-- Seoul, Year 2xxx --
"Shit! Bastard Yoo! Get up if you want to continue living!" A man with a gruff voice picked up the one he called 'Bastard Yoo' by his collar, narrowly evading an incoming attack from a vicious wolf.
It was not a normal wolf.
Its fur was azure blue, with golden eyes and fangs that stretched out like a saber-tooth tiger.
"Hyung, behind you!" One of his comrades shouted.
"Aack!"
There was a perfect word that can be used to describe the current situation.
Chaotic.
They were in a dire situation. Their life was not guaranteed.
Heck, it would be a miracle if they could escape with their lives intact.
At first, they thought that this was a blessing. A godsent gift.
The trio had been friends for more than seven years. They had immersed themselves in fun and pleasure. Eventually, their peers grew up to have a normal job, but they ended up being left with nothing. They didn't finish their education, and their skills were also lacking.
They would occasionally land a part-time job, but those only lasted for a short while.
After skimping off literally everything for years, the Mother Earth changed. Gates appeared out of nowhere. Their locations were random. The ones that appeared outside the building were equal to those inside. The phenomenon obstructed almost every business sector, and left everybody terrified for a period of time.
The ones who solved the problem were the humans that proclaimed themselves as 'Hunters'.
They appealed to the public, saying that they have been given these strange stones called 'runes' that gave them power akin to those of superheroes.
Most were skeptical at first. However, once they saw the hunters charge in inside the gates and close the gates one by one, the hunters began to be hailed as heroes.
The situation was contained by them with ease, leading people to worship the saviors as the ones who granted them hope.
With time, the dungeons started to grow. From the originally weak dungeons, stronger realms started to appear.
Hunter Associations began to be formed worldwide. Each nation had its own, hosting credible Hunters under their wing.
Compared to them, the military was a joke. The rune stones held power no one could defy without being a rune stone user themselves.
As such, the market for runes were undoubtedly, priced at a high amount. So high that mere civilians would not be able to pay even a hundredth of the stronger runes.
Rune gave them skills. The skills pertained to those of fantasy stories, in which they would be able to suddenly manipulate magical energy just because they used up a rune.
The runes were scarce.
Dungeons appeared here and then, but the amount of people who aspired to be hunters compared to the actual dungeons themselves didn't reach an equilibrium. For each dungeon, a party had to be made to ensure a hunter's livelihood.
Not to mention, one dungeon could only give out one rune, whereas you needed a whole squad to successfully clear one. The rune was rarely given to a single member. Hunters opted to sell the rune and store that same money to hopefully garner enough savings for a good rune purchase.
The trio had been in a series of lucky events.
First, their older brother who traded his life savings for a small rune, was able to obtain a body fortification skill and a simple sword. This was enough to clear an F-rank dungeon, although their lives could be put at risk.
The three wagered on their lives and entered an F-ranked dungeon, in hopes of obtaining another small rune, becoming stronger, and obtaining even more runes...
What a nice dream it was.
The three weren't impatient, they knew to proceed slowly and take their time. After hard work and continuous efforts were spent on clearing small dungeons, selling runes that would not be of use to them and taking the useful ones, they managed to gather enough funds to buy better runes.
The oldest brother, Kim Jun-su, bought a stronger body fortification rune as he liked to fight with his body.
The second brother, Kim Il-hoon, was Jun-su blood - related younger brother. He bought a fire magic rune that provided him with small spells like fireball, fire arrow, and so on. Although he couldn't use too much of it, the team had great coordination and was able to gather the enemies to one place. The group of enemies would then be incinerated by Il-hoon, and later cleaned up by the rest.
The third brother, Lee Seong-Jin, was their childhood friend and sworn brother. His precision and accuracy was rather good, so he bought a rune that would allow him to reinforce his arrows and even speed up his drawing speed. He worked in the sidelines, taking down enemies that Jun-su couldn't handle and finishing those who still held on to their lives.
It could be said that the trio was steadily growing to success.
However, the day after they bought those three runes and passed the test for attaining a D - rank in their hunter association, they encountered something they thought was also a lucky chance they couldn't pass up on.
Namely 'Bastard Yoo' was a homeless boy they encountered in the streets, someone who drew their attention.
He claimed that his name was Yoo Jin. His parents cruelly abandoned him, but he didn't want to be admitted to orphanages and ran away to the sealed off areas. From there, he said that he had committed small crimes to live on, stealing, scamming, lying, although it was all petty crimes, it was enough for him to live on.
He even made a small housing that did not provide much protection, but was undoubtedly better than just plain streets.
Then, he unexpectedly woke up to a glaring reddish gate one day. He was rather secluded from the society, but passing talks made him learn the existence of 'runes', 'gates', and the 'hunters' who worked against the fate.
Obviously, the thing in front of him was a gate.
Kim Jun-su was approached by this child.
The kid appeared rather scared at first, but he ended up opening his mind and spilling the story about the dungeon gate.