4.

December 31, 2016, 23:53.

The streets of the night in Bucheon City, just before 2017, were terribly quiet.

The wide ten-lane road, which crossed in front of Bucheon City Hall, was filled with vehicles that had hit one another. It looked like dozens of centipedes made of cars were on the huge road.

There were lots of dead bodies. The bodies in the deflated airbags were in better shape. The scene of a dead body that had been crushed on the ground as it came out through the glass of a car as it had collided was terrible. But even that was no match for the dead bodies bitten by monsters that could not be identified. It was Hell.

13 degrees Celsius, thanks to the cold of the New Year, was preventing the dead bodies from rotting.

But one thing was clear: December 31, 2016, would be recorded as the most horrible day in Korean history!

"Krrr!" On that terrible day, the Black Orc came out of the large mart and onto the road that had become a mess, looking all around wildly.

There was no light left on the street, and only the lights of the cars that were still on sparsely were able to follow the Black Orc with its dark skin in the night. Nevertheless, the Black Orc was so intense that even the blind could feel its presence. The fierce, murderous will and hostility in its orange eyes were not something anyone could ignore.

The Black Orc gave off such a presence and stared at Kim Tae-hoon, who stood in a spacious area that luckily existed on the road. It only stared at him.

It was evidence of intelligence. It had not forgotten that he was not alone. It knew there were other people around him.

Of course, for the Black Orc, those factors were not real threats, although they were something to be wary of. The previous fight had already proved that.

Kim was the only one who tried something against the Black Orc in the first place, and as a result, even he only caught the attention of the Black Orc but did not give it a fatal blow. In other words, if it finished him, everything would be over!

Without him, the Black Orc could pick and choose to eat those who had not yet escaped from the second floor, and those who have fled, but were still hiding in the first floor, without any interruption.

At this moment the Black Orc imagined filling its stomach with hot blood, there in the cold that made its strong flesh sting, and it was no longer hesitant after thinking all that. It stepped again toward him.

Thump! There was another disturbance on the quiet road.

Thump! He once again used his Telekinesis against the Black Orc. He tried to lift its moving body. But…

Thump! The Black Orc blew away his attempt to crush its body with a flexing of muscle.

There was no way to stop the Black Orc from increasing its power, as his Telekinesis had weakened. His concentration, physical health, and mental strength had bottomed out. Most importantly, he could not draw an image, a picture of his own Telekinesis completely overpowering the Black Orc.

"Krrr, krrr!" The fact made the Black Orc laugh, and it was not just a laugh, but ridicule. It was also a sound of conviction. It was confident that he could no longer stop itself, and that all he could do was slow itself for a few seconds at best.

Therefore, the Black Orc once again enjoyed the experience when his Telekinesis wrapped around it and stopped it from moving. Instead of trying to overcome the Telekinesis, it looked at him with its ridiculing gaze.

He also looked back at it.

'The clever are usually mean.' He looked at it, and he knew that it would be careless, with its eyes of a triumphant air in front of a troublemaker who was weakened.

"Krrr?" At that moment the Black Orc felt something strange in its eyes. On its left side, the sound of something shattering in the darkness on the road was heard. With that noise, a black car appeared.

The long black car was the Benz S class, worth over a hundred thousand dollars, and it charged the Black Orc of similar size and color, with the force of two hundred and fifty horses under the hood.

The Black Orc could not avoid the sudden rush of the car, as he had caught itself for a few seconds. A gruesome crunch sounded as if two cars had slammed together.

The horrible shriek of the Black Orc once more covered the dark road. The scream was not just a struggle for pain.

It was the sound of the Black Orc, withstanding the power of a big sedan which had rushed at it, the power of the car with all that horsepower.

"Kaaaah!" The Black Orc took a stand and began to lift the sedan up as if it was going to chew on the car. It was the power of a monster, literally. Two of the four wheels spinning smoke on the asphalt road began to turn in the air.

His telekinesis no longer had any effect on the body of the Black Orc. However, he was not embarrassed. Quite the opposite.

He was hunting. It was why he didn't run away when he could escape, and he waited for the Black Orc in the cold weather, in an open space.

'Hunters never prepare only one trap when they catch a huge animal.'

At that moment, the sound of another car engine was audible behind the Black Orc, who was still wrestling with the Benz.

"Krrr?" The Black Orc turned its head in horror.

Bang! A huge bus compressed the black lump, and they were tangled together.

"Whew!" Only then did he breathe out a sigh for the first time. The white breath rose like a signal fire from his mouth.

'I got it'

On January 1, 2017, he survived like that.

5.

"It's not as cold as I thought it would be, is it?" Ahn Sun-mi frowned at Bang Hyun-wook at his surprising remark.

"Are you kidding me?" A thorny reply popped out of her mouth. She thought that Bang was playing a ridiculous pun against her, and it was natural to think so.

At 0 am, the weather of the New Year in Korea in 2017 was unbelievably cold. The cold biting wind was relentless when walking down a vast dark road without a single streetlight, and above all, the fact that there was no sign of living people anywhere was making the harshness worse.

It was the coldest day that Ahn had felt during her life. If it were not for Kim Tae-hoon, who was hacking open the Black Orc's chest with an ax to take out the jewel in its heart, she would not have endured the cold wind with only a hot pack.

Bang was sincere, of course. "It's not cold…" He was not really cold. It was thanks to the Energy inside him, which was now taking away the cold that he felt.

Ahn briefly threw words at his appearance. "It's the worst sign, not feeling cold in cold weather."

"What?"

"When the body temperature goes down, the human body, first and foremost, concentrates blood there to maintain the functions of the heart and brain. On the contrary, arms and legs far away from the heart and brain are rapidly cooled as blood flow is cut off. Then, when the limbs are freezing to death, the blood flow is concentrated there to prevent the destruction of the bio-function, and the fever is so great that you can take off your underwear."

Ahn turned her head with the words and looked at the naked and disheveled bodies everywhere.

'The human body is stronger than most people think, but if the mind collapses, it becomes infinitely weak.'

It would be virtually like a death sentence to be overwhelmed by the fear of monsters in the cold weather where someone could die of hypothermia.

"The moment one takes off one's clothes, one's hypothermia gets worse, and then the countdown starts."

"Are you a doctor?"

Ahn had a bitter smile at Bang's question.

"The doctor is a slave, just a slave." she thought. If she had been a really proper doctor, she would not have come to a large mart for cigarettes, sweets, and caffeine drinks to spend the night in the emergency room, rather than being on vacation at the end of the year.

"A slave who runs a cigarette errand at the end of the year when everyone else is resting."

But now she was grateful. 'So I survived...'

If she was in the hospital, she would be dead now, or not much different. There were many knives in the hospital, but no weapons or hunters could have killed that terrifying Black Orc.

However, the situation was too serious to make it a comfort.

'Can I survive in the future?'

Even before half a day, the city had been full of vitality ahead of the end of the year, but now it turned into Hell. And this was just the beginning.

'In order to survive in the future, I will have to overcome the same crisis and hardships again.'

"But I am curious, how much is a doctor's salary?" Bang, who did not know her feeling, asked a question that lacked any sense.

Fortunately, she did not have to answer the question. Kim's ax-chopping had finally stopped. Of course, the conversation between Bang and Ahn also stopped, and the two watched his actions.

Kim pulled out the heart of the Black Orc, and then ripped out an orange jewel attached to the heart.

Monster Stone!

Kim walked over to Bang and Ahn, and ordered Bang, "Take a picture."

Bang fumbled to find the smartphone in his breast pocket and hurriedly pulled it out.

"Ah!" Bang, who took out his smartphone, sighed because the smartphone liquid crystal had cracked like a spider web. The Black Orc's fist had not been kind. "I bought it just last month!"

"Take a picture." Kim did not accept such a complaint from Bang.

"Oh, yes!" Bang swallowed a bitter smile and then activated the camera function.

He turned the camera to Kim's face and saw his face, a little angry over the broken LCD.

Ahn said to Bang on behalf of Kim, "Take a picture... of the jewel."

"Aha!" He quickly changed the direction of the camera to Kim's palm.

Snap! The flash went off and the picture was taken. In the picture, described in translucent letters...

------

[The Crystal of a Black Orc]

- Strength and Health increase when ingested.

- The skill level of Energy increases when ingested.

- The skill level of Defense increases when ingested.

- The power of a Black Orc [Black Skin] can be acquired when ingested.]

------

"Wow, it must be a rare item." Bang was surprised.

However, as soon as Kim confirmed the contents, he immediately put the Crystal of Black Orc in his mouth and swallowed it.

Then, before Bang and Ahn could even be surprised, he took the smartphone in Bang's hand, photographed his hand, and checked the contents.

------

[Basic Abilities]

- Strength: 28

- Health: 23

[Special Abilities]

- Energy: F+ Rank

- Mana: F Rank

- Telekinesis: A Rank

- Defense: F+ Rank

- Mana Resistance: F Rank

[Achieved Abilities]

- Black Skin (Grade 6): The power of Black Orc consumes Energy to increase Defense.

------

Kim, who confirmed his ability of an Awakener, laughed bitterly. 'I have a rough idea of what I'm going to do. Damn it.'

It was the moment the First Hunter was born.