Family Ties and the First Rift
When he arrived home, his father was sweeping the grass beside the villa and the road.
“You’re already out here in the morning.”
“At my age… if I don’t keep moving, my body starts to stiffen up.”
Since not many households had moved into the villa complex yet, the surroundings still felt somewhat empty and barren.
Apparently bothered by that, his father had taken it upon himself to sweep the area with a broom.
In the distance, across an empty lot, his two younger brothers were already out exercising, and beside them Kang Yu-ri was lightly stretching.
“You said eating too much meat makes you gain weight.”
“You just have to eat in moderation.”
His mother seemed to be cleaning inside the house.
Instead of heading straight inside, Kang Tae-sung handed his father a debit card for the post office account.
“What’s this?”
“I opened an account. Use it for rent, buying things, whatever.”
“But the money you already gave us is still sitting there untouched.”
“That’s exactly why I’m telling you not to hold back. Make sure to tell Mom the same thing.”
“Are you heading out again? Aren’t you going to sleep?”
His father set the broom upright when he noticed Tae-sung didn’t seem inclined to go into the house.
“I’m sorry, but I’m planning to find separate lodging.”
“Is there not enough room? Han-sung said he’d share with you.”
There were three rooms in the house besides the master bedroom, so someone would inevitably have to share. But that wasn’t why Tae-sung wanted to live elsewhere.
“Like I mentioned before, killing monsters causes something to build up inside the body. And that draws more monsters in.”
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“Of course not. There’s no need to worry.”
⊳ — Kang Han-sung
At that moment, Kang Han-sung, who had been exercising in the distance, spotted him first and came running over.
“How was the hunt?”
“It went alright. For now I just got a feel for the surrounding atmosphere and gauged my own level.”
“Hmm.”
Tae-sung watched the other two siblings approach, then casually pulled a few items from the magic pouch hidden inside his waistband and set them down nearby.
A 45-inch television capable of receiving internet broadcasts, an instant water heater that ran on electricity along with the necessary plumbing parts, a toolbox filled with various tools, electrical wiring equipment, a dinnerware set from a once-famous brand, and even a rather large refrigerator.
“What are you doing? Bring them inside.”
When he spoke while continuing to pull things out, Han-sung, who had been watching from the side, quickly hoisted the refrigerator and headed toward the house. It looked like something that should have required two people, but as an awakened hunter, he carried it without any trouble.
Likewise, Kang Yeon-sung took the television, and Kang Yu-ri grunted as she lifted the toolbox.
“What a strange world we live in.”
His father spoke with a slightly dumbfounded expression, watching the endless stream of items coming from inside his son’s pants. He didn’t ask where they had come from. They could have been bought, or perhaps not.
“I already set up the official internet subscription. Just log in with this ID.”
“Oh, you took care of it? I was thinking about doing it myself.”
“One person can use up to five devices, so there’s no need to make another account.”
“For now, sure. But who knows what might happen later? You could carry a tablet around, but isn’t it annoying to keep taking it out and putting it away? Some people say it’s normal to have a computer at home and still carry three or four personal devices.”
People used tablets, smartphones, or even wrist-mounted terminals, but the wrist ones were inconvenient during combat, so only certain professions seemed to use them.
Still, he could understand the complaint about tablets being too bulky. After all, he only ever took his out of the magic pouch once a battle was over.
“Huh? You already got them?”
“I stopped by an electronics store. The TV and fridge came from there too.”
Before heading up the mountain, he had discovered a permanent discount electronics outlet abandoned in the outskirts.
The house had barely any electronics aside from a bed, dining table, living room table, and sofa, so he had grabbed a few things from there. Among them were several smartphones.
“The city hall said they’d make SIM cards for us.”
“Ah.”
Since the offer had come from the city hall, Tae-sung felt a twinge of regret that he hadn’t known earlier—he could have had them activated there. But since he had already brought devices for the whole family, he decided to take them along in the car to city hall.
He had brought extras in case any broke, so they weren’t short on devices.
However, since smartphones also counted toward the five-device internet limit per account, even if the entire family used just one phone under Tae-sung’s name, the limit would already be full. Additional accounts were unavoidable.
So Han-sung and Yeon-sung also opened accounts and subscribed to the internet.
Tae-sung had transferred ten million won into each of their accounts from his own, so they wouldn’t have to worry about internet fees for the time being.
With that, the family headed back home while Tae-sung remained behind.
As for sleep, simply breathing the night air was enough to substitute for it. He had grown so used to resolving accumulated fatigue with potions that he had no real problems even without sleeping.
Lately, sleeping at the gym had only brought back old dreams that left him uncomfortable, so he planned to reduce sleep as much as possible.
They couldn’t exactly be called nightmares, but most of those dreams were from the hundred-plus years of killing and being killed. They weren’t dreams he particularly wanted to revisit.
Ding-dong.
Just then, the default notification sound rang from the smartphone in his hand. When he checked the screen, a message bar announced a new message in the messenger app.
He must have only now searched for it after giving the targeting skill to him and heading back with the family, since he hadn’t checked properly earlier.
“All grown up and still acting like kids…”
Tae-sung let out a small chuckle, closed the messenger, adjusted the sound settings a bit, and slipped the smartphone into his jacket pocket. The leather jacket had zippers on every pocket, so there was no worry of dropping it.
Black bundled earphones poked out from the gap at the end of the closed zipper and plugged into both of Tae-sung’s ears. The smartphone had a few songs by a popular singer who had signed a sponsorship deal with the manufacturer at the time, but even though they had been new songs back then, they were now over five years old.
“The lyrics are funny.”
The lyrics spoke of protecting your love even if the world ended, as if predicting the current state of things. Tae-sung shook his head with a rare smile, but he didn’t remove the earphones.
At that moment, the song cut off with a beep, then resumed again.
At the same time, Tae-sung saw the same alert pop-up on the smartphone he had just taken out, matching the announcement displayed on the large screen installed in front of city hall.
He didn’t have any special app installed, so it seemed the internet provider was linked with city hall, allowing them to send mass alert messages to all smartphone subscribers in the area.
‘Is there no option to hide notifications?’
He fiddled with it for a moment, but there was no such setting.
Frowning slightly at the feeling of being shackled, Tae-sung reread the current message. It said a rift had appeared at a certain location and urged nearby residents to evacuate immediately.
A rift, huh.
He had heard that several more had appeared since the one he saw in District 3, but he hadn’t paid much attention and didn’t know what had become of them.
However, this particular rift was impossible to ignore—it was the closest to the city center of any that had appeared so far.
And then came the signature sudden quest.
Emergency Quest: Eliminate the Rift
📍 Objective: Enter the rift and prevent the monsters from emerging.
⏳ Time Limit: 9 minutes 59 seconds…
“It’s a rift! Let’s go!”
“Run!”
Suddenly, people who had been waiting near city hall began jumping into vehicles or sprinting on foot. Many were hunters affiliated with city hall, but there were also civilians and independent hunters among them.
Quite a few seemed to be swept up in the atmosphere and simply following along, but Tae-sung merely watched them quietly as he continued walking.
He had no intention of entering anyway. There was still plenty of time before the waiting period ended and monsters would start appearing after the next phase began.
The distance wasn’t far, so he walked at a normal pace. As expected, none of the people waiting near the rift were entering. Their response method didn’t involve going inside.
What was different from the past was the primary armament of the personnel surrounding the rift.
Since many were official hunters dispatched by city hall, a large proportion were armed with firearms. Both the rifles and handguns had silencers attached to their muzzles.
Tae-sung sat on the railing of a low building a short distance away, thinking it was the perfect spot for watching, and resumed the music he had paused.
To the moderately upbeat guitar sound, monsters began pouring out almost in time with the beat. They flailed their arms wildly or crouched while covering their faces as bullets fired from all directions struck them.
In a way, it could be considered the most efficient method. The monsters couldn’t move, and if they finished them off like this, there would be zero casualties. One could say they had achieved a good result.
But…
‘The waste is ridiculous.’
Just look at the bullets being poured out from every direction. The ammunition consumption was extreme.
Perhaps because they had been warned in advance, none of the shooters were using three-round bursts or full-auto, but even with single shots fired at proper intervals, the overall ammunition expenditure was clearly enormous.
Of course, some people understood this, while others simply licked their lips enviously at the sight of the guns. But when Tae-sung saw a city hall official watching the situation from afar with a similar expression and taking notes, he suspected that this kind of simple shooting would likely be discouraged in the future.
The advantage of guns was that they could deliver tremendous damage in a short time, and they could quickly strip away the reinforcement that strengthened monster bodies.
However, the problem was that even low-grade monsters required at least a hundred shots to remove their reinforcement.
One could argue that ammunition was cheaper than the price of byproducts, but the real issue wasn’t the cost—it was that production speed couldn’t keep up with consumption.
If they started firing indiscriminately like this all the time, they would eventually face ammunition shortages when they truly needed it.
Tae-sung watched as they successfully killed off one wave of monsters thanks to the guns, then saw another group of monsters begin to walk out.
If they were going to shoot anyway, it would be better to go inside the rift, fire from there, and come out before time ran out… but the commander might have a different idea, so he decided not to concern himself with it.
Thank you.
See you next time…