“A low-grade magic stone, 9.8 kilograms. I’ve appraised it at 498,000 won¹. Would you like that in cash, or should I transfer it to your account?”

“Account transfer, please.”

“Understood. It should be deposited into your linked account by the end of today.”

“Excuse me…”

“Go ahead.”

“You know the item I put up for auction—would it be possible to get an advance on it? Just a little?”

“Huh?”

The counter clerk, Kim Seulgi, tilted her head.

What is this man even talking about?

Embarrassment crept across Go Byeonggap’s face.

“I was wondering… could I get an advance of even just 100,000 won?”

“Hunter Go Byeonggap. Items consigned to auction only pay out once they’re sold.”

“Yes, yes, I know that, of course. I was just wondering if I could get an advance.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t disburse funds for items that haven’t been bid on yet.”

“Ah, right… Well, what about a loan…?”

“A loan? Excuse me?”

“Ah, so loans come from banks. Sorry—I’ve been out of it lately.”

Kim Seulgi gave a reluctant nod.

Go Byeonggap slung his bag over his shoulder and rose from his seat.

Kim Seulgi offered a perfunctory farewell and called for the next client.

“Number 97!”

Byeonggap trudged out of the Association building, footsteps heavy.

The weather was spitefully clear.

“Ah, I’m fucked.”

He’d managed to scrape together this month’s quota somehow.

Problem was, once that was gone, there wasn’t a single coin left in his pocket.

As if there weren’t a dozen places money needed to go…

The loan-chasing routine was at its limit too.

“How the hell am I supposed to handle the next subjugation? I don’t even have living expenses right now.”

D-rank hunter Go Byeonggap.

A bit of a name among the low-tier hunters.

Three years in this year—pretty solid experience.

His income wasn’t bad, either. On good months, he pulled in six to seven million won.

But Byeonggap was always broke.

It was because of the goddamn hospital bills and the debt that only swelled no matter how much he tried to carve it down.

Even thinking back on it now, turning to loan sharks had been the mistake of a lifetime.

His stomach growled.

It staged a protest. Come to think of it, he hadn’t eaten a single meal today.

“…Yeah. Let’s just eat first.”

Go Byeonggap headed to a pork soup place near the Association.

He ordered one bowl of blood-sausage soup and checked his account through internet banking.

The payment for the magic stone he’d sold today had been deposited.

– KBC Bank

Balance: ₩4,609,420

After everything that had to come out, eating one bowl of soup would leave him maybe twenty or thirty thousand won.

A bitter laugh escaped him—it was almost absurd.

Out of 4.6 million won, his own share wouldn’t even reach one percent. That just didn’t seem right.

Anyway, sometimes he wondered what the hell he spent the whole month hunting for.

“-The expedition team that left for Lithuania returned around 3 PM today…”

Of all things, the news was carrying a report about Go Byeonggap and some heroes from another world.

Three S-rank hunters who’d gone on an expedition to Lithuania had returned safely, they said.

Thanks to them, international cooperation had deepened, national prestige had risen, a K-Hunter boom was sweeping the nation…

They were mainlining national pride at a fatal dose.

“They’re practically holding a rite to make me feel like a loser.”

Go Byeonggap stayed calm.

The days of coveting a star he could never reach were behind him.

All he wanted was for the item he’d put up for auction today to sell quickly, so he could at least scrape together prep funds for his next subjugation.

He wolfed down a bowl of soul-soup in under five minutes and walked out of the diner.

Right away, he put a cigarette between his lips.

His finances were strapped, but he just couldn’t kick the habit. Call him a fool, he didn’t care.

Even as he traded his lifespan for nicotine, his aching ankle kept nagging at him.

He’d hurt it during today’s subjugation.

Byeonggap pulled a glass bottle out of his backpack.

Inside, about a third of the bottle was filled with a red liquid.

A healing potion.

Use it or not. Use it or not.

“I should save it, but…”

Even a low-grade potion cost 150,000 won per 100mL.

Byeonggap stared at the potion for a long moment, then put it back.

He’d just put a cold compress on it when he got home.

“I’m probably the only hunter in the world who rations potions like this.Shit.”

He tossed the butt, sucked down to the last filter, into the ashtray.

“Ah, hell. Life’s screwed.”

He shuffled home with a defeated gait.

* * *

Twenty-eight years ago, rifts opened all over the globe.

The world was thrown into chaos by an unprecedented catastrophe.

Doomsayers shouted of the end of days, and world leaders declared a state of maximum emergency.

Back then, humanity was as precarious as a time bomb on the verge of exploding.

So what about now, twenty-eight years later?

Surprisingly, the blue planet was perfectly peaceful.

Humanity hadn’t been destroyed, nor had it suffered any decline in civilization.

On the contrary, people were living well, eating well, and technology had made a leap forward.

How did that happen?

Inside the rifts——

In other words, monsters did lurk in the ‘hidden world,’ but they didn’t cause direct harm outside.

The monsters just stayed holed up inside the rifts.

Still, humanity couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.

Because each rift emitted an unidentified force field spanning anywhere from a few meters to hundreds of meters in radius, and any area exposed to that field quickly turned barren.

Buildings rotted and collapsed, plants withered and shriveled, and anyone who stayed there too long would sicken and die.

So the rifts had to be smashed.

But there was one problem.

An ordinary person exposed to a rift’s force field would fall into a mysterious lethargy for no apparent reason.

So what happens when an ordinary person steps into the Hidden World?

They’re like a squid flopping on dry land — utterly helpless, no fight left in them.

Stuck, unable to move forward or back, they’d just stand there shuffling their feet — and then, like fate itself, the awakeners appeared.

They were different from regular people. Exposure to a rift’s force field didn’t drain them — it gave them incredible power instead.

The awakeners weren’t exactly armed with self-sacrifice and altruism…

What burned in them was greed — for massive bounties, fame, and power — and that’s what drove them to subjugate the rifts.

Whatever their motives, the world somehow found its footing again thanks to the awakeners’ blood, sweat, and sheer grit.

Actually, it didn’t just stabilize — it turned into a full-blown festival. The monsters coughed up magic stones, and those stones carried absurd value.

Countries actually fought each other over who owned the rifts that opened on their borders or in Antarctica — so twenty-eight years ago, the Great Cataclysm felt more like a blessing than a disaster.

And…

Go Byeonggap, proud son of Korea, twenty-five years old.

Today, like every other day, he was busting his ass to pay off his ever-mounting debts.

But something told him this might be his last day of busting ass.

‘I’m fucked!’

Byeonggap pressed himself behind a building, gasping for breath.

He risked a peek around the corner — just a tiny tilt of his head.

Hob goblins were pacing around, eyes poisoned with murder, drool stringing from their jaws.

‘Shit — a mutant rift?!’

A mutant rift.

When the energy value measured from outside the rift doesn’t match the actual energy inside.

To put it simply,

‘It looked like an anchovy farm from the outside, but I walked in and found a shark den.’

If he’d caught on faster, he’d have bolted long ago — but to make matters worse, he’d come in way too deep.

‘Almost out of ammo too.’

Byeonggap patted the spare magazine at his belt.

Maybe ninety rounds left, tops.

He cursed himself for skimping on ammunition — all because he didn’t want to spend a few measly coins.

“Grrrgh…”

Byeonggap winced, face twisted in a grimace, and pressed a hand to his side.

One of those hob goblin bastards had grazed his flank with an arrow.

It wasn’t a serious wound, but it wasn’t the kind you could just spit on and call it fixed, either.

He pulled a Healing Potion from his pack.

Barely a centimeter left in the bottom.

He poured every last drop onto his side. For a scrape like this, even a Low-Grade Potion was enough to patch him up fast.

‘What now?’

He had three options.

Hold his breath and wait for rescue — another Hunter to find him.

Retrace his steps and try to escape the rift.

Or kill the Hidden World’s boss and collapse the rift.

No matter which he chose, death felt a lot closer than survival.

This was why the Association discouraged solo subjugations. If you got trapped inside a rift, you died. Plain and simple.

‘If I die, what’s going to happen to my mom?’

Go Byeonggap carried two lives on his neck.

If he couldn’t cover the hospital bills, his mother would die without fail.

‘I can’t die like this.’

Byeonggap steeled his resolve and shed his backpack.

Then he stripped off everything except his rifle and spare magazines.

‘If I run flat-out, I can reach the exit portal somehow.’

He fixed his glare on the escape route.

The hidden world basically imitated the terrain where the rift had opened.

Like a world inside a mirror.

His current position was a small village.

Rice paddies stretched in every direction, with a cluster of farmhouses at the center.

If he cleared the houses and sprinted about a kilometer through the paddies, he’d reach the escape portal.

‘One, two…’

He counted under his breath.

“Three…!”

“Surprise motherfucker.”

“Aaagh, shit!”

Crack!

A heavy club came hurtling through the air.

Byeonggap threw himself aside on reflex, barely dodging.

‘That fucking goblin just said surprise…’

“Kreeruk! Kreuk!”

‘Did I hear wrong?’

Then again, there was no way a monster could speak human language.

Byeonggap rolled a few times and pulled the trigger.

The hob goblin’s body jerked with a sharp gunshot. The round punched through its heart, and it collapsed without so much as a twitch.

Hob goblins were E-rank.

Weak monsters—a single bullet to a vital spot was enough to kill them.

But the real problem was…

“Kreeruk! Kreuk!”

“Keeeeek!”

“Kreruk! Krerreuruk!”

“Ha… fuck.”

A horde of goblins filled the space around him.

The gunshots had drawn them out.

Just the ones within arm’s reach looked like sixty or seventy.

Byeonggap started running, fuck-it-all attitude locked in.

Crude arrows and bamboo spears flew at the back of his neck.

Some whistled past his head by a hair’s breadth.

“You sons of bitches!”

Byeonggap whipped around and sprayed bullets.

The E- to F-rank hob goblins and normal goblins toppled like dominoes.

“Kreeruk!”

“Kkuk!”

One goblin hurled a hand axe.

It arced through the air and thudded into Byeonggap’s thigh.

The blade was blunt, so no flesh tore free, but the impact left a deep, bruised crater.

“Shiiiiit!”

Byeonggap screamed and emptied an entire magazine.

Then he spun around and broke back into a sprint.

His injured leg throbbed—he couldn’t run properly.

“Krerreuruk!”

“Kreuk! Kreuk!”

Dozens of goblins chasing one man.

A blood-pumping chase to the death.

He fired at the goblins intermittently, shaking them off as he ran. Before he knew it, the death race was reaching its climax.

Two hundred meters to the escape portal!

“Uwaaaagh!”

A roar erupted from behind him.

A monster so massive it was hard to believe it was a goblin had appeared.

A Giant Goblin. A D-rank monster, same as Go Byeonggap.

‘How many fucking Giant Goblins are there in this place?’

Byeonggap had already taken down seven of them here. And yet there was still one left!

‘Damn it. This rift is definitely C-rank!’

A chill ran down Byeonggap’s spine, and he threw himself sideways on instinct.

The Giant Goblin’s fist slammed down where he’d been standing.

—Crash!

“Crazy!”

After rolling a couple of times across the ground, Byeonggap hurriedly shouldered his rifle and shoved the muzzle forward.

—Bang! Ba-da-da-dang!

Bullets tore into the Giant Goblin’s torso.

But even after taking half a dozen rounds, the bastard didn’t go down.

If anything, it only seemed to piss him off more.

‘Shit! Steady! Steady, damn it! Aim for the head!’

Byeonggap forced his trembling hands to still.

He lined up the Giant Goblin’s head in his sights and steadied his breathing.

“Uwaaaagh!”

“Die!”

The perfect moment.

He pulled the trigger.

—Click!

“…!?”

“Uwaaagh!”

“Ghck!”

The Giant Goblin’s brutish kick came flying in.

Byeonggap went tumbling across the ground, skidding five or six paces.

It felt like three or four of his ribs were gone.

‘Fucking malfunction…’

Damn K-series piece of shit…

Byeonggap dragged himself upright.

Low rank though he was, he was still an awakener by title.

A few broken ribs weren’t enough to kill him.

“Huff, huff!”

He yanked the charging handle back and forth, slamming it.

He even pounded the magazine with his palm.

After a few tries, a round finally seated properly.

He’d barely braced himself when the Giant Goblin’s fist came flying.

Gritting his teeth, Byeonggap pulled the trigger.

—Bang!

“Guugh…”

The bullet tore clean through the Giant Goblin’s shoulder.

The bastard collapsed.

“Rot in hell, you bastards!!!”

—Ba-da-da-da-da-dang!

He unloaded every last round he had.

After hurling the gun aside in a fit of rage, he bolted for the escape portal.

100 meters ahead

90 meters ahead

Ahead…

“Kyaaagh!”

A crudely made arrow came flying and lodged itself in him.

A sharp pain pierced his back, like it had gone clean through.

His spine arched like a drawn bow.

Then a hunting spear grazed his thigh.

A hail of hand axes and sling stones battered his body.

He couldn’t hold out.

Go Byeonggap dropped to his knees with barely fifty meters left to the portal.

His eyes closed on their own. He’d lost so much blood his head swam with it.

‘Is this it?’

He turned his head. The goblin horde had closed to within spitting distance.

Just look at those eyes — nothing but madness and slaughter in them.

‘What about my mother…’

Go Byeonggap pitched forward and blacked out on the spot.

* * *

“Ugh…”

Go Byeonggap pried his eyes half-open. His eyelids felt like someone had strapped iron weights to them.

‘…Am I alive? Ugh!’

Every inch of him ached. But his hearing still worked.

“Eeek! Eeek!”

“Kee-yaaahk! Kee-yaaahk!”

“Kheh-heh-heh! Kheh-heh-heh!”

The shrieks of the goblin horde washed over him.

Byeonggap fought through the dizziness and took stock of his situation.

He was tied to a massive log.

The ropes were so tight the flesh beneath them had split and softened.

The sun had set, leaving everything dark — but not pitch-black. Braziers stood here and there, and a huge bonfire blazed about thirty meters ahead of him.

And…

Dozens of goblins were circling the bonfire in a ring dance.

‘What the hell is that?’

The scene was so surreal he nearly lost his mind staring at it.

Byeonggap studied them more carefully.

The outer ring was made up of dozens of goblins.

At the center, two goblins stood out with an overwhelming presence.

One was decked out in cumbersome ornaments — a goblin shaman. The other was a giant goblin, massively built.

‘Shit! That giant goblin is still alive?’

Byeonggap was stunned.

He’d pumped several rounds into it, and it still hadn’t died. Figures — anything D-rank and above was a monster through and through.

But the real problem was something else.

‘A goblin shaman…’

Byeonggap recognized the ornament-laden goblin at a glance.

A goblin shaman — at least C-rank. A vicious monster.

Probably the boss of this rift.

‘Why didn’t they kill me? Why tie me up like this?’

The goblins paid Byeonggap no mind.

They just shrieked at each other, danced in a circle, and made gestures whose meaning he couldn’t begin to guess.

‘What are they doing? Looks like some kind of ritual, but…’

He’d faced plenty of goblins in his hunter work, but he’d never seen anything like this.

‘Tch. Not my problem.’

Whatever it was, that wasn’t what mattered.

Now that the goblins’ attention was elsewhere — this was his best chance to escape.

The problem was that with his current strength, there was no way he could snap the ropes and run.

Byeonggap’s mind churned fast.

After a moment, he decided to use the brazier beside him.

A crude, soot-blackened brazier sat ablaze, its burning logs crackling in the gloom.

Several more of these braziers ringed the space, casting flickering light.

Still bound to the log, he grunted and dragged himself across the dirt floor.

When he’d crawled close enough, he began battering the brazier’s legs with his head.

Thud! Thud!

If the goblins noticed, everything was over.

Go Byeonggap kept his skull-bashing as quiet as he could manage.

How many times had he struck?

One of the logs resting on the brazier tumbled to the ground. Embers still alive in its charred bark.

‘Got it!’

Byeonggap pressed his body against the blackened tip of the log. Soon, the embers caught the rope.

Whoosh!

The vine-woven rope burned beautifully. Flesh, too.

“Krrrgh!”

The agony of living skin catching flame…

Byeonggap swallowed the scream with sheer, desperate will.

When the rope was charred enough, he threw every ounce of strength into a full-body writhe.

The rope snapped, limp and useless. Success!

Byeonggap scrambled to his feet. But his legs wobbled, sending him sprawling again and again. He couldn’t stay upright.

“Fuck! Fuck!”

He spat curses and kept trying.

He looked like a newborn learning to walk.

Finally, he rose on two feet.

But right then, his head spun.

‘Damn anemia!’

Byeonggap’s body listed.

He grabbed at whatever was near, desperate not to fall.

And then… didn’t they say luckless bastards even break their nose falling backward?

What Byeonggap seized was the red-hot brazier.

“Ahh— Hrk!?”

A choked scream.

He clamped his mouth shut, but the bus had already left.

“Keurk?”

A goblin’s gaze, mid-round in the circle dance, locked onto him.

Meeting hundreds of red eyes sent a chill straight to his hamstrings.

‘Run…’

He started to turn, then stopped.

Son of a bitch. Running was out of the question now.

Blood loss and hours of captivity had wrecked his body.

He’d be caught before he cleared a hundred meters.

Not that he was giving up on life. There was still one play left.

‘Kill the goblin shaman.’

Take out the rift’s boss.

It was all or nothing now.

There was no more cliff to be pushed off.

Cursing a blue streak, Byeonggap grabbed a burning log.

He smashed it against the ground, splintering the end into a decent stake.

The goblin shaman was a high-rank monster, but not known for its toughness.

A well-aimed thrust to a vital spot with this stake could kill it in one blow.

With the boss dead, the escape portal would open. That gave him at least a one-in-a-thousand chance.

“Keurrruk!”

“Kieeek! Kieeek!”

A gang of goblins charged with a deafening roar.

“Aaaargh!!!”

Go Byeonggap ran straight at them.

His eyes locked onto the goblin shaman.

‘I don’t know why, but it can’t move right now!’

The goblin shaman had been standing still since earlier, conducting some sort of ritual.

Which meant that even with his broken body, he could seize the chance.

“Krrrgh!”

“Get out of my way!”

He didn’t have a moment to waste on these trash mobs.

He dodged or shoved aside every goblin in his path, driving straight for the shaman.

Was it the closeness of death? His body moved with a desperate precision, scraping the edge of its limit.

Just as he’d expected, the goblin shaman didn’t move.

The moment Byeonggap closed into the danger zone, the giant goblin that had been silent until now stepped forward.

“Oooooooh!”

It blocked the shaman’s path and swung a fist. But the giant goblin was far from peak condition itself.

Byeonggap rolled with a gambler’s desperation. The giant’s fist grazed his cheek by a hair’s breadth.

He scrambled up and sprang into the air.

The arm gripping the wooden stake went taut with all his strength.

The shaman’s startled face was perfectly clear.

“Die!”

Byeonggap swung his arm.

At the same instant, a sphere of light burst from the goblin shaman’s heart and shot forward.

-Crack!

The wooden stake pierced the goblin shaman’s heart clean through.

The light sphere wandered, lost, before being absorbed into Byeonggap.

“Kuek!”

The goblin shaman coughed up blood and collapsed, convulsing. Every goblin around them froze.

Got it!

I did it!

Byeonggap’s arms trembled as a grin of pure joy spread across his face.

I can survive. That single thought circled through his mind.

But—

“What, what the hell?”

When the boss died, the hidden world was supposed to collapse and open an escape portal. Yet all that awaited him was an unnerving silence.

“Why isn’t it opening? Open! Open, dammit! Get back! Stay away from me!”

Byeonggap roared with a voice thick with fury.

Could the goblin shaman not be this rift’s boss? No. That couldn’t be. There was no monster here stronger than the goblin shaman.

«How can this be… No… This can’t be happening…»

Then Byeonggap heard a voice, chilling cold at his ear.

It was a language he’d never heard in his life. Yet somehow, the meaning came through vividly.

Byeonggap spun his head reflexively.

The speaker was the goblin shaman.

It stared at him with a face full of despair, denying reality itself.

‘Why is this bastard still alive? Right—I didn’t finish the job!’

Go Byeonggap lunged forward to finish the goblin shaman off for good. But he’d barely taken three steps before he had to stop.

The goblin shaman was on its knees.

And following its lead, every goblin in sight dropped to its knees.

“……?”

Had they all taken something together?

Byeonggap swept a bewildered look over the goblins.

Blood streamed from the goblin shaman’s eyes and mouth as it spoke in a mournful voice.

«Ah, my Goblin Lord…….»

«My Lord!»

«My Lord!»

The goblin shaman chanted first, and the other goblins echoed it.

The booming chorus made his ears ring.

“……What?”

Byeonggap stood frozen, turning to look at the dozens of goblins kneeling before him.

And then a hologram flickered to life in front of his eyes.

[You have become the Goblin Lord.]

[Rebuild the Goblin Kingdom according to the destiny of the Goblin Lord.]

[The fallen Goblin Kingdom ‘Asvillam’ has been opened.]