Whoosh.

The bus went over a speed bump. The speed of the bus along it made my body float for a second.

The hood I was wearing fell off with the movement.

"Ah, damn, what's this?"

A few passengers around muttered complaints.

The bus continued to drive indifferently, and I turned my gaze back out the window.

[We protect your safety. Glory Guild]

The name of the Glory Guild appeared on a billboard as large as a sports field.

It was the best hunter guild in South Korea that existed today.

The new privileged class in a world that has changed drastically.

They protect their contracted territories and, perhaps, are the ones who can solve my depleting lifespan.

‘Heh.’

I sneered inwardly.

They were seen as heroes by everybody, everyone but me that is.

There was something called MMPT (Multi Monster Poison Test).

It’s a test to check if someone has been poisoned by a monster's venom.

Once you're poisoned, even ordinary people, let alone most hunters, can't survive for more than a year.

And unfortunately, I recently tested positive for MMPT.

"At most a month? Or maybe just fifteen days, it's hard to give a definitive answer."

Damn it.

Even if I asked the delivery time for a package, it would be much more detailed than that bull.

The doctor delivered my death sentence in such an indifferent tone.

Well, since monsters started appearing, deaths among people have become relatively common.

I also responded calmly.

"Yes."

"Hmm... If you ever want to request to be transferred to the guild's research institute..."

"No. It's fine."

The doctor glanced over my appearance, then, as if he had expected it, closed the chart without hesitation.

The research institute of a famous guild.

In other words, a place like the ‘Glory Guild’ research institute shown on that billboard.

Large guild research institutes possess medical technology that could make regular hospitals look inferior.

It's a place that manages the survival of hunters, so it was indeed a good place for me.

If I went there, maybe they could change or even save my limited life.

However, only a very small number of civilians receive treatment at the guild research institute.

Why?

The reason is simple. In the words of a famous person because I can’t do it any more justice.

"With money, no death; without money, only death."

—Yujeon Musa, Mujun Yusa

(有錢無死 無錢有死)

It's because of the nauseatingly high costs.

This phrase emerged as the power of guild research institutes grew stronger.

If you have money, you can avoid death; if you have nothing, you can’t even hold onto the hope of survival.

“Cough, cough.”

Since I was a child, I’ve often lived with fever, headaches, and body aches.

Some called it natural fever, others said it was just my constitution.

‘Damn, what do they know?’

From the perspective of someone in pain, what difference does it make? And I would be lucky if all it did was make me hurt.

What about the blotchy spots covering my whole body?

Whenever I looked at my body, which seemed more monstrous than any monster, I couldn’t help but cringe.

"Our Haesun is so handsome."

My older sister always said that to me, looking at me like that.

Even a hedgehog thinks its own baby looks pretty.

Well, maybe if it weren't for the blotches reflected on the bus window, I might have had a face worth looking at.

‘I don't care. What does it matter anymore?’

I was going to die anyway.

Not by a monster from beyond the Gate, not by a traffic accident, but with a poison I've never even heard of.

‘I'm really going to die.’

Maybe it was a blessing that this endless pain would finally end.

I wasn't afraid of death.

What I was truly afraid of was the thought of my sister, who would be left all alone, feeling sad.

Clunk.

"There’s no seat."

A couple stood in front of me.

The two of them glanced at me.

It was a familiar look, yet every time, their stares suffocate me.

I subtly pulled my hood lower.

"Ooh, what’s up with his face?"

"Hey, he can hear you."

The woman spoke in a tone filled with disgust, and the man tried to stop his girlfriend.

‘I can hear everything, you jerks.’

I scoffed inwardly, watching the scenery passing by outside the bus.

A wave of anger surged within me for no reason.

No, the reason was clear.

Why was I born like this? Why do I have to be sick?

Why do I have to die at an age when I should be running and playing with my friends?

And on top of that, the reason is monster venom poisoning.

For a moment, I almost laughed.

My health has been deteriorating rapidly recently.

Even after going to various hospitals, they couldn’t find any specific cause.

Damn, those quack bastards.

Because of that, most of my sister's salary had been wasted.

But the cause turned out to be in the most unexpected place.

The doctor tested me with the MMPT (Multi Monster Poison Test) just in case, and found a whopping seven different types of poison in my body.

As of now, there have been seven different monster venoms.

In other words, I was carrying all the known monster poisons in my body.

The doctor, upon seeing my test results for the first time, ran the test twice to be sure.

A living mass of poison, but with a limited time to live, and without the ability to infect others.

That’s the reality of who I was.

‘What am I supposed to say to my sister?’

I was worried about my sister. Along with the worry, my chest felt tight. It was as if someone was squeezing my heart.

It was not new that my body ached, but today, it feels like my heart hurts even more.

Anger at the world, anger at things I couldn't solve, anger at things beyond my control.

And a longing for life.

Everything was intertwined.

My head started aching more and more.

"Ugh, what’s that smell?"

The woman from the couple muttered.

Their gazes turned toward me at the same time.

Their eyes contained blatant disgust, like they were looking at a drain.

But the smell had nothing to do with me.

My clothes were worn-out, but that didn’t mean my body was dirty.

Normally, I would have just ignored it and looked the other way, pretending not to notice.

But for some reason.

Today, I didn’t want to hold back.

Damn it, what's with the smell? You should brush your teeth properly first.

I raised my head with the intention of saying that.

But at that moment, something appeared in my view before the couple did.

The pitch-black darkness visible outside the window.

It was spreading so quickly that it was visible to the naked eye.

“……Huh?”

Was this the smell the couple were talking about?

A pungent, metallic scent reached my nose.

What was unbelievable was that not only the bus, but also the people outside the window were holding their noses.

‘This isn’t because of someone on the bus.’

Something ominous was taking over the entire area.

Screeeech!

The bus came to a sudden halt, leaving skid marks on the ground.

Crash!

"Whoa!!!"

The passengers on board stumbled, and someone even tumbled to the floor.

I instinctively grabbed the handrail to brace myself.

“Kyaaa!”

“Door!! Open the door!! Quickly!!”

The bus driver quickly pressed the button to open the door and then jumped out from the driver's seat.

As people squeezed through the narrow bus door, they collided with one another in a crowd.

In a hurry, I also got off the bus and looked up at the sky.

Not only the surrounding clouds, but also the thick darkness that seemed to suck out the souls of the living.

That darkness grew larger and larger, and eventually, creatures of all sizes began to pour down from it.

“Oh my god…….”

It had been 20 years since monsters first appeared.

Through countless records, people knew all too well what the presence in the sky was.

"It's a Gate!!"

* * *

"What the hell is going on? Where are the hunters, and what the hell have they been doing until the Gate is completely opened?!"

"Where's the guild responsible for this area? Damn those bastards!!"

Panicked people yelled in frustration, looking around wildly.

As they said, normally, hunters would be waiting around the area in advance before the Gate fully opened.

This is possible because the core energy that generates before the Gate opens can be predicted.

However, for some reason, the hunters were nowhere to be seen until the monsters touched the ground.

“Run! Run for your lives!!”

Though I didn’t understand the reason, one thing was certain.

If I didn’t get out of here now, I was definitely going to die.

People, in a state of panic, started running.

"Monsters..."

If someone had looked at my face, they would have thought my expression changed like a traffic light.

At first, I was as terrified as everyone else.

But soon, the rising anger made me grit my teeth, and in the end, I wore a determined expression.

Monsters.

The disaster that struck this land, the cause of countless tragedies, and the culprit of my own life’s tragedy.

The ones who gave me this damn gift of a limited-time life.

“Fucking bastards!!”

Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud-

While everyone else was fleeing, I too, sprinted in one direction with all my might.

Was it because I wanted to live like everyone else?

Of course not.

I already have a limited time to live, so how much longer would I live even if I ran?

The direction I was running was the complete opposite of where the people were running.

It was toward the monsters.

There were two reasons for that.

One was that if I died while blocking a monster, I could receive a medal of honor.

Then, it would be a great help to my sister who would be left alone.

The second was, damn it, since I would already be dead, I wanted to at least punch that damn monster in the face once.

You might think it's a crazy thought for someone who was not even a hunter, right?

Yeah.

Maybe the fever coursing through my body had driven me half-mad.

But thinking about the monster that ruined my life standing right in front of me made my blood boil even more.

I ran for a long time toward the direction of the toad-like monster.

Thud.

But not long after, I had to drop to my knees.

"Haa..."

The growing Gate seemed to resonate with my body, and my condition rapidly deteriorated.

"Damn it. Why is this happening all of a sudden...?"

When I was at the hospital, there weren’t any specific symptoms, but now, I could feel the heat surging through my entire body as if boiling it.

My mind was spinning, and the pain felt like a giant needle was coursing through my bloodstream.

I was frustrated.

I was so close, just a little more, and I might have been able to land a blow.

My vision turned completely white, then black.

And with that, I lost consciousness and collapsed to the ground.

* * *

How much time had passed?

"AAAHHHHHH!!!"

I was jolted awake at the sound of a blood-curdling scream.

The once quiet and peaceful Gaebang Neighborhood intersection.

That place had already turned into a living hell.

-Kirrurururuk.

"Y-You…. Get away!!!"

The woman from the couple who had been on the bus with me stumbled backward and collapsed.

Opposite her, I could see a green, grotesque creature.

A toad-like monster, roughly 50 cm in length.

Its entire body was covered in bumpy skin, and there was an oily substance spreading across it, making it so revolting to look at that it almost made me gag.

-Kirruruk.

The toad-like monster flicked its tongue toward the woman.

The man, who seemed to be her partner, was already a cold corpse, sprawled out on the street.

The dead were not just limited to the man in front of me.

Across the bus stop, on the sidewalk, and outside the buildings, the streets were littered with the bodies of people.

All the vehicles, including the bus, were halted on the road, some of them overturned.

Weeeeeeeeng!

The blaring sound of a siren pierced my ears.

‘The hunters still haven’t arrived? While everyone’s dying like this?’

My vision landed on the corpse of the dead man.

Eyes, nose, ears, mouth.

As I watched blood pouring from every hole in the corpse, my face froze in shock.

‘Poison-type...!!!’

It was a hybrid monster, notorious even among the most dangerous of creatures.

They are so vicious that even a medium-sized guild would have a hard time dealing with them.

Not just the man, but every corpse scattered along the road had a brutal, horrific appearance.

It was truly a cruel irony.

I had heard that poison-type monsters were a rare breed, appearing maybe once a year.

Yet, on the very day I was sentenced to a short life due to monster poisoning, those damn things showed up in front of me.

At that moment, I almost thought it was a blessing.

Alright, I had plenty of resentment built up toward you bastards anyway.

Even if I die today, I’m going to take my anger out before I go.

As I forced my boiling body to rise, the toad-like monster spat its saliva at the woman.

-Chwiik.

“Ahhh!!!”

The woman screamed in terror, collapsing to the ground.

The toad's saliva, which only appeared filthy on the surface, was much more dangerous than it seemed.

Once it touched the skin, it quickly penetrated, instantly poisoning the person.

The reason why people were dying at the hands of these toads, which were barely even a meter tall, was precisely because of their deadly venom.

"Gu... ugh."

The woman made a choking sound, and like the man before her, collapsed to the ground, blood pouring out from her mouth as she died.

It was just a little contact with the skin, and it's already so deadly.

Each and every one of these poison monsters had the destructive power of a biological weapon.

"Those bastards..."

I clenched my teeth as I looked at the toad.

I already had plenty of resentment toward them, but seeing people brutally dying right in front of me, I felt like I was going to lose my mind.

-Kiruuk?

Did it think I was already dead, seeing me unconscious?

The monster looked at me, tilting its head in an odd way.

Then, a moment later,

-Chwiieeek.

Shit.

The saliva it spat was flying straight toward me.