001. Choi Kanghyuk's Retirement Ceremony

"Senior, thank you for everything you've done for us all these years."

"Hard work, nothing of the sort. I'm the one who gets to go home and rest now. You're the ones in for the hard part."

I was a hunter. To be precise, I had been one until today.

"It was reassuring, Senior, knowing you were holding the line in front of us. I only wish you could keep standing there for us a while longer."

"I'm yesterday's man now. You don't block the road of people with talent."

I knew perfectly well that the junior saying all this was speaking empty words, and so was I. You don't roll around this business for twenty years without learning to tell flattery from the real thing.

War arrives without warning.

A line from some documentary I'd watched years ago drifted back to me.

Gates were no different. No, gates were worse. They didn't even bother with an omen.

Had it been forty years since the first dungeons appeared? Fifty, maybe? As if the dungeons had been a rehearsal, gates began tearing open all over the world before anyone knew it.

The awakened stepped into the light, and they drank in the world's attention.

And then the Constellations arrived. Among the awakened, those who bound themselves to one began calling themselves Players.

Articles about gates and dungeons flooded every outlet, but not a soul on Earth knew the truth.

Even now, the world was fighting back against the gates that never stopped opening, people called hunters, heroes, warriors, and the awakened standing shoulder to shoulder with ordinary civilians.

THUD!

"Not even worth a snack."

"As expected of you, Kanghyuk! Clearing it this fast!"

The grand fantasies I'd nursed when I first awakened had turned out to be mirages. Even in a brand-new world, you couldn't succeed without talent.

Had some prophecy book come to life? A status window straight out of a novel was now reality.

But the window was nowhere near as helpful as a game's. It told you exactly one thing: a single trait. No description, no instructions. Every hunter had to work out what their ability actually did on their own.

"Robustness? Then I'm a tank!"

Naturally, I assumed my future lay in being a defender who blocked monsters at the front. But my trait was nothing of the sort. It was a sturdiness built to endure extreme training. Regimens that would flatten anyone else within an hour or two barely made me sweat. A realization that arrived far too late.

So this is where my life as a hunter ends?

Back in my Trait: Robustness days, when I stood at the front with a shield and ate monster attacks for a living, I took a catastrophic injury.

"Your recovery rate is remarkable. How are you healing this fast? And to keep pushing this long... are you quite all right?"

It was during the rehabilitation that followed that I finally learned the truth: my trait wasn't about taking hits. It maximized the returns on training itself.

If only I'd known a little sooner. No, if I'd just figured it out before the injury...

The recovery was never complete. With an injury like that one, being alive at all was the miracle.

C-Rank. And now even that is over.

Saving people had become my life, and I had given the Hunter Association twenty years of it before I noticed the time passing. Today was the last of them.

"Now then, let's hear a few words from today's man of honor, Hunter Choi Kanghyuk!"

"No, no. Speech? There's no speech. Skip it. I'm fine."

"Oh, come on. We can't let a senior with twenty years of service to the Association go without a word. Get up here!"

"Aigoo, who in their right mind wants to listen to me talk?"

While I was still sparring with the MC, an irritated voice drifted over from across the hall.

"Twenty years and still C-Rank, and that's something to be proud of? Why should we listen to a speech? And why did I even have to come to a thing like this?"

The banquet hall fell dead silent in an instant. That manners-less punk was Jang Minsu. A B-Rank hunter with a promising future, no less.

"Hey, that's going too far."

He must have been drunker than he realized, because Minsu looked briefly flustered at his own volume. But his face soon hardened into pure, practiced shamelessness.

"What, did I say something wrong? Twenty years stuck at C-Rank isn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something to brag about. And what's he going to teach us anyway?"

That insolent little bastard.

If I were younger, I'd have grabbed him by the collar and thrown hands, never mind who came out of it in one piece.

But it's my last day. Why bother.

The years had worn my edges round.

"It's fine. Really. He's not wrong, C-Rank isn't much to brag about. I don't have anything worth saying anyway, and if I ramble on up here they'll just call me a fossil."

Hiding what I felt behind an even expression was a skill I'd mastered long ago.

"No, Hyung-nim, that's still way out of line. Hey! Jang Minsu, apologize to him right now!"

The one raging in my place was Kim Chulmin. Our history went back to my defender days, and we'd entered the Association together. After that many years side by side, he was family now more than anything.

If I left him to it, the last memory anyone kept of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me would end in a brawl.

"Easy, easy. I'd rather not have it said that my career ended in a fistfight."

Jang Minsu had awakened as C-Rank while still a child and was a B-Rank hunter now. He'd wanted to join a guild, but apparently nothing met his standards, so he'd settled for the Association instead.

A man wound entirely out of pride was never going to apologize.

Watching the two of them flush red toward the boiling point, I had a feeling my final act as a hunter would play out in the middle of a brawl.

BANG!

Kim Chulmin shot up from his seat just as the gate alarm went off with impeccable timing.

"Red alert! A gate has opened!"

Shouts of confusion erupted from every direction.

"There was no gate forecast today. Why did one open out of nowhere?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Jang Minsu! You apologize to my senior later, you hear me? I'm watching!"

Even mid-crisis, that was the first thing Chulmin took care of.

"Hey, there's no time. Get moving. This is about to get ugly." I caught Chulmin short as I said it.

"Hyung-nim, you're retiring as of today. Just take the day off, please."

"Hey! I haven't retired yet. Are you mocking me?"

With that, I drew my weapon from the case I'd reverently stowed in the corner.

"Whoa. Hyung-nim. You hauled that enormous thing all the way here? Unbelievable. Seriously unbelievable. I was wondering where it had gone today, and it turns out you stashed it in the corner."

Kim Chulmin shook his head slowly.

"On a day like this, when anything could happen, why would I leave it behind?"

"Still, today of all days you could have left it home. It's not like it's just some axe."

"It's not an axe, you punk, it's a poleaxe. A poleaxe!"

"Aigoo, same difference. And since when does a poleaxe look like that? I looked up pictures once, and they don't look anything like that."

"It's called custom, you idiot. Custom!"

A hammer head the size of a man's skull, a massive axe blade mounted on the opposite side, and a thrusting blade at the tip of the shaft.

My beloved weapon. I had named her Breaker.

If not for the injury, she would have grown into something even bigger, heavier, and more fearsome still.

"Let's go! We're late."

Everyone else had long since bolted from the banquet hall.

"What kind of gate?"

"Damn it! Green, it's a Green!"

"Scale?"

"Large-scale!"

"Damn it, that calls for at least five B-Rank parties!"

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

The scholars had dressed it all up in plausible-sounding terms, mana tearing through the boundary with the Earth like a wavelength of light, but none of that mattered. The further down the spectrum you went, the stronger the things that came out. That was the only truth that counted.

The worst gates humanity had ever faced topped out at Blue and Indigo. Even the United States, home to more S-Rank hunters than any other nation, had only five. Against that backdrop, a Green Gate was clearly beyond anything our crowd here could handle. Count the B-Ranks in this room and you got exactly two: Jang Minsu and Kim Chulmin. That was the whole list.

"Get the barrier up first!"

"Barrier? What barrier? So we all get sealed in here to die together?"

At the mention of raising the barrier, Minsu started raving.

The gate dimensional separation device. The barrier, in layman's terms. Technology handed down by the Constellations, the kind everyone knew how to assemble and nobody understood.

The barrier quarantined the area around an outbreak by splitting off a duplicated dimension, creating a sealed arena where hunters could fight the monsters without the world collapsing around them.

Put simply, it was the item that kept the lawsuits away once the fighting ended. Some people were out there wagering their lives, and someone's house loses a wall and suddenly it's a court case.

The catch was that at least one hunter, monsters not counting, had to remain inside the barrier. The moment it went up, every non-awakened civilian was moved outside automatically.

"So what, you're going to kill everyone in here?"

Chulmin was shouting too, the veins standing out in his neck.

"You measure the bed before you stretch out your legs! Not me. I'm not doing it. This is a dog's death!"

With those parting words, Minsu ran.

"Th-that coward!"

Chulmin cursed him out, but the truth was that Association protocol said the same thing: when a gate exceeded your rank, you evacuated the site, formed a proper party, and re-entered later.

But this was a restaurant district packed shoulder to shoulder. Far too many people, and nowhere near enough time to move them. A sudden outbreak gate wasn't going to grant us any.

"Chulmin. You've carried more than your share all these years. You've got kids at home, so get out of here!"

"Hyung-nim! What kind of talk is that? We go together."

"I never married, and today's my last day as a hunter. I can afford to go out with a bang. You can't."

"I am not leaving you behind. Not a chance."

"Who's going to stop me? Then grab that thing and get ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it set up, fast."

"Understood."

CRACK!

The moment Chulmin answered and turned his back, I cracked him across the back of the head with the Breaker.

B-Rank or not, nobody wins against a sucker blow.

"Drag this idiot over there out of the way! Anyone who can afford to die, follow me!" I scooped the barrier generator out of Chulmin's grip as I said it.

"Look at him, trying to play the lone hero."

"Anyone with a wife and kids, or aging parents, get out! Today, we're the main characters."

Five C-Rank hunters gathered around ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me. Sealing the gate was impossible. The goal was to buy time.

"Ten minutes. That's all we need. The backup teams will be here by then, so whatever happens, don't you dare die before those ten minutes are up."

"Worry about yourself!"

"Not even calling me Senior anymore? Where's your upbringing, kid!"

"We're all walking into a grave. Who cares about seniority now?"

Trading worthless banter, we headed for the gate.

"Barrier, activate!" I shouted it as I rammed my mana into the device.

A bluish curtain of light expelled everyone but the hunters. Better odds than the gladiators thrown into Rome's Colosseum, at least. We had chosen our deaths ourselves.

Moments after the barrier settled, the gate began to emit a low, humming drone.

"Here it comes!"

"Get rea—"

Crushing the Breaker's haft in both hands until it creaked, I stepped out in front of everyone. The gate's green glow deepened, and a massive shape burst through.

"Krrugh, chwieee!"

Rough breath steaming from its maw, the thing that emerged was an Orc Warrior. If an Orc Warrior was the first thing out of a large Green Gate, then this was an orc horde, no question about it.

Small mercies.

Orcs were a race mad for battle. If their warriors led from the very front, we might buy time with one-on-one duels.

At least it isn't an Ogre or a Minotaur.

That Orc Warriors ranked among the weakest monsters a Green Gate produced was another mercy. Not that the orcs behind them were mere decoration. They wouldn't move an inch until their warrior fell.

"Mercy, my ass. We're dead either way."

"We can still buy time dueling the warriors, can't we?"

"Who knows? Drag it out right, and maybe we live when the backup arrives."

For a moment, hope flickered. Right up until more Orc Warriors began stepping through the gate, one after another...

"Well, would you look at that... exactly five of them? One per person, none left over. I'm off!"

The one sprinting away with those parting words was Jang Hyunsoo. Not as frequent a partner as Chulmin, but we'd cleared plenty of gates together all the same, and he was a genuinely refreshing man to fight beside.

"Go, by all means. Just drag your ten minutes out on the way!"

Each of us tossed out a last word, then locked onto an Orc Warrior and settled in for the grind.

An orc band under a warrior typically numbered a hundred. I didn't even want to imagine how many people would die if they scattered in every direction.

"Come here. Why don't you play with me instead?"

Resting the Breaker across my shoulder, I closed in on the last Orc Warrior standing. You needed to be at least B-Rank to trade blows with one, but there was nothing for it.

"Kak-ta! Urka!"

"Shut your trap, pig-head!"

Letting out that signature orcish roar, the warrior came charging, a massive axe in each hand. A savage sight, though mine wasn't exactly gentle either.

"Chwiek!"

The axe blade came whistling through the air. I met it head-on with the Breaker's hammer.

CLANG!

"Spicier than I expected, huh?"

I talked big, but I was losing the contest of strength. That was the part that had always galled me.

What if not for the injury? Could I have matched him blow for blow? Or simply swatted him away?

"Keep it coming!"

"Krwaaak!"

I blocked the first few blades head-on, but bravado only lasts so long. I knew that a prolonged contest of strength would bury me.

WHUMP, WHUMP!

The Orc Warrior, seemingly tireless, kept swinging that enormous axe with mindless, brute abandon.

I swept each diagonally falling axe aside with the hammer.

"Damn it! If only it weren't for the injury!"

Without the injury, the training alone would have carried me further. Things would have been different from this.

"Chwiek! Urka!"

Sensing its advantage in strength, the warrior crumpled its face into an even deeper sneer. Then it began chopping straight down, over and over, like a woodsman splitting firewood.

"Ghraaah!"

I deflected what I could, but my knees kept sinking toward the ground, and there was no stopping them.

One step! If I could just take one step forward!

Hunting for any opening at all, I kept turning aside the falling axe.

Then the excited Orc Warrior stamped its foot, right onto a manhole cover.

No manhole cover on Earth, not even its grandfather, was surviving that.

As predicted, one of the warrior's feet plunged straight through.

"Uril?"

"Kraaap!"

A hairline opening, courtesy of dumb luck. I choked up short on the Breaker's haft and drove the coiled force of my bent legs forward.

"Urka!"

Surprise flashed across the warrior's eyes, but even so, the great axe kept falling.

Eat the blow, and thrust through it!

There was no hesitation. Giving flesh to take bone was an old trade. Anyone who never learned it was already dead.

Let's go together.

Though this time, at best, I'd have to settle for dying together.

A heartbeat before the axe blade reached me, the Breaker's spear point punched into the warrior's throat.

Too shallow.

The instant I felt it, I hammered the shaft with my palm and drove the point all the way in.

KRUNCH.

At the same moment, my chest split open in a long red line.

"Grrulk..."

With the Breaker buried in its throat, the Orc Warrior made a wet, boiling sound.

THUD!

Flat on my back, I scanned the field. The others were dead or dying at their warriors' hands.

"I won, you bastards! Khk."

Not yet. I couldn't black out, not until the backup teams arrived.

Shheeeik, shheeeik!

On the very edge of blacking out, I heard the whistle of wind, and countless arrows began punching into the orcs.

"You're late. Thought I was dying for nothing."

The last thing my eyes took in was a streak of flame cutting through the empty air.

How much time had passed? My eyes opened. An endless white space, wall to wall. Not a hospital.

"What is this? Is this where you end up when you die?"

Still trying to make sense of my surroundings, I was glancing around when a sudden poof! sounded beside me, and there stood an adorable little fairy with tiny wings.

So death doesn't send an angel, or a grim reaper in a wide-brimmed black hat. Good to know.

"Hello! You're not dead. Well, no, you are dead, technically. But it's twenty years in the past now, so this is technically the time you were originally alive... Anyway, welcome! New Constellation!"

The fairy's rambling left me unclear on most of it, but the last part came through loud and clear.

"Excuse me? Cons...ti-what?"

"A Constellation! You've become a new Constellation!"

"Me...? I'm a...?"

"Yes. You heard me exactly right!"

I had become a Constellation. Me, the man who in all his years as a hunter had never had so much as a speck of connection to one.