Kim Hye Ji was born in a turbulent era.
She lost her parents in the first days of the Dungeon disaster. When monsters attacked, Kim Hye Ji’s parents protected her to the death.
When she was a little older, Kim Hye Ji joined a small guild, at a time when guilds still recruited ordinary people. At that time, hunters awakened randomly in times of danger, and such awakening centers did not yet exist.
The life of a hunter who was just an ordinary person in small guilds at that time really didn’t have any light at all. With just the slightest mistake, such a low-ranking hunter could just die.
Kim Hye Ji’s friends in life kept dying in the dark Dungeons. Just like that, low-ranking hunter Kim Hye Ji gradually became a lonely hunter.
Kim Hye Ji once hoped that when she was in danger, she would also be able to awaken as a true hunter. However, until she had to retire from the Guild due to a permanent knee injury, she had never been awakened.
The feeling of being a real hunter with outstanding strength that can easily destroy powerful monsters, that’s what Kim Hye Ji longed for but never achieved.
Until the day the awakening center in Dong-San city opened, Kim Hye Ji realized she was just an ordinary person, without any energy. She is just an ordinary person, nothing outstanding and will always be like that.
Now over forty years old, Kim Hye Ji decided to open a store selling items for low-rank hunters. She sells goods at more favorable prices than most stores in the city, perhaps because in the past, she had always wished for such a store to exist.
Kim Hye Ji carries within herself a great loneliness. She could not find love in her old age, so she accepted that she would live alone and end that loneliness alone.
Until she picked up a child who was probably also very lonely.
Two lonely people together but very happy. Kim Hye Ji once wished that if this child had come to her a little sooner, it would have been better. Especially when she was at the end of her life like now.
When Mrs. Kim woke up, the first thing she saw was a pair of red eyes. Kei, this child cried a lot while she fainted.
"Mrs. Kim, are you okay? Why did you faint in the warehouse?"
Kei kept asking, his voice shaking with worry.
Kim Hye Ji smiled slightly, trying to comfort him to help Kei calm down. She hoped he could calmly accept her outcome.
"Kei... actually when I met you, I only had a few more weeks to live. So now, I’m about to leave first."
Tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes full of crow’s feet. Kim Hye Ji’s dull eyes now sparkled in the water, just like the eyes of a young Kim Hye Ji, full of dreams for the beautiful future ahead.
"You’re really a good kid. You make me feel bad for not being able to stay with you longer, letting you get used to this world."
Mrs. Kim held Kei’s hand, her breathing became weak.
"This shop... everything has been transferred to you in my name. I hope this place will be your new home in this world. When I leave, I don’t want you to become someone who has no home to return to."
"Uh... ugh! Please don’t... Please don’t say things like that..."
Kei burst into tears. He held her hand tightly, continuously chanting the C-rank spell [Heal] in his heart.
But his magic power is still an incomplete number. He couldn’t use magic, even if it was the [Heal] spell that consumed the least magic power.
For the first time, Kei knows what the most terrible helplessness and despair are, now Kei can’t even save the only person who cares for him in this strange world.
Kim Hye Ji patted the back of Kei’s hand. She smiled through her tears.
"Kei... you must continue to survive well. So that in another good world, I can still happily watch over you."
After that, Ms. Kim’s breathing gradually disappeared and was interrupted.
Kei hugged Mrs. Kim tightly.
His sobbing sounded like the cry of a wounded animal.
Kim Hye Ji’s companionship with Kei was so short, so short that when Kei lost this bit of warmth, he just wanted to immediately collapse.
Outside, it was pouring rain, as if crying for a small person who had lost her life.