Register as a Hunter. Collect Minerals.

Kang Yul had been street-smart from a fairly young age.

In a world where supernatural phenomena erupted constantly and simply keeping yourself alive was hard enough, parents who abandoned their children were common. Grow up eating the cold stares of an orphanage long enough, and you learn a few things whether you want to or not.

That crying alone never changes the world.

And once that sinks in, you naturally come to understand your own place in it. You accept reality as it is, and you learn how to claw your way through it.

One of the few valuable lessons I picked up while getting smacked around by the orphanage staff.

Are you watching, Orphanage Teacher?

Thanks to your guidance, I grew into such an adaptable child. Thanks to you, I started dreaming of becoming a hunter — a classic 3D job: dirty, dangerous, and difficult — from a young age.

Ah, but I don't feel particularly grateful. Let's never meet again. Good riddance.

…Anyway.

He'd wandered off-topic, but what Kang Yul really wanted to say was this:

By this point, isn't this a pretty successful life?

Kang Yul ran through the recent events in his head.

1. Awakened as a hunter — the so-called blessing.

2. Owned a personal gate he could open and close at will.

3. Possessed a skill that let him freely browse the gallery from inside the gate.

4. Mining dirt alone guaranteed a minimum daily wage of five hundred thousand won.

At this rate, he could retire tomorrow and live off the proceeds for the rest of his life without much trouble. A few swings of a pickaxe, and five hundred thousand won dropped into his account every single day.

A week ago, Kang Yul might have decided this was more than good enough, thrown everything else aside, and settled into the quiet life of an ordinary citizen.

Yes — a week ago.

I should keep looking for posts written by other supernatural beings.

It could be dangerous, so I'll have to approach carefully… Ah, but the deposit records are already there, so I need to register as a hunter, don't I?

On top of that, I need proper mining ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠equipment, and hunter-grade gear too… Celebrating five hundred thousand won was way too early.

The Kang Yul of now and the Kang Yul of a week ago were fundamentally different people. He had already walked back from the edge of death once. And once you'd tasted dopamine so intense it felt like your brain was melting, the quiet life of an ordinary citizen was no longer something you could dream of.

Of course.

First things first — register before they catch me as an unregistered hunter. The question is association or corporation… If I want to stay under the radar, the association is the better choice.

At this point, Kang Yul had no idea how much he himself had already changed.

The hunter verification process was over in an instant.

"Yes, Mr. Kang Yul. Mana confirmed in your body. Your class has been registered as Mage."

It was only natural — the procedure wasn't particularly complicated to begin with. Anyone who awakened as a hunter inevitably carried mana in their body, and all you had to do was place your hand on the association's mana plate to confirm it.

The association doesn't dig into your class or skills, after all.

If he'd joined a corporation, he would have been hired as a salaried employee, and a full examination would have laid bare everything from his class to every skill he possessed. But the association was a government institution. Unless you signed an exclusive contract, it guaranteed hunters a certain degree of autonomy.

And that was exactly why he wanted to join the association. If his class and skills ever got out, all hell would break loose — and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the association was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perfect place to keep them hidden.

"I'll now go over the guidelines that association-affiliated hunters need to be aware of."

So while the verification itself hadn't taken long, listening to the receptionist's explanation afterward took considerably more time. Even if you already knew the content, hearing it verbally and signing the contract was a mandatory part of the process, so he had to sit through all of it.

"First, association-affiliated hunters are obligated to assist with association-designated gate operations once a month. Failure to fulfill this duty will result in the automatic revocation of your association hunter credentials."

Help the association once a month. Given that the association's founding purpose was prioritizing the rescue of civilians caught up in supernatural phenomena, it was a reasonable condition. Chronically short-staffed, the association was always scrambling to fill its ranks — and one awakened hunter was worth far more than ten ordinary people.

Well, a newbie like me who just awakened will probably just get stuck on support duty.

Still, registering came with various benefits, including ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tax deductions. Build up a track record and they'd even grant you access to association-managed gates, which apparently paid quite well. That was why a fair number of hunters signed exclusive contracts with the association — save people and make money at the same time.

Not that any of that has much to do with me, since I've got my own personal gate.

Anyway. The guidelines continued.

"Additionally, any disadvantages arising from the loss of your license are entirely your own responsibility, Mr. Kang Yul. Please take special care not to lose it."

That was a warning that if you pulled any stunts with a hunter license, every consequence landed squarely on you.

"Furthermore, using skills in public places without special justification, threatening civilians, or attacking other hunters is prohibited. Should you engage in any of the above, hunters under exclusive contract with the association will be dispatched immediately. Please keep this in mind."

That one was aimed at the wild-stallion types who couldn't control their emotions and ran around doing whatever they pleased. There were more than a few people who treated hunter awakening as some kind of blessing of a new humanity, and cases of them harassing ordinary civilians weren't unheard of.

Those posts of association exclusive-contract hunters beating cultists into bloody pulps held the top spots on the Hunter Gallery for a long time.

They'd beaten them so thoroughly that just watching had been deeply satisfying.

"Do you have any questions?"

"No, none."

And so, having heard every last guideline, Kang Yul signed the contract, completed his hunter registration, and headed home.

"Home really is the best…"

Collapsing onto his bed, Kang Yul looked at the money in his account and thought. The outing had drained him completely, but now even if five hundred thousand won dropped into his account, it wouldn't raise major suspicions. Leave a record of entering a gate sometime soon, and even the minor doubts would vanish.

So he needed to find a suitable gate, but…

…For now, I want to focus on exploring my own gate.

It wasn't urgent, so he decided to think about that later. Right now, Kang Yul's mind was occupied with a single desire: to discover rare resources he hadn't found yet, as soon as possible.

And for that—

Well then… time to do a little shopping?

Money could always be earned somehow. He'd take his time browsing mining equipment.

It had already been two weeks since Kang Yul had holed up inside his gate.

His daily routine over those two weeks had been so monotonous it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say it consisted of only three things: mining, eating, and sleeping. But thanks to that bloody — no, that sweaty — effort, his progress exploring the gate had advanced far beyond anything he'd managed before.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-!

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-!

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-!

Rumble…!

Every time Kang Yul pressed the button on the portable rock drill in his hands, the cavern wall crumbled and he pushed forward. Compared to the days when three hours of desperate pounding had barely carved out a crude burrow, the difference was night and day.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-!

"Hahh…! The feel of this thing is just insane."

The equipment was heavy, he still had to haul the piled-up dirt out by hand, and he still had to install support beams so the tunnel wouldn't collapse — all that hassle remained. But a single click of the portable mana rock drill (rechargeable) accomplished what would have taken Kang Yul an entire month of pounding, so the rest was more than worth enduring.

"Whew… At this rate, it's easily earning its three-million-won price tag."

More precisely, once you added the drill bit set that mounted on the front, the total soared well past four million. But that was an amount he could recover in a week, so he didn't mind.

Ah — and the reason he said "a week" was because of the box's usage limit. He'd learned later that transactions through the box were only possible once per day. Ask for something more expensive than what you'd paid, and the trading opportunity itself vanished. Ask it to match the value, and only a fragment of some unidentifiable object would arrive, which was its own special kind of chaos.

That's how I learned it's better to take the money and buy things myself than to wish for objects I don't even understand.

So for about ten days he'd had to tough it out with pure physical labor, and after that ordeal, the rock drill felt all the more precious.

It makes a person involuntarily respectful, you could say.

After going through that kind of hell once, mining without the rock drill had become unimaginable. Hauling dirt and installing support beams barely registered as effort anymore. He almost wanted to give the drill a name — but he held off, figuring it was just another piece of equipment he'd eventually outgrow.

If it could smash that unidentifiable bone, I'd have named it on the spot.

Unfortunately, even this expensive rock drill couldn't break that massive bone. He'd tested it the very first day he bought the drill, and it hadn't left so much as a scratch, let alone a crack. Since then, he'd been half-neglecting it — treating it like a late-game farming material sitting near a base in a video game.

"Gotta climb the tech tree properly and keep advancing."

Rrrrrrrrrrrrr-!

So please, he thought, just give me something. A mineral, a vein — hell, even a different soil layer that wasn't weathered dirt. He continued mining with that hope for a while longer—

Clang-!

"!?"

A sound unlike anything he'd heard so far rang out. It was like metal striking metal.

"D-Did I hit something?!"

He carved out more of the surrounding area with the drill, then practically threw it aside and started digging at the source of the sound with his bare hands. His fingers tore open and bled, but he didn't care. What mattered to Kang Yul right now wasn't the wounds on his hands — it was whether something valuable was buried underneath.

Copper? Iron? Gold? Or maybe a gemstone?

Carefully brushing away the dirt, wondering what on earth was buried there, he soon uncovered something the size of a watermelon, glowing with an orange light.

A gemstone…?

Kang Yul ran his hand over the mineral's surface, examining it closely. At a glance it looked closer to brittle quartz than hard metal — but given the metallic ring when it struck the drill, it didn't seem like a low-hardness mineral. The thought crossed his mind that it might be a unique mineral found only in this gate.

Let's dig it out first.

Kang Yul brought over the geological hammer he'd bought for exactly this moment and began carefully extracting the mineral. He tapped delicately around it, working with painstaking care so as not to leave a single scratch. About ten minutes passed.

Crack-!

Hmm… It's not very heavy.

Lifting the extracted mineral, Kang Yul found it far too light for metal. A gemstone after all? he thought, turning it over in his hands — and then he noticed a faint shape at the mineral's center.

What is this…?

The rough outer surface made it hard to see clearly, but at a glance it looked like something curled up inside. He tried polishing the surface for a better look, but that only got him so far. Thinking a headlamp might make the shape clearer, he shone the light on it — and in that instant—

"Mountain-Eating Worm, Bakai…?"

What the hell is that…?

No — more importantly. A worm embedded in an orange-glowing mass…

…Wait. Is this not a mineral at all? Is this amber?