Chapter Two: Rebirth
After grandfather was buried, both me and Hye Ri went inside, mourning him.
Then, I stood up to leave for the Hunters' rank assessment test.
"Bro, where are you going?" she inquired.
"I'm going to the Hunters Association, it was grandfather's advice to see if I had awakened. Plus, it would really help our financial situation if I got my hands on some Mana crystals, don't you think?"
"Yes but, we just lost grandpa, don't you think it's too soon? Maybe you should go tommorow,"
"No Hye Ri, it must be today. I am the only one that can feed us now, and also, you'll need money for your studies,"
"Wait, does this mean you'll leave school?" she asked holding my sleeve.
"What about your dreams? You wanted to become an artist, didn't you?"
I turned to see her weary and sad eyes looking straight at me.
"Dreams change Hye Ri, now, my dream is to be the strongest Hunter so I can protect you and provide for us,"
"But, Ji woo, I can take a part time jo—," she protested but I interrupted.
"No, just focus on your studies," I said walking up to her, my hands cupping her cheek.
"We don't want you to be too stressed. You need to focus on you studies,"
I grabbed my hoodie and headed for the Hunters Association Building. It wasn't that far, just ten blocks ahead. The sky was clear, street busy and the air was fresh, like I could almost take it all in at once.
In just twenty minutes, I reached the location. I figure out that it was a school and not just a rank assessment building. I hesitated for a moment, my hands were sweaty, feet moist and stiff but I mustered up the courage to go in.
I entered the gate, I was surprised by what I saw, the compound was filled with flowers, beautiful ones to be precise. Roses, Sun flowers and Voilets. They were beautiful, even the walkway looked nice.
I entered the building hoping to be assessed as a strong Hunter, almost surprising, the inside was more beautiful than the outside, white tiled floor and light blue walls.
I saw some students in uniforms, blue skirts/trousers with white short sleeved shirts and blue jackets, some of them looked at me while the other murmured waiting to see if I was a high ranked Hunter. This school had fashion sense I give them that.
Then, a woman that looked like she was in her mid twenties came up to me.
"Good morning mister, whats your name and how may I help you?"
"Well, I'm....Han Ji Woo and I came for the rank assessment test," I finally got the courage to utter.
"Okay, please follow me," she said walking towards a giant black glass orb like ball that hung on the wall.
"okay, now stand there on the platform and place your right hand on the orb," she said monitoring the system in front of her.
Eyes were locked on me, people wanted to see what my rank was.
—
System Analysis Complete
Rank: E
Mana: 1
Hunter Type: Brawler
—
"What? F rank? Not even E or D?" I asked myself.
My whole world came crashing down.
"How was I supposed to protect my sister when I couldn't even protect myself with this low rank of mine? Let's not even talk of money, if I was dead. F rank is like a normal human and a normal human doesn't stand a chance against any dungeon," so did I think to myself as I looked at my hands.
Laughter bursted from the mouths of the students watching. They were obviously high ranked.
I could not even look up, my head was low, eyes fixed on my shoe. Them, the woman came up to me again handing me an ID card containing details of my rank and class plus age.
"Your class is just by the right down the hall, Mr. Kim Jun Su will guide you to it," she said gesturing towards a man in casual wears walking up to me.
"Follow me," he uttered with a stern expression on his face.
I followed him all the way down the hall to the class, all the seemed to fear him because, as soon as they saw him, they stopped murmuring and entered their classes.
The top of the class door had an indication of rank just like the others.
He entered and the noise suddenly stopped.
"I just hope they'll like me, I hope it isn't like the school I came from. I hope there are no bullies," I thought.
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
"Good morning everyone," he spoke voice thick and audible.
"We have a new student and he will be joining us today as an F rank Hunter, I want you to be nice to him and welcoming, I'll call him in now, be nice, Okay?"
"Yes Master Kim," the class responded.
"Come on in boy," I was told to do.
I opened the door and walked in, I stood beside the teacher eyes locked on me like piercing needles.
"Tell the class your name, age and why you're here," Master Kim, like they called him, told me.
"Good morning everyone,my new is Han Ji Woo and I'm 17 years old, I wish to be a good Hunter to save the world from danger,"
The whole class were silent, I began to worry thinking they didn't like me. But just as when I thought they hated me, a girl spoke and so did the others.
"Oh my goodness, he's handsome," a girl uttered.
"Yh, he's really cute, I love him already," another girl said.
The guys looked at me holding a smirk on their face like they knew me before.
"Go to your sit Ji Woo, right by the window at the back of the class," Master Kim said to me.
I walked to my seat and sat. The view from the window was great, we were upstairs, the second floor. All eyes were still on me, at least—until Master Kim spoke.
"Today, we will put aside basic trainings and take on a low rank dungeon to test your skills," he spoke
"What? A dungeon? On my first day?" I asked myself
"It will just be a clean up job, retrieve crystals, and kill all threat within. And as usual, by the end of the month, you'll receive your share of your crystal in cash. For the sake of those who are new, since everyone can't go in, ten people will go in including you Ji Woo," his eyes met mine as he said called my name.
"You'll be given a weapon according to your capabilities. And also, one more person will join you to be accompanied by a camera man and two new high rank healers. He'll be taking tabs of things done there, in case things are too difficult for you to handle, am I clear?"
"Yes, Master Kim!" everyone replied except me.
The candidates were called out and so was I. We we're led outside the building to a Subway station, deep under the ground.
Just when I thought we were here to waste our time, I saw a glowing blue portal shimmering on the subway, it was massive but Master Kim wasn't scared. He would at least be an S rank or even higher.
Each of us were handed weapons, some had swords, others spears and katanas, while some that I assumed used magic held nothing.
For some reason, i was given a dagger. It wasn't useless but, why?
I looked to my right and was surprised to see Kim Yoon Ah, the sister of the leader of the bullies in my former school. It looked like she had awakened as a high class Hunter.
She saw me and was also surprised, at least her expression said so. We made eye contact for a while before Master Kim gave the orders.
"It's time children, go in," said Master Kim.
We went in to what seemed like a low rank dungeon, it was like the inside of a cave, creepy and Rocky.
All of a sudden, goblins jumped out of nowhere with short sharp blade.
I would know they were sharp because one cut me on the arm as it jumped out.
We started fighting, killing the goblins one by one. I rather found it difficult, the goblins s wouldn't just stay in one place. Bouncing here and there.
I tried to land a hit bit, the goblin jumped out of the way and stabbed me in the stomach.
"Arrrgh," I screamed dropping to the floor.
This caught Yoon Ah's attention and she rushed to me to help like she did when her brother beat me up.
"Ji woo, are you okay? Let me heal that up," she said, concentrating her energy in her powers to heal me.
In seconds, I was totally fine. This didn't shock me, as her friend, I knew her to be a fast learner, or maybe she had been a Hunter all this while keeping it away from everyone.
I stood to my feet thanking her.
"Thanks alot,"
"Don't go running into trouble, I'll just have to be saving all the time," she grumbled annoyed.
"Oh, I'm, sorry, I'll be careful,"
"Come on guys, let's go in further," said Park Jin Ho, the leader of this raid.
We went in further and saw an entrance leading to another dungeon.
"What? Another dungeon?" I exclaimed.
The others were getting scared.
"T-t-this is a d-d-double d-d-dungeon? That's at least for an S rank,"
OUTSIDE THE PORTAL
*VROOM*
*SWOOSH*
"Oh no, the portal has changed, a red gate, that's an S rank dungeon," Master Kim said looking at the tablet and the portal at the same time.
INSIDE THE PORTAL
The monsters of this dungeon was less dangerous than the previous one, I even managed to kill two monsters just with a little scratch that Yoon Ah healed in seconds.
We were about to leave before sighting another gate.
"A third gate?" Jin ho, our leader asked
"How's that even possible? Unless—its a triple dungeon, an SSS ranked gate,"
Master Kim outside the dungeon coughed in shock at what he heard.
Even the camera man was afraid to continue shooting but he did, that was his job.
"C-c-c-come on g-g-guys, let's end this once a-a-and for a-all," Jin ho continued nervously.
We all entered the third dungeon.
Suddenly, the gate through which we entered, closed all by itself.
We all freaked out but kept walking forward.
The room had statues bowing down to a much bigger statue sitting on a stone throne.
He had a very wierd and wild smile on his face but didn't move.
One of our members stepped on a stone tile mistakenly. In two seconds, his head was cut off by a statue that we didn't even notice was there.
Everyone including Yoon Ah freaked out to the core.
Some ran away from the statue, two ran to the closed gate trying to open it but, they also were sliced into unequal halves.
"What k-kind of dungeon is this?" a girl asked
"It's a t-t-t-triple d-d-d-dungeon," Jin Ho answered.
"Any plans anyone?" Jin ho asked obviously afraid.
I couldn't even move, I stood near the statue which stoped moving all of a sudden.
I finally mustered up the courage to move to where the others where.
But just as I reached their place, I saw a stone tile that had the word 'praise' incrypted on it, another had 'reverence' and one had 'sacrifice' on it.
Then, an idea came to me.
"Hey, guys, I have a plan," I said to them.
"Well, what is it?" Jin ho asked with the others looking at me.
"Some of these tiles have somethings written on them, Praise, Reverence and Sacrifice,"
"Where are you going with this Ji woo?" Jin ho asked.
"I know it's weird but, what if we worship God,"
"Worship God, I guess that statue on the throne must be the God here," another person said.
"But how are we going to worship God?" Yoon Ah asked.
"I don't know," I said looking around.
I looked here and there before I saw a statue sitting on the ground holding a tablet that said;
Praise God,
Reverence God,
Make a worthy sacrifice
"Over there," I yelled pointing at the tablet.
"That's the order of doing it, first we praise God, the we Reverence him and Make a worthy sacrifice, what's that? A worthy sacrifice,"
"Forget about that, let's praise him first, then we can think of what to do," Jin ho added.
"But how are we going to praise a statue," a boy asked.
"I think we just step on these stone tiles that say 'Praise', maybe that'll work," I replied.
All of us ran looking for the tile that had 'Praise' Incrypted on it.
Just as when I thought we would have our way here freely, a boy stepped on the wronge tile mistakenly. That one didn't have anything on it.
Then,
The ground shook, the statue on the throne stood up and started walking towards us. We all ran including the camera man dropping the camera to save his life.
Four of us made it to the tile that had 'Praise' on it.
Nothing happened, the statue just stood in front of us silently before walking up to another direction.
"It's the last one," Yoon Ah screamed.
"Oh no, it's trying to stop is from reaching the last one," I yelled
I was the closest to it so I had to run as fast as I could.
The statue was faster than me but I managed to jump and reach there on time before it could step on me.
It's foot hovered above me until, some of the statues that bowed, rose up still kneeling, opened their mouths, and music came through them.
The statue's foot stopped and it stood there, as if waiting for something.
Everyone where releaved—at least for now.
"What's the next one Ji woo?" Jin ho yelled
"Reverence God!" I replied yelling.
One of us then knelt on the floor and started praying, this shocked all of us.
The statue's grin got even more bigger than normal, it moved towards the bottom and stepped on him crushing him till there was no distance between it's feet and the ground.
Blood was everywhere, heads on the ground, blood here and there, some ran but were burnt by it's lazers.
Just then did I see four glowing lights behind the statue, very close to it.
"Guys, I have an idea but it might be stupid, what if we run towards the statue, the tile that says 'Reverence' is just behind it, we need four people," I yelled
"Are you nuts? Run towards the statue, that's not an option," another person said.
"But it's the only option we have, we might as well try it," I replied back yelling on the ground from fatigue
Without hesitation, Yoon Ah ran towards the first tile and stood on it. The statue stopped and turned, it made it's way to me for some reason, but, both Jin Ho, a girl and one last student ran to the tile.
I thought they would make it but, all of a sudden, the statue started running faster, it jumped in the air, I ran as fast as I could but I didn't make it.
It landed right on both of my feet. They were crushed instantly.
"Arrgh," i yelled in great pain, greater than the beating of the bullies.
The statue was about to finish me but, the others made it to the tiles that had 'Reverence' on it.
Another earthquake happened, other statues came out of the walls and opened their mouth from which words of adoration came from.
Blessed art thou God
We praise you God
You are a mighty God.
Tomy luck, I wasn't crushed, the statue looked at me with those glowing eyes and went to it's throne on which it sat on.
"Oh, ji woo, you are badly injured, I'll fix you immediately," yelled Yoon Ah as she ran up to me.
*SPLUCK*
Blood came out of her nose and mouth and she fainted.
"Yoon Ah, Yoon Ah," I called out.
The others came to us,
"She must have used too much of her energy fixing you," Jin ho uttered.
"And we aren't even done, what's the last one?" he added asking
"Make a worthy sacrifice," I answered.
Jin ho and the last survivor with us both looked at meand I understood what they wanted.
They wanted me to sacrifice myself for them since I no longer get had legs.
Then, the statues all stood up, walking towards us.
Immediately, Jin ho carried me and the other guy min kyu carried Yoon Ah to athe centre of the dungeon.
An alternative of sacrifice rose up from the ground and I layed on it.
My blood flowed through the alter making the dungeon gate to open.
Min Kyu didn't even waste time, he bolted out of there.
Jin ho looked at me and thanked me
"Thank you ji woo, because of you, the tree of is made it out alive, I'll always remember you,"
"I'll remember you too," I replied as he carried Yoon Ah out of there.
I layed there as the statues came and surrounded me.
Then I remembered.
"Wait, I also have a family to save, my sister needs me, this world needs me, I deserve to live, I deserve to live, even of this world is cruel, I deserve to leave, for the sake of my sister, my missing parents and everyone else,"
The statues one by one cut me into pieces as I felt every bit of it with bloody tears in my eyes.
But, just as everything began to go dark, something popped up.
—
SYSTEM ALERT
Congratulations, you have been chosen and given a chance to love again.
—
"What?" I asked myself
—
SYSTEM ALERT
Do you accept?
Yes/No
—
"Yes,....I...accept," I muttered
—
SYSTEM ALERT
Congratulations
Rebooting now
—
Suddenly, I jerked up and found myself in the hospital, I was totally fine.
"What just happened?"
TO BE CONTINUED......