It hasn't been long since the Gates appeared. At first people believed they were some kind of natural disaster, an unexplained phenomenon that scientists would eventually understand. Then monsters began crawling out of them, and the world stopped being the world we knew.
Humanity adapted faster than expected. Some people awakened abilities and were classified into ranks from F to S. Strength became a measurable value, something written on identification cards and school records. Futures were decided not by effort but by awakening.
I was an F-Rank.
Not the kind hiding talent, not the unlucky late bloomer people liked to comfort themselves with. Just weak. While my classmates awakened as A and B ranks and were scouted by associations before graduation, I struggled to even complete basic combat training. Teachers stopped calling on me. Hunters younger than me earned respect I could never reach.
Still, I endured it because my life outside rankings mattered more. I had a family waiting for me at home, and that was enough.
The day everything ended felt painfully ordinary. School finished, the streets were calm, and the evening sun stretched long shadows across the road as I walked back thinking about dinner. Then space in front of me twisted open with a tearing sound, like fabric being ripped apart.
A Gate formed right before my eyes.
Before I could react, a monster crawled out and its gaze fixed onto me. My body froze. I knew I should run, but fear locked every muscle in place. I somehow survived long enough to escape, but survival only delayed the inevitable.
It followed me home.
I watched it kill my father first. My mother tried to protect my sister, screaming for me to do something, and my sister hid behind me because she believed I could. I couldn't. I was an F-Rank who couldn't even hold a weapon steady. In the end, the monster killed me as easily as it had killed them.
I expected nothing after death, yet consciousness returned to me in a cold darkness where neither time nor sound existed. Then something spoke, a voice that was neither human nor machine, but a presence pressing directly against my thoughts.
It searched, confirmed my identity, and declared a condition fulfilled.
When I opened my eyes, I was lying in my bed with morning sunlight spilling through the window. My phone displayed a date from ten days before the attack. I rushed through the house in panic and found my family alive, speaking casually as if nothing had ever happened.
Before relief could settle, a blue screen appeared in front of my vision. The letters were distorted at first, twisting into a language I couldn't understand before stabilizing into clear words.
[System Activated]
[System Choice: Seo Jinwoo]