Chapter 330

Deputy Director Yoon OO, is something wrong?

What is this? Otitis externa? I definitely scratched it earlier in the room, but my ear still keeps itching.

After going around in circles, the situation had somehow become unfair only to those nameless stars destined to die without ever leaving so much as a trace of their names behind.

And while a certain country's special agents were being blamed for something they hadn't even done, the hero in question, Jung Haseong, finally shifted in his seat.

He moved the hand resting atop the steering wheel and reached for the gearshift.

...

Just because an S-rank Awakener had plenty of things didn't mean he had time to spare.

He really needed to stop wasting it on pointless thoughts.

First, another fake Beast suddenly appeared in Korea.

Then, once the mask came off, a famous Hunter emerged from underneath it.

As if that weren't enough, there was everything else that had happened today.

Just what was going on?

.

He felt ridiculous.

Even now, Haseong found himself hoping that the loose-lipped doctor he'd met earlier would suddenly come running back and admit that the diagnosis had been a mistake.

And there was only one reason why a man so utterly removed from wishful thinking kept imagining one impossible scenario after another.

Haa...

Because Kim Giryeo had now become the undisputed standard of the entire industry.

Whenever a major crisis broke out, people instinctively thought of his name.

And these days, whenever he participated in a raid, even Hunters fighting on the most dangerous battlefields felt reassured.

So the fact that Korea's fourth S-rank Hunter now stood at a dangerous crossroads...

There was probably no one in this country who could accept that calmly.

'Why do things like this only ever happen in my life? Seriously.'

From Haseong's perspective, the situation felt even more unfair.

Honestly, he'd been doing perfectly fine on his own until that damned Dungeon Shock occurred.

Because of some thing called mana—some resource he had never even asked for—he had ended up losing far too much.

And among everything he had lost was his mother's health, which had always mattered more to him than anything else.

Yet now, even if he somehow managed to obtain the legendary cure-all from myth, reality would still force him to turn his back on someone.

By his own choice.

'Why does this keep happening...? Why is it always me?'

Tuk.

Haseong couldn't bring himself to start the car.

Instead, he leaned back against the seat.

If he ever obtained the long-awaited Elixir, Kim Giryeo would not be his first priority.

His mother, bedridden by magic addiction, would come first.

So he simply had no room left to spare.

Faced with the bitter reality that he would have no choice but to ignore another person's suffering, Jung Haseong sank into even deeper regret.

'If I'd known things would turn out like this, I never would've insisted on teaming up......'

Come to think of it, judging by everything he'd seen...

Kim Giryeo didn't seem to have any close relatives he still kept in touch with.

'If that article saying he grew up in an orphanage is true, then there's probably no hope of relying on his biological parents either.'

Kim Giryeo's home had collapsed, so he had been storing his belongings at someone else's apartment.

If that was the case...

Should Haseong prepare some clothes for him in advance?

'It's not like he owns much anyway... But once someone's hospitalized, they always end up needing all sorts of little things.'

It was just as that concern entered his mind.

Ting.

His phone vibrated.

The smartphone resting on the dashboard mount lit up, drawing Jung Haseong's attention.

He reached out and tapped the screen to check the notification.

A message had arrived.

[New Message: Hunter Kim Giryeo]

More precisely, it was from another S-rank Awakener working in the same industry.

'Hm?'

But when he opened it, the contents were nothing like what he had expected.

'Right. As expected, he's asking me to bring all the clothes from his place... Wait.'

All of them?

And on top of that, he intended to move out of the apartment as soon as he was discharged?

A sudden declaration that their shared living arrangement was over.

Well.

If you thought about it carefully, the strange part was that an S-rank Hunter—essentially a modern-day member of the upper class—had been living in someone else's home in the first place.

Even so...

Until now, it had almost been suspicious how long he kept putting off finding a place of his own.

'Why now?'

Jung Haseong narrowed one eye as he stared at the phone.

Then, only a few seconds later, shock spread across his face.

A plausible theory had flashed through his mind.

'No way...!'

Until now, he hadn't thought much about how long that Hunter's temporary stay had dragged on.

He had simply assumed the man was too lazy to go house-hunting.

'Was it really because of me?'

Looking back, though, the Hunter staying in his guest room had often behaved in certain ways.

Haseong-ah, are you heading out to work again today?

Yes.

Yeah. Then I'll take care of lunch myself. For dinner, just heat up the rice I made when you get back.

He cleaned someone else's house.

Sometimes he even cooked a pot of rice.

At first, whenever Haseong came home and found the place spotless, the guilt had been so intense he felt as if it might kill him.

_ _

But according to what he'd heard from his mother, his father—who had passed away before Jung Haseong was even two years old—had also been an unusually self-sufficient man.

By now, most of the public knew this much.

The country's number-one Hunter had grown up in a single-parent household after losing his father at a very young age.

'Didn't Mom say Dad handled all the cooking? That he even made my first baby food himself?'

It was a relationship too faint to even qualify as a memory.

Until now, Haseong had never particularly mourned the absence of his father.

But perhaps, beneath that absence he had always taken for granted, some unresolved feeling had quietly remained.

At some point, Jung Haseong began to genuinely appreciate having someone else help around the house.

And being looked after by a man who somehow felt more mature than him—almost like an older brother, despite not actually being older—was surprisingly comforting in more ways than one.

'I guess... I missed the feeling of home from back when Mom was still around.'

But looking back now, no matter how comfortable it had felt, he really should have stopped him.

He should have grabbed the man's sleeve and told him not to do it.

Was that really just a personal habit?

No matter how tidy someone was, it wasn't normal to voluntarily take charge of another person's household chores.

And soon, Jung Haseong began to suspect something else.

'Maybe Kim Giryeo realized he was having trouble taking care of himself... and that's why he kept putting off buying a house.'

_ _

'It's suspicious.'

Until now, Kim Giryeo had remained in the spare room under one excuse or another.

But the instant he found himself in a situation where he might be the one needing help...

He suddenly announced that he was moving out?

'Our perspectives were completely different. I was certain that, at least this time, I was the one helping that Hunter...'

Suspicious.

And just like that, Jung Haseong became completely convinced of a misunderstanding.

During the time they had lived together, it was actually he who had been receiving help all along.

'Idiot. Oh my God. I completely misunderstood everything again.'

Then what exactly was the person who had once again chipped away at the self-esteem of South Korea's number-one Hunter doing right now?

And more importantly...

Why had he sent a message about finding a new home at this particular moment?

***

Tick.

################

[Record]

While hospital staff members invariably use honorific speech, patients frequently respond in an informal tone.

Upon closer observation, the omission of honorifics occurs at a rate of approximately 2% when addressing Earthlings in white coats (doctors), and 98% when addressing nurses.

Accordingly, this phenomenon is also judged to be a form of submission to perceived authority.

Oh dear.

Mammals truly lack spirit...

They pretend the age of hierarchy is over, yet seeing how society still functions in much the same way, it seems reasonable to predict that the chances of improvement over time are rather low.

3

################

The scratching sound of a pen echoed through the air.

'Ugh. Writing by hand feels strangely unpleasant.'

Today marked the first day of my hospitalization at a medical facility on Earth.

I had just finished a traditional Korean breakfast served by the hospital.

With the day beginning smoothly enough, I was now carrying out the activities I had planned in advance.

'Is it because I bought a cheap pen?'

What I was doing was none other than—

preparing for cleanup.

For the humans living on this planet, it would undoubtedly be nothing short of an emergency announcement.

I've said this many times before, but after being reborn on Earth, I endured all manner of hardships.

And throughout that turbulent struggle for survival, I steadily nurtured a certain resolve.

[54%]

When I recovered my memories involving Lee Hwayoung, my anger had already passed the halfway point.

[77%]

Now, it was practically on the verge of exploding.

Rather than waiting until I finally opened the lid and indiscriminately grabbed whatever happened to be within reach, it was far healthier to decide in advance what unnecessary chaff could be rationally discarded.

The problem, however, was that my lungs had yet to fully recover.

Since I couldn't leave the hospital immediately and was effectively trapped here, the process came with unavoidable difficulties.

'The range of situations I can actually observe is far too limited.'

Well.

Leaving the problem of location aside for the moment...

"Ms. Choi, I have something to ask about the patient you examined earlier—"

"Light?"

"Ah! You startled me! Why are you suddenly—kyahhh!"

The biggest obstacle was exactly this sort of thing.

"H-Hunter Kim Giryeo?"

"Eek! I'm so sorry! Please excuse me, sir!"

As you can see, humans tend to panic when they see me.

After all, only a few hours earlier, this body had been torn apart like a map of the Korean Peninsula, with its lungs shredded and barely stitched back together.

'Hmm.'

At present, I couldn't activate a single spell.

I couldn't even use my physical strength freely.

And yet, now that the restraints on Kim Giryeo's body had been removed, all of the mana that had previously been suppressed was leaking outward and radiating an overwhelming presence.

'If I suppress my mana too much, it hurts. But if I don't suppress it... everyone around me reacts like that.'

"You're overreacting."

How was I supposed to secretly observe the children in a condition like this?

Honestly, these people completely lost their composure over the superior performance of this body.

Tak.

I snapped the spring-bound notebook shut with one hand.

Annoyed, I decided to stop what I was doing.

And before the medical staff in front of me fainted from exposure to my mana, I turned around and left.

'At this rate, I'll get kicked out of the hospital barefoot.'

Strictly speaking, though, this wasn't the only thing I had to do.

'Should I just go back to my room and browse the internet?'

In any case, filling out the score sheet was a task that could be postponed.

At best, it ranked second or third in terms of priority.

As I said before, the Beast corpses recovered by the Earthlings were probably deteriorating even at this very moment.

So if there was anything I needed to hurry with, investigating those remains came first.

'I should call Seonwoo Yeon once work is over and ask about the procedure. How am I supposed to meet those dead impersonators?'

At that moment, I slipped the notebook into my pocket and pulled out my phone instead.

The thought of making a call immediately reminded me of another task.

'Ah. Right.'

Come to think of it, it was about time I put an end to my freeloading.

After all, this body belonged to none other than an unprecedented S-rank Hunter.

'I've been living rent-free all this time. Thanks for that. But saving you from that fake Beast yesterday should more than settle the debt, right?'

I decided it was time to bring my freeloading life at Jung Haseong's house to an end.

'I've spent all this time worrying that the landlord might eventually throw the freeloader out—'

Why had I stayed with the national hero for so long?

Well, I was a fairly high-ranking Hunter myself.

Frankly speaking, an overpowered one.

So naturally, it wasn't because I wanted to save money on rent.

The primary reason I had been freeloading there was my ambition to study mammals.

And the second reason was personal safety.

South Korea's number-one Hunter.

If I kept Jung Haseong nearby like some kind of guardian totem, there was no better protection in the event that monsters appeared.

People on Earth say that a dog doesn't bite the hand that feeds it.

The saying suited the situation perfectly.

However, Jung Haseong was also someone who lacked absolutely nothing in financial terms.

So, in exchange for enjoying a safe life in Korea, I had even handled household chores and occasionally flattered the landlord.

'Jung Haseong must have been pretty uncomfortable having a guest stay this long.'

For now, I could move my belongings into the one-room laboratory I had provisionally rented.

After that, I could take my time finding a proper new home.

And now that I had regained the weapons necessary to protect myself, there was no longer any reason to inconvenience someone else.

I moved my fingers across the screen and sent Jung Haseong a series of messages.

The moment I regained my strength, one of the first things I did was leave the hospital room.

And after that—

I began wondering what I should eat for lunch.

Then, having returned to my usual luxurious hospital room—

I continued wondering what I should eat for lunch.