As Yeouido Station drew nearer, more and more people on the subway looked like they might as well have had I’M AWAKENED pasted across their foreheads.
Rush hour had ended long ago, but before long, the car was packed so tightly there was nowhere to set a foot.
“Ow!”
“Hey! Watch it!”
This is the real subway hell. The second someone loses their temper and activates a Trait, this place will turn into chaos.
Thankfully, nothing I feared happened. Maybe because everyone recognized everyone else as Awakened, an unspoken air of caution hung over the crowd.
Of course, not everyone got the message.
THUD.
I had just left Yeouido Station and joined the stream of people heading toward the assessment site when someone roughly shoved past me from behind, slamming a shoulder into mine.
A classic shoulder check.
I staggered and nearly fell, but barely managed to keep my balance.
When I looked up, a huge man who had to be at least six and a half feet tall had turned back to sneer at me.
“What? What are you going to do about it?”
He sounded like he was demanding an answer. There was not the slightest hint of an apology in his face. If I wanted a fight, he looked more than happy to give me one.
Kids.
A Hunter should know how to size up an opponent before anything else. Yet here he was, picking fights without a second thought.
Then again, at that size, nobody around his neighborhood had probably ever dared challenge him. And now that he had Awakened, his confidence must have gone through the roof.
I used my [System Observer] Trait to inspect his Status Window.
Just as expected, neither his Trait nor his Performance Score was anything special. I had not even needed to check.
A face like that practically screamed minor character.
“Nah. Just keep walking. I’m fine.”
“What a wuss.”
The giant snorted, turned away, and continued forward.
Sure, kid. Flex all you like.
Just try not to die. Grow into a fine Hunter.
In high-grade Stages, it was hardly rare to see your comrades’ limbs getting hacked off all around you.
After seeing that kind of carnage a few times, a little provocation like that felt no more threatening than children playing rough.
That was the mindset of a grown-up. Damn right it was.
Then I heard chattering right behind me.
“What the hell was that guy’s problem? He slammed into you first! Why did you just take it? Want me to go teach him a lesson?”
Maybe he had bleached his hair bright yellow to celebrate becoming an adult.
He was a short boy with strikingly blond hair. Heavy double eyelids and a high-bridged nose made him remarkably handsome, but he was so small that he looked much younger than he really was.
Naturally, he had to be nineteen too.
Today’s Hunter Selection Assessment was only for Korean citizens who were nineteen years old and had Awakened within the past forty-eight hours.
I shrugged as though it was nothing.
“Forget it. You won’t last long as a Hunter if you react to every little provocation. Remember this, too. It is better not to start fights with other Hunters, and not to take the bait when they start one with you. Any strength you waste on that would be much better spent developing your own abilities.”
The blond boy looked at me like I was ridiculous.
“What’s with the old-man lecture? Didn’t you just turn nineteen and Awaken too?”
He was not wrong.
Unable to think of a better response, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“My Trait... makes me a wise and kind person...”
Ridiculous even to say.
Still, the answer seemed to satisfy him.
“Whoa, really? A Trait like that exists? That’s awesome! Then I’ll tell you mine. My Trait is Flame Summoner!”
This time, I was the one staring at him in disbelief.
This kid had none of the basic sense a Hunter needed.
Revealing your Trait name as an Awakened was something of a taboo.
It was sensitive information, shared only with companions you trusted completely—people you trusted enough to put your lives in each other’s hands on the battlefield.
There was one exception, though.
If you were powerful enough that nobody could do anything to you, there was little reason to worry about exposing your Trait.
Sometimes the Trait itself became a symbol, the source of worldwide fame.
But Flame Summoner?
The Trait he had just named exactly matched that of a famous Hunter I knew well.
Flame Summoner Lee Hasol.
Twenty years in the future, he would be an A-rank Hunter in Korea. Not just any A-rank Hunter, either, but one of the elite few most likely to advance to S-rank.
Could this kid really be Lee Hasol? He was in the same cohort as me?
I had never met him once in my previous life.
Then again, more than five thousand people had taken this assessment, if I remembered correctly. Running into each other now was the more surprising thing.
I could not resist checking his Status Window.
【Lee Hasol】
【Level】: Unable to Verify
【Traits】
└ [Summon] Flame Summoner (LV Unable to Verify)
【Encroachment Rate】: Unable to Verify
【Ranking】: Unable to Verify
【Performance Score】: 25,000
What the hell... It was real.
He was only Level 1, yet his Performance Score was already 25,000?
Even after regressing and gaining two Traits, I was only around the same level.
Was this the power of a top-tier Trait?
In my previous life, he had already been a national celebrity among Hunters. I had never met him in person, but I had seen him often enough on TV.
Still...
Was he always this short? I remember him looking pretty tall on screen...
He was probably past the age where he would suddenly shoot up.
Did he wear lifts? Enough to make that much difference? No way...
While I was lost in pointless speculation, Lee Hasol kept chattering beside me.
“Hey, do you know this? When I checked my Status Window, there was a whole chain of auxiliary Traits under Flame Summoner. Fire Resistance, Flame Refinement, Mana Release... Mmph.”
I covered his mouth with my hand.
“Stop talking. There is nothing to gain from reciting all your Traits out loud. Every Awakened has their own Traits, but the names alone let people make rough guesses about what you can do. We are not only dealing with monsters the System provides. There are countless things in this world that target Hunters. From now on, do not tell anyone about your Trait information unless you trust them one hundred percent. Even the instructors will not ask us directly what our Traits are.”
My lecture had gone on a little long.
Maybe I was worrying too much. Was I just being a meddlesome busybody?
In my previous life, I had been one of countless B-rank Hunters, while Lee Hasol had risen high enough to aim for S-rank.
Even if I did not spell out everything I knew, he would probably do fine on his own.
Still...
Seeing him list even his auxiliary Traits with those bright, innocent eyes, I could not just stand there and let him do it.
Lee Hasol gently pushed my hand away, then stuck close to my side.
“Oh, I get it. So I have to trust you one hundred percent from now on?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ha ha, I know. Still, thanks for telling me. I come from a little island town, and I’m the only one who came up to Seoul to become a Hunter. Nobody explained things to me this carefully before. It is harder than you would think to find proper information about Hunters online. It is all just weird nonsense.”
Then, in the middle of talking, Lee Hasol suddenly held out his hand for a handshake.
“I’m Lee Hasol. Let’s be friends. You’re my first Awakened friend.”
No pretenses at all. I liked that about future top-ranker Lee Hasol.
I took his hand.
“I’m Kim Daram. Your first friend? The honor is mine.”
“Pfft. What was that? You sound like such an old man.”
This little bastard...
Knowing what his future held, I could not honestly say there was no calculation in how I treated him.
But I genuinely liked the kid, too.
And I was curious how someone so clueless had managed to climb all the way to such a lofty position.
We traded bits and pieces about ourselves as we continued toward the assessment site.
Before long, we spotted a crowd gathered in a circle up ahead.
Lee Hasol, unable to contain his curiosity, slipped through the crowd. I followed behind him without giving it much thought.
“You pale little anchovy. You looking to die?”
“If you are going to slam into people because you cannot see where you are going, I should just gouge those eyeballs out.”
The giant who had shoulder-checked me earlier had apparently found someone new to pick a fight with.
And this time, his opponent did not seem inclined to let it slide as easily as I had.
I turned my attention to the new man standing boldly in front of the giant.
The word anchovy suited him well. He was thin and wiry.
Oddly enough, his complexion was so pale he could have passed for white. His sharply upturned eyes made him look like the very picture of a foul temperament.
He was well over six feet tall himself, but the giant standing opposite him was simply enormous.
By all appearances, he should not have stood a chance.
But he was not intimidated in the least.
Then someone in the crowd seemed to recognize the thin man.
“They say that’s Sa Jeil...”
“Sa Jeil? Who’s that?”
“Idiot. He’s the son of the Death Notice Guild’s leader. I heard he was taking this year’s assessment, but he’s really here...”
“Even so, he has been Awakened for less than two days, just like everyone else, right? I think the giant wins.”
“You think? The size difference is huge.”
Sa Jeil?
That Sa Jeil from the Death Notice Guild?
That guy was Sa Jeil?
I studied him again.
Now that I thought about it, the distinctive sharp impression was exactly the same.
A little over ten years from now, Sa Jeil would succeed his father as guildmaster of the Death Notice Guild, one of Korea’s five major guilds.
I remembered lamenting in front of the TV that a man in his thirties, just like me, was already a guildmaster.
No, that was not the only reason I was shocked.
Sa Jeil was infamous as one of the cruelest and most ruthless Hunters in Korea.
Yet because of his ability and the force behind him, even the state could not treat him lightly.
He was the very definition of a necessary evil.
Two legendary Hunters in the same cohort already.
Maybe it was even more remarkable that I had completed the training program in my previous life without ever crossing paths with either of them.
Then again, I had nearly finished dead last and barely made it through. There had probably been no reason for us to meet.
Either way, I could not resist checking Sa Jeil’s Status Window too.
【Sa Jeil】
【Level】: Unable to Verify
【Traits】
└ [Condition] Blood Sword (LV Unable to Verify)
【Encroachment Rate】: Unable to Verify
【Ranking】: Unable to Verify
【Performance Score】: 19,000
As expected of Sa Jeil. His Performance Score was already 19,000...
Hmm.
Still, I was stronger.