The old man was dying.
Well, to be more accurate, you could say he was savoring his last breath of life right now.
"Master!"
"Sob..."
Tears filled the eyes of those gathered around the old man's deathbed.
In that space heavy with the aura of death, the disciples' sobs flowed like a funeral dirge as they desperately wanted to hold onto their departing master.
"Quiet."
"Master!!"
"Hoo... hoo..."
With his final exhale, the old man slipped into a life review of his past.
In his memories, he was just a regular kid with working parents. Not exactly a wealthy family, but one day he stumbled across archery by chance and got completely hooked on it.
Bow...
If you had to sum up the beginning and end of his life in one word, this would be it.
He fell head over heels for archery.
They were poor, but his parents supported their son's chosen path, and from that day forward, his fingers never went without calluses and bruises. Nothing but practice... and more practice. Luckily, his talent didn't betray his hard work. Even though he started later than other kids, he soon became an outstanding archer and was expected to become a future national team member.
And then that day came. The day that wiped out half of humanity in just 24 hours... the cursed day that took both his parents at once...
'The Day of Great Catastrophe'
Gates opened up. Monsters poured out and slaughtered people, while awakened individuals emerged to fight back against them.
'Hunters...'
That's what they called the awakened ones...
He wasn't a hunter, but he too picked up his bow to fight against the monsters.
No longer as a sport, but as a weapon for survival. However, he was far too powerless. He could kill F-rank and E-rank monsters, but anything higher than that was immune to his arrows.
He put everything into getting stronger and tried every trick in the book to awaken.
'Hunter'
Only hunters could learn skills through their traits and infuse their attacks with mana to fight higher-tier monsters, so he worked like crazy to awaken. He heard rumors that killing monsters could make you awaken, so he went around hunting monsters like a maniac, even going in and out of gates thousands of times where even hunters dropped like flies. He got scammed by people claiming they could awaken him and lost his entire fortune, and he even tried eating magic stones raw after hearing they could trigger awakening, nearly dying in the process.
In the end, what he realized was that he could never awaken. But he didn't give up. He kept pushing to get stronger even with a regular person's body, and eventually found his way to become the world's first renowned non-awakened hunter. But now his time was coming to an end too.
"Master. Sob... you have to wake up."
"Wheeze... wheeze... I said quiet."
The old man looked at each of his sobbing disciples one by one, then closed his eyes.
These were guys he'd been with for a long time, but all their shared memories had grown hazy.
'It's over.'
The pain he'd felt in his worn-out body was gradually becoming numb.
Even the wailing voices of his disciples... slowly fading away like distant tinnitus...
It was time to go.
But...
'What a shame.'
You could say he'd achieved everything he wanted.
However, now that his journey was ending, in this moment, one thing he never managed to accomplish flashed through his mind.
'Awakening...'
He never achieved it in the end. That last remaining wish...
His fading consciousness drifted further away and his eyes grew dim.