---
title: "Chapter 1: The Loop Begins"
slug: "ch-1"
novel: "return-of-the-disaster-class-hero"
number: 1
views: 1650000
likes: 122000
wordCount: 3250
createdAt: "2020-04-27"
---

Sung Hyunjin stood atop the world's highest building, watching the meteor shower descend. Below, humanity scraped together final moments of normality before extinction. Above, apocalypse manifested as streaks of light consuming the sky.

He'd spent thirty years preparing for this. Training beyond human limits, developing combat techniques that transcended normal capability, achieving a level of power that made him the undisputed strongest hunter alive. And it had all led to this moment.

The only solution was sacrifice.

As the first meteor struck the ground kilometers away, Hyunjin rose into the air. His power manifested as pure energy, a golden aura that could be seen across the entire world. With meticulous precision, he began intercepting meteors, detonating them before impact, protecting civilization one extinction-level catastrophe at a time.

For hours, he fought. Exhaustion pulled at his consciousness. His body began to break down under the strain. But he pressed forward because the alternative was humanity's end.

The final meteor approached, and Hyunjin gathered every remaining ounce of power for one last strike. As he released his energy, reality seemed to crack around him. The meteor shattered. The sky cleared.

And then everything inverted.

When Hyunjin opened his eyes, he was standing in his apartment exactly one year earlier. The coffee on his desk was still steaming. The date on the calendar read the same as exactly three hundred sixty-five days ago. His body was whole—no injuries, no scars, no signs of the catastrophic battle he'd just concluded.

"What..." he whispered, checking his hands. They were intact, unmarked.

A notification appeared before his eyes—the same system interface that had guided his combat training suddenly manifested with urgent text:

*[WARNING: TEMPORAL RECURSION DETECTED]*
*[STATE: LOOP 1]*
*[OBJECTIVE: PRESERVE HUMAN CIVILIZATION]*
*[FAIL STATE: TOTAL EXTINCTION]*

Hyunjin staggered backward. This wasn't possible. Loops didn't exist. Time was linear, causality was fixed. Yet he could remember everything—the meteor shower, his desperate final stand, the moment his power had detonated against the final meteorite.

All of it felt absolutely real.

"Computer, what time is it?" he asked, trying to ground himself in verification.

"12:47 PM on April 17th," the computer responded.

April 17th. One year before the apocalypse. Exactly where the loop wanted him.

Over the following week, Hyunjin tested the parameters of his situation. He discovered that he retained all his memories and combat training from the previous year. More importantly, he retained his magical power—the strength he'd developed to incredible heights was still accessible. But the timeline had been reset, and all the events of the past year had been erased.

If the meteorites came in one year, and he'd barely survived with every ounce of his power and decades of preparation...

He couldn't do it again. One loop of desperate sacrifice had nearly broken him. Infinite loops would be psychological torture.

Unless...

The system's interface provided clues. The objective wasn't just to survive the apocalypse, but to "preserve civilization." That implied there were ways other than single-handed combat. Solutions that didn't require sacrificing himself.

Hyunjin began investigating. One year, he told himself. He had one year to find a better way. If that failed, he'd try to invent one in the next loop.

The problem was, he could already feel the beginning of resignation. The idea that sacrifice might be inevitable, that maybe he was simply meant to die repeatedly while the world slowly adapted to apocalypse. That thought was more terrifying than any monster he'd ever faced.

As the year progressed, meeting resistance from organizations that didn't believe his predictions, from skeptics who thought he was delusional, from governments more interested in maintaining order than preparing for catastrophe, one truth became clear:

He would die. And he would die alone, because no one else could share his burden or believe his impossible story.

The loop would consume him. And unless he found another way, he would become the world's most tragic hero—sacrificing eternally while no one ever remembered his sacrifice.
