Noah Astrea had been alive for twenty years and cursed for less than three hours, and he had already reached a fairly reasonable conclusion: Being a Hunter is hell.
The message floating before his eyes, in a black window with white letters, read:
[Welcome, Hunter. Your existence has been bound to the Fortress. Enjoy your stay.]
Normally, people would jump for joy. Becoming a Hunter would be anyone’s dream, but not here.
Just one rule, written in red letters that hurt just to look at:
[Every cursed being must enter the Fortress within twenty minutes. Whoever remains outside will die.]
And now, standing in the middle of a stone plaza surrounded by impossible walls, Noah understood why the fine print in any contract is always the thing that ruins your life.
Because he wasn’t the only one summoned. There were about ten thousand people.
And the Fortress’s door —a single, enormous one, carved with symbols no one could read— barely had room for ten people to enter at the same time.
“This,” Noah murmured, “is a funnel trap made by someone who hates humanity.”
Beside him, a man in improvised armor made of cooking pots began to pray. A little further off, a woman was sharpening a sword that looked more like a stolen butcher’s knife.
No one was smiling. It was a full-blown battlefield. Screams, blood, and dust spread across the entire site. Bodies fell dead amid the desperation to get in.
The system, which Noah had already learned to hate in record time, wrote something on the black interface before him.
[Fun fact: at this rate of entry, only about 900 people will get in before the deadline. Math isn’t up for debate. Good luck.]
“You could have said that before I waited for a gap to get through.”
[I could have. I chose not to.]
Great. His personal system had the empathy of a rock and the timing of a tasteless comedian.
Someone fell, and instead of helping him up, the entire line advanced over him as if he were part of the floor.
Noah, who had no heroic intention whatsoever of saving anyone —he himself was two minutes away from becoming a stain under forty boots— began moving diagonally, searching for gaps between bodies, using elbows, shoulders, any available bony surface.
[Survival strategy detected: “sacrifice the guy next to you.” Moral classification: questionable. Effectiveness: high.]
“I don’t have time for your opinion column.”
He felt himself getting closer, but among so many people, he’d barely advanced at all. With his Hunter rank just recently awakened, he’d had no time to prepare within twenty minutes.
A man pulled out a short dagger and drove it into the side of the person in front of him. Not to steal anything. Just so he’d stop being in the way in the line.
And Noah, who by sheer bad luck was standing right behind that person, ended up face to face with the scarred man, the dagger still dripping.
“You’re in the way too,” the man said, in the voice of someone who had spent the last three minutes deciding that humanity was dispensable.
The dagger went in.
Right below the ribs, direct, efficient, without hesitation. Noah felt the cold before the pain, and then he felt the pain multiplied by ten, as if his body had decided to charge him interest on the surprise.
He fell to his knees. His screams were drowned out by thousands of others. The scarred man stabbed him again and again on the ground, in cold blood.
The plaza, the crowd, the Fortress, everything became a red, noisy blur.
‘I… am I going to die just twenty minutes after being cursed by the Hunter’s mark?’
And just as he thought his first adventure in a new world was going to last less than a TV commercial, a text window appeared before his eyes, as calm and bureaucratic as if it were confirming a food order.
[Death registered. Cause: stabbing.]
[Resurrection ability activated. Restarting unit.]
[Skill theft activated.]
[Analyzing… analyzing…]
[Skill stolen: Echo Thrust]
[Rank C.]
[When performing an attack with a piercing weapon, a second phantom impact is generated at the same spot 1.5 seconds later, dealing 30% of the original damage.]
The darkness swallowed him whole.
Noah opened his eyes in his bed.
Specifically, in the last bed where he’d woken up that morning. The same alarm followed by the crow’s caw brought on a wave of déjà vu.
He sat up abruptly, hand on his side where, barely a minute ago by his perception, a dagger had pierced his body. There was no wound. No blood. Not even a scar.
Only the exact, sharp, insultingly detailed memory of having died.
Noah ran a hand over his face. Outside the window, the plaza remained a peaceful place under the pale blue sky.
‘Did I dream it?’ he thought for a moment. ‘No. It was real, otherwise my system wouldn’t have activated yet. And it’s right here.’
A dagger buried in his memory, courtesy of a scarred stranger who didn’t even know he’d given him a skill as a gift.
“That’s right, that final message. The skill.”
Pulling up his system window, he found the skill Echo Thrust.
“Stolen skill?” he murmured. “System, give me details.”
[Skill: Pilfered Hunter.]
[Passive and automatic use. You steal a random skill from the Hunter or monster that kills you. This is limited to one skill per person. You cannot steal from them again.]
‘When they kill me? Doesn’t that make it a useless skill?’ He stroked his chin, mulling it over. ‘Although, that ability…’
[Return.]
[You return to the last checkpoint after death. Unlimited uses. There is no penalty for this skill.]
“Return… I can come back after death! And with a new skill on top of that. Could this… make me an elite Hunter?”
“Brother, are you awake already? I heard noise…”
“Coming!”
Noah’s younger sister spoke. When he entered her room politely, asking permission, he saw her lying in her bed among her sheets.
Lily, five years younger than Noah, had a disability in her legs. She couldn’t move them and was under Noah’s complete care.
NOTE: I’ll be uploading one chapter a day. :D
Remember, if the novel gets enough support, I’ll increase the release rate to 2 chapters a day. ^^