Jet-black hair.
Unremarkable eyes.
A face like an endlessly harmless Shih Tzu.
If someone asked Kang Ha-min whether he had a dream, he could answer without hesitation.
Safety Above All
Live Without Danger
It would be nice to work hard at anything, earn money, and own a building.
Or to become a Hunter and earn both honor and an enormous amount of money.
But if you lived long enough, you knew.
How empty those dreams were, and how impossible they were to reach.
In a world where even living an ordinary life was difficult, he had never dreamed of such things.
Still, he had lived fiercely and diligently.
He had even become a civil servant, securing an iron rice bowl for himself.
Of course, he was only an entry-level civil servant, but simply making ends meet was enough.
‘Yeah, it really had been enough.’
[Notice of Dismissal]
This is to notify you that you are dismissed from your position, effective March 1, 2026.
Clack, clack.
The sound of keyboards echoed through the room.
They were the keyboards of everyone except Kang Ha-min.
A typing chorus he would normally have joined.
But now, it was someone else’s story.
He slowly swept his gaze across the room.
Flinch—
Flinch—
Every other civil servant avoided his eyes.
Making eye contact with someone who had been dismissed would only make them uneasy, so they ignored him.
The team leader who barked whenever something went wrong said nothing.
‘He might be that kind of team leader, but...’
Hamin knew that the man had protested more loudly than anyone that this situation was unfair.
But what could he do?
The team leader was a civil servant too.
Just another public servant who could not refuse an order from above.
He was a man with a wife and children to support.
Without a word of complaint, Kang Ha-min trudged outside.
“What’s this, Kang Shih Tzu? You’re really leaving?”
At that moment, a voice reached his ears.
When he turned his gaze, there was a face he did not want to see.
Kang Ha-min’s senior mentor, and the most useless kind of deadweight.
A piece of trash who caused trouble every day and sexually harassed female civil servants.
An Min-woo.
But his father was a member of the National Assembly.
The only reason he worked here was to build his record and become the next member of the National Assembly.
The thought of a bastard like him becoming a legislator was nauseating beyond words.
But what could he do?
This was the world they lived in.
“Wow, thanks, thanks. You got me through this one.”
That smirking face of his was revolting.
He knew perfectly well whose fault this was.
“It was a Dimensional Break incident. What was anyone supposed to do?”
The Dimensional Break.
Yes, it all began there.
And the Tower that had caused the Dimensional Break was the greatest cause of all.
Sky Tower
It was named for being tall enough to reach the sky.
One day, Sky Tower suddenly arrived in this world.
Soon after, the Awakened were born.
They were Hunters who possessed abilities humanity had never had.
Just when people began to question Sky Tower’s existence.
As the price for there being no challenger on a floor of Sky Tower, the ‘First Trial,’ the ‘Dimensional Break,’ will begin.
The First Trial appeared.
The government declared a state of disaster.
Immediately, the climb up Sky Tower began.
That was the opening of the Age of Great Hunters.
Kang Ha-min worked in the department that handled such Dimensional Breaks.
He had initially volunteered after a friend became a victim of one.
But now, it was the lifeline that kept him fed.
Then, an incident occurred not long ago.
The worst kind of incident: it had originally been rated Stability Grade A, but was reported as Grade B.
Subjugation Team Wiped Out
Mass Civilian Casualties
It happened just before Seongdong District, Seoul, was due to reach 1,000 days without an accident.
Naturally, the people above went into an uproar.
It had been a long time since an incident of this scale had occurred.
It had even been reported as breaking news. That said it all.
The real cause was that the member of the National Assembly in charge had embezzled the budget and quietly replaced the outside contractor.
But none of that was reported.
“It was a regrettable accident caused by an error in judgment by the working-level staff.”
Instead, the blame was simply pinned on several of the civil servants in charge.
Kang Ha-min was one of them.
“I’ll buy you a meal sometime. You saved my life. Seriously.”
An Min-woo took a long drag on his e-cigarette and gave him an unctuous smile.
Of course. The man who had changed the outside contractor was this piece of trash’s father.
“Hoo.”
The vapor he exhaled covered Kang Ha-min’s face.
An Min-woo acted as though he owned the whole world.
And in truth, he was a bastard who had the whole world.
“Kang Shih Tzu, you’ve worked hard. This is from me, so go be a good son to your parents.”
An Min-woo pulled out an envelope of cash and smiled slyly.
Ten thousand curses rose to his lips.
But he forced them down.
Instead, he carefully chose his words.
Shih Tzus did not just take it.
Sometimes, they bit.
They bit hard as hell.
Kang Ha-min slowly raised his head.
A smile played on his lips.
“Lucky you. You’ve got so many mothers to be a good son to.”
CRACK—
An Min-woo’s face slowly froze.
His father, An Cheol-woo.
It was common knowledge among civil servants that he kept several lovers.
‘Wow.’
Kang Ha-min was surprised even by the words that had come out of his own mouth.
‘I just tore someone’s parents apart with one sentence.’
But what could he do?
If An Min-woo was going to act like that, he should have been born to better parents.
That was enough biting.
“Then, bust your ass.”
Leaving the dumbfounded An Min-woo behind, he turned around and sprinted for all he was worth.
“You bastard!”
An Min-woo came to his senses too late and shouted after him.
But Kang Ha-min was ridiculously fast when it came to running away.
There was no point in getting beaten up for nothing.
Run like hell!
It was a shame he had not gotten a proper look at An Min-woo’s furious face.
Still, it felt a little satisfying.
‘No, actually, it doesn’t feel satisfying at all!’
His life had fallen apart in an instant.
The life he had lived was too precious for that to make him happy.
What would he do now?
How was he going to survive?
A feeling of hopelessness bore down on him.
His pace gradually slowed.
Beneath the darkening sky.
All he could do was trudge onward.
Patter—
Feeling something cold on his head, he looked up.
Before he knew it, snow had begun to fall from the sky.
The world just would not leave him in peace.
‘What am I supposed to tell the parents who live for me?’
He had not even told them about this situation yet.
They were such doting parents that they had even hung a banner to celebrate their son becoming a civil servant.
Bitterly contemplating his bleak future, Kang Ha-min stood in front of the bus stop.
Other people might have a drink and complain.
But Kang Ha-min, an ordinary man by nature, could not hold his liquor and did not even have a friend to do that with.
Until night came, he simply remained at the bus stop, waiting without end.
Several buses had already passed.
Maybe too much had happened.
Before he knew it, sleepiness came over him with the cold.
They said people got sleepy when they were stressed.
‘Yeah, I’ll get on the next bus that comes.’
He would keep his eyes closed until then, then get up.
Kang Ha-min closed his eyes and lowered his head for a moment.
Until a bus, skidding on the snowy road, came hurtling toward the bus stop.
SCREEEECH!
Ah.
I’m going to die today.
Congratulations on awakening as a Hunter.
【Hidden Class】
‘Gravekeeper of a Ruined World’ has been unlocked.
Entering ‘Grave Mountain’.
“Gah?!”
The bus headlights that had filled his vision.
The violent screech of brakes echoing through the road.
Even the flash of memories that had passed before his eyes in slow motion.
After witnessing all of it, Kang Ha-min collapsed onto the ground.
His body shook uncontrollably.
There was no strength in his legs.
The lingering traces in his body made it abundantly clear that what had just happened was no lie.
“I-I, just now...”
Had he not almost been hit by a bus?
With a bewildered expression, Kang Ha-min ran his hands over his body.
It did not seem like he was dead.
“Huh? Huh?”
Only then did he realize that this was not a bus stop.
The dirt beneath his hands.
A jet-black night sky crowded with stars.
Finally, an enormous mountain loomed beneath the night sky.
Ancient stone steps could be seen along that mountain ridge.
Ominous stone steps.
From there, he felt as though something were beckoning him to come this way.
“......Why am I here right now?”
His mutter echoed, but there was no one to answer him.
“......More importantly, I think I heard something just now?”
Right before the bus hit him.
He had heard something like a system message.
“......A Hunter?”
Confusion filled his face.
It was something he had never expected to have anything to do with for the rest of his life.
“I awakened?”
Then had he awakened and ended up here?
“No, why?”
It did not make sense.
Normally, awakening just meant awakening.
Why was he in a place he had never seen before?
He had never heard of a place of awakening.
Yet, aside from all that, his fingertips trembled.
Suppose this really was a place of awakening.
Then if he left this place, would that bus hit him?
‘......Then, wouldn’t I die?’
A bead of sweat slowly slid down his face.
“I-I awakened, didn’t I?”
A Hunter’s body grew stronger upon awakening.
Then maybe he could somehow avoid it or survive it?
He hastily examined his body.
But.
‘Did I get stronger?’
He did not know.
Even when he pushed off the ground with all his strength, it only seemed as though he could jump a little farther.
He was beginning to question whether he had really awakened.
No, there was a faster way to confirm it.
“S-Status Window!”
DING!
[Kang Ha-min]
-Level: 1
-Class: Gravekeeper of a Ruined World
- Grade: Mythic
- Unique Skills: Enter Grave Mountain / Rise of the Dead
- Type: Corpse Reconstruction / Soul Binding
M-Mythic?
Kang Ha-min worked in the Hunter field.
Yet Mythic Grade?
He had never once seen anything like it.
【Enter Grave Mountain】
— Enter Grave Mountain through shadows.
【Rise of the Dead】
— Excavate the being sleeping in a grave and forcibly bind its body and remnant soul.
— Can only be used within Grave Mountain.
They were simple skill descriptions.
Understanding them as written was not very difficult.
‘Mythic... With a grade like this, I might find a way to live.’
With the Status Window appearing, there was no doubt that he had awakened as a Hunter.
Instinct told him.
The answer was above those stairs.
“......Right. Let’s go.”
He hurriedly began to climb the stone steps.
Though the steps were broken here and there, he struggled stubbornly upward.
A bus was about to snuff out his life.
He had to do something.
“Huff, huff.”
One thing was clear: his body had not grown stronger.
He had awakened, but there was no way this body could dodge a bus rushing at him.
Still, after catching his breath, he finally reached the summit.
What unfolded before Kang Ha-min’s eyes was an unexpected place.
“A grave?”
Grave Mountain, which had been written in his skill.
Seeing it with his own eyes, he finally understood why it was called Grave Mountain.
Countless graves.
Headstones stood everywhere, but none of them bore a name.
A graveyard in the middle of the night.
A chill ran through him, and his body trembled.
‘Ghosts and occult things have always been my weakness.’
But this was no time for fainthearted talk.
There was a way to get out of here alive.
Hunters said that skills were closer to instinct.
He could choose one of these graves.
That instinct echoed from deep in his gut.
Then which grave should he choose?
Hesitation filled his eyes.
His long-standing decision paralysis reared its head.
But no one here would choose for him.
The choice belonged entirely to Kang Ha-min.
In the end, Kang Ha-min chose one.
A clean grave with remarkably little grass growing on it.
The moment he placed his hand atop the grave, his lips began to move on their own.
“Rise of the Dead.”
As he spoke the skill’s name, the grave split open.
“Eek!”
He let out a scream and fell hard onto his backside as a hand suddenly thrust out from the grave.
A pale white hand that seemed utterly alien.
Its owner slowly lifted its head.
Eyes reminiscent of red stars flashed.
Ink-black hair, like that of a demon spirit, cascaded down.
A monster that possessed nothing but killing intent toward the world.
The overwhelming killing intent radiating from it resounded intensely throughout the space.
【Heaven-Slaying Star Lord】
The Sword God, ‘Baek Cheon-myeong,’ answers the summons.
An utterly unexpected being had risen.