The laws related to Awakened individuals in South Korea were strict, especially concerning the Awakened Registration Act. If one did not visit the center to register within a month of awakening, they would face fines of at least several hundred million won. Thus, while there might be hidden hunters who concealed their grade and abilities during registration, there could not be any who were entirely unregistered. That was the kind of country South Korea was.
Lost in thought, Jung Bin rubbed his chin.
"Lee Sa-young-ssi, are you sure that Awakened person is at least B-grade?"
"Yes."
"How can you be so sure?"
"He blocked my attack."
"Your attack?"
When Lee Sa-young nodded, Jung Bin quickly accepted it.
"Then it must be at least a B-grade."
"He also fended off the spikes that suddenly emerged from the addict's body."
"If he handled that much, he must be quite experienced in using his abilities. He's probably not newly awakened."
Lee Sa-young agreed with that opinion and nodded again. Then he briefly added,
"With a ladle."
"What? A ladle?"
Lee Sa-young thought that the apron he was wearing wasn't just for fashion. He guessed that the man was either a part-timer or the son of the store owner. Even though he was older than Lee Sa-young, he looked like he was in his early twenties at most. He probably didn't have the money to pay the fines and yet, he was risking various penalties by not registering. What kind of courage was that?
Lee Sa-young couldn't understand it. He was getting more and more annoyed because he couldn't understand it. He wasn't even this annoyed when the guys who had been tailing 'Hyung' returned with just a business card and were carried in on stretchers. He had been confident he could find him quickly, and seeing his skills again after he had taken out four elite guild members at once reassured him.
[Touch them and you're dead]
Lee Sa-young looked at the crumpled business card with its scrawled writing ten times a day. His patience was running thin. Finally, he turned on the microphone connected to the secretary's office.
"Tell Hunter 'A Small Miracle' to come to the Guild Leader's office. As quickly as possible. No, just call him over the PA system."
—Hunter "A Small Miracle," real name Seo Min-gi, please come to the Guild Leader's office immediately. Again, Hunter "A Small Miracle," real name Seo Min-gi, please come to the Guild Leader's office…
Forty minutes before the end of the workday, Lee Sa-young called Seo Min-gi to the office.
Soon after, Seo Min-gi entered the Guild Leader's office, looking haggard with dark circles under his eyes. He bowed his head gloomily.
"You called for me?"
"Why do you look like that?"
"…You called me to torment me, didn't you?"
Lee Sa-young replied with a perfectly innocent face.
"Torment? Are you busy right now?"
"…You'd call me even if I were busy."
"You're right."
Lee Sa-young's tone was matter-of-fact. In truth, Seo Min-gi felt a tiny pang of conscience every time guild members asked, 'Why does 240 always act like that?' because he knew he was partly at fault. He sighed and muttered in a resigned voice.
"Anything except hacking into the Awakened Database."
"Oh, good."
Lee Sa-young smiled like a satisfied cat.
"That kid I asked you to find before. What was her name?"
"Park Ha-eun, 2nd grade, Class 2 at Saetbyeol Elementary School?"
"Yes, her."
Lee Sa-young glanced at the business card on the table and clasped his hands.
"I asked you to investigate her family relations too…"
Oh, dear. Seo Min-gi's face turned pale. He had completely forgotten about that while focusing on hacking into the Awakened Database. He hadn't even succeeded in hacking it, so he had accomplished nothing.
Lee Sa-young spoke coldly as Seo Min-gi began to tremble.
"Investigate it right away."
"…Yes! I'll do it right now."
After Seo Min-gi rushed out, Lee Sa-young picked up the business card again. Moments later, the phone screen lying beyond his hand crumpling the card lit up with an incoming call.
[Seowon Guild Nam Woo-jin]
Seeing the caller, Lee Sa-young answered.
"What is it?"
—Jung Bin said he collected the body of an addict. It was reported.
"…"
—We've taken it in for now, but it's quite interesting. I thought you might want to come and see it yourself, so I called.
Lee Sa-young glanced at the clock. 5:25 PM. He put the crumpled business card into his inventory and stood up.
"I'll be there soon, so wait for me."
***
At 2:40 PM the same day, the sign outside the hangover soup restaurant indicating "preparing ingredients" marked the most leisurely time of the day. Park Ha-eun, who had been sitting at a green table for 20 minutes, rolled her eyes to look up at Cha Eui-jae and pointed at his head.
"Uncle, the inside of your hair is getting lighter."
"Really? It is?"
"Yes. You should dye it."
Cha Eui-jae glanced at Park Ha-eun's study sheet. In the answer box for question one, there was a random drawing of two worms sitting on a leaf instead of the answer. Cha Eui-jae propped his chin on his hand, looking serious.
"Just out of curiosity, is the answer to question one 'worms'?"
"Yes. And Uncle, I'm telling you because you don't look in the mirror. You need to dye your hair."
"Okay. Thanks for telling me. I'll check the mirror, so try to solve question one again."
"Fine, I'll try."
Park Ha-eun pouted and started scribbling on her study sheet again. Cha Eui-jae got up and stood in front of the mirror on the wall, lifting his hair to check underneath. He thought it might be a trick of the fluorescent light, but the gray hair he had covered was showing at the roots again. He pulled at the ends of his hair, feeling annoyed.
'How long has it been since I dyed it?'
From the moment he escaped the West Sea rift, his hair had turned gray. To avoid drawing attention, he regularly dyed it black, but whether due to his regeneration ability or some unknown reason, it quickly reverted to gray.
'Hair dye isn't cheap either.'
His hair didn't take dye well, so he had to use two or three boxes at a time, and the dyeing intervals were short. He dyed his hair more frequently than a celebrity trying to change their image. Today, he had planned to spend a relatively free afternoon after preparing plenty of ingredients. He might as well touch up his roots. He untied his apron strings.
"Ha-eun, Uncle is going to dye his hair. Don't open the door for anyone, even if they hang on the door."
"Even if they hang on it?"
Sometimes, even with the "preparing ingredients" sign up, desperate hunters would cling to the door, begging for a bowl of hangover soup. These were mostly hunters who had just completed dungeon raids and were on the verge of collapse. Cha Eui-jae nodded firmly.
"Yes. Even if they hang on, don't open the door. If it gets too bad, call me immediately. Try to solve your study sheet as best as you can. Promise."
"Okay, promise."
Park Ha-eun answered absentmindedly, not looking at Cha Eui-jae. Judging by the movement of her pencil, she wasn't writing but drawing. Her focus seemed more on creativity than solving problems. Cha Eui-jae chuckled softly and hung the apron on the wall.
He went to the side room attached to the hangover soup restaurant, took out two packs of squid ink hair dye, and headed to the bathroom.
[Unique Trait: Hands of a Master (S+) activated.]
With his gloved hands moving swiftly, Cha Eui-jae applied the dye thoroughly to every part of his hair. His unique trait, 'Hands of a Master,' allowed him to handle any task with exceptional skill and precision. Whether wielding a weapon for the first time or making hangover soup as if he had been doing it for 30 years, his skill made him proficient. It was thanks to this skill that Cha Eui-jae could run the restaurant alone without the owner's help.
While others would envy this supreme skill, Cha Eui-jae primarily used it to dye his hair more efficiently. This would make some people cry tears of blood if they saw it.
Cha Eui-jae set down the comb and looked at his reflection. The dye was evenly applied with no spots missed. He smiled, satisfied. Perfect.
'If I can't work at the restaurant, maybe I should become a hairdresser.'
After coming up with a new career idea following his brief stint as a zombie interpreter, Cha Eui-jae hummed a tune. Thanks to his extraordinary skill, he had many options for making a living without being a hunter. He removed the dye-covered gloves and checked the time on his phone. He had to keep the dye on for another 30 minutes.
As he finished cleaning up and grabbed the bathroom door handle, his phone buzzed twice with a short vibration.
Ha-eun: Uncle
Ha-eun: There's a weird person at the door
'…Weird person?'
Park Ha-eun, the granddaughter of the owner of a restaurant certified by hunters, had seen all kinds of hunters and had a high threshold for weirdness. For her to call someone weird, they must be quite abnormal.
In other words, if Ha-eun said someone was strange… it meant the person was not normal by any standard. Cha Eui-jae's expression hardened. There was an odd aura lingering nearby.
Cha Eui-jae used a skill to erase his presence and carefully opened the door. He stuck his head out just enough to check the entrance of the hangover soup restaurant.
A shabby-looking man was clinging tightly to the door. His shoulders hunched and his body trembled as he muttered incomprehensible words, biting his nails. Occasionally, he banged his head against the glass.
Cha Eui-jae found the man's appearance oddly familiar. He furrowed his brows, trying to recall where he'd seen it before. The raspy breathing and inhuman aura…
"Sorry. This guy doesn't know anything. His brain's fried from drugs."
Ah.
The strange gas mask. The guy who attacked with spikes the day he met Lee Sa-young! The moment he realized this, Cha Eui-jae dashed out of the bathroom and shouted loudly.
"Park Ha-eun, lock the door right after I go out!"
Without hesitation, he ran outside and kicked the man's face.
Smack! The man's face was hit squarely by the kick, and he rolled into a pile of trash. Grabbing a broom set outside the door, Cha Eui-jae approached the man with determined strides. The man was trying to get up, still grinning. Blood was dripping from his crushed face, but the smile didn't waver. Blood soaked the trash bags around him.
"Cree… hee hee, hee… hic!"
"Stop laughing, damn it. The kid can hear you."
Cha Eui-jae glanced back at the hangover soup restaurant. Fortunately, the interior was not visible from the door. Park Ha-eun was a smart kid, so she would know to stay hidden inside. However, the noise might still reach her, so he had to handle this quietly… No.
'Snapping his neck would be quicker.'
Just as he reached out to grab the man's neck, the man's body convulsed. From Cha Eui-jae's viewpoint, only the bloodied face and neck were visible. The man's creepy grin momentarily froze.
And then…
Swish!
Black spikes shot out from the man's body, hurtling toward Cha Eui-jae.