“Kim Seo-ryong.”
“…Me?”
“I assume your uncle already explained the details.”
“Uh, yes.”
“Your parents didn’t come down with you—so we’ll be tweaking the backstory a bit. Kim Jeong-baek is your legal guardian, your actual uncle, and I’m a close friend of his.”
“Okay.”
“When you refer to me, just casually call me Uncle too.”
“Okay, Uncle.”
Quick on the uptake. Cha Eui-sung let out a satisfied little hmph, and Kim Jeong-baek’s posture straightened even more.
“I’m not expecting anything major. Just go about your school life as usual, and act like I’m your uncle. No need to pretend you like me. I’ll do all the pretending myself.”
“Sorry? Oh… got it, I’ll do that.”
Maybe she thought she was going to be asked to do something big. Her youthful face briefly twisted in confusion, then quickly returned to calm.
Not particularly moody—she didn’t seem overly mature for her age, just sharp-witted. Despite being in an unfamiliar place with an unfamiliar adult, she showed no sign of fear, which made her quite useful.
Just as Cha Eui-sung turned to leave after their strangely ceremonial meeting—
“That guy looks like a pushover.”
“Tsk, don’t say weird stuff.”
The muttered whispers fading behind him made him chuckle. Maybe the kid had been around Kim Jeong-baek for a while. The two of them already seemed to click.
He didn’t care what they said about him behind his back, but it seemed wise to warn Seo-ryong to keep her mouth shut around Moon Tae-young to avoid unnecessary trouble.
‘Then again, how would an ordinary person ever suspect that there are two S-rank-level Awakeners in a countryside elementary school?’
Thankfully, by all appearances, Moon Tae-young wasn’t the kind of Demon King to bully the weak, so it didn’t seem likely he’d openly suspect Seo-ryong or treat her poorly.
Cha Eui-sung glanced back to see the moving truck from the relocation center kicking up dust as it disappeared into the distance.
Soon, even the noise was gone.
…
The bright green leaves trembling in the breeze, the endless fields stretching out before him—it all felt strangely peaceful.
And yet, rather than soothing, it left a sour taste. Like the calm before a storm, his nerves stood on edge.
He quietly looked down at his phone. The screen was off, and the blue sky reflected across its black surface.
— Kkiieeeee!
— KWAANG! BOOM!
— AAAAAAGH!
In an instant, like a hallucination, the sky turned blood red. The echoes of destruction screamed in his ears.
The final sound: a sickening splutch, like a watermelon splitting open, as his vision blinked out.
Hoo…
Who would believe him if he said the world collapsed just a few weeks ago? No one—absolutely no one would.
Even Cha Eui-sung, who had experienced it all firsthand, was starting to wonder if it had all been a dream—just because he’d met Moon Tae-young from ten years ago.
If not for the ever-present gauge that appeared every time he opened his status window…
SAVE THE WORLD
[SAVIOR GAUGE]
■■■□□□□□□□
□□□□□□□□□□
13%
“Damn it.”
Because of that gauge, he could never get the Demon King bastard out of his head. Even now, standing before a high-tier unregistered Awakener, he kept thinking of Moon Tae-young—the man who, back then, had bent over to offer him a handkerchief after he had coughed up blood.
That giant hand, acting with overwhelming strength despite his ghostly pallor—as if he’d forgotten all sense of self-preservation…
‘He doesn’t seem unaware of danger, at least.’
It would’ve been better if the guy had just tried to stab him in the back—at least then his fighting spirit would’ve flared up. Instead, Cha Eui-sung smothered his unease with a few tongue clicks and shoved his hands into his pockets.
The restriction against killing the Demon King, strangely enough, made him feel more at ease—and that, in itself, was deeply unpleasant.
***
Late at night. The country roads lay deserted, the only sound the chorus of insects.
Cha Eui-sung didn’t drive. He muted his footsteps and ran soundlessly into the darkness.
His tight-fitting black clothes clung to his body, the sleeves cinched snug with not a single flutter. On the pitch-black mountain trail he intentionally veered onto, he looked half like the subject of a local ghost story.
Just over this mountain lay a dungeon. Estimated to have spawned earlier that very dawn. He planned to slip inside under cover of night.
To make this cycle of life even a bit easier, he needed to hinder the Hunter Association’s monopoly. That meant carefully nudging the power balance among the ruling elite.
In other words, he had to make sure dungeons and items didn’t fall into the hands of the Hunter Association, the government, or select private corporations. He had to lay down his own groundwork.
Thankfully, from a returnee’s perspective, this wasn’t all that difficult.
‘This one’s perfect to grab and dash.’
This special dungeon—later known as the Jeongchoduk Dungeon—was originally classified as C-rank when it first appeared. But just before it was cleared, a monster close to S-rank suddenly showed up.
The boss monster massacred exactly half the party before the dungeon’s rank was downgraded to C. The remaining members barely made it out alive.
What emerged from that dungeon was the Gigas Armor—gear later used by one of the S-rank Hunters.
At the time, the Hunter Association held a grand memorial for their fallen Hunters and claimed ownership of the Gigas Armor. Leveraging its loan as a condition, they gained private corporate support in their power struggle against the government’s Bureau of Regulation. One of Oh Se-dan’s major accomplishments.
‘Once a new dungeon appears, Hunters usually arrive within five hours…’
That meant he had to clear the dungeon and exit within that window. Once the dungeon reset, no one would be able to trace him.
Tak!
His foot struck the ground with force as he came to a halt on a deserted mountain path. A newly formed dungeon gate glowed softly before him.
The air split open like a cracked pane of glass, with a swirling portal inside that looked straight out of a video game.
Cha Eui-sung pulled on his gloves, clenching and unclenching his fists a few times. Then he slung something off his back into his hand—a metal pipe, roughly 150 cm long.
‘Let’s see if this’ll hold up.’
Back when he worked as a Hunter, most melee weapons couldn’t withstand Cha Eui-sung’s strength. Only A-rank or better were usable, and anything above A-rank either had to be registered or sourced through the black market—neither of which was an option at the moment.
So he came prepared with something cheap and disposable, expecting it to break after a few uses anyway.
Shhh—
He stepped through the rift, wide enough for two people to stand side by side, and the world before him shifted. The dark mountain path became the ruins of a collapsed ancient civilization.
Dungeon raid—commencing.
Thwack!
He kicked off the ground, and his body launched forward like a bolt. The scenery blurred around him, and soon, beasts resembling wild animals began charging with glowing red eyes.
Cha Eui-sung quickly counted the approaching monsters, then suddenly kicked off a wall and leapt over them. The ones charging ahead skidded and turned, colliding with the wave that had been pursuing him. In an instant, the mob was clumped into one perfect, tight knot.
Now.
Cha Eui-sung raised the long metal pipe lightly. Around him, spear-like energy shapes shimmered into existence.
Shuuuu— KA-BOOM!
With a thunderous explosion, the entire ruined plaza—where the monsters had gathered—was blown through.
Blood sprayed in all directions. Walls crumbled with a rumble, clouds of dust billowed into the air.
SKREEEE—!
A brief chorus of dying screams rang out.
Then, as the dust settled, silence. Not even the sound of a pebble rolling.
Cha Eui-sung emerged from the carnage with a face devoid of emotion. The way he flicked the blood from the pipe was smooth, practiced—almost elegant.
With each step forward, the crushed, severed remains of monsters squelched beneath his feet.
Tsk… already bent.
Even if construction materials nowadays were alloys mixed with dungeon byproducts, this was pitiful. And that was with him holding back.
The monsters that followed never even got to taste the pipe. Cha Eui-sung crushed and shattered them one by one with ruthless kicks and flying rocks.
After about two hours, he reached the dungeon’s end. Past a row of ruined buildings stood the entrance to a crumbling, massive castle.
In the unsettling silence, Cha Eui-sung raised his gaze to the towering structure. Just as expected, a prickling sensation brushed the back of his neck.
Tat!
He swiftly leapt backward—just in time for a house-sized golem to crash down right where he’d been standing.
KA-WHAM! RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—
Finally, it appeared—the Sentinel of the Giant.
The boss of the Jeongchoduk Dungeon was a machine-type monster with a raw, unpolished design, its body segmented with exposed joints and ceaselessly grinding gears.
According to past records, the Sentinel of the Giant had never paused for even a second once it emerged—its assault was unrelenting from the very first moment.
And sure enough, before Cha Eui-sung could so much as get a read on the battlefield, the golem’s massive arm was already swinging toward him.
Shrrriek—! KWAANG! WHAM! WHAM!
Attacks came crashing down in a blur, impossibly fast for something of that size, and Cha Eui-sung had no choice but to kick into high gear. Rolling, leaping, dodging with sharp precision—he evaded a dozen strikes in quick succession, but the monster showed no signs of letting up.
There were only two ways to clear this dungeon, as he’d learned in his second run: either sacrifice half the entrants as offerings, or ignore the rules and just break it by brute force. What Hunters call DPS Overwhelm.
But right now, Cha Eui-sung lacked a proper weapon, and he absolutely had to be out of here before sunrise. Charging in with nothing but a steel pipe? Entirely uneconomical.
So then what—should he sacrifice half of himself, since he was alone? Maybe vertically? Or horizontally?
Absurd.
Cha Eui-sung ducked back again, narrowly dodging another crushing blow, and pulled a small box the size of a match case from his pocket.
He quickly opened it and threw its contents toward the Sentinel of the Giant.
Flutter—! Fzzzzzt!
CRACK!
The beetle, which had spread its wings and taken flight, was obliterated midair by the hurtling hunk of metal.
Giiiiii—
Then something strange happened. The monster that had just crushed the beetle abruptly paused. The gears grinding within its segmented frame began turning in reverse with a harsh, stuttering clank.
At the same time, its glowing red eyes noticeably dimmed.
Got it.
Rank downgrade.
As expected, the boss monster had changed—just as he’d anticipated. A faint smile tugged at the corner of Cha Eui-sung’s lips.
