Chapter 1
Chapter 1
If I Could Go Back in Time
My parents became food for pigs.
To be precise, they were eaten alive by pig-type monsters that poured out of a collapsed gate.
“Stay right here and don’t move, Aren. Mom and Dad will handle this… somehow!”
My parents, who were not hunters, could do nothing against the monsters.
The horrible memory of hiding in the wardrobe and hearing the gnawing noises is still vivid.
I was ten years old at the time.
My friends were swept away by a gate that appeared during a school trip.
“…Guys? Teacher?”
I had just gone back to the dorm to grab a coat because it was cold.
A storm struck the place where the teacher and the children had gathered.
No one was left there.
I was fifteen years old then.
Thirty years after a gate suddenly appeared one day.
Humanity realized that the byproducts of gates could be used as resources.
Instead of clearing the gates to eliminate them, humanity decided to manage them.
Every hunter guild was reborn as a gate management company.
My parents and friends disappeared after humanity declared gate management.
The reason I lost the people I cared about so tragically was simple.
They failed to manage it.
Humans were not capable of perfectly managing and controlling unknown gates in just thirty years.
So, at fifteen, I lost everyone and was left alone.
I became the only survivor at school and graduated middle school.
Instead of going to high school, I took the equivalency exam.
From the moment I was left alone, I had only one goal.
To get a job at a gate management company.
I couldn’t stop thinking, How on earth were they supposed to manage this?
With a mix of anger and curiosity, I prepared for the hunter qualification exam.
After repeating a year, I became an E-rank hunter.
At exactly twenty, I joined Zenith, one of the three major companies.
But the losses didn’t end there.
“Agent Aren… please request support…”
Team dissolution and reassignment happened eighteen times due to team annihilation.
“Emergency! GT-856 is collapsing. Prepare for erosion…!”
Continuous gate management failures.
“The chairman disappeared? Without anyone knowing?”
Even the sudden disappearance of the S-rank hunter chairman.
Zenith fell so far that it was shameful to even call it a company, let alone one of the top three.
Eventually, the staff was reduced, reduced, and then 70 percent of the workforce vanished.
Zenith was not the only one.
All three major companies faced a similar end.
Humanity, which had survived by clearing gates for thirty years, collapsed rapidly within ten years of declaring management.
By unlucky chance, I always skirted death.
I unintentionally survived countless hellish situations.
Later, I even experienced the absurd promotion of being the chairman’s personal secretary.
Of course, it was only in name.
The chairman was a daughter filling the place of her missing father.
The secretary was an agent who had survived brutally on the field.
After repeating loss after loss, I reached thirty.
“Cough…”
Even my stubborn survival instincts were beginning to fail.
“Sigh… so this is it, Aren. At least we won’t die alone… right?”
Whether it was fortunate or not, the chairman, in name only, was beside me as I was dying.
“Aren. You’re not dead yet, right?”
“…Not dead.”
I replied, frowning as fingers poked at my cheek.
“Do… you still use honorifics at a time like this? You’re going to die in five minutes.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“We’re friends, friends. Is it that hard to speak casually before we die? You always say whatever you want. You’re really cruel.”
It was true. I was about to take my last breath, and we were the same age.
I had kept the pretense of formality until now.
There was no need for that right before death.
“…Lan.”
“Huh. Did you just say my name? You never do it when I ask. So we’re speaking casually now?”
“Looks like we’ll die in four minutes.”
“Even for four minutes!”
The black bob fell over her shoulders.
Golden eyes still shining despite the situation.
Calloused hands too big for her small frame.
S-rank hunter, Lan.
Current chairman of the fallen Zenith.
The chairman I served for five years was the complete opposite of me.
“Does it hurt?”
“Huh? Of course it hurts. I want to collapse screaming right now.”
Her left eye had burst, leaking pus.
Her right arm was twisted unnaturally.
Blood ran from her nose and mouth.
Broken bones protruded from her body, and yet she could still smile.
Even now, I could not understand Lan.
“But if we fall now, that’s it, isn’t it? If we’re going to die, we can’t die so meaningless.”
“You… cough, cough…!”
“Don’t move! You could die too, Aren.”
Except for the fact she wasn’t laughing, I was no different.
Blood ran freely across my face.
My lower body had been blown away, leaving me unable to walk.
Organs spilled from my ruptured wounds.
We were facing an extremely gruesome death.
Until now, I had survived through all deaths, but this time there was nothing we could do.
Bang!
A crashing sound made both Lan and me raise our heads.
The scene before us was hell.
To the left, a desert with sandstorms.
Ahead, a sea ravaged by a tidal wave.
To the right, a volcano spewing lava and toxic substances.
But it wasn’t over.
Roar!
A black dragon flew across the sky, breathing fire.
Sea dragons split the ocean as they swam.
Massive beasts and insects trampled everything in sight.
Every time I shifted my gaze, the scene changed into utter destruction.
“There’s no way any humans survived there, right?”
“S-rank hunters are dying here too. What human could survive an erosion site?”
Every gate had its own internal world.
From terrains like deserts, oceans, and volcanoes to countless monsters.
When a gate collapses, its internal world spills into reality.
Erosion.
The phenomenon where the released internal world overlays reality is called that.
“Looks like we’re the last humans.”
“Probably.”
Even a single erosion is considered a disaster.
I couldn’t even count how many gates had collapsed in this space.
“Damn. We should have captured and isolated the humanoid gate earlier.”
This disaster was caused by another gate.
Gates were not always just portals or doors.
There were beast-type, space-type, phenomenon-type, and more.
Any entity with an internal world was called a gate.
“How are we supposed to capture one that looks exactly like a human?”
Some gates were indistinguishable from humans.
The humanoid gate that no one in the three major companies could capture gradually released the isolated gates, causing this catastrophe.
“Sigh… If it weren’t me, maybe my father would have found it?”
Even while dying, Lan’s smile was tinged with regret.
“If I had paid a little more attention, I might have known where my father went…”
Founder of Zenith and an S-rank hunter.
Lan’s father had vanished one day.
Completely. Without anyone knowing.
With the chairman gone, chaos hit the company.
The overlap of gate management failure and humanoid gate activity sped the end.
Lan became the chairman of Zenith amidst this chaos.
Even knowing the collapse was inevitable, someone had to guide the remaining people.
“You know, Aren. If you could go back in time, what would you want to do first?”
“Where’s that coming from all of a sudden?”
“I feel like I might close my eyes if I don’t say something. Better to chat while dying than die in silence, right?”
I couldn’t agree with Lan’s idea.
“Please… die chatting with me…”
Even a dying friend’s request couldn’t be refused.
“If I could go back in time… I wouldn’t run or hide. If I survive alone, it will end up like this anyway.”
I didn’t want anything else.
I had already lost too much.
If I could go back, I didn’t want to lose anyone. At least the teammates beside me.
“Hmm… Not losing a teammate… that’s a very Aren answer…”
Lan’s voice gradually grew drowsy.
The eyelids that had just closed showed no sign of opening again.
“You?”
So I held her.
To keep even a little of Lan’s life going.
“What would you do if you went back in time?”
“I… would keep an eye on Dad so he doesn’t disappear suddenly…”
Even with her eyes closed, Lan answered carefully.
“I wish I had become friends with you sooner.”
“What?”
“How many peers can you find in a company…? There’s no one I can treat this comfortably like a friend…”
There must be plenty of peers if you looked.
The comfort came from having crossed the edge of death together.
I didn’t bother to argue.
“Stay close for a bit…? Your body is so cold…”
There wasn’t much time left.
I used my last strength to hold Lan.
“Hahaha, Aren, you’re so cold too. Not warm at all…”
“I’m dying too.”
“Still… don’t die before me. Being left alone is horrible…”
Her words stopped.
Lan smiled as if relieved, then grew cold.
Only then did I close my eyes.
Strength slowly drained from my body.
It felt strangely comforting, like Lan said.
Not dying alone was more peaceful than I imagined.
As consciousness blurred and my body stiffened,
Lan’s question before dying lingered in my mind.
‘If I could go back in time…’
Tick.
The sound of a clock echoed in my ears.
2
If I could go back in time, which moment would be best?
The gate collapse that killed my parents?
I was ten then, so going back wouldn’t change anything.
I’d only repeat the horrific past.
Fifteen, when I lost my friends?
I was still powerless then.
A storm that could wipe out people in the blink of an eye was beyond an individual’s control.
Then there was only one suitable time.
Pass the hunter exam, even as an E-rank.
Join Zenith before losing any teammates.
If I could return at twenty, I’d be satisfied.
Crash!
“Hey! Step back, Aren!”
Yes, now was the exact moment.
“Are you out of your mind?! Step back!”
F-rank spatial gate GT-078.
Gate name: Great Garden.
The day a sudden incident occurred during a safety inspection.
A wolf monster appeared, biting the team leader’s arm.
The first time I lost all my teammates.
E-rank hunter, Aren.
Former general agent of Gate Management Team 3.