Chapter 1 (Prologue)

April 17th, 2023

“Thank you, please come back!”

With the cheerful voice of the employee, the automatic door of the mart opened. A young man wearing a grey hoodie and carrying a strawberry-patterned shopping bag filled with all sorts of foodstuffs headed towards the stop.

“There is currently a rift at the intersection and traffic is being controlled. Please co-operate.”

The young man’s head snapped up at the unfamiliar scene on his usual route. Someone wearing a fluorescent lime green safety vest over a suit, complete with a yellow hard hat, was waving a red glowing warning baton, blocking traffic. Overhead, the entrance to the rift glowed blue.

And beneath it, hunters were desperately fighting a monster that had crawled through the gap.

“Kyaahhhh!”

“Ugh! Are we there yet?”

“Just a little…!”

A lizard the size of a car let out a bizarre cry and swung its spiked tail wildly. Hunter with a shield blocked the attack, but the lizard was so excited that it stirred with its tail in the air as if to sweep the surrounding area. Thump! Thump! Hunter spat an expletive as he barely managed to block the relentless barrage of attacks.

“Shit, die! Fireball!”

Crimson flames engulfed the lizard. Taking advantage of the momentary hesitation, the other fired an arrow at the lizard. The eye-gouged lizard screamed and writhed.

“Kiik!”

“Wow, I’m exhausted…”

“Stay away from the barricades!”

“Make it short enough to go up in your YouTube shorts.”

“Uh huh, I’m actually doing that.”

People were standing a short distance away from the barricades, taking videos and watching. The young man walked busily, unaffected by the commotion. The strawberry-print shopping bag in his hand jingled and swayed.

He had just stepped into a deserted alley when he was confronted by a huge figure blocking the narrow path. A purple toad waded through a pile of rubbish, sensing his presence, and turned its head sharply to face the young man. A long green tongue flicked out of its mouth, and it tossed an empty plastic bottle into its mouth. It was clear that this was the monster from the rift.

“Ah, the bureaucrats. They never do things right….”

Muttering irritably, the young man rummaged through his shopping basket and pulled out a long, dagger-like object. From the softly curved head of the plant, to the straight stem, to the gnarled roots that lay beneath.

What he held in his hand was… A fresh leek.

The toad let out a croak and turned to face the young man. Every time its stubby legs touched the ground, the entire alley shook as if there had been an earthquake. The young man set the bag down gingerly and deftly spun the leek around once to steady it. Then,

stepped on the lid of the bin and leapt like a butterfly-

and whacked the toad on the head with the leek!

Bam!

The clear, cheerful sound of the blow shook the alley. The toad was unable to utter a single word, its eyes rolling back in its head and its limbs trembling. To his chagrin, the centre of his head was indented like a leek.

The young man swatted his hand away, catching his breath. The recoil pulled his hood off, revealing a chilly face beneath.

“Leeks are expensive…. wasted.”

The young man squatted in front of the toad, roughly shoving the remains of a spring onion into the toad’s mouth with his bare hands, and picked up his mobile phone. Some time passed, and when the caller picked up, the young man spoke.

“Th, there…. There’s a dead monster here in the alley, and it looks like some hunter grabbed it and left….”

The end of the young man’s voice was quivering. He was even sobbing a little, like someone who’d been frightened, but his face was nonchalant, unlike his voice, which sounded like it could faint if touched.

“This is the alleyway to the Dugromart…. A monster? It looks like a toad, but it’s so, so big and gross, I can’t get a good look at it, can you do something about it? Yeah, you don’t have to call me… Oh, can you be here in five minutes? Thank you, no, no, thank you, yes, thank you….”

The young man whimpered and hung up the phone. Even after the call was over, the young man remained seated, shoving a leek into the gaping mouth that was sticking its tongue out. Too disgusted by the monster to look closely, the young man’s eyes remained fixed on the toad.

Five minutes until the hunter arrives.

‘I’ll be in trouble if we run into them.’

The young man stood up and erased his footprints from the lid of the bin. The toad seemed to have died instantly, with no other trauma except for a leek-shaped scar in the middle of its head. It would be impossible to track down the monster’s killer from the traces left behind.

With the evidence destroyed, it was time to flee. Picking up the bag again, the young man hopped lightly in place a couple of times as he reviewed his earlier call.

‘…Should I have sounded more surprised when I called?’

Well, it was too late to regret it now. The young man leapt over a wall that was taller than him.

”Is this the alley?”

“Yes, it is!”

A few minutes after the young man disappeared, two people, a man and a woman wearing fluorescent vests over their shirts, arrived at the scene, but the urgency on their faces melted away as soon as they saw the toad’s corpse.

The first woman to enter the alley, Yang Hye-jin, a Class A hunter with the Rift Management Agency, gasped at the sight of the dead toad with its tongue hanging out.

“Hey, that’s crazy.”

“Why do you do that? I’m also… oops.”

The newcomer behind her was furious, clinging to his gunner and whispering in a low voice.

“Wow…. Does it make sense to handle swamp toads so neatly, senior?”

“It’s ridiculous, this is a one-hit monster, if this bastard is a little late with his timing, he’ll be sprayed with a strong acid solution. It dissolves everything, buildings and people alike, and it’s giving me a headache….”

“That’s incredible.”

Impressed once again, the newcomer hurried over and fixed his crooked yellow hard hat. Yang Hye-jin ordered while looking around with sharp eyes.

“See if there are any traces left. This skill is no ordinary skill.”

“Understood!”

The rookie said, rummaging through the bins and the trash piled up near them.

“I don’t know who you are, but… It’s so neat that it won’t be hard to clean up.”

“I know. It’s so clean, we can donate this to the monster research team. I don’t know why that person didn’t bother to dispose of the body.”

With that sarcastic remark, Yang Hye-jin put on her white gloves and opened the toad’s thick mouth. Toad monsters were troublesome creatures that swallowed anything that touched their tongues and spat poisonous or acidic saliva everywhere. The good toad, who gives old houses to new houses, was a unicorn that exists only in children’s songs.

Anyway, the toad had jumped out of the rift and might have swallowed someone on the way here, so they needed to check further. Yang Hye-jin pulled a flashlight out of thin air and shone it into every inch of the toad’s mouth. Luckily, instead of a human corpse, she could only see a little bit of what looked like a melted plastic bottle.

“Looks like it didn’t swallow anyone….”

Meanwhile, the rookie who had been carrying the radar-equipped machine up and down the alley sulked and called out to Yang Hye-jin.

“Senior, the guy who caught the toad must be a real pro. I don’t have anything left.”

Yang Hye-jin rubbed her hands together and shook her head.

“He must have used an ability, right? No trace of it? Take a good look.”

“I’m looking, but I can’t see a single trace, let alone an ability. Nothing, really.”

“What, did he catch something this big with his bare hands?”

She shook his head, having somehow deduced something close to the truth.

“Oh, well, it must have been some kind of power hunter. Why are there so many hunters hiding their power in the world. Whether it’s a cartoon or a novel, useless things ruined all the kids.”

She switched off the flashlight and stood up, and the rookie shoved the machine into the air. Yang Hye-jin stretched out a long, tired stretch.

“Anyway, there’s a grade 4 monster out there, and I’m grateful it didn’t eat anyone and destroy the building. Let’s get the toads and head back. You write today’s report.”

“Okay. Who do you write down as the monster handler?”

“Unidentified, I guess.”

“Okay, but, senior….”

“Yeah. Why?”

The newcomer asked with a quizzical look on his face.

“Don’t you smell a leek somewhere?”

“…Come to think of it?”

Yang Hye-jin sniffed for a moment, then shrugged.

“The toad must have picked up some leeks that fell on the ground. Never mind, we’ll have dinner together after work later, right?”

“Okay. That’s the place you always go to, right?”

“Yeah, Haejang-guk house.”

At that time, an old haejang-guk house that looked decades old.

-I’m against this marriage!

-Dad, how could you do that?

-In fact… You are brother and sister!

“Oh my….”

The cable channel on the worn brown TV was playing a rerun of “Couples Clinic Love or War.” Someone was sitting in a prime viewing spot, eyes fixed on the screen, peeling garlic.

-Goddess! Don’t say anything to the kids! You didn’t do anything right!

-Mother-in-law, don’t stop me, it’s my child’s marriage!

-I tried to keep it a secret from you all my life, but now that it’s come to this, I have no choice but to tell you. In fact… we are brother and sister!

”Your mother-in-law and son-in-law are brother and sister?”

A busy hand dropped the clove of garlic it was holding. By the time I realised what was coming next, the shaven-headed lawyer was already declaring the settlement period: “I’ll see you in four weeks.” My hands, stiff as stone, rustled again after a few adverts. When the garlic peels had accumulated to a certain point, he jumped up from his seat.

“Rubbish~ Burhurrerheh~”

The voice that hummed as it searched for the trash can was a pleasant one, if a little low. He walked across the hall, his height well above average, but his head didn’t touch the ceiling, so he had no trouble moving.

As he tossed the shell into the bin, the young man glanced at his watch. It was still a little while before the shop opened for dinner. His eyes drifted to a corner of the shop and he frowned for a moment.

“Oh, I should’ve sold something else…”

With a sigh, the young man tidied up his surroundings and headed for the door. He peeled off the break sign from the sliding door and tossed it back where his gaze had been earlier.

‘From 2: 00 to 5: 00 is the time of preparation of ingredients.’

Under the scattered signs, there was a crumpled strawberry-patterned shopping bag without anything in it.