Chapter 352

1:00 PM. A street lined with startup companies.

"Aunt."

Why did people have to work just to survive?

"Aunt! We're running short on dishes. Stop prepping for a minute and wash those first."

Inside a restaurant crowded with office workers waiting in line, a middle-aged woman standing at one side of the kitchen briefly entertained that thought.

It was Lee Hwayoung's complaint.

"The big bowls! Wash the big bowls first and bring them over!"

"How long do I have to keep working while being treated like this..."

Thanks to a newly introduced government loan program for low-income households, she had barely managed to escape the barrage of debt-collection calls that had been tormenting her.

But once the immediate fire had been put out, Lee Hwayoung's next concern was simply how she was going to eat tomorrow.

People were fickle creatures.

When her back had given out and she was forced to rest, she had desperately prayed to the heavens for nothing more than the chance to work again.

Yet now that she was working herself to exhaustion, her circumstances hadn't improved in the slightest, and somehow that made everything feel wrong.

Worse still, even if she continued living this way, there was no real hope that things would ever get better.

"At this point, I just wish I'd win the lottery."

For a moment, she indulged in a fantasy of getting rich overnight.

But as the saying went, time was a great healer.

She became so absorbed in the exhausting work in front of her that, before she knew it, half the day's tasks were already finished.

"The customers are gone, so let's all eat something and then get ready for the dinner rush!"

Just a little longer and the workday would be over.

At least during mealtime, she could escape from work for a while.

Her mood improving slightly, Lee Hwayoung sat down at a table.

But just as she was about to enjoy the happiest part of her day, someone barged in and poured cold water all over it.

"Sister!"

It was one of her coworkers trying to strike up a conversation.

"Today was even crazier than usual, wasn't it? Goodness, I'm exhausted. Was it social media? Anyway, it looks like this place got famous again as some must-visit restaurant."

Naturally, work that didn't suit you was bound to feel exhausting and frustrating.

But the way the other woman kept going on about it as though it were something extraordinary only irritated Lee Hwayoung further.

"So noisy..."

Lee Hwayoung lifted her spoon with a sour expression.

The truth was, she had never felt particularly comfortable around that coworker.

"If you retire and just sit around doing nothing, where's the fun in that? People our age get sick if we stay home all day. Sick, I tell you."

Lee Hwayoung was confident she could spend every day doing absolutely nothing and never grow bored.

Yet this woman kept babbling about how people needed work in order to feel alive, spouting one absurdity after another.

"Now that my kids are all grown up, it's lonely being by myself. So I started working here just to keep busy. Oh, right. Speaking of which, how old are your kids again? Do you have a daughter? A son?"

And she was a chatterbox besides, forever rambling about things Lee Hwayoung had no interest in hearing.

'I'm already exhausted enough to die.'

Why did people insist on asking such pointless personal questions?

The endless chatter beside her was annoying enough.

But if Lee Hwayoung were being honest, it wasn't the woman's nonstop talking that bothered her most.

What truly grated on her nerves was something else.

"...And just the other day, my daughter came up to visit for the first time in ages. I told her not to bother, but she insisted. Said it was my birthday and showed up carrying all these gifts anyway—"

"Really?"

"This is pure gold, you know. A brand-new ring. Honestly, what am I supposed to do, dress myself up with something like this at my age? I'm just going to put it away and save it for when my kid has something important coming up."

The other woman often boasted about her children.

By contrast, whenever the topic turned to family, Lee Hwayoung had no choice but to say that her husband had died young and that she had no children.

Conversations like this were always uncomfortable.

"That's nice."

So she muttered a vague, hollow response and pretended to concentrate on her food.

The woman would eventually have to stop talking in order to eat.

Sure enough, silence soon fell.

Slurp.

Quiet.

But just as Lee Hwayoung took another spoonful of bean sprout soup, a report playing on the restaurant television caught her attention.

[...While our nation's dungeon safety management has once again reached record-breaking levels, public concern continues to rise over the increasing emergence of large-scale Gates.]

Footage of monsters filled the screen.

In the early days of the Dungeon Shock, images like that had seemed too unreal to process.

Now, for an entirely different reason, it was difficult to pay attention to them.

Humans, after all, were creatures of adaptation to a degree no one could have imagined.

"Ugh, there goes my appetite. Why do they have to show those disgusting things in broad daylight?"

Lee Hwayoung turned away, nauseated by the sight of the writhing monster on the screen.

But only a few seconds later, the newscaster announced the appearance of something even more unpleasant.

[[Street Interview]

What do you think about Korean hunters?A: In Japan, it's quite common for ordinary people to follow famous psychics and even form fan clubs around them. These days, interest in Korean hunters is growing too—almost like when the K-POP boom first began.]

An ordinary person on television gave that answer.

[A: The Korean Wave started with Jung Haseong, and these days, Mr. Kim Giryeo and Miss Esther are becoming popular as well...]

An edited compilation began playing next.

For a brief moment, a man in a suit appeared on the screen.

His face was ordinary enough that one might pass him on the street without a second glance, yet his distinctive features were now instantly recognizable to almost any Korean.

The moment Lee Hwayoung saw him, she snatched up the remote.

"If I have to watch something, I'd rather watch the monsters than that bastard."

She changed the channel.

"Oh! Sister, leave it here. What a coincidence—they're rerunning World's Best Trot."

Lee Hwayoung did her best to ignore everything and swallow her discomfort.

But seriously.

Was there ever a day when that hunter wasn't plastered all over the news?

"Ha."

At that moment, a long-forgotten conversation resurfaced in her mind.

"Judging by the state you're in, I get the feeling your son probably never had much sense to begin with..."

They were words spoken by a hunter named Kang Changho.

'Unbelievable! If that brat had a rotten temper, obviously he got it from his father's side, not mine.'

Anger surged inside Lee Hwayoung.

She had gathered up all her courage to seek him out, only for that mixed-race hunter to break his promise to her.

And despite all the effort she'd gone through, she hadn't been able to get a single follow-up article published.

'If he was just going to treat me like trash, why the hell did he call me in the first place?'

But getting angry by herself would only damage her health.

She didn't have the courage to confront Kang Changho directly, either.

So what could possibly change now?

This had been the season when her family threatened her and Kang Changho deceived her.

By now, Lee Hwayoung had almost completely given up on the idea of making easy money through dishonest means.

Perhaps that was why this autumn felt even more depressing than the last.

"Let's all work hard until closing time!"

And yet perhaps a person's life couldn't keep going downhill forever.

It happened just as she had finished work and was peeling off her rubber gloves.

The same chatty coworker suddenly brought up something intriguing.

"What did you say? Unnie, is that really true?"

"Yeah! So the whole family was in an uproar. When the aunt was struggling to raise the kid, everyone pretended not to know. But after the funeral and everything was over, the baby's father suddenly showed up with a lawyer, saying he wanted to hand over an inheritance. And not just a little money, either. We're talking billions of won—"

"Can that really happen legally?"

"They say it still can, at least for now."

A claim for the return of a legitimate share of inheritance...?

Just like that, an unfamiliar piece of legal knowledge lodged itself in the mind of a laborer who had spent her whole life too busy trying to survive to learn much about such things.

She had vaguely heard of the concept before.

But she had always assumed the rule applied only when inheritance passed directly to one's children.

'If the child dies, the biological mother and father automatically become the heirs? Even if they're divorced, that doesn't really change anything?'

The same principle apparently applied when parents were involved.

If Kim Giryeo died without marrying, his biological mother—Lee Hwayoung herself—would automatically become one of his highest-priority heirs.

And apparently, even if someone gave away their money before dying, there were circumstances in which a large portion of those assets could still be secured through a lawsuit.

At that point, another thought naturally occurred to her.

Hunters had an exceptionally high mortality rate.

After all, being a hunter had always been a dangerous profession, no matter the era or place.

"Sis, it's getting late, so make sure you get home safely, okay?"

"Yes, yes."

At times like this, perhaps it really was better not to be greedy and simply live quietly.

After finishing everything and leaving work, Lee Hwayoung mulled over what she had heard while riding home in a taxi.

She did occasionally feel a pang of affection for her son.

But the world wasn't a place where one could survive on tender feelings alone.

At the same time, another thought crept into her mind.

'After everything I went through giving birth to him... all the suffering I endured.'

She had done things for him in the past, after all.

It wasn't as though she was actively praying for her own child to die.

She merely thought that if something happened to him by chance...

Would it really be so wrong for her to want the money?

This week, she hadn't even been able to afford a lottery ticket because she needed to pay off her debts.

And yet, for the first time in a long while, Lee Hwayoung felt as though she had something to look forward to next week.

Money.

Money.

She was so utterly sick of money.

If only she had been born rich, perhaps she would never have needed to think like this.

Lee Hwayoung climbed the stairs, justifying herself every step of the way.

Beep, beep, beep.

When she finally arrived home, the worn-out electronic lock greeted her.

This was her new residence, a place with a small deposit but painfully high monthly rent.

Beep, beep.

And up until this point, it had undeniably been an ordinary day.

Clang.

Click.

She had just removed her shoes in the entryway when she heard the lock click shut behind her.

"Hm?"

Fortunately, Lee Hwayoung had always had a healthy heart.

Otherwise, she might have suffered a heart attack on the spot.

?!

There was a man's silhouette standing in the living room.

Lee Hwayoung froze at the sight of someone inside the darkened apartment.

They said that when a shock was too great, a person couldn't even scream.

Apparently, that was true.

She wanted to shriek at the top of her lungs, but all her body could manage was violent trembling.

"Wh-what? Who are you?!"

Then it happened.

As her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, she finally began to make out the intruder's face.

It was ordinary enough to belong to someone she might pass on any street, and yet distinctive enough that she could never mistake it.

He wasn't some nameless burglar.

He was a man with heavy eyelids and pupils black as a crane's neck.

The instant Lee Hwayoung realized who he was, she became even less capable of speaking.

Tik.

Around that moment, the hallway light flickered on in response to his approaching footsteps.

Standing beneath the newly lit entrance, he spoke first.

"Mom."

To an outsider, he might have looked like a dutiful son who had waited late into the night for his mother to come home.

"You're home?"

But as everyone already knew, the two of them were hardly on good terms.

***

Given the circumstances, what followed was only natural.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Truly the worst homecoming of her life.

"Ow! My arm."

The middle-aged woman lowered her gaze to inspect herself.

She was currently bound tightly to one of the dining chairs in the studio apartment.

All she remembered doing after hearing that "welcome home" was blinking once.

She had closed her eyes for no more than a moment.

Yet in that brief instant, she had apparently lost consciousness.

Only now was she finally coming to.

Cable ties.

Originally meant for organizing wires, they were now restraining both her hands and feet.

Despite being made from thin strips of plastic, they refused to break no matter how hard she struggled.

They were deceptively strong.

"Ah. The thing is, I actually have quite a bit of experience with kidnapping..."

But in a situation this terrifying, what on earth was that trespasser talking about?

"To be more precise, I've been kidnapped quite a few times myself. But I've always tried to go through life with a learning mindset, and at last the day has come when that knowledge is useful. Mom."

The figure sitting before her was dressed entirely in black.

Black eyes.

Black clothes.

Even black gloves.

Only his cheaply dyed hair caught the faint light.

Now that she looked more carefully, Kim Giryeo was seated in exactly the same kind of wooden chair as she was.

But although there were plenty of dining chairs in the room, there were no housemates who might come to rescue her.

The chairs were simply freebies she had picked up from a nearby café.

"Lord..."

If that was the case, then she really was in serious trouble.

There was no one to help her.

Realizing the gravity of the situation, the tenant fell silent beneath the weight of growing despair.

But the esper sitting across from her was silent as well, apparently choosing his words.

That gave Lee Hwayoung a chance to examine his face more closely.

And as she did, a realization struck her all over again.

'Marriage really is madness.'

More precisely, her own marriage had clearly been a decision she'd made while out of her mind.

Genetics truly were mysterious.

The man sitting before her had a face that strongly resembled her in-laws.

Or, to be more exact, he looked particularly like her late mother-in-law.

To put it bluntly, that woman had looked like a thug.

And his father—the man who had eventually left behind nothing but a legacy of lung cancer—hadn't been much better.

Then again, thoughts like these were meaningless now anyway.