How long ago was it? The first means by which Sa-yoon set foot in America was not a plane, nor a helicopter. While he was struggling in the field to become an A-rank Hunter, the System dropped him in America. Suddenly, in a strange world, with no guardian. At the time, Sa-yoon was merely a D-rank Hunter who had died more than twenty times, unable to properly handle even a single low-level monster.

When he flew into a rage at this unannounced absurdity, the System’s response was a masterpiece of nonsense.

It was bewildering. To Sa-yoon, the gates he was suddenly thrown into were hardship enough, but perhaps that wasn’t sufficient in the System’s eyes.

With a heart stained dark and black, he looked around the city. The atmosphere in this part of America, like in every country at that time, was grim. It had been less than a year since the gates first appeared, so everyone was on edge and sensitive, trembling in fear of the unidentified phenomena. In an atmosphere where the fear of death was rampant and everyone was busy just trying to save their own skin, there were few who would help a young boy from the East.

Still, it seemed he wasn’t meant to just die. There was a small number of kind citizens willing to help. Some asked if he had lost his parents, and one person offered him bread. By a stroke of incredible luck, a couple even invited him to stay at their home for a few days. But his good fortune ended there.

Unfortunately, it was an era where selfishness was stronger than altruism, and villains were more powerful than good people.

Sa-yoon was captured by intruders who raided the home of the white couple who had tried to help him. They were not an easy opponent, but neither was Sa-yoon. He bit the attacker’s arm hard enough to leave a dark red imprint of his teeth and swung the dagger he was holding wildly, injuring him before bolting into an alley. The intruders gave chase, but Sa-yoon’s highest initial stat was agility. Even as a D-rank, his agility was at a B-minus level, so shaking off the pursuit of non-Awakeners was a relatively easy task compared to the trials he had faced so far.

The problem arose after he escaped. Having fled from the home of the very people who tried to help him, Sa-yoon was now alone. It was a world where one could not survive alone, yet he was bleakly on his own.

He couldn’t shamelessly return to the white couple’s house. The intruders’ goal seemed to be kidnapping the young boy, so if he visited their home again, it was clear that innocent people would be harmed.

Too many people had already died by his hand. Innocent people. People with many faults. Sa-yoon didn’t want anyone else to die by his hand, nor did he want to be involved in anyone’s death. It was a conviction that left him with no choice but to be alone.

In the cold winter, around the time he was turning from sixteen to seventeen.

Sa-yoon wandered the alleys of a foreign country, wearing a black robe over the clothes the white couple had lent him. The clothes, a white shirt and brown pants, dirtied easily. Watching them get filthier day by day made him feel pointlessly dispirited. He hated his clothes being dirty, so when he chanced upon a bottle of water, he would scrub the sleeves clean.

But that too was only when he had the luxury. More than a fortnight after being dropped in America, Sa-yoon, unable to eat or drink properly, was floundering in misery. He would lean against a wall with dead eyes, and if he found a discarded piece of bread, he would hungrily snatch it up to fill his stomach. When it rained, he would stick out his tongue to catch the falling drops. His once clean and neat clothes became rags in just two weeks. He held no lingering attachment. He had realized that his clothes getting dirty was an unavoidable reality.

His days fell into a routine. During the day, he would go out of the alleys to ask kind-looking people for help, and at night, he would retreat deep into the alleys to sleep, avoiding delinquents. He wondered every day when the hardship and adversity the System spoke of would end, but the System remained silent.

He was depressed.

Many people passed by on the streets, but the fact that there was no one he could communicate with, no one who would show him kindness, felt so bleak that he felt a strange loneliness in the midst of the crowd. His heart ached so often that he even began to think that life in the gates was better.

When he had spent another two weeks like this, for a total of a month, Sa-yoon met the boy.

A boy, sobbing in an alley.

As he was pushed toward the slums, he could see abandoned children from time to time, but this boy’s atmosphere was different from the countless others. All he could see was a small back, curled up like a ball, yet it drew his attention. The faint weeping kept stopping Sa-yoon, who had been about to walk past.

‘Why are you crying?’

In the end, unable to resist the pull, he approached and asked in clumsy English. The boy lifted his head. The moment he first saw his face, Sa-yoon was at a loss for all words.

Lashes, wet and parted with tears, and green eyes that seemed to tremble and melt in the hot liquid. Even fine, light brown hair that looked as if it would shatter in the wind.

Everything was mystical. It was a look that Sa-yoon, who had lived in Korea, had rarely seen, and the boy had an aura that was hard to find even in America.

Why is a kid like this abandoned near the slums? He’s beautiful enough that anyone would take him in and raise him.

He thought to himself, unable to believe the being before him. That was the first meeting between Sa-yoon and Mille.

‘Your parents abandoned you?’

‘My uncle did, to be precise. He said my parents abandoned me, so he couldn’t raise me anymore.’

Mille, with his fair skin and charmingly placed freckles, was suffering a dramatic tragedy that didn’t match his pretty appearance. Unable to understand everything he said in English, Sa-yoon roughly interpreted it using the words he knew and let out a sigh. He had thought no one could have a life as tragic as his, but Mille’s life was just as ill-fated.

Mille said he was originally the son of a wealthy family, but his parents’ business failed, and they had to move to a cheaper area near the slums. In the process, his father died in a car accident, and only his mother survived. They lived together until she remarried two years ago. Thanks to his new stepfather, who had a slightly more than average amount of wealth, he thought he had escaped poverty and was finally going to live a happy life.

Hearing that much, Sa-yoon naturally knew what came next.

The appearance of the gates had shattered Mille’s family’s peace.

‘Everyone screamed and ran out into the streets. I got separated from my family then, and I only started looking for them after the chaos subsided. But I couldn’t find my parents, and my uncle, whom I finally found, kept me for a week and then abandoned me. He said since my parents abandoned me, he had no reason to keep me. I went to find my uncle every day, but today, he beat my butt and chased me away. He said he’d kill me if I came back again.’

Unbelievably, he had a sob story from that very day. Perhaps Mille’s appearance was more decent than that of the other slum children because he had been connected to ordinary people until recently.

Sa-yoon felt a sense of interest and kinship in this strange connection he’d made in an alley. His own situation, kicked out of a gate as if abandoned by the System and wandering the streets for a month without seeing a single notification window, seemed to resemble Mille’s, who was crying after being abandoned and chased away by his family.

‘What was your name again? Willie?’

‘…It’s Mille.’

The boy sniffled but said everything he had to say. Sa-yoon smirked and told him his name. He had trouble with the pronunciation of ‘Kwon,’ so just the two syllables, ‘Sa-yoon.’ From that day on, Sa-yoon and Mille stuck together as if they were a set.

The alleys of a world devastated by disaster were a difficult place to survive alone, but it was a little better as a pair. When moderately bad delinquents came, Sa-yoon would chase them away. When a D-rank or higher Hunter delinquent came, he would fight, lose, and get beaten up along with Mille. Being beaten up as a pair hurt less than being beaten up alone. It was also less shameful. There were times when he felt ashamed picking up discarded bread, but when they did it together, it wasn’t like that at all.

Was this what the adults meant when they said to share your pain?

The time with Mille was shabby and miserable, far from what could be called good even with empty words, but when he was alone, he had also been lonely, so it wasn’t the worst. A few weeks passed like that. Mille came back with some suspicious news.

‘A lot of kids from the alley have disappeared recently. I heard an adult from a charity organization helped them and took them away.’

‘A charity organization is running properly when the world is in this state?’

‘I heard it’s a new organization that was formed because the world is in ruins. Do you want to go too?’

I’ll follow you.

Mille added, using the Korean Sa-yoon had taught him with a clumsy accent. It meant he would follow his decision.

Thanks to that, the weight of responsibility grew heavier, and Sa-yoon sat down and thought for a long time.

A charity organization.

In a world filled with omens of ruin, could such an organization really exist?

He was suspicious. But he had few options. If asked whether he would continue to spend his days in this shabby state or take a dangerous chance, Sa-yoon’s choice was the latter. He had learned painfully over the past few months that nothing changes by staying still.

‘Let’s go nearby. And just take a look.’

‘Okay.’

‘If it looks dangerous, we’re leaving immediately.’

‘Okay.’

The two boys covered their anxiety with hope, held hands, and headed for the place where the suspicious charity organization was said to appear. Not long after they set out, it began to snow. Sa-yoon, seeing snow for the first time in a long time, stared as if mesmerized. Mille, his cheeks flushed perhaps from the cold, was delighted.

‘Maybe the snow is a good sign.’

His face was innocent as he said such optimistic things. Sa-yoon couldn’t bring himself to scold that pure, guileless smile that looked like it could paint the world white, so he vaguely agreed and picked up his pace. In this weather, it was possible to freeze to death, and he felt it would be unpleasant to freeze to death with Mille, only to revive alone and see his corpse.

The boys’ hands, red and swollen from the cold, were clasped together without a gap. They arrived at the rumored location. Greeting them was an Asian man with a kind face and a scorpion tattooed on it.