Chapter Text
The Ahjin Guild headquarters buzzed with excitement. Any day Jinwoo Sung took on a dungeon personally, even the veteran hunters of nearby guilds felt a strange mix of comfort and awe. Nothing truly threatened him anymore… but that didn’t stop people from worrying.
“Hey Boss, are you sure you don’t want me to join you?” Jinho asked, wringing his hands.
Jinwoo gave him a gentle smile. “It’s just a mid-tier gate. I’ll be in and out.”
“R–Right… but the Association listed it as an ‘unusual mana fluctuation case.’”
“That’s why I’m going.”
He patted Jinho’s shoulder. “Hold down the fort.”
And with that, steps steady and shadows rippling behind him, Jinwoo made his way to the gate location alone.
Jinwoo Sung stepped through the warped gate with the ease of someone who had long since stopped fearing the unknown. The Hunters Association had labelled it a Class C anomaly, but its unstable mana signature told him something different.
“Just a quick check,” he murmured to himself, shadows swirling obediently at his heels. “In and out.”
The environment was wrong. Pools of water were rippling backward as if played in reverse. The stone walls curved like clockhands and deep within, something pulsed.
Jinwoo walked cautiously. His instincts, usually calm, prickled.
Something was wrong here.
He called on Igris and Iron, who appeared at his side instantly. They travelled deeper into the dungeon, and some low-ranked beasts ambushed them, but none lasted more than a breath. Shadows cut them down effortlessly.
It wasn’t until they reached the boss chamber that Jinwoo finally paused.
Because the boss wasn’t doing anything at all. It hovered. A menacing looking being, Its torso was made of gears and broken faces of clocks. Covered by a ratty floating cloak.
Its limbs were long, coated in metallic sand.
Its head was shaped like a cracked hourglass, glowing with temporal energy.
A system window flickered.
Notification!
[Boss Monster: Time Wraith]
A creature born from unstable time mana. Defeating it may trigger unpredictable backlash.
Jinwoo frowned, backlash? He’d never seen this type of warning before.
He dismissed the window and summoned more shadows.
“Let’s finish this quickly.”
The Wraith shrieked, its voice warping like echoes travelling through centuries.
It released waves of distorted mana that made the shadows flicker.
Igris sliced through the first wave.
Iron shielded Jinwoo from another.
Jinwoo countered with a dagger pinning the Wraith against the cavern wall.
The boss thrashed, its body fracturing into floating shards of light.
“Now.” Jinwoo’s dagger sliced cleanly through its core.
The Time Wraith shattered with a final, haunting cry.
And then the light burst outward.
Shards of the creature floated like drifting snow.
Jinwoo watched them dissolve.
“Huh,” he murmured. “That was easier than—“
His words died as a wave of dizziness crashed over him.
His legs buckled.
His shadows had be recalled and unable to catch him, but his body was already shrinking, bones compressing, muscles dissolving, mana dropping sharply. His clothing sagged around him, far too large.
“Wh—what…?”
His voice came out higher than normal, small and afraid as he dropped to the floor, unconscious.
Back at headquarters, Jinho paced so aggressively that the floorboards threatened to file a complaint.
“He should’ve been back by now.”
Jinho finally snapped and made his way to the gate to check things out for himself, and when he arrived, he noticed that the gate appeared to be destabilising. He looked at his phone and still didn’t hear anything from the boss. Was he still inside after clearing the gate?
Jinho weighed up his options and sighed, it was time he called the Association.
Within minutes, emergency protocols activated. A joint Association and Ahjin rescue team assembled immediately.
His clothes were huge. His daggers were too heavy.
A soft, high-pitched groan escaped his lips.
“W… where am I…?” That wasn’t his voice.
He held up his hands.
Tiny. Chubby. Childlike.
“Oh no,” he squeaked, eyes widening. “This is not good.”
Okay, calm down. Think. Think like an adult, he told himself, steadying his breathing the way he always did after a tough raid.
But his breath hitched halfway through, wobbling into a childish whimper he immediately regretted.
His Shadow Soldiers appeared automatically in response to his distress… and then immediately froze in confusion.
Iron lowered his massive helmeted head and stared blankly at him.
“I’m fine!” Jinwoo tried to shout, but it came out as an adorable squeal. His cheeks puffed in annoyance. Stop it. Adults don’t squeak.
“That time wraith must’ve done this,” he said as he looked around the space.
The shadows stood protectively over him as he tried to remember the events that led to this. Their shapes flickered. Their presence felt… thin. As if their connection to their lord was unstable.
Beru trembled, lowering his head until his forehead nearly touched the ground.
“MY KING… YOU HAVE SHRUNK.”
Jinwoo jerked back, startled. His mind screamed at him to be calm, to be logical. You’re still you. Don’t panic. Adults don’t panic.
But his tiny heart hammered in his chest, much too fast.
“I defeated the boss, I need to reverse this before the gate closes!”
Beru raised his head slightly, voice cracking with panic.
“YOUR FORM IS FRAGILE. YOUR MAGIC IS REDUCED. YOUR ROYAL PRESENCE IS… IS PINT-SIZED!”
“Beru, please—” Jinwoo tried to sound commanding, but the pitch of his voice made the words come out more like a toddler demanding juice.
He ignored Beru’s panicked screeches and focused. Tried to, anyway.
His breathing hitched again, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Think like an adult. Think like an adult.
But every time he said it, a quivering little kid inside him whispered back: But everything’s too big…
Slowly, he looked around the chamber where moments ago he had battled the Time Wraith, but it was pristine. Smooth walls. No scorch marks. No shattered stone on the chamber floor. The air felt young, untouched by violence.
“…No way,” Jinwoo whispered.
He tried to stand… and immediately toppled backward. Iron instinctively scooped him up.
“Master is… small. Must protect,” Beru said as if stating a universal truth.
“Put me down! I can walk!” Jinwoo insisted.
But even he heard the tremble in his voice. Even he felt the way his hands instinctively grabbed at Iron’s armor like a frightened child clinging to a parent.
Still, Iron set him carefully back on the ground.
His legs were too short. His balance was wrong. His center of gravity was all over the place.
Jinwoo grabbed a handful of his now-oversized shirt and stared down at his chubby hands, his tiny feet, the ridiculous sleeves that dragged on the floor.
The Time Wraith’s final attack hadn’t just reverted his age.
It had reverted everything.
He shuffled forward, nearly tripping on his own clothes, and reached the spot where the Wraith’s corpse should have been, where its body had dissolved into spools of chronal dust.
The space felt empty, like the battle had never happened. The dungeon chamber had rewound to a point before the Wraith ever manifested.
“Great,” Jinwoo muttered, the complaint sounding painfully adorable. “So the monster that de-aged me is… un-killed? Undead? Reborn? Pre-born? Ugh.”
He sighed and slowly sat down on the floor, pulling his knees to his chest and brushing dust off his tiny face and oversized clothes.
Okay. Think. You’re an adult. You’re twenty-something, not five. You can handle this.
But his knees felt too close together, his arms too small, and the world felt enormous.
“Well,” he mumbled, “guess I have to hunt a monster that technically doesn’t exist yet.”
“MY LITTLE LIEGE, PLEASE DO NOT PANIC. YOUR LOYAL SERVANTS SHALL HELP YOU FIND AND DEFEAT YOUR FOES!”
Jinwoo sat hugging his knees tighter to his chest. The words don’t panic echoed in his head like a command he couldn’t follow. His throat tightened, and a sudden wave of childlike fear washed over him—raw and overwhelming.
His shadows felt it instantly.
Beru scrambled closer, his voice frantic yet gentle.
“YOU ARE STILL OUR KING! EVEN IF YOU ARE… SMALLER… AND SO VERY, VERY ADORABLE.”
“Ador…what?” Jinwoo blinked, cheeks warming as embarrassment and anxiety tangled together.
Beru paused, antennae twitching, and said in a much softer voice than usual, “We will remain by your side until help arrives.”
Jinwoo tilted his head. “Help?”
Even to himself, he sounded like a lost child asking for his mother.
Beru nodded, voice calm. “Your allies will come. They will sense your absence.”
Jinwoo swallowed. He didn’t want to admit it. He really didn’t.
Adults didn’t say this. Hunters certainly didn’t say this.
“I’m scared…” he whispered.
His shadows immediately bowed as one, surrounding him in a protective circle.
Igris kneeled; Iron clenched his fists and stood over him like a shield. Tank crouched low, a living fortress. Beru leaned close, voice trembling with fierce devotion.
“My little liege, we will be strong for you until you can be strong again.”
Jinwoo wanted to say he was strong. That he didn’t need them hovering. That he wasn’t a kid.
But instead he leaned forward just a little, letting the presence of his soldiers steady his breathing.
He felt less alone.
But overhead, the dungeon walls groaned, cracks spreading like spiderwebs. Mana flared, unstable, pulsing in warning.
Time was running out.
And far away at the dungeon gate…
“The dungeon is destabilising fast.” A technician said.
Woo Jinchul stared at the monitors, jaw tight, sweat beading on his temple. “Then why hasn’t he exited yet? What could he be doing in there?”
Jinchul had been present to observe Jinwoo on his first solo dungeon raid; he knew what he was capable of, but something about this situation made him uneasy.
“Get the strike team ready,” Woo Jinchul ordered. “We’re going in.” A worry twisted in his gut. If something inside could weaken Jinwoo Sung…
What chance did any other Hunter have?
Still, there was no choice.
He stepped towards the gate as it flickered violently, gripping his weapon tighter.
Hang on, Sung Jinwoo.
We’re coming.