Mother's Call (1)
Hunters, gates—by now, they were just part of everyday life.
There wasn’t much left to explain.
It was basically an alien invasion, with humanity fighting back.
Some people made contracts with friendly extraterrestrial beings. Others awakened mana and became hunters, the kind of resource more valuable than an army.
There were all sorts of stories like that, but honestly, none of it had much to do with me.
All that mattered was that even someone like me—an orphan, someone born at the very bottom of society—could still be given a chance to turn his life around if he awakened.
And sweet dreams always ended bitterly.
"Mr. Choi Eunho, here’s today’s hunting payout."
"Yes. Thank you."
Even when you risked your life to hunt a giant monster, the money wasn’t exactly impressive.
It couldn’t be helped. When a dozen people had to throw themselves at a single middle-grade giant monster, there was no way it would be profitable.
Association fees, splitting the payout among everyone involved, insurance, equipment rental costs.
Hunting requests didn’t come around that often, either. I could barely keep food on the table, let alone save anything.
That was the fate of a D-class Awakened—half a step away from an ordinary person.
Was this really my life? Drifting from one hunting request to the next, accomplishing nothing, until one day I died in battle against a monster?
Even if I wanted to climb higher, once I felt the gulf between myself and the so-called rankers—the A-class hunters and above—I couldn’t even bring myself to look up anymore.
I was just thinking I should save up a little money and then find something else to do when—
Dimension collision detected! Everyone, fall back immediately!
"Eunho, Eunho got caught up in it!!"
"W-whaaah!"
Fall back! If you approach, you won’t be able to escape! Rescue is impossible under the current situation!
While I was hunting a middle-grade giant monster that had appeared beyond the barrier surrounding the city, I was suddenly swept up in a dimensional gate transfer.
By the time I came to my senses, I had fallen into a fog-choked interspace so thick I couldn’t see a hand in front of my face.
The Association wasn’t about to dispatch a rescue team on the spot just to save a low-rank hunter like me from a gate that had opened out of nowhere, so I had no choice but to grope my way forward through the mist, searching for a way to live.
"Wh-what... is this?"
What was waiting for me in front of me then was—something beyond description.
It was like fog, like a living thing, like a beast, like a person; at once a tiny point and a colossal, cosmic strangeness.
The single thread of light drifting from it felt almost like an outstretched hand.
Only much later did I realize it was an ancient being, an extraterrestrial existence people called an ancient god.
Stories like that weren’t uncommon—stories of non-Awakened people receiving a blessing from an alien being and awakening.
But in that moment, standing before it, I couldn’t think in such calculated terms.
I wasn’t overwhelmed.
I wasn’t afraid.
I wasn’t lost in incomprehension.
I wasn’t even confused by something I couldn’t understand.
It was my mother.
The mother of all things, the mother of life, the opposite of death.
The origin of life, a forgotten existence, and yet only asleep.
The great dream woman buried in the void.
That woman was reaching out to me.
She was pleased that I had found her.
I couldn’t form a single rational thought.
I simply followed that warm hand.
The maternal love I had never once received in my life—I couldn’t refuse it.
When I reached out toward that being’s hand,
it became my mother.
When I came to my senses, I had already returned to the original world.
Along with a blessing stronger than anything any monster could withstand, stronger than anything any hunter possessed.
It was the love my mother had bestowed upon me.
.
"Since then... three years, I guess."
In just three years,
my life changed.
Choi Eunho, the D-class hunter, had become Choi Eunho, the S-class hunter.
Tens of billions in assets, and the prestige of standing among the top handful in the Hunter Association.
I no longer wore shabby gear; I carried only custom-made equipment, built for me to the last percent.
I didn’t bother with middle-grade monsters anymore.
The Association only called when the crisis was truly grave, and most of the time I simply lived by spending what I had.
The days of struggling to pay rent in a tiny one-room apartment were long gone.
Now I could look down at the city lights from a luxury high-rise apartment and keep expensive liquor on hand without a care.
I had forgotten death.
This body could no longer be harmed.
I had forgotten helplessness.
I could swing hundreds of kilos of iron as if they were toys.
I had forgotten exhaustion.
Even after running for days on end, no matter how I used my body, I had never once felt the edge of my stamina.
Mother had given me the perfect body of life.
And then, abruptly, she returned to the void and fell asleep.
Other contract holders complained that extraterrestrial beings kept hurling trials at them, turning them into playthings in exchange for power.
But Mother never came looking for me again.
I felt relieved about that.
And yet, for some reason, I also felt hollow.
Maybe it was because I wanted to feel that warm touch again.
"Haaah, nngh... ah...! Ahh, ah...♡"
What I ended up craving, after gaining money and fame and then falling into emptiness, was a woman’s arms.
Was it because I wanted to feel Mother’s touch again?
Was I being pulled by that maternal warmth?
I wanted, one more time, what money alone could never fill.
"I-I’m going to cum♡. I’m gonna c-cuummm..."
Collecting cars, collecting watches, buying buildings, replacing gear.
Things like that grew boring in no time at all. They were only small satisfactions born from finally being able to do what I couldn’t do before.
In the end, they couldn’t fill the core of me.
What filled me was warmth.
I wanted to meet Mother again.
"O-oh, oppa. Oppaah♡, ah, ahng...♡ J-just a little more rest..."
Maybe I’d been bewitched?
Was this how it controlled its contract holders?
I didn’t know.
How would I know how ancient gods manipulated their contract holders, how they whispered to them?
I just knew that if I didn’t do this, I felt like I’d go insane.
"Ooooh, comiiing, coooming, ooooh...♡!!"
Finding women wasn’t hard.
I had money. I had fame. I didn’t think I was particularly handsome, but I wasn’t ugly either, and my body had been trained from the beginning.
Women who wanted to skim off the top hovered around me even when I didn’t go looking.
All I had to do was pick one of them and take my fill.
"I’m sick of this."
"...Huh?"
"Take this and go."
"O-oh, oppa? Was I that bad... wha—?"
"I said I’m sick of it. Get lost."
"No, wait. After all this, you’re just... telling me to go?"
"I’m giving you money. Now get the hell out."
"Y-you’re completely insane, aren’t you?!"
But that was as far as it went.
Even when I held a woman in my arms and spent time with her, my heart never came with me.
I got aroused, sure. I had sex. I liked fucking. But I didn’t want a child, and I had no intention of taking responsibility.
As long as it felt good, that was enough—as long as it dulled the hunger inside me.
Even if I spent hours pounding a woman until she was completely wrecked, even if I watched her moaning in pleasure with her mind gone soft from it.
Even if I broke her down completely, trained her, used her like a toy.
It was only fun in that moment.
In the end, I couldn’t escape the emptiness that came when morning arrived.
"...You’re a total mama’s boy."
Pathetic.
I’d never even seen my real mother.
And yet here I was, calling some alien being, who was practically nothing more than a contract, my mother and chasing after her.
That was something no D-class hunter Choi Eunho would ever have imagined.
Baby.
?
What?
Baby.
What.
Where...
am I?
Baby.
This voice is...
what.
Baby.
This mother has come for you.
Ah.
Mother.
In the fog.
No, in Mother’s embrace.
I heard Mother’s voice.
Three years.
Where had you been for three years?
Why were you only calling for me now?
I have received Mother’s blessing, and if you wish for me to become your servant, then please, speak your desire.
Family.
Family?
Will you become this mother’s family?
Mother.
I am Mother’s child.
I am Mother’s servant.
If it is Mother’s will, anything.
How lovely.
Ah.
That one sentence filled everything inside me with delight.
Please, never leave me again.
Void.
Void?
This mother sleeps within the void.
The void, within.
This mother has slept in the void for an eternity.
Void...
Thank you for cutting through that void to find me.
Thank you for becoming family.
Forgive this mother for not being able to remain by your side.
Th-that’s...
Mother.
My daughter.
...Huh?
.
"Hah, hah... hah, hah...!!"
Along with Mother’s call, I—who had fallen asleep—
woke after exchanging only a few words.
I had fallen away from the warm mist, from Mother’s embrace.
And I had to sit bolt upright on the cold, hard sofa.
Throb.
"..."
At the same time, something heavy shifted.
I reached down and touched it.
Unable to believe what I was feeling, I gave it a hard squeeze.
...on instinct, as always.
"Hiiih?!"
A jolt shot through my body like electricity.
W-what the hell is this?
Electricity was running from my chest into my palm.
Startled, I let go. It bounced again.
A pretty substantial pair of breasts was hanging off my chest.
"...What the hell is this."
A voice floated out of my throat.
A high-pitched voice, not my usual low tone.
Silver hair falling across my eyes.
Where was a mirror—where was a mirror?
My appearance.
My face.
My body.
After I’d held a woman, gotten sick of her, and tossed her aside.
After I’d been about to drink naked...
Where the hell had that gone?
Who the hell was this?
That vulgar rack was nearly the size of my head.
A waist so thin it made you wonder whether anything at all was packed inside it.
And hips so enormous they didn’t lose to a milk jug.
A body made for sex—an o-shaped flesh puppet body, as if it wouldn’t be strange at all to learn it had been created for that very purpose.
Long silver hair spilled all the way to the waist, and if the eyes were opened fully they looked round and innocent, as though they knew nothing dirty at all; but when they were only half-lidded, they curved into crescents and instantly spilled sex appeal.
It was the kind of woman you’d drag home and throw onto a bed the moment you saw her on the street.
"Mother."
This isn’t right.