“Big brother!”
When he opened the door, his younger sister, Go Hyun-ah, her nose bright red, leapt into Hyun-jun's arms.
“Has it been half a year?”
“Yeah! Have you been doing well?”
“I have. Can't you tell just by looking that I'm different from before?”
Hyun-ah stepped back and looked Hyun-jun over. The last time she'd seen him, he had looked quite haggard, but now he was completely different.
“Did you find a good job or something? Your face looks so much healthier. I think you got bigger, too.”
“Heh-heh. I'll explain that later. Come in first.”
Hyun-ah carelessly kicked off her shoes and slipped into the house.
Hyun-jun picked up his sister's luggage and closed the door.
“Waaaah!”
Hyun-ah let out an exclamation.
It was understandable.
In the past five years, this was the first time they'd had a home this clean, tidy, and furnished, a home that felt like a real home.
“Wow! There's another room?!”
Two rooms divided by a sliding door.
Opening the door to look, Hyun-ah couldn't stop marveling.
“What do you think? This is your room. Nice, right?”
“Of course it's nice!”
Hyun-ah hopped onto the bed and rolled around all over it.
Hyun-jun watched contentedly.
‘How long has it been since I saw her this happy?’
He had spent quite a lot of money finding the place and furnishing it, but it didn't feel like a waste at all.
“Rest for a bit. Let's go out for dinner.”
“Okay. But, big brother.”
“What?”
Hyun-ah sat up and stared at Hyun-jun.
For some reason, her eyes looked damp.
“What's wrong? Did something bad happen?”
“No...... it's not that.......”
Just as she seemed to choke up, Hyun-ah wiped her eyes.
Hyun-jun was quite flustered.
As he stood there unsure what to do, his sister spoke.
“I just get to study comfortably all the time, but you work so hard. I feel sorry about that.......”
At his sister's words, Hyun-jun was inwardly relieved. He'd wondered if something had happened at school, but fortunately, that wasn't it.
“You think about all sorts of things. It's not hard, you know?”
“Liar. You pushed yourself because I was coming home. That's why I said the semi-basement was really fine.......”
Watching his worried sister, he couldn't just laugh it off.
He hadn't wanted the weight of being the head of the household to crush his sister.
That was why he had worked harder and lived so tenaciously.
But it seemed his sister's shoulders carried their own burden too.
‘I should clear this up before moving on.’
That he hadn't pushed himself.
And that from now on, there was no need to worry so much.
It was time to make that clear.
“Should we go out for dinner?”
“No, it's okay. I'm full.”
Grrrowl.
Hyun-ah rubbed her stomach with an embarrassed face.
“If you don't want to go out, we can order in. It's fine to spend some money on a day like this.”
“Then...... chicken?”
“Is chicken enough? Order whatever you want.”
At that point, Hyun-ah noticed something was off too.
‘Even if it's a special day, there's no way my brother would say something like that.’
Wasn't he someone who tried to save money no matter what?
Thinking about it carefully, the fact that he looked much healthier than before was strange too.
His complexion was far from that of someone who had pushed himself.
While she was relieved inside, she also wanted to ask why things had turned out this way.
“Big brother, are you doing some other work these days?”
Hyun-jun nodded.
Before he could say anything, Hyun-ah grabbed his hand.
“Y-You didn't join some kind of gang, did you?”
“Do I look like I'd do that?”
“You don't, but the situation's kind of like that.......”
Hyun-jun had no choice but to admit that much.
He had suddenly started spending more, so it must seem strange from Hyun-ah's perspective.
“I started working as a Hunter again.”
“......What?”
Hyun-ah's expression hardened abruptly.
She had opposed his Hunter work in the past too, saying he would only get hurt going in with a Trait like that.
Hyun-jun hurriedly added,
“Should we order first? It's going to take a while.”
“......Don't try to brush it off. Explain it properly. Okay?”
“You're not going to let it slide anyway, are you?”
“Of course not!”
Hyun-jun ordered several dishes through a delivery app.
Hyun-ah, who had been staring at him the whole time, asked again once the order was done.
“You said you wouldn't do Hunter work. You said it wasn't worth it. But why are you making money now?”
“I got a new ability. It feels like I Awakened all over again.......”
Hyun-jun told his sister everything.
There was no other way to reassure her for certain.
“Is that even possible?”
“At least, there are no reported cases so far. So I'm the first.”
“Hmm.......”
Hyun-ah narrowed her eyes.
She really was suspicious of everything.
“It doesn't matter whether you believe it or not. I don't lie to you.”
“So what's this new ability?”
“Hmm.”
Rather than telling her about the ability called Duplicate, it seemed easier and faster to just show her how much stronger he had become.
Hyun-jun looked around, then opened a drawer.
What he took out of the drawer were long nails that had been in the toolbox.
“Look at this.”
Hyun-jun gripped several nails in one hand and squeezed.
When he opened his hand again, the crumpled nails had been mashed into a single lump of metal.
“!”
Hyun-ah's eyes went wide like a startled rabbit's.
A smile hung on Hyun-jun's lips.
“How's that? You know you can't do something like this with one Rune of Strength, right?”
“I-Is it true? You really got a new ability?”
“I told you. So these days, I'm making good money from Hunter work.”
Hyun-jun took out his smartphone and showed her the purchase messages he'd received from the Exchange.
Hyun-ah scrolled with trembling hands and checked the messages one by one.
“Y-You're really earning all this money?”
“Yeah. I'm making this much without much trouble at all.”
“How can there be no trouble? You're making this because you're going to really dangerous places.”
“Come on. Don't you know your big brother by now? I always put safety first.”
“......Yeah, right.”
Hyun-ah didn't believe him, but that didn't mean she could oppose his Hunter work.
‘He must have already made up his mind in his own way.’
She couldn't oppose that.
There was only one thing she could do.
Just cheer him on.
“If it's hard, rest, and never push yourself too hard. At least promise me that.”
“Hunter work actually has a lot of time to rest.”
“That's good, then.”
A little later, the delivery food arrived.
They set the food on the table and began eating.
Hyun-ah ate heartily, as if she had never been worried at all.
So much so that her suggestion of ordering only chicken seemed silly.
Hyun-jun watched her contentedly.
‘This is why I make money.’
From now on, he wanted to buy her lots of even tastier food.
He wanted to dress her in nicer clothes.
He wanted to make a life for her where she wouldn't have to worry even if she bombed a test.
***
[Sufficient power has accumulated in the <Primordial Soul Circuit>.]
[The Grade of the <Primordial Soul Circuit> is changing. <F>▶<E>]
“Done.”
A full month since his re-Awakening.
Today, a few days after the start of the new year, he had finally reached an E-Grade Soul Circuit.
There were no flashy effects.
But he could clearly feel that the quality of the power flowing through his body had changed.
“Status window.”
[Name: Go Hyun-jun]
[Trait: Primordial Eye]
[Primordial Soul Circuit<E>]
Stats▽
-Strength: 1/100
-Agility: 1/100
-Stamina: 1/100
-Mana: 1/100
-Willpower: 1/100
Skills▽
<Trait Skill>
-Duplicate
<General Skill>
His stats had gone back to 1.
The numbers themselves were lower, but the power flowing through his whole body had become weightier.
“So this is the power of E-Grade.”
The weight that a stat of 1 carried was clearly different from before.
What would it be like if he filled them back up to 100 in this state?
Wouldn't he then truly deserve to be called a monster who had surpassed humanity?
“......Maybe not that much.”
Hyun-jun checked his Skill.
[Duplicate]
-Can duplicate a designated object. Duplicated items are automatically removed after 24 hours and can be removed early if necessary.
-Duplicable Grade: E-Grade or below
-Daily duplications: 11/11
“Whew. Thank goodness. I worried for nothing.”
He had wondered what he'd do if the Grade restriction stayed fixed at F, but fortunately, the Skill had changed along with the growth of his Trait.
The duplicable Grade had risen to E-Grade. On top of that, one more duplication had been added.
“I should try it right away.”
Hyun-jun left the house and ran to the Exchange.
He planned to buy an E-Grade Rune of Agility.
The current market price was 2 million won each.
He had bought the F-Grade Rune of Agility for 270,000 won, but the E-Grade one was nearly 8 times that.
‘Damn expensive.’
The other Runes were similar.
Even by simple calculation, going from E-Grade to D-Grade would require nearly 1 billion won.
‘There's a reason the number of Hunters drops sharply from D-Grade.’
It was nothing new, but he was glad the ability he'd gained from his re-Awakening was Duplicate.
Now that he was E-Grade, he felt that even more keenly.
‘Well, that's that. It's a bit of a shame I didn't get a new Skill, though.’
Usually, when a Soul Circuit's Grade rose, a new Trait Skill appeared as well.
So he had secretly been hoping, but the Skill list in his status window was the same as before.
‘Is it greedy to want more when I've got the Duplicate Skill?’
As he sat in the waiting area like that, his turn soon came.
Hyun-jun moved to the counter, bought an E-Grade Rune of Agility, and came out.
He currently had 2 duplications left.
He had absorbed Runes of Mana, including the original, and left one duplication unused.
On top of that, there was the newly added one.
Gulp.
In a secluded spot, Hyun-jun immediately duplicated the Rune and absorbed it.
His Agility became 3.
“Good. Let's go right away.”
Hyun-jun went home, packed his things, and headed straight to his next destination.
The place he arrived at was a field classified as the highest tier among F-Grade hunting grounds: the Mountain Region.
He had roamed various fields so far, but he had never once been to the Mountain Region.
He planned to experience the power of E-Grade here.
“This is your first time here?”
The staff member at the Gate management post asked.
“Yes. Is there a problem?”
Usually, they just let people through. This was the first time he'd been asked something like this.
“Watch out for the Field Boss. The one here is especially violent.”
“Ah, yes. Got it.”
The Field Boss, also called a Named Monster, was the strongest creature in a hunting ground.
It was more difficult than other monsters, but the rewards were good, so many Hunters of the same Grade went after it.
“I'm not just saying that; you really need to be careful. Lately, there's been an increase in people who don't come out for more than three days.”
“Gah.......”
“They might just be missing, but I think they got taken out by the Field Boss.”
The state didn't go searching for people just because they went missing inside a Gate.
It was written in the Hunter Pledge that every Hunter signed.
So the staff member didn't know whether they were alive or dead, or what had caused their deaths.
“If by any chance you find a body, please just bring back the ID. And be careful.”
Hyun-jun left the staff member behind and stepped through the Gate.
The scenery changed in an instant.
From a city where cars drove in lines and buildings stood in rows, he entered nature lush with green.
“It's warm.”
Hyun-jun looked around.
The Gate was in the middle of a forest.
Perhaps for the convenience of coming and going, the trees near the Gate had all been cut down.
Cushions had been placed on the remaining stumps. It seemed they were used as a kind of bench.
“It looks peaceful.”
The weather was bright and warm.
If it weren't for the monsters visible here and there, it would be a place good enough for forest bathing.
The atmosphere was far from the staff member's chilling warning.
“A Field Boss, huh.”
The Field Boss of the Mountain Region.
A bear monster called the Green-Maned Tyrant.
The loot it yielded was worth roughly 700,000 to 800,000 won.
A much higher price than ordinary monsters.
“Should I go look for it?”
Hyun-jun pondered it carefully, then put off the decision for now.
“Let's catch some monsters first and then think about it.”
Going straight for the Field Boss just because his Soul Circuit had become E-Grade would be arrogance.
The priority was to gauge his level by dealing with the monsters of the mountain field, said to be the strongest among F-Grade hunting grounds.
“I hope I can go back with a full bag today too.”
Hyun-jun took his weapons out of his bag and fixed them at his waist.
A kitchen knife and an iron hammer.
Those were his trusty weapons.
“Let's see.”
The first thing that caught his eye was a pig monster whose head and body were wrapped in hard stone like armor.
Its exact name was Stone Boar.
It was a creature people shortened to Stone Pig.
“Pfrrrr.”
The thing spotted Hyun-jun and began approaching, snorting.
Hyun-jun drew the kitchen knife from his waist.
The sharply honed blade glinted in the sunlight coming through the trees.
“Pfrrrr!”
The Stone Pig kicked off the ground and charged.
Hyun-jun's eyes widened slightly.
The Stone Pig's movements felt very slow.
Whoosh!
Hyun-jun twisted his body slightly and easily dodged the charge.
‘It was an attack I could dodge even at F-Grade. But it feels different.’
At F-Grade, it would have been a charge he had to throw himself out of the way of.
But now, he was certain he could dodge it just by moving his body slightly.
The result of that difference was clear.
“Pfrrrr!”
A second charge.
Hyun-jun dodged it the same way, twisting his body slightly.
At the same time, he thrust out the kitchen knife.
SQUELCH—!
Between stone and stone.
The kitchen knife pierced precisely through a gap in the armor and came out the other side.
An attack he wouldn't have even attempted if not for the difference in Grade had succeeded.
“Keeeek.”
Blood gushed from around the Stone Pig's neck.
The thing staggered, then collapsed.
“Ha.”
Hyun-jun was dumbfounded.
To think hunting could get this easy just by jumping one Grade.