There's a Saintess TV Broadcast Here? (1)

Early morning at Baek Jiyu's house.

I was having breakfast with Jiyu's family.

"How long has it been since we all sat down for breakfast like this? This auntie is so happy!"

Jiyu's mother said with a bright smile. The middle-aged woman with long brown hair was in her forties, but she looked young enough to pass for her early thirties.

Jiyu's pretty features had clearly come more from her mother than her father. The looks, and the figure too.

At that, her father let out a hearty laugh.

Flash—

The living room lights gleamed off the man's bald head.

"I suppose once you're in high school, meeting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠your friend's parents can feel a little embarrassing. Still, sharing a meal like this really is wonderful!"

"Mom, Dad!! Stop putting pressure on him. He's not even going to be able to swallow his food."

"I'm fine. Doesn't bother me."

I'd been living off school cafeteria meals and convenience store food for so long that a proper home-cooked breakfast tasted incredible.

Her mother was a great cook. Back in middle school, she used to pack me lunches all the time.

Wait. Come to think of it, Jiyu too.

In high school, Jiyu had occasionally handed me a lunchbox for no particular reason. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd always assumed her mother had made them—until I found out Jiyu had cooked them herself, and it genuinely surprised me.

Apparently cooking skill ran in the family.

"A series of robberies and terrorist attacks by a villain has been occurring across the Guri area of Gyeonggi Province. Association authorities report that the wanted villain…"

Just then, the news came on from the living room TV.

"Hmm. That villain. Dark Snake, was it? D-plus rank, so just small fry—but word is he's connected to an organization competing with a company on our side of the business…"

Dark Snake. Of course I knew him.

Back when I was with Aegis, we always checked the wanted villain list.

Considering Aegis had been a high school club at the time, a D-rank villain had been perfectly usable prey.

And Dark Snake was a villain I'd hunted plenty of times in the original game, too.

A strange feeling washed over me for a moment.

I may not have been the one catching villains lately—but I'd once been a member of a hero club that did exactly that. And now I'd earned a villain's title myself.

A villain, huh.

The definition of a villain was simple.

The government designated any awakened person who committed a crime as a villain.

Ordinary people committed crimes too, of course—but the laws that applied were different.

Modern conventional firepower couldn't handle the awakened, so crimes committed by them carried far heavier sentences under special statutes than those of ordinary citizens.

That was why the government and the Association had coined the separate label "villain"—to brand them with a thoroughly negative image. Naturally, the opposite concept was the hero.

But ordinary people admired the power of the awakened so much that some villains who committed crimes still ended up deified.

Unknown falls into that category to some degree, doesn't he.

The title: Unknown.

I'd obtained it almost by accident after killing a named villain during the tutorial—but this was reality, not a system interface, so Unknown was on the wanted list as well.

Since the villain I'd killed had been A-rank, Unknown's wanted threat level had been registered as A-rank to match.

I'm already an A-rank villain? And I'm still just an E-rank hunter.

Still, because of that hidden title's fate, I would have to keep operating under that name in the underworld from now on.

No—not just operate. I had to reign at the top. A rather enormous obligation.

They said if I go against fate, my authority gets confiscated.

Naturally, I might have to commit crimes. No—I definitely would. That was what a villain was.

But I felt no aversion or fear toward the act itself.

Probably because my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mental Strength stat is at 90.

Between the title and the Mental Strength effect, I was already equating myself with Unknown.

And I knew the underworld content well, plus I had the title buff. Used right, it was basically a treasure vault for me.

The two of them kept chatting away. I shared what I'd been up to lately and kept eating with them.

"…Anyway, because of the competition with those guys, we're the ones currently constructing the buildings in that area, but I'm a little on edge. Word on them isn't great, so who knows what they might pull."

I listened to her father's recent news as well.

He was a special construction contractor. He'd once been an executive in a mid-tier underworld organization—

but now he lived a legitimate, upright life.

In truth, the higher you climbed the pyramid of Seoul's underworld, the more you ran your organization through legal front companies.

Illegal work got handed down to subordinate outfits, of course—and if something blew up, you cut the tail loose.

Awakened people were valuable, and the underworld's awakened filled a niche in society's ecosystem, so the Hunter Association often looked the other way. The connections were extremely tangled.

No wonder players called in-game Seoul a goddamn hellhole of a city.

It came from the game's title—Ashen City of the Full Moon—and doubled as an insult aimed at the original work itself.

Anyway, I'd agreed to help with her father's work until enrollment.

Honestly, it was a complete cushy side gig.

For all that, over the past year—before I'd devoted myself fully to Aegis activities—I'd worked construction every weekend. So-called grunt labor on actual job sites.

Perfect timing, really.

Right now, thanks to the stat rewards from the retest medals, my Strength had gone up further. That Strength increase would raise my training efficiency.

Work on the site was ideal for additional Strength training.

From what her father said, special construction was tangled up with plenty of underworld organizations, so minor trouble was common—

but the pay was that much better for it. I could cover not only Theia Academy's expensive tuition, but living expenses too.

"So Junwoo's going to work with your dad today. What about you, Jiyu? Going to sit at home playing games again?"

"Ah… no… I'm going to do home workouts later too."

"You could just go to an awakened gym. Do you really love this house that much?"

"I hate gyms full of popular people…"

"This kid—she'll go to a PC bang just fine!"

Saying that, her mother glanced at me with a smile.

"Come to think of it, Jiyu's been saying she wants to try streaming or something lately. Is that because of you too, Junwoo?"

"Mom, what are you talking about!"

"That pretty little nun… what was her name. Yeeun, was it? Your high school classmate. Junwoo's completely smitten with that Ha Yeeun and doing manager work for her… You complained every day that your gaming time with him had gone down. And…"

"I n-never said that!"

"Anyway, that Ha Yeeun girl—I saw her on stream and she's adorable. No wonder Junwoo likes her. Still, it's a relief you've finally started taking care of yourself too, Jiyu…"

Mother and daughter chattered away in perfect harmony.

For a moment, I was a little baffled.

Ha Yeeun? Me, completely smitten with that tyrant nun?

I'd even confessed to An Yumin—I'd chased her around all through high school—so I could admit I'd liked her.

But Ha Yeeun was pure nonsense.

Jiyu watches a lot of internet streams, so maybe she got the wrong idea.

Granted, those rumors had circulated a lot.

That the manager of Saintess TV was after Ha Yeeun out of personal interest. But I would never, not even if I died and came back to life, fall for that walking pile of pretension. Jiyu had it completely wrong.

I smiled at her mother and said,

"I absolutely don't like someone like Ha Yeeun. We just did club activities together, so Jiyu must have misunderstood. I've left that club now anyway."

"R-really? But… didn't you like Ha Yeeun? She's… pretty… And you were always hanging around with her… You bought her gifts all the time too…"

That was because every time Ha Yeeun did an outdoor stream, she used me as her personal lighting shuttle.

Thanks to my authority, the Peacefully Sparkling Mirror, my party members' appearances looked even prettier under the light.

In truth, Ha Yeeun photographed well with makeup and camera angles, but her features weren't particularly striking—so she was extremely fixated on that lighting effect.

Well… she never seemed to admit it herself.

The gifts had just been fan presents I'd delivered on their behalf. All in all, it was a misunderstanding so absurd it made me laugh.

Then her mother, looking at Jiyu, said,

"Really? Then Junwoo, you don't have anyone you like right now? Look at Jiyu's face light up. Then maybe Jiyu still has a chance…"

"Mom, seriously! Stop! Stop! You know Mom's always making jokes like this, right? D-don't get the wrong idea!"

Watching the mother and daughter get along so well made me smile.

Breakfast ended, and I headed out to work with her father.

About three weeks had passed.

I'd figured it would help, sure—

but working with Jiyu's father, Baek Yongcheol—Uncle Yongcheol's company—for those three weeks had yielded serious gains.

I still couldn't believe it. My Strength was actually going up?

Clang, clang, clang—

The sounds of the construction site rang out all around.

For three weeks, my side job had been what they called hod carrying—hauling bricks and materials up the stairs on a building site. Work that demanded a serious amount of raw strength.

I'd done it a few times back in high school…

Naturally, those had been ordinary construction sites.

Awakened people usually took special side gigs that used their authorities—but as a powerless person, cushy jobs like that had been out of reach for me.

I'd still had about as much Strength as a regular person who worked out, so I'd managed construction sites. High school tuition hadn't been cheap, and with no parents, I'd needed the money.

The next day my whole body would ache so badly I'd often been late to class because of it.

But this site was different.

"This Junwoo kid—he's so diligent, and his form for hod carrying is solid. You don't see that often in young people. Really impressive."

"Well, I've worked places like this as a side job a lot. It's nothing special."

I said it sheepishly.

The site workers had been heaping praise on me lately.

"He hauls those nasty, nauseating mana-stone materials without so much as blinking, you know? Thanks to Student Junwoo, our work speed has gone way up!"

"He's a real treasure on this site. Awakened people really are different. And Student Junwoo, you're enrolling at Theia Academy, right? A total elite!"

"A smart kid like that working grunt labor on a construction site? And he's good at the work, too—really dedicated. My own son never studies and just hangs around with thugs…"

The older workers' praise left me embarrassed.

Getting treated properly as an awakened person feels weird.

At Theia High Academy I'd always been treated as powerless. Here on this site, I was being treated like the ace.

As the workers said, my role was a little different from an ordinary site laborer's.

Part of it was simply being stronger than a normal person thanks to my raised Strength stat—but the important thing was that I was awakened.

A massive industrial complex was under construction here, and modern industrial complexes used special building materials.

They handle construction materials mixed with mana-stone powder.

The mana stones' effect could prevent dungeon gates from forming inside the buildings.

And depending on the type of mana stone, even common monsters couldn't casually invade. Naturally, laborers on special sites like this earned higher daily wages.

The problem was that ordinary people couldn't easily move materials infused with mana-stone power.

Even when made from reasonably refined mana-stone powder—

the basic fear and curse debuffs carried by the monsters sealed in those stones were hard for even a strong ordinary person to endure.

They act on the mind, not the body.

You had no choice but to wear specialized gear like dust-proof suits, which inevitably tanked work efficiency.

But if you had an awakened person, the story changed.

Well, mana stones are what I deal with constantly anyway.

There was a reason underworld people—who had plenty of awakened among them—reached into special construction. Getting involved with government-led industrial complexes was also great for image laundering.

Before obtaining my hidden authority, though, I'd been no different from the ordinary laborers.

I'd held the Peacefully Sparkling Mirror authority—a Holy Knight class with Light attributes—but its dark-attribute resistance effect had been negligible.

So I hadn't been able to take these high-paying special side jobs either. Still made me angry just thinking about it.

But now it's different.

By contrast, the three-star authority Goddess's Faithful Guardian Knight had high dark resistance. And my second authority, the Throne of the Shadow Mirror, was itself dark-attribute.

Debuff effects like mana-stone curses had zero impact on me.

If anything, they were a buff for me.

The retest reward. I'd put four stat points into Strength. After that, something remarkable had happened.

My Strength, originally 10, was now 17.

Compared to An Yumin, whose Strength stat was past 70, it was nothing—

but Strength that had refused to budge no matter how hard I hit the weights had finally started rising.

And I've only been doing site labor for three weeks…

An additional three points had gone up, bringing Strength to 17 now. It wasn't just a number.

It meant my body had changed into a constitution that could develop as an awakened person.

If I combined leveling and training at the Academy, it meant that someday I could catch up to those three as well.

There's so much mana-stone material here. It created synergy with me as an awakened person.

And this special site had produced the same effect as an awakened training facility. Awakened weight equipment basically had mana-stone powder mixed in.

Awakened training gyms charged expensive usage fees, of course.

But I'd spent three weeks here earning money and raising stats at the same time. Absolute jackpot.

Whenever they got a free moment, the older workers brought me snacks and energy drinks. I'd heard enough praise to get full on it.

This was the feeling everyone wanted from being awakened. That sense of superiority—being different from ordinary people.

No wonder ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠so much money circulated through the underworld.

Poorly refined mana stones distributed through the underworld. People and villains using those stones for artificial awakening or forcibly opening authorities were extremely common these days.

So of course this game's Seoul was a goddamn hellhole of a city.

"That's it for today's work! Night-shift watchmen stay behind—everyone else, head home!"

The sun had already set. Watching the workers prepare to leave, Uncle Yongcheol looked at me with a worried expression.

"You're really taking night watch again today? You already worked the day shift—you don't have to push yourself that hard."

"It's fine, Uncle. Theia Academy's tuition is expensive. Better to earn some money before enrollment."

"If you need it, this uncle can help support you, you know."

"I can't do that. You already helped me out several times in middle school and high school. I can't keep leaning on you."

Back in my school days, whenever I'd been on the verge of expulsion for unpaid tuition, his family had stepped in. I couldn't take on more debt than that.

And… I've got a feeling some good prey is going to show up on this site tonight.

A few weeks ago, during breakfast with her family—

the villain from that news broadcast had appeared in the area. This whole district was a massive industrial complex.

More than anything, I'd zeroed in on the quest description.

The title Avenger of Cold Fire had activated. That meant this quest was connected to Song Sia.

I'd checked the recent schedule on Ha Yeeun's Saintess TV internet broadcast channel.

They're doing an outdoor stream at this industrial complex today?

I might end up running into Aegis even before enrollment.