Chapter 20
After the chaos of the ‘Gate Environment Mutation’ swept across the world, society adapted to the turmoil and rapidly began building a new order.
The first change was the government’s active intervention and overhaul of the system. Until then, it had rarely interfered as long as Awakened people registered.
Previously, any Awakened person—or even an ordinary citizen—could enter the lowest-rank Gates after waiting their turn, provided they chose to register with the government and accepted that entering Gates was their own responsibility. But things were different now.
With the overall danger of Gates rising sharply due to the Gate Environment Mutation, the government had no intention of leaving those risks unchecked.
It began granting the official qualification of ‘Hunter’ to Awakened people who entered Gates to hunt monsters.
Now, the Hunter rank permitted to enter each Gate was strictly tied to its mana concentration and danger level, and powerful access-control lines were established to keep anyone without the required qualifications away from the Gates.
It was a decision made at the national level to prevent people from entering excessively dangerous Gates and dying pointless deaths.
Alongside the establishment of this system, equipment and technology advanced at a dazzling pace.
As the monsters appearing in Gates grew much stronger, the high-purity mana stones left behind by these higher-ranked monsters sparked innovations the world had never seen before.
Weapons and armor made by coating metal with mana from mana stones—something that had previously been impossible because the stones contained too little mana—were gradually becoming commercially available and beginning to improve Hunters’ survival rates.
But what caught my attention most of all was the newly emerging field of ‘medical and survival technology.’
“Suyeon, look at this. This is the potion everyone says they can’t keep in stock these days.”
In the lounge, Doa shook a thumb-sized plastic bottle with an intrigued look.
The mana stone was ground into a fine powder and dissolved in a special solution. Just before drinking it, the user added a drop of their own blood. The blood served as a medium to synchronize the mana’s wavelength with the user’s, preventing rejection and allowing the potion to heal injuries.
I’d heard it was less effective and tasted absolutely awful compared to the low-grade potions from my previous life…. But it was pretty ingenious, considering it had been developed on Earth, where magic and alchemy hadn’t properly advanced.
They say good medicine tastes bitter. It tasted awful, but it rapidly accelerated the body’s healing process and could repair serious injuries…. It was even being called an innovation in the medical industry.
The problems were its cost and restrictions on use. Since it had been developed strictly for emergencies, it was incredibly expensive and barely effective on anyone who wasn’t Awakened.
It had been made specifically for Awakened people—or rather, Hunters—injured inside a Gate.
There was also an escape device that temporarily reversed a mana stone’s properties, making it repel the mana field inside a Gate and forcibly eject its user outside.
Only after they developed this device—a lifeline that could get Hunters out immediately, no matter how dangerous the situation—did their survival rates start to rise dramatically.
“It really feels like the times are changing. A lot.”
As the word Hunter, rather than Awakened person, began circulating among the public, tools to ensure Hunters’ survival were pouring onto the market at an ever-increasing pace.
The loss of Hunters meant a loss for society. If Hunters couldn’t hunt monsters, the more powerful monsters in the Gates could break out into the world.
In the past, the military could station troops around a Gate and hunt monsters with a barrage of gunfire. Now, monsters might appear that couldn’t be brought down by concentrated fire like that.
The rights of Awakened people—now called Hunters—had grown stronger than ever.
Heroes who protected people from the threat of Gates, defeated monsters—the enemies of humanity—and secured mana stones as a resource.
That was the place Hunters had come to occupy in the world.
It was a great upheaval, plain and simple.
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Even as the world underwent such drastic changes, I continued living what looked like the life of an ordinary, diligent college student.
Our university lab, the only one to secure intact data from the Gate Environment Mutation, was sitting on a fortune—or rather, on a mountain of fame and funding.
A national strategic research lab receiving the government’s full support. The professor and teaching assistants were making headlines around the world day after day, walking around with their chests puffed out.
“Our ultimate goal is to clearly identify the cause of Gates and find a way to control them—or even regulate them completely—through human effort!”
That was the grand ambition the professor proclaimed in front of the reporters.
Of course, I saw things a little differently.
They planned to control the collapse of the barrier between worlds and the overlapping of different dimensions with modern mana engineering that could barely mix mana-stone powder into a solution and drink it? That was absurdly unrealistic.
Still, thanks to that wildly ambitious goal, while the faculty went mad with research, I was given a very comfortable stretch of free time. I wasn’t complaining.
On top of that, I could earn a substantial income by helping with research as an Awakened person affiliated with the university.
I quietly holed up in my dorm, forging my inner Fourth Circle while keenly observing the mana concentration that was gradually thickening in the atmosphere.
Ever since the Gate Environment Mutation, Earth had undeniably been slowly ‘eroding.’
Why was this happening to Earth? Had some remnants of the Demon King crossed over? Was it a natural collision between dimensions? Or had something gone wrong because I’d crossed over to Earth?
The questions kept piling up, but there was a clear limit to what I could learn from online news or the information I could glean from the professor’s monitors.
I’d have to investigate the deeper reaches of a mutated Gate myself if I wanted to get to the bottom of things.
But there was a major practical obstacle in my way.
Because of the laws tightened after the Gate Environment Mutation, it had become illegal for civilians who weren’t officially registered as ‘Hunters’ to enter Gates, whether they were Awakened or not.
I could use the professor’s influence to enter as a university student affiliated with the lab once or twice, but if I wanted to come and go freely, I’d need a license.
Ugh, what a hassle. Should I just pretend I don’t know anything?
As I rolled around on my bed, wrestling with the question, a very worldly—and very important—goal suddenly crossed my mind.
A comfortable home of my own.
A place where I could guarantee my safety, no matter what happened in the future.
A sturdy, secure home where I could live independently of my parents and never have to move again, with defensive magic covering every inch. An apartment wouldn’t be bad, but at only the Fourth Circle, casting defensive magic over an entire apartment building would take a lot of effort, so a house would be better if possible.
Well, even if a house was harder to maintain than an apartment, surely it couldn’t be harder to manage than a Sky Castle? A few simple spells to keep the bugs away would be enough to live comfortably.
Anyway, my current savings and scholarship were nowhere near enough to buy a place like that. Of course, things would be different in the provinces. Still, wouldn’t Seoul be better if possible?
I could buy a place in the provinces and set up spatial travel between there and Seoul, but that required at least the Sixth Circle—or the Seventh Circle for it to be stable.
Ahem. Enough about houses.
As it happened, being a Hunter was currently the fastest and most legitimate way to make a fortune on Earth.
Even after entering a low-rank Gate and killing just a few weak monsters, bringing out a handful of mana stones was no trouble at all. And when a single stone could easily fetch several hundred thousand won…. Registering as a Hunter after awakening was practically treated like winning the lottery.
If I registered as a Hunter, I could investigate and earn money for a home. Wasn’t that killing two birds with one stone?
“All right. I’ll go ahead and register as a Hunter.”
After barely overcoming the hassle weighing me down, I threw on a light jacket and headed for the branch of the former Awakened Association, now the Hunter Association, located on the university campus.
Hmm. They must think highly of our lab to have gone so far as to set up a branch right on campus…. The perks are incredible.
“All right, next. Ms. Kim Suyeon, step inside the mana-wavelength measuring device.”
A room inside the association branch building.
At the examiner’s instruction, I stepped into the cylindrical machine. It was time to measure the mana inside my body, the most important factor in determining a Hunter’s rank.
Hmm. If I stand out too much, it’ll be a hassle…. Should I hide it a little? Yeah, I should probably hide it, right?
It’s not like I’m trying to pretend I’m weak despite being strong or anything…. I just don’t want to deal with a bunch of troublesome things. Publicly, I’m an Awakened person with the unimpressive ability to burn fat.
So, let’s keep it reasonable. Reasonable.