Inside a cafe.
“Ian, I’m not trying to lecture you, but you’re way too cold.
When you’re looking for a girlfriend, you need to have a passionate heart and properly pursue girls.
If you always keep a straight face, no girl is going to like you.” A young man in a plaid shirt rested his arm on the back of his chair, teasing him.
Across from him, a handsome man in a suit quietly flipped through the documents in his hands.
With a faint smile on his lips, he replied.
“Finding a girlfriend takes too much time.
I’d be better off spending that energy taking care of myself.” The man across from him smiled and shook his head.
Glancing at the documents in Ian’s hands, he stretched and said.
“I’m not a fan of researching Doraemon either.
It’s just a fairy tale for kids.
Slapping together a random proposal to humor them is enough to buy us a few more days of slacking off.
Don’t take it too seriously.
It’s just…
a job.” Across the table, the smile on the suited man’s face stiffened slightly.
After a moment of silence, he mocked himself.
“True…” “It’s just…
a job…” The two finished their coffee, packed up, and left.
Right at that moment.
As they passed a street corner, a pet blue cat in a little girl’s arms suddenly bolted toward the middle of the road as if startled.
The little girl hurriedly chased after it.
“Xin, come back!” The mother beside her cried out in panic, trying to rush forward, but unfortunately, it was too late.
A massive dump truck barreled down the road.
Unable to brake in time, the driver honked the horn frantically.
Right at that moment.
A dark silhouette dashed out in a flash!
*Thud!* The girl was shoved out of the way and tumbled to the ground.
Her large eyes widened in a daze, on the verge of tears as she looked back.
Meanwhile, the young man in the suit was tossed like a rag doll…
The truck sent him flying, his body tracing a parabola in midair before crashing heavily onto the pavement.
“Ian…” Everything happened in the blink of an eye.
The man in the plaid shirt stared blankly at his friend, unable to believe his eyes.
The Doraemon prop design documents scattered across the ground, soaking into the blood pooling on the pavement.
The Hunter World.
Meteor City.
Above a rocky wasteland swept by swirling yellow sand.
A black rift suddenly tore open in the sky.
*Thud!* A young boy tumbled out from within.
It was none other than Ian, the man who had just saved the little girl from the car crash.
The last lingering memory in his mind was his body subconsciously rushing out into the street.
‘To think…
I actually played out the childish trope of sacrificing myself to save someone else…’ ‘Am I…
going to die?’ Accompanied by these thoughts, he plummeted straight into a massive pile of accumulated garbage, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Scavenging crows shrieked and scattered.
At the same time.
Across this vast, sprawling land.
With Ian’s appearance, the world itself…
seemed to undergo some unknown changes.
In a country closest to Meteor City.
In the bottomless depths underground.
Ancient ruins, long silent and buried in the river of time, slowly emerged.
As if influenced by some unseen power, certain entities within them began to awaken and struggle, yearning to roar out the traces of their past existence to the world.
At the same time, at the end of the endless deep sea, upon a boundless and vast continent.
Lightning flashed and thunder roared.
A colossal tree that seemed to blot out the sky took root in scorching magma, its incredibly massive trunk faintly visible within the impossibly thick thunderclouds.
This was an unimaginably gigantic World Tree.
At its peak, a gargantuan hand reached down from the dark, lightning-laced clouds.
Its palm opened to reveal a giant, crimson eye.
The pupil was a vertical slit, surrounded by dense, lightning-like patterns spreading outward.
It gazed eerily and quietly into the distance, toward a certain direction in the land they considered taboo.
It was as if it was anticipating something there.
The butterfly had flapped its wings.
From this moment on, the predetermined fate of the entire Hunter World had been altered.
Meanwhile.
Ian, who had fallen into the garbage dump, knew nothing of this.
All he knew was that his entire body was in agonizing pain, feeling as though he had fallen apart.
‘I’m actually still alive?’ He didn’t know how much time had passed.
No one had come to his aid.
His vision was pitch black, but his forehead felt warm, and the metallic scent of blood filled his nose.
A pervasive stench filled the surrounding air.
Ian struggled to climb up.
He touched his forehead and, sure enough…
his hand came away with a sticky liquid.
The pungent smell of blood stung his nose.
‘Is my forehead injured…?’ Ian felt a sense of dread, unaware of where he currently was.
But he knew that if his injuries were left untreated, they would definitely get infected, and he probably wouldn’t survive.
What puzzled him, however, was…
He had been injured saving someone.
Surely it shouldn’t take this long for an ambulance to arrive, right?
‘Has society really become this apathetic…’ ‘Is everyone really just looking out for themselves…’ Regardless, Ian still possessed a strong desire to survive!
He could only rely on himself…
Even while suffering from severe injuries, he still had the leisure to silently complain to himself.
However, after his internal grumbling, he began looking for a way out, struggling to crawl toward the surface.
Every time he pushed aside the messy, unidentifiable objects around him, a sharp pain shot through his chest and abdomen.
This made it clear to him that his injuries were quite severe.
‘Was I…
knocked into a garbage dump…?’ ‘If I don’t crawl out soon, I’m probably going to suffocate from the stench in here…’ Being trapped in the darkness felt like sinking into a swamp.
He didn’t know how much time had passed.
Finally, Ian saw a sliver of light…
After struggling to push aside the foul-smelling garbage, he quickly poked his head out.
He had wanted to take a deep breath of fresh air, but the sight before him left him dumbfounded.
“Wh-where am I!?”