Ding-dong—
“Welcome.”
The man gave a small nod.
His messy bedhead was peppered with gray hairs, and his clothes were shabby.
Hangil, the convenience store clerk, glanced at the customer who had walked in during a quiet lull.
The man, who headed straight for the ramen aisle without returning the greeting, was a regular.
Every time he visited, he looked like a mess.
Oddly, though his face looked young, his hair was gray in patches.
It looked like the ash left behind after a fire.
He actually looked quite handsome, but he didn’t seem entirely sane.
‘He’s probably just another jobless guy like me,’ Hangil thought, losing interest and turning his attention back to his phone.
Displayed on his screen was the anonymous board of “HuntraNet,” the largest Awakened community in the country.
◈──────────◈
[Huntranet General Board]
[General] Hey, who’s the hidden master who soloed that Rank A dungeon in Busan yesterday???
Views: 14,582 / Recommendations: 1,879
Everyone knows a Rank A dungeon popped up in Busan yesterday and was bought by the All-Weather Guild within 10 minutes, right? But it was cleared in an hour, before their raid was even ready. LOL.
What’s even creepier is that the person killed the boss and left the Rank A mana stone behind. Seriously, for real. I heard it from a younger friend in the International Police Bureau in Busan. Is this that “hidden master” trend people are talking about lately? Isn’t that insane? The Hunter Association is desperately looking for them… Is it some underworld Ranker? Does anyone know who it is?
[Comments]
└ Stop making stuff up. Is soloing a Rank A dungeon as easy as robbing a convenience store? Even the No. 1 Ranker, Seong Yohan, finds Rank A solo runs tiring.
└└ Author: I’m not making it up;; The All-Weather Guild is going to post an announcement soon. They’re in an uproar because someone snatched the dungeon they bought. Anyone in Busan knows how mad they are;;
└ Wow, they didn’t take the mana stone? A Rank A stone is worth billions. They just threw that away?
└ Maybe they didn’t take it because they’d get caught? You have to go through the UNP (United Nations Police) to sell a stone.
└ There’s always the dark web, so not necessarily.
└ I work for the National Tax Service. Another unregistered Awakened… Guys, if you’ve awakened, please register with the association. Stop dodging taxes. Sigh…
└ But honestly, there have been a lot of crazy people like that lately.
└ For real… Is it the trend for veterans to cosplay as neighborhood bums because they have nothing else to do?
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“Wow, crazy. There are so many monsters in this world.”
Hangil clicked his tongue as he read the comments. Soloing a Rank A dungeon—it really struck a chord with him.
A strong, cool man!
That was Hangil’s dream, too.
Ding-dong—
“Welcome.”
Another customer entered.
Hangil greeted them without looking up, still scanning Huntranet.
The customer smelled strongly of alcohol, clearly drunk.
“Hey, this.”
Thud.
The drunk man clumsily tossed items onto the counter.
Hangil felt a flash of temper but held it back.
He wasn’t some amazing Ranker who could solo Rank A dungeons, after all.
“How much?”
“That will be twenty-four thousand won total.”
“Hey.”
The man pulled some crumpled bills from his pocket and flicked them.
The money fell to the floor.
Hangil bit his lip and bent down to pick it up.
He was genuinely annoyed.
This was the worst kind of customer.
He felt like smashing the guy’s head in.
BOOM!!!
“Aah?!”
At the sudden, deafening explosion, Hangil collapsed to the floor and squeezed his eyes shut.
It sounded like a bomb had gone off.
‘What was that?! Did this happen just because I wished I could hit him? Dammit! Hell! That actually came true?!’
Only then did his phone begin to wail with warning sirens.
[Monster Rampage near Miyang Intersection, Bongcheon-dong, 3rd District! Everyone please evacuate!]
“Aaahhh!”
“I-It’s real! It’s real!!”
The drunk customer, who had been leaving, ran back inside screaming.
He had seen the monster outside.
Hangil screamed in terror.
Looking out the window, he saw a giant, gorilla-like monster tearing through a building.
“Excuse me, the total—”
“Gwaaahhh!”
Leaving behind the man with the messy hair who had just placed his ramen on the counter, Hangil grabbed the drunk customer and sprinted out of the store.
“…”
Left alone, the man stared blankly at the scene and scratched his cheek. He pulled some change from his pocket, set it down, put his ramen in a plastic bag, and walked out of the store.
[Emergency! Emergency! Please evacuate! Please evacuate!]
Drones flew in from all directions, broadcasting warnings.
With their high-tech cameras, they were clearly United Nations Police (UNP) drones.
The gorilla monster was smashing things, searching for prey.
The man started to turn away but then stretched his stiff shoulders and cracked his neck.
He was already tired from a long walk yesterday, and this commotion was starting to annoy him.
“Good grief, really…”
Everything in the world seemed to be causing trouble.
There was a cafe next to the convenience store.
The man picked up a glass cup containing a discarded iced americano from an outdoor terrace table.
Glancing at the sky, he saw the drones malfunctioning and unable to approach, overwhelmed by the mana being emitted by the monster.
The man clicked his tongue and tossed the glass forward.
Crash—!!
A sharp, piercing sound.
The glass shattered, and droplets of ice and dark coffee rose into the air.
The gorilla monster roared and beat its chest.
The vibration caused the windows of nearby buildings to crack and scream.
The beast spotted the man standing idly in the middle of the intersection and leaped, its massive muscles launching it off the ground.
The shadow of the beast, which had jumped three stories high, fell darkly over the man’s head.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re in a hurry to get somewhere, right? Me too.”
The man nodded as if bored and flicked his fingers.
For a moment, his eyes flashed blue.
In that instant, the coffee droplets scattered in the air transformed into sharp needles.
The ice fragments, which had been suspended against gravity, vibrated in unison as they resonated with the blue mana erupting from the man’s fingertips.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!!
At that moment, the concentrated droplets struck the beast’s cheekbone like a barrage of bullets.
The monster’s face buckled and twisted to the side.
Its teeth shattered, and its eyes looked ready to pop out.
The mid-air monster was instantly sent flying backward.
Crash! Thud!
The monster tumbled across the asphalt, tearing up the road, and stopped dead without even a twitch.
A thick cloud of dust rose from where it landed.
[BEEP BEEP— Evacuate— static —please— static]
A brief silence fell over the street.
Only the sound of the malfunctioning drones echoed.
Plop.*
As the monster collapsed, the ice floating in front of the man dropped to the ground.
Frowning, the man began to walk, his black plastic bag swaying.
“Ah, my stomach hurts. It’s a struggle since this morning, really. This place is never quiet…”
The man, Moon Yigyeol, clutched his hungry stomach and grumbled.
Behind him, drones buzzed and swarmed over the fallen monster.
“Ah, my head…”
He scratched his messy hair and walked slowly.
He headed toward a “Health Center” in a corner of an alley near Miyang Intersection, its opaque windows covered in faded stickers.
[Jang-chun Health Center]
/ We brew them ourselves (Extracts, Mysterious Herbal Water) /
/ Inquiries: 010-XXXX-XXXX /
/ Mobile services available /
Moon Yigyeol opened the door and walked inside as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Just who was this shabby-looking jobless man, and why was he performing feats that only hidden high-rankers of the underworld would do?
To understand that incredible story, one must go back in time one year, to the day he first dropped into this alley.
