Chapter 4

The Day of the Fissure

It was an ordinary day when the world was turned on its head eleven years ago. Thunder crashed so loudly that it was as if the sky was falling.

Those woken by the deafening thunder all looked up to see a dark hole in the sky. At the same time, the thunder stopped. It was like the sky had been waiting for their attention—or for everyone to wake up.

The fissure sucked up everything in its vicinity while newly opened dungeon entrances spilled monsters that no one had ever seen before in endless streams, like masses of ants.

They toppled buildings. They ripped up the earth. Countless people got hurt, went missing, and died. The weapons of humanity—the products of a science-based civilization—were useless against the monsters.

Humanity despaired in the face of such supernatural beings they couldn’t overcome. They had always feared the world would end in a nuclear war. Never would they have imagined that monsters straight out of a fantasy novel would lead to their extinction! Humans were helpless against this sudden disaster.

Yet, it was like something didn’t want them to go down without fighting. A sort of being had appeared, briefly pausing the destruction. It was a mysterious white screen that looked remarkably like a status window in a game.

It was known as “the system.”

The system appeared in front of a select few and awakened a mysterious power in them. Individuals who came into contact with the system gained new abilities and began to fight the monsters.

This was the first step in humanity’s counterattack and the first generation of the awakened. That was when those who were later called “hunters” appeared.

Proving that humanity truly was an adaptable species, they rebuilt civilization and adjusted to the new era quickly. The US was at the forefront, and surprisingly, South Korea was right behind them.

South Korea was one of the few nations whose government and security did not shut down on the day of the fissure. It would be no exaggeration to say that this was because of the class-S hunter, J, who had awakened and appeared like a comet out of nowhere.

The only known information about him was his hunter name and his gender. The mystical hunter J, whose name, face, and age were all undisclosed, had made a splashy first appearance.

With his face covered by a white scarf, he’d cut down a sasquatch, a class-2 monster. He continued to rush into fissures and dungeons to save people. He was a hero in a turbulent time, Captain Korea himself.

Once the communications networks were up and running again, someone uploaded a video onto Utube that gained billions of views.

J Rips Through a Sasquatch (Physical)

J became an international star. He was just a speck in the video, but anyone would find it intriguing to see a speck rip through a monster the size of a building.

Even in a ravaged world where monsters danced with knives, it was no surprise that phone cameras still reigned in South Korea, the powerhouse of information and communication networks.

J’s skill gradually led the world to some sort of stability, but the hard-won peace did not last long.

Three years later, a class-5 fissure appeared in the West Sea. The Bureau of Awakened dispatched some of its members along with available hunters, but they lost contact. As time went on, the fissure consumed and consumed. Some began to predict that the fissure would soon swallow the islands in the West Sea and then Incheon.

The government elevated the West Sea fissure from a class-5 to a class-1. They decided to act.

“Class-S hunter J, fourteen class-A hunters, and thirty class-B hunters will be sent in to stop the expansion of the fissure.”

The dispatched hunters entered the fissure to public fanfare. Shortly after they entered, the fissure stopped growing. A month later, it was completely extinguished. People celebrated and awaited the heroes’ return, but they never came back.

Three months later, the Bureau of Awakened finished its investigation and concluded that everyone had died along with the fissure. They shared the sad news and declared that there had been no survivors. The government erected a monument to memorialize the brave hunters who had gone into the fissure, with J’s name at the very top.

Eight years passed.

The first fissure had appeared eleven years ago. The government was in the process of researching how to turn monster corpses and dungeon by-products into renewable resources.

To support this endeavor, instead of having guilds destroy dungeons instantly, they prioritized clearing what was necessary and then closing the gate. If they were lucky, this allowed them to obtain by-products that could be refined and used elsewhere.

This hunter era had arrived instead of a fifth industrial revolution. Rather than a digital metaverse, hunters took center stage in the hunter era.

Hero movies had always been popular in South Korea, and now hunters—modern-day heroes who fought in real life without any CGI—experienced explosive popularity. The sky was the limit when it came to their renown.

Hunters had birthday billboards as if they were K-pop idols. They were wooed by advertisers. There were countless movies and dramas where hunters were the protagonists. Some hunters were models by day, hunters by night.

This was a world where people looked up to hunters and dreamed of awakening someday. When children were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, eighty percent said hunters.

Dungeon slime ASMR videos were popular. Hunters with free time uploaded unboxing videos using class-A long swords. This was modern-day South Korea.

* * *

Is this... real life?

Uijae Cha came from eight years in the past—from the hunter era’s adaptive period. To him, all of this felt unreal. Uijae scowled at the books on display in the bookstore’s bestseller corner.

1st: A Hunter Has Never Been a Hunter before Either

2nd: The Secrets of a Noryangjin Hunter Government Civil Servant Cram School Star Instructor! Test Finished in Six Months!

3rd: Being a Hunter Because I’m Ill

What does that even mean? Being a hunter because you’re ill? If you’re ill, you’re a patient.

Uijae went down the row of books with a look of disgust. His face only darkened more as he went on.

They’re slapping hunters’ names in all sorts of useless contexts... Stupid.

He turned away, pretending he hadn’t ever seen them. He locked eyes with a friendly-looking man on a public service announcement poster. He wore a suit and was gesturing with a thumbs-up. Call 777 for inquiries about awakened registration. Call 555 to report unregistered and criminal awakened!

Uijae was not looking at the bestsellers list anymore, but he was still frowning.

Nine years ago, when the dungeons and fissures were relatively stable, some awakened with nothing to do had started committing crimes. The government contemplated establishing a branch to manage the awakened until officials learned of a police academy repeater awakening as a class-S.

“Oh!” they thought. “This must be an opportunity bestowed by the heavens.” The government seized that moment to establish the Bureau of Awakened and appointed the newly awakened police academy student as its lead.

He was the man in the poster: Jungbin, a class-S civil servant hunter.

When Uijae Cha was actively known as J, he had crossed paths with Jungbin several times. They were not friends, but they were acquainted enough to say hello to each other.

At the time, they were the only two class-S hunters in the country, so they also felt a certain affinity. And yet...

When did you become like this? What happened to you these past eight years? There was sadness in Uijae’s eyes.

Jungbin’s face was all over the public service announcements. Uijae suspected that the bureau was taking advantage of the fact that he was a civil servant and could use his face cheaply.

The other day, Uijae had seen him in an anti-smoking TV commercial. Before that, he saw him in a bus ad promoting the 3-3-3 teeth brushing rule (three times a day, three minutes after a meal, for three minutes). And now, here he was on an awakened registration campaign. He was probably the most recognizable hunter in South Korea at this point.

As Uijae lamented his former colleague’s plight, a clear-eyed girl with a ponytail scurried up to him.

A star-shaped name tag dangled from the zipper on her backpack. Haeun Park, Morning Star Elementary 2nd year, Class 2. The words were crooked, but they had been pressed in with a firm hand. Beneath them was the hangover soup restaurant’s number and address.

“Uncle, I picked my books.”

Uijae turned to her as if he was accustomed to being called Uncle, though they were not related. Haeun was the only granddaughter of the hangover soup restaurant owner.

Uijae’s family had all died on the day of the fissure, but one day Haeun had started to call Uijae “Uncle,” and Uijae had never corrected her. It was just like the relationship he’d had with his aunt.

“What did you get?”

“This.”

What is... The Day of the Fissure?

The comic book Haeun pushed into his face showed a few adorable monsters and a masked youth on the cover. Uijae was familiar with this children’s educational comic series.

The world almost ended, but this comic series is everlasting, huh?

Secretly impressed, Uijae then looked at the face of the youth on the cover. The mask that he wore, along with the black hair and white scarf, was all too familiar. Of course...

Isn’t this a violation of the rights of publicity?

...it was the mask Uijae Cha wore when he was J to hide his identity.