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Ch.10 Sword God From The Ruined World

Although he had earned close to 150 million won, Seo Do-jun felt no joy.  

In South Korea, famous Heroes could casually earn billions in a single day of hunting, and while rare, it was even possible to obtain magic stones worth over 10 billion. Compared to them, he felt utterly insignificant.  

Hunting in Gates is important, but what’s urgent right now is regaining his past strength. 

His first goal was to hunt in an S-rank Gate.  

Currently, there are only five S-rank Gates in South Korea.  

However, very few were permitted to hunt there, and no one could enter freely.  

Even if one managed to get in, there wasn’t a single Hero in the world capable of hunting in an S-rank Gate alone.  

Of course, Seo Do-jun planned to hunt in an S-rank Gate by himself.  

To others, it would sound insane, but for him, it was entirely possible.  

I only need to recover half of my past strength. 

The power that had earned him the title of Sword God.  

He didn’t even need to regain all of it.  

That was how strong Seo Do-jun had been in the past.  

The problem was that restoring his past strength wouldn’t be easy.  

I never imagined the magic in this world would be so impure.

Seo Do-jun frowned and clicked his tongue.  

Compared to his ruined world, Earth’s environment was the worst.  

The magic in the atmosphere was minimal, and even that was so tainted that no matter how much he absorbed through magic circulation techniques, the amount he could accumulate in his body was severely restricted.  

Naturally, not only was the quantity of magic lacking, but its purity was also abysmal. Purifying it to a higher grade would take considerable time.  

Three years? No… Maybe even longer.  

Even if he devoted himself solely to training in the most magic-rich area, it would take at least three years.  

And that was assuming the atmospheric magic recovered at a rapid pace.  

What if the recovery rate was slower?  

It might take five years—or even ten.  

No wonder humans in this world are so weak. 

Now he understood why the Heroes he looked down on were objects of envy.  

Earthlings were born frail, and even as they grew, they couldn’t break free from that limitation.  

It wasn’t due to a lack of talent but because the environment didn’t allow it.  

Can’t be helped. The environment is something I can’t change.  

If he wanted to live here, he had no choice but to accept and adapt.  

No matter how much he struggled, some things were beyond his control, so Seo Do-jun gave up cleanly.  

Of course, that didn’t mean he could just blame the environment and remain powerless.  

If building basic strength was difficult, he could rely on auxiliary means—namely, weapons.  

In other words, using weapons as tools to maximize his power.  

Even in his ruined world, Seo Do-jun had valued weapons.  

The stronger his base power, the more he could amplify it with powerful weapons.  

But now, even that was denied to him.  

A trash sword costs hundreds of millions…

To Seo Do-jun, this reality was absurd.  

He had considered buying a decent sword, but the performance didn’t match the price at all.  

Because of that, he had no choice but to abandon the idea of wielding a weapon for the time being.  

Shaking off his thoughts, Seo Do-jun closed his eyes.  

Sitting comfortably, he inhaled and exhaled deeply.  

With each breath, he drew in atmospheric magic and trapped as much as possible inside his body.  

It might seem trivial, but magic breathing was far from easy.  

For Seo Do-jun, however, it was no different from normal breathing—a habit ingrained since childhood.  

Under the moonlight on the rooftop, Seo Do-jun’s magic breathing looked almost mystical.  

***

Heroes: The Most Envied Profession in the World  

Heroes were the only ones who could control the rift zones where monster waves might emerge after a Break.  

Without their efforts, humanity would never have obtained magic stones, the new energy resource.  

As a result, Heroes amassed wealth and fame faster than any profession in Earth’s history.  

Heroes were ranked from the lowest F-rank up to D, C, B, A, and S-rank.  

F-rank Heroes were barely superior to ordinary humans in physical ability, so they weren’t particularly remarkable.  

Risking their lives against grotesque monsters in dangerous Gates only to earn the lowest-rank magic stones (worth 50,000 won) made even civilians pity them.  

In contrast, S-rank Heroes wielded influence greater than a nation’s president in some cases.  

Their superhuman abilities and unique talents made each S-rank Hero seem like a protagonist from a movie.  

Of course, such protagonists were rare.  

Globally, there were barely over 300 S-rank Heroes.  

Among them, only seven held South Korean citizenship, and their popularity was beyond imagination.  

“Hey! Look, over there!”  

“Isn’t that Hyun Joo-yeon?”  

“Huh? Hyun Joo-yeon?”  

The appearance of a stunning beauty with model-like proportions sent the surroundings into a frenzy.  

It was an expected reaction—after all, she was the fourth S-rank Hero in South Korea.  

Unfazed by the crowd’s stares, she walked calmly toward her destination.  

People who had only seen her on TV now scrambled to take photos or videos, but she remained composed, as if used to it.  

A few brave souls approached her for autographs or selfies, but she politely declined, deftly avoiding uncomfortable situations.  

Eventually, she entered a building, leaving the disappointed crowd no choice but to disperse.  

Click, click, click.  

The sound of her heels echoed through the hallway as she stopped in front of an office door.  

“Sigh…”  

After a brief exhale, she opened the door.  

“Welco— Huh?! Wha—?!”  

Assistant Manager Lee Sang-cheol, who had been hunched over his computer monitor, nearly choked in shock upon seeing her face.  

“H-H-Hyun Joo-yeon?!”  

Too flustered to speak properly, he could only stammer.  

Hyun Joo-yeon nodded.  

“Yes, that’s me.”  

Her expression clearly conveyed, ‘Why am I even here?’  

“…Why are you here?”  

At Assistant Manager Lee Sang-cheol’s question, she forced a strained smile.  

“I heard you’ve been having some trouble lately.”  

“Huh? What do you mean…?”  

Assistant Manager Lee Sang-cheol couldn’t comprehend why one of South Korea’s most famous Heroes was standing in his office.  

“Is the President here named Hwang Chang-seop?”  

“That’s correct, but…”  

“He’s my uncle.”  

“Ah… Whaaaat?!”  

Hyun Joo-yeon suppressed the urge to turn around and leave at Assistant Manager Lee Sang-cheol’s perpetually shocked reactions.  

“A Hero’s been pressuring my uncle into buying magic stones, and he wouldn’t stop complaining… Anyway, I thought I should check if I could help. Can you explain the details?”  

***

“…?”  

Seo Do-jun jolted awake at a sudden tremor.  

It was faint, but unmistakably an earthquake.  

Soon, the shaking intensified.  

Rumble, rumble, rumble—!  

The photos of Eun-young placed on the shelf began rattling violently.  

“Brother! Brother!”  

Rushing to the living room, he found Eun-young clutching the rabbit plushies he’d recently bought for her, her face pale with fear.  

Seo Do-jun immediately scooped her up and dashed outside.  

Just as the tremors peaked—  

Crack! Zzzzt—!  

A section of the yard warped, and blue sparks erupted as an enormous surge of energy burst forth.  

A rift!  

Thanks to Seo Do-jun’s memories, he recognized this as the birth of a rift zone.  

“Seo Do-jun, what’s happening?!”  

His grandmother had just returned home, stepping through the front door.  

“It’s dangerous—take Eun-young and get away from here!”  

Handing Eun-young to his grandmother, Seo Do-jun sprinted toward the rift.  

“Seo Do-jun!”  

“Brother!”  

***

“Team Leader! A new rift zone has been detected in Mapo!”  

The Rift Detection Division of the Seoul Hero Association was thrown into emergency mode for the first time in a while.  

Though a decade had passed since the first rift zones appeared, humanity still had no answers.  

Why did they form? When? Where?  

Rifts emerged unpredictably, so the division had to remain vigilant 365 days a year.  

“The first new rift in 63 days? Deploy Heroes to Mapo immediately. Since the White Lion Guild is closest, request cooperation from Hero Jang Seok.”  

The team leader calmly directed the response.  

A rift’s appearance alone wasn’t catastrophic.  

Regardless of size, rift only caused earthquakes (below magnitude 6.0) within a 50-meter radius. The energy waves they emitted, despite their visible intensity, posed no real danger.  

The real problem arose if the rift wasn’t contained quickly.  

“Where exactly is the rift located?”  

“In the yard of a residential house.”  

“A house?”  

The team leader’s brow furrowed.  

The biggest issue with new rifts was unauthorized first entries.  

If a non-Hero entered, no one else could access the rift until that person exited.  

The Hero Association would be forced to wait helplessly until re-entry became possible.  

And that wasn’t the only concern.  

If the first entrant died inside or didn’t emerge within 30 days, the rift would enter a ‘Break’ phase, triggering a 10-day monster wave.  

In short, without knowing what monsters lurked inside, Heroes would have to face an uncontrolled onslaught.  

The resulting damage—both material and human—was incalculable, making this the Association’s worst-case scenario.  

To prevent this, the government strictly prohibited unauthorized entries by law.  

But laws couldn’t stop everyone.  

Some stumbled into rifts unintentionally, while others deliberately entered, lured by baseless rumors that new rifts had higher Hero-awakening rates.  

“Of all places, a house…”  

The team leader prayed no one had entered.  

But his hopes were dashed within 10 minutes.  

“Someone’s entered the rift. The first-entry window has passed… Re-entry is now impossible.”  

At the deployed Hero’s report, the team leader pressed a hand to his forehead.  

“Do we have the entrant’s identity?”  

The reply came swiftly.  

“Name: Seo Do-jun. Resident of the house where the rift appeared. According to his grandmother, he entered to save his younger sister.”  

“…Not a Hero, then.”  

The team leader’s expression hardened like stone.  

The odds of a monster wave after a non-Hero entered a new rift?  

99.9%.  

“Initiating Monster Wave Alert Level 1.”  

The team leader checked his watch.  

Time until the monster wave: 29 days, 23 hours, 40 minutes.  

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