Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

1
“Cough….”
Blood surges from my mouth, pouring out in a grotesque stream.
That’s not all. There isn’t a single unblemished inch on my body. These are injuries that would have claimed an ordinary person long ago—wounds that even seasoned hunters rarely survive.
“Damn it…. Is this the end….”
Gates across the entire world simultaneously fractured, unleashing torrents of monsters. I wish I could claim I stood against an S-rank monster, but the truth is far more pathetic. I’m merely a mediocre hunter who must risk his life just to hunt A-rank monsters, let alone S-rank ones.
An undead horde descended upon one of Korea’s few remaining defensive strongholds—the very place where I was stationed. Every available soldier was mobilized in emergency conscription this evening to hold the line.
I wish the story could have ended with me sacrificing myself to defeat the enemy and bringing peace to Earth. But reality was far more brutal. After a fierce battle, the undead, the hunters, the soldiers—all of us fell here.
Only my regeneration skill allowed me to survive until the very end, fighting with a tenacity that rivaled the undead themselves.
An A-rank ally hunter sacrificed himself to inflict a mortal wound on the Death Knight, the commander of the undead invasion. I seized that opportunity, striking from behind to finally eliminate it. But the Death Knight, among the strongest of A-rank monsters, refused to die quietly. As my attack shattered its body, it counterattacked, dealing me wounds from which there was no recovery.
“Hah…. If only I’d understood how to use my skill sooner, I wouldn’t have died in a place like this.”
As death approached, I was consumed by regret over my ignorance and weakness. I awakened an F-rank regeneration skill and wasted five years without recognizing its infinite potential. Even after understanding its true value, I didn’t give my all. I grew complacent with my abilities and neglected to develop them further, choosing comfort over growth. I only began to struggle earnestly in the past year, but it was far too late.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Even if I survived here, the world is finished.”
Monsters swarm across the sky in all directions, and thunderous sounds echo from everywhere.
The undead legion we fought today is merely the tip of the iceberg compared to the entire monster army pouring onto Earth. From the fractured Gates, S-rank monsters—creatures that require multiple S-rank or A-rank hunters to have any chance of victory—were emerging in endless waves.
Mother is dead. My comrades are dead. In a world without hope, I have no will to live.
As I surrendered to despair, my eyes began to close.
[Your Regeneration skill has advanced from B-rank to EX-rank.]
“What? EX-rank?”
My closing eyes snapped open at the notification sound.
[Insufficient resources in the surrounding environment to regenerate an Awakened’s body.]
[Regenerating the user’s life.]
“What does that even mean….”
Before I could comprehend what was happening, darkness began to consume my vision.
* * *
“Gasp!”
Like Neo awakening in the real world in The Matrix, I jolted upright, my body convulsing as I sat up from where I lay.
Cold sweat drenched my skin as I looked around in confusion.
“This is… my shared apartment?”
The cramped shared apartment where I’d lived with a friend during my fourth year of university. The musty, damp smell was unmistakable—exactly as I remembered it.
“Hey, what’s all this noise?”
My friend Jae-won grumbled from beside me, his body cocooned in his blanket like a caterpillar.
“Huh? Jae-won?”
“What is it, man? Let me sleep. What time is it? Six?! You crazy bastard, why are you up and making a racket?”
Jae-won checked his phone, then pulled his blanket over his head in irritation.
I tore my gaze from Jae-won and looked down at my own body, running my hands over my cheeks and stomach.
This soft, flabby body—the body of someone before awakening, someone who’d abandoned exercise for alcohol. This cramped shared apartment where I’d lived for only one year of university. And Jae-won, who would die years later in the Gate incident.
“Regenerating my life… did that mean going back to the past?”
I walked to the refrigerator, pulled out a two-liter bottle of cold water, and drank directly from it before sitting on the floor.
I stared blankly into the void, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“Ah!”
Lost in thought, a sudden realization struck me, and I cried out without thinking.
“Hey! Let’s get some sleep!”
Jae-won threw a pillow at me.
“You’re… really sensitive.”
Unable to withstand Jae-won’s irritation, I grabbed my phone and stepped out onto the balcony.
“Mother.”
Countless people had perished in repeated Gate accidents, and Mother had not escaped that fate. If I truly had regressed, she would still be alive.
With trembling hands, I pressed Mother’s number at the top of my smartphone’s contact list.
My heart pounding, I listened to the dial tone, and soon Mother answered.
“Hello? Son, what’s the occasion? You finished your calls?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Hmm? That’s sweet of you to say. But Mom’s working right now—can you call back later?”
Here I was, living a lazy life of drinking and sleeping in late, while Mother had been working since early morning. Thinking of her struggling to support such a worthless son in my previous life, guilt weighed heavily upon me.
“Okay. Nothing’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing at all. But what about you?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just woke up and thought of you.”
My voice trembled and my vision blurred, but I clenched my teeth and held back the tears threatening to spill. I thought my emotions had withered away during those hellish final two years of my previous life. Yet hearing Mother’s voice, those parched feelings seemed to come alive again.
“You’re something else. Still, it’s nice to hear your voice. I’m busy now, so call me back when Mom’s free, okay?”
Hearing Mother’s delighted tone—despite my being a son who only ever asked for allowance and never showed her filial piety—my throat tightened.
After hanging up, I stared at my phone for a long while.
“Get a grip.”
Returning to the past didn’t mean a rosy future awaited me. If I failed to prevent what was coming, only hell awaited humanity—and me along with it.
I wished I could prevent everything, but if that proved impossible, I had to at least stop the worst catastrophe. And I had to protect those around me.
I grabbed a pen and notebook, sat at my desk, and began writing down everything I could remember from my previous life. I didn’t want to miss even the smallest detail, so I recorded everything that came to mind.
“What are you doing so early in the morning?”
After about an hour of racking my brain and recording everything in my notebook, Jae-won approached with a yawn.
“It’s been a while.”
Seeing Jae-won’s sleep-drunk face, a smile spread across my own. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d experienced such an ordinary, peaceful day.
“What nonsense is this? Did you drink too much last night?”
Jae-won, still half-drunk, scowled at me with a haggard expression.
“It’s nothing.”
“Strange guy… Ramen?”
“Sounds good. Make it spicy.”
As I ate the ramen Jae-won had prepared, he clicked his tongue while checking his phone.
“What?”
“Got rejected again.”
At this point in time, Jae-won and I were both job hunting, and with graduation just around the corner, neither of us had secured employment yet. Eventually, I would Awaken and abandon my job search, while Jae-won would find work at a small company not long after graduation.
“Everything will work out. Don’t worry.”
I reassured Jae-won, knowing full well that he would find a job soon enough.
“What’s with you? You’re acting way too mature for your age.”
Under normal circumstances, Jae-won would have joined in my usual banter, but today his reaction was different—he looked at me with genuine surprise.
The truth was, I’d lived ten additional years beyond my current age. And those weren’t peaceful years either; I’d spent several of them crossing battlefields with my life on the line. If I hadn’t grown mentally at all through that ordeal, something would be seriously wrong with me.
“I just have a good feeling about today. Like everything’s going to work out.”
“Yeah, I hope so. I’m heading out first, so do the dishes for me, will you?”
Jae-won sighed, still looking troubled, and stood up to leave.
“Sure, no problem. See you later.”
November 7th, 2023.
After watching Jae-won leave, I checked the date on my smartphone screen once more. I remembered this day vividly—I’d awakened before school and cheered alone in my room, unable to contain my excitement.
“Let me wait a bit longer.”
While waiting for my awakening, I continued writing down memories from my past life in a notebook.
Soon, a pleasant notification sound chimed, and a translucent window materialized before my eyes.
[System Alert: You have awakened.]
[Skill Acquired: Regeneration (F)]
The moment had arrived. The opportunity to start everything over. My heart trembled as I gazed at the translucent interface floating before me.
“Status window.”
As I spoke the familiar command, the window appeared before my eyes.
——————————————————————
Name: Lee Ji-seok
Occupation: Unemployed
Level: 1
Strength 4, Stamina 5, Agility 3, Intelligence 6, Health 50, Mana 28
Skills: Regeneration F
——————————————————————
After reviewing my status window, I tapped on the Regeneration skill below to check its information.
[Regeneration (F): Regenerates your body.]
“What an incredible skill, and I wasted years without even using it properly. What an idiot I was.”
An F-rank Regeneration skill could only restore wounds by regenerating damaged cells—nothing more. It wasn’t fast enough to instantly heal wounds sustained in combat, and if I suffered an injury greater than my regenerative capacity, I could die before healing even began.
Occupations provided stat and skill bonuses, but I had none. To make matters worse, my stats were so low it was impossible to tell if I was even an awakened being or just a normal person.
For these reasons, I couldn’t participate in actual combat—the heart of a hunter’s work—and spent a full five years as a porter, carrying supplies.
I’d considered finding normal employment, but in a world centered around Gates, being a porter, however menial, paid better in the short term than some mediocre corporate job. And I clung to the faint hope that my abilities might improve someday, so I never quit.
Then came the accident inside a Gate that left me on death’s door. If my skill level hadn’t increased then, I probably would have remained a porter until I died.
“I was too afraid.”
Regeneration only improved when I was injured, but looking back, I’d been either lucky or unlucky—I hadn’t suffered any serious wounds in five years, so the skill never leveled up. And since no one else possessed Regeneration, I couldn’t even seek advice.
This time would be different. I had no intention of wasting years again. And my resolve now was stronger than in my past life. Back then, the tide of events was already beyond my control, so I’d given up. But now, possibilities were abundant.
Before Earth descended into chaos again, there were mountains of things I needed to prevent.
And that wasn’t all. How many degrading jobs had I endured because of poverty? I wanted to give Mother a comfortable life, free from hardship.
Beyond that, there were countless things I wanted to do and needed to do. To achieve them, I had to raise my abilities as quickly as possible.
First priority: registration. I had to register as an awakened being with the Awakened Management Bureau before I could become a hunter and enter Gates.
I threw on some clothes and stepped outside, where a crisp autumn wind greeted me.
I boarded a bus at the stop in front of the Shared Housing District and headed toward the Awakened Management Bureau in the City Center.
“I’ve really come back.”
As I gazed out the bus window at the city lined with intact buildings, the reality of my return struck me anew.
After stepping off the bus and walking a short distance, the Bureau came into view. True to the Gate era, the Awakened Management Bureau received generous funding—its scale was truly enormous.
I paused to take it in for a moment, then entered the Bureau.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————