IDSTD 03

Chapter 3…

Perfect Parent (2)

Whooosh—

Jungwoo felt an indescribable surge of energy permeate his chest.

A skill. It was the sensation of a supernatural phenomenon taking root within him, harmonizing with his aptitude to turn a Hunter into a superhuman.

At a time like this?

His thoughts raced for a brief moment.

Please! Anything!

He prayed desperately, craving a way to break through this crisis.

Ding-dong!

The interface materialized.

【No more worrying about nasty villains! Skill: [Children Need a Hero!] has been unlocked!】 【Warning! Required sub-skill missing! Loading skill…】 【Children should only see nice things! Skill: [All-Ages Filter] has been unlocked!】

Static!

Along with a burst of static, an additional power bloomed inside his chest. Two skills at once. There was no time to figure out what they were. Jungwoo blurted out in a hurry:

“Activate!”

And then, an anomaly occurred.

Phooosh—!

A cloud of fluffy white smoke expanded—a cloud that looked just like the explosion effects in a children’s cartoon.

Jungwoo felt a sudden wave of exhaustion wash over him. What changed? As he wondered, the answer came from an unexpected source.

“Crongie…?”

Segi spoke. She poked her head out, her gaze fixed on the spot where the magic beast had been standing.

Jungwoo turned his head. Only then could he see it.

【[All-Ages Filter] is active!】

Jungwoo’s eyes widened to their absolute limits.

“Huh?”

Rooaar!

In the very spot where a horrifying monster should have been, a massive dinosaur plushie stood with its mouth agape. Its appearance had completely changed.

And that wasn’t all.

【Sub-conditions met.】 【[Children Need a Hero!] is activating!】 【No summonable entities found! Unlocking a new slot!】

Beep— Beep— Beep—

Ta-da!

【Slot 1 unlocked: Hero Teddy (S) is summoned.】

Squeak! Squeak!

Appearing alongside the sound of adorable footsteps was a person-sized teddy bear. Wearing a red cape and wielding a toy sword, it stepped up to block the dinosaur.

The dinosaur plushie and the teddy bear faced each other down. The toddler-like atmosphere felt entirely surreal.

Jungwoo’s mouth hung open. Regardless of how he felt about it, though, the situation kept unfolding.

The teddy bear struck a pose, flipping its cape and raising its sword. Black smoke gathered in the dinosaur plushie’s mouth.

“W-Whoa…!”

The moment Segi’s eyes sparkled—

KABOOM—!

The teddy bear swung its sword down. A golden beam of light shot upward diagonally, piercing through the sky. A chill ran down Jungwoo’s spine from the sheer, hyper-compressed physical force of the shockwave. But the surprises didn’t end there.

“…?”

As the blinding light faded, the dinosaur plushie stood with a hole blasted through its head, its stuffing exposed at the neck. Soon after—

POOF!

With a loud pop, the dinosaur vanished into a cloud of gray smoke, exactly like a cartoon villain making a dramatic exit.

Clatter!

It left behind a single red magic stone.

Second Gates were the most troublesome disasters that could hit an urban area. Instead of dozens of low-tier beasts that were easy to handle, they spawned a single, immensely powerful entity. One might argue that having only one target would make things easier, but that was a naive line of thinking.

Ever since the initial outbreak during the Millennium Shock, the entities that inflicted the greatest damage on city centers had always been Champions. Their unique traits—which required fresh analysis every time—and their stats that defied standard rankings made them notoriously difficult to contain.

Among them, one incident in South Korea stood out in particular. An A-Rank Champion codenamed Longinus. That monster had flattened the heart of Chuncheon by bombarding it with spine-generated stakes, leaving craters 300 meters long and 10 meters wide with a single volley.

With a history like that, A-Rank Champion beasts were the ultimate symbol of terror to the general public. It was only natural for people to lose their minds the moment a red Gate appeared. Sure, South Korea was exceptionally good at handling Gates, but that didn’t guarantee absolute safety from a monster bursting out right in front of you.

And yet—

“D-Did he get it…?”

The downtown area, which had looked like an absolute warzone just moments ago, fell into dead silence. Only the music playing from store speakers echoed through the air, completely oblivious to the mood.

People stared at the man standing in the middle of the street, breathing heavily while clutching a child in his arms. His friendly facial features and tall stature gave him an approachable look, but his trembling eyes and sweat-drenched face betrayed his anxiety. He seemed bewildered, hugging the kid tightly as if he still hadn’t processed reality. But the onlookers could understand why.

“T-That guy… just now…” “Y-Yeah, an awakening…” “The monster turned into… a plushie, right?”

The monster that had burst from the blood-red Gate had clearly targeted the man. At that moment, a cloud of smoke erupted from his body, turning the monster into a giant dinosaur plushie. Immediately after, a sword-wielding teddy bear—presumably summoned by the man—fired a beam of light and obliterated it.

The cratered, shattered pavement where the monster had been, along with the magic stone sitting right in the center, proved that what just happened was no dream.

It was utterly surreal. A disaster caused by a magic beast had turned into a scene from a children’s cartoon in the blink of an eye. And not just any monster—an A-Rank Champion, an entity known as an urban catastrophe.

Because the absurdity of that childish contrast took priority over the thought of ‘We survived!’, nobody dared to speak.

While everyone was still processing the chaos—

“Moving in! Everyone, evacuate this wa—huh?”

Hunters finally arrived… though it hadn’t even been five minutes since the incident started. But the situation was already resolved. The Hunters stood there with their mouths agape, completely dumbfounded.

Click!

All of it was caught on a camera lens. An attention-seeker who had been recording the whole thing despite not knowing if he’d live or die snickered quietly and tucked his smartphone into his jacket.

T-This is insane!

The Gate was likely an A-Rank. An A-Rank Champion had been turned into a dinosaur plushie and slain in one hit by a teddy bear. Anyone with even a passing interest in Hunters knew that such a feat was only possible for Hunters at the absolute top of A-Rank, or those with S-Rank combat power. The streamer stole a glance at the tall man holding the child.

An S-Rank? A new S-Rank appeared in Korea?

And not just any S-Rank—judging by the situation, he was a natural-born S-Rank whose initial awakening placed him right at the top. The absolute peak of superhumans.

If he uploaded this to the internet before anyone else?

I-I need to edit this video and post it right now!

This was huge. This one video would change his life forever!

Feeling as if fireworks were going off in his head, the man quickly spun around and hurried away, a wide, split-mouthed grin plastered on his face.

An accident that could have turned into a massive disaster had occurred in the heart of Seoul. While everyone was relieved that the incident ended with zero casualties, there were always those who couldn’t simply rest easy. For instance, the administrator in charge of this sector’s safety.

BAM—!

“Do you useless idiots even understand what’s going on right now!?”

Baek Geunho, the Guild Leader of Maram Guild, slammed his fist into the wall, veins bulging on his forehead. A single punch warped the concrete. The reason for his rage was simple.

“Get your heads together! How did you fail to track a Gate until it popped up right in the middle of Seoul—in OUR sector!?”

It had been over thirty years since the age of Gates began. In this era, Gates spewing out magic beasts were no longer unpredictable calamities; they were preventable disasters.

The standard procedure was to track spatial fluctuations before a Gate formed and deploy a safety net at the spawn point to prepare for extermination. It was because of that system that people could walk the streets in peace.

Failing to do that meant only one thing: they had been negligent in managing their assigned territory, proving they lacked the right to hold the lucrative regional defense contract.

It was a catastrophic blunder. This wasn’t just any region—it was the inner defense zone of Seoul. Considering the massive profits Maram Guild had reaped from this position, this incident was severe enough to threaten the guild’s very survival.

Geunho irritably loosened his tie. He had to fix this. Fortunately, he wasn’t completely out of options.

“What about him?” “Y-Yes! He’s been transferred to the Nowon-gu Hunter Administration Bureau!” “Did you secure all the CCTV footage? What about the media lockdown?” “Everything is taken care of! No information about him has been leaked yet.” “Let’s go. Move, now!”

Heaven’s luck had favored him. Since casualties were virtually zero, damage control wouldn’t be too difficult. Most importantly, the person who resolved the incident didn’t belong to some elite team from another guild.

He was a complete rookie among rookies. A newly awakened Hunter. Though, calling his caliber “rookie” felt like a joke.

S-Rank! He’s definitely a natural-born S-Rank!

Geunho had reviewed the CCTV footage himself. On the surface, the ability looked bizarre and childish, but analyzing it from a Hunter’s perspective brought chills down his spine.

It’s a reality-warping ability. Less than 1% of the total Hunter population has one!

In academia, abilities that bent physical laws to rewrite reality according to the Hunter’s power were classified as ‘Reality Warping’. Given that the power forced utterly irrational phenomena to occur, its rarity was off the charts. Considering it could be applied not just to the environment but to enemies as well, he was in the top 1% of even reality-warpers.

Did it end there? Not a chance.

A summoning aptitude!

Low risk, high return. With minimal physical danger to the user, it was an aptitude that excelled in every field from reconnaissance to combat. Of course, it suffered from the chronic issue of a ‘low ceiling’, but the entity that man took down in one hit was an A-Rank Champion. Considering that even Geunho—a active A-Rank—couldn’t defeat that monster alone if his life depended on it, that limitation clearly didn’t apply here.

In short, Geunho categorized his ability as ‘reality warping that forces combat advantageous to summons’. It might look a bit silly, but in terms of classification, it was easily Tier 0.

“What’s his profile?” “N-Name is Shin Jungwoo. 22 years old, an orphan, with a 4-year-old daughter. He’s a single father and seems to have been struggling with severe financial hardship.” “Talk about a lucky jackpot.”

It wasn’t meant as an insult. After all, Hunters were a breed born entirely from that kind of luck.

“Where’s the contract?” “Tier 1…” “You idiot! Draft a new one! Strip out all the restrictive clauses on Tier 1! Make it so light he practically just needs to sign his name!” “Y-Yes, sir!”

He had to recruit him no matter what. If they handled the PR right—claiming their own member resolved the situation without casualties and using this opportunity to introduce him—they could flip the narrative. In fact, it would even solve Maram Guild’s chronic weakness: its lack of top-tier firepower.

Geunho was a man of quick calculations. The moment he confirmed the appearance of a natural S-Rank Hunter, he moved to control all information and footage while simultaneously preparing an offer.

They were trying to cover the sun with a palm anyway. The entire world would know about his debut by tomorrow morning, but as long as they closed the deal tonight, none of that would matter.

He quickened his pace. Changing straight into a suit for the meeting, he slicked his hair back with gel, put on his watch, stepped into his car, and barked at the driver:

“Floor it! I don’t care if we get tickets, just get to the Administration Bureau as fast as possible!” “Yes, sir!”

Vroooom!

Geunho bounced his leg nervously. He constantly mapped out the negotiation tactics and contingency plans in his head. His mind was entirely filled with the single thought of meeting him and closing this deal as fast as humanly possible.

Woven with equal parts anxiety and anticipation, he arrived at the Bureau. He stepped out of the car, intending to handle this quietly.

However—

“Let us in! Hey!” “Hey, Administration Bureau! Don’t you try to trap a civilian in a slave contract!” “Call the district councilor! Do you know how much money that guy took from me!? How dare you stab me in the back like this!?” “We’re from DBS! Just grant us an interview! Just let us ask him directly!!!”

Geunho’s jaw dropped.

“W-What the hell is this…”

The front of the Nowon-gu Administration Bureau was already a madhouse. It wasn’t chaos created by an angry mob. It was reporters, news crews, scouts from major guilds representing various districts of Seoul, executives, and even a few familiar guild leaders. All of them were causing a scene, trying to barge into the building.

How on earth? Why already?

Just as Geunho’s mind went completely blank—

“G-Guild Leader!!!”

An assistant who had rushed over late was drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. He held up his smartphone with a pale face.

“T-There’s trouble! Look at this…”

Only then did he realize. Veins popped on Geunho’s forehead.

“What the hell is this shit…!”

[Look at this, guys! Right here! Right here! The Hunter is literally shielding his kid…!]

It was a video on a global streaming platform. A man with acne-scarred skin was talking animatedly, spitting as he spoke, while the screen displayed combat footage of Shin Jungwoo that was supposed to have been locked down. It appeared to be recorded directly by that very streamer.

“The video has already spread across the entire country.”

The assistant pointed to the view count below the video.

[2,341,546]

It was a number that needed no explanation.

It was something Geunho hadn’t anticipated at all—that in a life-or-death situation like that, there was actually a lunatic crazy enough to pull out a smartphone and record the whole thing.