Infinite Evolution Hunter [NOVEL] - Chapter 2
I entered the Bureau and pulled a waiting ticket for new Awakened registration.
Then I found the application form for new Awakened registration and filled it out.
I had to write my name, date of birth, skill, and stats in detail, but since my skill and stats were nothing impressive, there wasn’t much to write.
After finishing, I sat down and waited for my turn.
Looking around, I saw a fair number of people waiting with excited faces.
Being a Hunter is dangerous, but it’s also a chance to make enough money to change your life—an opportunity to turn things around—so everyone wore hopeful expressions.
In my previous life, I sat here with that same look.
But is this really something to celebrate?
It’ll be good for a while.
However, with what’s coming soon, Hunters will be the first to die at the front lines.
Of course, that is—if I fail to stop it.
Ding-dong.
After a long wait, a cheerful sound rang out and my number appeared on the screen.
“Hello. Congratulations on your awakening! Did you fill out the application?”
At the counter, a cute-looking civil servant with neatly tied hair greeted me with a bright smile.
“Yes. Here.”
I handed her the application I had prepared.
“Mr. Lee Jiseok~ Ah.”
Her lively expression shifted to a troubled one as she read the form.
“You’re unemployed and you’ve obtained an F-rank regeneration skill.”
There are exceptions, but the initial job and the rank of the skill you receive usually indicate an Awakener’s growth potential.
Low stats, no job, and an F-rank skill no one’s even heard of—it was only natural for her attitude to change.
“Is regeneration like a healing skill?”
“Yes. I can regenerate wounds on my own body. It doesn’t work on others.”
“I see. Please show your skill in the testing room back there and then come back.”
She looked at me with pity, then slid the documents back to me.
In the testing room stood various weapons and scarecrows made of special materials.
“Mr. Lee Jiseok?”
The examiner called my name. He was well-built and wore a sword at his waist.
“Yes.”
I answered and approached.
“It’s the regeneration skill, correct? Please demonstrate it. We have potions and medics on standby, so there’s no need to worry.”
He guided me with a businesslike tone.
“Okay.”
I pulled a dagger from the weapon rack and drew it across my palm.
Though the examiner had been strictly professional, his eyes shifted slightly when I cut my palm without hesitation.
But when he saw the wound healing slowly, his gaze went flat again.
“Hm. Only your own body, you said?”
“That’s right.”
He scribbled something on the paperwork after hearing my answer. Unlike the clerk who’d guided me earlier, he didn’t show much emotion.
“Could you attack that scarecrow? Bare-handed is fine, a weapon is fine too.”
Those scarecrows have various sensors to measure the impact delivered.
In my last life, I remembered grabbing a sword I didn’t even know how to use and swinging it like a club.
I hadn’t used weapons then, and I had no intention of using them now.
Given my skill’s nature, fighting unarmed is more efficient.
Following the examiner’s instructions, I stood in front of the scarecrow.
Drawing on the combat sense from my previous life, I slammed my fist with all my strength into its torso.
KWAANG!
The sense was still there, but my body was fragile.
The skin on my hand split and a bone cracked.
Regeneration kicked in immediately, but a wave of pain hit me hard, and I clenched my injured fist with a groan.
“No other combat skills, correct?”
“Right.”
“Here you go.”
I took back the application the examiner handed me indifferently and returned to the counter, where they issued my Awakened registration card.
It read: F-rank Awakener, Lee Jiseok.
F-rank—the lowest among Awakened.
But this is just the beginning.
“If you want to enter a Gate, you know you need to graduate from the Academy and obtain a Hunter license, right?”
The clerk showed me a brochure for the Academy.
Not every Awakener becomes a Hunter.
At minimum, you have to complete the Academy to qualify.
In the early days of the Gate crisis, Awakeners were shoved into Gates without proper training, causing mass casualties and accelerating Gate Breaks.
Of course, they probably had no choice, with monsters pouring out.
Now, a minimal system is in place: if you don’t complete one month of basic training at the Academy, you can’t enter a Gate at all.
“When’s the earliest possible session?”
“Just a moment. Ah, you’re lucky. Someone canceled, so you can start as soon as tomorrow.”
“Then please register me.”
She nodded, tapped away at the keyboard, and processed my enrollment.
On the printed guide, she circled the schedule and where to go at what time tomorrow, then handed it to me.
“Good luck, then.”
She looked at me as if to say it was pitiful I was heading to the Academy with such miserable stats.
She must have seen many people get killed after becoming Hunters with half-baked skills.
I bowed my head slightly in thanks and left the Awakened Bureau.
Thinking about the day when my abilities would rise and my name would spread, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of what expressions that clerk and the examiner would make then.
—
“I’m back.”
The door opened and Jaewon came in.
“Oh, you’re back?”
I answered without looking up while packing my things.
“Huh? Where are you going?”
“The Academy.”
I grinned when I saw his face.
“What?! Really?! You awakened?”
“Yeah. I start at the Academy tomorrow.”
“Nice, man! Congrats!”
Jaewon slapped my back enthusiastically.
“So what’s your ability?”
He asked cautiously.
“Regeneration—something like self-healing.”
“Ah… I see. Anyway, congrats!”
Jaewon, who was interested in Hunters, knew all the famous skills.
If I were a healer who could cast heals on teammates, that’d be one thing—but a skill that only heals myself doesn’t sound great at first blush.
Still, he didn’t show it and congratulated me wholeheartedly.
Time would show him how strong I’d become, so there was no need to say more now.
And even if I told him I’d returned from the future, he wouldn’t believe it.
“We gotta celebrate! Chicken’s on me!”
After the chicken he ordered arrived, he filled our glasses to the brim with a soju-and-beer bomb.
“Don’t forget me even when you make it big!”
We clinked glasses and downed the drinks in one go.
—
We’d overdone it last night, but thanks to the regeneration skill, I had no hangover.
Jaewon, on the other hand, was sprawled out on the floor like a grilled rice cake.
“See you later.”
There was no need to wake him. I grabbed the bag I’d packed yesterday and left the apartment.
After transferring buses several times, I arrived at the Academy.
The school entrance was crowded with trainees and their families.
Since I was alone, I went straight through the gate and handed my Awakened registration card to the line of reception tables.
“Mr. Lee Jiseok. Welcome to the Academy.”
The staffer checked my face against the photo on the card and marked my name on the prepared list.
“This is the smartwatch distributed during the Academy period. Wear it on your wrist at all times. Then please wait on the training field.”
I put the smartwatch on my wrist and watched people on the field until the time came, and the Academy gates closed.
The smartwatch is used to track trainees’ locations and heart rates—and to prevent unauthorized outings.
Training lasts a full month without leaving the grounds, so it seems there are occasional deserters.
Ten instructors in black uniforms walked to the front of the field.
Naturally, all Academy instructors are Awakened—current or former Hunters—with formidable stats.
Some have personal circumstances, injuries, or skills that aren’t suited to Gate work, so they serve as instructors—but they are not to be taken lightly.
“Attention! When an instructor calls your name, step forward. Understood?”
The instructor in the center shouted, his voice louder than a megaphone—maybe that’s a skill of his.
Responses came from all over, uneven and disorganized, and the murmuring didn’t stop.
“Silence! You think the Academy is a joke?! You think awakening means guaranteed success now? Before the Academy was founded, the one-year mortality rate for Hunters was ninety-five percent!”
At his words, the hundred or so trainees on the field fell silent.
“What you’re about to learn is entirely different from what you learned at school or in society. If you can’t keep up, you’ll be expelled. Now I’ll begin the roll call.”
With the trainees finally quiet, the instructors began calling names in order.
“Why are you so slow? Move!”
As the atmosphere grew harsher, some trainees flinched and ran to the instructors, while others still walked up with relaxed faces.
It’s called an Academy now, but it used to be called a training camp.
Enrollment used to be “reporting for duty.”
Later, veterans who’d already served in the military complained of trauma, so they changed the name to Academy.
But only the name changed—the methods didn’t.
When you have to enter a Gate with your life on the line, gentle teaching means nothing.
Rows formed up front, but my name still hadn’t been called.
I hadn’t known in my past life, but now I understood why: they were calling in order of ability.
People with rare skills or high stats were placed up front first.
“Lee Jiseok!”
In the end, I was called second to last.
The crowd of trainees standing ahead of me showed exactly where I stood—but I wasn’t discouraged by the low rank.
If anything, I felt excited thinking about how I’d soon be standing up there.
“Congratulations on your admission, new Awakeners. I am Seol Nam-gyu, the Academy Director. From now on, you will learn the essential knowledge and skills needed to survive in Gates. As the instructor said, this training is directly tied to your lives and the lives of our citizens. If you cannot keep up, you are free to walk out of the Academy at any time.”
After that, the director droned on for about five minutes, but I half-tuned him out and looked around.
Even at the Academy, the top group and the stragglers split from the very first ceremony.
In my previous life, I had wanted to join that top group, but I couldn’t even dream of it.
Now, I had no desire—and no need—to be part of that front group.
I received a single-room dorm and unpacked.
Then, to attend the lectures starting immediately, the trainees streamed into the classrooms.
A professor and two instructors entered, but the room was still noisy.
The professor stood silently in the middle and said nothing; soon, the room quieted down.
“We’ll begin. I’m Professor Lee Mu-yeol, and I’ll be teaching the history of Gates and Awakened.”
Professor Lee was a small, slightly balding, ordinary-looking middle-aged man.
His outfit was neat, but he didn’t exude any particular charisma.
By contrast, the two instructors beside him stood at attention, watching the trainees with palpable pressure.
“Awakened began to be discovered around the world starting in the year 2000. People called it divine blessing, mutation—there was a lot of debate. And at first, the numbers were not that high.”
Professor Lee projected a presentation on the screen and began his lecture with the materials.
“And as you all know, the first Gate opened in 2005.”
The already quiet classroom sank into an even deeper hush.
—