← A Perpetually Unknown Hunter Takes Over a Failing Guild# Catastrophe Before Regression
The dungeon walls were black.
No, not black—stained with blood. Junho scraped his finger against the wall. A viscous liquid clung to his fingertip. Whether it was his own blood or his teammates' no longer mattered.
"How many are left?"
He turned on the voice communicator. Only static returned.
He tried again.
"Seo-yeon Park, can you hear me?"
Silence.
He dropped the communicator from his hand. It fell with a sharp sound onto the stone wall. Junho almost laughed, but he stopped that too. He didn't have the energy left to laugh.
Footsteps echoed from deep within the dungeon. Regular, slow, confident footsteps.
Junho turned around.
It was Lee Kang-ho.
An S-rank Hunter. The strongest member of the Cheonjeong Guild. The last opponent Junho had faced ten years in the future, before his regression. No, even calling him an opponent was too grand. It had been closer to one-sided slaughter.
But Lee Kang-ho looked different now. Younger. Fresher.
"Junho."
Lee Kang-ho spoke. His voice was calm. That calmness was the most terrifying thing.
"So you're the guild master of Shinwol Guild."
Junho got to his feet. His legs trembled. His left arm was already useless. It had fractured during the dungeon boss encounter, then broken further in the fight with Lee Kang-ho. When he tried to move his arm, his nerves didn't respond.
"The Association has been keeping an eye on your growth rate."
Lee Kang-ho walked slowly forward.
"F-rank to A-rank in three months. This is not normal."
Junho retreated until his back hit a wall. His fingers felt the rough texture of the stone. The smell of blood, dust, and lime stung his nose.
"What do you want?"
"I want many things."
Lee Kang-ho stopped. Five meters between them. In the dungeon's darkness, his eyes glowed red.
"One of them is, I'm curious how you managed this."
"I just did better."
"Don't lie."
Lee Kang-ho's voice lowered.
"You lived as an unknown hunter for ten years, then suddenly appeared. No one knew you. But in three months, you accumulated points threatening to the Cheonjeong Guild. This is not coincidence."
Junho swallowed. His mouth was dry.
"And I know who you are."
Lee Kang-ho took a step toward Junho.
"You came from the future."
Time stopped.
Junho's heart pounded loudly. His breathing quickened. Lee Kang-ho knew. He really knew.
"A regressor."
Lee Kang-ho took another step forward.
"You're a regressor."
"Prove it."
Junho's voice was low.
"How you knew."
"It's simple."
Lee Kang-ho let out a laugh. That laugh was pure. Genuinely delighted.
"Because you know me too. My tactics, my abilities, my weaknesses. You've fought me before. Probably multiple times."
"So what?"
"Then I should know too."
Lee Kang-ho's body moved.
It wasn't an attack. It was an examination. The way he looked at Junho changed. Emotion vanished from Lee Kang-ho's eyes. In its place came cold analysis.
"In three months, you'll die here."
"What—"
"The Cheonjeong Guild decided to eliminate you. We received a report from the Association that you're exploiting the system. We eliminate you, the Association is satisfied, and I figure out how you used future knowledge. A perfect deal."
Junho's eyes wavered.
"The fact that you're here means you expected this."
"Yes."
"You came anyway?"
"I had nowhere else to go."
Junho's voice trembled.
Lee Kang-ho tilted his head.
"Your guild is already finished. Park Seo-yeon died thirty minutes ago. Despite it being a C-rank request, two boss monsters appeared. The Association manipulated the dungeon information. Han Ji-eun is dead too. Kim Tae-hyun as well. Shinwol Guild now has only you left."
Junho's face went pale.
"You're lying."
"Check for yourself."
Lee Kang-ho held out his communicator.
Junho picked up his own communicator. His fingers trembled. He opened the message log. The last message he'd sent to Park Seo-yeon was two hours ago.
—Junho, completed the request. Returning.
After that, there was nothing.
Junho called the other members. Han Ji-eun. Kim Tae-hyun. Lee Jun-seok. Park Min-soo. The three new recruits.
All silence.
"You've already lost."
Lee Kang-ho's voice came.
"Being a regressor was your only advantage, but we know now too. Future knowledge isn't perfect, and your body is weak. Your left arm is unusable, and you have no strength left. You cannot fight an S-rank Hunter."
Junho threw himself forward.
He raised his left hand. Pain exploded, but that didn't matter. He threw his entire body at Lee Kang-ho.
Lee Kang-ho took a step back.
Junho fell. Onto the stone.
He got up again. He ran again.
Lee Kang-ho didn't even raise his hands. He just stood there. As Junho's fist flew toward him, he simply tilted his head slightly. Junho's fist cut through the air and passed.
"You'll die not in three months, but now."
Lee Kang-ho said.
"I'm sorry, Junho."
His hand moved.
Junho didn't see that hand. His eyes couldn't follow it. He only felt a piercing impact through his abdomen.
"Ah—"
"Be quiet."
Lee Kang-ho's other hand grabbed Junho's throat. He lifted him. Junho's feet left the ground.
Junho tried to open his eyes. They wouldn't open properly. His vision swam.
"Do you know what your regression means?"
Lee Kang-ho's voice grew distant.
"Coming from the future means you changed your past self. If you changed the past, then the future changes too. That means the future you saw no longer exists. Everything you knew might be wrong."
Blood dripped from Junho's mouth.
"You didn't change anything."
Lee Kang-ho said.
"You just lost from the beginning all over again."
Junho's consciousness drifted away.
The last thing he saw was Lee Kang-ho's eyes.
There was no pity in them, no anger, no emotion at all.
Only cold certainty.
---
Blackness swallowed everything.
When his eyes opened, the first thing he felt was the ceiling.
An old ceiling. Peeling paint, cracked plaster. Junho lay there staring at it. There was no movement. No thoughts. He simply stared at the ceiling.
There had definitely been Kangho Lee's hand.
His abdomen had definitely been pierced.
His consciousness had definitely faded.
Yet there was a ceiling.
Junho slowly raised his hand. He spread his fingers, then closed them. There was no pain. No scars on his forearm. He touched his abdomen. His clothes were worn, but intact.
He sat up.
The room was small. A semi-basement studio apartment of about 260 square feet. Through the window, only the legs of passersby and car wheels were visible. On the desk next to the bed, instant noodle bowls were stacked. There was a smell. A thick, stale smell.
Junho dragged his finger across the dust on the desk. A clear black line remained.
"What the hell."
A voice came out. His own voice. But a different voice. Higher. Weaker.
He looked for a mirror. A small vanity sat in the corner. In the mirror was a young face. His face. But not his face now.
A face with more wrinkles. A face with deeper brows. This face was... soft.
Junho turned away from the mirror.
On the floor next to the bed lay a cell phone. The screen was black. He turned it on.
**November 24, 2013. 6:47 AM**
Junho's breath stopped.
2013. 2013?
He sat on the bed. Then lay back down. He looked at the ceiling. This time the ceiling trembled.
Ten years.
He had returned ten years into the past.
Junho closed his eyes. He thought that each time he opened them, the situation would be different. But every time, he saw the same ceiling. The same smell. The same bed.
He sat up. This time with his arms crossed.
He organized his memories.
The last moment before regression. What Kangho Lee had said. "The future you saw no longer exists." That might have been true. If all the actions Junho had taken over the past ten years had changed the future, then naturally that future would no longer exist.
Then what was this?
Junho picked up his phone again. He checked the date. November 24, 2013. Sunday. 6:47 in the morning.
He tried to turn on the internet first. It was blocked due to unpaid bills. He opened other apps on his phone. Notepad, calculator, camera. Only basic apps.
The text message folder was empty. No call history.
Junho put the phone down.
Instead, he rummaged through the clothes on the bed. A worn hoodie, ripped jeans, dirty socks. In the pockets were only a few coins worth a thousand won and cigarette butts.
He looked under the bed. A Hunter License lay there.
Junho picked it up.
**Lee Junho**
**Rank: F**
**Issued: September 15, 2012**
**Valid: September 15, 2013 ~ September 15, 2014**
The photo on the license was him. A younger him. A more pathetic him.
F-rank. A rank he couldn't have imagined before regression. Before regression, Junho was a B-rank Hunter. A rank he had slowly climbed over ten years. As a guild master, Junho had no evaluation rank. But before that, as an individual hunter, the highest rank he had reached was B.
Now it was F.
Junho set the license on the floor.
He thought. This could be a dream. A hallucination created by his brain before death. Or it could be that he had truly returned ten years into the past.
He needed a way to verify.
Junho gathered his things. There was almost nothing to gather. He put on the worn hoodie, put the license in his pocket, and went outside.
He emerged onto the streets of Seoul through the semi-basement entrance. The November air was cold. The air of the past.
Junho walked. He knew where to go. It was the path his past self had taken. The Association Hunter Center. The Association headquarters in Gangnam, Seoul.
If he went there, he could verify it.
He walked for thirty minutes. He didn't take the subway. He had no money. Instead, he walked. Toward Gangnam. He didn't get lost. He remembered the geography from ten years ago.
When he arrived at the Association headquarters, it was 8 AM. The building was as he remembered it. A gray building twenty-seven stories high. The lobby was filled with many hunters.
Junho walked to the reception desk.
"I'm here to renew my license."
The receptionist checked his license.
"Ah, Lee Junho from 2013, I see. You're F-rank. The renewal fee is 50,000 won."
Junho put his hand in his pocket. A few thousand-won coins came out. It wasn't enough. Far from enough.
"Do you not have cash?"
"Ah, just a moment."
Junho tried to find a card. But there was no card. No credit card, no debit card, no prepaid card.
"I'm sorry, but could you come back tomorrow?"
The receptionist smiled kindly.
Junho nodded. He took his license back.
He left the Association building.
It was confirmed. This was not a dream. November 24, 2013, 8:30 AM. Junho had truly returned ten years into the past.
And with almost nothing to his name.
Junho stood in the middle of Seoul's streets. Morning sunlight flowed down between the buildings. The sunlight of ten years ago.
All the memories of the past ten years came back to him. Ten years as an unknown hunter. A slowly climbing rank. The acquisition of Shinwol Guild. The discovery of a flaw in the Association system. The discovery of Jieun Han. Competition with Minjun Choi. The meeting with Kangho Lee.
And finally. Death deep within a dungeon.
The things Kangho Lee had said came back to him.
"The future you saw no longer exists."
Junho repeated those words. He muttered them.
"It doesn't exist?"
No. It existed.
Junho had seen that future. He knew how desperate it was. The Association's conspiracy. The annihilation of Shinwol Guild. Seoyeon Park's death. Kangho Lee's overwhelming strength.
And this time, he was certain he could do things differently.
Junho put his hand in his pocket. Thousand-won coins. An F-rank license. That was all.
But it was enough.
He had ten years of memories. He knew the structure of the Association system. He knew every trap in guild management. He knew how Minjun Choi would move.
He knew what ten years meant.
Junho moved forward. The direction was north. Gangbuk. Not where Shinwol Guild was. Where Hyejin Jung was. A guild master on the brink of bankruptcy.
The scene where Junho first acquired a guild ten years ago. He headed there.
The time was 9 AM. Still far to go.
Junho walked. Slowly, surely, with the determination never to lose again.