#2
Quickly, quickly, I need to hide somewhere.
In this bewildering situation he was experiencing for the first time, his brain wasn’t functioning properly.
Light footsteps were approaching closer and closer.
For now, somehow to this corner here.
Seo Yi-young was trying to hide his body, but the other person was one step faster.
“Oh, Hunter Seo Yi-young-nim. Hello. Good morning.”
“……What?”
Surprisingly, the person greeting him by calling his name was a man in his 50s, neatly dressed with a very pleasant demeanor. He definitely didn’t seem to be playing a prank.
Well, there was no reason for him to be pranking anyway.
However, he couldn’t feel completely at ease. To find out what was going on, Seo Yi-young carefully observed the man’s expression.
“Did you sleep well? Have you eaten? I received word that you’re entering a dungeon for conquest today – shall I prepare something simple as usual?”
The situation became increasingly incomprehensible.
Honestly, he couldn’t understand half of what the man was saying.
Hunter Seo Yi-young?
What’s a dungeon, and what’s conquest? He was casually talking about things he’d only heard in online games. Even looking at the man, it wasn’t easy to figure out whether he was lying or what he was doing. He was showing a very natural attitude, as if he was just doing what he’d always been doing.
Seo Yi-young, who had been staring at the other person, opened his mouth.
He needed to test the other person. Carefully. Indirectly.
“Um……”
“Yes.”
Seo Yi-young cautiously began to speak.
“Do you know me?”
But what actually came out of Seo Yi-young’s mouth was an overly honest question.
While Seo Yi-young was briefly suffering from self-reproach, the expression of the man who received the question became serious.
“Hunter Seo Yi-young-nim, I’ll call your personal doctor.”
Suddenly a personal doctor. However, looking at the man’s demeanor, he didn’t seem to be joking.
Seo Yi-young waved his hands and grabbed the man in front of him.
“No, no, just. Uh, well… A joke. It was a joke.”
He said with an awkward laugh. The man raised his eyebrows for a moment, then lifted the corners of his mouth. Fortunately, the word “joke” seemed to have gotten through.
“Huh. Hunter Seo Yi-young-nim’s jokes are quite extraordinary too. I’ve been working here for 2 years now, and this is the first time you’ve made such a joke. I should introduce myself as well. Hello, Hunter Seo Yi-young-nim. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Butler Choi.”
Looking at the smiling man, Seo Yi-young also laughed quietly.
It wasn’t a joke though.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to say those words out loud.
The man said he was a butler. One who works here, at that.
“When you say you work here.”
“I’ve been working under Hunter Seo Yi-young-nim for 2 years now.”
At Butler Choi’s addition, Seo Yi-young closed his mouth and rolled his eyes. So that means…
“You look a bit unwell – are you uncomfortable anywhere?”
“Uh. No. I’m not. I’ll rest in my room for a bit before going out. You don’t need to clean the room.”
Seo Yi-young, who went back into the room where he had woken up, closed the door and let out a silent scream.
What on earth is this situation?
Looking back at his conversation with Butler Choi, this house seemed to be Seo Yi-young’s house.
And the conclusion was that Butler Choi was someone Seo Yi-young had employed.
That’s when a thought suddenly popped into Seo Yi-young’s head.
[Another dimension’s me.]
Just like he had imagined before falling asleep drunk, maybe he had literally changed into another dimension’s version of himself.
How should he express this with words? Changed? Transformed? Moved?
Anyway, that wasn’t what was important.
It’s absurd, but if not that, there’s absolutely no way to explain this situation. To confirm whether he was dreaming using the classic method, he pinched his cheek, but it hurt as expected. It’s not a dream either.
Seo Yi-young stood there and looked up to survey the room.
Even just the room he was standing in was enormous in size.
He couldn’t understand what this dimension’s version of himself had done to own such a magnificent house. He suddenly felt like he’d won the lottery. Seo Yi-young, who had been stamping his feet, could finally see his reflection in the mirror.
The reflection in the mirror was Seo Yi-young, but at the same time, it wasn’t Seo Yi-young.
To be precise, it was a more robust and healthy appearance than the version of himself that Seo Yi-young knew. Even with the same face, he somehow seemed to look more handsome. Even if the skin that appeared whiter than what Seo Yi-young knew might be his imagination, he couldn’t understand why his hair was brown.
Seo Yi-young, who had been looking in the mirror with a furrowed brow, came to his senses.
Now wasn’t the time to be looking at such things.
It was more urgent to figure out where this place was and who he was.
First, he thought he should search using a phone or computer and looked around. Finding a phone wasn’t difficult. Near where Seo Yi-young had gotten up earlier, there was a phone. The phone lying on the floor looked considerably more crude than the one the original Seo Yi-young carried around. The screen wasn’t even in color and was quite small. Rather than a phone, it looked more like a walkie-talkie made slightly smaller.
Why would someone living in such a nice house carry around a phone like this? It was hard to understand.
The phone didn’t even have those common apps and seemed to only be capable of making calls. He wondered why someone who seemed to have money would use something like this. With a device like this, you couldn’t even play simple games, let alone search for things.
Sighing and looking around again, another phone on the table came into Seo Yi-young’s view. Unlike the one he was holding, that one looked sophisticated and lightweight just by its appearance.
Wondering why he had two phones, he picked it up.
The phone he discovered later was similar in shape and function to the phones Seo Yi-young knew. Seeing that it recognized Seo Yi-young’s fingerprint and unlocked, it was definitely his.
First, he should search for the things Butler Choi had mentioned.
Seo Yi-young.
Hunter Seo Yi-young.
Awakening.
Awakening grade.
Dungeon.
Dungeon conquest.
After searching by combining various words, Seo Yi-young dropped the hand holding his phone after a long while.
As he had guessed, this place wasn’t the world Seo Yi-young knew. But it didn’t end at just that level. Not only was it a different dimension, but there were too many differences.
First, Seo Yi-young was tall.
In the search results, there was a complete profile about this dimension’s Seo Yi-young. According to this profile, his height, which had been 178cm in the previous dimension, was 182cm in this dimension, surpassing the magical 180cm barrier.
Since it was a different dimension, his body was different too.
However, there was a more important issue than height.
Dungeons existed in this dimension.
When he first learned this fact, he let out a hollow laugh wondering what kind of game-like thing this was, but the more he learned, the more serious Seo Yi-young’s expression became. This was because the photos of mobs that came up looked like something you’d only see in movies.
These things come out of dungeons? What kind of creation produces things like this?
For unknown reasons, 15 years ago, dungeons suddenly appeared all over the world, and mobs came out of them to attack people. When people were helplessly being attacked by such mobs, some people awakened special abilities, and humanity was able to begin fighting back with that power.
Those who realized how to use these special abilities were called Awakeners. Among those abilities, Awakeners with powers that were useful for dungeon conquest were classified as Hunters.
The number of Awakeners rapidly increased starting 9 years ago, and the reason was because an Awakener with the ability to awaken ordinary people appeared. Thanks to this, 70% of all adult population in Korea had completed awakening.
Awakeners were divided into two types: those who awakened naturally were called Naturals, and those who awakened artificially were called Normals.
Normals had lower grades and weaker abilities compared to Naturals.
For example, there were D-grade “good at organizing” ability Awakeners, E-grade “lifting 5kg less than original weight” ability Awakeners, etc.
These were ability users whose awakening was questionable, but they definitely had advantages over ordinary people who couldn’t awaken. Because of this, they could much more easily enter fields where they could utilize their unique abilities. Even though they were at a level that was practically nonexistent compared to Naturals, they could still maintain a comparative advantage over the non-awakened majority. This was why the number of Normals continued to increase.
Of course, becoming a Normal through artificial awakening wasn’t free either. You had to pay a considerable cost to a place called an Awakening Consultation Center, and the waiting list kept growing. Currently, if you registered for the waiting list, you could meet an Awakener who would awaken you only after 2 years, but the Awakening Consultation Centers were thriving.
Since ability values increased slightly depending on how and how often you used them, it became trendy among Koreans to immediately register for the waiting list at these Awakening Consultation Centers as soon as they found out about pregnancy. The overwhelming opinion was that since you’re going to awaken anyway, it’s advantageous to start a little earlier than others by doing it in advance.
Apart from awakening factors being a plus in the job market, attempts by people aiming for post-Seo Yi-young status also never ceased.
Although most Normal Awakeners awaken minimal abilities that don’t qualify them to register as Hunters, if by some one-in-ten-thousand, one-in-a-hundred-million chance they could acquire S-grade abilities like Seo Yi-young.
People fascinated by exactly that point willingly paid costs for artificial awakening and endured long waiting times.
This was because Seo Yi-young was one of the Normal awakening Hunters.
An S-grade Healer who was extremely rare even globally. The miracle that existed right before their eyes became sufficient motivation for many people to want to become Normal Awakeners.
Seo Yi-young, who possessed healing abilities, was like a beacon of hope for prospective Normal Awakeners.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
