Ding-a-ling—
“Welcome.”
Bow. The man lowered his head. His disheveled hair was sparsely mixed with white strands, and the clothes he wore were shabby.
Convenience store employee Hangil glanced at the customer who’d entered during a lull.
Without even greeting him, the man who swiftly headed to the ramen corner was a frequent customer.
The man who came every time with a shabby appearance was oddly young-faced, yet his hair was graying in patches. It looked like ash-colored hair that had been burned and left behind. His features seemed decently handsome, but he didn’t seem quite normal either.
He’s probably an unemployed bum who stays home like me. Hangil lost interest and focused on his phone again.
On his phone was the anonymous bulletin board of ‘Huntranet,’ the nation’s largest Awakened community.
◈──────────◈
[Huntranet General Board]
[Free] Yo, who’s the powerhouse chad who solo cleared yesterday’s Busan A-rank dungeon???
Views: 14,582 / Likes: 1,879
You all know that A-rank dungeon that appeared in Busan yesterday got auctioned off to Busan All-Weather Guild within 10 minutes, right? But before they could even prepare for the raid, it was cleared within an hour of spawning lololol;;;
What’s even more chilling is that they killed the boss and left without taking the A-rank magic stone. For real. I heard it from a younger buddy who’s with the International Police Agency in Busan. Is this the class of powerhouse chads these days??? Isn’t that crazy?? I heard the Hunter Association is desperately searching for them too lolololol Are they some underground world ranker??? Does anyone know their identity???
[Comments]
└ Bullshit ㄴㄴ What is A-rank solo clearing, raiding a neighborhood convenience store? Even rank 1 Sung Yohan finds A-rank solo clearing tiring.
└└ Author: Not bullshit;;; All-Weather Guild will post an announcement soon. They’re going crazy right now about someone taking the dungeon they won. Everyone in Busan knows they’re pissed;;;
└ Wow, they didn’t take the magic stone? An A-rank magic stone is worth billions, and they threw it away?
└ They probably didn’t take it because they’d get caught if they did, right? You always get caught by UNP (United Nations Police) if you try to sell magic stones.
└ There’s the dark web too, so not always
└ I’m a tax office employee. Another unregistered Awakened… Guys, please register with the Association if you’ve awakened. Don’t evade taxes. Geez….
└ But there are surprisingly many crazy bastards like this lately.
└ For real… These days the trend for veterans is to cosplay as neighborhood bums because they have nothing to do?
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“Wow, crazy. There really are a lot of monsters in this world.”
Hangil clicked his tongue while reading the comments. Solo clearing an A-rank dungeon, no less. It struck his heart deeply. A strong, cool man! That was Hangil’s wish too.
Ding-a-ling—
“Welcome.”
Another customer entered. Hangil greeted them without looking and thoroughly scoured Huntranet. The customer reeked heavily of alcohol, as if thoroughly drunk.
“Hey, this.”
Thud.
The drunk man threw items onto the counter one by one with drunken gestures. Hangil felt irritation rising inside him for a moment but held it back. He wasn’t some badass ranker who solo cleared A-rank dungeons, after all.
“How much?”
“Twenty-four thousand won in total.”
“Hey.”
The man roughly pulled bills from his pocket and threw them. The bills fell to the floor. Hangil gritted his teeth in patience as he bent down. He was genuinely getting irritated. This kind of asshole was the worst kind of asshole. He wanted to just slam his head down hard.
KWAAAAANG!!!
“Oh my god!!”
At the sudden ear-splitting tremendous noise, Hangil collapsed on the spot and squeezed his eyes shut. It was the sound of destruction, as if a bomb had been dropped. What the?! Did it appear because I thought I wanted to hit him? Damn it! Shit! Did that kind of thing actually come true?!
Then belatedly, his phone started blaring warning sounds with beep beep—beep beep—.
[Monster rampage in progress at Miyang Intersection, Bongcheon-gu 3-dong! Everyone evacuate!]
“Aaaaaah!!”
“I-it’s real, it’s real!!”
The drunk customer who’d been leaving opened the convenience store door and came back in, screaming at the top of his lungs. He’d seen the monster outside. Hangil screamed in fear. Looking outside, there really was a giant gorilla-like monster tearing apart buildings.
“The checkout here—”
“Aaaaaah!!”
Leaving behind the man with disheveled hair who’d placed ramen on the counter, Hangil quickly fled outside the convenience store, dragging the drunk customer with him.
“……”
The man left alone blankly watched the scene, then scratched his cheek while sniffing. Then he took out change from his pocket, placed it down, put the ramen in a bag, picked it up, and walked out of the convenience store.
[Emergency! Emergency! Please evacuate! Please evacuate!]
Drones flew in from all directions in the sky, broadcasting warning messages. The reconnaissance drones equipped with the latest cameras were clearly United Nations Police (UNP) drones.
The gorilla monster destroyed things here and there, searching for prey. The man was about to turn around when he stretched his stiff shoulders and rolled his neck. He was already tired from taking a long walk yesterday, and now this commotion was somewhat annoying.
“Geez, really….”
All sorts of things in this world cause trouble. Next to the convenience store was a cafe. The man picked up a glass cup containing iced americano that had been abandoned at an outdoor terrace seat.
Glancing at the sky, he could see the drones becoming unresponsive and unable to approach, unable to withstand the magic power emanating from the monster. The man clicked his tongue and threw the glass cup forward.
Crash—!!
A sharp sound of cutting through air. The glass cup shattered, and ice and dark coffee liquid rose in droplets through the air.
The gorilla monster roared and pounded its chest. At that vibration, the windows of nearby buildings screamed and cracked. It spotted the man standing blankly in the middle of the intersection, twisted its massive muscles, kicked off the ground, and surged up.
The shadow of the monster that leaped up to the height of a building’s third floor cast darkly over the man’s head.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re in a hurry too, right? Me too.”
The man nodded as if annoyed and snapped his fingers. In that instant, the man’s eyes flashed blue.
In that moment, the coffee droplets that had been scattered through the air transformed into sharp awls. The ice fragments that had been suspended in the air, defying gravity, resonated with the blue magic power emanating from the man’s fingertips and vibrated in unison.
Kwakwakwakwakwa!!
At that moment, the droplets gathered at one point embedded themselves into the monster’s cheekbone as if riddled by bullets.
The monster’s cheek caved in and turned to one side. Its teeth shattered and its eyeballs bulged out as if about to pop.
The monster floating in the air instantly tumbled backward.
Kudangtang! Kudangtangtang!
The monster that rolled and fell while scraping the asphalt road raggedly stopped without even convulsing. A thick cloud of dust rose behind where it had crashed.
[Beep beep— Evacu— static —please— static]
Silence briefly fell over the street. Only the sound of malfunctioning drones echoed.
Plop.
As the monster fell, the ice that had been floating in front of the man dropped to the ground with soft thuds. The man frowned while dangling a black plastic bag and moved his steps.
“Ugh, my stomach. What a hassle from morning. There’s never a quiet day here, seriously….”
The man, Moon Igyeol, grumbled while clutching his empty stomach. Behind him, drones buzzed as they flew over the fallen monster.
“Ugh, my head…”
He scratched his disheveled hair and walked slowly. The place he headed to was in front of a health clinic in a corner alley of Miyang Intersection, with opaque glass windows covered in faded vinyl sheets.
[Jangchun Health Clinic]
/We brew it ourselves (Extracts, Mysterious Herbal Medicine Water)/
/Inquiries 010-XXXX-XXXX/
/House calls available/
Moon Igyeol naturally opened the door and entered.
Just who is that shabby-looking bum, performing feats that only hidden rankers of the underground world would pull off?
To know that incredible story, we must turn back time to that day one year ago when he first ended up in this alley.
