Dungeons and towers appeared all over the world, and with them humans started obtaining powers. We called it awakening
At first we didn't know the dangers of the dungeons and towers. In fact we only saw them as something cool to go with getting powers.
That was until thousands of people started going missing.
We later learned that the people who went missing were sucked into towers that were closed off to anybody that wasnt sent there.
The people who survived came out with powers more powerful then any other, and horrible stories of their survival. Some told stories of watching hundreds of people die to horribly grotesque monsters, and others warned of even greater loss coming from dungeons.
They said they saw the world falling apart if they didn't get rid of the dungeons before they opened.
However for some reason the world didn't listen until the dungeons finally opened. The dungeons opening caused millions of lives to be lost, because of how unprepared the world was.
Seeing how many lives were lost from the dungeons openening the world created the associations. They hired awakeners to go into the dungeons and fight the monsters in them. There was one in every country controlled by that particular country.
Shortly after the associations were created, awakeners started created guilds so that they could work for themselves instead of their the country. They still helped their country but they got to keep everything they got from the dungeons.
Awakeners who worked for the associations or guilds started calling themselves hunters because they hunted monsters and it was a good way to see who was a working awakener and who wasn't.