When I was little, my grandfather used to tell me:
“The more you let go, the more you are filled. What you give will come back to you.”
Every night before I went to sleep, I would quietly repeat those words to myself.
But as I grew older, I came to understand something on my own.
Letting go was never easy.
The more people filled themselves up, the more endlessly thirsty they became.
“Dad… were you like that too?”
My father had been an Awakened and a Hunter, just like me. Unfortunately, he vanished without a trace the year before I graduated from elementary school.
He must have known that saying Grandfather repeated like a mantra. He had probably heard it so many times it was drilled into his head.
But he hadn’t been able to live by it.
He hadn’t been able to let go.
Just like me.
“Ah… fuck. I was so close…”
I was inside a cavern with an impossibly high ceiling.
Ash-gray walls curved around the chamber, and torches hung along them at even intervals.
I stood at the center of it all.
One of my legs had been severed, and a long, gaping wound ran across my side. I was pressing one hand over it, but blood still streamed down the back of my hand and dripped to the floor.
Beside me, a giant lizardman lay sprawled out with its tongue hanging from its mouth.
For something so grotesque, the bastard had been strangely eloquent. It had rattled off Korean at me as if it were lecturing me.
Something about timelines. Something about not breaking taboos.
If it wanted to prattle on like some damned scholar, it could have at least attacked with a little more decorum.
I looked down at my left leg, which had been crushed and then torn clean off by that thing, and bile rose in my throat.
At least I was already Awakened, so I couldn’t feel the pain.
But I had no strength left to move.
Had I lost too much blood?
Either way, if I wanted to clear the dungeon, I had to open that reward chest over there.
Too far. Way too far… Can I make it over there on one leg? Wouldn’t it be smarter to use my Escape Ticket now? But Daram. Kim Daram. Even if you’re going to die, shouldn’t you at least open that thing before you do?
Inside my clothes was an Escape Ticket I had bought for a fortune before coming in here.
But my injuries were so severe that there was no guarantee I would survive even if I escaped.
Still…
Wouldn’t my chances be at least a hair better than they were now?
I didn’t hesitate for long.
To hell with escaping.
I was opening that chest. If I died without seeing what was inside, I might become a bound spirit and wander this cavern forever with a grudge in my heart.
My head spun.
I had lost too much blood. I couldn’t afford to waste another second.
Grandpa, I’m sorry. Even at the very end, I still can’t let go.
But what choice do I have?
I killed the boss. How am I supposed to leave the dungeon without opening the reward chest? Even Buddha himself couldn’t make that happen.
I summoned the last Puppet Needle I had left.
Then I drove it straight into the back of my neck.
A sharp electric tingle raced through my entire body.
My vision snapped into focus, and strength flooded back into my limbs.
I had exceeded the Needle’s safe usage limit a long time ago. Normally, the backlash would have left me bedridden for a month or two.
But right now, only two things lay before me.
Death—or a miracle.
There was nothing left to hold back.
Nothing left to save.
As I made my way toward the chest, I called up my status window.
【Kim Daram】
【Level】: 52
【Traits】
└ [Manipulation] Puppet (LV 4)
└ [Unique] System Observer (LV 3)
【Encroachment Rate】: 0%
【Ranking】: Requirements Not Met
【Performance Score】: 78,394
“Fuck.”
Killing that lizardman had raised me by two whole levels. My Performance Score had jumped by a considerable amount too.
Yet the damned message beside my Ranking had not changed in the slightest.
“Breaking into the top thousand really is a long and brutal road.”
I lurched forward as fast as I could on my one remaining leg and finally reached the chest.
It was an ordinary chest with a black sheen. It looked no different from the ones that appeared whenever a System stage was cleared.
“Please…”
I couldn’t help feeling hopeful.
Nothing about this dungeon had been normal, from the way I entered to its structure and even its boss.
Even after nearly twenty years of making my living as a Hunter, it was full of things I had never encountered before.
Which meant…
Maybe it would drop something incredible.
Something absolutely insane.
At last, I lifted the lid.
At that exact moment, a spear flew in from behind me and pierced straight through my heart.
“Cough—!”
What…?
Where had that come from?
Was the lizardman still alive?
No. That was impossible.
I had definitely killed it. My level had gone up. The System itself had confirmed its death.
Then how…?
Had another enemy appeared?
The question gnawed at me. I tried to turn and see who had attacked me.
Then I gave up on the idea.
The chest came first.
I forced my heavy eyelids open and looked inside.
There was nothing there.
Thinking I might have missed something, I swept my hand across the inside of the chest.
Nothing touched my fingers.
“Jesus Christ… This dungeon had to keep driving a man insane right up to the bitter end.”
Grandpa, if I’m ever reborn, I swear I’ll live by the art of letting go.
A high ringing filled my ears.
My head dropped, and my forehead struck the bottom of the chest.
My consciousness faded.
The last thing I felt was the cold touch of an empty chest.
*****
I opened my eyes.
The cold sensation from moments ago was gone.
“This is…”
I slowly looked around.
It was the most familiar place in the world.
And yet, it was also somewhere I had not set foot in since becoming an adult.
My childhood bedroom.
I looked around the room with quiet nostalgia before my gaze settled on the mirror hanging on the wall.
A young man stared back at me.
He stood there blankly, clutching a red ticket in one hand.
A Red Ticket…
I remembered this moment perfectly.
How could I ever forget it?
March 1st, the year I turned nineteen.
The exact moment I tore apart a Red Ticket and became an Awakened.
I had never been the type to scare easily.
I had always kept my cool, no matter what happened.
But this time, I figured I was allowed to be a little shocked.
“This is fucking insane…”
I pressed both hands to my chest, trying to calm my pounding heart.
It had been fifty years since the System first intervened in this world. Since then, countless bizarre events had occurred—things no conventional logic could explain or accept.
And I knew those System-born phenomena better than most.
Why?
Because I had spent twenty years getting ground down in the Hunter business.
“Going back in time…”
Even I had never heard of a reward like this, let alone seen one.
Actually, was this even a reward?
Hell if I knew.
I faced the mirror and examined my body from head to toe.
Nothing was different.
No matter how many times I checked, this was undeniably my nineteen-year-old body.
I looked down at the Red Ticket in my hand.
It was a palm-sized paper ticket, dyed such a vivid crimson that it looked as though it had been soaked in a vat of red paint.
The day the System first appeared on Earth, tens of millions of Red Tickets had rained down from the skies all over the world.
Anyone who tore one apart could become an Awakened.
Just in case, I called up my status window.
“…”
Nothing happened.
Of course not.
The ticket was still intact in my hand.
I had clearly returned to the ordinary state I had been in before I Awakened.
I raised the ticket to eye level and studied it.
“A fresh start…”
I thought back on my previous life.
I hadn’t achieved the kind of success where everyone knew my name at a glance, but I had earned the respect of those around me and carried my own weight.
Of course, I had gone through every kind of hell, and the ending had been far from good.
And the Trait I had received when I Awakened in my previous life had been 【Puppet】.
The higher my level rose, the more uses it had. Its potential was practically limitless.
Still, it was never a Trait I would recommend.
It was difficult to control, and in the early days—when a Hunter needed to establish himself—it did little in an actual fight.
In fact, for the first ten years after becoming a Hunter, I had barely survived at the absolute bottom of the industry.
Was I really being given another chance to tear a ticket and receive a new Trait?
“Hmm…”
Of course, I could throw the ticket away and choose not to Awaken.
But that was never an option for me.
There was a reason I had to become a Hunter.
Over twenty years of Hunter life, that reason had slowly faded until I had all but forgotten it.
But now, standing before that crossroads again—
It came back to me with perfect clarity.
My father’s disappearance.
The clues he had left behind.
To reach the truth, I had to become a Hunter.
I didn’t hesitate for long.
I would tear the ticket.
I would Awaken.
I had no idea how this had happened, but since I had been given another chance, I was going to take it.
Still…
What kind of Trait would I get this time?
No matter what it was, I still had twenty years of hard-earned experience as a Hunter.
At the very least, I could climb higher than I had in my previous life.
That much was certain.
But while I was at it…
“Whew…”
My head was full of thoughts.
In my previous life, I had accepted the Trait I was given without knowing anything.
This time was different.
No one understood better than I did how greatly a Hunter’s entire life could be shaped by the Trait received at Awakening.
Wait.
Think about it.
With the way this was going, wasn’t this exactly the moment I was supposed to receive some absurdly powerful Trait?
In every novel and comic, if the protagonist went back in time, they were practically guaranteed an S-rank ability at the very least.
I took a deep breath.
Greed rose from deep in my gut and filled me to the brim.
For a moment, I thought I could hear Grandfather’s voice.
“The more you let go…”
I hurriedly shook my head.
Grandpa! This isn’t the time to let go!
I got another chance to tear a ticket!
Let me pull a top-tier Trait first! Then I’ll let go! I swear!
RRRIP.
I tore the ticket.
Thump-thump-thump.
At the same time, a translucent status window slowly appeared before my eyes.
【Kim Daram】
【Level】: 1
【Traits】
└ [Manipulation] Puppet (LV 1)
【Encroachment Rate】: 1%
【Ranking】: Requirements Not Met
“FUUUUUCK!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Honestly, I wasn’t usually much of a swearer.
Even among Hunters with notoriously filthy mouths, I had a reputation for being unusually well-mannered.
But this was too much.
How was I supposed to not curse?
There were countless Traits in the world!
They said there was one for every ticket!
So how the hell had I gotten the exact same Trait again?
I had to start my Hunter life all over again with that goddamn Puppet?
My head throbbed.
I had been too hasty.
I should have waited until tomorrow.
No, even a few more minutes would have been better.
Actually, I should have torn it exactly on the hour. Things like this had to be done at the right time, or you jinxed them.
One ridiculous regret after another swirled through my mind.
Then, suddenly, the boiling emotions inside me went cold.
Kim Daram. Don’t make the same mistake twice.
Hadn’t I made a vow before I died?
That if I was ever reborn, I would find fulfillment through letting go.
So why was I clinging so desperately to something that had already happened?
Think clearly.
I had thought I was dead, yet here I was—alive and whole.
More than that, I had returned to the body of a healthy nineteen-year-old with all my memories intact.
Right.
Be satisfied.
Be grateful for everything I had been given, and live this life as well as I could.
When had I ever made it as a Hunter because my Trait carried me?
Right, Daram?
Just then, the status window flickered, and a notification sound rang out.
“Huh?”
I absolutely wasn’t going to get my hopes up.
I had already let everything go.
I opened the status window again.
My fingertips trembled.