The Start of Her Return (1)

Many say that I have good luck.

They say that I had it easy ever since I was 16 – ever since it was verified that I had the unique skill of ‘Spatial Interference’ on the national accredited hunter’s aptitude test. In truth, countless construction companies, distribution companies, and transportation companies lined up before me. They clung to me as they waited for the day I became of age to scout me into their companies.

Well, I can’t deny that I’m lucky since I do have this Unique Skill. But could the people still continue with their groundless rumors when they consider how messed up my life became afterwards?

I was caught up in that damned gate as soon as I graduated from high school, where I tearfully survived the three years as I lost my benefactor and found out the truth about something that I did not necessarily want to know. True, that could be the fate of a modern person who lived in a world where the gate had opened and the awakeners were rampant.

But this was just too much.

I definitely appeared at the final match and swept them up, and created massive mayhem at the frontlines. Then the pointy-eared guy came up to me as per usual and blocked my path ahead, and we engaged in an intense fight. His spear pierced through my lungs… and as I looked curiously at his weirdly distorted face, I closed my eyes. That should have been my peaceful rest.

As in the eternal rest, death!

But now before my eyes ….

“What are you doing, student?! Run!” The shout of a middle-aged lady rang into my ears.

Nothing more than a normal level monster, ‘wind raker’ created havoc in the mart. People ran past me as they tried to escape while screaming at the top of their lungs.

It was a familiar scene. My hands trembled at how surreal it was. As the unknown lady screamed beside me, she grabbed my hands and pulled me along when she noticed that I was still in a complete daze.

A familiar-looking window appeared while I ran amid the confusion.

[Notification: You have entered the gate.]

[Verifying user.]

[Verified individual, ‘Han Seo-Ha (Awakener).’]

[You have connected to the system.]

Damn it. It seems I had returned to when I was 19, back to when I had spent the nightmarish three years.

***

The entrance to the mart was blocked – it was a given the moment monsters started pouring in. The people who couldn’t escape barely managed to hide in the storage room. I, too, hid amongst them.

“How could this happen so suddenly…”

“My phone’s not working.”

“A window appeared saying that we entered the gate… Is that real?”

They all groaned in anxiety. They wanted to escape this reality even though they had seen the gate notification. Although I, too, hoped to escape from this ridiculous situation, I remained silent and observed my surroundings quietly.

“We must have been caught in the gate. What other reasons can there be for the phone to not work?”

“But I didn’t hear the warning sound! Usually, there’s a national calamity message notifying citizens to evacuate the area before a gate opens…”

“Maybe there weren’t any warnings. Didn’t you see the news report that there’s been an increase in non-wavelength gates in the past ten years?”

“But I didn’t expect it to actually happen like this….”

The majority of people would have thought that such news was just common political propaganda by the politicians.

I vaguely remember it. The tragedy was called  <Yeonhwa Island Incident> – it caused countless casualties as the gate was not cleared until three years later and I was one of the few survivors that made it out alice. Back then, too, I was in the same place as these people now – I discussed my chances of survival. Then… what had happened? So many things happened in the gate, and it was so long ago, the details were fuzzy. Probably… someone had come forward and set up a plausible plan….

A man came forward and began to talk. He was an essential person since there was no hunter amongst us.

“Please listen to me for a while. I’m not a hunter, but I am an awakened, and I received a recommendation to join the academy when I took the aptitude test.

“Firstly, since this place has become a gate, everyone would have become an awakener. Please verify your status windows.”

At his instructions, people started to check their status windows. I, too, followed them and called out my status.

[Status]

Name: Han Seo-Ha

Titles: Re▇▇▇ed Pl▇▇r, The One who▇▇▇▇ Le▇▇▇ary ▇▇▇▇, Star of ▇, Master of ▇▇….

Unique Skill: Spatial Interference

Stamina: 3500 (Locked)

Mana: 800 (Locked)

Strength: 15 (Locked)

Agility: 34 (Locked)

….