Chapter Text
It was just a B-rank dungeon. Nothing much. An easy dungeon, just so Sung Jin-Woo wouldn’t be rusty. Yet— who is this?
Yoo Jinho and Sung Jin-Woo sat near each other, chatting away and eating. Like any other dungeon raid they had.
“My liege,” Beru appears next to his master.
Sung Jin-Woo spares him glance, that being already an answer.
“A mortal— no, perhaps mortal? Has appeared, also appearing wounded however no signs of mortal blood,” he then holds out a glowing fragment. “And this.”
The other begins to get flashes of notifications, then— a sudden mission. He’s never gotten one before other than the ones given to him to kill but something like this? Especially heavily censored? Or perhaps a glitch.
[Save Th3 D#@mn K84g 0! S4l^ti01!!!]
It flashes a lot, blinding. Like it’s important, Sung Jin-Woo deems it to be. It says to save, but who? And what’s up with the censorship (or glitch.)?
It hasn’t stopped bothering him so the monarch takes it up to grab the fragment and memories, memories that aren’t his, begin to flow into his head. This one is titled King of A Kingless World. The system names it, [Fragment of Story, “King of A Kingless World.”]
A story, not a memory fragment?
“Take me to this supposed mortal.” Sung Jin-Woo stands up.
“Hyung, shouldn’t I—shouldn’t I go with you?” Yoo Jinho says in midst of lifting himself up. “
I can take care of myself just fine,” the other reassures.
Kim Dokja, that was the name that appeared the most in the story fragment then following someone by the name Yoo Joonghyuk. He decides Kim Dokja must be the main character of this fragment and Yoo Joonghyuk the second. The first wearing a noticeable white coat, like a trademark and the latter wearing a matching coat but a midnight black.
Beru stops and Sung Jin-Woo stands there unable to speak. Like an angel in eternal slumber. An ancient dream. That is how someone could describe this.
He’s beautiful. The Monarch catches himself, what did I just think??
He notices that the flashing notification has disappeared, then out of a spur he places the fragment near the body and it sucks it in like it needs it to live. Save; it said. Probably the something, someone, or nothing that the system is going crazy about.
“Are there more of these?” Sung Jin-Woo asks.
“I shall look, my liege,” Beru replies and disappears the next second.
Alright Sleeping Beauty, wake up. And he wakes up. What the hell. That worked??
[kdj pov]
First thing when I wake up? A man sculpted by God itself.
I blink a few times, the light unfamiliar for some reason.
“Good morning sleeping beauty,” the first thing the stranger says.
“What?!” I look at him, astonished.
“Rise and Shine,” he greets me one more time.
“Huh??” My confusion doesn’t disappear.
He waves at me.
“Who are you?” I grip my sword that I never knew was there until I figured I felt a little heavier on the left.
“Sung Jin-Woo. Your Kim Dokja, I’m assuming.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Fragment, story fragment.”
Oh, right. What happened? Wait, what’s a story fragment?
“What’s a story fragment?”
“That thing that just went into your body, apparently called the King of A Kingless World.”
“Don’t know… what your… talking about??”
What in the world is this man telling me?
“Maybe you have amnesia but I’m not one to diagnose you.”
“Are you sure you’re not crazy?”
“I’m not. I assure you that.” He looks at me and smiles.
I blink, then stare,
“So where are we?”
“A dungeon.” his smile is replaced with a raised eyebrow.
“We’re captured?? By what?? By who??” I shriek and then suddenly stand up.
“No, not a literal dungeon. You must really have amnesia,” Jin-Woo looks up at me.
“Oh. Oh, okay. That makes like 50% sense, but yeah okay.” I flop back down onto the floor.
“So you don’t know what a dungeon is?” Sung Jin-Woo readjusts his position.
“No. Not in the context of whatever your talking about is.”
“Do you know what a hunter is?”
“Like, something that hunts animals?”
He sighs. So I’m wrong, okay.
“Then, I’ll explain everything I’m pretty sure you don’t know.”
“So, magical powers n’ stuff?”
“Basically.”
I pinch myself. Nope, not dreaming. Okay. Maybe I got transmigrated into a novel or something, but where was I from? Some words are familiar such as the basic things like Seoul and South Korea. I’m Korean, South Korean, I know that. What else? I try to recall anything. Anything at all.
I remember reading a lengthy web-novel but I can’t remember its contents or it’s name. Just that I was reading it and that it’s somehow important to me. I remember a group of people but their figures are blurry and someone that looked pretty emo, black head to toe. That’s it. I remember everything basic but it feels like years worth of memories have been taken from me. Like, how did I get this sword? What’s this coat and the surplus amount of stuff I’ve taken out of it. What’s this frog?
I did find a phone. It’s at 5% but I don’t worry about a charger.
“You think there’s something you might find on there?” Sung Jin-Woo asks me.
“Probably,” I reply.
I unlock the phone, no passcode needed. There’s no wallpaper, no installed apps other than an app for webnovels but no matter how much I tap on it, it doesn’t open. Not that it’d be important anyway. I click on my contacts next but it’s empty. Phone calls, empty. Messages, empty. Notepad, empty. Everything is empty.
“Oh. Well.”
“Awesome. I can be your first contact, give me your phone.” Excuse me?
But I had it over to him anyway.
“I guess I’m in your care now.”
“Exciting.” he says. “Do you remember how old you are?”
“I remember everything basic but some things… nevermind. Yes, I’m 28.”
“I’m younger than you then, hyung.” Huh. Hyung?
“Looks like it, JinWoo-yah.” I put extra emphasis on the “yah” part. He smiles. He SMILES. The audacity.
We walk for a few minutes after but I feel a scary air behind me. I grip my sword, I don’t think I know how to use it but it feels like my body does. Like I’ve used it for so long. Somethings there.
Sung Jin-Woo doesn’t seem to notice and keeps walking. I should probably stay with him, I know.
Screw it. He’s already walked far enough to not seem to notice I’m not even following him anymore.
I unsheathe my sword, I feel like I know what to do. What to say. What am I even suppose to say?
“Electrification.” I say, but I’m unsure.
What is it suppose to do? My sword is then covered in electricity.
So that’s what it does, I guess. It serves as flashlight too, great bonus. (How did I do that.)
It a goblin looking thing. It’s green, pretty big. Maybe not goblin, more like ogre. Okay. I look at it, straight in the eye. I’m nervous, really, really, nervous. It looks at me too, but it doesn’t move. It seems nervous as well, but it backs off only for a bigger version of it to appear. It speaks. And it speaks to me.
“Divinity.” It says. “Divinity.” It says again. Smaller versions of it become more apparent behind him they begin to chant, “a great constellation!”
What’s that suppose to mean? Is it seeing me as some kind of god because of the electricity coming out of my sword? Will that mean it won’t bother me? But what if it bothers Sung Jin-Woo? That’s definitely a no-go, can’t have my only guide dying.
Suck it up, Kim Dokja, I repeatedly tell myself.
I breathe in, sword in hand. My agility increases somehow (how the fuck) and the Ogre finally begins to attack but it hesitates. It hesitates for some reason, is electricity that menacing?
I decapitate it swiftly somehow. Like my body knows what to do but I don’t know myself how I’m doing any of this.
Sung Jin-Woo comes back, and smiles. Oh little bastard, he definitely saw everything I just did. Little mastermind bastard. This was a test wasn’t it? He could’ve probably defeated all of those ogres himself.
“It’s probably muscle memory, curiously. I wonder what you did before you ended up in this dungeon.”
“I do too.” I step away from the hoard of ogres then placing myself right behind the other.
Sung Jin-Woo looks at the group and makes a dagger appear out of nowhere. Convenient.
Mhm, and that thing I said a few minutes ago? He did take care of all those ogres. Like he does it for breakfast or something.
“Here I was worried for you. That was a test wasn’t it?”
“Of some sorts.” A couple minutes later we make it back to a place filled with crystals (or diamonds, your pick.)
“Hyung!” a man with a burger in his hand waves happily at Sung Jin-Woo.
“Yoo Jinho, I’ve brought ourselves a friend.”
“Really?” Yoo Jinho, I figured out, looks at me and bows.
“Hello! My name is Yoo Jinho. It’s nice to meet you!”
I smile at him and a small bow as courtesy, “Kim Dokja. It’s nice to meet you too.”
“As in only child?” Yoo Jinho brings his palms together as if he just solved a case.
I shake my head, “as in reader. But I am an only child as well.”
“We just took care of the boss, so we might as well leave now.” Sung Jin-Woo mutters something else and shadows that take the figure of ants and other things begin to pack up taking the crystals. Actually, I just remembered what they're called. Apparently, they're called Mana Crystals that sell for a hefty amount.
An ant-shadow appears next to JinWoo-yah and I can only assume this one is pretty powerful just by the pure vibes it gives. I probably couldn’t take it in a fight.
“I’ve found more, my liege.” My liege? Cheesy. Is he a commander, master or something?
“Great, thank you Beru.” Sung Jin-Woo holds the glowing shards.
“These are the Story Fragments I talked about,” he says, now looking at me.
“Interesting,” I take a fragment and it feels like I’ve been given vitality.
JinWoo-yah looks at me up and down, “do you remember anything?”
“No? Was I suppose to?” He only looks at me, amused. Like I’m suppose to take that as an answer or anything.
“Well?” I take the rest of the shards and feel lit up but nothing terrible. Far from it.
“Nothing, just thought you would.” I look at him, suspecting.
We make it out of the dungeon, it’s in the middle of a random forest. Even if the god sculpted man did explain to me everything I needed to know, it still felt weird.
Sung Jin-Woo chats off with Yoo Jinho and I try to adjust myself the outside world.
The gate disappears and Yoo Jinho has already left apparently and now it’s returned to just JinWoo-yah and myself.
“Well, first off. Since you first appeared in the Dungeon I do doubt you have an identity here.”
“Guess I have to create one?”
“That’d be illegal.”
“So then what do I do?”
Sung Jin-Woo begins walking and gestures me to follow him,
“It’s illegal yes, but I’m not saying I can’t do that.”
"Are you serious?”
“Not like it’s false identity, hm?” Okay, I guess. Just what connections does this man have?
We walk for a while until he decides out of nowhere to grab my hand.
“Excuse me?” I try to slap his hand off for a minute but he grips harder.
“I’m giving us a means of transportation,” he answers.
“By holding my hand?” I scoff.
“Yep.”
By the next second, we’re enveloped by darkness. It’s a reminder he has powers related to shadows. Pfft, like a Shadow Monarch.
We appear in an office of sorts, a man behind a desk. A particularly old man. He’s giving off an energy, like he could kill me in seconds. I know more than to not trust my gut. I bow out of respect and the old man just grins.
“Sung Jin-Woo, who might this be?” the old man turns to the one next to me. He doesn’t answer and only moves closer to him then muttering something.
“Interesting.”
I discover he’s a chairman just by looking around.
The chairman looks back at me and begins to speak, “Kim Dokja, correct?” I nod.
“If you’d like for me to give you an identity, you’d have to join my association.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off mine and it’s nerve-wrecking. I’ve already looked around, figuring out this is the Hunter Association that Sung Jin-Woo spoke about.
“Hm, wouldn’t I need to be a hunter first?” I look back at him straight in the eye with a smile, hoping not to be seen as a coward.
“That’s right, but that’s not a problem.” He gestures to the door, “we can figure that out right away.”
The Chairman and Sung Jin-Woo accompany me which I assume would garner me a lot of attention. (spoiler alert: yes.)
We walk into another building with multiple people in it either muttering the words, “At least C-rank!” or “I just need to pay of my debt… so please. Please.”
“Chairman!” a man in a uniform comes up to the Chairman.
“I’d like to get this man tested as soon as possible.” The chairman gestures to myself.
“We can arrange that right now!” The employee bows and I presume I should be following him into the room, the other two trail after me.
Many people are staring at me, making me uncomfortable but I doubted the fact that anyone could touch me with the Chairman nearby and I’m assuming Sung Jin-Woo by my side would support that as well him being an S-rank and all. I walk into the room with the Mana Meter Technology. I hope for a B-rank atleast. It’d be pretty shameful because the Chairman came with me and I get an E-rank or of the likes.
“Just put your hand on the crystal and we’ll measure it out.” I nod and put a hand over the crystal. Nothing happens for a while. Suddenly, I feel power surging out of me onto the crystal but nothing changes. Am I just destined to be an E-rank?? Oh man.
The crystal breaks.
“Oh. Do I have to pay for that?” I smile nervously and back at the chairman.
“Oh heavens no. Don’t worry about that.” The Chairman answers me and looks at the Employee.
The Employee stares at a device for a long while before sputtering out, “It’s— it’s— it’s unmeasurable!”
Sung Jin-Woo places a hand on my shoulder, “Congratulations on being South Korea’s 11th S-rank hunter.”
The Chairman simply claps and my jaw has already hit the floor.
“Now that you're a hunter, you can join the Hunters Association—” the chairman stops but then begins again, “or you can join the Ahjin Guild.”
JinWoo-yah looks at the Chairman confused but doesn’t refute anything he says.
“Well?”
I sigh, “Ahjin guild is your guild, right?”
Sung Jin-Woo affirms that it is.
“Alright, I’ll join his.”
The Chairman nods and leaves. “I guess I should—” I realize I don’t have a home here. “go somewhere.”
“Go where, exactly?” Sung Jin-Woo is resting his head on my shoulder.
I scrunch up my face a little while looking at him, “somewhere.”
“You do realize I know you don’t have a home.”
“Yes, but I’ll find somewhere to go.”
“You expect me to let you live on the streets?”
“I can go to a government facilitated Gosiwon.”
He turns his head to me, dumbfounded.
“You can just sleep at my place.”
“I’d really rather not,” I reply.
“Thank you taking up my offer!” He grabs my hand again still resting his head on my shoulder and just like that we teleport again to his house.
“Scared me, oppa.” By the looks of it his younger sister, says.
“Sorry ‘bout that.”
Sung Jin-Woo lets go of my hand, “then you can sleep on the couch or you can take up my bed. I don’t mind.”
“I’ll take the couch.”
“Unfortunate.”