IDSTD 01

Chapter 1…

Failed Parenting

The implications of an 18-year-old orphan having a child are pretty self-evident: a life that was already dirt-poor is about to get a whole lot harder.

There were really only two options. Abandon the baby at an orphanage to relive the exact same childhood he suffered through, or take the plunge and try his best to be a parent without worrying about the fallout.

The mother chose the former. But Jungwoo, the father, chose the latter. Having grown up as an orphan himself, he knew all too well how bitter a life without parents could be.

Even if the baby was an accident, it was still his own flesh and blood. He refused to turn into his own nameless parents by abandoning his kid out of fear. Above all, the moment he held the infant—feeling that tiny creature so fragile it might shatter with the slightest pressure—any thought of giving her up vanished completely.

“Segi. Your name is Shin Segi.”

He named her Segi, wishing for every single day of her life to be miraculous and bright. And just like that, Jungwoo became a father. Unfortunately, he had absolutely nothing to his name.

Raising a child as an underage, single, orphaned father was never going to be smooth sailing. Government stipends were a mere drop in the bucket, and with zero formal education, Jungwoo’s immediate options were limited to manual labor or part-time gigs.

He scraped by just to keep them alive. He signed up for every assistance program available while hunting for work. When the money still wasn’t enough, he’d run delivery routes with the baby strapped to his chest. Whenever she fell sick, he’d pour every last cent of his savings into round-the-clock care.

That was his life until the summer he turned twenty-three, when Segi was five years old. Finally, a ray of light broke through the dark. He awakened as a Hunter.

“Segi, now you can go to preschool! You can make friends and buy real toys, too!” “Toys?” “Yeah! Daddy can buy you that teddy bear you’ve always wanted!” “Whoa!”

He was only a D-Rank. His job involved bouncing between low-level Gates, risking his neck to gather resources, but even that paid far more than his old jobs combined. Working hard meant bringing home anywhere between 3 to 5 million won a month.

Ambition kicked in. He wanted more than just surviving day-to-day; he wanted a real future. He didn’t want to be a dad who just kept his kid from dying—he wanted to be a good father. Someone she could be proud to talk about.

So he worked day and night. Maybe because his potential cap was low, he barely broke into the lowest tier of C-Rank even after ten years, but he eventually gained enough skill to lead a low-tier Gate exploration squad for a corporation.

He sent Segi to daycare, then elementary school, and then prep academies. He bought her heaps of brand-new clothes every year. He fed her the kind of food he could only dream of eating as a kid.

Sure, he spent less time with her, but he told himself it was all for her own good. He pushed himself to the limit, reasoning that he was earning the money needed to feed, clothe, and raise her.

Yet, if this life was a test waiting for a report card…

The world handed down a cruelly brutal grade.

Rumble, crash—!

Jungwoo leaned against the collapsed wall of a building, looking up with hollow eyes. A massive Gate stretched across the entire sky. It glowed with a dark purple hue, staining everything in sight with its ominous color.

A Zero Gate. A helpless catastrophe that had appeared fewer than ten times in human history. That very disaster had completely leveled Seoul, a city that once housed half of South Korea’s population.

Every building under the sun had crumbled into rubble. Scattered across the ruins were gruesome bits of crimson liquid and what used to be human beings, while horrific magic beasts roamed the area.

Crack! Static!

The walkie-talkie buzzed.

[All units… retreat…! Evacuate…! Survivors… pull out… regroup…!!!]

Static cut off the message, making it hard to hear. They probably meant to abandon Seoul, regroup, and plan a counteroffensive. But Jungwoo couldn’t move.

“Cough…!”

His lower body was completely gone. His hardened Hunter physique kept him alive even in a state like this, but it was nothing more than a agonizing extension of life—a delayed sentence before a peaceful death.

Where did it all go wrong?

The thoughts looped endlessly in his mind, as if burning through the final embers of his life just to find an answer.

Deep down, Jungwoo already knew. No matter how many times he tried to reevaluate things, the answer remained the same. It was just a reality he couldn’t bring himself to accept.

He turned his head. A young girl was standing there.

Jet-black curly hair, pale skin, and slightly upturned eyes—a girl so beautiful that looking at her always filled his heart with pride. Now, wrapped in a dress-like substance made of some dark, incomprehensible state between gas and liquid, she crouched down and stared blankly at this living hell.

“…gi.”

Segi.

He tried to call her name, but his voice broke. He couldn’t tell if it was blood or tears choking his throat.

She was the source of this apocalypse. The daughter he had sworn to raise as the most loved child in the world had brought about this catastrophe.

Was it out of pure malice? No, it wasn’t.

“Se… gi. Stop… please…”

It was the influence of the Zero Gate. That disaster was different from normal Gates. Instead of just spewing out beasts, it parasitized the unawakened human with the highest latent potential, turning them into a host for the horde. It corrupted their mind and perception, forcing them to become a harbinger of ruin.

And Segi had fallen victim to it.

Even seeing it with his own eyes, he didn’t want to believe it. It was a sight that forced him to ask over and over where it had all gone wrong.

Jungwoo parted his lips.

“Why…”

Why did it have to be you? Why didn’t I realize until you ended up like this?

“Why…”

Why did you have to break down all by yourself like this? If you’d just given me a hint, if you’d just said something felt wrong… would things have been different?

Over and over, he used his fading breath to ask why. Even though he knew no answer would come.

His vision gradually blurred. He could feel the end approaching as the blood drained from his body.

Right then—

“You know…” “…!”

Segi spoke. Her sanity should have been completely gone, and her expression was like a hollow shell of a human, yet human words came out of her mouth.

Hoping against hope that a fragment of her old self remained, Jungwoo reached out his hand—

“Honestly… I hated being alone.”

The offhand remark made him freeze mid-motion. Breathless, Jungwoo stared at Segi.

Tears…?

A single tear was trickling down Segi’s right cheek.

Before he could process the confusion, his window of time to dwell on that tear vanished. Spikes burst from Segi’s dress.

Crunch!

Jungwoo’s world went pitch black.

It felt like being submerged underwater. Jungwoo couldn’t fathom how his mind was still functioning. He simply replayed the final moments of his life over and over again.

—Honestly… I hated being alone.

That single sentence consumed his thoughts.

It was time to face his original sin.

—Have a good day!

In almost every memory he had of her, Segi was always standing by the front door, hands folded neatly over her stomach, bowing her head. And whenever he came home late from work, she would stumble out of the bedroom rubbing her sleepy eyes, offering a gentle smile.

Those were the only memories he had of her. His time with Segi was so brief that those were the only scenes he could recall.

Because I had to raise her right. Because I had to work harder so she could have a comfortable life. Because I had to be a proud father.

All those excuses he used to push himself stacked up over his memories, one by one.

Ah…

Even without a physical body, his chest tightened painfully. He felt the phantom sensation of a heart pounding wildly in his chest.

It hurt. His eyes burned.

No.

It wasn’t for Segi.

It was for me. I just… wanted to save face.

Being a “proud father” meant looking respectable in the eyes of others. Not wanting her pointed at as a motherless child was just a selfish adult desire to avoid looking bad.

Making a child smile and bringing her happiness wasn’t about any of that. Jungwoo already knew what Segi had desperately wanted all along.

I should have been by her side.

He had focused on the world’s judgment instead of looking into his daughter’s eyes. Even though he grew up lamenting his own lack of parents, he made the exact same mistake.

Drunk on the idea of becoming a proud father, he never actually tried to be a good father. He didn’t even realize those two things were different.

What if he hadn’t done that? Pointless regrets swirled in his mind long after it mattered.

When the country was shaken by the omens of the Zero Gate, Segi must have felt the changes in her body. If things were different, she might not have suffered alone and might have talked to him instead.

Even before that, if he had given her more attention and spent more time with her, maybe he could have helped her awaken her latent talent much sooner.

No, even setting all that aside…

I should have made her smile.

The last memory he had of Segi was her shedding a tear.

His thoughts tangled into a knot of regret, wrapping around Jungwoo’s neck like chains and choking him, dragging him down into an even deeper abyss.

Sinking deeper and deeper, his thoughts grew foggy. He was losing sense of who he even was, yet the face of the child he failed to care for remained crystal clear.

In the end, I was a terrible father. That single fact loomed brightly over him.

And then, softly—

From the very bottom of the deep sea he had finally reached…

Flash!

“Have a good day!”

A youthful voice rang out, and suddenly, all his senses snapped back to life.

Jungwoo snapped his head up in shock. An old, vaguely familiar sight appeared before his eyes. Faded yellow wallpaper, a narrow hallway and entrance, a worn-out shoe rack, and various pairs of shoes laid out on it. He recognized this place.

10 years ago…?

It was the tiny studio apartment he lived in back when he worked day-labor gigs, long before becoming a Hunter.

Wait, then whose voice was that just now?

Jungwoo’s eyes trembled as he turned his head. She was standing right there.

“Segi?” “Huh?”

It wasn’t the tearful 15-year-old Segi, but a five-year-old toddler. She was standing by the front door, hands folded over her tummy, tilting her head up to meet his eyes.

Wavy hair, big round eyes typical for her age, clear chubby cheeks, and short little arms and legs. The adorable, tiny child was pursing her lips, staring up at him with wide, curious eyes.

Why? How is this happening?

After a moment of thought, he came to a conclusion.

A dream?

It was probably the final dream of his life—a hallucination birthed by the overwhelming regret he felt at the moment of his death.

“Daddy, aren’t you going to work?”

Her question made Jungwoo’s heart ache. He realized far too late that he had never once walked over to her in a moment like this. Segi’s confession about hating being alone was the result of years spent standing right here, waiting.

“You have to go to work…”

It broke his heart to see her glancing up at him so timidly, trying to gauge his mood.

Jungwoo thought to himself: If this illusion was created by my deathbed regrets, shouldn’t I finally give her the response I never managed to give her in life?

Suppressing the sharp pain in his chest, he spoke.

“…How about I stay home with Segi today?”

The reaction was immediate.

“Really?!”

Segi’s eyes lit up, and a massive grin spread across her face, revealing her missing front tooth—one she had lost a bit earlier than most kids. Her face, which had looked unnaturally mature for her age just a moment ago, instantly transformed into that of a bright, happy child.

“You’re not going to work today?!”

She came toddling over and latched onto his leg.

Jungwoo dropped to his knees and scooped Segi into his arms. She was so tiny and light. That weight made his heart ache as if it were being carved out.

“…Yeah. Daddy wants to play today, too. I’m gonna spend the whole day playing with Segi.”

Why was this one simple thing so hard? Why couldn’t I do this for her whole life?

Guilt rushed over him. It felt like tears would spill out if anyone so much as brushed against him.

Even if it’s just a dream, please, just let me have this one day.

Fervently wishing for it, he pulled her closer into a tighter hug.

Just then—

Ding-dong!

A familiar notification chime sounded, and something popped up right in front of his eyes.

【Connecting to the World.】

Startled by the semi-transparent, surreal interface, Jungwoo glanced at the wall. The calendar hanging there read April 8, 2032. It was an unforgettable date.

…Ah, the day I awakened.

On this exact day, he had been overjoyed, thinking he wouldn’t have to live in poverty anymore. He had immediately gone to report his awakening and get evaluated—and from that point on, he neglected Segi even more.

Why of all days did my dream have to pick this one?

While he was lost in thought, something strange happened.

【Acquiring access permissions!】 【Unlocking aptitude!】 【’Perfect Parent (L)’ has been registered!】

“…Huh?” “Mm?”

【Skill unlock requirements generated!】 【[Quest: Wonderful Parent] registered!】

Pop!

【Effect activated!】 【”Children need a guardian!” Spend quality time with your child! One praise sticker awarded! [Wonderful Parent (1/10)] Collect stickers to unlock skills!】

Something was definitely wrong.