The Max-Level Hunter Returns – Chapter 1
A man stood atop a pile of corpses.
He gazed down at them impassively. No particular emotion showed on his face. Sorrow had passed, and rage had faded. Perhaps all that remained for him was emptiness.
“...You're strong.”
“Hmph. Still alive, eh? As expected of a high god contractor in this war.”
In response, the man with no lower body looked up at him and sneered coldly.
“There were twenty high god contractors, no less. But even they couldn't take you down.”
“Yeah. They couldn't. Ants are still just ants, no matter how many gather.”
“...You insufferable bastard.”
In this polytheistic world, countless gods existed. Gods were everywhere, from the continent's nooks to its crannies. People formed contracts with gods, drawing strength and power from their God's Blessings. The stronger the god, the greater the power granted.
It was only natural.
The corpses strewn at the man's feet were all contractors of high gods, hailed as the pinnacle among the gods' chosen. The continent's greatest powerhouses. Yet even they had proven no match for him.
He was a god above gods.
Adel Temir was a contractor of an ancient god—one of only two such beings in the world.
“Karon. Today is the day the empire is founded. The day we've dreamed of. If we'd held out just one more day... maybe even I would've changed my mind.”
He lowered his head and spoke to the man whose lower half had been blown away.
Karon Azal. He was the emperor of the empire born this day.
And the emperor who would vanish this day.
“I was planning to return to the desert. There might be survivors from my lost tribe. I just wanted to find them and live quietly again.”
Thud.
He pulled something from his bosom and tossed it before Karon.
“But you tried to kill me. Using a poison that wouldn't even work was a childish move.”
“...I know. But I had no choice. The situation left me no other options.”
“True. The fact that you went this far... means you were sincere, just like the rest of them.”
Adel asked him,
“Are you afraid of me?”
“It'd be strange if I weren't. The continent has been ravaged by endless wars between kingdoms, left in ruins. When the empire finally rose, I realized the truth: a terror greater than the age of warfare still lingered.”
The voices spoke with feverish excitement, as if savoring the moment.
Shut up, all of you.
At Adel's single command, the clamor in his mind dissipated like mist in the air.
The noise rattling his head. Astonishingly, it was the voices of the gods.
“I see. I thought of you as friends, but you didn't feel the same. I was just a frightening existence to you.”
Adel nodded slowly.
He was a hunter.
He had devoted his life to the hunt. For his comrades.
And now that the empire everyone dreamed of was complete, he finally wanted to live his own quiet life.
He desired nothing more.
Just... peace, unlike the blood-soaked existence he'd known.
“My ignorant friend...”
Adel sighed softly.
“Were you afraid of my strength? Then you were wrong from the start. I'm not some contractor groveling to gods for power like the rest of you.”
He was a hunter.
He had devoted his life to the hunt.
And in the end, he had hunted them all.
Even the gods.
“That's why you're strong.”
Pfuk.
Adel drew his last arrow and plunged it into the emperor's throat.
"Pathetic revenge."
A black wolf appeared before the emperor's corpse.
"Do you really plan to go back? No one can stop you now. You could have anything you desire."
The ancient god said.
“What I desire?”
But Adel only gave a bitter smile.
“What I desire isn't here.”
His eyes saw only the corpses of those who had been his comrades.
“That's why I'm going back. The war took too much from me. My tribe, my brothers, my comrades... and even my dreams.”
"The peace you crave? Heh heh... Even if you go back, you won't be their comrade. You'll only be an object of fear."
“That's fine. No—in fact, it's exactly what I want.”
"...What?"
“I'll become an object of fear. So that no one even thinks to challenge me.”
Adel picked up the vial beside Karon.
Woooong...
As he murmured an incomprehensible incantation, the liquid inside began to glow blue.
"Is that your conclusion? It might lead to an even lonelier life than now."
The black wolf spoke, eyeing the glow.
“Who knows. It might be the same as now, or completely different.”
Gulp.
He drained the vial in one go.
“Now I get it. Peace isn't given by others. I have to make it myself. So...”
As his contractor died, the black wolf slowly closed its eyes.
“I'll come find you again.”
In that instant, the worldline twisted.
“I will become a true king, untouchable by any.”
The blazing sun scorched the desert sands as if to incinerate them.
In that hellish heat where no human could survive, a group walked leisurely, mocking the inferno.
“We'll arrive soon.”
One of the three crossing the sands lowered her face veil and spoke.
The man with sharp features and thick beard pointed ahead.
“Hmph.”
“It's been two months. The tribesmen will cheer when they see what you've hunted, Chief.”
The voice of the other beside him was light. The smooth figure beneath her robe marked her as a woman, unlike the other two.
“A meager result. I went to deal with a desert pest and failed.”
“But you caught something even greater.”
“Failing to catch your prey makes it a failed hunt.”
“You're the only one who'd call hunting a dragon while going after a cyclops a failure.”
The woman shrugged helplessly at his words and laughed.
“Well, Hien. That iron rule is what made you the greatest hunter.”
A massive something lay loaded on the cart behind them. Dozens of horse-like cargon beasts pulled it, and through the tent flap peeked a huge eye and fangs.
The dead dragon was no longer the desert's tyrant—just a hunk of meat.
Hien, as he was called, showed no interest in his kill, not even glancing at it.
“Look over there, Hien.”
Just then, the thick-bearded man pointed to a spot.
“It's a child.”
Though nothing was visible, the man behind him nodded at his words.
“Strange. In this desert...”
“It's war. The desert is a merciless place—easy to abandon, easy to discard.”
“But a child is innocent.”
The woman shrugged at the man's words in rebuttal.
“True, we should applaud the kid's will to live for making it this far... but left like that, it'll die.”
Yet in the end, both their gazes converged on Hien in the center.
Regardless of their opinions, the decision was his.
“You're right, Muel. War is the adults' doing. A child bears no guilt.”
“Will you take the child in?”
At his words, the woman brightened and reached for the curved sword at her waist.
“Not every child gets that grace. You know well what kind of children I take as my own.”
Her hand paused on the hilt.
The man nodded as if it were expected.
“But we can't just watch a child die before our eyes.”
Swish.
The man unshouldered his massive bow.
Krreeeeak...
Unlike his slight frame, the thick bow bent as if it might snap under the drawn string.
“Nazan.”
But then.
“Did you see?”
At Hien's call, the man didn't loose the arrow but slowly released the string.
“...Yes, I saw.”
Instead, wonder lit his eyes.
The child had felled the encircling monsters in an instant, as if they were another person entirely.
Crack.
Twisting the last monster's neck, the child turned to them as if waiting.
Adel slowly opened his eyes.
[Grrrrr...]
As if emerging from a deep, dark tunnel, the sweltering sun and low monster growls assaulted him before he could shake off his weary body's fatigue, his head spinning.
“It's been a while.”
Ignoring the monsters around him, he stared blankly at the sun and murmured.
“As expected... of an ancient god. Kalderet. Just as you said, I've returned.”
He rose slowly.
“To the moment I hated and resented most... and longed for most.”
[Grrrrrr...]
Hearing the desert wolf's growl, he smiled—a strange mix of joy and bitterness.
Adel Temir. The only human to hunt a god.
This world allowed devotion to but one god alone.
But he was different. He had captured gods and bent them to his will.
Countless gods had fallen at his feet.
“Kalderet. I'll pay the price, whatever it is. Rewinding the clock's spring is that merciless.”
Somehow, Adel thought such words ill-suited to a man ignorant of all but the hunt.
“...Hanging with those noisy bastards has made me talkative too.”
No more voices echoed in his head.
[Grrrrrr...]
Only the wary growls of the encircling wolves remained.
“...”
Adel clenched and unclenched his fist, staring at his small palm.
Unlike his past rough, callused hand, it was a child's slender one—though not spotless.
Squeeze.
A blank slate that had never held bow or sword twisted a wolf's neck effortlessly.
Crack.
[Kyaaak!!!]
At the dull crunch of twisting bone, the desert wolves shrieked sharply.
Flash...!
Flash flash...!!
Undeterred, he slipped between the wolves' legs like water, drawing the dagger at his waist and thrusting it deep into one's underbelly with practiced ease.
“...”
The dagger felt quite heavy.
Yet in moments, he severed four wolves' throats.
To an onlooker, it would be astonishing.
The blade that slew the monsters wasn't a proper combat dagger but a mere butcher's knife stolen from a village slaughterhouse.
“Hoo... Hoo...”
But Adel only breathed raggedly, his face tinged with regret.
His mind brimmed with monster-hunting techniques to the point of tedium, but knowledge in the head and action in the body were worlds apart.
Still only this much, huh... It'll be a grind to train up.
But he wasn't worried. Knowing it mentally meant he just had to execute it.
“...I remember.”
Standing atop the monster corpses, he muttered.
He had fled to the desert to escape the war.
But the desert proved more horrific than the war-torn continent.
Suffocating heat, stinging sun, gnawing hunger... dizziness, mirages, hallucinations.
No one could stay sane.
When monsters encircled him on top of it all, he'd nearly given up.
Until Nazan's arrow saved him.
But a saved life like that won't do. I need to catch his eye from the start.
A group appeared in the distance.
Adel knew who they were.
Even veiled, their forms stirred deep longing.
His eyes lingered especially on the man in the center of the approaching three.
He had chosen this regression point for that very reason.
Father.
Not by blood, of course. The foster father who had taken in an orphan like him.
Yet he'd never called him father in life.
By the time his talent awoke and he became his adopted son, the man had died soon after.
That was when it began.
The downfall of the desert—his only true home.
Everyone died.
Thus, no matter how many times he pondered, he'd return to this exact moment.
This time, I'll earn your recognition from the beginning.
Baekgwi, Hien. The man who exuded overwhelming presence just by standing in the vast desert.
Adel gazed at him.
Master of ten thousand hunters, ruler of the sands.
And so...
The sun hung above their heads, as if weighing who truly owned the desert.
...the throne of the sands will be mine.