Chapter 4
**CHAPTER TITLE: Awakening**
The moment my heart was pierced, consciousness slipped away.
The pain had faded so completely that I no longer felt it at all.
Everything felt as if it were sinking underwater—blurry, slow, endless.
*Ah, this is death. Not so bad after all...*
It almost felt like a merciful death from some unknown monster.
Clang!
Then the cold sensation crushing my chest vanished along with a scream.
Someone had chopped off the grotesque leg that had been trying to crush my heart in one clean stroke.
"Hey, you idiot! Wake up! Open your eyes!"
The voice was dull, familiar.
It was my brother.
No way. S-class brother in a dungeon?
Yet the voice I had longed for most hammered against my ears.
"...Hyung?"
The blurry vision contained only the twisted form of someone.
Still, his voice cut through the numbness like the only warmth left in my cooling body.
*'What's this? Hallucination from dying?'*
Just as I drifted toward that peaceful sleep...
Cold liquid rushed into my mouth.
"Cough, glug! Hah!"
"Don't spit it out! Swallow, you brat! Do you even know how much a bottle of this costs?"
The liquid burned down my throat while strangely giving me life at the same time.
Half of it leaked out because of the pain, but Hyung kept pouring more without caring.
"Baek Sujae. There's no time. I have to go catch that thing right now. Snap out of it. Don't fall asleep—fight to stay awake! Got it?!"
At the edge of my vision, Hyung's back flickered as he threw himself toward the monster.
I had no strength left to answer.
The scream that tore my eardrums rang out as Hyung launched his body at the monster.
*...Ah. It's so loud. Hyung, can't I just sleep?*
My mind was foggy, my body feeling like it was floating.
When I turned my head, the ceiling looked like a black void that felt exactly like outer space.
I had been told not to close my eyes. Not to fall asleep.
But the wave of drowsiness I could no longer resist crashed over me.
Just as my consciousness was fading...
**Wake up!**
A sharp sting in my head snapped my eyes open.
*Eh... ?*
The blurry vision sharpened until it felt impossible.
The battle sounds I had heard moments ago, the monster's screams—everything had vanished into perfect silence.
It was as if I were the only one left in the world.
I lay there blankly, blinking.
No pain in my chest. No fear of death.
*'What? Did I really die?'*
More than relief at still being alive, I wondered if death had been the better option.
As I clutched my dizzy head and tried to figure out the situation...
*Crack, rumble rumble!*
The cave ceiling collapsed.
"Ugh!"
Instinctively I tried to get up and run, but when I saw the things at my feet, I froze solid.
Just minutes earlier, these had been the mercenary uncles who mocked me and puffed out their chests.
Now they lay as shriveled mummies, their burst blood vessels leaving dark-blue liquid pooling on the floor.
*Ah... So it was real. Not a dream. Not an illusion...*
Dust poured over my head, but my feet didn't sink.
When I lifted my head, I saw the giant monster whose rank I couldn't even guess.
It was on its knees like a saint praying, staring downward.
Following that strangely reverent gaze, I slowly lowered my eyes...
"...Hyung."
My heart stopped.
At the end of the monster's gaze lay my brother.
My brother, Baek Suho—the one the world called its hero, the S-class hunter, the unbreakable wall I had always believed in.
He lay motionless in the dust pit, covered in blood, with no sign of life.
I reached out to Hyung with my trembling hands.
I didn't care if the monster was still alive or if it was watching me.
No, I didn't have the mental energy to care about any of that.
Hyung looked as if he had finished some terrible task. He closed his eyes peacefully.
"...Hyung."
Hyung didn't move. He didn't answer.
I held his cooling body close, pressing my face against his shoulder.
"Huh... hah, ah..."
I couldn't breathe properly.
My mind burned white. No thoughts came.
I don't remember whether I prayed to a god or begged someone to save me.
I just wanted this whole thing to be a lie.
**Ding!**
Then, in the empty space where nothing had been, a clear notification rang out.
When I looked up, I met eyes with the monster that had been watching me.
Its pupils held depths I couldn't see.
Between those eyes, a transparent blue window floated up.
**[You have awakened as a 'Dungeon Analyst.']**
"Hah... haha!"
I finally burst into insane laughter.
**[Dungeon Analyst Lv.1]**
**[The basic ability to pierce through the structure of gates that others cannot see and understand monster information has been unlocked.]**
...
Countless status windows poured down like a waterfall in empty space.
This was the awakening I had longed for more than anything.
I had dreamed of it every night while lying awake, wanting to become like Hyung, to stand beside him.
And now it was right in front of me.
But the price had been far too cruel.
Only after losing Hyung did I finally awaken.
* * *
How much time had passed?
"Baek Suho! No, no!"
A woman's scream came from far away.
When I turned my numb gaze, the familiar face appeared.
The healer who always sat next to Hyung in his raid videos.
She rushed over with a face that wasn't herself and snatched Hyung right out of my arms.
I was pushed to the floor and could only watch the scene blankly, unable to resist.
"No! Baek Suho! Breathe! Please, breathe!"
From her fingertips, dazzling healing energy poured out like a waterfall.
The radiant light looked as if it could make Hyung's chest rise again at any moment.
But Hyung didn't open his eyes, as if lost in a terrible sleep.
I just watched the scene with empty eyes.
The system window that had just awakened flashed wildly, but I no longer had the will to accept any of this reality.
"Jia, stop. Now... let's send him off."
The other members of Hyung's team grabbed her shoulders as they arrived.
The healer's hands, which had been squeezing out energy, fell limply to the floor.
At that moment, my own heart sank.
*Ah, so it's really over.*
I don't know how the days that followed passed.
During Hyung's three-day memorial service, I wore a black suit and bowed my head like a machine.
As soon as I got home, Mom sat at the table like a person whose soul had left her body. I buried myself in the living-room sofa.
I hated the suffocating silence that filled the house.
I needed some noise, so I grabbed the remote and turned it on.
— **The National Hero, S-class Hunter Baek Suho. A tragic accident in a low-grade gate...**
My brows furrowed of their own accord and I turned the channel impatiently.
— **According to witnesses at the scene, at the time Hunter Baek Suho was in a serious...**
The entire world was talking about Hyung.
I changed the channel again.
This time the screen was filled with a massive altar set up in Gwanghwamun.
White chrysanthemums piled high like a mountain beneath Hyung's portrait.
People whose faces I didn't know were crying for him.
I bit my lips and changed the channel again.
This time it was a current-affairs talk show.
People in black suits sat in a circle, the atmosphere quite ominous.
— **This 14th Sector incident is clearly a gate ascension! Could the government and guilds really not have known the signs?**
— **Even reports that Hunter Baek Suho had a big argument with his younger brother, Baek Sujae, that morning over gate-entry problems. The speculation is that he entered forcefully to stop his brother...**
— **The Ilgang Guild will have a hard time avoiding criticism for ignoring this danger!**
The so-called experts on TV were using Hyung and me as stepping stones to attack.
The panels frothed at the mouth, saying the incident was caused by the government's inability to control the guilds.
They repeated the same tired lines: the government should take control of gates, or large guilds were hoarding information, and so on.
Hyung was dead, but the world was only talking about power struggles.
As the debate went on, the arrows kept pointing straight at the guild Hyung had belonged to—**Ilgang**.
— **Ilgang has a huge responsibility for failing to protect the best asset in Korea, an S-class hunter!**
— **As the provider of the cause of the national loss, Ilgang must bear legal responsibility for this incident!**
The image of the national hero being unable to be protected turned Ilgang into a villain.
The broadcast station had already branded Ilgang a "greedy group that monopolizes information and is incompetent."
Hyung's death wasn't sad. It was that one of the country's great assets had vanished that made them so furious.
It was ridiculous.
The people who saved Hyung were now selling his name to do politics.
Hyung couldn't rest even in death.
For some he became power. For others he became a shield against blame, being dragged around everywhere.
My grip on the remote tightened.
I wanted to smash the TV right then.
*Beep beep beep beep!*
At that moment, the sound of someone nearly crushing the door-lock button came.
The person who rushed in almost out of breath was my grandmother.
She hadn't been able to come to the funeral because she had collapsed from shock upon hearing Hyung's obituary.
But the energy of the grandmother who burst into the living room without even taking off her shoes was fiercer than I could believe of someone who had just woken up in bed.
"You brat! You finally ate my son and now you ate my grandchild too!"
Grandmother immediately rushed at Mom, who was sitting at the table, and grabbed her hair.
"You possessed witch! Aigoo, the demon has entered our house and it's eating my kids! You evil girl!"
Mom just bit her lips, tears dripping down, unable to scream.
Grandmother's grip held an evil strength that didn't match the old woman supposedly exhausted from crying.
"Grandmother! Let go of this first and speak!"
I rushed over and grabbed her arms.
Grandmother's murderous gaze pierced me.
The grandmother who had thrown Mom to the ground now jabbed her finger at my chest.
"Yeah, you! What kind of face did you show up with? Huh?"
"...What?"
"Hyung is dead! Hyung died in that cold place, but why did you come back alive and well! You're just as vicious as that witch!"
Grandmother's shout stabbed my heart like a needle.
"Our poor son and grandchild were killed...! Only the witch-like ones get to live and breathe! Aigoo!"
Grandmother had been the one who said I should have died.
My head went white. My body froze in shock and sorrow.
* * *
The storm of noise passed.
I put Mom to bed, exhausted from crying. Then I collapsed onto my own bed in my room.
The ceiling spun wildly.
Even though I was lying still, it felt like sinking into water.
I stared blankly at the ceiling and slowly turned on my phone.
The moment I opened the internet, the most sensational titles flooded the real-time best posts.
[Baek Suho's brother is non-awakened but still forced his way into the gate saying he was talked out of it by Hyung?]
[Yeah, yeah. Hyung talked him out but he insisted and went in.]
"Whoa, so Hyung died trying to save his brother?"
[This is really going too far... I really want to see that brat's face.]
Even as my heart grew heavier, my finger wouldn't stop scrolling.
The one who was supposed to die lived, and the one who was supposed to live died.
Grandmother's poisonous voice echoed in my ears like a hallucination.
The entire world was shouting that I was the one who had come back alive that was the crime.
I couldn't take it anymore.
**CHAPTER TITLE: Awakening**