Awakened at the Convenience Store

March 18, 2010. Twenty-four minutes past five in the afternoon. Kim Jinhyuk walked through the park along the Han River.

He was twenty-one. A university sophomore. For days now he had been staring at the enlistment notice he'd received, turning the same question over and over in his mind. Should he take a leave of absence and go serve? Or tough it out until graduation? Neither choice felt like it would change much of anything.

Kim Jinhyuk had no dream he wanted to chase, no goal he wanted to hold onto. He hadn't even chosen his major for any particular reason — it was simply where his parents' advice and his grades had landed him. He was drifting through life without the faintest idea where he was headed.

Then the world went dark. Something enormous was blotting out the sun.

"...Huh?"

A strange feeling pulled Kim Jinhyuk's gaze upward.

"Wh-what is that?"

High above, something vast was visible through the clouds. His first thought was that it might be an alien spaceship. But looking closer, it was nothing of the sort. It was a tower — one of unimaginable size.

A scream tore through the air. People began running like they'd lost their minds. Kim Jinhyuk, however, couldn't move.

This is reality? What the hell is that?

Before his mind could even begin to accept what was happening, a deafening roar split the sky, and the colossal tower slammed down into the heart of Seoul.

Kim Jinhyuk, standing directly beneath it, died.

A life of twenty-one years in which he had never chosen a single thing. Its ending was hollow.

And yet, in that very instant, a new life began.

Seoul was not the only city. At that same instant, towers appeared in the capital of every nation on Earth. And with them, all of humanity cried out in agony.

It was a pain as if the entire body were being taken apart and rebuilt from scratch. No painkiller on the planet made the slightest difference. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠There was nothing to do but scream and endure.

Twenty-one minutes passed. Then, as if it had all been a lie, the pain vanished.

A chime rang out, and a translucent window appeared before every pair of eyes on Earth.

People entered the Tower, each carrying a wish of their own. But the monsters inside were immune to modern science. Guns did nothing. Missiles did nothing. Bombs did nothing.

Still, humanity did not despair — because a phenomenon known as Awakening had begun. People used the power they'd gained through Awakening to climb the Tower. In time, they came to be called Hunters. The strength and resources drawn from the Tower transformed the world at a staggering pace, and civilization began to reorganize itself, rapidly and irrevocably, around Hunters.

The sun had set, and a full moon hung in the night sky. A bell chimed as the convenience store door swung open.

"Hello."

The customer offered a greeting.

"Hello."

Kang Jihyun, the part-timer behind the counter, smiled back.

The man set a triangle kimbap on the counter.

"That'll be one dollar."

He cleared his throat, then stole a glance at her face.

"Um..."

"Yes?"

"Do you happen to have a boyfriend?"

"I don't."

His expression brightened at once.

"Ah — well, I work for a major corporation around here, actually."

He slipped a business card from his pocket and held it out together with his credit card.

"If you're free, would you like to grab a meal together sometime?"

Kang Jihyun looked at his face. Early thirties, give or take. Tall, and handsome besides. An ordinary woman might have been pleased to receive an offer like that. Kang Jihyun, however, was thinking something else entirely.

If we got close, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd have to start calling him oppa, wouldn't I? I have absolutely no desire to call some guy younger than me 'oppa.'

Twenty-one years in her past life. Twenty-one years in this one. Combined, that made her forty-two. Calling a man younger than herself "oppa" was something she would rather die than do.

She rang up the kimbap on his card and handed it back — business card and all.

"I'm sorry. I'm not interested in getting a boyfriend."

The man stood there for a moment, blank.

"Ah... right."

He forced a smile, but the corners of his mouth twitched awkwardly.

"Th-then if you change your mind later..."

He held the card out again.

"Please call the number on the card. You can reach me anytime."

Kang Jihyun looked at it. Refusing would only keep him there longer. In the end, she took it.

"Alright. I understand."

It was a soulless reply. Even so, that alone seemed to lift his spirits.

"Well, I'll be going then. Take care!"

He started backing toward the door, kimbap in hand, never quite turning around.

"Yes, take care."

The bell chimed. The door closed.

How many times is this now?

Kang Jihyun tossed the card into the drawer under the counter. Dozens of business cards were already piled inside.

She turned and looked at the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the store. Four foot eleven. A body as thin as a breadstick. Long hair left messy because she couldn't be bothered to do anything with it. Even so, her face was decent enough.

I don't think I'm that attractive, though.

Guys had confessed to her left and right until she finished high school. She had never believed it was because of her looks. There just hadn't been many girls around — the same way a perfectly ordinary woman gets worshipped as a goddess for the sole crime of existing in an engineering department.

It's not like I'm actress material.

Objectively speaking, that was fair. She wasn't a stunning beauty. She wasn't plain, either. Solidly above average. In gaming terms, the kind of character you picked when you wanted to stomp a weaker lobby. That was more or less how Kang Jihyun rated her own face.

If I was going to reincarnate anyway, I wish I'd been born a rich family's daughter.

Being reborn as a woman hadn't been a problem in itself. The real problem was that she was an orphan. Her second life had not been Easy Mode. She had started on Hard.

She'd been looked down on for having no parents. The moment she came of age, she had to leave the orphanage. She had to survive on her own. She worked part-time jobs, pinched every penny, and saved with grim, stubborn determination. That was how she ended up with a tiny studio apartment — four thousand down and two-fifty a month. The first space that had ever been truly hers.

The smell of mold. Cramped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quarters. Peeling wallpaper. A floor that creaked with every step. A bathroom that was falling apart. To anyone else, it would have been the worst studio in the city. To Kang Jihyun, it was different. It was the first home she had ever had. That alone was enough to make her happy.

Her friends from the same orphanage did not see it that way. They said you had to get out of poverty, and that there were two ways to do it: awaken with a good job, or marry a rich man. They called the latter "marrying up." Kang Jihyun struck that option off the list.

Because — why do people even date?

She genuinely did not understand it. Forever single in her past life. Forever single in this one, too. You couldn't explain the taste of pork to someone who had never eaten it, and dating was no different. She'd never tried it, so she had no idea what it was supposed to taste like. She wasn't particularly curious, either.

So she decided to spend her time on a flavor she already knew. Games.

She had died a hollow death in her past life. There was no guarantee this one would be any different.

Let's just enjoy every moment.

That was Kang Jihyun's conclusion.

She slipped her phone from her pocket. No customers. She figured she'd kill time browsing forums until her shift ended.

Then a chime sounded.

"...?!"

It wasn't the translucent window that had startled Kang Jihyun. Every person awakened at twenty-one. The fact that she had awakened was not, in itself, surprising. The problem was something else.

Today was my birthday?

Kang Jihyun had never known her own birthday. When she entered the orphanage, all she had arrived with was a name. Who her parents were, when she had been born — she knew nothing. She hadn't even known when she would turn twenty-one.

March 18, 2031. Kang Jihyun finally learned the exact date of her birth.

"Hoo... Stay calm. I haven't blown it yet."

She drew a slow breath.

When you turned twenty-one, the system presented you with jobs. What those jobs would be was anyone's guess — completely random. That was why every superstition imaginable had sprung up around what you absolutely had to do before awakening.

Spend a day going commando, and a warrior-type job would appear. Eat black bean noodles for all three meals, and you'd get Dark Mage. Find a lock of a doctor's hair, sleep with it under your pillow, and a healer-type would come. At twelve minutes past midnight, if the wind blew when you opened the window, you were not to look behind you — bow three times toward empty air in that state, and Grand Sorcerer would appear. If someone asked you a favor right before awakening, grant it no matter what, and you'd receive a ridiculously overpowered job. The list went on and on. There were more superstitions than anyone could count.

Kang Jihyun hadn't done a single one of them. More precisely, she hadn't been able to. Maybe that was why none of the jobs floating in front of her eyes appealed to her. More precisely, none of them suited her at all.

Berserker is a good rare job, but it's a bit...

Berserker. Spearman. Knight. All of them were jobs that relied primarily on Strength. Of course, even someone like Kang Jihyun — who clearly had no Strength to speak of — could still choose a Strength-type job. Plenty of people did, because selecting a job applied a corresponding job correction to your stats.

But that alone was not enough. A hunter's final damage was not determined by simply adding numbers together. Base stats were multiplied by physical compatibility and job correction. Meaning that even at the same level, with the same job and the same stats, actual combat efficiency varied from person to person. A Strength of 100, doubled by job correction, still only amounted to 100 if your physical compatibility was 0.5.

If physical ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠compatibility comes out as zero, you're completely done for.

Kang Jihyun looked down at herself. Thin arms. Thin legs. A body with barely a trace of muscle on it. A body that would have no grounds to complain even if physical compatibility came back as a flat zero.

Even a rare job is a bust for me.

With Berserker, getting treated as a B-class hunter wouldn't have been difficult. But that assumed high physical compatibility. There were people whose job was Berserker who were still F-class hunters, after all. In the end, a job by itself guaranteed nothing.

It's a shame, but it can't be helped. The only answer is to reroll.

Her hand drifted slowly toward the refresh button.

Please!!! God. Buddha. Allah. Lord Shiva. Lord Zeus. Lord Thor. Lady Amaterasu. Grandfather Dangun. And every other god whose name I can't remember right now. Anyone is fine. Help me just this once. Let it come up mage or healer. I swear I'll live a better life from now on.

A job that used intelligence would suit her far better than one that used raw power. She figured her physical compatibility would be higher on that side as well. She wasn't particularly bright — but she still had more faith in her brain than her biceps. The only thing Kang Jihyun could put forward as an asset was her head, if nothing else.

She pressed the refresh button, praying with everything she had.