Alpha Male, Reborn in the Modern World
Berserker of the North Sea.
Wolf King.
Chosen warrior of Valhalla.
I, Eirik Wolfson, bore countless epithets—and none of them were empty boasts. They were names I had carved out for myself, battle after battle, walking the path of a warrior across every field of war.
And on this day, as on so many others, I strode across a battlefield in Western Europe with twin axes clenched in my fists.
Kuuuurrrumble—!
The earth itself shook. Before me stretched an enemy host without end: knights in full plate, infantry bristling with long spears, archers drawing bowstrings along the battlements. Far off, black banners rolled like a dark tide. Their numbers… were vast. Too vast by far.
But what of it?
A warrior’s worth is not measured by victory alone. It is measured by how he fights—and how he dies.
“Jarl!”
A subordinate’s cry rose behind me.
“There are too many of them! If we press on like this… we’ll be wiped out!”
He was right. The enemy numbered in the tens of thousands. Our warriors, a mere few hundred. Even for Vikings of iron, the outcome was plain as day. We would be annihilated.
Yet not one among us took a single step back—because every man among us carried a great dream in his breast.
Valhalla.
The glorious hall where the fallen are led. There, at last, we would become complete warriors, and fight for all eternity. What more alpha-male afterlife could a man ask for?
I let the corner of my mouth lift, and spoke.
“Isn’t a greater number all the better?”
“My lord?”
“Does it not simply mean there are that many more enemies for us to cut down?”
For a beat my men stood silent—then they erupted into roaring laughter.
“Wahahahahaha!!”
“That’s our jarl!”
“The jarl knows no fear!”
That was the moment.
Whiiiiisssh—!
From the sky, arrows began to fall like a black rain. Hundreds—no, thousands—of shafts blotted out the heavens and came screaming toward us. My men raised their shields on instinct.
But my hands held no shield.
Why? Because a true alpha male has no use for cowardly tools that merely block. Incoming attacks need neither dodge nor barrier. You simply cut them down.
I reset my grip on both axes and took one step forward. For an instant my men thought my arms—and the axes with them—had vanished.
Kakakakakakang!
While my axes shredded the empty air, hundreds of arrows snapped and ricocheted away. In a heartbeat the shafts, ground to kindling by axe-work that looked possessed, lay scattered across the ground. When my men looked at me again, awe burned in their eyes.
I thrust my axes high and roared.
“Follow me!!”
Their answering cry shook the field.
“Uooooooooh!!”
Eyes wide, I bellowed toward the battle.
“Fear not the hail of arrows! A warrior advances—nothing else!”
Even now the arrows poured down. Even now the enemy pressed in. The shadow of death itself drew near. All of it stood before me with merciless clarity.
I shouted so the whole battlefield might hear.
“Victory for us—or Valhalla!”
In that instant my warriors charged the enemy lines like madmen.
The war did not end in a single day. The sun set, the moon rose, and the sun rose again. We fought, and fought, and fought once more. Corpses already piled into hills across the field, yet still the enemy came on in waves. And we, who had always been outnumbered, were at last annihilated—every last man.
Save for me.
“Hahh… hahh…!”
Between ragged breaths I tasted thick iron. A spearhead was buried in my left shoulder; my right thigh was gashed to the bone. Three enemy arrows already stood from my back. Yet I still stood with both feet planted on the earth—twin axes in hand.
“M-Monster…!”
One of the enemy muttered it. I laughed in his face.
“Monster? Call me a warrior!”
The moment I took another step, the encirclement rippled as one. But that was the final moment of my life. A body already past its limit lost all balance in an instant and drove me to my knees.
Thud!
In the next breath, a swarm of knights surged in and leveled spear and blade at my throat. I felt the cold steel bite into flesh with terrible clarity. Then I lifted my gaze to the sky—as if someone up there were looking down at me.
A smile of pure rapture touched my face. At last the hour had come. Through a glorious death, the gate to Valhalla was opening!
I poured every remaining scrap of strength into my voice.
“Odin! Guide this Eirik Wolfson unto Valhalla!!”
BOOM!
Hundreds of blades and spearpoints punched through my body. And then every sensation… was gone.
The first thing I felt upon opening my eyes was a deep, jarring wrongness. Of one thing I was certain: wherever I had woken, it was not Valhalla. There was no reek of blood and steel, no war-cries of warriors, no clash of axes. Instead a strange scent teased my nose—warm and peculiar, a scent unlike any herb, gently soothing the mind.
Then someone’s crying struck my ear.
“Waaah! Waaaaah!”
…Wait. Waaah?!
As if I truly had become a newborn, my eyes would not open; the world was nothing but darkness.
“Oh my, listen to him cry. He looks so healthy!”
“It’s a boy. Congratulations.”
An unfamiliar tongue wormed into my ears. Confusion crashed through my whole body. What was this? Where was Valhalla? The eternal battle? Where were the Valkyries?
Then a pair of warm arms carefully gathered me up. A woman’s trembling voice reached me.
“My baby… your name is Kang Taegun.”
Kang Taegun. That was the new name cast upon me in this incomprehensible world. Setting aside the name Eirik Wolfson, I had gained another: Kang Taegun. And so I was born again in a strange and foreign land called the Republic of Korea.
Being an alpha male by nature, I spent a childhood unlike any other.
At three years old, I was caught in the rain for the first time. Mother tried to put an umbrella over me.
“Taegun, you’ll catch a cold if you get wet.”
I shook my head with full dignity.
“A man does not hide from the rain.”
Mother’s face went stiff as stone.
“Wh… what did you say?”
My pronunciation at the time was a mess barely fit for human ears—but the will behind it was unmistakable.
Around the age of five, there was an incident at the neighborhood playground. A child was building a sandcastle when bigger boys came over and kicked it to pieces. The child cried. The moment I saw it, instinct moved my feet.
“Apologize.”
The neighborhood older boys looked down at me and sneered.
“What’s this brat saying?”
I clenched my fists and shouted at them.
“Anyone who bullies the weak is no man!”
Of course they laughed. In the end adults rushed in and broke up the fight. When I got home, Mother nearly fainted at the sight of my face.
“Kang Taegun! You were fighting again?”
I lifted my chin high and answered.
“I merely stood against injustice.”
“You’re only five years old!”
“That is more than enough for a warrior. It is the age at which one may fell a wolf.”
Mother pressed a hand to her forehead and heaved a deep sigh. The moment Father flashed me a secret thumbs-up from behind her, Mother’s merciless back-of-the-head smack followed right after.
Time passed, and my body grew. What grew faster still was my mind. At last I adapted completely to this age—and at last I understood.
This world, too, had its battlefields.
Towers and Gates that had appeared throughout Seoul and the world’s major cities, and the monsters known as humanity’s enemies. The profession of “Hunter”—those who raided Towers and Gates and smashed monsters flat—had become one of the most coveted callings of the age.
In high school, I came home one day and faced my parents with a solemn look.
“Father. I will become a Hunter.”
“What?”
I pressed on, every word serious.
“I have realized it. In this era, the only path to becoming a true warrior is to become a Hunter.”
Mother’s eyebrows twitched. That night she and Father talked for a long time.
The year I turned twenty, the notice for the Awakening Aptitude Test arrived. Korean Hunter Association, Seoul Branch. Before the massive gray building, throngs of young people had gathered. Today was the regular Awakening examination—the day those who had turned twenty and passed the preliminary fitness screening would stand before the Awakening Stone.
Every face in the waiting line wore naked tension. Some trembled in the hands; others prayed. I was different. Already the scent of the battlefield pricked my nose and set my heart pounding—though of course there was no actual smell of blood. Inside, the building was clean, the air cold, the staff polite.
But I knew. Today, at last, my destiny as a warrior would shine once more!
“Whoa, look at that guy’s build.”
“He’s huge.”
“Is he an athlete?”
“No way—his body looks like a statue.”
Eyes fixed on me from every side. I paid them no mind. Then someone spoke from beside me.
“Um, excuse me?”
I turned my head. A slight man in glasses stood there, an Awakening notice clutched in his hand.
“You’re… not nervous at all?”
“Why should I be nervous?”
“Well… what if your rank comes out low, and what if you don’t get a combat class—I’d be so disappointed…”
I considered it a moment. In this age, Awakened were stratified by rank and class. From F-rank to S-rank. Above that, the vanishingly rare SS-rank and SSS-rank. And then EX-rank—said not to exist, yet spoken of like legend. Most people Awakened at a low rank. Many did not even get combat classes.
But my answer was this:
“Rank is of no importance.”
The man blinked.
“Huh?”
I showed him a clenched fist and continued.
“What matters is one’s resolve.”
“…”
“Even an F-rank who never flees has the right to be called a warrior. But even an S-rank who abandons the weak and runs is nothing but a worthless coward.”
“Whoa…”
“What is it?”
“I feel like I just heard something incredible!”
Then a staff announcement rolled through the hall.
Attention, Awakening candidates. Please enter the examination room in order.
People formed a line one by one. The process itself was simple. Place a hand on the mana stone. If latent talent stirs within, a status window opens. Rank and skills are displayed. The procedure was so straightforward that the line shrank with surprising speed.
“Aaaah! C-rank!”
“Congratulations.”
“F-rank production type…? What kind of ability is this?”
“Lifestyle skills are valuable in their own right.”
“Combat type! I got a combat type!”
And at last—
“Next, Kang Taegun.”
My name was called. I walked slowly into the examination room. Inside stood three Association staff members and a massive mana stone glowing with a soft light.
“You are Kang Taegun, correct?”
“I am.”
“Your way of speaking is… no, it’s fine. Please come this way and place your hand on the mana stone.”
I set my hand upon it. In that instant, the final moments of my past life rose before me—the tens of thousands of enemies, the blood-soaked field, the blade at my throat… and my last prayer cried out toward Odin.
A cold sensation climbed up through my palm.
Wooooooom!
The mana stone shuddered with violent force. In the next heartbeat, the staff members’ faces drained bone-white, as if they might faint on the spot.