Game On

Chapter 1

"Status Panel." I stretched my arms as a holographic panel appeared in front of me. "Let's see. Level ranked up to 84, huh, that's new. Agility ranked up to A+. Strength, A why can't I level up my strength seriously? Lastly my stupid special ability store. Why can't I still open this-" I caught myself before letting out a curse. I did not need my little brother to hear that.

The name's Seoah. Kang Seoah to be exact. I'm becoming 19 this year and well, the only one in our family is my brother and me. My mother died giving birth to Taehyun and being in depression, my father followed shortly after. Our grandparents hated us and always said harmful things to us saying that we killed our parents. Other than that, there's this fact that I'm a hunter... I suppose I have to tell you about what a hunter is in the first place.

To sum it all up, chaos stirred up on Earth. It started with the new invention of the GR, the abbreviation for 'Game Reality.' Using a GR capsule, you could enter the game Wizard: M with the avatar of your choice. Wizard: M is a game made by the company that invented the GR. The GR capsule could be only used for the Wizard: M game. It easily became the most famous game on Earth.

In the game, players could buy items and go on raids like a regular game with the assurance of not dying for real. Once a player dies, he/she appears back in the space where they first entered the game. 

Till then there was no problem. The first event happened 50 years ago, way before I was born. A black hacker made a code to trap a person in the game which disabled the person from coming back to the real world after dying in the game. In the end, the person died and the hacker was caught, but because of the hacker's new code, it triggered new sorts of viruses as well as bugs within the game.

These new errors caused the players to respawn in a different place than the place where they entered the game after logging out or dying, pressured the players to go on raids that could kill the players for real, and turned a player into a part of the game that trapped the players in the game forever, and lastly, the weirdest virus that allowed the game NPCs or monsters from the game to come out.

This is where the hunters came out. When an NPC or a player that stayed in the game too long and turned into part of the game found a way to come out, all of their blood-related families would be born with a connection to the game. The possibility of a hunter being born is 1/20 so it makes every single hunter even more valuable. Kinda confusing but yeah. These people are called hunters because they are the only ones who can hunt the monsters that appear in our world.

It's kind of unfair because the monsters get to break shops and houses while no one but a hunter can harm them. Any gun or knife from Earth wouldn't be able to harm the monster. Only a weapon bought from a special store that only appears to hunters can harm them or take them down. 

The more you kill monsters, the more you level up. The more powerful you are the more money the government would be willing to pay for you to work for them. Becoming powerful also means that you get more fame and more attention from the whole world. But there are other types of hunters who keep to themselves not gathering any attention and living quietly.

I am one of those hunters. No one knows that I am a hunter. I've been keeping that secret for my whole life. I knew that one side of my parents were hunters but I never knew who and neither of my grandparents seemed to see the need to tell me about it. 

It wasn't really hard hiding it at my school or my grandparents as no one cared, but I've been struggling to hide the fact from my little brother. Normally, we wouldn't have secrets between us but to protect him, it was the only way. As I mentioned earlier, anyone born from a hunter or even a single drop of blood from a hunter would have a connection to the game. My little brother does too, and I've been working to make sure that he doesn't know that.

Everyone with a connection to the game has a hunter's scent that the monsters, that came out of the game, are programmed to follow. These people are in danger of being exposed to monsters with no ability to defend themselves - because they are not hunters. The only way to protect them is to temporarily cut off their connection to the game using a potion that was invented by a famous potion maker. Given its effect, it was sold at a very high price. 

My daily task is to kill monsters, earn the rewards that are given, sell them on the black market, and use the money to buy potions for my little brother. Fighting monsters, especially alone, is a life-threatening thing to do and that is why I don't tell my brother what my true job is. He would never drink that potion, which he thinks is vitamins by the way, if he knew what it cost me.

I went down the stairs into the living room and saw my annoying but loving little brother Taehyun sitting on the couch facing opposite me. I smiled slightly before sneaking up behind him. I attempted to pull his ear but he counter-attacked me and bit my hand. I let out a shout and glared at the smiling boy. "Why would you do that?!" I snapped at him hissing with pain.

He rolled his eyes and went back to playing games on his phone. I shoved him hard and he fell off the couch. I giggled before lending my hand for him to get back up. He seemed pissed but he accepted my hand. We ended up sitting side by side playing games together. I heard people saying they couldn't get along with their siblings but I could never understand them.

Sure, we do play fight and prank each other but we always ended up laughing and playing together. Maybe it was the fact that there's only a three-year gap between us, I would never know. After playing games for the whole morning, I leaned my head on my brother's shoulders. He wrapped his arms around my waist and positioned me comfortably before leaning against me.

We fell asleep like that. I woke up and found a blanket covering me. I stretched (for the second time today) and got up. Taehyun was nowhere to be seen so I guessed he went to play with his friends after waking up earlier than me. I walked to the kitchen and grabbed an apple before munching on it. 

I changed from my pajamas and wore a simple white T-shirt and jeans. I grabbed my keys and headed out. I was on my way to a convenience store when a well-folded blue origami bird fluttered in front of me. I swatted it away but it wouldn't stop following me and flying in front of my face. I groaned in frustration before grabbing the bird I crumbled it in my hands but it simply escaped my hands and appeared as that perfectly folded bird again. 

Starting to notice the familiar alarm noise from the game, I logged into my statues panel and tapped on the bird. At that moment, an invitation popped up. "Would you like to join us? ~Svt" I looked at it in confusion but whoever they were they were sneaky. I had two choices 'Yes' or 'Yes.' I decided to punch whoever sent it but for now, I had no choice. I couldn't leave the invitation panel until I made a choice. I mumbled some unkind words at the sender before tapping on the left 'Yes' button. 

The bluebird exploded with a burst of light and I knew that I was getting teleported right away. I closed my eyes tightly from the blinding light. After a while, the light subsided enough to open my eyes. Looking around, I noticed that I was in front of a very large house. If you look from the front side of the house, you can see a forest stretched out limitlessly. Looking from the backside of the house, you could see the rocky beach and the glittering sea.

 I was about to go into the house when a handsome boy looking around my age came my way. "Hiii!!" He chirped. I hesitated for a while and looked at the boy with suspicion. "What do you want?" I wanted to sound icy but my voice came out rather softly (What? My weak point is hot boys) He chuckled but he stayed silent his gaze fixed on an empty spot beside me. I looked to see if there was something there but nothing could be seen but trees, trees, and more trees.

"Umm. What are you looking at?" I asked the boy but he waved the question away. He stayed like that for a few more minutes before returning to me. "So! You're level 84! That's just a couple of levels lower than me!" He said as if we talked about this a thousand times before. "How did you-" He cut me off and dragged me into the house ignoring my questions and protests.

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