Chapter 2 – Regression

 ‘What’s going on?’

The place where Min Do-jun opened his eyes was his own room.

It looked exactly the same as the room he lived in when he was twenty.

Min Do-jun immediately checked the smartphone by his pillow.

‘It’s 2020 now?’

The time when Min Do-jun died was 2030.

He couldn’t believe that he had gone back 10 years.

‘Status window.’

Min Do-jun, who tried reciting inwardly, narrowed his brows. 

The status window that any hunter could open did not open.

In short, it meant that he had not awakened yet.

‘I can’t believe it.’

He turned on the TV.

The more he changed the channels, the more his suspicion solidified into certainty.

‘They’re all old programs.’

There was nothing about the hunters’ coup in the news or on the Internet.

‘Did I really regress?’

It was too vivid to be a dream.

It wasn’t a mental magic either.

There was no reason to be under a mental magic, and he had never heard of such magic.

Regression.

It was hard to believe.

That’s why it took him a whole day to come to terms with it.

‘God has given me a chance.’

That’s what he decided to think.

Otherwise, it doesn’t make sense.

‘Shin Kyung-min. God has given me a chance to kill that b*st*rd.’

Min Do-jun’s eyes flashed with murderous intent.

The goal was firm.

He made up his mind to live this life only to kill Shin Kyung-min and the b*st*rds who helped him.

‘To do that, I have to awaken first.’

Min Do-jun, who checked the time, put on his coat and went outside.

He was just an ordinary person now.

To take revenge, it was a priority to awaken and gain strength.

The opponents were prominent hunters.

Then how do you awaken?

You just have to wait until you turn twenty.

When you are over the age of 20, you awaken as a human.

Of course, not everyone awakens.

Only one out of a thousand.

Only a very few are reborn as an awakener.

In short, it was luck.

The person chosen by that luck was a hunter, and Min Do-jun was one of them.

The S-class hunter ranked first in the country.

It’s a story before the regression, anyway.

Now, he was just a person before awakening, not even over twenty years old.

[The next stop is ‘Ilsan Hunter Management Center’.]

When he arrived at his destination, Min Do-jun got off the bus.

The reason he went to the nearby Hunter Management Center was none other than to register as a hunter.

‘It’s almost time to awaken.’

Min Do-jun’s birth time was 1:16 p.m.

In just 10 minutes, he will turn twenty and awaken.

Min Do-jun was going to register as a hunter as soon as he awakened to save time.

“What brings you here?”

Perhaps Min Do-jun standing still in front of the center looked suspicious, so a security guard approached and spoke to him.

“I’m here to register as a hunter, but…”

“Are you an awakener?”

“No. Not yet.”

At those words, the security guard raised his eyes.

“Then why are you here if you haven’t even awakened?”

“My birthday is coming up soon.”

“No, do you think everyone awakens just because they turn twenty? You don’t even know if it will happen or not, right?”

“It will happen.”

“Oh, come on.”

The security guard, who gave a hollow laugh, pointed to one side with his finger.

“You see over there, right?”

Where the guard pointed, a man was squatting and smoking a cigarette.

“That person’s birthday is today too, and he came early thinking he would awaken. But there’s no news, so he’s just been chain-smoking cigarettes just in case. His birth time has already passed. Do you understand?”

“Whether that happens or not, what’s the problem with waiting here for a bit?”

“What I’m saying is, don’t waste your time and go back. Do you think awakening is easy?”

That’s when it happened.

Whoosh-

Light emitted from Min Do-jun’s body and golden dust scattered.

The awakening effect.

The effect that appears the moment you are selected as an awakener after turning twenty unfolded before his eyes.

The security guard knew this fact, as his eyes grew as wide as possible.

“See. I awakened.”

“Y-yes, you did.”

At Min Do-jun’s words, the security guard admitted with a dumbfounded face.

He had seen many people waiting to awaken, but it was the first time he had directly witnessed an awakening.

And this close at that.

“Can I go in now?”

“O-of course. Please go in quickly!”

Min Do-jun passed the security guard and entered the center.

When he went to the desk, the female employee greeted him with a smile.

“Welcome. What brings you here today?”

“I’m here to register as a hunter.”

“Ah, then could you please write your name, ID number, and address here?”

After writing down his personal information on the paper and handing it back, the female employee started typing.

“Mr. Min Do-jun, confirmed. I will guide you inside.”

Min Do-jun followed the female employee into the waiting room.

“Please wait here for a moment. I will call the person in charge.”

After a while, a man who looked to be in his early 30s entered the room.

“Hello. I’m Park Dong-yun, the manager of the Hunter Management Department Team 1.”

“I’m Min Do-jun.”

“Please have a seat.”

After shaking hands and sitting on the sofa, Park Dong-yun said,

“You came to register as a hunter, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you please take out a weapon from your inventory? It’s a verification procedure to prove that you are an awakener.”

An awakener can use the system.

The system is a hologram where you can check the status window, inventory, ranking, etc., and it is only visible to the awakener.

Therefore, the use of inventory was typical in distinguishing awakeners from ordinary people.

“If you look in your inventory, there will probably be a basic weapon. You have to prove it with that, but ah! Since it’s your first time, I should tell you the command first. How to use the inventory is…”

Before Park Dong-yun could ramble on more, Min Do-jun took out a weapon from his inventory.

Whoosh-

A wooden club appeared in Min Do-jun’s hand, which was flickering like a hologram.

[Beginner’s Wooden Club] 

– Classification: Weapon

– Grade: F

– Attack Power: 10~15

– Durability: 100/100

– Usage Restriction: Level 1 or higher

– Description: It may look shabby, but it’s a pretty good club for catching monsters. It’s stronger than a gun.

For reference, the attack power of a pistol is 1.

Swinging the club once is more powerful than hitting ten shots with a pistol.

In this way, monsters had near-perfect defensive abilities against modern weapons.

No matter how weak, it was almost impossible for an ordinary person to catch them.

Unless it was this weapon that only awakeners could use.

“Ah. Y-you already knew how to use it?”

“Yes.”

Park Dong-yun, who almost lost his composure in front of a newbie, awkwardly stroked his hair at the fact.

“Since it’s confirmed, you can put it back now.”

At those words, the club in Min Do-jun’s hand disappeared.

If you say ‘disable’ inwardly, you could put it back in the inventory.

“Then shall we open the status window once?”

As Min Do-jun said status window inwardly, a hologram appeared.

– Name: Min Do-jun (Born in 2000)

– Level: 1 

– Grade: F

– Combat Power: 0 (Unmeasured)

– Korean Ranking: 41,612th 

– World Ranking: 6,162,310th

– Strength: 3, Stamina: 3

– Agility: 3, Mana: 3

– Unallocated Stats: 0

– Traits: Revenge(S), Hunter Hunter(EX)

– Skills: None

A status window that couldn’t be more miserable.

It was natural since he had just awakened.

Nevertheless, there was a reason why there was no worry on Min Do-jun’s face.

‘If I have the Revenge trait, I can grow quickly.’

Awakeners gain unique traits.

Among them, Min Do-jun gained an S-grade trait called Revenge.

A cheat-like trait that doubles the damage to the target of revenge.

For him, who lost his parents to monsters, all the monsters in the world were targets of revenge.

‘If I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t have been able to reach the top ranking. But what’s that?’

Next to the Revenge trait, there was a trait he had never seen before.

Staring at it intently, information popped up.

[Trait – Hunter Hunter]

– Grade: EX

– Description: Damage is doubled when fighting hunters. When a hunter is killed, their traits and items are taken.

‘This is cheating, isn’t it?’

It was a trait that didn’t exist before the regression.

In the first place, you can only get one trait.

But two of them.

He had never seen the EX grade among the grades either.

“Is something wrong?”

At Park Dong-yun’s question, Min Do-jun sorted out his dumbfounded feelings.

“No.”

“How does it look? Level 1 and F-grade, is that right?”

He asked because he could see item information but not other people’s status windows.

“Yes… that’s right.”

“The Korean ranking is…”

Park Dong-yun did a computer search on his tablet and said,

“41,612th, correct?”

“Yes.”

The ranking was a list of awakeners around the world in order of level, which any awakener could check the rank of others.

Park Dong-yun was able to find out through a computer search because there were awakeners working at the Hunter Management Center.

“Don’t be too disappointed that you’re in last place. It’s because you just awakened. And if you look at the status window, there’s something called combat power, right? To explain about this…”

“I know.”

“Ah, you know. Well, I guess you can find all this information by searching these days…”

It was a misunderstanding, but Min Do-jun had no intention of pointing it out.

He just wanted to register as a hunter quickly and be introduced to a dungeon.

“Have you also checked your traits? When you awaken, you have unique traits…”

“The explanation is done. Rather than that, I’d like to register as a hunter quickly and be introduced to a dungeon.”

“Uh, any other questions…”

“None.”

“If that’s the case…”

Thinking that he had a really impatient personality, Park Dong-yun handed over the documents.

“Please write your name, address, phone number here and sign.”

After filling out the personal information, signing the personal information collection agreement and ranking inquiry agreement, the procedure was finally completed.

“It’s done. Mr. Min Do-jun, you can now officially work as a hunter. You will not violate the law even if you trade byproducts, equipment, skill books, etc. obtained from catching monsters.”

It is stipulated by law that an awakener must register at the nearest Hunter Management Center unconditionally.

It was illegal for an unregistered awakener to profit from byproducts obtained by catching monsters.

“The hunter registration card will be issued around tomorrow afternoon. I will contact you again then. Ah, you said you wanted to be introduced to a dungeon, right?”

“Yes.”

One of the advantages of registering as a hunter is that you can be introduced to dungeons free of charge.

“Are you thinking of going now?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, but Park Dong-yun waved his hand and dissuaded him.

“These days, people say that being a hunter is a dream job and better than winning the lottery, but it’s a dangerous job that catches monsters after all. Our center also provides training for beginners, so rather than going to a dungeon right away, it would be better to receive help…”

“It’s fine.”

“Still…”

“Just introduce me.”

When he refused flatly, Park Dong-yun sighed inwardly.

“I understand. But you’ll have to sign here as well. It’s an agreement not to shift responsibility to the government in exchange for skipping the training.”

After finishing the signature, Park Dong-yun finally manipulated the tablet and showed the situation of the dungeon.

“Since you just awakened, I’ll pick one of the lowest difficulty F-grade dungeons…”

Park Dong-yun, who was looking for a dungeon, pointed to the tablet with a touch pen.

“This place would be good. The entrance quota is 5 people, and there’s exactly one spot left now. If you hunt as a party, it’s not dangerous, and also…”

“No. Not here, introduce me to a place where I can enter alone.”

“Hunter-nim. There is no such thing as a single-person dungeon. Most of them are 5-person dungeons…”

“That’s not what I mean. I said I’ll go in alone.”

“What?”

At Min Do-jun’s confident words, Park Dong-yun sighed as if it was absurd.

“No, Hunter-nim. It’s good to be confident, but you’ll get into big trouble doing that. Someone who just awakened, what…”

“It’s fine, so just tell me the location.”

Park Dong-yun sighed again.

I don’t know what kind of guts he has, but one thing was certain.

The hunter in front of him was stubborn.

“I understand. I’ll introduce you.”