Dungeon Gates opened in 1999.
The creatures that spilled out of the Gates threw the world into chaos.
Not even massive bombardments could bring the creatures down.
Then, from among the people, the Awakened appeared.
"Get everyone to safety!"
"We'll hold the things off!"
The Awakened who bravely stood against them.
People began to call them Hunters, named the creatures monsters, and so an age of upheaval began.
By 2007, the Hunters' tremendous efforts had started to restore stability.
Then a great many Dimensional Gates opened, and beings from other worlds appeared and invaded Earth.
The Dimensional Gates were estimated at around a hundred.
Of course, that didn't mean that many separate dimensions were connected.
A single dimension sometimes opened several Gates.
"Damn it, the beastmen are pushing into the city......!"
Beastmen, elves, dwarves, spirits, merfolk — races that looked down on humans as lowly. Earthlings called them demihumans, or the Demihuman races, and to stand against them, the people of Earth allied with three dimensions ruled by humans.
A Dimensional Gate had opened on Korea's Jeju Island as well, and now parts of Jeolla and Gyeongsang Provinces had been lost to the spirit race.
Attacks by demihumans and monsters had sent the population plummeting and driven the economy into crisis.
Park Kang-hyeok — a twenty-nine-year-old man, son of a couple who ran a hardware store, who had barely scraped through college and now worked as an E-rank Hunter — let out a sigh and stared at the bills clutched in his palm.
"A hundred and fifty thousand won."
It was a day's wage, earned as a porter inside a Dungeon Gate.
Even with prices soaring, 150,000 won was decent money.
Knowing his parents' situation, Kang-hyeok had moved out as soon as he could and started working as a Hunter.
Awakening as an E-rank Hunter from the start wasn't bad, all things considered.
The trouble was that his skill was an F-rank Lowest-Grade Skeleton Summon.
He could call forth a single skeleton clutching a rake.
"If I could enhance the skill even one grade, I could summon up to five of them......"
The problem was that to raise the skill's level, the skeleton had to defeat enemies.
And a lowest-grade skeleton couldn't properly handle a single F-rank monster.
It was on a completely different level of weakness from the skeleton warriors you'd see inside a Dungeon Gate.
"Haah......"
Still, as a porter he did well enough.
A porter didn't just haul loads; he took on all the odd jobs too.
Kang-hyeok left the hard labor to his skeleton and handled the lighter tasks himself.
Thanks to that, he could earn a little more than the other porters.
"Good work today, Park! Let's do this again if the chance comes up!"
"Yes, get home safe!"
Kang-hyeok gave a bitter smile and slowly started walking.
By bus and subway, it took about fifty minutes to reach home.
He'd started living on his own a year ago.
A five-pyeong studio in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
The southern Gyeonggi area had once suffered enormous damage from monsters.
Because of that, rent was quite low, and moving out had been easy.
The moment Kang-hyeok got home, he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower.
"Haa......"
After about a year of portering, the work was starting to feel a little more familiar.
"Seriously...... if it weren't for the skeleton, I never would've lasted."
Kang-hyeok thought of his dismissed skeleton and felt grateful.
A skeleton could stay summoned forever, as long as it wasn't destroyed.
But he could hardly bring a skeleton onto a bus.
So the skeleton he summoned on the way to work, he dismissed at the end of every day.
After his shower, Kang-hyeok grabbed a cup ramen and turned on the TV.
[Around seven o'clock this morning......]
Eating the cup ramen, he picked up his smartphone with his left hand.
"Tomorrow's a day off."
Even portering was fiercely competitive.
All the more so when the day's pay was high.
And even if a low-rank Hunter wanted to enter a Dungeon Gate, E-rank Hunters weren't easily accepted.
Groups of E-rank Hunters did band together to enter F-grade Dungeon Gates, but maybe it was because the news reported deaths and injuries day after day?
Low-rank Hunters wanted to bring a high-rank Hunter along.
The problem was that bringing a high-rank Hunter cost a considerable amount.
"They call it an investment in growth, but half the time you don't even clear your day's pay......"
Unless a high-rank Hunter carried them along, low-rank Hunters had no choice but to grow slowly.
"I've heard hiring a carry runs anywhere from a few million to tens of millions of won a day......"
Kang-hyeok let out a small sigh and shook his head.
Even splitting the cost N ways, the low-rankers would still need a fortune.
And scams around it happened often enough, too.
"In my account...... six million won."
It was precious money he'd worked hard for over a year.
Thanks to the national scholarship, he hadn't had to take out student loans.
His parents had sent him living expenses during his university days.
The two of them had cheered on his dream of becoming a Hunter.
'Now it's my turn to pay them back.'
His late-born younger sister would be starting university soon.
His parents had almost no savings, so a national scholarship could cover her tuition, but living expenses would still run to hundreds of thousands of won a month.
And in the prime of her early twenties, she deserved to enjoy the things she wanted, too.
'If I give them an allowance every month, they'll have the room to send Yu-na her living expenses.'
So starting next year, until his sister graduated, he planned to send his parents 500,000 won a month.
[With Hunter Kim Min-chan's Teinen Guild successfully clearing an S-grade dungeon......]
Kang-hyeok watched the TV with an envious look.
Hunter ranks went from F up to A, and above that lay S3, S2, and S1.
The highest, S1-rank Hunters, were hailed as the strongest of all, and the state provided them all sorts of benefits.
In all of Korea there were only three S1-rank Hunters.
Truly the chosen few.
From the moment their status level was one, they already possessed power on par with an A-rank Hunter.
'Honestly, it's a whole other world.'
Kang-hyeok finished off his ramen, scrolled through social media for a bit, then flopped straight onto his bed.
His days passed the same way, over and over.
Then, a few days later, he saw a Teinen Guild posting and hurriedly applied for porter work.
It was a four-day job.
Quite grueling, but the daily pay was a whopping 300,000 won.
In other words, he could earn 1.2 million won over four days.
'I have to take this!'
[Greetings. This is Teinen Guild. We are truly delighted to have you with us. Please come to Exit 1 of Migeum Station by 9:00 a.m. on December 23rd, where a shuttle bus will be waiting. Be sure to arrive at Exit 1 of Migeum Station on time. Should you be late......]
Kang-hyeok clenched his fist and smiled.
"Yes!"
On the porter-hiring sites, every porter had a score.
Kang-hyeok's was fairly high.
Even when he'd been treated unfairly, he had endured it and worked diligently.
Thanks to that, Teinen Guild hired him at once.
"I'll have to spend Christmas in a dungeon, but......"
This much he could put up with.
The pay was 300,000 won a day, after all.
Kang-hyeok called his family.
[You'll be in a dungeon for four whole days? Are you sure you'll be all right?]
At his mother's worried voice, Kang-hyeok gave a small smile.
"The dungeon's B-grade, but I'll be moving with Teinen Guild's first-team members, so it won't be dangerous. From what I hear, it's a live-combat test for their first- and second-team rookies."
[Still, don't do anything too dangerous.]
"I know. By the way, those vitamins I sent this time......"
[Yes, I got them. I'll take them well. Oh, and your father wants to......]
"Sure, put him on."
After talking with his parents, Kang-hyeok fired off a text to his sister.
-Can't reach me for four days, so treat yourself and Mom and Dad to something good. I'll send money.
-Ooh! Best big brother ever!
Maybe it was the big age gap.
His relationship with his sister wasn't bad at all.
Kang-hyeok transferred 150,000 won to his sister's account.
Then he sent 300,000 won each to his parents' accounts, and right after, checked the dungeon details Teinen Guild had shared.
'Thirty minutes to Migeum Station, maybe? I'll give it a bit more, forty minutes...... no, let's just budget an hour and head out.'
Kang-hyeok lay back on his bed, phone in hand.
On AeTube, countless Hunters were broadcasting live.
One Hunter had started a channel called "From F-Rank to S-Rank."
The Hunter broadcasting had a skill that boosted physical ability.
[Haah, seriously...... there's a limit to what raw physical ability can do.]
He'd entered a controlled zone with his teammates and drew the monsters' attention.
[I wish I could at least wield lowest-grade Expert sword energy!]
He looked at the Hunters with him, letting his envy show.
There were many stages of sword energy, and lowest-grade Expert was the very bottom of them.
Ones who had just barely stepped into the ranks of the specialists, you might say.
Even so, a lowest-grade Expert's sword energy could slice through goblin hide that an ordinary person's strength couldn't easily cut.
[Aaaagh! The goblins are......!]
A Hunter wielding lowest-grade Expert sword energy started to be chased by a swarm of goblins.
A few would be one thing.
But a lowest-grade Expert swordsman couldn't handle a whole pack of goblins.
Just then, a mid-grade Expert swordsman who had been directing from the rear leapt forward.
[Slash—! Shk-shk-shk!]
"Whoa......"
The mid-grade Expert swordsman cut down five goblins in an instant.
"They really are on a different level."
The movements of a lowest-grade Expert and a mid-grade Expert were worlds apart.
And the highest-grade Expert swordsmen, called the finest sword specialists, felt like they were of an entirely different class again.
Watching the video, Kang-hyeok checked the time and quickly closed the AeTube app.
"I should sleep."
He set his phone beside his head and sank into slumber.
Later, when December 23rd arrived, Kang-hyeok set out early for Migeum Station.
At Exit 1, he boarded the Teinen Guild shuttle bus and crossed over to Gwanggyosan.
"Ah......"
They really were different.
Even the Hunters' gear was on a whole other level from any Hunters he'd seen before.
And the Teinen Guild staff supporting them numbered in the dozens.
"Hey there, familiar face?"
Kang-hyeok looked at the young man who had raised a hand toward him.
"......!"
His face twisted slightly.
He was the child of a KOSDAQ-listed construction firm's president, and a guy who had Awakened as a B-rank Hunter back in their college days.
His name was......
"Lee Seong-ho?"
"That's right. So you...... no way you joined Teinen Guild. Don't tell me — you're a porter?"
"......Yeah."
Seong-ho let out a scornful laugh and looked Kang-hyeok up and down.
"Rough life. Fits you, though — you were always hunched in a corner back at school."
"You......"
"Oh, I got promoted to S3-rank this time. Joined Teinen Guild's first team, so...... ah, right, you'll know these faces too. Hey!"
At Seong-ho's call, five men and women drifted over around Kang-hyeok.
They looked at Kang-hyeok and their eyes went wide.
"Huh? This guy...... feels like I've seen him somewhere......"
"Ah...... you're Park Kang-hyeok, right? The one who always sat in the corner at school......"
"Oh! What's this? Don't tell me you joined Teinen Guild too — guess not."
Kang-hyeok's equipment looked utterly shabby next to the gear of Teinen Guild's first- and second-team Hunters.