Chapter 1

Chapter 1

SNAP!

Deep in the night, while everyone slept, the faint sound of a thread snapping carried through the air.

At that instant, the boy opened his eyes.

The boy rose without a sound, like a cat, and looked toward the iron door.

It was a tiny room, cramped enough that two adults lying down would fill it completely.

In the small room, which did not even have a window, the only exit was a little iron door.

The boy held his breath and stared at the handle of the iron door.

CLICK! CLICK!

The sound of someone turning the handle rang out.

Whoever it was seemed to be trying to keep the noise down as much as possible, but to the boy, already awake, it sounded as loud as thunder.

CLUNK!

At last, the lock came undone and the door opened. Then someone stuck his head through the gap in the iron door.

In the man’s hand was a dagger the size of an adult’s forearm.

Perhaps his eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness, for the man felt his way forward and carefully stepped into the room.

The boy held his breath and watched the entire scene.

Unaware of that fact, the intruding man came a little farther into the room.

That was when it happened.

SNAP!

Something snapped beneath the man’s foot.

It was a trap the boy had set in advance.

THUNK!

“Guh!”

At that instant, a heavy impact and the intruding man’s scream rang out at the same time.

A small dagger was lodged in the man’s side.

The boy had designed it so that the dagger would fire when the cord snapped.

The man who had broken into the room without knowing that paid a harsh price.

“Grrrgh! What the hell?”

The man rolled across the floor of the room and screamed.

Then the boy, who had been crouching without even the sound of his breathing until now, moved.

TAP!

The boy kicked off the floor and climbed onto the man’s chest. Then he snatched away the man’s dagger and aimed it at his throat.

The man looked at the boy in utter disbelief.

“Urgh! You little bastard......”

“I was wondering who was sneaking in like an alley cat, and it turns out it was the mister next door.”

He was literally the man next door.

After all, the man lived in the room right beside the boy’s.

They had even passed by each other last night.

His impression had been so foul, and the look he had given the boy so sinister, that it had been impossible not to remember him.

The boy lightly patted the man’s cheek with his hand.

“Hey, mister! Even so, we’re neighbors, aren’t we? Robbery is going too far, isn’t it?”

“Where the hell does that matter in the Ant Nest, you little bastard? You’d better let me go. Do you know who my brother is?”

“How would I know that, mister?”

The boy looked dumbfounded. Then the man pinned beneath him shouted at the top of his lungs.

“He’s an Awakened. An Awakened who uses magic, at that.”

“You have to make your lies at least a little believable. This is seriously ridiculous. You’re saying an Awakened’s little brother lives in this shitty Ant Nest?”

“It’s true. I’m only staying here for a little while because of certain circumstances.”

“Then you should have kept quiet until you left. Instead, you snuck in here to steal some little bastard’s pocket change?”

“Ha! Fuck, you think I’d just leave a Mana Stone alone after seeing it right in front of me?”

“So you did see it.”

The boy clicked his tongue.

He had happened to obtain a small Mana Stone.

It was the first time he had ever possessed one, so out of curiosity, he had touched it a few times. It seemed the man next door had seen him doing so.

The boy reproached himself for his mistake.

The Ant Nest, or the Demon Den, was a slum.

This place, where the poor who had failed to enter Neo Seoul Colony gathered to live, had no such thing as rules or manners.

It was a place where the strong trampled the weak, and where they could take everything the weak possessed.

Weakness was a sin, and strength was an indulgence.

The boy, Zeon, knew the laws of such a slum better than anyone.

That was because he had been born and raised in the Demon Den.

The beginning of his memories was a beggars’ den in the slums. As soon as he learned to walk, he had been used for begging.

He had no good memories whatsoever of the beggars’ den.

He had been beaten for earning too little and beaten for eating too much.

So when he reached a certain age, he kicked his way out of the beggars’ den.

He had not simply left the beggars’ den.

He had slipped a knife into the leader of the beggars’ den while the man slept, then left.

Because of that, the leader of the beggars’ den was still looking for Zeon even now.

The name Zeon was also one he had given himself.

Even so, he had needed a name to prove his identity.

There was no particular meaning to the name.

He had chosen it simply because it sounded cool.

He was extremely satisfied with his own name.

There was nothing he had not done in order to survive.

From pickpocketing to theft, he had done everything except kill people.

Because he knew that carelessness in the slums was the same as death, he had even set traps in his dwelling. That meticulousness had saved Zeon.

For a moment, Zeon considered what to do with the man pinned beneath him.

If the man’s brother really was an Awakened, it would be dangerous.

At that moment, a sly light gleamed in the man’s eyes.

SHHK!

A stiletto slid out from the man’s sleeve.

It was a hidden blade he had kept concealed for emergencies.

“Die! You little bastard!”

The man roared and swung the stiletto.

Zeon hurriedly retreated.

The man chased after him. His eyes were filled with venom.

He swung the stiletto with the single-minded intent to kill Zeon and steal the Mana Stone no matter what.

“Grrgh!”

Zeon grappled with the man for a long while.

SQUELCH!

A moment later, the sound of a blade sinking into flesh burst out.

“Guh-hurk!”

Then the man screamed and collapsed onto the floor. A dagger was embedded in his chest.

The man stared at Zeon with an expression of disbelief, trembled all over, and soon stopped breathing.

“Damn it!”

Zeon slumped onto the floor.

Until now, there had been nothing he had not done, but this was the first time he had killed a person.

The chilling sensation of the dagger digging into the man’s chest was still vivid.

“Fuck! Why did you have to sneak in here......?”

Zeon looked at the dead man’s corpse.

He had known that he would kill someone someday. If he wanted to survive in the Ant Nest without being trampled underfoot, it was unavoidable.

But he truly had not known that day would be today.

Zeon pulled himself together.

If the dead man’s brother really was an Awakened, he was in danger.

In any case, perfectly hiding the corpse was impossible. The slum dwellers were sprawled all over the streets. Moving the corpse while avoiding their eyes was itself impossible.

It was better to leave the body here and hide himself as quickly as possible.

As soon as he made the decision, Zeon moved at once.

He locked the door to the room with the man’s corpse inside as tightly as he could and stepped outside.

A street appeared, reminiscent of the Kowloon Walled City that had existed in Hong Kong long ago.

Shabby buildings crammed with rooms barely large enough for one person to lie down in stood packed together like chicken cages.

Because the buildings had been put up however people pleased, without any rules at all, the streets were as complicated as a maze.

Zeon hid himself within that maze.

---

“Fuck! He really was an Awakened. How can my luck be this rotten?”

Zeon muttered inside an armored bus plastered all over with iron plates.

The older brother of the man Zeon had killed was a real Awakened.

And a Grade B Awakened, at that.

Even if a Grade F chased him, his life would be worth no more than a fly’s, but his opponent was a Grade B, no less.

Among the many Awakened in Neo Seoul, there were only around a hundred Grade B Awakened.

If Zeon was a lowborn wretch, then a Grade B Awakened was a noble.

If he were caught, it would not end with him simply dying.

Enraged by his younger brother’s death, the man had tracked Zeon.

The fact that his younger brother had tried to rob Zeon first did not matter to him.

No matter what wrong he had done, he had still been his younger brother.

The fact that his younger brother had been killed by a brat like Zeon had made him furious.

“I’m running away in this pathetic state today, but I’ll definitely get my revenge. Lee Ji-ryeong.”

The name of the Awakened pursuing him was Lee Ji-ryeong.

He was an Awakened user of lightning magic.

Even among magic types, lightning magic was known for its power.

He was a strong fighter who ranked high even among Grade B Awakened.

Lee Ji-ryeong knew the slums as well as Zeon did. Although he was now in Neo Seoul, he too had come from the slums.

He knew perfectly well where Zeon could hide and where he could run.

In the end, Zeon was driven into a corner, and so he boarded the bus.

It was a bus headed for the Mana Stone mine outside Neo Seoul Colony.

Once he left Neo Seoul Colony, even Lee Ji-ryeong would not be able to track him easily.

‘I never thought I’d end up boarding this bus with my own two feet.’

Zeon bit down hard on his lip.

Outside Neo Seoul Colony was a desert.

An endless stretch of red sand where not a single blade of grass grew.

All kinds of dangers lurked in the burning red desert.

Beneath the sand were subterranean monsters such as sandworms and ironclad sandgudgeons, and on the desert’s surface, all kinds of monsters, such as flame wolves and great-horned hyenas, ran rampant.

On top of that, packs of Scavengers lay in wait, targeting caravans that traded back and forth between the colonies.

There was not a single safe place anywhere.

That was why the poor remained outside Neo Seoul Colony even while living lives less than human.

For some reason, monsters were reluctant to come near Neo Seoul Colony.

At the very least, as long as one stayed near Neo Seoul Colony, there was no chance of being killed by monsters. That was why Zeon had clung so desperately to the slums as well. But now that Lee Ji-ryeong had marked him, there was no place left for him in the slums.

“Damn it! If only I’d awakened too......”

A hundred years ago, Earth had turned into a desert.

More than ninety percent of all humanity had died, and the survivors had barely managed to keep themselves alive by building colonies atop ruins that had turned to sand.

The ones who had made the greatest contributions back then were the Awakened.

As though they had been waiting for it, some of the survivors awakened unknown abilities.

Some had their bodies strengthened, while others became able to use magic.

They were called the Awakened.

The Awakened became the rulers of the new world.

Even low-grade Awakened received precious treatment in Neo Seoul.

Compared to them, someone like Zeon was no different from a lowborn wretch.

Even if Zeon died, not a single person would care.

In the end, Zeon’s choice was the bus headed to the Mana Stone mine.

The Mana Stone mine was located in a rocky mountain seventy kilometers away from Neo Seoul.

Every Mana Stone mined there went to Neo Seoul.

The ultra-giant city of Neo Seoul was maintained by the energy extracted from Mana Stones.

However, mining Mana Stones required a great deal of manpower.

Because the shafts were deep and narrow, miners had no choice but to dig them out directly with pickaxes.

The environment was so harsh that countless miners died.

Because of that, there was always a shortage of manpower.

Since that was the situation, Neo Seoul let anyone who wanted to go to the Mana Stone mine board the bus without asking or checking their identity.

Thanks to that, Zeon too had been able to board the armored bus headed for the Mana Stone mine.

‘No matter what it takes, I’ll survive in the Mana Stone mine. And I’ll get revenge on Lee Ji-ryeong.’

While Zeon stared out the window and burned with determination, the bus filled with people.

All the miners had boarded.

“Hey, kid! Are you going to the mine too?”

The man sitting beside Zeon spoke to him.

As one might expect of someone who had volunteered for the mine, he was large and looked strong.

Zeon answered indifferently.

“So what if I am?”

“Young bastard’s got some venom in him. Still, you’d better be careful once you get to the mine.”

“Careful of what?”

“That place is full of men after the ass of pale little things like you. Heh-heh!”

The man swept his lecherous gaze over Zeon’s entire body.

‘This fucking bastard.’

Zeon knew all too well what that gaze meant.

In the slums, there were plenty of bastards who desired men, and a good number of them had targeted Zeon.

Zeon had a slender build, and his face was on the handsome side.

If one ignored the young venom in his face, it would not be wrong to call him a handsome boy.

If not for his unique instincts and his spite, he would have been victimized dozens of times over.

Zeon toyed with the dagger hidden in his sleeve and considered when he should stab the man sitting beside him.

Even if he did not take his life, he would have to cut at least one tendon and cripple him, or the others would look down on him.

That was one way to survive at the bottom.

But his contemplation did not last long.

The armored bus had begun to move.

The bus quickly left Neo Seoul Colony and emerged into the desert.

The endless waves of red desert visible outside the window overwhelmed the people aboard the armored bus.

Even the man who had been staring at Zeon with a lecherous gaze could not close his mouth at the sight of the vast desert.

On the endless sea of red sand, the armored bus was no more than a single speck of dust.

Zeon muttered.

“We’ll make it to the mine safely, right?”

He soon regretted his own words.

That damned mouth of his had brought trouble.

RUMBLE—!

Behind the bus, which was racing fiercely onward, red sand was rising in terrifying waves.

A gigantic sandworm was chasing the bus.

“Insane! There shouldn’t be any sandworms around here.”

At that moment, as though directly refuting Zeon’s words, the sandworm’s enormous body burst out from beneath the sand. Then it came plunging down onto the armored bus like a meteor.

WHOOOM—!

The entire sight entered Zeon’s eyes with vivid clarity, as though in slow motion.

‘Fuck! How does it make sense for a sandworm to fly?’

CRASH—!

A tremendous impact struck the armored bus.