Chapter 2
Chapter: 2
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 002
>Chapter Title: Became the Holy Emperor Family's Wastrel 3rd Prince. (1)
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>The 3rd Prince of the Holy Empire Delcross, Mores Klein.
A pearl beneath a pig's eyelid.
The unparalleled disgrace of the Holy Imperial Family.
Unlike his father, hailed as the most powerful Holy Emperor in history, this porcine wastrel of a prince had inherited neither talent with the sword nor even a scrap of divine power. He was a worthless son.
Above all, his fiery temper and vulgar speech and conduct bore no resemblance whatsoever to his father's calm disposition. It was hard to dismiss them as mere childish whims of an immature young prince.
It was no wonder, then, that some cardinals and high priests whispered that perhaps Prince Mores wasn't even the Holy Emperor's trueborn son.
Yet even this prince, who seemed destined to remain a wastrel forever, found his turning point.
One day, he suddenly collapsed from a raging fever, teetering between life and death for four days amid blistering heat. When he finally regained his senses, he had become an entirely different person.
'He nearly died, and now he's changed like this.'
Everyone thought that and brushed it off as nothing remarkable. But in truth, there was a hidden story behind the prince's sudden turnaround—one he couldn't easily share with others.
The one who opened his eyes in the near-dead body of Mores wracked by fever was, in fact, a man from Earth named Lee Seong-jin.
* * *
Lee Seong-jin had been a strangely tenacious child since early childhood.
From infancy, once he started something, he saw it through to the end with unyielding stubbornness. His parents, despite having an only son, endured an extraordinarily arduous child-rearing experience because of it.
"Who does he take after with that stubbornness?"
At just past four years old, watching her son stubbornly suck on his pacifier, his mother teared up. She worried it might ruin his teeth.
Fortunately, his baby teeth grew in beautifully and evenly.
She thought his interest in the pacifier had finally waned when he started kindergarten, but now he began throwing tantrums about not going home at dismissal time.
Bribing him with snacks at home or promising trips to the arcade did nothing.
He hated going home so much—could someone be abusing him? With kindergarten teachers shooting suspicious glances, his mother could only manage an awkward smile.
In the end, his parents took turns carrying him on their backs, wandering playgrounds until he fell asleep, before heading home late at night. That became their routine.
When he entered elementary school and seemed a bit more sensible, his parents finally breathed a sigh of relief. At least now he was old enough to reason with.
That peace was short-lived—until the day he snatched a classmate's crayons and brought them home, followed by a call from the homeroom teacher the next day.
"He spilled mine and broke them all. I just took his as payback."
"Seong-jin, Hyeong-cheol apologized and said he's sorry, but taking a friend's things by force is wrong."
The boy's eyes sharpened.
"Saying sorry fixes everything? What about my crayons?"
"We can buy more crayons, honey."
"Hyeong-cheol's the one who messed up. Why should you buy them for me? The one who caused the damage should take responsibility."
His prematurely mature retort left his mother speechless. From the child's perspective, it wasn't wrong.
After a moment's hesitation, she could only say,
"...Seong-jin, friendship with your friends is worth more than any crayons. Next time a friend apologizes, accept it first. If you still feel wronged, talk it over with Mom first, okay?"
The boy looked dissatisfied but reluctantly nodded.
"But his broken crayons were a 24-pack, so why'd you take his 56-pack?"
"That's compensation for my emotional distress. Naturally, I deserve something better."
She couldn't tell if her son was ruthless or just clever.
Having spent such an unusual boyhood, Seong-jin became remarkably quiet when he entered middle school, like a switch had flipped.
His parents cautiously watched their slightly unusual son, wondering if he was adapting to school life.
But his uniform and textbooks were always pristine, with no signs of bullying whatsoever.
He's finally growing up.
Seong-jin's parents rejoiced greatly.
In truth, he was only quiet on the surface. His school life was actually a whirlwind of incidents—too hectic for his parents to notice.
He had failed to acquire the bland social skills his parents wanted, but at least he'd mastered the art of covering up mishaps behind his homeroom teacher's and parents' backs.
For instance, he'd been targeted by a delinquent gang and spent three months relentlessly pursuing just one of them until the whole group shuddered and declared a truce.
Or he'd stalked a nosy student council member for a week straight, driving them into social phobia and paranoia that led to prolonged absences.
It was a turbulent school life teetering between upholding justice and outright crime.
No prodigy, but through diligent enough studies, Seong-jin entered a decent four-year university in Seoul.
He dated casually, went to the army in his second year, graduated, and landed a job at a mid-sized company.
-That Lee, Assistant Manager Lee, has this chilling vibe about him.
-Really? Isn't he diligent and good at his job?
He occasionally drew wary looks from old-school bosses, but outwardly, Seong-jin played the role of a reliable office worker flawlessly.
Promotions started trickling in, and he even started flirting with a female coworker at the company.
Had nothing unusual happened, he probably would've married uneventfully and lived an ordinary life.
August 2035.
The Gehenna Gate Incident.
Star gates linking to the demon realm Gehenna appeared without warning across the world simultaneously, unleashing hordes of thousands, tens of thousands of monsters.
Cities and key infrastructure were shattered in an instant, plunging the world into a brief state of anarchy for days.
Humanity reorganized around surviving military units that established defensive lines after the chaos, launching a counterattack. But the casualties from just a few days were astronomical.
Human civilization, with most major cities destroyed, regressed dramatically.
Seong-jin, on a business trip out of town, luckily evacuated to an air raid shelter behind the defensive line and survived. But he lost his family and his entire life in the blink of an eye.
Amid this colossal human tragedy, Lee Seong-jin didn't cry. He simply gazed at the endless monsters pouring from the gates, calmly pondering who to settle the score with this time.
Monsters kept coming no matter how many he killed, but this tenacious man never abandoned a target once chosen.
Lee Seong-jin became a hunter—a professional monster slayer.
Right after killing a monster and touching its corpse, a strange energy would seep into the body. Hunters called it the monster's essence.
Those who absorbed it gained superhuman abilities, as if inheriting part of the monster's power.
Sometimes it was raw physical strength, other times defensive hardening, or even psychokinesis-like powers.
The more essences hunters absorbed, the stronger they grew. Soon, superhumans capable of slaying thousands alone emerged.
Pushed to the brink, humanity began pushing back the front lines bit by bit, enduring decades of grueling attrition warfare.
The demon realm that ambitiously invaded Earth ultimately met its end alongside Earth decades later—in the most absurd way.
As hunters grew stronger, the monsters killing humans grew stronger too. The front lines maintained a steady power balance, forcing both sides to bleed out irreplaceable lives relentlessly.
When humanity's last superhuman squad finally reached the Demon King hidden deep in the demon realm's heart, the sullen Demon King greeted them with a sigh.
"So this is how it ends. What have we been doing all these decades? It's disheartening."
Of course, the Demon King's despair meant nothing. It was too late for either side to halt the war and regroup—both were depleted.
Total annihilation of one side.
That was all that remained between the demon realm and humanity.
Regardless of his self-defeated attitude, the Demon King's resistance was tenacious to the end.
The superhuman squad and Demon King fought ceaselessly for three days and nights. By the third night, only the Demon King's head retained any form, and among the squad, only one human lived.
The man who never gave up till the end—Lee Seong-jin.
He forcibly raised his barely moving fist toward the Demon King's head. The headless Demon King said with a weary expression,
"You tenacious bastard. I thought you were the least impressive, but to think I'd die by your hand."
So what?
Seong-jin snorted and smashed his fist down.
Kwang!
A crack split the Demon King's sole remaining feature—its dark red horn.
"...Huh?"
Kwang!
The next blow caved in the Demon King's nose entirely, but it still wasn't enough to crush the head in one go.
Panting, Seong-jin gripped his trembling fist again.
"Hey! Wait! Just a sec!"
The Demon King, nosebleeding profusely, panicked, but he clamped his mouth shut and swung again.
Kwang!
"Gah! Hey, this is getting... "
Kwaang!
"...Wait just a damn minute, you bastard!"
The fist didn't rise again.
Not because he'd heeded the Demon King, but because he paused to catch his breath, his fist spent.
Surprisingly, in that interval, the Demon King's flattened nose began regenerating slowly. Slower than before, but a being like an otherworldly Demon King could regenerate even from just a head.
Both the Demon King and Lee Seong-jin felt an ominous premonition: this final blow would drag on.
"Stop that pathetic punching. It has no power left! Look, human. At this rate, you can't kill me. How about a truce? We rest up and fight again fresh?"
Nonsense.
A fight between two at full strength—who'd lose was obvious.
As Lee Seong-jin tremblingly raised his arm again, the Demon King hurriedly continued.
"No, let's just end this! I'll leave Earth and Gehenna forever. I won't come back, okay?"
"......"
"I'll spare my life, and you get Earth and the demon realm both. Think of the potential in two fused worlds! You could gain power rivaling a Demon King!"
"......"
"If you kill me like this, ownerless Gehenna will collapse, and Earth, losing its anchor, will get sucked into the gates. Both worlds end! What do you gain from that?"
Seong-jin finally responded to the Demon King.
"What matters to me isn't this world. It's whether you end or not. That's all."
The outcome wouldn't change anyway, so spare him the lame persuasion.
The Demon King watched pale-faced as he slowly clenched his fist.
How many more of those punches would it take?
"Hey, hey! Or at least wait for me to kill myself? Regeneration keeps draining my power. Give me a moment, and I can burn my soul with Gehenna's flames. I'll vanish without you lifting a finger!"
"......"
"I'll even close the gates. Earth won't get dragged in even if the demon realm vanishes!"
It was a tempting offer. Lee Seong-jin nodded.
"Sure. I'll beat you to death first, then think about it."
"How can we talk if I'm dead...? More importantly, I told you that won't kill me! What kind of unreasonable bastard—!"
The Demon King screamed.
How long did that grueling zero-sum fistfight drag on? As Seong-jin paused for breath, sniffling sounds began.
"You damn... I really didn't want to resort to this..."
Whoosh.
Suddenly, crimson flames erupted in the air, engulfing the Demon King's head.
Even as it steadfastly regenerated, the Demon King's skin began warping in the pitch-black blaze.
"This is..."
Gehenna's flames.
The demon realm's infernal fire that incinerated existence itself.
It seemed true that it could annihilate even an endlessly regenerating Demon King's body and soul.
Which meant,
"All that 'I lack the power to suicide' crap was just your ploy."
Lee Seong-jin grinned and raised his fist again. The Demon King flinched, then bellowed instead.
"...What! So what! What's the difference! I was gonna nicely fade to another dimension, wasn't I?!"
Despite squeezing out crocodile tears, his oddly defiant attitude left even the unflappable Lee Seong-jin momentarily speechless.
"But now it's all ruined. Kkh! Fine. As you wish, I'll die. But I won't go alone."
The flames consuming the Demon King swelled, leaping onto Seong-jin's body.
Scorching heat followed, his body too swallowed by the dark crimson blaze in an instant.
"This karmic blaze fueled by this noble Demon King's soul! I'll make sure to take your brat with me! Burn your soul to ash!"
Despite flesh melting and bones showing through the inferno, the Demon King smiled gleefully. Being pummeled so long must've been that infuriating.
"What a..."
"Uahaha! How's it feel! The pain of your soul burning! Umphahahaha—khkh!"
Even as his own soul burned.
Ignoring the Demon King's laughter—manic cackles devolving into near-sobs—Lee Seong-jin surveyed his flaming body.
Indeed, the body hardened over decades of absorbing monster essences, impervious to most physical force, was melting away pathetically.
Even pain-numbed from endless enhancements, the searing of dermis and exposure of muscle fibers was excruciating.
He'd brushed death countless times in battle, but now Lee Seong-jin knew for sure: this time, he was definitely dying.
Yet regardless,
The culprit behind the demon realm's invasion—the lifelong target of Lee Seong-jin—was finally done for.
"Uhahat! Puahaha..."
The madly laughing Demon King suddenly froze, mouth clamping shut. A chill ran through him at the sight of Seong-jin, lips curling up amid the flames.
"Yeah, whatever. Looks like I'm done too."
The scant muscles clinging to his skeleton slowly flexed, raising a flame-wreathed fist.
"So let's trade one last blow."
"What!? You bastard! Even now...?!"
"Call it emotional distress compensation."
Kuaaaang!
"Graaaaaah!"
The tearing scream soon faded.
Confirming the Demon King's face crumble into ash, Seong-jin closed his eyes.
As consciousness blackened, he seemed to hear a sharp crack in his mind, like something shattering.
That was the last memory of Hunter Lee Seong-jin.