I wasn't myself after what happened.
I investigated his death like a madwoman. Nothing sat right with me. Not a single detail made sense.
I also looked into the cases where he was found guilty. They accused him of murdering five low-rankers and two civilians, of illegally smuggling dungeon resources, of extortion, and more. But the more I dug, the more suspicious everything became.
Witnesses appeared out of nowhere, and so did the so-called evidence.
They emerged conveniently right after his death was announced.
How?
How could they suddenly exist when he could no longer defend himself?
I stopped working. Stopped eating. Stopped caring.
The only thing keeping me alive was the hope that I could uncover the truth.
That something would justify the fire burning in my chest.
That I could still do something for him.
I was supposed to die that day anyway, if it weren't for him.
So I dedicated myself to him.
To not turning my back.
To not letting the world bury him again.
Something inside me was searching for answers—for justice.
But then another disaster struck.
Two years after his death, dungeon gates began appearing more frequently and they were all high-class. Rankers struggled. Failed gate incidents surged, and destruction followed. Not just in our city, but across the world. It became a phenomenon no one could control.
The death toll kept rising. Hunters fell every day, and fear spread like wildfire.
And in the midst of it all, the truth came out.
Clyde Zoric.
That devil. That son of a bitch.
My blood boiled so violently my hands bled from clenching too hard when I found out what really happened.
I wanted to kill him. I wanted to torture him. To rip him apart the way they ripped Ezekiel—until he begged for death.
But even that wouldn't be enough.
So much time had passed, and I'd changed. I was no longer who I used to be. I'd grown twisted, hardened, rotten like the world around me.
Because this place—especially the Hunter society was filth. A sewer of corruption and cruelty.
Not just Clyde, but everyone who played a part.
It made me hate everything. Not just because of the lies or the unfairness, but because they drove someone I cared about to die in misery.
I discovered that the crimes pinned on Ezekiel were orchestrated by Clyde's family. Every one of them.
It was all a cover-up. They killed the victims, they smuggled the dungeon resources, and then they dumped the blame on a single person: Ezekiel.
The missing items from official raids? They had them all.
They bathed in wealth and power while an innocent man bore their sins.
But what ignited the deepest hatred in me wasn't just the injustice.
It was how they murdered him.
Clyde, in his drunken arrogance, exposed everything.
He bragged about it, called it his greatest achievement. He'd even recorded it, and the footage leaked.
And I saw it.
The wounds on Ezekiel's body weren't inflicted by monsters. It was Clyde and his party.
They laughed. They laughed as they tore him apart, piece by piece.
Why?
If they wanted him dead to erase their crimes and pin it on a corpse, they didn't have to torture him.
They didn't have to break him.
Why? Why?
Then it hit me.
They were jealous. Rabid animals who found twisted pleasure in destroying someone stronger, someone better than them.
Selfish cowards who only saw themselves.
I tried to bring them to justice, but it was nearly impossible.
They asked if I was family, or what my relationship to him was, as if that mattered more than the truth.
They stalled the process, and with the world in chaos, no one cared.
Even when they knew, they looked away. They pretended it didn't exist.
Justice was never served.
I guess they thought it didn't matter anymore now that the world was ending.
The country was overrun by monsters. Gates continued to break one after another, and soon, even the military couldn't keep up. People began to flee in panic, seeking refuge in places like the United States and the United Kingdom, where their defense systems still stood a fighting chance against the endless onslaught.
My family had already gone there. They begged me to join them. They called, messaged, pleaded, promised me safety and a new beginning, but I refused.
I couldn't leave. Not yet.
Martial law was declared, and all hunters were ordered to stay behind and fight. But even then, some of the most influential rankers fled in secret, turning their backs on the people they once swore to protect. One of them was that bastard Clyde Zoric. Of course he ran. Cowardice disguised as strategy.
I wasn't a ranker, but I stayed behind.
Even as an ordinary nurse, I knew I could help. Healers were few and far between. High-class ones were even rarer. So I decided to stay to treat wounds, to keep people alive, to do something—anything when the world refused to be saved.
The battles were fierce and bloody. There was no time to rest, no time to breathe. We lost more people than we rescued. I watched a once-bustling city fall apart until all that remained were ashes, corpses, and silence. I witnessed every moment of it. Every scream. Every collapse. Every goodbye.
Beauty, wealth, power.
It didn't mean anything anymore. All that mattered was survival, your life, your breath and the people next to you.
In those final days, everything changed.
The rich bled, but the poor bled more. Celebrities were forgotten, influencers disappeared, rankers who once posed for magazine covers now died in alleyways, unnoticed and unburied.
The world had stopped pretending and I saw it all for what it truly was.
And yet I stayed.
Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was the last thing I could do in memory of him who once also saved me.
To not turn my back. To stand where he once stood. To fight, even if I was the last one left.