Mikael_Guerrero_3059

In a world where nearly everyone awakens to powerful abilities at the age of fourteen, Ren Kisaragi remains powerless. Scarred by the trauma of his father’s death in a dungeon collapse, his awakening never comes, leaving him to survive as a scavenger—harvesting monster corpses to support his ailing mother and little sister, Yui.
Looked down on by hunters and ignored by society, Ren bears the weight of his family’s survival with quiet determination. But everything changes the day he encounters a forgotten creature deep within a dungeon. Marked by a strange symbol, Ren unlocks a terrifying new power—not from the world of light, but from the void itself.
As dungeons grow unstable and ancient threats awaken, Ren begins a dangerous descent—not just into the depths of the earth, but into the heart of what he truly is. Guided by pain, grounded by love, and shadowed by a power that could consume him, Ren must forge his own path. Not as a hero. Not as a monster.
But as the boy who refused to break.

Dungeons Scavenger:The Boy Who Couldn’t Awaken

Ren sat in the ruins of the shrine, eyes closed, listening to the silence between his heartbeats. He had seen too much, learned more than anyone was meant to, and yet one question clawed at him harder than any monster ever could:

He hadn't awakened when everyone else did.

He was scared, broken, silent for so long.

So why had the void marked him? Why had the heartroot recognized him? Why had the dungeon bent around his existence?

He called upon the void—not to control it, but to understand it.

A pulse of darkness opened around him like a curtain drawn back. He stood in a space without time, without direction. Floating within it, bound by shadow, was a memory that wasn't his.

He looked human… but not entirely. His form flickered—eyes too bright, skin that pulsed with faint runes, voice echoing like a presence too big for a single body.

"You were never meant to inherit this," the figure said. "Not from me. I tried to contain it. To bury it."

"What are you?" Ren asked, voice shaking.

His father looked at him, sorrowful and proud. "I was a shell. A vessel made to anchor the void. Human in shape… but not in origin. They gave me a name. Gave me a family. But I was created to guard the seal—not to live beyond it."

"I was real enough to love you. Real enough to choose your mother. Real enough to die for you."

Tears ran down Ren's face. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because they didn't know. Not even I did—not fully—until the seal broke."

The void stirred around him, no longer just power, but memory and blood.

"You're the reason I can hear it," he whispered. "The reason it calls to me."

"Yes," his father said. "And now, you are more than I ever could be. You can end what I was made to contain."

And that truth… changed everything.

Chapter 32: The One Chosen