23 years old, male, Han Jeonghyun.
My life has gone to drain.
My parents passed away when I was 10. Yeah, it was a bit sad, but that was understandable.
Randomly opening gates and monsters pouring out. I don’t have the heart to complain when so many people have died because of those bastards.
After that, accumulating money bit by bit and even incurring a debt of 300 million won for mana injection surgery.
It’s fine.
Even if I could go back in time, I would still undergo the surgery at a higher price. But that was two years ago.
Even after risking my life, accumulating a hefty debt, and undergoing surgery, I still haven’t awakened.
***
“Hello, everyone!”
“Hey, Jeonghyun. Come in.”
Jeonghyun opened the door to the workshop that made a creepy sound. He greeted everyone energetically.
His fellow co-workers, who already started drinking cups of coffee, warmly returned his greetings.
Jeonghyun’s reputation in the workshop was good. Handling monster corpses at a young age is no easy task.
The stench of monsters, unlike regular cleaning jobs, doesn’t disappear even if one change clothes or shower. Veteran workers, even those considered veterans of veterans, used to frown as soon as they enter the workshop.
However, Jeonghyun never did that. Instead, he greeted everyone brightly every morning.
Two years had passed since then. Workers who confidently took on the job and barely lasted a week used to look down on Jeonghyun, but that was no longer the case.
However, when Jeonghyun passed by people, exchanging glances with those who looked at him with pity, his smiling face turned bitter.
“Ah, that poor guy’s life is really tough.”
“Yeah, how much debt does he have?”
“It was 300 million (around 230,000 USD), now it’s 200 million. (around 150,000 USD)”
For a young man whose life hasn’t even blossomed yet, it was an excessively heavy amount of debt to bear.
Just as there was a generation that gambled their lives on cryptocurrency in the past, the current generation is focused on gathering the strength to become a hunter through mana injection surgery.
Workers who somewhat knew Jeonghyun’s circumstances as an orphan were used to making a mixed statement of concern and pity.
“Yeah, even if that’s the case, undergoing surgery with that kind of debt is like gambling.”
“30% success rate? Oh, I can’t even imagine.”
“Cough, Jeonghyun will hear this.”
A cough in response to a comment about Jeonghyun, who was still nearby, made the workers focus on their work, pretending not to be concerned.
But it couldn’t be unheard. Jeonghyun’s once warm smile froze.
And then, it slowly unraveled.
Despite hearing such stories repeatedly over the past two years, it was not easy for Jeonghyun to brush them off.
‘If it was someone else’s business, I can’t say anything.’
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand. Everyone thought their own lives were the most difficult, and that understanding was often interwoven with a lack of empathy for others.
In other words, Jeonghyun had his own circumstances.
The circumstances that led him to accumulate a debt that didn’t match his background just to undergo surgery.
Since the day called the ‘Great Change’, the world turned into a game.
There are gates, monsters, and hunters appearing. However, this world is real, so it’s not a game but hell.
Of course, for a very small number of people, it might seem like a game.
Those who made a fortune from the monster by-products business or becoming hunters with the power to live in hell like a game. They accumulate unimaginable wealth, pouring everything and more into mana injection surgery.
But Jeonghyun was a bit different.
“I had to become stronger.”
As he approached his position, Jeonghyun gripped the work knife tightly.
Jeonghyun’s parents died at the time when gates were first appeared, they were killed by an orc.
To the young Jeonghyun, the orc, casually wielding a rusty axe to casually kill people, was the worst monster on the surface.
That monster destroyed everything that was Jeonghyun’s parents in the same way it shattered their heads.
Without a moment of hesitation.
“Kweeek!”
The orc, about to kill even Jeonghyun, who was crying in that spot, was the one who died the next moment.
“Are you okay, kid?”
A hunter who stood firmly in front of Jeonghyun, looking down at him.
He had the power to easily kill the orc, just as the orc had killed Jeonghyun’s parents.
He was strong.
Jeonghyun’s admiration for strength and longing for hunters sprouted at that moment.
The year he turned 21, the age at which mana injections procedures were allowed.
Jeonghyun received the maximum loan of 300 million won available based on the credit rating of a rookie in society, along with the 50 million won he had accumulated from monster disassembly work, to undergo the mana injection procedure.
While the mana grade wasn’t exceptionally high, Jeonghyun was betting on the maximum potential he could aim for.
It was a time when his belief in the correlation between results and earnest efforts was strong.
“That was nonsense, though.”
And so, it has been two years since he underwent the mana injection procedure.
The probability of the procedure leading to awakening is roughly at 30%.
However, this 30% is only for the first year after the procedure.
From one week to about a year after the procedure, the percentage of awakenings drops exponentially.
After that, there have been no reported cases of awakening.
No one, after a year of the procedure, has awakened.
What happens to those who undergo the procedure but do not awaken?
“Well, just poking the belly of a goblin, I guess.”
With a familiar motion, Jeonghyun pierces the space between the goblin’s belly and chest on the operating table.
Since the blood had already been drained, no green blood splattered, but the smell of neglected internal organs was still unpleasant.
No matter how many times he did it, the stench that never became familiar only grew stronger.
Jeonghyun bit his lip.
Even if he received mana injection, if he didn’t awaken, he’s just an ordinary person.
With no special plan before the procedure and burdened with a hefty debt?
In the worst working conditions, without demanding skills, he had no choice but to become a well-compensated monster byproduct handler.
That’s Jeonghyun’s current situation.
Despite being treated poorly as a byproduct worker, he was fortunate to be able to do something.
If he couldn’t even do this due to his bad temper, he might have ended up paying off his debts until middle age.
Fortunately, Jeonghyun was somewhat insensitive.
While waiting for awakening after receiving the mana injection, most people passing by him at the workplace would say something like this.
“Jeonghyun seems to be a natural-born hunter, judging by how good he is at this.”
“Don’t pretend not to know us when you awaken later!”
At that time, they genuinely supported him, and Jeonghyun’s expectations swelled accordingly. However, now, after two years, no one mentioned such things anymore.
Talking about hunters in front of Jeonghyun seems to be intentionally avoided, as if it would be disrespectful to him.
He wished he had just waited quietly if he had known it would be like this.
Jeonghyun regretted.
He never saw anyone who suddenly came to the workplace declaring they would become a hunter.
Even more so if they had undergone the mana injection surgery.
“Why bother when you’re going to awaken soon anyway?”
Within a week after the procedure, half of the awakened individuals receive their abilities.
Even if not, they would awaken soon. Why engage in such a difficult job?
But Jeonghyun had a plan for choosing to work in the monster byproduct handling facility, beyond just maintaining his livelihood.
Wouldn’t knowledge accumulate from disassembling these corpses, even if they were monsters?
Even if they were just corpses that could be handled in a regular facility, like goblins, skeletons, or at most, orcs.
After working in the facility for a little over three years since leaving the orphanage, he had achieved some results.
“The location of a goblin’s spine is quite different from a human’s.”
In the case of goblins, the collarbone is abnormally long compared to humans.
Therefore, if one thrust a knife to hit the spine from a human perspective, it would be blocked by the collarbone.
It was effective to cut about a hand’s breadth below, and even that had to be at a slant from bottom to top to achieve the desired effect.
“For skeletons, you need to find a good place to hit with a hammer.”
Most skeletons are usually crushed by hunters and sent away, but occasionally there are cases where the skulls become perfectly intact.
According to rumors, there were cases where they were instantly killed by a magician’s attack.
There were even stories from the uncles that some of them pretended to be dead and ripped off the hands of the workers.
At first, Jeonghyun couldn’t bring himself to do it, hearing such rumors, but now…
“Here!”
Crack.
Now, Jeonghyun could skillfully find the joints and shatter the bones in one go, earning admiration from other workers.
“Wow, how did you break it all at once, Jeonghyun? Even if I hit hard, it doesn’t leave a scratch.”
The worker, Jungchul, who was watching beside him, asked.
He was a rookie who had been in the facility for less than three months.
It was difficult for him to skillfully break a complete skeleton’s skull.
Even if it was a weak skeleton, it was still a monster.
It was usually harder than human bones.
Awkwardly, Jeonghyun smiled and replied.
“You will get used to it over time. If you find the joints well, it’s easy.”
“Even if you say that, I still don’t understand.”
Jungchul still had a puzzled expression.
But there was nothing more to say.
Jeonghyun had experienced pain in his wrists several times while learning the technique.
Soon they heard the team leader’s voice.
“Alright, everyone, let’s have lunch! Jjajangmyeon and sweet and sour pork are here!”
“Wow, what day is it today? Sweet and sour pork?”
Jeonghyun unconsciously becom excited at the news of the rare sweet and sour pork that was difficult to come by.
And after discovering his own excitement, that turned self-deprecating.
“Yeah, it’s time to give up on becoming a hunter.”
Awakening, defeating monsters, and protecting the world—becoming a hunter.
They were already stories from a different world than Jeonghyun’s.
At best, all they left behind after hunting were corpses or materials to survive.
“Jeonghyun, eat a lot too.”
“Ah, I can’t resist sweet and sour pork.”
Entering the office, the team leader who met Jeonghyun patted his shoulder and said.
Jeonghyun shook it off naturally.
Yeah, now it’s time to live a life where he can just become happy with sweet and sour pork.
***
“Ah, the smell is really a problem, a problem.”
After taking a shower and coming out, Jeonghyun, who had just finished work, wrinkled his nose.
The sense of smell is the first to dull among human senses, but this darn smell seems to keep renewing itself somewhere near his nostrils.
Sitting on the bed that occupies half of the narrow one-room apartment, Jeonghyun glanced at the clock on the desk.
Today, due to voluntarily putting in extra hours, it’s already 11 o’clock.
To make it to work on time tomorrow, he had to get up at 6 o’clock.
Naturally, his gaze turned towards the mirror next to the clock.
Jeonghyun faced himself in the mirror.
Although he had decided to put away the desire for awakening earlier, there was still a heavy feeling in a corner of his heart.
Since a year ago, he had tried to give up several times, but he couldn’t count how many.
Every time he thought he had given up, the pattern of growing expectation repeated itself.
It wasn’t a regret for not becoming a hunter, it was regret for giving up the desire to become one.
Jeonghyun, who had been staring at himself in the mirror, relaxed his gaze and muttered a complaint.
“Ugh… Can’t you just appear like a reality and not like a dream?”
He was referring to the phrase ‘You have awakened,’ commonly associated with awakening, and the guidance about the abilities.
Jeonghyun had seen it in his dreams several times.
Each time, there were fireworks-like explosions with dazzling effects.
However, awakening in reality was very ordinary, as if it were a matter of course.
[You have awakened.]
[Your ability is “Attribute Shop” (EX, Lv.1).]
A translucent window appeared, covering Jeonghyun’s reflection in the mirror.
Jeonghyun blinked his eyes a few times and, with all the emotions in his heart.
“What?”
