Chapter 1 – Awakening Hunter
I woke up.
Inside a dark room.
With a hazy mind, I groped for my cell phone.
The brightly shining LCD screen automatically frowns.
8:42 a.M.
After playing the game until late yesterday, I thought I woke up early.
‘Should I go or not.’
I was worried.
The condition was not bad.
The time was right.
But I couldn’t help but think that it was annoying.
‘Let’s go.’
I made up my mind and raised my heavy body.
With a hazy mind, I went to the bathroom and washed my face moderately.
I saw a familiar face in the mirror.
Blurred eyes and torn eyes.
Ugly beard.
Expressionless face.
Below, I could see the figure of an old man with a flat stomach and side meat that was slightly protruding from where his firm and curved abs had gone.
The unmanaged body swelled.
“It sucks.”
I had to manage it a bit, but I didn’t have the same enthusiasm as before.
I got out of the bathroom and lightly took a glass of water from the refrigerator and drank it.
It felt like my mind was clearer in the cool water.
I had to get ready to go out.
Every time I saw the combat suit on the cradle in the corner of the equipment room, I felt a complicated feeling.
Considering the money invested here, it was inevitable.
I took out my battle suit from the cradle and put it on.
Despite the swollen body, it fit well like a custom fit.
It’s not high-end, but it was a reinforced combat suit with a size adjustment function that was bought with expensive money at the time, and had good cost-effectiveness.
If I had bought a cheap one, it wouldn’t have fit my swollen body.
I put on the helmet and lowered the visor to check the suit’s energy level.
The remaining amount shown on the display was showing 65%.
It was enough for a day’s worth of writing.
After charging, I decided to go back and pack my equipment and left the house.
.
.
.
Ten years ago, in her fourth year as a supporter, she felt her senses expand.
I thought it was an awakening.
I hurriedly received an expensive magic test, but as before, I was not judged as an Awakener.
I don’t know if it’s a natural ability that emits conspicuous fire or lightning.
“My senses have become sensitive.”
If I had to say that, it would have sounded nothing but bullshit to the measurement staff.
It was because there were many people who made strange noises about magic power measurement and blamed it on machines.
It was obvious that I would be treated the same as those guys.
Still, I thought I had awakened.
If not, he couldn’t explain what the sensation he felt was beyond that of an ordinary human being.
I’ve seen D-class enhancement type talents on You Tube who boasts a reaction speed to avoid bullets.
If there was a difference between him and the Awoken, it was his physical ability.
I can see the flying bullets, but I can’t dodge them.
Even if he saw and recognized it, it was because he did not have the physical ability to avoid it.
Awakeners basically improve their physical abilities when they awaken.
Not to mention those with enhanced abilities, even F-class natural Awakeners, who are evaluated as having weak physical abilities, show the physical strength of active athletes.
My physical ability was at the level of an F-class natural awakener, but this was the result of training, not awakening.
If he had awakened, it was only natural that he would have a higher level of physical ability than that, and since his physical ability remained the same, he wondered if it would not reach the level of the awakened person’s magical power even if he measured his magical power.
Of course, by running around and proving your superpowers, you might be able to be recognized as an awakened person.
But when I thought of the effort to make him understand every word of it, I got annoyed.
It is a half awakening.
Even if he was recognized with difficulty, it was obvious that he would be F-class.
He couldn’t even imagine that he would be able to hunt properly among the awakened people with a half awakening.
As a special case, a tiring situation could have occurred.
He knew it was good to be recognized as an Awakener, but he didn’t feel much of a benefit compared to the effort and risk of making it.
At this time, I thought it might be a little longer.
He thought there was hope.
10 years passed like that.
I was still a half Awoken.
The halfway awakening made me wander through the gate for 10 long years.
Now that I wake up, I must be F-class, and since I am old, how many more years will I have to work hard to become D-class?
No, I might not be able to get out of F class for the rest of my life.
In just a few more years, I will be forty.
After belatedly realizing the reality, I felt complicated emotions.
10 years of running for awakening.
The wise man’s time has come to fatigue and futility.
There are many days off at home.
It was a bit boring to just roll around in a daze.
Before the gate exploded, I remembered that I liked the game quite a bit.
At the time, I was obsessed with the atmosphere and awakening of the world that might be ruined, so I naturally stopped doing it.
I was bored and started playing the game while reminiscing about past memories.
And the game I played after a long time was more fun than I thought.
There was convenient delivery food where you could eat what you wanted when you were hungry.
I stayed up all night watching the ending of the game, and when I was tired from playing the game, I lay down and went to You Tube’s algorithm with my smartphone.
It was quite fun to live the life of an unemployed person who started without thinking.
I enjoyed the game by reducing the number of times I went to the gate.
While rolling at the gate for more than 10 years, various interesting games were out in the world, and it was returning to the convenient world of the past.
The conveniences of the modern world, which once almost collapsed, were addictive.
Belatedly, I fell into a life of self-isolation, a game of abusive people.
These days, I often think that this kind of life is not bad.
.
.
.
Incheon Songdo Gate.
The shimmering of the huge space over 50 meters is always spectacular.
It is one of two remaining unexplored gates in Korea.
Compared to Jeju Island Gate, which was abandoned early, it was included in the priority list from the beginning because it was closer to Seoul.
An endless jungle far beyond expectations.
I still couldn’t figure out where the end was.
It has been more than 10 years since the attack began, and now, rather than calling it an attack, it has become more familiar to be called a pioneer. There were speculations that this gate might be a planet in another dimension or a distant universe.
Inside the gate, a fortress is built by building a huge wall around the gate, and around the fortress, the government and hunter guilds create their own satellite camps to exploit and attack at the same time.
In the early days of the occurrence of the gate, the vicinity of the ruined Songdo Gate was surrounded by numerous buildings, both inside and out, forming a city, and vehicles and people were constantly coming in and out of the gate.
I bought a hamburger set at a hamburger restaurant inside the gate fortress and headed outside the fortress.
The direction was taken to the south.
There was no particular reason.
That kind of passion for collecting information and making money disappeared in the first place, and now it almost feels like drinking.
No matter which way you go, the profits will be the same.
Today I just felt like going south.
I left the fort and walked along the road leading to the satellite camp.
The 2km radius of the fort had all the trees cut down in preparation for an unexpected monster attack, so the view was clear.
The satellite camp can be reached by going more than 10 kilometers along this road.
If you are a supporter, you may not know the satellite camp, but there is nothing to do other than people-watching if you are a hunter with no awareness like yourself.
Of course I had nowhere to go.
Before entering the jungle after walking for 20 minutes, I sat down on a huge tree stump, ate a hamburger I bought for breakfast and lunch, and took out my tablet to check the map.
This is because we have to plan today’s farming route.
The map was heavily marked.
This map is a trace of the life of a hunter at the same time as cutting down on food.
The points of fruits and herbs that could be farmed that he learned while living as a hunter for a long time were marked on the map.
There were some places that overlapped with other unconscious hunters, and some places that only he knew.
The profit of a blind hunter is determined by how many points only he or she knows.
I am a mindless hunter.
Unawakened Hunters gather mainly in gates that have been attacked or areas that have been subjugated to some extent, such as here, which have been stabilized.
It was also the reason why people called blind hunters Simmani.
Even if you’re a mindless hunter, the pay isn’t bad.
If you work hard, you are guaranteed higher profits than ordinary office workers.
For awakened hunters, this is not a cost-effective option, but for non-awakening hunters, considering the hope and stability towards awakening, it was not a bad option.
Awakening probability increases inside the gate.
This is a story guaranteed by the government and the Hunter Association.
On TV, ordinary people who awakened at the gate got on the broadcast without being bored, and many aspiring awakeners died because they were caught here.
It was stabilized in its own way, but it wasn’t that there were no monsters leaking from the front, and especially the sudden dimensional rift was a disaster for hunters with no awareness
The tablet’s farming route data was transferred to the battle suit.
Then, after sucking on the remaining Coke, he stood up.
