1. I'm Retiring
"Damn, what a shitty day for weather."
A battlefield drenched in a blood-red sky.
With the corpse of a colossal monster sprawled before him, Oh Hyeon-seong muttered the words as a crimson rain came pouring down over him.
Then, with great effort, he turned his head to survey his surroundings.
Ruins, as far as the eye could see.
A place of death, littered with the bodies of countless civilians who hadn't managed to evacuate in time.
Every comrade deployed on the operation with him was dead.
In this hell on earth, Oh Hyeon-seong was the only one left standing.
"Khk... damn it..."
And his own condition wasn't much better.
Blood was seeping out of him everywhere, and the slightest movement sent waves of excruciating pain through his body.
One of his eyes had refused to open for a while now.
At least half of his ribs were crushed, and the organs they were meant to protect had long since been reduced to mush.
Oh Hyeon-seong was no stranger to getting hurt all over—but even so, this time, the weight he felt in his body was different from anything before.
And on top of everything else, one of my legs is completely gone... There's no coming back from this.
A hollow laugh escaped his lips.
Squads' worth of personnel wiped out, and his own body mangled beyond recognition.
But that wasn't the only thing carving a deep hollow into his heart.
I'm sorry. For ending up with such a useless master.
The scattered traces of his spirits, gone without a trace.
Among awakened hunters, Oh Hyeon-seong had possessed a rare Special Constitution.
And not just any constitution—he was the sole bearer in the entire world of Spirit Communion.
But on this battlefield, he had lost every one of his spirits.
He'd even had to say goodbye to the partners who had been at his side ever since his first awakening.
All that remained were the low-tier spirits, the ones with no power to fight.
Kiiing, kiiing.
Tiny, green-glowing spirits.
The spirits of life drifted up one by one and circled around Oh Hyeon-seong, gazing at him as if worried.
Krrt-krrt-chik!
- ...Silence from the Queen specimen confirmed. Mission successful.
- Senior! Senior! Can you hear me? Just hold on a little longer! Please...!
Voice was finally coming through the radio that had gone dead.
And in the far distance, the whine of helicopter rotors.
"Guess it's not my fate to die here after all."
He had accomplished what was all but impossible.
He'd killed the Queen specimen—deemed absolutely unkillable—and achieved the strategic objective.
He had saved millions of lives in the process.
His feat would become a legend retold by every hunter in the industry.
But what's the point of any of that?
Ten years had already passed since he'd given his life to the nation as a black ops agent.
All he felt now on these blood-soaked battlefields was emptiness.
Which meant his drive as a hunter had finally run dry.
"I should... retire now."
Oh Hyeon-seong pulled out the resignation letter he'd been keeping tucked against his chest.
Then he brought his pen to the signature line—the one he'd left empty for an entire year.
Scratch, scratch.
Suddenly, the words of a hometown friend came back to him.
Enough of the suffocating city life, the friend had said—I've got my eye on a plot of land out in the quiet countryside. Come down and live here whenever you want.
Under normal circumstances, he would have brushed it off. But strangely, his friend's words had kept circling in his head ever since.
Back then, he hadn't understood why.
But now, he thought he did.
Because deep down, his heart had already been wavering.
"Whew..."
Gripping the blood-stained resignation letter tightly, Oh Hyeon-seong flung the pen away to the side.
Then, with both eyes closed, he murmured:
"Yeah. I'll go be a farmer."