Chapter 774
Back when I was a rookie Hunter, I cried a lot.
No, to be honest, I cried pretty often.
Looking back now, it was probably just growing pains, but that was how things were back then.
It was only natural.
At the time, I was just a kid who had barely become an adult, and the Hunter training center was literally nothing more than a training center.
What was my first real battle like?
No matter how hard I try to remember, those memories are blurred like fog.
It’s not that the memories have faded with time. It’s just that I was half out of my mind from the moment the battle began.
Of course, there are still a few fragments that remain vivid.
The backs of tanks collapsing under the overwhelming number of monsters. The thick stench of blood and the foul reek of creatures not of this world.
The weight of the spear, heavier than ever, and my sweat-soaked grip…
That was all. The moment the clash began, everything around me vanished, and when I opened my eyes again, I was standing in a sea of blood.
And the team leader, waiting for me to wake up with a cigarette hanging from his lips, suddenly said this.
‘Hey. Rookie.’
‘Y-Yes.’
‘You son of a bitch.’
‘Yes?’
‘I nearly died saving your ass.
Did my wife put you up to this? Kill me and split the insurance money?’
‘Ah, no.’
‘For someone who lost his mind, you fought pretty well. But if you do that again next time, you’ll really die.’
‘……I’m sorry.’
‘By the way, you. What’s your name?’
‘Jin Taekyung. I’m Jin Taekyung.’
‘What year were you born?’
“’20.”
‘Damn. Kids born in ’20 are already adults too?’
After glaring at me while taking a long drag from his cigarette, the team leader finally told me his name.
‘I’m Hong Cheonsu.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘From now on, in private… uncle is a bit… Call me Hyung. Cheonsu Hyung.’
‘Yes, Cheonsu Hyung.’
‘Not even a token protest, huh. And we’re still inside the Gate, you bastard.’
Back then, I had no idea.
That I would go through all sorts of things with that foul-tempered-looking team leader like brothers. That just a few years later, he would sacrifice himself in my place.
‘You worked hard. Here’s your payout.’
Six 50,000-won bills, after taxes and guild fees had been deducted.
Holding the money I had earned by risking my life that day, I returned to my goshiwon.
When I opened the door, the moldy smell of the room, barely 130 square feet, drifted out, and on the chipped table sat a family photo.
And I cried.
At first I sobbed quietly, then like a child, I buried my face between my knees and bawled.
If no one had opened that locked door, I might have cried loudly enough to keep the whole goshiwon awake all night.
‘Hey, new guy. Sorry for coming in without permission. I’m the manager here, and people kept complaining, so I had to use the master key…’
After seeing the mess I was in, the manager, who looked like someone’s uncle, trailed off, scratched at his messy hair, and closed the door.
I thought that manager wouldn’t come back.
At least, until I saw him return a little later with bags of soju and ramen in both hands.
‘Want a drink? Ah, maybe you’re underage… probably not. Just looking at you, your build is really, wow.’
A memory from the past. A memory from nearly ten years ago now.
As time passed, I changed. My fear of monsters, the loneliness of being separated from my family, all of it gradually faded.
No, I became numb to it.
Like a hamster set on a wheel, I just ran and ran.
Even if I couldn’t move forward, it was still better than stopping. There were things I could only protect by keeping that wheel turning.
Family. Friends. Colleagues.
Now I couldn’t stop.
That little wheel inside the cage that confined me had, before I even noticed, turned into a massive wheel of fate, and the word ‘duty’ in my heart had grown clearer and heavier with time.
Maybe that was why.
Why even now I could glimpse those hazy memories from that day in my dreams.
Why, when I opened my eyes to the hand shaking me awake, my cheeks were wet.
“……Mr. Jin. Mr. Jin Taekyung.”
I blinked. My blurred vision finally came into focus.
A familiar face, one that barely changed expression yet somehow made every small emotion obvious, was looking down at me with concern.
“Are you alright?”
I rubbed my damp eyes and answered.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you have a bad dream?”
“Maybe.”
I pushed myself upright with a hoarse voice.
Through the gap in the curtains hanging over the window, I could see the darkness outside, and the clock showed it was just past noon.
“Whether it was an ominous dream or an auspicious one… I don’t know. I also…”
Team Leader Choi Minwoo, who had been silently watching me, spoke in a calm tone.
“Don’t dwell on it. It was only a dream.”
That’s right.
A dream is just a dream. Whether what follows turns out good or bad is decided by people, and that was exactly my role today.
No, the role of all of us.
“I’m still a little out of it, but was last night a dream too?”
“Last night?”
“Yes. I saw a lot of familiar faces. At the end of it, I even saw the British prince dressed like a hotel bellboy.”
Only then did a faint smile appear at the corner of Team Leader Choi’s mouth at my joke.
“That’s strange. I had the same dream.”
“Ah. So you did. Personally, I thought it was a pretty nice dream.”
“I think so too.”
Naturally, that much had not been a dream.
The conversation we had begun in secret last night had continued until the early hours of the morning, and I had fallen asleep as if passing out beneath the exhaustion that had built up over the past few days.
Maybe that was why.
My mind was clear, and my body felt light.
So light it was almost unsettling.
‘Of course, there are a few minor issues.’
I focused on the faint pain deep inside my body.
The aftereffects of [Broken Body], which still hadn’t healed, were not just numbers displayed by the system. Like parasites clinging to a host, they were gnawing away at part of my strength.
‘Can I do it? Even in this state?’
A fleeting doubt passed through me.
But I soon shook my head.
This was no longer a question of whether I could or couldn’t.
I had to do it.
For myself, for my people, and for everyone else.
“The preparations?”
Team Leader Choi answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“Everything is complete.”
His voice held conviction. The kind of attitude only someone who had prepared everything that could possibly be prepared could show.
But I asked again.
Not to Team Leader Choi, but to someone else crouching somewhere out of sight.
“You?”
Once again, there was no answer.
Even though he could clearly see and hear everything happening here, he chose silence again.
Like someone trying to strip away every last trace of affection from the time we had spent together. Like a traveler who had finished preparing to leave.
But… I had no intention of letting him go.
Especially not for a damn reason like this.
“Let’s go.”
I left the room in a calm voice.
Team Leader Choi followed immediately, and behind us, along the still hallway, the Hunters of the Ares Guild trailed after us like a dragon’s tail.
Now it was time to set the massive wheel in motion.
The sky that day was gray.
The dark clouds that had covered the metropolitan area since dawn let down a fine drizzle, and the air against the skin felt cool.
But for the people, the weather didn’t matter much.
Because they believed that soon those dark clouds would part and sunlight would pour down.
No, perhaps ‘certainty’ was a more fitting word than ‘belief.’
The historic first inauguration of the World Hunter Federation.
That was the sunlight the people were waiting for. A union of superhumans that would save them from the second great war, perhaps already underway, that would soon crash down upon them.
Heroes of the past, present, and future would gather in one place and be reborn as true Hunters.
They would become humanity’s sword and shield, sweep away those dark clouds, and protect this world from the monsters surging in like waves.
Right here.
Right now.
‘A new history begins.’
Sssk.
Michael Silbert ran his fingertips over the table.
The enormous round table was made up of three hundred seats, and its surface was covered with marks left behind by sharp weapons.
‘The traces left by Heroes.’
He still remembered it clearly.
On the day that unprecedented union called the World Hunter Federation was born, Michael Silbert too had stood within that glorious moment.
Beside those who were now dead, he had shouted with passion, drawn a weapon like the others and pointed it toward the sky, plunged a sword into the huge Round Table, and sworn to become humanity’s sword and shield.
‘Yes. Right here, in this very place.’
An unforgettable memory.
Michael Silbert gently ran a hand over the chair he had sat in back then.
Rough and creaking with age, it stirred a strange feeling inside him by that fact alone.
But that was all.
Michael Silbert merely looked down at it, a vessel filled with old memories, without sitting or leaning against it.
At some point, his gaze left the chair and turned toward the center of the Round Table.
The only empty space.
There was no chair there, no podium. It looked desolate, like an isolated island surrounded by three hundred seats.
But in the past, neither Michael Silbert nor anyone else had thought of it that way.
Because there had always been one person who filled that space.
Stronger and more radiant than anyone else. The Hero of Heroes, whom even the enemies who envied him could not help but regard with awe and fear.
‘Sky.’
Michael Silbert suddenly raised his head and looked around.
The First National Assembly Building, now a World Cultural Heritage Site.
All around him, the stained glass created immediately after the end of the Great Cataclysm, depicting the course of that victory, glittered.
Images of humans and monsters locked in brutal combat. Rivers of blood and piles of corpses everywhere…
His gaze swept over the traces of the old Heroes, those dazzling figures who had left their names in history and most of whom were now unfortunately dead, before settling in one place.
At the highest point even within that glorious record. At the two figures engraved on the ceiling.
‘My, you’re still looking down on me from up there.’
Michael Silbert let out a soft laugh.
The Savior who had thrust his sword into the heart of Demon King Asmodeus, the one who had cast humanity into the pit of fire, was looking down from above.
As if warning him not to forget that existence.
As if he might descend at any moment to deliver divine punishment like a god.
But…
‘Not anymore. Sky.’
Michael Silbert smiled gently.
In his youth, he had never been especially strong or weak compared to the other Heroes, but now he had returned as a powerhouse no one could deny.
‘And what about you?’
The Cheon Tae-min he once had to fear, revere, and hunch himself down to avoid provoking no longer existed.
Now all the Savior of humanity could do was remain a record in this place and look down upon him, the man who would soon ascend the throne.
“The place where you stood… I will fill it now.”
And at the exact moment those joyous words left his lips,
Creak.
The tightly shut door opened, and through the gap came both light and a voice.
“What bullshit. What utter bullshit.”
Rumble! The sound of thunder.
Boom!