I don’t know what kind of magic Lee Haeng-taek used, but it’s a fact that he granted me a special ability.

Freedom from detection.

Immunity to shockwaves.

Strictly speaking, it’s not 100% immunity.

It would be more accurate to say that I’ve gained a resistance strong enough to endure a shockwave from an over-level-10 Awakened at close range without losing internal control.

Na Hye-in promised to let me meet Kang Han-min.

I don’t know when that will be, but I’ll wait.

As is typical of people who don’t make promises lightly, Na Hye-in is the kind who thinks carefully before she commits—and once she does, she follows through.

“......”

I look out the window.

Despite the inevitable fate approaching, the city remains calm.

People with jobs grumble as they head to work along the early-morning streets, and tram-style railcars rattle along the tracks, hauling large shipments of goods into the city or out toward the outskirts.

It’s early, but the air is already heavy and humid.

I don’t have a habit of eating breakfast.

I’m not the type who gets hungry in the morning.

Even so, I feel a different kind of hunger today.

But I probably won’t have time to eat.

I have a lot to do again today.

*

“Yes, Commissioner Park Gyu. This way, please.”

Without even realizing it, I’ve somehow become a commissioner.

Not officially.

I never received an appointment letter or even a digital document.

They just started calling me that on their own.

Very fitting for an era when anyone and everyone can be a commissioner.

But I have a strong aversion to titles like assemblyman or commissioner, those that imply you represent others.

Because I’ve seen far too often—exhaustingly often—just how ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) much of a delusion it is to think one person can represent the will of many.

Still, I won’t bother correcting them.

It’s convenient to carry the commissioner label for now.

The only reason I’m wearing a red temporary ID badge and allowed access to the government archives is because of that label.

Today, I’m hoping to find cases similar to mine—or at least something close.

The government archive is a vault of raw information, preserving data collected before the war, migration, and invasions began.

It’s been scoured and copied countless times by other researchers, but there’s a golden rule that never changes when it comes to interpretation:

You see what you know.

This is especially true in the case of rift research, where physical analysis is impossible—personal experience becomes the clearest guide to understanding.

That’s why I’m looking for cases that previous researchers may have overlooked or dismissed.

If I’m lucky, I might find a case like mine. At the very least, someone who’s experienced something similar.

I don’t think I’m the first.

At least five billion.

That’s how many humans died before us.

I doubt I’m the first.

Just like always.

What I’m hoping for is material provided by China.

The downfall of the Deccan Plateau region, including India, is fairly well documented through the lenses of Western scholars and cameras. But the records are disorganized—too early, too chaotic. The recorders didn’t even know what they were supposed to be seeing.

Their framing tended to focus on civilians suffering from the effects of the rift rather than monsters or the people fighting them.

More than anything, it’s chaotic.

France, Germany, Japan, China, the U.S., and Korea—all recorded events from different perspectives, with different goals, and the contents were never unified.

The European accounts, full of omissions and implications, demand too much inference and are tiring to read. The Japanese ones are laughably crude, structured like double ledgers with obvious deception. The Chinese records are mostly mosaicked to hell—hardly worth looking at.

But the internal Chinese government reports are different.

Unlike India, which collapsed suddenly and without warning, China had time and experience to prepare. They compiled numerous records meant specifically to confront the rift, and they left them for us with clear indexes and clean formatting.

It was I, Park Gyu, who facilitated the exchange between Dangjin and the Korean government.

At the time, I didn’t expect the exchange to lead to anything useful.

But now I get to sit in an air-conditioned room in the height of summer, reviewing China’s records on a high-performance computer.

The section I’m looking at is Category 14, labeled "Apocrypha" by the Chinese side—a collection of miscellaneous cases they couldn’t explain and left unresolved.

The first thing that stands out is the “internet ghost.”

I’d heard a similar story from Rebecca once.

A high-budget online game, in which the privileged tried to recreate real-world inequality, and ordinary Chinese players were still trampled upon.

The story ends with a lone character, long after everyone else had left, watching as they kill the avatar representing the elite. But according to Chinese records, similar cases happened multiple times.

In those records, they concluded it was just the revenge tale of a particularly tenacious user.

People who, even as the world turned gray from erosion and giant monsters loomed past their windows, casting shadows over their homes—still managed to log into the game and write the ending we know.

But the Chinese record keeper noted that similar cases happened in areas where no one lived anymore, and where all internet infrastructure had already been destroyed—finishing the paragraph with the vague conclusion that there’s no way to explain it.

"Could it be... that monsters can invade even the internet?"

Such a bold imagination.

In the past, I would’ve written it off as nonsense—but now, I’m not so sure.

Knowing now that the essence of monsters is something connected...

To them, form is nothing more than an accessory they wear to breach into our world.

That thought hits me.

Anyway, I’m hungry.

No appetite, but I feel hollow.

I went outside to the cafeteria.

It was just about meal time.

I ate breakfast alone while feeling the sidelong glances of government workers.

The menu was toast, synthetic meatballs, and cream soup.

The flour might’ve been old—it tasted stale—but it was still a rare luxury most outside citizens wouldn’t even dream of.

The synthetic meat tasted familiar, but the cream soup—probably made from mutation cow’s milk—was fresh and rich.

Still, the non-Korean cheese flavor felt odd to me, who had grown up on K-milk.

I finished with iced plum tea, then took a short walk.

I felt someone’s gaze.

A skinny man in a dress shirt and jeans was watching me.

No companions. His tailing was so amateurish, it was likely driven by curiosity rather than purpose.

I returned to my seat and resumed reviewing Chinese records.

“......”

Have I been eating more lately?

I’m not even in a growth phase.

I do look younger than my age, but that doesn’t mean my appetite should increase.

I’ve never been a big eater.

Even in school, I used to precisely measure my intake of essential nutrients.

Yet still, this hunger.

I closed my eyes and focused on the sensation.

It didn’t feel like an empty stomach.

It might be mental—or perhaps something related to blood sugar.

I don’t have habits that would lead to type 2 diabetes, but my mother and grandfather had it.

If hospitals are still operational, I should get tested through Kim Daram’s husband.

Diabetes isn’t exactly a fatal flaw in an apocalyptic world where every day is a fight for survival—but collapsing from hypoglycemic shock without knowing would be far worse.

The afternoon investigation was less interesting than the morning.

The stories of cultists dragging around monsters like weapons may have intrigued the Chinese, but not me.

True to its label as "apocrypha," there were lots of absurd tales—like bizarre rumors of actual “martial artists.”

Things like “foot strikes” that shook the earth, killing someone with a palm strike, running across lily pads on the lake—records so outlandish that even the authors seemed skeptical.

Most were proven to be fakes using deepfake tech or composite edits. But one high-resolution video showed a man punching and literally breaking a spider-type monster’s leg—convincingly enough that even I had doubts.

My personal theory: before the man punched, accumulated damage had already created a fracture in the spider-type’s leg, and the man—being stronger than an average person—just happened to strike it with all his might at the right moment.

“......”

I skimmed through the second half of the records.

Time was running out, and there wasn’t anything particularly useful.

I felt slightly light-headed.

That’s never happened before.

A curious scenario, which would usually be appealing to someone like me—but not if that someone is me.

How do I even begin to explain this strange trait I now have?

Maybe I could ask Lee Haeng-taek, but even Na Hye-in didn’t know anything about it.

Grrrrr—

I’m hungry again.

It’s already dinnertime.

The dinner menu was simple.

Steamed barley rice without a single grain of white rice, salted radish strips, and a soybean paste soup with some unidentifiable solid chunks, no tofu at all.

It’s meant for night-duty personnel, but maybe due to shortages, most staff were eating it before heading home.

I sat and ate casually.

Even after eating, I still felt hungry.

Maybe it really is a blood sugar issue.

Since school, I’ve always been hypersensitive and meticulous about my body’s condition.

Let’s be real: we hunters use our bodies for a living. And even a minor error in judgment can mean life or death.

So, of course, we have to keep our bodies in optimal condition at all times.

Anyway—

“Excuse me.”

A hallway dimly lit for power saving.

I turned and spoke briefly to the man hiding at the far end of the corridor.

“Why have you been following me since earlier?”

It was the same man watching me at lunch.

He hadn’t moved much afterward, but he reappeared around dinner and was watching me again.

No companions. Clearly not professionally trained. Still, that doesn’t mean I should let my guard down.

Sloppy amateur surveillance is surprisingly common.

I walked closer.

He didn’t back away.

I matched his face to the badge.

It seemed to be him.

Name: Lim Jae-hyeok. Looked mid-thirties. A bit older than most researchers here, who are in their late twenties.

Wearing a white lab coat, likely research-related. The blue color of his badge indicated a research department assignment.

One thing I hadn’t noticed earlier:

This man is an Awakened.

Probably a low-level one.

“Ah, hello. Um... teacher?”

Let’s not nitpick the awkward honorifics.

I may be famous here, but people know the name, not the face.

When he glanced at my ID badge to confirm how to address me, he was pretending not to know who I was.

That didn’t matter.

What did was his intent.

I stared at him silently.

He winced slightly, then looked surprised and spoke.

“Knew it! You’re real.”

...What?

Was he expecting something else?

I said nothing and watched.

“You really... can’t be seen!”

“What do you mean I can’t be seen?”

“Uh, I’m a detection-type, by the way. Just for context.”

Didn’t take long to reassess.

I told him,

“Wanna grab a quick coffee?”

*

Lim Jae-hyeok’s age was as it appeared.

Thirty-three. Roughly the same as me.

Young, but old enough to be a team leader or senior in a facility mostly staffed by twenty-somethings.

The low average age here suggests this work doesn’t require much expertise or depth.

After all, rifts can’t be researched directly—so studying them means categorizing and archiving combatants’ field observations. More like librarianship than science.

Also, Jeju’s administration has a consistent policy of sidelining older staff.

Surprisingly, Lim wasn’t in a leadership role. Just a regular team member.

“I used to do combat support. Was stationed near the Jeju Big Hole. Not exactly an easy post, but at least it didn’t involve dealing with people.”

He’d fought in a few battles near Seoul against fanatics, but quickly realized he wasn’t cut out for it.

“You know that guy, Hong Jung-ho? I could never do what he does. No matter how fanatic the enemy is, stabbing a prisoner in the face and kicking them without flinching...”

Unlucky for him—he must’ve been on a mission with Defender.

Anyway, what drew him to me—and me to him—was that he’s a detection-type.

“I have this weird habit. When I see someone unusual, I kind of... stalk them. Not in a creepy way, and never to women. It’s just a hobby, really.”

Doesn’t seem very popular.

He doesn’t quite know what to say—or what not to say.

“I see.”

Time to get to the point.

“Can you really not sense me at all?”

This is a serious matter.

If negotiations with Kang Han-min fall through and I have to return to the bunker, whether or not I show up on detection is a huge deal.

Groups like Dies_Irae are bound to travel with at least one detection-type.

Being able to hide from them could mean life or death—and also incredible tactical advantage.

“Yes. That’s why I approached you, Hunter.”

He glanced at my badge again.

It’s a temporary one—no name listed.

“Baek Seung-hyun.”

No need to add another person to the list of those who know my face. I used an alias.

“Ah, Hunter Baek. Right, of course.”

I confirmed what I needed.

I’d found a second detection-type who couldn’t see me.

If I can expand this data point, I’ll have more peace of mind when I return to my bunker.

Just as I was about to leave—

“Well then, I’ll get going now.”

I feel it.

That hunger again.

It came suddenly, and it had nothing to do with blood sugar or an empty stomach. It was a different kind of hunger—one I’d never felt before.

A gnawing, unfillable void.

“By the way.”

While I drifted, lost in that unfamiliar sensation, Lim Jae-hyeok’s voice reached my ears.

“Have you... been feeling any sort of hunger lately?”