Fifteen years have passed since monsters first appeared on Earth.
Mana stones became a new energy source to replace petroleum.
Monster byproducts were processed for various uses and permeated human life, leading to the emergence of companies specializing in processing monster by products.
Some hunters even earned money by filming themselves butchering monsters inside the Towers.
—First, you slice open the belly like this, remove the organs, and then the core….—
“That’s not how you do it.”
Min-hyuk muttered while watching a hunter who was teaching as if he were an expert despite not knowing much.
Displeased, he checked another video, but that hunter was the same.
—Slice the nape to drain the blood….—
“It’s cleaner to put the knife between the eyes.”
—As for the leather, do it like this….—
“No. You have to peel it along the grain.”
Min-hyuk, who had been muttering to himself as if backseat driving while watching the video, let out a small sigh.
It was because he wondered what on earth he was doing.
Min-hyuk had once been part of the world-renowned Korea Monster Management Bureau.
Although he possessed monstrous skills that placed him in the top 10 for monster butchering despite being a non-awakened person, his limits were clear.
Inability to butcher high-tier monsters, which only high-ranking awakened ones could do.
Inability to butcher specific entities with dense mana concentrations.
Inability to butcher poison-type monsters.
Due to the numerous monsters that were impossible for a non-awakened person to handle, he had no choice but to receive low scores.
And now, even that was impossible.
Mana oversaturation symptoms in the body caused by excessive exposure to mana radiation.
The treatment was receiving regular injections of refined mana.
Now that he had contracted this disease, for which a proper cure had not yet been developed, he could never return to that industry.
There was only one way to escape this illness.
‘Awakening.’
But what were the chances of 31-year-old Min-hyuk awakening now?
They were extremely low.
Knowing that, the Korea Monster Management Bureau—one of the top three in the world for monster butchering—had ruthlessly let him go.
“Ha… I want to awaken. If I did, I’m confident I could do a really good job….”
He was confident he could reach the pinnacle of this industry if he could just break free from the limits he had as a non-awakened person.
‘Throwing all this away? I feel like I could use this too if I researched it a bit more.’
‘If I slice it more delicately, I could probably get more leather.’
‘If I carve out the organs delicately, I could probably use this meat as well.’
It wasn’t just once or twice that he had thought such things.
But what was the point?
In the end, he had retired.
Perhaps because he had been exposed to monsters for so long, treatment was not easy due to the miscellaneous mana that had penetrated his hazard suit.
Even with continuous administration of refined mana, the various types of mana accumulated in his body only increased.
Because of that, he was in a situation where he had to worry that he might die within a few years.
“…What a shame.”
It was when he let out a small sigh, as if regretful that his life was ending like this.
[The mana in your body has exceeded a certain level, and you have awakened.]
[You have specialized in monster butchering.]
[Congratulations. You have awakened as an EX-grade Butcher.]
Sounds interesting