Yonghoon’s information appeared on the Dimensional Power Meter on his wrist.
Level: F
Dimensional Power: 7.1 / 10.0
It was a fairly high number.
He had hunted monsters alone and monopolized the Dimensional Power, and had even taken down an F+ rank monster, so his power had increased significantly. The Dimensional Core training had also helped a lot.
Yonghoon took out the Dimensional Core from the triangular pyramid-shaped Dimensional Power training device in the room. The once pristine core was now covered in fine cracks.
A Dimensional Core would completely shatter after about two weeks of training. Since it had been a week, he had about one week left.
In terms of monster prices, it was like burning 40 million won in two weeks. That’s why, in the other world, this training was infamous as the peak of wasting money.
Yonghoon checked his bank balance and let out a sigh.
He had been so focused on training and hunting that he hadn’t thought about his bank account. At this rate, he’d be worrying about food next week.
“No choice. I’ll have to hand over the next monster to the Company Team.”
From that day on, he searched Seoul daily for monsters and spent the rest of his time training.
The number of monsters kept increasing, and now people had started avoiding going out even during the day.
The appearance of monsters was now shaking all aspects of politics and the economy. The government began toying with the martial law card, and companies started recruiting Awakened.
But the Awakening rate of new Awakened was too slow. As a result, the value of existing Awakened skyrocketed, and the popularity of the Training Center rose along with it.
And as the number of monsters increased, it became a bit easier to find them.
He found his second target at Anyangcheon. It was an otter about 1.5 meters long. The otter had sharp teeth and red eyes and was hiding underwater. It had its sights on joggers by the riverside.
People had gone missing at Anyangcheon. After the incident, the government quickly set up restricted access signs around the area. With a shortage of Awakened, immediate deployment was difficult.
So the government decided to restrict access first and deploy Awakened later.
Yonghoon passed the restricted access sign and went upstream from where the river met the Han River.
And he was able to find the otter monster at Gasan.
When Yonghoon approached, the otter monster moved to the center of the river. It was trying to lure him into the water.
But in the dry season, the water level of Anyangcheon was too low. Yonghoon jumped into the knee-deep water and beat the otter to death with his fists.
“Wow, I’ve never seen someone hunt a monster alone before.”
That was the first thing the recovery team agent said upon arriving at the scene. The way he rolled his eyes made it seem like he was criticizing Yonghoon’s social skills.
It seemed others were hunting safely in teams. Honestly, that was the smarter method. If he were an average Awakened, Yonghoon would’ve hunted with them too.
But team hunting made it hard to reduce the number of monsters.
With so few Awakened forming teams, the number of hunts dropped drastically.
“Then I guess there haven’t been many casualties.”
Yonghoon casually asked the agent.
“Not quite.”
The recovery team member glanced around and spoke quietly to Yonghoon.
“The higher-ups are covering it up, but over 20 people have already died. And 70% of them were Awakened who never went through the Training Center. A lot of minors rushed in without knowing any better.”
He eagerly shared the secret with Yonghoon.
Yonghoon frowned.
It was the same in this world. Awakened were dying because of their heroic delusions.
It was clear things would only get worse. Soon, ordinary people would start pushing Awakened toward the monsters.
[With power comes responsibility.]
In the other world, slogans like this were used to drive Awakened into the line of fire.
It was laughable.
Having seen countless Awakened die, Yonghoon hated people who spouted such propaganda the most.
Judging by the circumstances, it looked like the chaos would continue for a while.
In the other world, it took two years and immense damage before a Dimensional Movement jammer was developed. It was clear this world would suffer until that device was created too.
Yonghoon turned over the otter monster and received 10 million won via bank transfer. That amount would be enough to last over a month.
Now it was time to gather Dimensional Cores. In a few days, the cores from the stray dogs would become unusable. To continue Dimensional Power training, he needed more cores.
Yonghoon managed to go on two more hunts that week.
Hunting every day was physically exhausting even for him. He’d need to enhance his abilities further to keep it up.
The next hunt didn’t go so well.
That day, Yonghoon took a bus to a nearby suburb. He had seen a post online about a monster appearing in the area.
A major portal site had recently launched a monster appearance map.
Users could mark places where they had seen or heard about monsters. It wasn’t very accurate, but it was far better than wandering around aimlessly.
Some people opposed it, saying it spread fear, but from Yonghoon’s perspective, it was a godsend.
Yonghoon got off at the bus stop and looked around. It was midday, but the sky was overcast and gloomy. Since he was heading into the countryside, he had chosen to move during the day, but with this weather, it felt no different from night.
This was a rural area with rice paddies and low hills. He was surprised such places still existed near Seoul.
Yonghoon activated his smart watch.
The detector showed nothing. He tightened his backpack and began cutting across a rice field that hadn’t been planted yet.
Two hours had passed since he began searching the area. This time, there was no result. Yonghoon turned to head to another location.
That’s when it happened.
He heard faint shouting from afar.
At the sound of urgency, he ran in the direction of the voices. While running, he checked his smart watch and saw a monster ahead.
A moment later, he saw a dried-up reservoir where Awakened were fighting a raccoon monster.
It seemed the Awakened up ahead had also come here after reading internet posts.
In the reservoir, two Awakened were fighting the monster. Behind them, people lay collapsed, and one raccoon monster was already dead.
Judging by their outfits, the three collapsed people were also Awakened.
It looked like five had fought two monsters, three had fallen, and the remaining two were still battling.
And just as Yonghoon arrived, the situation changed.
“Let’s run at the same time! If we stay, we’ll both die!”
One of them shouted while blocking the monster’s attack.
“Alright! Count us down!”
The other Awakened agreed immediately.
“We split on three!”
The first one began counting.
“One! You bastard!”
As he said “one,” the other Awakened took off running. The one counting also fled right after. While running, he hurled curses at the one who ran first.
But he too was abandoning the fallen and escaping.
The monster chased after the last man, and once it disappeared from view, Yonghoon climbed down into the reservoir. One of the fallen was still alive.
Yonghoon called the agent and reported the situation. The agent promised to dispatch a team immediately.
Yonghoon wrapped the surviving Awakened’s wounds with bandages. The abdominal injury was severe, but if help arrived in time, he might survive.
Yonghoon sat beside the injured person, waiting, when the raccoon monster returned to the reservoir. In its mouth was the Awakened who had fled first.
And then Yonghoon fought the monster.
The monster was powerful, but it was no match for Yonghoon, whose ability had nearly reached E-Rank. On top of that, the monster was already wounded and couldn’t resist his attacks.
And so, the F-Rank raccoon monster was killed by Yonghoon.
Even after people arrived, Yonghoon had to remain on site.
They needed his testimony.
When he heard that the other man who had fled was later found dead, he wore a bitter expression.
Yonghoon claimed the reward for the monster he killed, and the surviving Awakened took the reward for the other. The division of the dead man’s share was up to them.
The final hunt of that week was a pair of weasel monsters. Yonghoon caught two of them near the foot of Achasan.
The monsters were about the size of large dogs, so they weren’t too difficult. Both had enhanced movement speed, but they couldn’t match Yonghoon’s.
The only annoyance was their coordinated attacks. Yonghoon focused on one first, took it down, and then dealt with the other.
After taking down the last weasel monster, Yonghoon shivered as Dimensional Power surged through his body.
He immediately turned on his smart watch.
Level: E
Dimensional Power: 0 / 50.0
He had reached E-Rank.
His level had gone up through five battles and training.
This rapid increase was thanks to the training using the dimensional core.
Aside from hunting, Yonghoon had devoted himself to training for two weeks. It was the result of that effort. He was able to shorten the time far more than when he was in the other world.
In the other world, he mostly did team hunts and was too scared to fight when things looked dangerous.
Of course, maybe that’s why he survived. Many Awakened had died rushing in to fight for faster level-ups.
Back then, it had taken nearly four months to reach E-Rank. But now he had reached E-Rank in just two weeks of hunting-this speed wasn’t easy even for A-rank Awakened.
After briefly basking in joy, Yonghoon headed straight to the hardware store. He was going to make his own weapon.
Not wanting to reveal that he had reached E-Rank yet, Yonghoon used iron rods from the hardware store to make a spear.
The iron spear he crafted after investing half a day was exactly to his liking.
From that day on, Yonghoon began training using a kitchen knife and the iron spear at home.
On the third day of his training, he got a call from Eunseo.
It was a call asking if he would participate in a large-scale sweep operation.
Recently, Line 5 of the subway had stopped operating. It was because monsters had attacked the subway.
They seemed to be planning to clear out the inside of Line 5.
The authorities were trying to fill the lack of manpower with external Awakened, and it seemed Eunseo had recommended Yonghoon.
Yonghoon accepted immediately.
It was a great opportunity to observe the Link System Company’s combat up close.