The glowing eyes of the raging monster, the relentless attack of the Hunters, the fatal strike...
Thud.
His body slammed hard against the ground.
"No!" He heard a voice scream. It sounded so distant, he thought.
Why?
He was dying.
Hal lay motionless, staring into blank space, lost in thought.
So, this was how he would die—like a weak, miserable E-rank Hunter. Worst of all, he didn't even get the chance to exact his revenge on those damned monsters.
As he lay there, feeling the life slip away from him, like sand in an hourglass, he began to close his eyes. Suddenly, a blue screen appeared in front of him, with words written in white.
[Potential Host found]
[Do you wish to accept?]
[Yes] [No]
What was this? He thought.
Well, it didn't matter now; he was dead anyway, so there was no use being careful in making a decision. He decided to just choose "Yes."
With that, he selected the "Yes" option. The next words filled him with surprise.
[Congratulations, Hal Rodgraim! You have been chosen by the Omnix System!]
'Omnix System? What was that?' He wondered.
'Wait, scratch that. How in the name of the blights does it know my name?'
*****
Present day.
On a brightly lit street, several people could be seen walking about all with a look of anticipation on their faces. The cause for all this was the presence of a C-rank gate spawning here.
Of course, it wasn't that there hadn't been occurrences of gates showing up in this part of the United States; it was just that Kansas wasn't famed for its high level of gates, thus the commotion.
A small group of squads had been deployed to deal with it and among them was the squad Hal Rodgraim belonged to.
The squads had gone in a few hours ago to deal with the issue, and now everyone on the outside was anxiously awaiting their return.
Reporters could be seen everywhere brandishing their cameras like that was their very tool to ward off the monsters.
A few minutes later, Hunters could be seen exiting from the gate and the shutters of cameras could be heard going off as each reporter present tried to get the perfect picture that was going to make the front page the next day.
Exiting from the gate was a Hunter being assisted to walk by another Hunter. It was Hal Rodgraim.
Looking up at the sky, Hal let out a long sigh as he walked while holding his ribcage towards the medical bay that had quickly been set up at a corner of the street for some check-ups.
He must have broken a few ribs he thought, entering the bay he greeted the nurse there, she was also a hunter but was a healer type, Hunter, she was someone he knew pretty well due to the fact that he visited the medical bay a lot after almost every raid he participated in and she just happened to be the healer assigned to the squad he belonged to.
"You have to stop getting injured like this every time you participate in a raid." she scolded as she treated him.
"Well, it isn't like I have much of a choice." He retorted. Letting out a grin, he said, "A guy's got to survive, right? Besides, duty called so...."
"But still, you should try your best to avoid danger, or else there will only be as much help as we can give you," she said back.
Hal wanted to reply but instead thought in his mind, " It's not like there is much I can do, considering the fact that I am a rank E hunter."
Exiting the medical bay, he left the surroundings of where the gate had spawned and headed home.
It was late already, his little sister probably would have been asleep by now.
The raid took longer than expected. He had promised his younger sister an outing today, but unfortunately, he couldn't do that now.
The gate had an unusually high number of monsters, ranging from the basic tier monsters to the mutant tier, and even had an extremely strong boss monster at the highest level of the advanced tier. There had been an abnormality in the actual strength of monsters in a dungeon, recently.
It had been a tough fight between them and the monsters, fortunately, or unfortunately for him, he had managed to get out of it with just a few broken ribs, which were almost completely healed all thanks to the specially designed suits used by hunters but still he could only draw little of it's healing powers to heal him, that was why he still had to visit the medical bay after raids.
It took him an hour before he got home; on getting home, he entered the elevator and waited for it to get to the level at which his apartment was located. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment, he and his sister.
"Aah! How tired I am." Hal thought; entering the room, he found his little sister fast asleep and smiled; she was the only reason why he hadn't quit being a hunter long ago.
Getting on top of his bed, which was a bunk he shared with his sister, his thoughts ran through all that happened today; today, like every other raid, he had been so close to death but, as usual, managed to escape its grips once again.
"How long am I going to continue like this." he thought. No, he wasn't going to think like that.
He was going to continue fighting against the monsters to continue getting the funds to take care of his little sister and to get his revenge on those damn monsters that took both his parents from him and his little sister.
With that thought in mind, he closed his eyes and drifted off into a peaceful slumber, totally fagged out.