Return: the bottom-tier hunter's redemption - Chapter 0
“Damn…”
Lying face down, Yuki Asato looked up at the sky.
“Goddamn it!”
The sky was covered in an enormous number of demons—angels with pure white wings looking down upon the world with disdain.
Armed humans flew toward the humanoid figures floating in the sky. Each of them was one of Japan’s top-class Hunters. However, they were being shot down without being able to lay a single finger on them.
No one could have imagined that even Japan’s strongest force would be so utterly powerless.
In the blink of an eye, all the Hunters who had faced off against the humanoids were gone. Within the hour, all the Hunters who had stepped up to defend their capital were dead.
Despite this, there were still many famous Hunters in Japan. However, most of them were nowhere to be seen in the face of these heavenly demons.
“Goddamn it!”
Asato lamented his own powerlessness.
—If only I had any real power…
Fifteen years ago, humans who had suddenly gained new powers—the Awakened, they were called—began appearing. When they Awakened, they would always gain one Skill—an Innate Skill.
The only thing Asato gained when he Awakened was a worthless Skill that he didn’t know how to use.
A Hunter with nothing but useless Skills had no rights whatsoever. They could never join a party, and would always be cast aside like trash.
That said, there was a limit to how long he could continue working alone. With no Skills that he could use in combat, Asato couldn’t actually fight.
No matter how hard he tried, he could only gain the experience of being a burden to mid-level parties. He couldn’t properly level up, and he couldn’t learn any new Skills.
As it was, he could barely earn enough money to get by, and didn’t have any time to spare for proper hunting activities.
—If only I had more power, I wouldn’t have to stand here and watch, powerless like this.
The heavenly demon twisted its lips into a cruel smile. It seemed to be mocking him.
—The weak have no right to live.
The demon raised one of its hands, and a terrifying power began to gather in its palm.
The power took the form of a sphere of light, which then swelled in size. Just as the sphere began to emit a light as brilliant as the sun, and plasma began to burst forth from it, the heavenly demon unleashed its destructive power upon the world.
—I wish for one thing only…power.
The next moment, Asato’s consciousness faded away along with the light that vaporized the city.
* * *
“—What?!”
As soon as he regained consciousness, Asato gasped in surprise. Up until a moment ago, he had been in an alley in Shinjuku, but now he was standing on the roof of a skyscraper.
The scenery had changed so drastically that he nearly fell over the edge of the roof. Regaining his balance, Asato looked up. Before him was Tokyo, looking exactly the same as always.
“Tokyo…was destroyed…”
There was no sign of the demon in the sky, and everything on the ground was as it had always been, with no sign of destruction.
He touched his body. It was completely unharmed. There was nothing wrong with him.
“What…happened…?”
As he was puzzling over this, a familiar window appeared before his eyes.
* * *
Name: Yuki Asato
Level: 1 | Class: Assassin
Might: 10 | SP: 5
Gold: 1,000
* * *
Stats:
Strength: 2 | Vitality: 2 | Magic: 1
Spirit: 1 | Agility: 2 | Perception: 1
* * *
Skills:
* Return Level 1 (0%)
* * *
“This is…”
It was his System Board status screen, a power that all Hunters could access after Awakening.
He could still clearly remember the numbers he was seeing. They were the same as when he had first Awakened. When he had seen this status, the Asato of that time had been overjoyed.
“Now I can be a Hunter too!”
He had thought that his dream had come true. Little did he know that his dream would soon turn into a nightmare.
“What the hell…what’s going on?!”
At the moment Tokyo was destroyed, Asato’s level had been 9. Once you leveled up, your level wouldn’t decrease unless something truly exceptional happened—such as getting injured and being forced to rest for a whole month.
Asato hadn’t done anything that would cause his level to decrease. Despite this, his status had reverted back to what it had been when he first Awakened.
However, that wasn’t what had truly surprised Asato. Instead, he was shocked by the pop-up window that had appeared in front of his status window.
>>Condition: User’s death confirmed.
>>Skill: has been activated.
>>Restoring from memory point.
>>Due to the significant distance from the memory point,
>>status data has been lost.