Chapter 0

Prologue

0. Death

After a busy day, when the sun goes down. There are places where hardworking people are busily gathering in. It was near the sale corner of a large supermarket.

It was already closing time.The time issued on the sale ticket. Jiho, who was paying close attention to the person in charge walking around with the sticker, looked around the area, eyeing the previously 50% discount sticker that had now become 70%. There were a lot of people like Jiho around.

Then she saw a familiar face. The two were classmates from the same school. She didn’t pay much attention to it since they would see each other on the test site tomorrow anyways. More than half of the class, including Jiho, will have their exam tomorrow. Incheon Hunter Association would only choose 30 people this time, however she had heard that the number of people taking the test was much higher than that. Fortunately, the seats were often vacant.

Jiho, who was preparing for the exam to do this job, was told by her mother that places that had frequent openings would often mean that the job is very difficult or dangerous, but those words didn’t reach the ears of Jiho who had long dreamed of working for the association.

There were two packs of meat left that she had promised to buy her mom for tomorrow’s test. This part was decided by Jiho. Luckily, Jiho, who had her eyes on the meat pack that no one took until the deadline, moved like lightning as soon as the sticker was attached.

“Hey. Give it to an adult.”

“I’ve been watching it for a while……”

“Eat something else.”

They had obviously caught it at the same time, but she loosened her hold, paying attention to the eyes of the terrifying man who was staring at her. She was forced to grab another pack of meat, but that one didn’t come with a 70% discount ticket. The person in charge had long gone to another corner. After checking the amount several times, another hand intervened next to Jiho, who put it down with a gloomy face.

“Why are you letting go of what you grabbed?”

“No, this is only 30%……”

“It’s okay. Today is a day to eat well. Don’t regret it tomorrow and say, ‘Oh, I’ll eat that!’ Just take it now. Since there is a small amount, you can put meat side dishes in your lunchbox tomorrow.”

“It’s expensive though……”

“It’s okay. Just think about passing the exam at the first try so you don’t have to take it twice. Do what you memorized earlier. What are the characteristics of monsters that appear frequently in cracks?

“Frequently? Uh, ah, ah! No, I memorized this. Wait a minute. I forgot.”

“The exam is tomorrow but it seems you are still confused.”

Jiho pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. She had studied so hard to memorise the 2 sheets of A4 paper that it had become ragged.

“No! I was just confused for a moment. I guess I was confused between the frequent characteristics and the rare ones. There are spiders, wild dogs and sea cucumbers, but in a crisis situation, you have to find cover first……”

She shouted no, but it was true that she had forgotten something important, so Jiho’s eyes fluttered relentlessly. Without answering, her mother slowly looked at the shelves of the mart saying that she should buy something else.

Jiho watched her mother pass by the sausage compartment, picking up a small bag of Vienna sausage and putting it into the cart. As expected, an octopus-shaped sausage should also be included in the side dishes for the lunch box.

As she walked, she opened her notes and checked the monster’s characteristics. A category that appears frequently…… was in the middle. Even with an asterisk! Jiho cursed herself and glared at her paper.

What made the crack survival test difficult was that there were many things to keep in mind. These were facts that anyone who wanted to work in a field related to this would be aware of, so Jiho who dreamed of becoming a hunter just like the kids her age naturally knew it.

However, being awakened was not something you could do just because you wanted to, and the conditions for awakening itself were a product of chance, so as she got older Jiho’s career path changed towards a job where she could work alongside hunters instead.

If you weren’t sure of the other tests, you had to pass the crack survival test with at least an 80. Jiho opened the summary part, skimmed through it, folded the paper again, and then started muttering to herself.

‘Wild dogs are sensitive to sounds, spiders chase things that move……’ As she was muttering to herself, the exciting slogan song ringing within the mart suddenly stopped. Sudden silence. A warning announcement sounded with an urgent alarm over the heads of those who were looking around in confusion.

– Acute crack alert. Most of the Namdong-gu area has been declared a disaster zone due to the occurrence of acute cracks. Dear customers, please do not go outside and stay inside the building. Repeat. Acute crack alert. Acute crack alert.

At the same time, a disaster message arrived on her cell phone. Jiho was startled and hurriedly put her phone in silent mode.

“Mom, put your phone on silent. Turn on the crack app!”

The 3rd warning sounded for a long time, skipping the 1st and 2nd warnings. The mart was a very open place. Jiho trembled and tried to open the paper she was holding in her hand. This wasn’t a test. It was time for her to use this information for real survival.

But her body and head were acting separately, so it was hard to keep calm. Impossible. Cracks usually open slowly at intervals of several hours. She felt complicated as the information in her head became tangled. She had a lot of thoughts but couldn’t focus on one. In the meantime, Jiho’s mother grabbed her daughter’s arm and dragged her with a urgent cry.

“Jiho, everyone is going over there.”

“What? No, are you crazy?”

Jiho was startled and grabbed her mother who was trying to go towards the people. The entrance was closed with a shutter that was lowered alongside the warning announcement, but there were people trying to open it. And it wasn’t just one or two.

“The fourth alarm hasn’t sounded yet. I think they are trying to get out before then. Namdong-gu is only a block or two away from here. And they declared that area dangerous, so wouldn’t it be better to leave quickly?”

“It wasn’t the first or second warning, but the third. And of course the crack speed is faster than the speed of people running……”

Although the entire shutter wasn’t open yet, one of the separate door shaped shutter opened and a crowd of people gathered around it. As people rushed towards it, Jiho’s mother also pulled Jiho and began to move quickly.

“Jiho. Quickly!”

No way. Jiho thought as she was suddenly dragged away. This wouldn’t work out, she had learned not to do this. During the first and second warnings you have to start evacuating, during the third warning you have to find a shelter. And it’s only natural that you should never walk around during the 4th warning.

The people in the mart were all older adults. If there were even a few young people, this would not have happened. By the time Jiho came to her senses, she was already stuck within the crowd. This was because as soon as she got out of the mart, she saw a shadow rising from the outer wall of the mart

F*ck. Jiho began to curse at her legs for not running faster. The border was closer than she thought. She wouldn’t have known that if she was inside, but since she was already outside the right thing was to escape from the crack like her mom said.

Just when she thought the two blocks wouldn’t be that far, the fourth alarm went off.

The world was tearing apart.

The cracks swallowed people up and non-human beings turned the world upside down. The crack spread in an instant from the crack boundary to the center. What was she even supposed to do if she got caught up in a crack? Jiho looked back without realizing it. She could see things slowly rising up from the shadows of the buildings.

Someone couldn’t hold back and burst into tears out of fear. The moment the things that rose from the shadows began to take shape, Jiho realized that they were making eye contact.

Red and clear eyes.

It was a monster that was nothing like what she was thought so far. Acute cracks had not been studied properly yet. Not knowing was more catastrophic than knowing.

The moment the monster stared at Jiho, the rest of the shadows all looked at Jiho at once. Jiho had a gut feeling that she wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Look ahead and run!”

Her mother grabbed Jiho and shouted. But Jiho couldn’t turn her head in the end. The moment she turned a little, she could feel their gazes turning with her. She could already feel the speed of her mother running next to her slowing down. It wasn’t just her mother, half of the people around her were older adults.

The crack boundary was not far away. In fact it was so close that outside of the crack could be seen with naked eyes. Brave men from outside rushed into the crack to aid the elders. Jiho couldn’t hold back her tears that burst out as she looked behind and forward.

The moment they started moving, Jiho made a realistic decision.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you? We have to go quickly!”

“Mom. It’s already too late for me.”

She hadn’t lowered her voice, so few people that were running turned to look towards her. When her eyes met with one of the people running from behind, Jiho thought that she couldn’t see properly. This was what it meant to have one’s eyes covered with tears.

“Excuse me. Can you see them looking at me? Please, my mom.”

He was one of the few young people that was running with her. The man left the mart much later than Jiho. Looking back, the inside of the mart was also a mess. Unfortunately, it looks like a monster popped out of the building. As a result, it was too late for some people to escape the building and a different kind of monster was smashed over their heads. It was hell everywhere.

As soon as the fourth alarm went off, some of the people who were scared and tried to enter the mart were already in trouble. It was impossible to go back. A situation in which she had only run half a block. Jiho entrusted her mother’s hand to the other person.

He was tall with a body that seemed athletic. He seemed much more reassuring than the poor people that passed by. She hoped that she was making the right choice, but in fact she couldn’t afford to choose a second person.

At first, the man was puzzled, then startled, and finally showed a determined face.

Seeing this, Jiho slowly stopped, relieved, while the others did not. Some were relieved and some were sad to see that the monsters were only staring at one person after they had all taken shape.

It was truly ridiculous.

Jiho began running the opposite direction of where the others were heading, trying to control her shaking body.

At the same time, they too followed Jiho and turned towards the next alley. A form without legs. Similar to a snake. The upper body that had the head of a snake was a mammal. While the lower body looked like a reptile, despite that, it was a form that couldn’t be defined by mere words.

She felt as if she could hear the sound of her mother’s cries. Jiho could not run for long and was soon caught. Her limbs were caught in all directions, and fortunately she did not feel pain for long before she finally died.

Not many people would remember the student who sacrificed herself on behalf of others in the middle of a disaster grade crack in Incheon. They weren’t the only monsters that appeared, and when they reached the crack entrance, more than half of those who had escaped from the mart were already dead.

Sadly, even Jiho’s family who she wanted to save the most were caught in the crack and died.

Or at least if things played out with common sense, that would have certainly been the case.