By Zephyria Day of the Rift
The world turned upside down on an ordinary day eleven years ago, when thunder rumbled as if the sky were about to collapse.
People, awakened by the unusually loud thunder that day, simultaneously looked up at the huge black hole in the sky. As if waiting for the gazes of many, or as if waiting for everyone to wake up, the thunder stopped as if by a lie when people looked at the sky.
Monsters never before seen poured out of the Black Hole.
The Rift instantly sucked in everything around it, and Monsters crawled out of the opened Dungeon entrance like an endless swarm of ants. Invading their lives so suddenly, they destroyed buildings and smashed the ground indiscriminately. Countless people were injured, went missing, and died. Humanity’s weapons, the products of scientific civilization, were useless against the Monsters.
People despaired in the face of an insurmountable supernatural phenomenon. They thought the Earth would end with a nuclear war, but it was going to be destroyed by Monsters from a fantasy novel! Humanity was powerless in the face of the sudden disaster.
But as if there was no law that said they had to perish without doing anything, an existence appeared that temporarily stopped the destruction….
That was the unknown white window that looked like a status screen in a game, commonly known as the ‘System’.
The System appeared in front of some people and awakened an unknown power. Those who came into contact with the System Awakened to a new power and began to fight against the Monsters. It was the signal flare for humanity’s counterattack and the first generation of Awakened to be deleted. It was the moment when beings later called Hunters appeared.
The saying that humans are animals of adaptation was not an understatement, as they rebuilt their collapsed civilization and quickly began to adapt to the new era. The leading country was the United States, followed surprisingly by Korea. Korea was one of the few countries where the government and security were not paralyzed on the Day of the Rift, and it was safe to say that it was thanks to the S-rank Awakened J, who appeared like a comet.
The only information released was the Hunter name ‘J’ and gender. The mysterious Hunter J, who hid his name, face, age, and everything else, made a spectacular appearance, cutting a level 2 Monster Sasquatch in half while covering his face with a white scarf. Since then, he has jumped into Rifts and Dungeons alike, saving countless people. He was truly a hero of a chaotic world, Captain Korea himself.
「J tears Sasquatch (physically)」
Later, after the communication network was restored, a video someone uploaded to U-tube recorded billions of views, and J became a world-renowned celebrity. Although J was only the size of a dot in the video and could not be seen properly, the sight of a black dot tearing apart a Monster the size of a building was bound to be interesting to anyone.
As expected of the hero of the Republic of Korea, a powerhouse of information and communication, where even when the world is destroyed and Monsters are dancing with swords, the cell phone camera is still alive. In any case, with J’s performance, the world seemed to be gradually stabilizing.
But the hard-won peace did not last long.
Three years later, a level 5 Rift occurred in the West Sea. Personnel dispatched from the Awakened Management Bureau and nearby Hunters entered, but all contact was lost, and the Rift greedily sucked everything in as time passed. It was predicted that if left unchecked, the Rift would swallow not only the islands of the West Sea, but also Incheon.
The government raised the risk level of the West Sea Rift from level 5 to level 1 and then made a decision.
“We will deploy S-rank Hunter J, 14 A-rank Hunters, and 30 B-rank Hunters to prevent the expansion of the Rift.”
The dispatched Hunters entered the Rift to the cheers of the people. Not long after entering, the Rift gradually stopped expanding, and a month later, it completely disappeared. People cheered and waited for the return of the heroes. But they did not return.
Three months later, the Awakened Management Bureau concluded after investigation that they had perished together with the Rift. And they officially announced the death of all of them, delivering the sad news. The government erected a memorial to honor the Hunters who bravely jumped into the Rift. J’s name was written at the top of the memorial.
Eight years since then.
Currently, 11 years after the first Day of the Rift, the government is actively conducting research on using Monster carcasses and Dungeon by-products as alternative resources. So, naturally, the Guilds switched their working methods from instantly destroying Dungeons to closing the Gate after getting their money’s worth. If they were lucky, they could get by-products that could be processed and used.
The era of the great Hunter that came instead of the 5th Industrial Revolution. Metaverse, get out of here! The center of the current era was none other than the Hunters.
Korea has a long history of hit hero movie series. So, it was only natural that the popularity of Hunters, who were no different from real-life heroes, fighting like heroes in front of their eyes without CG, exploded. Their popularity hit the upper limit every day.
It was common for birthday celebration billboards to be put up like Idols, and of course, there were endless love calls from the advertising world, and there were so many movies and dramas with Hunters as the main characters that they couldn’t even be counted. There were even Hunters who worked two jobs, like Honeybee, who was a Hunter and a model.
A world overflowing with people who admire Hunters and dream of Awakening. When you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, more than 80% shout Hunter, Dungeon slime ASMR videos are popular, and idle Hunters do unboxing broadcasts of packages with A-rank long swords. That was the Republic of Korea now.
‘Is this… right?’
But to Cha Eui-jae, a man from 8 years ago who was going through the adaptation period of the great Hunter era, all of this just… seemed like a lie. Eui-jae frowned as he glared at the books on display in the bookstore’s bestseller corner.
1st place, 『Hunters are also Hunters for the first time』
2nd place, 『The secret of the star instructor at the Noryangjin Hunter Civil Service Academy! A test that ends in half a year!』
3rd place, 『It hurts, so it’s Hunter』
:
:
What the hell does it mean to be a Hunter because it hurts? If it hurts, you’re a patient. Eui-jae made a sullen expression and slowly moved his gaze to the lower ranks. Of course, his expression crumpled even more after seeing the titles of the books below. They put Hunters on everything, even things that are useless… it’s a bit pretentious.
He glanced at it and turned his gaze away as if he hadn’t seen it, and this time he made eye contact with a man with a gentle impression wearing a suit and holding up a thumb in a public service advertisement on the wall.
‘Awakened registration inquiries hotline 777, Unregistered Person reports and Awakened crime reports 555!’
Even though he took his eyes off the bestseller list, Eui-jae’s crumpled expression did not improve.
Nine years ago, when Dungeons and Rifts were relatively stable, the government, which was suffering from the increasing number of crimes committed by idle Awakened, was determined to establish a government agency to manage the Awakened. But at that time, news reached the officials that a police university student had Awakened to S-rank.
Ah! This was surely an opportunity given by heaven. The government did not miss the opportunity and immediately established the Awakened Management Bureau, and pushed the newly Awakened police university student into the Management Bureau as a special recruit.
That person was the man in the advertisement, S-rank civil servant Hunter Jung-bin.
Cha Eui-jae had also run into Jung-bin a few times when he was active as J. They didn’t have a personal relationship, but they still exchanged greetings. At the time, there were only two S-rank Hunters in the country, so there was a certain inner sense of intimacy. But.
‘How did you end up like this?’
What on earth have you been through for the past 8 years? Eui-jae’s eyes were now filled with pity.
To put it mildly, Jung-bin’s face was featured in every public service advertisement that existed. In Eui-jae’s opinion, the Management Bureau seemed to send him out everywhere because he was a civil servant and easy to use cheaply.
He was promoting no smoking in a TV commercial the day before yesterday, promoting the 333 brushing law in a bus advertisement he saw a while ago, and here he was again promoting Awakened registration. He was probably the most famous Hunter in Korea, at least in terms of face.
While Eui-jae was mourning the actions of his former colleague, a bright-eyed girl with her hair tied up in a ponytail approached with hurried steps. A star-shaped name tag hanging from her backpack zipper dangled.
Park Ha-eun, 2nd grade, 2nd class, Saetbyeol Elementary School.
Underneath the crooked but carefully written letters, the Hanover Soup Restaurant’s phone number and address were written in tiny letters.
“Uncle, I’ve picked out all the books.”
At the title of uncle, Eui-jae naturally turned his head in that direction. Of course, they were not really uncle and niece. Ha-eun was the only granddaughter of the Grandmother, the owner of the Hanover Soup Restaurant, and Eui-jae’s family had all died on the Day of the Rift.
But at some point, Ha-eun started calling Eui-jae uncle, and Eui-jae didn’t bother to correct her. Just like his relationship with his aunt in the past.
“What did you pick?”
“This.”
『What? Day of the Rift』
The cover of the comic book that Ha-eun held out had a few cute, beautified Monsters and a young man wearing a mask drawn on it. Eui-jae was also familiar with the children’s learning comic series.
Even though the world was about to end, this learning comic is still coming out. The face of the young man drawn in the picture suddenly caught Eui-jae’s eye, who was inwardly impressed. Even aside from the black hair or white scarf, the mask he was wearing over his face was too familiar. That’s because…
‘Isn’t this a violation of portrait rights?’
…it was the mask that Cha Eui-jae wore to hide his identity when he was active as J.