“—Hyung!”
Tae Woon’s voice burst through the receiver, unusually urgent.
“You crossed the Barrier? How? Do you know someone? Besides me? Pi Minhyung and Seo Gaeun shouldn’t be there right now!”
Amid the flood of frantic words, Kim Sibaek barely found a chance to respond.
“Yeah. I ran into Section Chief Gwak.”
“…Hyung. Section Chief Gwak is two years older than me.”
“Is that so?”
“That means he’s not some kid.”
“Still, being a section chief in your thirties is impressive. What grade is that for a civil servant?”
“He’s Grade 4. It’s because he’s a Hunter. Technically, he hasn’t ranked up, but realistically, he’s probably S-rank. Anyway, he’s older than me. He’s ancient. If you round up, he’s forty. F-o-r-t-y.”
“You round up, and you’re forty too.”
“…I round mine down, thank you very much.”
Thirty-five versus thirty-seven didn’t seem like much of a difference, but since Tae Woon was oddly fixated on age, Kim Sibaek decided to let it slide. That seemed to calm Tae Woon down a bit.
“Hey, it’s okay if I text you while you’re out hunting, right?”
“Of course.”
Kim Sibaek let out a soft laugh. If a vibrating phone was enough to break his focus, he would’ve died in Mak Slechth decades ago.
“Message me all you want. I might not reply right away, though.”
Tae Woon chuckled in return. The image of a boy with a bright, clear smile came to mind, and Sibaek’s expression naturally softened. He figured, even at ninety-five, this kid would still be just as adorable.
“When do you think you’ll be back?”
“Hmm. If I find something useful, maybe sooner than expected.”
“You’ve come a long way, so when you get back, let’s have a barbecue.”
[Death and Beauty notes that calling it a ‘long way’ is an exaggeration, considering it’s just from the city to the Barrier.]
“Then I guess you’ll have to wait patiently until I come home, yeah?”
Death and Beauty’s ruthless commentary didn’t faze Kim Sibaek in the slightest.
He really didn’t need a weapon. Picking up a branch of suitable length, he snapped off the twigs with sharp, precise movements.
He had only crossed a single wall—yet what greeted him was the ruins of a collapsed civilization.
The roads were still maintained for Hunter movement, but that was all. The buildings had crumbled so thoroughly that their original forms were unrecognizable. The destruction here was far more vivid than anything seen through satellite images of Seoul. The air near monster habitats was laced with unpurified demonic energy, and the fields were overrun not with rice or fruit trees, but with rooted plant-type beasts.
He had barely stepped off the road to avoid the speeding trucks when he arrived at the location Gwak Yoonsang had told him about.
“Do you feel anything?”
[Death and Beauty says that the principles and workings of the universe can be as violent as a supernova, then as serene as dust drifting through the morning sun.]
“That’s a very poetic way of saying ‘no.’”
Peck! Peck!
“Ow.”
Rubbing the spot where he’d been pecked, Kim Sibaek glanced around, but nothing stood out. In truth, he hadn’t come expecting to find anything. He just came to confirm. The rift that once connected one world to another had vanished like mist, and the atmosphere was eerily still.
[Death and Beauty asks what he plans to do now.]
“Hmm.”
A beast had caught the scent of a human and was approaching.
“Well, since I’m here, might as well recover a little Divine Power before heading back.”
Holy energy began to radiate from the branch in his hand.
***
The grotesque creatures that threatened humanity were called “beasts” because they reproduced like living organisms. As such, they could be utilized in ways similar to natural wildlife.
Plant-type beasts could be harvested for their fruits, stems, and sap. Animal-type beasts yielded bones, hides, and meat. Of course, many were also toxic to humans.
Among them, the most valuable resource was the manastone—the beast’s heart and the source of its demonic energy. Manastones could be absorbed to temporarily boost physical abilities, melted into potion ingredients, or used as core materials to forge weapons for hunting massive beasts. They were also valuable in their own right, often refined like gemstones.
But not all Hunters could slay beasts and harvest manastones. Hunter abilities varied greatly, and many low-ranked Hunters were assigned to gather from plant-type beasts or mine ores mutated by demonic energy.
The HG Guild was made up of just such lower-tier Hunters. In truth, it was closer to a social club—formed through word-of-mouth connections among peers. Still, as a side hustle, it paid decently.
“Go, Ppyorong!”
“Ppyo-pyo!”
The Guildmaster of the HG Guild opened the cage and released a small beast she had tamed using her training ability. The one-horned rabbit could sense when fruit had reached perfect ripeness using the horn on its forehead. Most of the fruits it found offered minor mana restoration effects, and they sold for a decent price.
The guild members were busy gathering when it happened. One of them, who had been scouting the perimeter to make sure no one strayed too deep, suddenly shouted.
“Guildmaster! There’s a dead beast over there—it looks abandoned!”
“What? You sure it’s actually abandoned?”
“I saw it earlier too. It’s still lying there.”
Sure enough, a beast’s corpse was sprawled out exactly where he pointed, looking like it had been killed in a single strike. Some high-speed Hunters did leave corpses behind, so the sight itself wasn’t all that rare. The strange part was that the manastone hadn’t been extracted.
One guild member swallowed hard.
“Think it’s okay if we take the manastone…?”
“What if the original Hunter shows up and flips? Whoever did this looks seriously strong.”
Even if beasts near the Barrier weren’t much more dangerous than regular wild animals, they were still monsters. And the clean, one-strike kill made all their hearts shrink back in caution.
But then, more corpses began to turn up—one, two, three, four… the count kept rising. As the numbers grew, so did their courage. The world was big, after all. Maybe there was some ridiculously strong Hunter out there who couldn’t be bothered to stop and harvest manastones.
Ignoring the very sensible question of why such a powerful Hunter would even be in a low-tier field like this, the Guildmaster made a bold decision.
“All right. Let’s wait just thirty minutes—no, one hour. If no one shows up…”
One tense hour passed. Still, no sign of the original Hunter. The guild members kept watch while quickly moving in to skin the corpses and carve up the flesh. If the owner did show up, they were ready with their excuse: ‘We just didn’t want you to go through the trouble, Hunter-nim! We were harvesting the manastones for you!’
They were mid-extraction, busy recovering stones from the carelessly discarded corpses, when it hit them. Their noses, dulled by the rot and stench, were suddenly overwhelmed by the thick, metallic tang of fresh blood—right before a death cry rang out. The thud of a massive body, cleanly severed in two, hitting the ground came last.
“Gasp.”
The Guildmaster and the entire HG Guild froze, holding their breath.
The Hunter who had taken down the beast was a tall man. From behind, his lean, powerful back radiated quiet menace. Seeing him, the Guildmaster felt a chill run through her.
Judging by the trail of slain beasts and the fact that he still wasn’t collecting manastones, he had to be the one responsible for all the corpses they’d found.
The Guildmaster exchanged swift, nervous glances with her team. Getting their silent agreement, she prepared to speak. She hated this, but the Barrier was a lawless place—survival of the fittest. For low-tier Hunters like her, humility was a matter of survival. Pride could come later, if at all.
She was just about to deliver the line she had rehearsed so many times—‘We were just trying to help by harvesting the manastones for you, Hunter-nim!’—when—
“Guildmaster!”
A scream rang out from the scout with detection skills. By the time the warning reached their ears, it was already too late to run.
Shaaaaa!
The sky darkened. A C-rank beast—an iridescent Hoachin, rarely seen near the Barrier—soared above them with its wings outstretched. Its saw-like beak glinted ominously, more than capable of tearing a low-tier Hunter apart in a single strike. Once it was done with her, its bloodlust would turn on the rest of the guild.
So much for life flashing before her eyes. All that filled her mind in the face of death was her outstanding student loans.
I finally graduated college, spent all this time paying off debt, and now I’m going to die like this? I haven’t even finished paying it off! We named the guild after our student loan plan!
Tears welled up—not from fear, but pure injustice. Her vision blurred, swimming with tears—just in time for a brilliant flash of light to split the air. No life review, just a cruel illusion. The unfairness of it all made her want to scream.
BOOM! A heavy, earthshaking impact followed, a thick cloud of dust filling the air as something massive slammed into the ground.
