EP.1 She Came to My Life Devastated by Betrayal

“You’re joking, right? Yura?”

Han Yura, my childhood friend and girlfriend, who grew up with me since our days in the orphanage.

I could easily read the irritation in her expression, as I had known her for a long time.

“Phew, let’s break up. We’ve been together for a long time, right? No matter how I think about it, I feel like I’m wasting myself.”

She let out a slight sigh and spoke with a fed-up nuance.

“Why are you saying that!? We promised to be together forever.”

Despite my desperate plea for denial, Yura only gave me a cold look.

The blonde man standing next to her just smiled as if he were amused by the situation.

“Can’t you see? I’ve wanted to break up with you for a long time. You’ve dropped to the lowest rank D from C, and now if I break up with you, I can join the Sungkwang Guild.”

At those words, the blond man next to her began to laugh out loud as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Do you know how hard I’ve tried for you?”

“So what? Did I ask you to do it? Are you trying to use those as shackles to show off for the rest of your life? You were the one who was leeching off me.”

I bit my lip hard at those words.

I couldn’t say anything against Yura’s antagonising attitude. I just felt pathetic for being in this situation.

After being injured while rescuing civilians during a sudden gate incident and losing my ability to use magic, my life as a hunter was essentially over.

Still, I wanted to help Yura, my lover, so I put my life on the line as a porter and headed to higher-ranked dungeons.

People around me said it was crazy, but it was a promise we made when we awakened together.

I wanted to help Yura reach the S-rank, even if I couldn’t keep my promise to reach the top together. That’s how big I thought her talent was.

I prepared and studied more thoroughly than before, researching the strategies of top guilds and the hunting methods of high-ranking hunters for monsters so that Yura wouldn’t have a hard time. I always did my best.

As a result of my efforts, Yura reached S-rank today. I was as happy and excited as if I had achieved it myself.

However, that happiness was short-lived. After arriving at Yura’s call, I received a one-sided breakup.

“Haha…”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the emptiness. I gave her my all, but all I got in return was a bitter betrayal.

The blonde man next to her put his hand on my shoulder and looked down at me as he spoke.

“Hehe. Didn’t you know that if you devote yourself, you’ll be thrown away like a devoted fool? You, a low-class commoner, tried to love an S-rank. Should’ve lived within your means, huh?”

It was enough to make me angry, but there was nothing I could do.

In front of me was Choi Woo-seok, an S-rank hunter who was also the guild master of Sungkwang Guild, the top guild in Korea.

“Don’t worry about Han Yura. We’ll take good care of her at our Sungkwang Guild. Oh, right. Take this and get some hangover soup. Your stomach must be very sore. Ha-ha.”

He pulled out a wallet from his pocket and took out a bundle of checks, throwing them in front of me as if to scatter them. At a glance, it appeared to be an amount worth tens of millions of won.

Normally, it would have been an eye-popping amount of money, but to me now, it was nothing more than paper that fueled my humiliation.

“Let’s go, Woo-seok. Anyway, I still thank you, Lee Won-woo. I’ll remember your devotion to me.”

Yura said that as if there was no chance we would ever meet again, and then she turned away from me.

As I watched the two of them get farther away, Yura’s last words echoed in my ears, and I felt as if my blood was boiling.

I couldn’t bear it without saying a word.

If those two were determined to kill me, I would die without a trace, but if I couldn’t say anything now, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

“You crazy bitch, acting like it’s a beautiful breakup! I hope you both encounter an S-rank Gate and die in an accident!”

I spat out a spiteful word behind their backs and turned away as well.

The frustration and injustice of being deceived—I felt like crying because of my own weakness, but I held back.

And as I walked, I realised that the place I was in was a dream.

Because, in reality, I hadn’t been able to say those last words after all.

 *

“How long will this keep showing up?”

An annoying nightmare.

I sat up in bed and sighed.

It had been three months since that day.

I left the house I lived in with Han Yura and found a very cheap monthly rental room just to sleep in. I didn’t have much money on hand, and my future was uncertain.

Since then, I’ve worked like crazy, asking acquaintances from my hunter days to find jobs a D-rank hunter could do.

I thought it would be best to keep my body moving, as staying still would only make me fall into depression for no reason.

Of course, jobs available to the lowest-ranked, D-rank hunters were limited.

Normally, I would be on patrol for security duties, or when a Gate suddenly appeared, I would evacuate citizens or block off access.

I also took on tasks such as delivering items that could only be touched by awakened individuals, which were considered odd jobs in the hunter’s world and tasks that one would usually avoid for the sake of pride.

Thanks to that, I saved up some money and had a bit more leeway than three months ago, but I still felt like something was missing, and my heart felt empty.

‘Sigh, let’s not get depressed and just focus on work.’

I looked at the smartphone on the desk next to my bed to check for work.

“Huff, phew.”

I took a deep breath and raised one hand towards the phone.

The phone slowly began to float in the air.

However, at that moment, I stopped the magic coming from my hand in a hurry due to the pain spreading from around my heart and wrist to my entire body.

Clatter.

The phone fell back onto the desk, and cold sweat started running all over my body from the pain, even though it was only for a short time.

[Psychokinesis], the unique ability I gained upon awakening as a hunter.

I had been using it daily with the small hope that my magic might return, but today, as always, the result was the same.

No matter which hospital I went to, they said the possibility of recovery was slim.

Still, for some reason, it felt like the magic itself hadn’t disappeared but was blocked somewhere, so I tried every day, thinking that if I could break through, it might work again.

As the pain subsided a little, I picked up my phone. There were no messages.

From experience, considering there was no contact at this time, I had no choice but to rest at home today.

‘I guess they’re telling me to rest since I’ve been working non-stop lately.’

Trying to think positively, I looked through the internet on my phone.

[Youngest S-Rank Hunter, Choi Soo-jung. Does she have a loved one?]

As soon as I did, the headline of a news article caught my eye.

‘Choi Soo-jung, it’s her, right?’

She was a hot topic, debuting as the youngest A-Rank genius high school girl hunter at 18 and becoming the youngest S-Rank after clearing B-Rank and A-Rank dungeons alone in just 2 years.

‘S-Rank hunter having a loved one…’

Although my first thought was that the title might be clickbait, I couldn’t help but click on the article out of curiosity.

Surprisingly, the content wasn’t clickbait at all.

It seemed certain that it wasn’t gossip or rumours since she officially talked about it at a gathering for high-ranking hunters hosted by the Hunter Association.

“I’m surprised she openly talked about this.”

As more and more hunters appeared, many of them were not only powerful but also handsome and beautiful.

As they gradually became more like celebrities and fandoms formed, they tended to hide their personal lives.

The more attention and popularity a hunter received, the more people sought them out for their newsworthiness, and dating usually resulted in a relative decline in popularity.

I dated Han Yura for 5 years, but we kept our relationship a secret for that reason: to maintain her popularity and manage her image.

Others might call me a pushover or an idiot, but I had a strong trust in Han Yura since we had grown up together for a very long time before becoming a couple.

In conclusion, I was a pushover and an idiot.

[NateoroNalhonNaejwo: Ah, who stole our goddess’s heart? ㅠㅠ]

[SungnyeunChoeGoya: Praying that the guy our Soo-jung likes meets an S-Rank monster and dies. Day 1]

[HunterMania: Anyway, who could it be? It’s probably another S-Rank, right? She seemed to have high standards. Maybe Lee Ji-Hoon from the Hero Guild?]

→ [JiHoonPa: No, don’t associate our Ji-Hoon oppa with such a rude girl. If she was as kind as Han Yura, maybe]

[S-RankHunterMangsaengi: Whoever it is, their life has fully blossomed, or they’re doomed. kkkk]

I smirked and laughed while reading the comments on the article.

Especially the last comment—I deeply empathised with it.

In terms of being loved by a popular, young, and beautiful S-Rank hunter, their life has indeed blossomed.

However, I couldn’t know what Choi Soo-jung’s actual personality was like; her public image was distant and cold.

She seemed beyond haughty and was almost indifferent to those around her.

She had a track record of flatly refusing requests to appear on various media outlets and even rejecting a one-on-one meeting with the association president.

Although the association didn’t wield enormous power, it held a symbolic significance established by the first-generation hunters who saved the world, so Choi Soo-jung’s refusal was controversial enough.

One day, due to the lack of information about Choi Soo-jung, a gossip reporter decided to stalk her and conduct an undercover investigation.

When Choi Soo-jung found out, she angrily destroyed the camera herself, grabbed the reporter by the collar, and went to the gossip media’s headquarters, which showed her character well.

The typical mindset of a strong person who refuses to do what they don’t want and won’t forgive anyone who bothers them.

She exuded confidence, believing that she could handle anyone who came her way.

In fact, there were quite a few people who believed that Choi Soo-jung, who had just become an S-Rank hunter, was already among the top 5.

“I wonder what it feels like to live like that.”

From my current position, I didn’t feel jealousy or envy but rather saw her as an unapproachable being, like a mythical creature.

As if she were living in a completely different world from mine.

 Bzzz… bzzz…

Suddenly, my phone vibrated, notifying me of a new message.

I thought it might be about work, so I quickly opened the messaging app.

[Hello, Mr Lee Won-woo. We are the Crystal Guild. We are reaching out to you because we think you would be a great fit for our guild and would like to offer you a recruitment proposal.]

“Ah, not this again?”

Since coming here, I have received these spam texts at least once a week.

Even if I blocked the number, they kept contacting me from different ones.

I had never heard of the Crystal Guild. I even searched the internet and asked acquaintances, but they said they had never heard of such a guild.

Moreover, the fact that they would go to such lengths for so long to recruit me, just a D-rank hunter, made it impossible not to suspect that they were trying to scam me.

“Can’t they just give it a rest?”

Considering that, they kept approaching me so persistently that they probably thought I was a loser.

“Let’s see who gives up first.”

As I muttered in an annoyed tone and tried to block the number again, I heard a knock on the door.

 Knock, knock.

No one would come here, so there was only one possibility that crossed my mind.

‘Is it door-to-door sales or some sort of cult?’

Regardless of what it was, I was certain it wouldn’t be good, so I quickly put on some clothes, scowled, and flung the door open.

“Ah! Who are you?”

However, the person standing in front of me was completely different from what I had expected, causing my voice to tremble with surprise before I could finish my sentence.

“Hello, Mr Won-woo. I’m Choi Soo-jung.”

Choi Soo-jung, who I had thought existed only in another world, was standing right in front of me, offering a beautiful smile and greeting.