Emotion Hunter: System Awakening.

The sun hung high above Silver Town, filling the air with warmth as the streets sang their familiar evening chorus of car horns and children racing from school.

It was another normal day in an abnormal world.

Riven groaned as he shifted on his worn-out bed, eyes fluttering open to meet the harsh morning rays. He tried to ignore them at first, until reality hit him like a slap.

"Classes!" he blurted out, springing upright with messy hair and a pale face.

As if mocking him, the clock was the first thing he saw....hanging crookedly on the wall of his tiny one-room government apartment.

"Shit... it's 8:30," he rasped, stumbling to the wall where his timetable was taped.

"Haa..." He let out a deep breath, tension leaving his shoulders. "It's Monday. All we have is history and politics. Guess I'll skip class. Mr. Logan never teaches anything besides Veils and monsters anyway."

He paused, then smirked, raising his hand like a conductor as he mimicked his history lecturer's flat, nasally voice.

"'When rifts first tore through reality a hundred years ago, our ancestors thought it was the Rapture... only to discover it was a world of monsters bleeding into ours...'"

Riven chuckled softly, adjusting imaginary glasses just like his professor always did.

"Yeah, that man really sucks."

His expression grew serious as he moved to another corner of the room where a small square table stood. On it rested a large framed picture flanked by two others.

He knelt before the center frame...his mother, a dark-haired woman with kind eyes. To the right, a photo of his baby sister from the casualty report. To the left, his father...the one man he had yet to beat in video games.

Two years ago, a Red Veil had torn their world apart.

The news reports had painted the picture clearly enough.

His mother got discharged from the maternity ward. Discharge papers signed. They were already on a bus ride home with their newborn daughter.

Then a Red Veil had opened like a gaping wound in reality, swallowing the bus whole and dragging it into the realm of monsters.

That was all the authorities ever said. The Hunters barely had resources to contain the monsters already spilling onto Earth, let alone chase after civilians who'd been pulled to the other side.

According to the casualty list, his sister had never even been given a name before she vanished. So Riven had given her one in those dark days when tears were his only companion.

Lora.

"May your souls rest in peace....I will find you, at least I will try...," he murmured, offering his daily prayer before flopping back onto his bed and grabbing his phone.

"Now... let's grind that Call of Duty account," he said, switching on his mobile data.

The first notification froze him cold.

"Another Veil incident?" Normally, someone like him wouldn't care about news alerts. But when it came to Veils, he always looked. His grudge burned too deep, and the desperate hope that his family was still alive somewhere was the only thing keeping him breathing.

He tapped the notification and read:

*Breaking News: A major Red Veil has appeared in Newlife Country. All humans worldwide are advised to cancel any business there until Hunters regain control of the situation.*

"What? That's a level 3 precautionary lockdown." His grip tightened on the phone. "How many monsters came through that thing?"

Precautionary commands were ranked by threat level. For an entire country to be locked down meant the disaster was enormous. It would take at least five squads of S-, A-, and B-ranked Hunters to bring it under control.

"Someone really needs to put an end to this bullshit," he muttered. "Monster holes just opening anywhere, and those grotesque things pouring out."

He sighed heavily. "I didn't sign up for any of this. If I'd known the world was this screwed up, I wouldn't have bothered coming out of Mom's womb."

Anger bubbled under his skin every time he thought about the Veils...especially Red ones. They weren't even the deadliest classification, but to him, they were the worst. Worse than Mr. Logan's droning lectures.

"Guess I'll just pour this anger into some Call of Duty bullets," he said, opening the game and rotating his phone sideways.

That's when it happened.

An electrical buzzing sound cut through the air, accompanied by a sudden shift in the wind inside his room. At first, Riven thought it was background noise from outside. But then he turned and froze.

A ring-sized hole had opened in the middle of the air, rippling wider by the second.

"Holy shit!" he yelped, leaping off his bed and pressing his back against the far wall.

There was nowhere to run. The rift was opening right in front of his only door.

"Come on, I didn't mean to say anything that would hurt your feelings," he muttered to the growing tear in reality, sweat racing down his temple. His legs shook like he was trying to support a building.

"Someone... please..." His voice cracked, reduced to squeaks.

The Veil kept widening, its surface swirling gray. Gray Veils usually spawned the lowest-ranked monsters....F and E class threats.

But no monsters emerged. Only cold wind seeped through, carrying an otherworldly chill.

"Maybe there's a lucky charm on my head today," he whispered after several tense minutes, finding his voice again.

It wasn't that scary anymore. Just a hole in reality. He could probably walk out and report this to the nearest Hunter station. Get some reward money, maybe even a news interview.

But then a deeper thought struck him, sending shivers through his entire body.

What if this is my gateway to finding Mom, Dad... and Lora?

The names whispered through his mind like a prayer. Two years of wondering, of hoping, of dreaming about rescue missions that would never come. Two years of living in this cramped government apartment, surviving on subsidies and the fading hope that somewhere, somehow, his family was still alive.

Now an opportunity stood before him...a direct path to answers.

At eighteen, he wasn't stupid enough to walk into a lion's den. But family bonds were stronger than common sense.

"God..." he whispered, not realizing his feet had begun moving forward, drawn by invisible strings.

"Either this Veil gives back what it took from me... or it takes me too."

Blinded by two years of grief and desperate hope, he stepped toward the rift. Terror screamed through his mind, begging him to turn back, but it was too late.

The Veil pulled him in.

Galaxies blazed past in seconds, colors spilling through infinite blackness. Unnatural winds tore at his being while a buzzing filled his skull.

Then an emerald glow appeared before his eyes...a translucent panel, shimmering and refusing to vanish no matter how violently he twisted through the void.

------

**[System Inscribed Into Host Successfully]**

**[Emotion Looting System Online]**

**Name:** Riven Duke

**Race:** Human

**Age:** 18

**Vitality:** 58/100

**Titles:** None

**Ability:** Emotion Looting

**Accessories:** None

**Survival Points:** 0

**Task:** [Click Here]

**Shop:** [Click Here]

-------

His vision blurred as the words burned themselves into his mind. Before he could question what was happening, he tumbled out the far end of the Veil, crashing headfirst into unknown soil.

Darkness claimed him.

Now he lay unconscious in the middle of a monster realm, family bonds having pushed him through the dimensional barrier.

But would those same bonds be enough to keep him alive?