Ability Awakening
“Oppa, you know I’ve done all I can, right?”
The end of my long battle with illness was announced by the ultimatum my younger sister delivered as she stepped into the hospital room with an exhausted expression.
“Sign it. This is my final request.”
“......”
“I’m sorry. But I want to climb a little higher.”
After that day, my sister relinquished her legal guardianship over me by mutual agreement. Of course, it wasn’t her fault. Expecting anything more from her after she had poured vast sums of money and care into me—a patient condemned to lifelong treatment for a rare disease—would have been unreasonable.
I should have let go sooner.
My sister, the youngest A-class hunter and a dazzling prospect with a bright future, carried two crippling weaknesses: my existence and her severe mana deficiency. Put another way, once that mana deficiency was resolved, every obstacle holding her back would vanish completely.
“You truly… consent to this?”
“Yes.”
“Once the transplant is finished, the patient will never wake again.”
So the moment my sister gave up her guardianship, I requested the withdrawal of life support and anonymously donated my mana circuit to her.
“…At the very least, wouldn’t it be better to tell your sister who the donor was?”
The doctor who had always looked at me with pity asked gently, but I simply shook my head.
“It’s fine.”
“......”
“If she knew I was the one who donated it, my sister would hate it.”
That was the end of the conversation. The rotting, festering monster who had lived his entire life as a burden, dragging down his promising younger sister, was quietly removed from the world when the oxygen mask was taken away at my own request.
In the next life, I just want to be loved like a normal person…
As my vital signs flatlined and my vision blurred, I remember feeling a faint sense of relief. I probably whispered those words inside my heart.
Awakening Condition Confirmed….
Condition Completed.
I never imagined those quiet words would completely rewrite my fate.
“Huh?”
One day I opened my eyes in a dark back alley—neither the afterlife nor a hospital morgue—and discovered I had become an elementary schooler overnight.
*****
“St… status window.”
I stared blankly for a long time at my de-aged reflection in a discarded piece of glass in the alley before finally calling out in a cracking voice. Fortunately, after the world had been flipped upside down in a single day, even the most insignificant person could summon their status window just by speaking.
The status window that appeared was on a completely different level from the hopeless one I remembered.
‘Don’t tell me… I awakened?’
I had never even managed ordinary daily life, let alone an awakening, yet the once-empty slot now contained an ability with a name I had never heard before. And it was EX-rank? As far as I knew, that rank didn’t even exist in the hunter skill classification system.
Description: The user can be loved by anyone or anything; the more love received, the stronger the user becomes.
Reading the explanation only left me at a loss for words, forcing out a hollow laugh.
This ability was specially granted to you, who received no love from anyone yet gave everything until your final moment.
“Haha…”
I had vaguely known how pitiful I was, but I never expected the status window itself to certify it. Still, of all the abilities it could have given me, it chose this one.
On paper it sounded incredible, but the only real change was that I had reverted to childhood. Judging by my appearance and build, I was at most an elementary schooler. Having spent my whole life with a body that was literally rotting from an incurable disease, I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to look like anymore.
The one silver lining was that becoming a child had completely cured that incurable illness. Unfortunately, my mana circuit had been harvested along with it, leaving me even more useless than before.
Could someone like me truly be loved by everyone? I didn’t even know what being loved felt like.
It pains me to see how clumsy you are at receiving love.
While I was unconsciously making a gloomy face, a new message appeared.
For someone like you, the System has prepared a tutorial.
Immediately afterward, a red quest window popped up.
Resolve the 2nd-Grade Magic Beast Outbreak in Seoul D-Sector Area 3 (0/1)
📍 Difficulty: Low
🎁 Reward: ???
The next moment, urgent shouts echoed from beyond the alley.
“Damn it!”
“What are you doing?! Inject the sedative—urk!”
“S-save me…!”
Swallowing dryly, I crept toward the sound and froze on the spot.
“Hic.”
A large number of people lay collapsed in pools of their own blood. They all wore suspicious-looking lab coats, but that wasn’t what mattered.
“Grrrr…”
In the middle of the carnage, a massive wolf-type magic beast that screamed danger from every inch of its body was drooling and radiating bloodlust.
“Hic.”
My whole body stiffened, and tears welled up before I could stop them. Overwhelming terror flooded me, making my breathing ragged.
My legs won’t move.
I had always been timid, but this was on another level. Had turning into a child also rewired my mind and thought processes to match? If so, I was in serious trouble. I had miraculously awakened; I didn’t want to end up as wolf food.
Shivering uncontrollably, I desperately tried to regain my senses. The magic beast sniffed the air, turned its head—and our eyes met.
Anomaly entity confirmed.
Convinced it was all over, I squeezed my eyes shut. That was when a new message appeared in the darkness.
Tutorial perk activated.
Manifesting the Star of Heavenly Love.
Before I could fully process the words, something changed.
“Little human.”
“......”
“You reek of fear.”
The terrifying wolf magic beast’s growl suddenly sounded like human speech.
“This human must be with them.”
Hearing the cold murmur, I threw caution to the wind and screamed with every ounce of strength I had left in my tiny body.
“I-I don’t know anything!”
A brief silence followed.
“......”
The one who broke it was the wolf, who had raised one front paw, ears perked, and was staring at me intently.
“How does a human understand my words?”
Only after reading the next status window message did I begin to grasp what my ability could do.
Action Recommendation: Persuade the magic beast and earn its favor.
Provided Ability: Communicator of All Things (S)
No points consumed thanks to the tutorial perk!
My ability literally gave me whatever I needed to be loved.
But… what am I supposed to do now?
“Answer the question, human.”
“Ah, uh…”
“Was it a mistake?”
Cold sweat ran down my back. Hearing the wolf’s mutter, I hurriedly opened my mouth.
“Y-yes, I can understand you!”
“Hmm.”
The wolf flinched again, then slowly looked me over.
“Fascinating. But that doesn’t matter right now.”
Its voice grew chilling as it licked its chops and began advancing.
“I am very hungry, human.”
“…Hic.”
“Those bastards drained most of my strength.”
Of course. A magic beast known as humanity’s enemy wouldn’t stop attacking just because we could talk. Was I really going to be eaten like this?
Action Recommendation: Act like the most pitiful child possible!
To be loved, sometimes acting is necessary.
If a little embarrassment can save your life, isn’t it worth trying?
I read the message quietly, then bit my lip hard.
No time to be picky about methods.
Throwing away this miraculous second chance would be far worse than following whatever this mysterious ability told me to do.
Fine. Let’s do this.
I was done with dying miserably without ever being loved.
*****
Thirty minutes later, in a back alley of Seoul D-Sector Area 3.
“Sigh…”
“Hmm.”
The two A-class hunters dispatched after confirming the 2nd-grade magic beast outbreak quietly clicked their tongues at the gruesome scene and stepped deeper inside.
“What a mess.”
“The Second Advent Church again. Their activity has increased lately.”
“Exactly. This time they really went all out.”
They wore their A-class titles with pride; even surrounded by the thick stench of blood, they chatted calmly as they advanced.
“……?”
The young woman in the black suit suddenly stopped, eyes gleaming.
“Hostile entity detected ahead.”
“What?”
“I’ll secure it immediately.”
She shot forward at an unbelievable speed, leaving her companion behind.
“That impatient personality of hers is as bad as her talent. I wonder when she’ll fix it.”
The middle-aged man clicked his tongue at her back and was about to follow with his hands clasped behind him when—
“Senior.”
A tense transmission came through the radio in his ear from the female hunter who had gone ahead.
“What is it?”
It had been a long time since he’d heard that level of tension in her voice on a mission, so he answered urgently, but—
“…You should come see this for yourself.”
What the female hunter had found defied easy description.
“Grrrr…”
“S-stop it…”
The 2nd-grade magic beast that had triggered an emergency evacuation order across the entire D-sector was gently cradling a small child in its forelegs and carefully licking the top of the child’s head.