Chapter 1

“Something went wrong.”

Kang Yuseong thought this as he tightly clutched his right chest, where blood was gushing.

He was the Monarch.

Hundreds of thousands of Hunters served under him, which meant immense national power. The title of President still existed, but its meaning had long faded. Those with power ruled.

Because the current world was a place where the law of the jungle was brutally applied.

“Hmph!”

Kang Yuseong bit his lip, feeling his body tremble.

His four Royal Guarders were not here.

They hadn’t died at the hands of an enemy.

They lay on the ground, dead by his own hand, over there.

Betrayal.

Kang Yuseong gritted his teeth, glaring at their lifeless bodies.

“Damn… it!”

They were the four people he trusted most.

And they had betrayed him.

Two of them had restrained Kang Yuseong, while the other two repeatedly stabbed his abdomen and chest with sharp swords.

But Kang Yuseong was a Monarch.

The title of Monarch wasn’t just given.

It was a title bestowed only upon those who stood supreme above all Hunters.

Great power resided within that title.

It was a title given to only six individuals in the world, and those who earned it possessed the strongest martial prowess.

Initially stunned by their betrayal, Kang Yuseong’s anger erupted, and a storm of blades burst from his body, brutally slaughtering the four Royal Guarders.

They probably knew.

That betraying Kang Yuseong meant death.

But…

They did it anyway, and as a result, Kang Yuseong was dying.

“Cough!”

Kang Yuseong’s body trembled as he coughed up dark red blood.

Even the strongest Chakra for recovery was ineffective.

Healing Potions also had no effect.

It seemed they had planned this, as they had stabbed him with swords coated in the poison of the Sand Dragon Kiantes.

There was no other way to kill a being who had reached the Monarch rank.

A venom among venoms, one that blocked Chakra and reduced the body’s regenerative abilities to zero.

He was going to die.

Swoosh-

Rain poured down heavily, as if bidding him farewell on his final journey.

“Damn… it… what a day…”

Even the weather wasn’t on his side.

Rainy days were the ones he disliked the most.

He let out a faint chuckle.

What good was a little rain when he was dying?

He once thought he would die on the battlefield.

He certainly never imagined dying like this.

“Hoo… uh…!”

It was even hard to breathe.

The pouring raindrops constantly made his breathing ragged.

He just wanted to take one deep breath.

Splosh- Splosh-

But then, someone approached him.

The area around that person was filled with crimson blood.

It was clear evidence of slaughter, no, a massacre.

Kang Yuseong struggled to lift his eyes.

That bastard…

Grind-

Upon seeing that man’s face, Kang Yuseong’s teeth involuntarily ground together.

“What a pathetic sight, Kang Yuseong.”

Han Taesung.

The Master of the Thunderstorm Guild in the North.

Kang Yuseong had long known of his ambition.

How terrifying he was, how quickly he had grown.

But overlooking him, even knowing him, was Kang Yuseong’s fatal mistake.

Han Taesung had meticulously planned this perfect insubordination, and he had ultimately succeeded.

“Didn’t I tell you? Your position… one day, I’d take it.”

He had. He’d said that when he was still a rookie. Kang Yuseong had, in fact, forgotten it long ago.

Instead of answering, Kang Yuseong suddenly burst into laughter.

Each laugh sent excruciating pain through his wounds, but Kang Yuseong didn’t care.

“Laughing? You crazy bas—”

“Han Taesung.”

As Han Taesung frowned, Kang Yuseong suddenly called out to him.

“I… have a word… for you too. That position…”

Han Taesung flinched for a moment.

Kang Yuseong.

A fierce and sharp glare emanated from his dying eyes.

“One day, someone… will take that position from you. Just… just wait and see. Heh heh!”

Han Taesung clenched his fist, trembling.

“You crazy bastard!”

He drew his sword and plunged it downwards.

*Thwack!*

Blood gushed.

Kang Yuseong offered him a faint smile.

He was dying.

And with the raindrops he hated most.

‘Damn… it.’

Kang Yuseong.

His time stopped.

* * * * *

Drip- Drip-drop-

It was cold.

Kang Yuseong felt a surge of irritation.

This damned rain.

But at that moment, he suddenly came to his senses.

‘Rain…?’

He struggled to open his eyes.

“Cough!”

A violent cough erupted. An extreme chill permeated his entire body.

*Swoosh!*

It was truly pouring rain. So much so that he couldn’t properly open his eyes.

Kang Yuseong wore a blank expression.

He then looked around.

It was an unfamiliar street.

The people passing by, the alien atmosphere he felt.

If he had to describe it, it was like a fragment of the past, barely remaining in a corner of his mind from a very long time ago.

At that moment, Kang Yuseong’s eyes widened.

‘The past!’

He hastily stood up and looked around.

That’s right.

A long time ago, twenty years ago, to be precise, the streets of Seoul looked exactly like this.

Kang Yuseong’s eyes visibly trembled.

‘This is…’

He looked down at his hands and body.

There was clearly no pain in his body, which had been mercilessly stabbed by a sword, and the heavily muscled physique had become very slender. The calloused hands he remembered were now covered in soft, white skin.

“How could this happen…?”

Bewilderment filled his eyes.

He looked around several times, but it was true; he had returned to the past.

He sat there in a daze for a moment before snapping back to reality.

If he had indeed returned to the past, he couldn’t just sit there.

‘When is it now?’

He quickly scanned his surroundings.

It was easy to tell the current year.

The electronic billboards on large buildings, the telecom stores, convenience stores, cafes on the street… all displayed the numbers.

December 2017.

Just before the presidential election.

Three years after the anomalous phenomenon known as the Mega Shock had engulfed the Earth.

Kang Yuseong squeezed his eyes shut.

For reasons unknown, he had returned to the past.

‘And.’

And he had lost everything.

His Chakra, his physical abilities, his money, his honor.

Even all the Chakra Force that should have accumulated over three years of hunting.

He had literally reverted to the body of an ordinary person.

But one thing remained, all his memories of the past were vividly etched in his mind.

“Heh…!”

He suddenly laughed.

Memories.

What could be more precious to him now than that? Having memories, that was precisely what he needed so desperately. As long as he was alive, with those memories, he could surely change everything.

The Mega Shock, which began with the mass appearance of monsters, had changed everything on Earth.

And then, Hunters appeared.

Those who could use Chakra Force.

In other words, in this chaotic era, Hunters who could awaken and use Chakra Force had gained immense status.

And in the future, their status would rise to an incomparable degree.

Monarchs.

Even those formidable beings who would reshape the world’s order would emerge.

‘Monarchs, huh.’

Kang Yuseong smiled.

And he casually uttered a single word.

“Interesting.”

He began to walk.

2017.

A quiet change was taking place somewhere in Seoul.

* * * * *

Kang Yuseong had no family.

He had grown up utterly alone from an early age. His parents had abandoned him, wrapped in swaddling clothes, at the orphanage gate, and he had to endure a harsh life there.

Hierarchy in the orphanage was, naturally, determined by fighting prowess.

In an orphanage mostly populated by middle and high school students, he had to brutally prove his worth, and eventually, in his first year of high school, he defeated Kang Tae-ho, a third-year high schooler known as “Viper,” to become the leader of the orphanage.

He could become the leader due to his innate ferocity and quick wit.

And his keen eye for remembering even minor details was exceptional.

He had won the brutal hierarchy battles among the orphans, each radiating insane presence and individuality, and subjugated those tough individuals because his organizational management skills were that outstanding.

That experience later became the driving force that allowed him to command hundreds of thousands of Hunters when he rose to the position of Monarch.

Though the ending hadn’t been particularly graceful.

‘Monarch.’

Kang Yuseong sat in an underground shopping passage where homeless people gathered, lost in thought.

He now knew very well how things would unfold.

If you don’t become strong, you will be eliminated.

But Chakra Force wasn’t something you simply learned.

The Hunters making names for themselves now were those who had already endured countless trials and tribulations for three years, cultivating Chakra Force within their bodies.

In other words, Kang Yuseong was now three years behind them.

Meaning, their starting lines were completely different.

And among them were exceptional individuals.

Those who had poured enormous amounts of capital into their growth.

Those who bought Chakra Cultivation methods with money and acquired various elixirs to grow rapidly.

These were the chaebols.

Chaebols never made a losing move.

They dedicated all their efforts to immediately cutting off any signs of risk.

That’s why they had recognized the value of Hunters early on and nurtured them.

And they used those Hunters to make money.

There were quite a few byproducts that could be obtained from monsters.

And the various medicines and weapons that could be created by combining them were innumerable.

The problem, however, was that these were superior to medicines produced by modern medicine and possessed power far greater than modern weapons.

The money earned was then reinvested.

As a result, the Hunters who were raised now stood at an impossibly distant height that Kang Yuseong could not even hope to catch up to.

A bigger problem was Han Taesung and those behind him.

Even starting three years ago, he couldn’t catch up to them and was ultimately assassinated.

But now, with three years having vanished into thin air, catching up to them might be an even more distant prospect.

Moreover, upon checking, Kang Yuseong now had nothing left.

No home, no money—it was as if only the being known as Kang Yuseong remained, as if by a lie.

It could be called the worst possible start, but Kang Yuseong smiled faintly.

Returning to the past.

That meant Kang Yuseong possessed a very powerful weapon.

‘If I can’t catch up.’

He stood up.

‘Then I’ll just take it.’

The Plunderer.

A strange entity he had once received reports about.

Someone who stole another’s abilities and made them their own.

He had later died in battle against the demon race, but Kang Yuseong remembered that report clearly.

Where the Hunter with the Plunderer’s ability got it, and when.

That period was…

‘April 2018.’

Four months later, in a dungeon in Taebaek, Gangwon Province, he would obtain that ability.

Four months was not a short time, but it wasn’t a long time either.

Raids required considerable preparation.

But Kang Yuseong had already made up his mind.

This fight wasn’t just between Kang Yuseong and Han Taesung.

Kang Yuseong knew too clearly that Han Taesung hadn’t acted alone.

Behind him were other Monarchs.

Yamamoto, the Monarch of Iron Sword from Japan, and Red Flower from China.

The reason was clear.

Japan had demanded another pretext for invasion, and China had applied pressure, asserting its own justification.

Even if Kang Yuseong had returned to the past, that history would repeat itself.

‘This time, I, Kang Yuseong, won’t let that happen.’

For that, the Plunderer’s ability was essential.

And Kang Yuseong had already made plans for it.