The last customer finally left, leaving the door bell ringing as the door closed.
A sigh finally escaped his lips. He placed the cup in his hand on the counter, and wiped his hands clean.
"Good work boss!", a voice came from behind him.
"Ah, thank you Mia. You did great too.", he replied with a faint smile on his face as he looked at her.
It was already night, the café's lights were already off, allowing the moonlight to shine through the windows of the building.
"Yoshiro has already cleared the second floor, and I cleaned this one…", Mia leaned on the broom in her hands, "So nothing is left I suppose now, right?".
"Yes, you may leave now if you like.", a click was heard as he turned off the last running machine.
Mia was quick to undo her apron and pick her bag from the staff's room. She walked out with a wave to her boos and said, "Alright, see you tomorrow Mr. Kim!".
The door's bell rang as she left, and he stared the bell till it stopped moving. He then removed his apron, and walked to his right holding it to the staff's room.
It was the same every night, it was his routine.
Hang your pale brown apron on the hangers on the wall, put your stuff into your cross bag, pick the keys from the same hanger to close off the place, and wear the black driving helmet. Then, walk out of the room, give the door two closing clicks, and do the same with the fount door of the café.
The night breeze hit his face as he stepped away from the building.
His café to be more exact.
Kim Yujin, 28 years old and the owner of the famously known café, "Dungeon Café".
The name sounds a bit cringe some may say, but for Kim it sounds quite fitting for it. After all, most of his customer's were non other than the hunters around the area it was present at.
Yujin rubbed his hands together and breathed into them. It was December already, the cold wind kept on hitting his face, sending shivers down his spine with every hit. He quickly moved to his scooter. Then sat on his seat and closed the face shield of his helmet. The vehicle then rose with a faint hum as he turned it on. With one foot on the ground and the other on the kick stand, he gave the scooter a slight push to the front and kicked the stand off the ground to start moving to the main road behind him.
His apartment was about ten minutes away from his work place, the route was also so simple he could basically drive to it blindfolded.
The night was getting even dimmer as he drove, the buildings surrounding him were closing their lights slowly, and the moon was no longer visible in the void above him.
One to the right, then one to the left. He had two turned remaining, so he took the first turn to right. He couldn't hear anything until now due to his helmet, but now…
He heard screams.
Thus, he abruptly stopped. The commotion came from the end of the road, and he heard more yells of terror began to fill the street.
"R-run!", a woman yelled as she ran to Yujin and passed him.
She wasn't the only one running towards his direction, booking it away from Kim Yujin's final destination. Some were dressed in working clothes, others in their pajamas. Kids were carried on their parent's shoulders or running next to them. The ground shock as a mighty roar echoed through the street.
The whole block was running away, and the source they were fleeing from was running after them too.
Weird creatures standing on their back feet were marching towards them, they had black branches quickly sprouting from their body toward the terrified crowd. Some were caught by the quick attack, and some were lucky to evaded it.
"It's a dungeon break!", a person shouted as ran pass Yujin.
Dungeon breaks. They weren't a weird phenomenon to humans anymore.
3 years ago, ominous cracks appeared on the earth's skies. Everyone was panicking, people tried to understand it, people began saying it was the end, some saying it was the pollution that finally bit us back. More statements about that matter kept on appearing on the internet, but all of those speculations were short lived.
As not even 3 days after, all hell broke loose on earth.
Monsters suddenly came out from weird "gates" that had appeared on the surface in random areas around every corner. That day was named "The selection day", marking the appearance of the gates, and also heroes of humanity.
Hunters, they began to appear right after the first and largest dungeon break. Some were quick to realize what was happening and started to defend humans, while others hide themselves afraid of fighting to their uncertain end.
Kim Yujin was supposedly hiding too. He didn't want anything to do with all the blood and scars to save anyone he didn't know. He wanted to continue living normally. It wasn't like the number of awakeners that appeared that day was lacking, actually many people were able to wield the power that came with that cursed day, which is "mana".
However, not all awakeners were able to wield mana to fight in the long term with it as the time progressed.
Mana was a double-edged sword after all.
"H-help…", a man fell face first in fount of Yujin. He was caught by the wide range attack of the mobs that were running around.
Yujin looked at the crying man for a moment, and cursed himself internally. He quickly hoped off his scooter allowing it to fall to the ground and kneeled down to the man's legs bringing his right hand forward to the black roots.
Fwoosh!
Azure flames began to appear from his right palm, and just as he excepted, the black roots began to retreat away from the sudden heat that they sensed above them.
They were a part of the monster, and they had no defensive mechanism against any attacks. Thus, their only way to avoid damage was to retreat just as quick as they appeared. Yujin, despite not being an "active" hunter, knew about those eerie monsters. Black rooted lizards, one of the many mobs that appeared on that day. They manly moved in groups too.
The man let out a loud whine as the roots moved.
The helmet was covering Yujin's sore expression as he looked at the crushed limps of the injured man under him. The lower part of his pants was torn away as the spikey roots moved, leaving inch deep long scars on the man's calves. His left foot was twisted painfully in a wrong direction, and his leg was actively bleeding as Yujin stared at the man's fresh injuries.
There is no way this man can run.
Yujin can either leave him to die, or carry him.
Both options were out of question; leaving him to die means blood on his hands since he decided to help him, carrying him will cause more pain to the poor man as they moved away. Which left him with one final irritating option.
He again cursed himself, and brough his left palm forward next to his right one.
"Eeek-!!", the man tried to move his legs away from the sudden warmth that he felt on top of the pain.
Kim Yujin quickly worked to heal the fractured limps of the man. From his bones to his skin. The fire was wrapped around his healing legs like a snake and once done it slowly faded into the air around them.
"…", both stared at each other for a second.
"Thank you…", the man spoke with astonishment, "Are you a hunt- ".
Kim Yujin didn't wait for him to continue his statement and got up. The man didn't have time to repeat his question, as roar immerged behind. Yujin had guessed that would happen. Immediately, he created flames with both palms and coated with fists with it. The man ran the moment he saw the monster charging at his savior with an alarming speed.
It was normal instincts to run from a stronger predator. A prey feels the murderous aura thrown at it, marking it as the predator's next target.
The man felt like the prey and thus why he ran.
And perhaps, the lizard also felt like a prey at that moment too, but didn't have time to run like the man.
Yujin threw one punch followed by an upper cut to the lizard's head. Then pulled out a dagger from his cross bag using the time he bought from punching the lizard. He charged at the lizard's head, plunging the dagger to the side and black blood started to splatter from the other side.
Kim Yujin enchanted his dagger with frost, and once plunged into the monster's head, he created ice that teared its way to the other side.
The lizard dropped down with a loud thud, dead. Yujin was breathing heavily under his helmet, but that wasn't the issue at the moment.
They moved in packs, he remembered.
Two more lizards approached him simultaneously, causing him to leap into air to avoid their attack. Both mobs pumped into each other, and Yujin took it as a chance to create a circle under them by shotting condensed flame mana arrows around them.
Black rooted lizards are not quite fond of flames, and for that specific weakness he created threads from the condensed fames and bound the threads ends above both lizards, creating a flaming cage. Dissatisfied roars echoed as the reptiles tried to escape.
"Hey… That dude is flying right?", he suddenly heard people whispering behind him.
Yujin wouldn't have done anything like that if he had people looking at him, it felt like a nightmare to fight around people, who knows who might be hit by his attacks. He wasn't some seasoned warrior hiding in the shadows.
Today was his lucky day, because not only did he heal a person who may have saw his face under the black glass of his helmet, but also was now being filmed by two guys who have zero survival instincts.
'You got to be joking…', he was mentally calculating how to knock them both out. However, the monsters were quicker in action than him, both dudes were suddenly swiped from their feet and hung upside down in air. Kim Yujin was having mixed feelings about this timing.
He was jumping on one foot then the other to be able to float using the wind force he created. He quickly shifted from jumping to running midair, straightened his right hand and brought it to his chest like he was saluting. He then sharply swung his whole arm to one side, creating an air attack to cut the roots that held both now sobbing guys in front of him.
He caught them both each on one shoulder swiftly before they fell, and ran towards one of the buildings' roofs to put them both down. He didn't even glance at them as he stated to move down again.
"…", the two guys watched the man with the black helmet jump back on ground and finish the three lizards in three consultive attacks.
Yujin was a mess under the helmet, sweat drenching his face, hair steaking to his forehead and pupils blown from the adrenaline circulating in his veins. He felt like falling to the ground and sleeping to recover for a second, but rejected his stupid thoughts.
Both hands on his knees, he looked to his right.
Two phones. The two phones that recorded him before falling from their owners' hands.
He didn't think twice and stomped them both into halves. He was not looking forward to being known. He looked around him; 4 lizards laying around him all bloodied, most people had fled the scene already, but 5 laid motionless at the start of the road. Those 5 were the unlucky ones that got caught in the attacks.
He took one glance at them, and turned around to the opposite direction. He didn't have much mana left, if one of them was still alive, he wouldn't be able to save them.
He wasn't a hunter or a hero, he was just some guy who has happened to be an awakener in the middle of the scene. He helped who he could help, and left who he couldn't help. He was not responsible.
He has no duty to save the unsavable.
He should have no guilt.
He can't do anything and should leave.
And so, he did.
He walked over to his scooter, which was already damaged from all the action that had occurred, picked it up and left the area as it surprisingly began to snow.
He didn't return to his apartment that day.
That day, he just slept on his staff room's harsh bench in the cold night with all his sweat.