Prologue

'I'm Hyuk Il-hwang and I used to live in an orphanage in Seoul... Five years ago on the morning of my induction ceremony for High School, I was woke up by the agonizing cries of the children and adults at the orphanage as they were being eaten by big wolf-like monsters....

I was serious wounded by one of those monsters and lost consciousness to not only learn that I was the only survivor of the gate outbreak in the basement of the orphanage and that I spent about a year in coma, but that I was in a completely unfamiliar, yet familiar world...

One that was filled with magical portals that leads to dungeons called gates, video game-like monsters and mythic creatures called Magic beasts, and human with the ability to use mana called Hunters... I also learned that I was luckily saved by mana-wielding humans and that 5 years prior to the Orphanage Incident, the geo-political situation of this world was the same as mine...

Until the gates suddenly appeared throughout the world, and freed hundreds of Magic beasts that attacked humans a few hours later. That event caused millions of deaths globally and the act of a gate letting out magic beast was called Gate out break... On that event, humanity learned that modern weaponry were useless against magical beasts. Then, the first hunters that wielded magical powers, started to appear and take the monsters down.

Very quickly, the hunters raised in power and also formed groups called guilds in each countries and the Hunter Associations was created in each countries to manage those guilds. To further facilitate the work of hunters and to save as much of civilians as possible, an international ranking system was created that ranks both Hunters and Magic Beasts from the weakest E-rank to the strongest S-rank. That system was based on their magical output, but still the strength of even those within the same ranks differs.

Furthermore, the hunters were divided into six different classes which drastically increased raids success rate, when they form groups. These classes are Fighter, Tanker, Ranger, Mage, Assassin, and Healer. A fighter is a hunter with the abilities to cause more damage to Magic Beasts, while a Tanker is a one that can take on attacks of the magic beasts with their high defensive abilities and get a hold of attention of magic beasts during a raid.

Rangers can unleashed multiple powerful mid-range attack that are individually less stronger than attacks of Fighters, but can target only one or several opponents. Mages are the ones that can unleashed the strongest attack power that can affect a wide area or only one target, but the attacks take time to be unleashed, which make them very weak compared to other classes unless they are at A-rank or higher.

Assassins are the most fastest of all the classes by far, and they also have abilities to erase their presence. Finally, Healers are the rarest of the six classes and they possess healing abilities as indicated by their names, and that can range from healing small wounds to restoring amputated limbs. But the efficiency of their abilities depends on their ranks.

But these classes are only relevant to those that awakened at least at D-rank, for E-rank Hunters like me, to even dream of having one of these classes is a pipe-dream. Once, someone has awakened into a rank, it is impossible to change rank unless one reawakens.. The probability of that one can reawaken, is less than one in a million... This new world of mine is no different from the content of a web novel, anime or manhwa. AND NOW, I WILL DIE HERE!!!! '

"HYUK.... MOVE!!!!!"

A black-haired, young man that was frozen in fear and lost in his thought, suddenly returned to reality, as he heard the voice calling his name and finally accepted the fact that he was doomed. As he was kneeling down in front of a statue with his back facing the latter, and the statue lowering his shield threatening to cut him in two.

Suddenly he felt a pair of hands pushing him and then, he rolled for several meters before stopping in font of the statue of a beautiful woman and the latter started to sing. He got up to look at the direction where he previously was, and his heart tightened. He couldn't stopped the tears from flowing out of his eyes, and his voice didn't want to come out. Finally, after mustering all his strength he was able to open his mouth.

"Hyu... hyung.... SUNG JINWOO-HYUUUNNNGGG!!!!!!"

In front of him, was a young man wearing a blue jeans and blue hoodie that was lying lifeless in a pool of its own blood with a large shield stabbed in his back. Hyuk Il-hwang moved towards the corpses of the man that he considered his brother. At that moment, all his senses were numbed, he was unable to hear the voices of the other five people present that were talking to him, nor did he notice that the statues have stopped any form of movement.

'Why.... Why.... Why...'

He turned the dead man on his back and sat down in the pool of blood. He then placed the head of the man on his laps, and stared at his face while wishing that he would wake up. Then, a girl with long orange hair came and sat besides Hyuk Il-hwang, then she started to caress the bloody face of Sung Jinwoo while crying all the tears of her body. In the seconds that followed the remaining four hunters surrounded them and they wore sad expressions.

Bodies and body parts of dozens of their comrades were littered everywhere in the room in which they were. A dispute broke out between the four hunters, but Hyuk Il-hwang didn't pay it any attention and kept on staring at his dead friend. Suddenly, they felt the ground shaking and an altar emerged from the ground in front of the tallest statue that seemed to be the dungeon Boss in the middle of the room.