Synopsis and Starting Chapter Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Chapter 122
Chapter 123
Chapter 124
Chapter 125
Chapter 126
Chapter 127
Chapter 128
Chapter 129
Chapter 130
Chapter 131
Chapter 132
Chapter 133
Chapter 134
Chapter 135
Chapter 136
Chapter 137
Chapter 138
Chapter 139
Chapter 140
Chapter 141
Chapter 142
Chapter 143
Chapter 144
Chapter 145
Chapter 146
Chapter 147
Chapter 148
Chapter 149
Chapter 150
Chapter 151
Chapter 152
Chapter 153
Chapter 154
Chapter 155
Chapter 156
Chapter 157
Chapter 158
Chapter 159
Chapter 160
Chapter 161
Chapter 162
Chapter 163
Chapter 164
Chapter 165
Chapter 166
Chapter 167
Chapter 168
Chapter 169
Chapter 170
Chapter 171
Chapter 172
Chapter 173
Chapter 174
Chapter 175
Chapter 176
Chapter 177
Chapter 178
Chapter 179
Chapter 180
Chapter 181
Chapter 182
Chapter 183
Chapter 184
Chapter 185
Chapter 186 - Chapter 186
Chapter 187
Chapter 188
Chapter 189
Chapter 190
Chapter 191
Chapter 192
Chapter 193
Chapter 194
Chapter 195
Chapter 196
Chapter 197
Chapter 198
Chapter 199
Chapter 200
Chapter 201
Chapter 202
Chapter 203
Chapter 204
Chapter 205
Chapter 206
Chapter 207
Chapter 208
Chapter 209
Chapter 210
Chapter 211
Chapter 212
Chapter 213
Chapter 214
Chapter 215
Chapter 216
Chapter 217
Chapter 218
Chapter 219
Chapter 220
Chapter 221
Chapter 222
Chapter 223
Chapter 224
Chapter 225
Chapter 226
Chapter 227
Chapter 228
Chapter 229
Chapter 230
Chapter 231
Chapter 232
Chapter 233
Chapter 234
Chapter 235
Chapter 236
Chapter 237
Chapter 238
Chapter 239
Chapter 240
Chapter 241
Chapter 242
Chapter 243
Chapter 244
Chapter 245
Chapter 246
Chapter 247
Chapter 248
Chapter 249
Chapter 250
Chapter 251
Chapter 252
Chapter 253
Chapter 254
Chapter 255
Chapter 256
Chapter 257
Chapter 258
Chapter 259
Chapter 260
Chapter 261
Chapter 262
Chapter 263
Chapter 264
Chapter 265
Chapter 266
Chapter 267
Chapter 268
Chapter 269
Chapter 270
Categories Genre: Action, Adventure, All, Completed, Fantasy, Shounen, Supernatural Status: Completed ______
Total Chapters in book: 270
Estimated words: 886135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 4431(@200wpm)___ 3545(@250wpm)___ 2954(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 886135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 4431(@200wpm)___ 3545(@250wpm)___ 2954(@300wpm)
______
LIST OF LAST 10 CHAPTERS:
Page No. 270 Page No. 269 Page No. 268 Page No. 267 Page No. 266 Page No. 265 Page No. 264 Page No. 263 Page No. 262 Page No. 261 Page No. 260 Chapter 8
Chapter 8: Chapter 8
Jin-Woo was surprised by the weighty voice coming from the corner of the hospital room, and hurriedly turned his head to look.
“I apologise if we took you by surprise.”
“Unfortunately, we are unable to wait any longer.”
Two men kitted out in black business suits approached Jin-Woo’s bed. The youth tilted his head and asked them.
“Who…. are you?”
He had never seen these two’s faces before.
One of them with the close-cropped hair like a soldier and wearing a pair of sunglasses presented him with a business card.
“This is who we are.”
Jin-Woo received the business card and read what was written on it.
‘Woo Jin-Cheol, the section chief of the Monitoring Division, the Korean Hunter’s Association?’
The Monitoring Division was the only department in the Hunter’s Association with many strong Hunters in their payroll. Well, since this department was tasked with managing the country’s Hunters so, quite obviously, they would employ many high-class Hunters to facilitate that purpose.
“What does the Monitoring Division want from me?”
Woo Jin-Cheol dragged a chair closer to the bed and sat down. The other man, who must’ve been his subordinate, stood behind him.
The unspoken pressure emanating from the two buff guys staring down in close vicinity was quite heavy. The story they conveyed was rather surprising, though.
“I was unconscious for four days?!”
“By any chance, do you remember what happened before you blacked out?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Please tell us everything you can remember.”
Jin-Woo told them everything truthfully, minus the strange hallucinatory words he heard before he lost his consciousness.
“And that’s when you lost your consciousness… Is that all?”
“Yes. I open my eyes next, and I’m in a hospital.”
Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey exchanged meaningful glances. For some reason, they seemed to be troubled by Jin-Woo’s lack of knowledge.
Actually, Jin-Woo was the one who wanted to find out what happened the most in this room.
“Just how did I get to this hospital? Did a large Guild participate and kill those d*mn things?”
“Well, actually….”
Woo Jin-Cheol awkwardly opened his mouth.
“By the time the agents of the Monitoring Division and the White Tiger Guild arrived at the scene after being briefed by the survivors….”
The White Tiger Guild was a super-massive Guild and also one of the top five in the country. The Association had recognised the danger, hence they requested the aid of such a huge Guild as the White Tiger Guild in the first place.
Just what did happen back there?
Jin-Woo nervously swallowed a dry spit.
“By the time….?”
“….Everything was ‘gone’. The only thing to be found within that open space was you, Mister Seong Jin-Woo. There was not one trace of the god statue nor the stone statues.”
“Come again?!”
Jin-Woo displayed a shocked, disbelieving face.
“It’s hard for us to believe it as well. If there had been any inconsistencies in the testimonies of the survivors, or if we had failed to find the remains of the victims in the chamber, we might have suspected something fishy was going on.”
Woo Jin-Cheol scratched his chin.
It’d been six years since he got ranked as an ‘A’ and started working for the Monitoring Division. He could confidently say that he had witnessed and experienced pretty much everything during his tenure. However, this kind of situation was a first even for him.
He had asked other Guilds as well as the Associations in other countries, but the end result was nothing worthy to speak about.
That was why…
“So, this is what we’ve been thinking….”
Woo Jin-Cheol carefully opened his mouth.
“There were powerful creatures in that chamber, without a doubt. But, they were taken care of by an unknown group, or an unknown person. Because, no otherworldly beings escaped from the Gate before it was closed, you see.”
They had to consider all the possibilities. Even if the odds were low, they had to confirm them all. The head honchos of the Association deliberated, and then deliberated for some more, and finally came up with a theory.
Woo Jin-Cheol carefully studied Jin-Woo’s reactions as he continued on.
“We… suspect that Hunter Seong Jin-Woo-nim might have gone through another Awakening.”
Another Awakening!
Jin-Woo’s eyes shot open wide.
Although extremely rare, there had been instances of a human who had awakened his or her abilities as a Hunter going through yet another Awakening.
Often referred to as ‘Re-Awakening’, those who undergo this process would normally become extremely powerful compared to before.
Originally, once a Hunter’s rank was assigned at the beginning, it rarely changed. A Hunter’s abilities were determined the moment one went through an Awakening, that was why.
However, it was a different story for those going through the Re-Awakening process.
Jumping past their own limitations to rise up from, say, rank C to A, or even from B to S, such things had happened before.
Woo Jin-Cheol nervously swallowed his saliva.
‘Seong Jin-Woo…. If he went through a Re-Awakening and became a rank S, no, maybe even exceeding that, then it’s possible for him to kill those monsters all by himself.’
The god statue was said to have melted rank C Hunters with nothing but its eyes, according to the survivors.
If one were able to kill such a creature even while unconscious, just how powerful one could possibly be?
To prepare for this unlikeliest possibility, Woo Jin-Cheol labelled this incident as ‘top secret’ and made sure everyone involved would keep their mouths shut.
This was also the reason why Seong Jin-Woo found himself in a hospital room all alone, as well as being looked after by some of the finest medical practitioners in the nation.
Woo Jin-Cheol’s chest began beating real fast.
‘Could Korea finally have a Hunter on the level of an international powerhouse….?’
There were less than ten people in the entire world that could truly be described as a global powerhouse. But, what if Korea were to possess a powerhouse that were said to rival a nuclear warhead in terms of pure firepower?
Of course, confirming the truth of the Re-Awakening wasn’t difficult at all. Didn’t the wise elders once say to make hay while the sun still shines?
Woo Jin-Cheol signalled to his lackey.
“Bring it here.”
Then, the lackey went to the corner of the room and began rummaging through a briefcase placed there.
“That is…?”
Before Jin-Woo could finish his question, Woo Jin-Cheol explained first.
“It’s the device to measure your magic energy.”
He added that, although this device had been miniaturised, its efficiency or accuracy did not fall short of the actual full-size measuring device located in the Hunter’s Association.
“All you have to do is to place your hand on this magic crystal over here.”
On top of a circular plate, there was a fist-sized magic crystal embedded in the middle. Its colour was pitch-black, as if it was a black hole that wanted to suck him in!
It was one of the highest quality magic crystals that cost as much as a billion won, not to mention that could only be found in monsters ranked A or higher. (TL: Almost $900,000)
When Jin-Woo stared at the magic crystal without saying anything, Woo Jin-Cheol formed a dignified, serious expression and spoke up.
“This is a necessary step during our investigation, so please, cooperate with us.”
Jin-Woo nodded his head.
If he indeed had undergone a Re-Awakening, then his life would do a 180 in an instant. And they were going to test it out for him for free, so who was he to refuse?
Jin-Woo placed his hand on top of the black crystal and soon enough, warm rays of light oozed out from it.
Cold sweat drops formed on the foreheads of Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey.
*SFX for a beam of light dissipating*
Not too long after then, the light surrounding the crystal dissipated.
Woo Jin-Cheol hurriedly took off his sunglasses and confirmed the numbers.
Right away, a small earthquake rocked Woo Jin-Cheol’s eyes.
“How can this be?!”
He rechecked the numbers, but it remained the same.
‘How can….’
How could a person holding a Hunter licence possess the magic energy value of only 10?!
When considering the fact that the lowest average value for rank E – the bottom rank – was around 70 to 100, Seong Jin-Woo was no different from a regular person.
“Is it really a Re-Awakening? If it is, what could be my new rank now?”
Jin-Woo’s hands were soaked in the sweat of anticipation.
Seeing the suspicious reactions of the two Monitoring Division agents, the result must’ve been somewhat beyond their expectations.
Meanwhile, Woo Jin-Cheol was comparing the existing data on Jin-Woo with the new measurement.
‘His first measurement returned the value of 12. Four years later, it’s 10. It has decreased by 2, but it is within the margin of error.’
In other words, the magic energy measuring device was working fine. Instead, it was Seong Jin-Woo’s magic energy that happened to be just illogically, nonsensically low.
It was a miracle that he had survived until now.
Woo Jin-Cheol rapidly realised that being here was a waste of time, so he got up from his seat.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, sir.”
Woo Jin-Cheol and his lackey quickly packed up to leave.
“Uhm, excuse me. Can you tell me what is….”
Just as Jin-Woo was about to ask, Woo Jin-Cheol bowed his head slightly.
“Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, please give us a call anytime.”
As if their rear ends were on fire, two men-in-black rapidly left the room as soon as they put away the device.
The hospital room that felt rather small suddenly became quiet and lonely.
“…”
Jin-Woo scratched the back of his neck.
‘I guess that was a no, then.’
Well, if he thought about it, besides him feeling refreshed, there didn’t seem to be any change to him at all. Even if he did go through a Re-Awakening, it’d still be difficult for him to kill all those statue b*stards, anyways.
‘Maybe, you might have a chance against them if you were either the ultimate weapon, Hunter Choi Jong-In, or the rank SS Hunter Goh Gun-Hui.’
Of course, him speculating like this was meaningless, since he had never seen them in action before. There was always a thick veil of secrecy draped over the Hunters ranked S.
They were more like clouds in the sky to him, actually.
He thought up to here and inadvertently raised his head up. And that’s when he saw ‘it’.
‘Huh?!’
He looked up without thinking, and then, saw ‘words’ floating in the air.
[You have several unread messages.]
***
“…..?”
He closed his eyes and opened them again.
[You have several unread messages.]
The words remained floating up there without a single change. He shook his head hard a few times and even rubbed his eyes, but they were still there.
Jin-Woo massaged his aching forehead and lowered his head.
‘It hadn’t been a long time since I started hearing weird things, but now, I’m even seeing them, too….’
Could something in his head really be broken?
There was a condition called PTSD, after all. People who experienced a huge accident or a traumatic event usually suffered from this condition.
It was only a few days ago since he witnessed the deaths of many of his comrades, not to mention he himself nearly died as well, so it would not be so strange to hear or see weird things as a possible side effect.
‘However….’
However, there were a couple of things that prevented him from dismissing this out of hand.
Jin-Woo’s sight lowered to his leg – the leg that got cut in half by the shield of the stone statue was now all fine and dandy.
The voice he heard out of the blue inside the underground temple hidden within the depths of the dual dungeon; his completely-cured (?) leg; and now, those words floating in front of his eyes.
Too many weird things were happening all at once.
‘What if….?’
There was a chance that all these things were not isolated events but linked to one another. When his thoughts arrived here, his aching head felt just a bit clearer.
‘Okay, fine.’
Jin-Woo slowly raised his head.
Once the confusion in his heart died down and he felt calmer, he became quite curious about the contents of those so-called unread messages. There might be answers to his questions found within those messages, after all.
In order to confirm the messages, he reached out towards the words.
And his hand simply went past them.
‘It’s not touch-operated?’
It seemed that he got way too used to how a smartphone worked. He couldn’t think of any other way to access the messages other than tapping on the ‘icon’, though.
While he was deliberating on the means to access the messages, he recalled the memories from the moments before he blacked out.
“Right. That happened.”
Back then, he could only get his intentions across to that unknown voice by ‘talking’ to it.
‘Just like back then, I should either form the words in my head or speak it out loud.’
Thinking that this must be the case, Jin-Woo then began to mutter the potential combination of words one by one.
“Confirm.”
“Messages.”
“Confirm messages.”
“Check messages.”
“Reading.”
“I want to read.”
“I want to look.”
“Hey, show me already, will ya?!”
It was then.
“…..Just what is it that you wish to see that bad?”
He felt a cold, probing stare coming from the side, so he turned his head to look. And, spotted his little sister in her school uniform looking at him from the gap of the half-open door.
“Uhm…..”
Jin-Woo became speechless.
Her oppa, busy glaring at the ceiling while demanding someone to show something to him – he simply didn’t know how to explain this one to her.
< Chapter 8 > Fin.
Total Chapters in book: 270
Estimated words: 886135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 4431(@200wpm)___ 3545(@250wpm)___ 2954(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 886135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 4431(@200wpm)___ 3545(@250wpm)___ 2954(@300wpm)
______