The Boundless Necromancer

Chapter 1: Tower of Trials (1)

“Let me get straight to the point.
You don’t have to come to the training center starting tomorrow.“

I stared vacantly at the manager before I could regain my composure.

“…Why am I being kicked out?

“Han Sungyeun-nim, I think you know exactly why we’re kicking you out.”

“…”

“Keeping you here is becoming too much of a burden for our training center.”

“I’ve never missed a single payment and I’m fulfilling all the prerequisites.”

“Well, of course.
Because you’re preparing for the hunter exam.
The problem is that it’s already been 7 years since you’ve started preparing.”

The manager narrowed his eyes and scoured my body.

“Even after 7 years of physical training, you weren’t able to learn a single skill or unlock your innate ability.
You weren’t even able to raise a single stat point.”

His harsh response felt like a dagger in my heart.

Like he said, I had achieved nothing in the last 7 years of training.

I couldn’t unlock a single skill, let alone even raise a stat point.

‘Damn it.’

And this happened in a center for professional player training.

Everyone who awakens as a player must train in one of these centers for a couple of months before they are able to debut as a hunter.

But…

‘I couldn’t get anything done in the years that I’ve been training here.’

Realistically, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that I would never be able to become a hunter.

I didn’t have a hint of the fundamental qualifications that even the most basic hunters have.

But I stayed calm and asked in a monotone voice—

“…Is that the reason I’m being kicked out?”

“To be a little more specific, you give us a bad name.
A pretty infamous one at that.”

I could finally understand what the manager was trying to say.

“You’re worried about what people would think of a training center that couldn’t get a trainee to debut after 7 years of training.”

The manager stayed quiet but nodded with a smirk.

Yeah, I knew this would happen one day.

God damn it.

“Let’s be honest, you’re nothing special.”

“…“

“You have no aptitude for this.
Do you think you’ll ever pass the hunter exam?”

“…”

“Do you think something will change just from working hard? That’s not how things work.
You’re wasting your time.”

“…”

His words filled with contempt pierced my soul.

But I couldn’t dispute his points or even throw a punch.

After all, a slightly athletic average person stood no chance against a former hunter.

As he said, it wasn’t an exaggeration to call me completely talentless.

I didn’t want to repress these feelings, but I had to.

Why?

‘Because I’m weak and I have nothing.’

I’d been enduring this for so long, but it seemed as though there was no need for that anymore.

Yeah, it was time to end it.
I was exhausted.

“Of course, we’re not just going to banish you without compensation.
We’ll refund you about 50% of the fees that you’ve…”

Why was he still talking?

All he was doing was trying to convince me to leave.

“Yeah, I got it.
Just give me my 50% refund.
Goodbye.”

As his sentence finished, I walked past him toward the exit.

“…!”

I thought he wanted to say something, but he ended up not stopping me.

Well, there was nothing left to say, and I wasn’t the one who had something to lose by getting angry.

Then…

“Woah, he’s been here since way before I was, but now he’s getting kicked out like that.”

Starting with a comment from an onlooker, I was bombarded with stares from all over the room.

“But he came in every morning to train non-stop… It’s too bad, huh?”

“Fuck feeling bad.
He’s an idiot for not knowing his place and stopping sooner.”

“You think so? I guess he is pretty stupid for not giving up.”

“I didn’t know he couldn’t increase a single stat point after training for 7 years.”

Sympathy, scorn, and even ridicule…

I didn’t know what I did so wrong to have them look down on me for all 7 years of my training.

Whether I heard them or not.

They always jeered at the fact that I was essentially powerless as a player.

And just like that, my 7 years of training became proof of my foolishness.

But…

“I guess that’s that.
Damn it.”

I muttered to myself as I stepped out of the center and stared into the sky.

7 years of non-stop training…

“Sigh…”

It ended in an absurdly simple way.

***

I didn’t always want to be a hunter.

It happened during the Great Calamity, when my parents were eaten alive by the hoards of monsters from a dungeon break.

And I wasn’t alone in that experience.

But even from those people, only a few select people were able to awaken as a player.

Even then, I prayed to God to awaken me as a player.