Woojin got off the bus and took out his phone to launch his maps app. When he saw how long it was taking to load, it reminded him of that damn phone salesman. As the round bar continued to spin, he started to wonder how he should get rid of him.

After a full thirty seconds of loading, the map finally opened. Woojin used the search bar to find his destination. Frustratingly, it took another long minute for directions to pop up. He started walking briskly in the direction of the pinned location.

[Awakened General Affairs Bureau]

Woojin had come to the General Affairs Bureau to register as an Awakened. The reception desk gave him a form to fill out, and Woojin scrawled down his basic biodata and his ability before returning to the desk. He received a receipt number in return for the form and waited a few minutes before he was directed towards an examination room.

The examination room had cameras in inconspicuous corners and a public official to process the test results. Also, there were two Awakened from the Bureau always on call in case of unforeseen events.

Oh Joonhwan, who’d successfully returned to the General Affairs Bureau, looked down at Kang Woojin’s filled out form, "You have a summoning ability? Could you show it to me?”

Woojin quirked an eyebrow at his very businesslike question, “Right here?”

Woojin seemed vaguely familiar, so Joonhwan glanced at his screen again.

Uh? Have I met him before?

It had only been four days since Joonhwan had met Woojin, but Woojin’s outfit was far different from the rags he’d had on back then, so Joonhwan didn’t recognize him.

Woojin decided to respond, “I need a vector.”

A look of recognition passed through Joonhwan’s face, "Ah, you have a mass summoning ability. What kind of vector do you need?”

Woojin smirked, “Give me a corpse.”

“...What?”

Of course, Joonhwan and the two Awakened from the Bureau were taken by surprise.

“I’m not talking about a human corpse.” Woojin clarified, still smirking, “It could be a monster or even a dead animal. It just needs to have bones. Ah, of course, human corpses are fine too.”

Joonhwan struggled to regain his composure, “I-I understand.”

Joonhwan paged the Support Division. A few minutes later, a member of the Support Division brought the corpse of a bunny that had been killed in an experiment.

Woojin held his hand over the corpse that had been placed in the middle of the examination room, and commanded, “Wake up.”

Pah-pak!

The bunny’s corpse tore open, and a Skeleton Soldier leaped out.

“Kee-kee-keek.”

Joonhwan gulped at the Skeleton’s Soldier’s voiceless rattle. He had seen all kinds of weird abilities among Awakened, but this was a new one.

In fairness, Joonhwan was only level 9, so it was just his first time seeing something like this. There were already Awakened in the world with similar abilities.

He stuttered, “You…you are a Necromancer.”

Usually, Awakened were given titles based on their abilities, like Magician, Warrior or Priest. Of course, there were Necromancers, who controlled the undead. There were even some celebrities amongst the Necromancers.

Woojin was calm, “As you can see.”

Joonhwan continued with his assessment, “A summoner’s ability is given an Awakened rank based on their summoned being’s battle ability. Why don’t you try attacking that?”

A hologram appeared in the middle of the examination room, much to Woojin’s surprise. Upon a second glance, he found several cunningly disguised projectors installed in the walls of the examination room.

Joonhwan prompted, “Think of it as a simulated battle. I just want to see your summoned being’s movement.”

The hologram was that of a small Kobold. It was a monster as common as a Drabbit, but they were harder to hunt since they tended to move and hunt in packs.

“Kee-keek.”

With a twist of Woojin’s will, the Skeleton Soldier leaped forward to fight the Kobold. Naturally, the bone knife passed right through the hologram, but the projectors installed in the walls caught the Skeleton Soldier’s movement and took the appropriate measurements.

After five minutes had passed, Joonhwan told Woojin to stop, "Do you have any other abilities?”

Woojin easily replied, “Well, I don’t have any other notable abilities.”

Yet.

Joonhwan’s expression didn’t change, “Hmmm, wait a moment. Could you follow me?”

Joonhwan directed him to a break room. He bowed as he said he’d be back in a moment, but it took him an hour to return with a black card. It looked like a high quality credit card, but it had his picture imprinted on it like his ID.

“This is your Awakened registration card. It can be used as an ID and a debit card.”

The card simply had his personal profile and information, among which was his F Rank clearance.

Woojin commented, “Is F Rank really as low as I think it is?”

Joonhwan replied, “Mmm. It can’t be considered high. Actually, it is the lowest. Unfortunately, your battle abilities are weaker than expected, so...”

That was only natural. Woojin hadn’t put any points into his level 1 Skeleton Soldiers, so they could only exert half the strength of an average adult.

Nevertheless, this might be a problem. Woojin asked, “Mmm. Well, if one’s rank is too low, is there a restriction on which dungeons you can enter?”

However, Joonhwan shook his head, “There’s no such limitation. However, when you form a party, the party’s loot distribution is calculated based on your rank.”

That wasn’t a problem. Woojin wasn’t planning on forming a party, he preferred to attack the dungeon by himself. His physical abilities were high enough to tear steel in half, and he had no problem controlling up to fourteen skeletons. He didn’t have anything to make a fuss about.

Oh Joonhwan hesitated, “Excuse me. Have I seen you somewhere?”

Woojin cocked his head in confusion. But he didn’t bother racking his brain; he felt like it wasn’t worth trying to figure it out.

He demurred, “This is the first time. Have a nice day.”

Woojin immediately took his leave from the Bureau, leaving Joonhwan scratching the back of his head, 

Still, it kept bothering Joonhwan, “Ah, I know I’ve seen him somewhere…….”

It wasn’t until he’d returned to his office that it hit him, “Ah! He was that guy from before. [Gwachun Station’s 1st Exit].”

On the first day he’d returned from his temporary assignment, Joonhwan had been dragged into his superior’s office and berated for his carelessness in allowing a random person to enter the dungeon. Joonhwan searched through his drawer and found the access record for [Gwachun Station’s 1st Exit] on that day.

[Name : Kang Woojin, Affiliation : Planet Earth, Awakened Number : 12345]

When he saw the cheeky answer scrawled on the record, he felt a flash of irritation, "He’s just an F Rank? Moreover, he’s a complete newbie who just registered today. Jeez.”

Joonhwan had suffered a scolding that had put him in a huff for a while just because of this bastard.

But then, he frowned, “Uh? He’s only F Rank. How did he clear it by himself?”

[Gwachun Station’s 1st Exit] was full of Drabbits. They didn’t drop any Bloodstones, but still, it wasn’t a dungeon that an F Rank could clear by themselves.

“Jeez.” Joonhwan buried his head in his hands, but then threw the file back into his drawer. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t see the bastard again, so why should he care?

***

After leaving the Bureau, Woojin opened the Dungeon Forum app on his phone. He almost lost his temper at the amount of time it took for the app to load.

As Jaemin had taught him, he set the search option to filter dungeons by entrance fees of 100,000 won. Then he selected a filter that showed him monster ranks that were two below that of his summons.

When the app loaded the results, Woojin found his target, “This is the closest one.”

Woojin checked for a bus line that went to [Shinrim Station’s 7th Exit] and waited at the station for his bus to arrive.

“Man, this app is quite convenient.”

It wasn’t just dungeons that had appeared in the past five years. Woojin had only known of a few people who had smartphones before, but now they could be found in everyone’s hands.

Moreover, there were a lot of convenient apps that were helpful in daily life.

As he got closer to [Shinrim Station’s 7th Exit], the height of the buildings started to go down, and the surroundings grew more rundown. The immediate area around the dungeon was mostly vacant land, and from the empty parking lots, it seemed a bit abandoned.

“It looks like a Dungeon Break happened at least once.”

If not a Dungeon Break, he had no explanation as to why perfectly fine buildings were shuttered. There also wouldn’t be any empty lots.

Previously, when he’d gone to [Gwachun Station’s 1st Exit], he’d found the army. But at [Shinrim Station’s 7th Exit], he found a fairly large crowd.

Woojin had made his selection after reading a famous blog article, but it seemed as though he hadn’t been the only one. He shook his head as he saw the long queue.

He muttered, “I hadn’t thought about this.”

The low entrance fee and the low ranked monsters meant minimal risk, so the competition to make money at the Mine was fierce.

Woojin had no choice but to get in line. He noticed that everyone in line was gathered in small groups. It was likely that these people were working together. 

It was right when he made that connection that a man with sharp features turned to him from further ahead in the line.