Rise from Zero

Mission

"I've decided to go back to my hometown and quit being a Hunter," Julaiha said.

Her voice was so quiet it was almost swallowed by the gentle morning breeze drifting across the front porch.

Gatot looked at the woman standing before him.

The courage and determination she had always displayed in the firm's hallways were gone.

The light that had once shone in her eyes had faded, replaced by emptiness, exhaustion, and overwhelming emotional fatigue.

The traumatic events inside the gate two days earlier had clearly shattered every ounce of confidence she had as a healer.

Gatot took a slow breath and nodded.

"Whatever you decide, I'll support you, Juhe."

Julaiha forced a faint smile, as though relieved by his calm response.

"I'm glad to see you today. I mean... everyone from our team is carrying deep trauma, myself included. But seeing you standing here, looking like you're doing all right... I'm honestly grateful."

"I have to keep living for my family's sake," Gatot replied quietly.

The reason sounded simple, but it was the only fuel keeping him on his feet after walking to the edge of death.

He didn't have the luxury of drowning in trauma when there was rent to pay and his younger sister's future to protect.

Julaiha looked at him with an expression that was difficult to read, a mixture of admiration and profound guilt.

"You've always had such determination, Gatot. You're the one who should have been given a high rank in this world, not me or all those greedy people. You're the one who keeps fighting with everything you have, even when everyone else thinks it's impossible."

She paused, taking a slow breath that seemed heavy in her chest.

Then she stepped back.

"I just wanted to say goodbye. I hope we meet again someday... in a life that's far kinder than this one... and without monsters."

After speaking those farewell words, Julaiha turned away.

She walked off the porch without looking back, her slow footsteps carrying her down the quiet residential street.

Gatot remained standing in the doorway for a long time.

He watched Julaiha's retreating figure grow smaller and smaller until she disappeared around the corner.

A quiet sense of loss settled inside his chest.

The only person who had ever treated him like a human being at work was now leaving this blood-soaked world behind.

Bzzzt.

Gatot's thoughts were abruptly interrupted as a bluish glow flared before his eyes.

The System's semi-transparent holographic screen appeared once again, shattering his moment of reflection.

Bright white text began typing itself across the display.

[Scenario Quest: A Player's First Step]

[Objective: Walk to the end of this street. You will find a hidden Gate.]

[Mission: Enter the Gate and defeat the Gate Boss inside.]

[Warning: This quest is mandatory. Refusal or failure will trigger a high-level penalty.]

Gatot stared at the words in disbelief.

His jaw tightened instantly.

"Huh? Defeat a Gate Boss?!"

The words escaped through clenched teeth before he could stop himself.

How could the System demand something so absurd?

He was nothing more than an E-Rank Hunter.

Even fighting a low-level goblin was enough to leave him seriously injured and hospitalized for days.

And now this damned System expected him to walk into a gate alone and kill a Gate Boss, a monster that stood at the very top of the hierarchy within its own domain.

It was no different from ordering him to throw his life away.

The System, however, had no interest in Gatot's limitations.

The holographic screen suddenly changed.

A small three-dimensional navigation map appeared.

A brilliant golden arrow projected itself onto the ground directly in front of his feet, pointing straight toward the end of the street.

Gatot knew he had no choice after experiencing the horror of the Penalty Zone only hours earlier.

With heavy, reluctant steps, he began following the glowing arrow.

Step by step, he walked along the asphalt road, now warming beneath the afternoon sun.

Eventually, the golden arrow stopped in front of the entrance to a narrow alley.

It was nothing more than a shortcut the neighborhood residents regularly used to reach the next housing complex, an ordinary passageway enclosed by two tall brick walls covered with patches of dry moss.

Gatot came to a stop.

To an ordinary person, the alley looked completely normal.

Empty.

But through the vision granted by the System, the atmosphere inside churned violently.

The air itself was distorted, rippling with transparent waves of energy that shimmered continuously like a mirage rising from the desert.

"So... the Gate is in there?" Gatot whispered to himself.

He cautiously stepped forward to get a closer look.

The moment his right foot crossed the invisible boundary at the entrance, an unseen wall of solid energy abruptly stopped him.

Dug!

Gatot stumbled backward, rubbing his aching shoulder after slamming into what felt like a wall of concrete.

He reached out with both hands, trying to push against the empty air.

Nothing changed.

The transparent barrier stretched tightly across the entrance to the alley.

He couldn't pass through it.

Nor could he retreat any farther away from the area.

Just as Gatot stood there searching for some kind of opening, a middle-aged woman carrying plastic grocery bags appeared from deeper inside the alley.

She walked casually toward him, apparently taking the shortcut from the neighboring residential complex.

Instinctively, Gatot stepped aside, preparing to apologize if he happened to be blocking her path.

Then something impossible happened.

The woman continued walking at the same relaxed pace.

She passed straight through the invisible barrier that had just stopped Gatot, as though it had never existed.

Even stranger, she walked right past him without sparing him so much as a glance.

Her eyes remained fixed straight ahead.

She showed no sign whatsoever of noticing Gatot standing only a few feet away.

Gatot spun around.

He watched the woman's back as she continued down the sidewalk toward the main road without the slightest hint that anything unusual had happened.

Then he turned his gaze back toward the distorted alley before him.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as a terrifying realization slowly took shape in his mind.

The space surrounding him had been completely isolated from the reality of the normal human world.

What did all of this mean?

Was the System separating him from his original dimension?

Or had it deliberately linked his physical existence to another world filled with monsters, trapping him inside a fracture between dimensions that lay beyond the laws governing ordinary human reality?