Chapter 1: Da Capo

Ha Seong-ha’s life had always been a fragrant sewer.

“AAAAAAAH!!”

From a distance, it was a life that looked rather pleasant and even somewhat decent because of its fragrance, but the closer one got to it, the more they would wrinkle their nose and run away as far as possible.

That was the kind of life Ha Seong-ha had been living.

—Kieeeeeek!

“Its hide is too thick! Our attacks aren’t doing anything!”

“Run! Get out of here, now!”

“No, but why the hell is there a dragon in an A-rank dungeon that isn’t even S-rank?!”

“Leader! L-Look over there! What about that person?!”

“What?! Who?!”

“Ha Seong-ha!”

Amid her fading consciousness, only her own name sounded crystal clear.

She could no longer feel anything below her navel.

She had been stabbed in the waist by the dragon’s claw while running away from it, and apparently the impact had damaged her spine as well. Lying face-down with her cheek pressed against the rough dirt floor, Ha Seong-ha slowly blinked her eyes.

The liquid spreading hotly through the thin fabric of her clothes felt strangely unfamiliar.

The monster’s roar above her made her ears ring. The dragon slammed its enormous tail into the ground and charged toward the gathered people, each heavy step sending vibrations through her entire body.

“…Damn it! Leave her!”

“What?! B-But she’s your family, Leader!”

“Family, my ass! She’s nothing but dead weight! Get out of the gate immediately!”

“Yes, sir!”

Hearing the voices of Ha Seong-dan and his team members from not far away, Ha Seong-ha let out a faint, empty breath.

Even through her hazy mind, his voice pierced her ears so clearly that her heart ached.

…I see. So this is how I’m going to be abandoned.

I’m going to die here like this.

She had thought about death ever since becoming a Hunter, but she had never imagined that she would die like this.

…No.

Did I really not know?

The truth was, she had known.

She had lived without ever being treated as a human being by her family. There was no way she could expect even death to treat her like a person.

Forcing the muscles in her increasingly stiff face to move, Ha Seong-ha twisted her lips into a crooked smile.

An S-rank with nothing inside.

It was a phrase every Hunter knew.

Ninety-eight years had passed since dungeons first appeared throughout the world. A new era had dawned—the age of Hunters, people capable of hunting the bizarre monsters that emerged from dungeons.

After the materials harvested from dungeon monsters and various dungeon by-products flooded into the world, Hunter ranks established themselves as a new measure of social status.

The higher a Hunter’s rank, the higher-ranked dungeons they could enter. As a result, high-ranking Hunters seized wealth, fame, and power all at once.

But Ha Seong-ha was the person who taught the world that in a society where everyone thought having a high Hunter rank was all that mattered, a Hunter’s actual abilities were what truly counted.

She had been recognized for her potential to awaken a skill when she was young and had consequently become an S-rank Hunter, but even after reaching adulthood, her physical abilities remained no better than those of an ordinary person.

The reason was simple.

She had failed to awaken even a single skill.

Despite possessing overwhelming potential, Ha Seong-ha had been taken in by Zodiac. But in the end, she could not even manifest an ordinary passive skill.

She was a Hunter in name only.

She had talented S-rank and A-rank Hunters as family, yet she herself was an incompetent Hunter.

An S-rank Hunter whose physical abilities did not match her rank and who possessed not a single useful skill.

“Oppa Seong-dan! You can’t just leave Seong-ha unnie behind! Look! Look over there! She’s still alive!”

“Yeon Go-eul! Stop talking nonsense and hurry to the entrance!”

“Oppa!”

“You can’t save her anyway! Are you seriously suggesting we all die trying to save one person who’s already dying?!”

When Ha Seong-dan snapped angrily, Yeon Go-eul, who had raised her voice at him, crumpled her face but could no longer say anything.

Even as she heard them deciding to abandon her, Ha Seong-ha calmly felt her heart continuing to beat.

She barely managed to move her stiff body and lift her head.

Through the vision she had forced herself to raise, she saw Ha Seong-dan’s team members gradually disappearing into the distance.

Yeon Go-eul was also there, glancing back at Ha Seong-ha with an uncertain expression.

An A-rank Hunter with outstanding healing abilities, Yeon Go-eul had received offers from numerous guilds both domestically and overseas.

Unlike Ha Seong-ha, she had a bright personality and was not shy around people, making her beloved by everyone.

Even though she belonged to the Cheongwol Guild, there were always people looking for her, so she was constantly called here and there.

Just like this dungeon today.

She was the complete opposite of Ha Seong-ha, an S-rank Hunter whom nobody ever called upon.

That was why Ha Seong-ha had once been jealous of her.

“…Ha.”

It had been like that once.

But now, she was the only one who was worried about Ha Seong-ha.

Ha Seong-ha dug her fingernails into the dirt and scraped at the ground.

It was humiliating.

—Kieeeeeek!!

“Yeon Go-eul! Hurry!”

“…All right.”

Bang!

Ha Seong-dan barely managed to block the dragon’s enormous tail with the greatsword he was holding. The veins in his neck stood out as he shouted.

In the end, even Yeon Go-eul turned away and ran toward the gate, though she continued to look back at Ha Seong-ha with lingering reluctance.

Ha Seong-dan, who had watched Ha Seong-ha die from a distance, muttered something.

Her S-rank hearing, unnecessarily sensitive, picked up every word.

Ha Seong-ha lifted her head, which had begun to droop, and met Ha Seong-dan’s eyes.

“Damn, if she dies, hyung is going to cause a huge scene…”

“…”

“But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t lose my arm trying to save someone who can’t even function as a proper person.”

“…”

On the verge of death, she had not expected to be treated like an older sister.

But there was not even a final farewell in his eyes.

As if even that were too much of a luxury, the man gave Ha Seong-ha—whose blood had soaked the ground around her—one careless glance before turning away without hesitation.

Tap, tap, tap.

The last sound of footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

Only then did Ha Seong-ha release the strength holding up her head.

Thud.

Her head landed on the blood-soaked ground.

Even the dragon, which had been pounding the earth with its heavy footsteps, seemed to have no interest in the dying human and gradually moved farther away.

“…So this is it.”

This is how I’m going to die.

This shitty death is the end of me.

Ha Seong-ha continued thinking blankly.

People who died inside dungeons could not even leave behind a corpse unless someone who had been with them retrieved it.

Whether a dungeon was cleared by defeating the boss or not, after a certain amount of time, the dungeon would reset and return to its original state.

And when the boss could not be defeated as was happening now, the dungeon would go berserk, causing a monster wave to occur in the real world.

Another team would eventually enter the dungeon to prevent that from happening, but there was no reason for them to retrieve Ha Seong-ha’s corpse.

So even her body would disappear.

She was going to die without leaving anything behind.

“H-Haha… This is fucking pathetic…”

All she could do was laugh.

She did not even have enough strength left to lament her miserable situation.

Like someone with a hole in her lungs, Ha Seong-ha could only wheeze out weak breaths as she laughed as though she were about to cry.

…She did not want to die like this.

She wanted to live.

For the last time, she wanted to be the one who was chosen instead of Yeon Go-eul, the A-rank Healer.

Ha Seong-ha desperately wanted to possess a power worthy of her S-rank status in this damned Hunter society, where the law of strength ruled everything.

She wanted overwhelming power.

The kind of power that would make others worship her and allow her to crush beneath her feet those who had looked down on her.

But now…

None of that matters anymore.

Her eyelids slowly slid shut.

They were too heavy.

She had lost too much blood to keep her eyes open any longer.

Inside Ha Seong-ha’s head, a high-pitched ringing with a different tone from the others began to shriek like an alarm.

“…”

Ha Seong-ha instinctively sensed that death had finally arrived right before her.

Just as she was about to bite into the fruit offered by death and swallow it—

[Huh?]

[She’s not supposed to die here.]

[You can’t die here!]

[Get up! Open your eyes! Open your eyes, I said!!]

The world turned upside down.

“Ha Seong-ha is dead? Why the hell did you take her to a place like that?!”

“Ah, of course I thought she’d be fine! There happened to be an empty spot that day, so I took her along to fill the numbers. And it’s not like anyone else was leading the team—it was me! There was no way my team couldn’t clear an A-rank dungeon. But who could have known a dragon would appear there?!”

“Haah… This is driving me insane.”

Ha Seong-dan secretly breathed a sigh of relief as his older brother coldly stared at him and rubbed his forehead.

His older brother, Ha Seong-un, had not even gotten angry when Ha Seong-dan reported the failed dungeon raid a week ago.

Ha Seong-dan had been trying to hide Ha Seong-ha’s death, but eventually decided that he should at least reveal the truth to Ha Seong-un, who had been kept in the dark.

And so, he had only informed him of her death after an entire week had passed.

He had not expected his brother to get this angry.

If I’d known, I should have told him sooner.

Ha Seong-dan clicked his tongue inwardly.

Anyone else was one thing, but even Ha Seong-dan found his older brother frightening when he was genuinely furious.

And it was not merely because Ha Seong-dan was the Guild Master of Zodiac, the second-ranked Hunter guild in Korea.

“…”

“What about Ji Cheong-ho? Does he know?”

“Not yet. But he’ll probably find out soon. Since our team failed to clear the dungeon, the next team scheduled for the raid is going in at five this afternoon. That’s the team led by Ji Cheong-ho.”

“…Tsk.”

Because Ha Seong-un was one of the five S-rank Hunters currently existing in Korea.

No.

There are only four now.

Ha Seong-dan corrected himself inwardly and discreetly watched Ha Seong-un’s expression.

Even for an A-rank Hunter like Ha Seong-dan, standing directly in front of the killing intent radiating from an S-rank Hunter was too much to bear.

“Only the team members who entered the dungeon with Ha Seong-ha know that she died. If we make it look like she died in an accident before the reporters notice…”

“Make it look like?”

“…”

“Ha Seong-ha’s death itself isn’t the important issue right now. What matters is that Ha Seong-ha, an S-rank Hunter engaged to Ji Cheong-ho, died.”

“…”

“We lost our chance to merge with the Cheongwol Guild, where Ji Cheong-ho is the Guild Master, because Ha Seong-ha died.”

“…”

“She should have at least waited until after she married Ji Cheong-ho before dying. We went through all the trouble of adopting her, and she was nothing but a burden because she couldn’t even awaken a skill. Just when we finally found a use for her…”

Ha Seong-un clicked his tongue and tugged down the tie around his neck as if he found it suffocating.

But she wouldn’t have been able to marry him anyway.

Everyone in the guild knows that Ji Cheong-ho absolutely hates Ha Seong-ha.

Ha Seong-dan swallowed those thoughts and remained obediently silent.

There was no reason to wag his tongue and provoke his brother’s anger any further.

“In any case, I’ll handle this matter for now, so you…”

“Guild Master!”

Ha Seong-un frowned again when his secretary burst into the Guild Master’s office without even knocking.

A deep sigh rose from the pit of his stomach, thick with irritation and anger.

“What is it? I believe I clearly told you not to come in.”

“There’s breaking news! You need to see the article immediately!”

“An article? What article?”

Despite being frightened by Ha Seong-un’s sigh, the secretary stubbornly handed over the tablet he had been carrying.

Ha Seong-dan was also curious about what news had been important enough for the secretary to risk provoking his brother, so he leaned over to take a look.

Then the expressions of both brothers hardened as they saw the headline at the top of the tablet.

**[S-Rank Hunter Ha Seong-ha Awakens as a High-Level Weapon Craftsman After Clearing a Dungeon!]

Their supposedly dead and useless sister had returned.

And this time, she had returned as an exceptional weapon craftsman.