Chapter 4

Transcender of Time and Space aside, “Seed of the Great Apocalypse”?

Even an elementary school kid passing by could tell that sounded ominous as hell.

While I just stared silently into empty space, Ryu Taeyoung asked again.

“Are you an Awakened?”

Well, I guess it makes sense. They say I killed the protagonist nine hundred and ninety-nine times.

I gave up on maintaining this suspicious silence and answered.

“I think I just awakened.”

Judging by how my rank went from nothing to F, it seemed like I’d gained power from this incident. But strangely, there was far too much that didn’t match the novel I’d read. And it wasn’t just because the narrator had shifted from Kwon Taehan to me.

How the hell should I deal with this bastard Lim Sungyeon?

While I was lost in thought, Ryu Taeyoung asked once more.

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Not really.”

Since I had nothing else to add, I nodded. Ryu Taeyoung stared at me for a moment, then, after a brief silence, produced his hunter license and introduced himself.

“Hello. I’m Ryu Taeyoung, captain of the Gate Special Response Team.”

“......”

Ah, so now we’re doing introductions... right now?

I didn’t bother hiding the reluctance on my face as I replied slowly.

“Seo Jehyun.”

Apparently that was indeed what he’d been after, because Ryu Taeyoung continued.

“First, I’d like to apologize for the critical accident that could have occurred due to a management failure on our part. We’ll guide you through the compensation process at a later time.”

Nearly died just now and it’s “we’ll get back to you later”? Outstanding work ethic. My face was probably showing exactly how unimpressed I was, but Ryu Taeyoung went on without comment.

“Since you’ve been confirmed as having awakened, would it be alright if we went together now so we can assist you with Awakened registration?”

“What happens if I don’t register?”

Given we’re in a country with national ID cards, the answer was obvious. Still, I asked. Ryu Taeyoung rattled off his response like a machine.

“If you knowingly fail to register after awakening, or if you register with false information, you can be sentenced to no less than three and no more than five years in prison.”

“So it’s mandatory.”

“Yes.”

Well, what do you want me to say? Even after finishing, he kept staring at me. Then, # Nоvеlight # in a hard tone, he asked again.

“But, Mr. Seo Jehyun.”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain you just awakened?”

***

It had been four years and ten months since the first Gate appeared. The first one had been, quite literally, a “catastrophe.”

The very first Gate emerged right in the heart of Busan’s Saha District. At 6:30 p.m. on a weekday evening, during the crowded commute home, a tiny crack appeared in the air. At first it looked like a thin line drawn in space, but over time it grew. A week later, monsters began pouring through the gap.

The first dungeon break.

Strictly speaking, a Gate is, as the name suggests, a kind of “door.” So what lay beyond it?

After repeated trial and error and persistent research, humanity reached a conclusion: it was another world entirely, nothing like Earth. Inside Gates, there could be deep seas, jungles, caves, even rooms, voids of nothingness, labyrinths, or fantastical places straight out of fiction or myth.

Before each of these environments was given its own name, people noted how they resembled game dungeons and began calling the inside structures “dungeons.” A dungeon break was when the Gate could no longer contain the dungeon’s power, bursting open and spilling its monsters into the outside world.

So, what happened to Saha District when the first break hit?

It was pure pandemonium. The twenty-three people nearest the Gate died in just seven seconds. Authorities rushed to cordon off the area and evacuate civilians, but the casualty count still reached 133.

But with “catastrophe” comes the inevitable rise of “heroes.” And heroes grew stronger the more dire the crisis. Korea’s first hero was an eighteen-year-old high school student named So Yeji, attending a girls’ high school nearby.

She awakened while walking home from evening self-study. Being the first Awakened, there was no precedent. But she instinctively grasped how to wield her power, and marched straight out to freeze every fire-breathing monster spilling out, closing the Gate behind her.

It was sheer luck—her ice ability countered the hellfire-spewing monsters perfectly, and she was a higher rank than the Gate itself. Looking back now, the Saha District Gate would barely rate as a high C-rank.

That Gate, far from even B-rank, had brought immense tragedy, but also gifted Korea its first A-rank hunter.

From Saha onward, Gates began appearing all over the world. And so did hunters—those capable of dealing with them.

Hunter abilities varied wildly. Some conjured fire from thin air, some controlled minds, others healed people. Each Awakened in their own way, amid danger. Abilities differed by individual, but as things became more structured, people began naming them—sometimes plainly (“Restraint,” “Flight”), sometimes figuratively (“Ring of Fire,” “Shadowstep”).

Thanks to research and international cooperation, a shared lexicon for hunters began to take shape.

As the number of hunters grew, so did the systems for handling Gates.

Researchers raced to determine the cause of Gate emergence and predict the next appearance. It was an unprecedented extinction-level crisis, and nations devoted massive attention to it.

The cause of Gate appearances remains unknown, but research hasn’t been fruitless.

The inexplicable energy in hunters’ powers matched the energy detected near Gates. This was dubbed Gate Energy (GE), or simply “mana.” Researchers found that wherever mana levels spiked sharply, a Gate would appear, as if by law.

Dungeon environments varied, but the strategy was always the same: kill the dungeon’s boss monster—the creature with the greatest mana concentration—and the Gate would naturally close. Letting mana build past a certain threshold caused the dungeon break, so clearing Gates immediately, or within a week at most, was best.

If a break happened—like today—damage was inevitable.

As Gate research and mana studies progressed, so did hunter systems. Initially, Awakened were required to register with the state and serve as public hunters. Now, things had changed.

Some worked solo, but most joined organizations, broadly falling into three categories:

First, state-employed hunters—Korea’s so-called Gate Special Response Teams, or “Special Response” for short. Second, the Hunter Association (“Hunter Assoc.”), an international body formed to counter government exploitation. And lastly, guilds—private outfits founded by hunters, hiring other hunters or civilians.

So what drove guilds, which weren’t public servants or association members? Altruism?

Unfortunately, humanity wasn’t that noble. Before long, people discovered that dungeons hid tremendous resources. Some came from monster corpses, others could be mined from the dungeon itself. And, as if to prove “high risk, high return,” the harder a dungeon was to clear, the better the loot it yielded.

Of course, it wasn’t easy to obtain dungeon goods. But once hunters brought them out and processed them, the results—depending on the resource—could be priceless.

As a result, entering Gates had become a game of opportunistic timing.

Back to the present.

Ryu Taeyoung, captain of Special Response Team 1, was wondering how to deal with the brazenly lying hunter in front of him.

A rare Gate had torn open the ground—a deep-sea type, no less—and because it was detected late, it had already broken. For most people, panic would be the natural reaction.

But this hunter—no, Seo Jehyun—seemed oddly unmoved. He’d even calmly pointed at the wrecked building and asked if Ryu could “see that.”

His home, destroyed by the Gate. Any normal person would be shocked or despairing, but Seo Jehyun only asked about compensation, in a level voice.

That alone might have been fine.

But the reason Ryu suspected he was an unregistered hunter was his use of a skill.

Could a newly awakened hunter really stay calm when a Kraken’s tentacle came down on their head? And those suction cups contained a deadly toxin. A hunter with poison resistance might manage, but otherwise it was dangerous.

Yet Seo Jehyun had simply flicked the tentacle away.

Someone else might not have recognized what he’d done—but Ryu did. The skill was far too similar to his own. Compressing air into a shield wasn’t something a first-timer could pull off.

He himself trained daily to manipulate air freely. Not that he minded the training—it was only right for the stronger-than-average to prove they weren’t a threat to ordinary people.

That was why he’d chosen public service. And for the same reasons, he despised hunters who failed to register for personal gain. Their motives were always the same: self-interest over public good.

And yet Seo Jehyun, after flicking away the Kraken’s tentacle, had the gall to ask him, “What happens if I don’t register?”

Ryu Taeyoung wasn’t the type to dislike someone at first sight. But with Seo Jehyun, it was hard to feel anything positive.

Not register? A hunter? And one who was clearly at least B-rank?

Looking at the man before him—speaking in an overly calm voice, handsome in a slightly brooding way—Ryu’s brows knit ever so slightly. He was irritated. Not just because of the hidden ability, but because that face showed no hint of feeling, even as his house split apart and people were getting hurt.