Edokers, during his lifetime—back when he was still human—had been a descendant of a fallen royal bloodline. That sort of background usually invited tragic assumptions. But he neither mourned his ancestors nor harbored any resentment toward the world.
A monarchy that enacted racial discrimination into law and oppressed its people deserved to fall. Even after it came to light that the Atrebathum Empire had secretly supported the revolution, his opinion didn’t change.
If it had been the Atrebathum Empire, then that explained everything. That was the extent of his thoughts. After all, it was the Empire that had sown the seeds of integration—pushing to unify a society that had long favored humans, the dominant race in Mak Slechth, by expanding inclusion to demi-humans as well.
There had always been opposition to the Empire’s national registration system, with critics claiming it violated human rights. Yet even those critics could not deny that the policy—granting equal benefits to all citizens, human or demi-human—played a pivotal role in unifying the races of humanity.
To put it simply, Edokers held no particular grudge against the world while he was alive. And without resentment, he had no deep attachment either. He was just an ordinary man living out his days modestly—or occasionally with some grumbling.
What truly terrified him, though, was the bloodline and past he could never escape. Haunted by the fear that he would be executed if his lineage was ever discovered, he lived his entire life on the run, keeping his head down. That fear was the only extraordinary thing about him.
When Chaos recreated him as a Paladin, his human identity was erased. Just a single drop of Chaos’s monstrous malice and hatred was enough to turn him into a tool of destruction, one who cursed the god that forged Mak Slechth and set out to annihilate humanity. His fear evolved, intensifying into a sheer will to survive.
It wasn’t until his core was shattered and he was ejected as one of the weakest, most fragile fragments that Edokers began to recover pieces of his former self—his human soul. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a completely foreign world.
“…Where am I?”
The air was dense with demonic energy, yet divine power was nearly absent. The atmosphere felt bizarrely unnatural. Edokers was immediately gripped by fear. And once he realized this was a monster habitat—where creatures devoured even their own kind—his terror deepened. Powerless and stripped of his abilities, he was no more than prey.
Only one thing brought him some relief: because this world was unfamiliar, the Apostles and Paladins sent by the gods who wanted him dead would not be able to follow. Even as a mere fragment of his former self, he had survived.
Fortunately, perhaps because a trace of his power as a Paladin of Chaos still lingered, the monsters didn’t attack him. Edokers spent several days holed up in the monster den, hiding from reality, before finally regaining his composure.
He scavenged clothes from a human corpse near the outskirts of the lair. The outfit, more decorative than functional, was hopelessly flimsy—rags might have served him better.
His only stroke of luck was finding a pair of tinted glasses. The whites of Edokers’s eyes had turned pitch-black from demonic corruption, just like a monster’s. If he wanted to pass as human, his eyes needed to be covered first.
“Don’t get hunted by humans, breed well, and live long. Take care, little ones.”
He bid farewell to the monsters that had sheltered him, dragging his feet as he left. Honestly, he didn’t want to go. But he couldn’t stay buried in a monster lair forever. He needed to figure out where he was.
The only thing I know is that this isn’t Mak Slechth.
Without divine energy—his natural antithesis—he should have felt at ease. But instead, it was like walking on warped terrain, as if his sense of balance had been thrown off.
After more aimless wandering, Edokers sensed humans nearby and quickly climbed into a tree to hide. A monster, disturbed from its nest, flew off in a huff.
Then he heard voices—human voices—drifting through the forest.
“Do you think that Hunter will ever come back to the beginner field?”
“Right? I always carry gear just for mob-pulling, but they never show up.”
“Guildmaster, didn’t you exchange numbers with them? Are they planning to come back?”
“I have their number… but I’m too scared to text them. Guildmaster Tae is terrifying…”
“Ahhh.”
The others all nodded in deep sympathy. What stunned Edokers wasn’t what they were saying—it was the fact that he understood them.
In Mak Slechth, clerics didn’t need to study foreign languages or use translation artifacts. If a priest spoke language A, then all priests who served the same god could use that language fluently through divine connection. Communication was essential to proselytization.
And Chaos, even as a forgotten deity of the ancient age, was no exception. As a Paladin—effectively a priest—of Chaos, Edokers could understand the language of this strange world. Which meant…
A gleam of hope lit his face.
I’m not alone!
This meant there were others—beings aligned with Chaos—not just beasts, but kin in this world.
***
“I don’t know what the requirements are to become a Paladin of Chaos.”
Just as gods chose Apostles and Paladins from among humanity, Chaos chose its Paladins from humans as well. No Apostle of Chaos had ever appeared in Mak Slechth, but its Paladins had always been human.
Even after defeating one, sometimes no one ever found out who they had been. And even when their identity was revealed, no meaningful pattern emerged.
Kim Sibaek sometimes thought maybe that was a blessing.
“Because it would start a witch hunt?”
“…Exactly. Like a king who hears a prophecy that a baby born this year will steal his throne—and decides to kill every infant just to be safe.”
Some believed that even such drastic measures were necessary to protect humanity as a whole. But Kim Sibaek found that hard to accept. Could a world where the innocent were condemned and sacrificed—solely because of some faint, hypothetical risk of becoming a future disaster—truly be called just?
Tae Woon gave a wry smile.
“Doesn’t really suit you when you say stuff like that, hyung.”
“I told you, I’m not making sacrifices.”
Kim Sibaek gently patted Tae Woon on the thigh.
“My life’s not in danger, and I haven’t lost anything. I’m just doing a bit of what others aren’t while I wait for a chance to go back. And once I finish it, there’s a reward I actually need.”
He added with a casual smile that, so far, all he’d done was hang around in cafés and go through the Hunter registration process.
As they talked, only one person remained ahead of Kim Sibaek in line. The memory surfaced—during their visit to the Director’s office a few days ago, Director Noh had expressed her intent to register him immediately as an S-rank Hunter, but Tae Woon had declined. At the time, he’d meant to ask why but had forgotten.
Now that it came to mind, he decided to bring it up.
“Why did you do that?”
Tae Woon’s lips quirked into a slanted grin—a boyish, mischievous smile he only ever showed to Kim.
“I figured just announcing you as S-rank wouldn’t get much traction. Sure, once your abilities come to light, people will fall in line. But at first? They’ll say I pulled strings and forced the promotion. And let’s be honest, hyung, I’ve got plenty of enemies—being this cute comes at a price.”
“Right…”
[Death and Beauty pleads with you to stop tormenting yourself with thoughts like ‘maybe the whole world is your enemy.’]
“I also didn’t want you getting caught up in any nasty rumors. So I figured, if we’re going to make a splash, let’s do it right. A nameless Hunter with enough talent to throw the entire Management Center into chaos suddenly bursting onto the scene? You couldn’t buy better publicity. The effect will be massive.”
Though their methods differed, Kim Sibaek agreed with the need to raise his public profile. He wasn’t in a position to be picky—not if he wanted to restore his divine power.
“How do they confirm an Awakening at the Center? Do I just show off some abilities?”
He was already thinking he might have to inflict a minor wound on himself, since it was unlikely someone would conveniently get hurt on the spot—but Tae Woon’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“They measure your mana.”
“…What?”
“They calculate the total mana in your body first. Based on that, they assign you a preliminary rank between F and C. Then you can rise through the ranks based on your performance as a Hunter.”
Tae Woon went on to explain that the lower ranks were mostly tied to mana quantity, but it wasn’t absolute. A D-rank could easily outperform a C-rank in actual combat.
“But if someone’s mana is way above average, they can get a higher starting rank. A-rank is usually the cap for initial assessments, but if a Hunter has that much mana, reaching S-rank is just a matter of time.”
“…”
“Hyung, you’ll definitely test as A-rank, right? That’ll make you the next big thing. Interviews will be flooding in. You’ll be super, super popular. And when they release merch, I’m buying everything… Even if a ton of fans show up saying they love you, don’t abandon me, okay? I’m your number-one fan. Always have been. Always will be. Woonie—your eternal little cutie…”
Watching Tae Woon grin, lost in his blissful fantasy, Kim Sibaek found himself unable to speak the truth.
