The meaning was obvious when an 18-year-old orphan suddenly had a child.
It meant a life that was already dirt-poor would become far more grueling than before.
There were two choices.
Abandon the child at an orphanage and live the same way he himself had grown up, or take the child in without a thought for the future and somehow play the role of a parent.
The child's mother chose the former.
But the father, Jeong-woo, chose the latter.
Because he had grown up an orphan and knew full well how regrettable a life without parents could be.
Even if the child had been born by mistake, it was still blood kin.
He didn't want to cower in fear and abandon it, becoming yet another faceless parent.
Above all, the moment he held the child in his arms, the attachment he felt for that tiny, fragile being—which seemed like it might crumble under the slightest pressure—wiped the option of abandonment from his mind entirely.
"Segi, your name is Sin Segi."
Hoping every day of hers would be full of wonder and shine, Sin Segi.
And so Jeong-woo became a parent.
Regrettably, with absolutely nothing to his name.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The parenting journey of an underage orphan single father couldn't possibly be smooth.
The government's support was a pittance at best, and with Jeong-woo's limited education, the only jobs he could land right away were manual labor or part-time gigs.
He scraped by, day in and day out.
He milked every welfare program available while hunting for work, and even that wasn't enough—he'd strap the baby to his chest and dash around making deliveries. If the child so much as got sick, he'd blow through every penny saved, tending to her night and day.
After those hard years, on a sweltering summer day when the child turned five and he was twenty-three, a ray of light finally broke through.
Hunter awakening.
"Segi, you can go to the academy now too. You can make friends, and we can buy toys!"
"Toys?"
"Yeah, Daddy will buy you that teddy bear doll you wanted!"
"Yay!"
It was barely D-Rank at best.
He roamed low-level gates, risking his life to harvest resources, but even that paid better than his current earnings combined. Hustle hard enough, and he'd pull in 3 to 5 million won a month.
Ambition stirred.
Beyond mere survival, he wanted a future he could look forward to.
He wanted to be not just a dad who kept her alive, but one who raised her right.
A parent he could boast about anywhere.
So he worked day and night.
Whether due to low growth potential or whatever, he topped out at the bottom rung of C-Rank even after over ten years, but he'd honed enough skill to lead a low-tier corporate gate exploration team.
He sent Segi to daycare, then school, then cram school.
Every year, he bought her piles of new clothes.
He made sure she ate all the foods he'd craved as a kid but never had.
The time spent with her dwindled, but it was all for her sake, he told himself.
Working his fingers to the bone to feed, clothe, and raise her.
That was how he pushed himself to live.
But if living like that meant getting a report card from the world...
How cruelly it graded him.
Rumble...!
Jeong-woo leaned against the wall of a collapsed building and lifted his head with hollow eyes.
A gate loomed across the entire sky.
Shimmering in dark purple, it painted every ceiling in sight with its hue.
Zero Gate.
A calamity that had appeared fewer than ten times in human history, impossible to resist.
That disaster had reduced Seoul—the city once home to half of Korea's population—to rubble.
Every building beneath the sky lay in ruins.
Scattered atop the debris were chunks that might once have been human, along with crimson fluids everywhere, while grotesque magic beasts prowled the surroundings.
Static! Static!
His radio crackled.
[All personnel... retreat! Evacuate...! Survivors... escape... regroup...!!!]
Noise garbled the message.
Probably meant abandoning Seoul to regroup and plan a reconquest.
But Jeong-woo couldn't go.
"Cough...!"
His lower body was gone.
A hunter's sturdy frame bought him time even now, but it was merely a stay of execution—a painful extension of a wretched life.
Where had it all gone wrong?
Thoughts raced on endlessly.
As if pouring his life's final spark into finding that answer.
But Jeong-woo knew.
No matter how many times he revisited it, the answer stayed the same.
He just couldn't accept it.
He turned his head.
A girl was there.
Jet-black curly hair, porcelain skin, sharp upward-tilting eyes, a girl so beautifully made that every glance brought a smile—now huddled, draped in some black something between gas and liquid whose material defied comprehension, staring blankly at this hellscape.
"...Se, gi."
Segi.
He tried to call out, but his voice broke.
He couldn't tell if his throat burned from blood clots or sobs.
This child was the culprit behind the apocalypse.
The daughter he'd sworn to raise with all the love in the world had unleashed this disaster.
Because of some evil will?
No.
"Se, gi... please... end it..."
It was the Zero Gate's influence.
Unlike normal gates, it didn't just spawn magic beasts.
It parasitized the highest-potential latent awakener among the unawakened, turning them into a host for its legion.
Altering cognition and thought to live as a harbinger of doom.
And Segi had been its sacrifice.
He could see it with his own eyes but didn't want to believe.
A sight that made him endlessly question where it had gone wrong.
Jeong-woo's lips moved.
"Why..."
Why did it have to be you?
Why didn't I notice until you became like this?
"Why..."
Why did you have to break down all alone like this?
If you'd said even once that something felt off, would things be different now?
Over and over, with his dying breaths, he demanded reasons.
Even knowing no answer would come.
His vision blurred.
Blood drained from his body; he felt the end approaching.
That was when it happened.
"You know."
"...!"
Segi spoke.
Her reason should have been gone, her expression just a human mask on something else, yet she uttered human words.
As he reached out, hoping some shred of her self remained—
"Truth is, I didn't want to be alone."
The casual words froze him.
Jeong-woo stared at Segi, breath catching.
'Tears...'
A single tear trailed down her right cheek.
Before he could process the confusion, the moment stole his reason in a flash.
A spike shot from her "dress."
Crunch!
Jeong-woo's world went black.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
It felt like being submerged underwater.
Jeong-woo didn't even know why he could still think.
He just endlessly replayed his life's final moments.
—Truth is, I didn't want to be alone.
Those words consumed his thoughts.
A confrontation with original sin.
—Have a safe trip!
In nearly every memory, Segi stood at the entryway, hand on belly, bowing her head.
When he returned late from work, she'd stumble sleepily from her room, beaming up at him.
Those were the only moments he remembered.
Because those were the only moments he shared with her.
He had to raise her right.
Had to work harder for her to grow up abundant.
Had to be a father to be proud of.
All those self-scoldings layered over his memories one by one.
'...Ah.'
Though his body was gone, his chest tightened.
His heart pounded madly in illusion.
It hurt.
His eyes burned hot.
'No.'
It wasn't for Segi.
'It was for me. It was... so I wouldn't be ashamed.'
A "proud father" meant one who looked good to others.
Not wanting her labeled a motherless kid was an adult's selfish desire for appearances.
Making a child smile and happy wasn't about that.
Jeong-woo already knew what Segi desperately wanted.
'I should have been there for her.'
He saw the world's eyes, not hers.
He knew it from his own laments about lacking parents, yet he failed.
Obsessed with being a proud father, he forgot to be a good dad.
Didn't even realize they were different.
What if he hadn't?
Vain fantasies played out, too late to matter.
When signs of the Zero Gate shook the nation, Segi must have felt the change.
Maybe she'd have spoken up instead of suffering alone.
Or if he'd paid more attention earlier, spent time together, he might have awakened her potential beforehand.
No, even without that reason.
'...I should have made her smile.'
The last Segi he remembered was in tears.
Thoughts wove into regrets.
They coiled like chains around his throat, squeezing.
Dragging him deeper into the abyss.
Submerging, thoughts fogged.
Even his sense of self faded, yet the face of the child he'd neglected burned clear.
In the end, he'd been a failure of a father.
That truth loomed stark.
And then—
Plop—
At the ocean floor he'd finally reached.
Whoosh!
"Have a safe trip!"
A young voice rang out, and all his senses sharpened abruptly.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Jeong-woo jolted his head up in shock.
A familiar yet hazy scene lay before him.
Yellowed, stained wallpaper, narrow hallway and entryway, battered shoe rack piled with big and small shoes.
He knew this place.
'Ten years ago...?'
The tiny one-room he lived in before becoming a hunter, hopping day-labor jobs.
'Then the voice I just heard...'
His eyes trembled.
He turned.
There she was.
"Segi?"
"Hm?"
Not the 15-year-old Segi in tears, but five-year-old Segi, hand on belly at the entryway, looking up with big eyes.
Curly hair, round childlike eyes, smooth chubby cheeks, short little limbs.
The adorable, tiny girl pursed her lips with sparkling eyes.
Why? What for?
He puzzled, then concluded.
'A dream?'
Probably the last dream of his life.
A hallucination born from regrets flooding him at death's door.
"Daddy, aren't you going to work?"
Her question tore at his heart.
Not once had he come to her, even when realization dawned too late.
Her words about hating to be alone were layers of moments like this, piled over a lifetime.
"I have to go to work..."
Her sidelong glances, gauging his mood, were heartbreaking.
Jeong-woo thought.
If this was a vision conjured by regrets at life's end, shouldn't he at least give her the answer he'd never once provided?
Suppressing the stabbing pain in his chest, he said,
"...How about I stay with you today, Segi?"
The change was dramatic.
"Really!?"
Her eyes lit up.
A huge grin spread across her face.
Revealing the front tooth that had come out a bit early compared to other kids.
As if she'd held it all in somehow, her mature-for-her-age face transformed into that of a true child.
"You're not going to work today!?"
She toddled over and clung to his leg.
Jeong-woo knelt and hugged her.
She was so small and light.
The weight made his heart ache like it was being hollowed out.
"...Yeah, Daddy wants to play too. Let's play together, Segi."
How hard could it be, just once?
Yet he'd never done it in his whole life.
Self-reproach welled up.
One nudge, and tears would fall.
Dream or not, just for one day like this.
He wished desperately and hugged her tighter.
That was the moment.
Ding!
A familiar alert chimed.
Something appeared in his vision.
[Connecting to the world.]
Jeong-woo stared in surprise at the translucent, ethereal interface, then at the wall.
The calendar read April 8, 2032.
A day he could never forget.
'...Ah, the day I awakened.'
That day, thrilled he wouldn't have to scrape by anymore, he'd reported his awakening and gone straight for evaluation.
After that, he'd grown even more neglectful of Segi.
Of all days for a dream to pick, why this one?
As he pondered, anomalies continued.
[Access privileges acquired!]
[Aptitude unlocked!]
[Perfect Parent (L) registered!]
"...Huh?"
"Hm?"
[Skill unlock conditions generated!]
[Quest: Great Parent registered!]
Pling!
[Effect Activated: "Kids Need a Guardian!" Spending time with your child! One Praise Sticker distributed! Great Parent (1/10). Collect stickers to unlock skills!]
Something was off.
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