Chapter 1: Code Name: Black
Cheongdam-dong, Seoul.
A private whiskey bar known only to those in the know.
“So who is it in the end? Yoon Tae-seong or Han Baek-san?”
“Hmm, I’d still say Yoon Tae-seong is the strongest in Korea. My vote’s on Yoon Tae-seong.”
“Come on, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. Yoon Tae-seong is strong, sure, but isn’t that man specialized in dungeons? He falls a little short of being the strongest in a one-on-one fight.”
“Then you’re going with Han Baek-san?”
“I believe so. There are even rumors that he picked up a rather significant secret manual in a dungeon this time.”
The Hunter Management Bureau executives, already well fed and watered after the first round at a barbecue restaurant, were now raising their voices over a second round of drinks.
As always, the subjects that stirred men up were simple.
Who was the strongest?!
“A secret manual? He has to register that with the Association. There haven’t been any recent updates.”
“Why are you being so naive? Who in this business obediently reports every real treasure they manage to get their hands on?”
“True. But didn’t Yoon Tae-seong recently acquire a spirit herb too? And listen to yourself, man! You think picking up a secret manual makes someone stronger overnight?”
“Even taking all that into account, it’s still Han Baek-san. He reached the summit with nothing but a sword in the first place! His epithet is the Sword Venerable! The Sword Venerable, Han Baek-san! Haven’t you heard of him?”
“Enough. Director! What do you think?”
“Who knows?”
Clink.
The Director’s wrist looked utterly languid as he swirled his rocks glass.
“What does it matter?”
The two of them would never fight anyway.
They were both state-managed assets the country could not afford to lose.
At the slightest sign of a clash, the higher-ups would stop them by any means necessary.
“They’re both just acorns.”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you mean……?”
“I’m saying they’re a pair of acorns making fools of themselves over who’s taller.”
The executives exchanged glances.
Has the Director had too much to drink?
How could he compare S-rank Hunters—the nation’s greatest fighting force and strategic weapons—to mere acorns?
“You bastards. The world is vast, and it’s full of extraordinary people. So enough of this pointless talk. Let’s just drink some more.”
Gulp.
The amber liquid slid smoothly down his throat.
“Khh.”
A weighty body, forged through long years of patience inside an oak cask.
‘That man was quite fond of this whiskey too.’
Director Kim Hyeong-seok narrowed his eyes as he set down his empty glass.
His unfocused gaze wandered through the air before being drawn into the memory of that day one month ago.
***
One month earlier.
The Leviathan subjugation operation in the East Sea.
That day had nearly gone down as the worst in South Korean history.
The readings on the measuring device surged wildly as red warning lights flashed, until……!
BOOM!
It exploded.
The first appearance of an immeasurable-class monster!
Naturally, the entire world took notice, but no helping hand came.
“The Americans say they would like to help, but all their major Hunters are currently deployed!”
“What about China? They’re right next door!”
“A monster has appeared in the Yellow Sea. Regrettably, they say defending their own territorial waters takes priority!”
“Those fucking bastards.”
At the time, Kim Hyeong-seok had bitten his lip until it bled.
They called it the World Hunter Alliance, but it was obvious they were merely watching from the sidelines because they did not want their own Hunters getting hurt.
They want us to serve as cannon fodder and gather data for them.
It could not be helped. This was reality.
What would we have done?
What if a monster like that had appeared in another country?
What if that country had requested aid from South Korea?
Would we really have offered up the Hunters who formed the pillars of our nation, sending them willingly into a death trap when we did not even know their chances of returning alive?
National interest.
In the face of those two accursed words, loyalty and all the rest meant nothing.
“In the end, it’s ours to deal with. Issue an emergency mobilization order. Assemble every S-rank Hunter!”
Kim Hyeong-seok went out in person, accompanied by five of South Korea’s ten highest-ranking Hunters.
Even that number had barely been scraped together.
Han Baek-san? Yoon Tae-seong? The very men the executives had been discussing?
Every last one of them tucked tail and gave some ridiculous excuse about being inside an unexplored dungeon or getting injured during training.
“You are fools. But I am truly grateful that even five fools like you remain in this country. Please—please come back alive, so I do not have to carry this debt for the rest of my life.”
The result was devastating.
“Aaargh!”
“S-Save me!”
Ten minutes.
That was all it took for five S-rank Hunters to be reduced to rags.
Two were already cold corpses sinking beneath the sea, while another had lost all four limbs and fallen into a vegetative state.
“……This is……”
At the scene, Kim Hyeong-seok knew he was going to die.
The two remaining Hunters must have felt the same.
Then, at that very moment.
Rrrrrip!
The sky……
Tore open.
With a dazzling flash, the atmosphere over the East Sea let out a hideous scream.
At the same time, every monitor and instrument panel in the command-and-control room began flashing wildly before bursting one after another.
“W-What’s happening?! We’ve lost the satellite signal!”
“The mana reading has exceeded our measurable range! We can’t pick up any transmissions!”
“All the lenses on the field cameras have shattered!”
As the control room descended into chaos, Kim Hyeong-seok saw him.
A man dropping out of the torn rift between dimensions.
Dressed in rags, the man looked down at the colossal calamity roaring beneath his feet.
Then he frowned.
“What is this little snake?”
The man’s voice pierced his eardrums with perfect clarity even amid the deafening roar.
‘A little snake?’
He was calling that immeasurable-class calamity a little snake?
Then, as if it were nothing but a nuisance, he gave his hand a light wave.
It was truly an indifferent gesture, no more deliberate than swatting a fly.
SPLAT!
Just once.
With that single wave, the Leviathan’s head burst like a watermelon.
A storm of blood poured down like torrential rain.
Kim Hyeong-seok stared blankly at the sea turning red, his jaw trembling.
‘Wh-What the hell is that?’
The one who had slain the monster was an even more vicious monster.
And that monster……
“Ah, shit. I’m dizzy.”
After leaving those few words behind, he fell toward the sea like a puppet with its strings cut.
The shock of that day had been branded into Kim Hyeong-seok’s mind.
***
Hannam-dong, Seoul.
Outside a premium safe house.
“Haa, haa.”
Lee Se-a, a rookie agent assigned to the Hunter Management Bureau’s special task force, clutched at her pounding heart.
With a trembling hand, she checked the tablet held against her chest one more time.
On the screen was the profile of Black, a code name classified at the highest level of national security.
[Classified Document: Subject Information]
Name: Kang Hyeon
Age: 33
Rank: Immeasurable
Notes:
– Appeared alongside a dimensional rift phenomenon in the skies over the East Sea.
– Killed the Leviathan with a single wave of his hand.
– Suffers from severe alcohol dependence. Especially fond of whiskey.
– Difficult to communicate with.
– High likelihood of acquisition attempts by foreign powers. Security measures befitting a top-tier strategic asset required.
At first, she had not believed it.
‘He killed the Leviathan……? Not the S-rank Hunters?’
But she had no choice but to believe it.
This was an official state document marked top secret.
Only a handful of people in South Korea even knew the document existed.
The President, the Chief of Staff, the Director of the National Intelligence Service, the Director of the Hunter Management Bureau, the two surviving S-rank Hunters, and the agents of the special task force—an exceedingly small group even within the Bureau.
‘I was thrilled at first.’
The mere fact that she had been granted access to intelligence like this proved that she had entered an elite track where rapid promotion was all but guaranteed.
She had even popped a bottle of champagne.
But now?
Instead of champagne, it felt as though she had been handed a cup of poison.
She had realized that this magnificent secret was, in truth, a bomb nobody on the team wanted to handle.
Today had been no different.
“Who’s going to visit Black?”
At that one question from the Director, a cold snap swept through the conference room.
As though they had planned it in advance, the seasoned veterans all turned their eyes toward the ceiling, the floor, or their own fingernails.
“Director, my lower back suddenly started acting up…… Damn, why does it ache so much today?”
“I have a meeting with the Cheonrang Guild Master this afternoon. I hear he obtained a secret manual.”
“Huh? Manager Kim, didn’t you say last time that you wouldn’t even piss in Cheonrang’s direction?”
“Director? We have to separate personal feelings from official business. I may not piss in their direction, but it’s still our duty to assess a state-managed asset, is it not?”
They were cowards.
These seniors boasted about their exploits at company dinners, yet here they were, trembling over the mere mention of the two syllables in Kang Hyeon’s name.
As a result……
“Hmm, I suppose it can’t be helped. Agent Lee Se-a?”
“Yes?”
“You joined us at the top of your class, didn’t you? Why don’t you prove that you’re made of different stuff from those parasites?”
‘I-I don’t have any field experience yet……’
She could not bring herself to say it aloud.
How could a mere rookie say such a thing to the Director?
“All you have to do is go and come back. I’ll stamp five full stars on your performance review.”
Lee Se-a swallowed hard.
That was how this whole affair had begun.
‘Right.’
How hard could it possibly be?
Lee Se-a gritted her teeth and was about to press the doorbell when she stopped.
‘Huh?’
The safe house door stood slightly ajar.
‘An intruder?’
No.
That was impossible.
The security system here was tighter than the one at the Blue House.
And considering the monster—no, the person—inside, she almost felt sorry for any would-be intruder.
“H-Hello? I’m with the Hunter Management Bureau.”
She called out several times, but there was no answer from inside.
Rub, rub.
Lee Se-a wiped her palms, damp with nerves, against her trousers before carefully stepping through the entrance.
The interior was dark.
Every curtain had been drawn, and a chill hung in the air.
Then there was the stench of alcohol that assaulted her nose.
“Excuse me……”
Her gaze moved toward the living room sofa.
She froze.
Stretched-out sweatpants, hair so tangled it looked as though it had not been washed in days, and dozens of empty whiskey bottles rolling across the floor.
‘That wreck killed the Leviathan?’
Just as she began to seriously wonder whether there had been an error in the data……
“Hey.”
A hoarse voice rang out.
“Y-Yes?”
“Booze.”
The man sluggishly pushed himself upright.
His eyes were sunken, and his complexion was as white as a sheet.
Lee Se-a could not understand it.
If his head felt like it was splitting open, should he not be drinking water instead of alcohol?
‘He asked for it, so just give it to him!’
Lee Se-a hurriedly held out the whiskey Senior Kim had pressed into her hands before she left.
Snatch!
The man grabbed it and drank the potent liquor like water.
Gulp, gulp, gulp!
‘He’s insane.’
How could he drink that without so much as a change in expression?
No—if anything, he looked ecstatic, like a traveler in the desert who had discovered an oasis.
“Khh. Now I finally feel alive.”
Only then did the man properly turn his gaze toward Lee Se-a.
“What are you? I thought I explained things clearly enough to the government. I told you not to come near me unless absolutely necessary.”
At that moment, Lee Se-a forgot how to breathe.
His eyes appeared through the gaps in his tangled hair.
An icy pressure pierced straight through her.
‘Hhk.’
She felt like a herbivore standing before an apex predator.
A chilling tremor crawled up her spine, making every hair on her body stand on end.
‘I-I have to tell him.’
The contaminated Leviathan carcass in the East Sea was proving difficult to dispose of.
Its toxicity was so severe that even S-rank Hunters could not approach it.
They lacked the means to handle it themselves, so they were terribly sorry, but could he please take care of just that one thing?
Yet her lips refused to part.
“Well, your timing’s good. I happen to need some help.”
At those words, the pressure crushing Lee Se-a vanished in an instant.
‘Help?’
Lee Se-a felt a surge of relief.
If this monster beyond all standards was asking them for something first, then looking at it another way, that meant there was room for negotiation.
“W-What kind of help do you need?”
“There.”
She followed the man’s languid jerk of the chin.
Only then did Lee Se-a notice that the eighty-inch television covering most of the living room wall was on.
The news was showing elite students hard at training against the majestic backdrop of the National Academy, South Korea’s premier institution for training Hunters.
“Can you get me in there?”
Silence fell.
An immeasurable monster wanted to enter a Hunter academy?
Why?
As a student?
The answer came quickly.
“Preferably as a professor.”
