***
8:40 a.m.
The coffee machine finished its final extraction and released a puff of steam.
I took two paper cups and went to Chu Jae-hee’s seat.
"Have a cup."
"Ah, thank you."
Chu Jae-hee quickly pushed up his glasses and accepted the coffee.
Perhaps because of the aftereffects of working all night, his fingertips were trembling faintly, but his eyes alone were clear.
Instead of sitting at my own seat, I lightly perched on the corner of his desk.
"There is something I want to ask."
"Yes, go ahead."
"I am talking about Hunter Charles on our team. Exactly how did he end up here?"
Charles Edward Blake.
The reason a legendary swordsman was drinking makgeolli in a City Hall annex.
Calling it simple retirement was not enough to explain the miserable state he was in.
Chu Jae-hee’s eyebrow twitched.
He stared at the monitor screen for a moment, then opened his mouth awkwardly.
"Mm··· actually, I don’t know the details either. He was here from before I joined."
"Do you not manage the personnel records, Mr. Jae-hee?"
"I do, but···."
Chu Jae-hee took a sip of coffee and lowered his voice.
"Officially, he is classified as a special management subject. Like Ms. Se-hee. His title is adviser, but in reality··· He is closer to a basic welfare recipient. It is essentially Team Leader Kim splitting the budget to support his living expenses."
I remembered the way he had gone grocery shopping for 452,000 won yesterday.
For the end of a legend, it was far too shabby.
But what I was curious about was not the money.
"His arm. What exactly was the accident?"
At my question, Chu Jae-hee’s movements stopped.
He looked up at me with puzzled eyes.
"Hunter Do-jin. By any chance··· do you not know?"
"Know what?"
"Why Sir Charles lost his arm. And why he left the Hunter world."
Chu Jae-hee’s expression turned serious.
His academic gaze had lost all trace of playfulness.
"It is an incident that Hunters of our generation could not possibly be unaware of. It is famous in the Hunter world."
"I am a late Awakener, so I am not familiar with matters in this field. Please tell me."
At my answer, Chu Jae-hee thought for a moment, then placed his hands on the keyboard.
"It would be faster for you to see it yourself than for me to explain in words. It is a classified document, but··· since we are on the same team anyway and you are A-Rank, you should have sufficient viewing authority."
Tap-tap, clack.
A cheerful typing sound.
"I sent it through the City Hall internal messenger. It is a secure file, so screenshots and forwarding are not possible."
I returned to my seat and turned on the monitor.
[Supernatural Ability Management Department Personnel Record - Charles. E. Blake]
When I opened the file, a document filled with black redaction bars appeared across the screen.
[Personal Information]
Name: Charles Edward Blake
Rank: A (S-Rank review pending)
Status: Special management subject (Manager: Kim O-han)
[Special Notes]
Participated in the S-Rank Gate raid operation in the ████ region of Italy on ██/██/████.
Affiliation: Invictus Guild First Raid Team.
Position: Raid Team Leader.
Invictus.
As expected, that name was there.
Charles of this world had belonged to Invictus.
I scrolled down.
The moment I read the next line, my breath stopped.
[Operation Result]
Raid failed.
45 of 46 raid team members dead. (All bodies unrecovered)
Survivor: 1 (himself).
[Accident Details]
Appearance of a ████-Rank variant monster inside the Gate.
Requested headquarters support, but communication was cut off and support was delayed due to ████ reasons.
Raid Team Leader Charles engaged ████ alone to secure an escape route, resulting in amputation of the right upper limb and permanent damage to his mana core.
He was later rescued, but was expelled after the guild shifted responsibility onto him.
"······Ha."
A sigh slipped out.
45 dead.
Only one survivor.
This was not an accident. It was a massacre.
The phrases covered by black redaction bars.
But reading the context was not difficult.
Because I was a regressor.
'████-Rank variant monster.'
It was almost certainly the Abyssal Knight 'Beowulf' (Beowulf).
And 'support delayed due to ████ reasons.'
There was a high possibility that the Invictus bastards had not sent a rescue team because the numbers did not work, or had deliberately abandoned him to make Charles their scapegoat.
The black letters on the monitor felt like screams.
The deaths of 45 people.
That weight must have pressed down entirely on Charles’s shoulders.
The guilt of "only I survived," more terrible than the relief of surviving.
That must have thrown him into the bottle and turned him into a wreck.
'So this··· is the truth.'
Before my regression, Campania Gate was recorded as "humanity’s victory."
Because Sword Saint Kang Tae-yoon had crossed borders and charged in to rescue Raid Team Leader Charles, who had been in danger.
My brother saved his master, Charles, and returned after cutting off Beowulf’s head together.
All raid team members survived.
Though Charles retired, it was an honorable retirement.
But in this world, there was no Kang Tae-yoon.
A battlefield without a savior.
That place had been hell.
Forty-five comrades were slaughtered before his eyes, and Charles lost an arm and survived miserably.
Then he was saddled with responsibility for the failure and discarded.
The words "45 dead" on the monitor stabbed my eyes.
A horrific result created by the absence of one person—my brother.
Then what about the disasters that would come next?
What would happen to the countless Gates my brother had stopped?
My mouth tasted bitter.
It was not simply that history had changed.
The "axis" of history had collapsed.
Once the massive wall my brother had been supporting vanished, disasters were pouring through the gap.
Charles’s fall was only the beginning.
"I had guessed, but seeing it in documents makes it even more brutal."
Chu Jae-hee had approached at some point and was looking at the monitor with a bitter expression.
"Team Leader Kim Dae-han hacked the Bureau database and extracted that record. Originally, it had been manipulated into a simple accident."
"······Of course."
"Team Leader thinks Sir Charles is a victim. That is why he brought him here when he had nowhere to go."
The puzzle fit together.
Why Kim Dae-han had brought Charles and Hong Tae-hwa here.
He was collecting those who had been abandoned by the system, or ruined by it.
Was it simple sympathy?
Or had he purchased their hatred?
Then, what was the reason?
To use them someday as blades of revenge to be unleashed?
'I am hardly in a position to criticize.'
This world was far more precarious than the one I knew.
Thin ice that could collapse at any moment.
This was not the time to worry only about Evil God Dragon Zephyros ten years from now.
'I have to hurry.'
I had to absorb Charles’s swordsmanship, raise my level, and build my forces.
My current speed was not enough.
I had to run even more madly.
RING—!
RING—!
At that moment, the old phone on the desk screamed.
The red lamp marked [Civil Complaint] blinked like mad.
A rupturing sound that broke the silence.
"······."
My eyes met Chu Jae-hee’s.
He shrugged.
A signal to answer it, probably.
I picked up the receiver.
"Supernatural Ability Management Team, Hunter Kim—"
— Aaaaaaah! Please save me! There’s a monster here···!
A scream that tore at the eardrum.
Urgent breathing, the roar of something breaking, and the growl of a beast mixed together.
Judging from the cry, it was those creatures.
— In the residential area··· goblins! My child! Please come quickly! Please!
"The location is..."
My eyes moved before the answer came.
The monitor screen switched automatically, and a map appeared.
A red dot was blinking.
[Caller Location: 32 Sutaek-dong, G City.]
[Distance from Main Office: 18 km.]
'Sutaek-dong?'
My brow twisted.
That was a residential area packed with villas and multifamily houses.
There were no mana points where a Gate should form.
Then there was only one answer.
'Gate Break.'
Either way, it was the worst.
If monsters had been unleashed in the middle of a residential neighborhood, it meant civilians might be getting slaughtered even at this very moment.
"Understood. I am dispatching immediately."
I hung up.
My body reacted first.
I grabbed the civil servant vest hanging on my chair.
A fluorescent green vest bearing the [G City Hall] mark.
CLACK.
I fastened the Dragon Head Sword at my waist.
I could also feel the artifact inside my body.
Preparations were complete.
"Hunter, are you dispatching?"
Chu Jae-hee asked with startled eyes.
"Yes. It seems goblins have appeared in Sutaek-dong."
"Please wait! I will check if there is an available dispatch vehicle··· huh?"
Chu Jae-hee’s face colored with dismay as he tapped the keyboard.
"Oh no. There are no available vehicles right now. Even the garbage trucks are all out. Should I call a taxi?"
"It is rush hour. If we wait for a taxi, everyone will die."
By car, it would take 30 minutes. If there was traffic, an hour.
In that time, the caller would become a corpse.
There was no time to wait.
At a moment when someone’s life hung by a thread, I could not sit around obeying traffic lights.
"I do not need a car."
I walked to the window.
I released the latch and threw it wide open.
Second-floor height.
Cold wind rushed into the office.
The documents fluttered.
"Please make sure the door is locked."
"Pardon? Hunter? Surely you are not going to···!"
Chu Jae-hee tried to run over in shock.
But he was too late.
WOOONG—
As I began Synchronization,
my heart started pumping.
Mana flowed through my blood vessels and rushed into my lower body.
The muscles in my thighs and calves swelled as though about to burst, holding aura inside them.
A compressed spring.
Every joint screamed, but I ignored it.
What I needed now was speed.
Only speed.
"[Haste]."
SWISH.
The wind of acceleration wrapped around my whole body.
This was not enough.
Faster.
'[Haste], [Haste].'
Double and triple overlap.
The branches of the Tree of Sephiroth stretched out, layering the magic.
For an ordinary mage, the circuits would have burned out, but my body endured it.
And one more.
"[Leap]."
Finally, I added a leaping formula.
Leap on top of acceleration.
A complex calculation that would have caused my circuits to tangle and trigger mana backflow in the past.
Now, it was different.
That ignorant thirty thousand cuts training I had done with Charles.
That simple repetition felt as if it had widened and strengthened the mana paths in my body.
Was it just my imagination?
No. I was certain.
It was possible.
"Please clean up a bit."
BOOM—
I stepped on the window frame.
The concrete wall caved in, creating explosive propulsion.
My body shot out like a cannonball.
"Hunter!"
Behind me, along with Chu Jae-hee’s scream, I heard the sound of piles of documents being swept up and blown away in the storm.
'Sorry, Mr. Chu Jae-hee.'
***
Tap, tap!
I stepped through the air.
My body felt light, as though gravity had weakened.
I used the tops of streetlights as stepping stones and leaped.
The narrow surface touched by my toes.
But aura created grip.
SWIIISH—
The scenery stretched backward like the tail of a comet.
The jam-packed cars on the road looked like toys.
Looking down at drivers honking on the clogged road, I crossed the forest of buildings.
This was the path of a Hunter.
Not a designated road, but the fastest straight line.
'East.'
I detected an unpleasant, sticky presence.
It was not the artificial wave we had been tracking.
This was··· pure chaos.
A naturally occurring disaster where space-time had twisted on its own without warning or omen.
'A Gate.'
It was as dangerous as a Hatching-type Gate.
Because a Break was an uncontrolled variable.
Goblins had popped out, but there was no predicting how many would pour forth.
But it did not matter.
The speed caught at the tips of my feet was telling me.
I would not be late.
I would reach them in time.
I landed on the rooftop of a high-rise building.
Without even taking time to catch my breath, I ran again.
I kicked off the railing and threw myself into the air.
Far in the distance, in the middle of Sutaek-dong’s residential area.
I could see chaos where screams and sirens mixed.
And a few kilometers farther from there.
It was open.
A red crack.
A space floating in the air and writhing.
It was a Gate.