.
"I'm thankful you awakened me, but getting hit doesn't feel good."
Bang!
"Kyaaack!"
It happened in an instant.
Gang Jun pressed the back of the square-faced man's head and smashed it down onto the corner of the table.
The surrounding people couldn't help but be shocked.
At a glance, the man had the look of a thug, while Gang Jun looked young.
'Back then, what was so scary about a guy like this...'
Gang Jun reminisced about the past.
It was a past where he had been too busy apologizing to even think of revenge.
Because twenty-two-year-old Gang Jun had been soft, unlike now.
That he, who would later take up assassination as a profession, once had a soft heart...
Realizing anew how dramatic his life had been, Gang Jun let out a self-deprecating smile.
"Uurk...!"
The square-faced man was clutching his nose, perhaps because his nasal bone was broken.
Blood kept flowing from beneath his clenched hand.
"You're a Superhuman? Even if you are, you're probably just some loser working at a convenience store."
"......."
Gang Jun grabbed the back of the man's neck tightly.
"Uwaack! S-stop it!"
The man was a Superhuman.
Because he was a Superhuman too, he could feel it.
That this guy was a human of a different dimension than himself.
"I grabbed you gently, so why are you making such a fuss? Didn't you say you were a high-and-mighty Superhuman? But this much hurts?"
Awakened have their physical abilities enhanced simultaneously with Awakening.
The increase in physical abilities is influenced by the trait's grade.
This meant there was an enormous difference in the physical ability enhancement obtained initially between an Awakened with an S-grade trait and one with an F-grade trait.
"Hand over your wallet."
"Krrgh! Okay... stop!"
At Gang Jun's words demanding his wallet, the man hurriedly pulled his wallet from his pocket.
Gang Jun took out the man's Superhuman license from the wallet.
[Bak Minsu / F-grade Superhuman License]
[Date of Birth.......]
.
.
.
[Trait Grade: 'F']
Bak Minsu's trait grade was F.
As Gang Jun had expected, Bak Minsu was a worthless Superhuman.
Judging that his Superhuman rank was also F-grade, the man's physical abilities wouldn't reach even half of his own.
"Minsu. You're really something? It's not easy to strut around like that with an F-grade trait."
"......."
Gang Jun threw Bak Minsu's Superhuman license over the charcoal fire.
Fwoosh!
The license spewed black smoke and melted away helplessly.
"You should just stick to being a thug. That suits your aptitude perfectly."
Gang Jun took all the cash from the wallet and threw the wallet at Bak Minsu's face.
"I'm taking this as compensation. You hit me too, didn't you? Say something if you have a complaint."
"......."
Bak Minsu couldn't open his mouth even if he had complaints.
"G... Gang Jun!"
The owner urgently called out to Gang Jun, who was leaving the store.
"...My shift isn't over though?"
"If you were me, would you keep working here?"
The owner regretted calling out to Gang Jun.
Gang Jun's gaze was clearly different from a few minutes ago.
It was an unfamiliar sight, enough to inspire awe.
"......."
Gang Jun turned and left.
*
He entered a small gosiwon room.
Naturally, he couldn't remember the way, but he contacted the manager saved on his smartphone and found out his address.
He lay on the narrow bed and checked his status window.
"I've awakened the same abilities I originally had."
The trait 'Assassin' was the first trait he had awakened in his previous life as well.
The trait's description was truly at a shocking level.
+
[Trait: Assassin (A)]
[Passive: Increases attack power when targeting humans.]
+
Superhumans are a profession that fights monsters threatening humanity.
At least, that was how it was commonly accepted in the world of 2020.
Therefore, Gang Jun's trait 'Assassin' was highly controversial.
'A buff to attacks targeting humans.'
When he first awakened, Gang Jun had thought this trait was a dud.
'Because I didn't know I would end up swinging my blade at people.'
At least, until he met Titan and began his activity as an Assassin.
In the world of assassination, Gang Jun was truly an unparalleled existence.
That was because traits specialized in assassination were rare.
If he had worked as a professional assassin, he would have acquired wealth incomparable to ordinary Superhuman activities.
However, Gang Jun wielded daggers solely for Titan.
He had lived fittingly as Titan's assassin.
Because he believed that was the only path to defeat Chaos.
'Even until the moment I died by their hands, I believed that.'
But that was a delusion.
To Titan, Gang Jun was merely a 'tool' for removing obstacles.
Gang Jun looked into the gosiwon's small mirror.
His boyish face felt as if it weren't his own.
'It's like I've been born again.'
The regressed Gang Jun was no longer 'Titan's dog'.
He was merely a twenty-two-year-old youth who had just awakened.
So for now, he had no connection with Titan whatsoever.
It was a situation where everything had essentially been reset.
But.
'I will make you pay dearly for betraying me....'
Gang Jun's resolve for revenge remained exactly the same.
No, it had grown even stronger.
And his ultimate goal was,
'Destroy Chaos. Alone, without anyone's help.'
Putting an end to the era of dungeons.
Now, Gang Jun's enemy was Titan, the hero of humanity.
It was practically the same as making the entire world his enemy.
The problem didn't end there.
The Titans were seven.
The Superhumans following them numbered in the thousands.
On the other hand, Gang Jun had no one on his side.
At least, for now.
'Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have a chance, but now the story is different.'
Nevertheless, Gang Jun was confident he would sweep them all away and turn the world upside down.
'Because I've gained an incredible ability.'
+
[Trait]
- Tartarus's Mask Shaman (S+)
[Skills]
- Mask Crafting Lv1 / 0%
- Mask Arts Lv1 / 0%
+
Gang Jun smiled as he looked at the status window.