The smell of cheap grease was stuck in his pores. It was the kind of smell that didn't wash off, no matter how hard you scrubbed.
Kaizen Rei plunged his hands into the sink. The water was scalding hot. The soap stung his raw knuckles.
"Table 4 needs water! Table 7 is waiting on the pork cutlet!"
"Coming!" Rei shouted back, his voice flat.
He didn't look up. He didn't need to. He knew exactly what Serenity Restaurant looked like at 7:00 PM on a Friday. Packed. Loud. Sweaty. A dozen salarymen drinking away their fear of the shrinking safe zones.
Sizzle.
Rei dropped another basket of fries into the oil.
Above the counter, the wall-mounted TV was screaming.
"BREAKING NEWS."
The red banner flashed across the screen, cutting through the noise of the dining room. The chatter stopped. The clinking of chopsticks died down.
Rei looked up, wiping his hands on his apron.
On the screen, a camera was shaking violently. It was handheld footage, raw and bloody.
"We are live from Gangnam District!" the reporter screamed, her helmet crooked. "The C-Rank Gate breach has expanded! Titanfall Guild is struggling to contain the—"
SCREEEEEECH.
A sound like tearing metal ripped through the TV speakers.
The camera whipped around.
A Blade Mantis—a monster the size of a minivan with scythes for arms—lunged into the frame. It didn't look like the CGI monsters in movies. It looked wet. It looked heavy.
It moved faster than the frame rate could capture.
A hunter in polished silver armor stepped forward to block it.
Snick.
The hunter didn't scream. He just came apart. Top half sliding off the bottom half.
The camera zoomed in. It shouldn't have, but cameramen were vultures too. The dead hunter's helmet had rolled off. His eyes were still open. He looked surprised.
"Oh god..."
Rei turned his head.
Yuna stood at the counter. She was gripping a tray so hard her knuckles were white. She was thirty-five, with the kind of gentle beauty that made customers order extra drinks just to talk to her, but right now, she looked like she was seeing a ghost.
Rei knew that look.
She wasn't seeing the dead hunter on TV. She was seeing her husband.
"Rei," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Turn it off."
Rei reached for the remote.
Click.
The screaming died. The restaurant noise slowly returned, nervous laughter filling the void.
"Just another Tuesday in Seoul," Rei muttered to himself. "Another batch of corpses for the algorithm."
He went back to the sink.
Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
"Rei."
Yuna was standing next to him now. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Her hand was warm, shaking slightly.
"Tomorrow," she said.
Rei didn't stop scrubbing. "Yeah. The Awakening."
"Promise me something."
He paused. The water ran over his red hands.
"If you awaken," Yuna said, her voice low and fierce. "If you get a combat class... don't become a hunter. Please."
Rei turned off the tap. He looked at her.
She was the only person in this world who gave a damn if he lived or died. She had taken him in when he was a gutter rat eating trash. She had given him a name, a home, and this grease-stained apron.
He forced a smile. It was a practiced expression.
"Don't worry, Mom," he lied. "I'll probably get a trash class anyway. Life Class, maybe. I'll become a chef. We can upgrade the menu."
Yuna searched his eyes. She looked for the truth, but Rei had learned a long time ago how to hide things.
"You're such a bad liar," she said, a tear escaping her eye. She wiped it away quickly. "You get that look. The same look he had."
She squeezed his shoulder, then grabbed the tray of water. "Table 4 is waiting."
She walked away.
Rei watched her go. His smile vanished instantly.
Life Class? Chef?
Don't make me laugh.
He pulled his smartphone from his pocket. The screen was cracked in the corner.
[REMINDER: HANSEONG ACADEMY AWAKENING CEREMONY][TIME: TOMORROW, 09:00 AM][ATTENDANCE MANDATORY. ABSENCE = EXPULSION.]
He swiped the notification away.
He opened social media. His class group chat was exploding.
[Park Jinwoo]:Just bought the Premium Awakening Kit from Titanfall! Cost 500k won, but it guarantees at least D-rank mana sensitivity![Kim So-Hee]:My dad hired a mana masseuse to prep my channels. I'm so nervous![Lee Min]:Anyone want to buy my lucky charm? 50k!
Rei sneered at the screen.
Rich kids and their superstitions. The Monolith doesn't care about your daddy's money.
He switched apps to a documentary channel. He needed noise to drown out his thoughts.
The narrator's voice was deep, soothing, and terrifyingly matter-of-fact.
"The world we know is dying. Slowly."
A map appeared on his small screen.
It showed the Korean peninsula. Large blue circles hovered over Seoul, Busan, and Daegu.
"These are the Inner Worlds," the narrator explained. "Zones within 100km of major cities. Here, the Hunter Association's technology STABILIZES the dimensional rifts. Gates here are ranked F to B. They are managed. They are farmed. They are humanity's safe zones."
The blue circles pulsed.
Then, the rest of the map turned angry red.
"Everything else... is the Outer World."
The red zones swallowed the mountains, the coastlines, the rural towns.
"Unstabilized Abyss territory. Gates here range from A-rank to unclassifiable. Monsters roam freely. Physics breaks down. Only the suicidal or the desperate venture past the barrier."
An animation showed the blue circles shrinking.
[-0.3% ANNUALLY]
Rei stared at the number.
The world is shrinking. We are livestock living in a pen that gets smaller every year.
And tomorrow, he was supposed to join the people trying to hold back the tide with swords and magic.
What a joke.
"Breaking update," the TV news anchor returned. Rei glanced up at the wall-mounted screen he had muted earlier. He turned the captions on.
[TITANFALL GUILD NEUTRALIZES THREAT.][CASUALTY COUNT: 47 CIVILIANS, 12 HUNTERS KIA.]
Body bags were being loaded into trucks.
Rei watched a paramedic zip up a small bag. A child's size.
He felt a cold pit in his stomach. Not fear. Anger.
The world didn't care about your dreams. The Gates didn't negotiate. Monsters didn't show mercy.
He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Not from the cold water. From adrenaline.
"Rei?" Yuna called from the front. "Do you believe in fate?"
Rei put his phone away. He untied his apron. The shift was over.
He looked at the woman who had saved him, then at the news showing the slaughter.
"I believe in working until your hands bleed," Rei said softly. "Fate is for people with time to waste."
He grabbed his bag.
Tomorrow, he would touch that black stone.
Tomorrow, the system would judge his soul.
It would either give him a sword, or it would tell him to die quietly in the corner.
Let it try.
I'll survive. I always do.