Delay (1)
“Move?”
The family’s eyes flew wide open.
They only stared at one another’s faces, and no one managed to speak first.
Du-ho swallowed hard.
Now was the time to tell them.
“I… awakened.”
Silence.
Then the air in the master bedroom grew heavy, sinking like a stone.
“You don’t need to do that!”
His father cut him off at once.
No hesitation at all in the refusal.
“Dad?”
His father grabbed Du-ho by the shoulders.
There was no suspicion in his eyes, only concern.
“What company gives you a house for something that isn’t even dangerous?”
“Dad….”
“You’re not lying to make us feel better, are you? That’s what scares me.”
His father’s voice trembled.
He had spent his life working at the bottom and learned the hard way that glittering terms always came with a brutal price.
“I don’t mind living a hard life. But I can’t watch you collapse doing something dangerous.”
His mother and Du-na were looking at him with the same worried faces.
Only Du-bin was different.
His brother had awakened?
Then maybe I’ve got a chance too?
He looked full of anticipation, but under the piercing pressure of his father’s stare, he clamped his mouth shut.
Du-ho continued calmly.
“I… awakened into the production class.”
One of Du-bin’s eyebrows twitched.
Huh?
“Hyung… not a combat class?”
“No. It’s basically the same kind of work I used to do.”
As Du-bin sagged in disappointment, Du-na shoved in beside him.
“Oppa!”
“You awakened into your own job? That’s the rarest case there is! Right?”
Instead of answering, Du-ho reached out and ruffled his little sister’s hair. At once, Du-na perked up and began explaining to their parents with obvious excitement.
“Oppa won’t have to do anything dangerous like going into the Abyss! It’s really safe!”
But their father’s expression remained stiff.
“Even if it’s a production job, it’s still too much. If you accept something that big so easily, what if later you want to refuse going into the Abyss and can’t?”
Du-ho wrapped both hands around his father’s rough one.
Warm. Hard. Thick with calluses.
“I won a prize this time, remember? And I have to go to the global competition too. So the Administration offered a ten-year rent-free lease as a gesture of consideration.”
“…….”
Of course, he had mixed truth and lies in just the right measure.
A moment of silence passed.
His father stared into space without saying a word.
Then Du-ho opened a hologram large enough for everyone to see with his smartwatch.
A sleek high-rise apartment.
A map showing every detail of the surrounding infrastructure.
And then…
The interior of the top floor spread out like a panorama.
A wide living room.
A clear, sweeping Han River view through enormous windows.
Sure, they called it fifty pyeong, but the rooftop level was basically bonus space.
And if you stepped out past the rooftop room, there was even a private terrace!
Du-na’s jaw dropped.
Du-bin, zooming in on the hologram, clutched his head.
Holy shit, this is insane!
“You’re saying this really becomes our house?”
The mother was already fixated on the enormous kitchen.
Goodness….
“The kitchen is bigger than our whole bedroom.”
His father tried to keep his arms folded and his expression stern.
But…
His eyes kept flicking sideways.
Then flicking again.
They lived in a cramped place with no real living room, where meals were set up and cleared away on a folding table in the bedroom.
As the head of the family, he had always carried that guilt deep in his chest.
And now it was being stirred up.
Du-ho landed the final blow.
“We can move in two weeks from now, but if we don’t go, the opportunity gets passed to another awakened.”
The twins shouted in unison as if seized by a fit.
“No way!!”
“We’re going now, Dad!”
His mother looked straight at his father.
Silent pressure.
No man could withstand the earnest gaze of the wife he’d made suffer in a cramped home all these years.
His father coughed awkwardly.
“Ahem.
“…To think it’d be passed to someone else.”
Embarrassed, he turned his head away and muttered to himself.
Then…
“I suppose we should get ready to move.”
“Woooahhh!!”
Du-na cheered and bounced in place.
Du-bin was already pointing into the air, mentally calculating furniture placement.
And no wonder.
Until now, the siblings had been sharing the biggest room in the house by putting up a partition wall.
Their parents used the middle room, the master bedroom.
And as the eldest son, Du-ho had lived alone in the smallest room.
He’d been worried about the younger ones growing more and more cramped.
I’m glad something this lucky came along.
Then something rang in Du-ho’s head.
-It’s not luck! Everything was the result of Du-ho nim’s blood, sweat, and tears!
-This time, I agree with the iron-headed one. A Mechromancer’s abilities can’t be measured by nothing more than one house.
Both of you, thanks.
-Ahem, cough! Cough!
-Eeeh?! Eeh?!
The two of them scrambled awkwardly, coughing and squeaking in embarrassment.
Du-ho smiled as he watched his family light up in happy uproar.
* * *
Two weeks later.
As the complex biometric scanner recognized Du-ho,
beep-beep~
the massive front door slid open without a sound.
“Wow….”
But no one took a step forward right away.
The moment they entered the foyer, the entire wall turned transparent, revealing a panoramic Han River view that spilled in as if the apartment itself had become glass.
The polished marble floor looked so immaculate it felt almost rude to step on it.
Overwhelmed by the sheer sense of space and the dazzling cleanliness, the family lingered at the threshold, glancing at one another without moving.
I still feel awkward here, even though I’ve been a few times over the last two weeks. I can only imagine how they feel.
Du-ho smiled and went in first.
“Come on in.”
The family behaved as though they were entering someone else’s home.
The living room was empty.
There wasn’t a single piece of furniture in sight.
Du-bin blinked in confusion and asked, “Hyung… you said all we had to do was bring ourselves, but it’s empty?”
“No. Everything’s here.”
Du-ho spoke to the air.
“Living room mode.”
-Switching to cozy living room.
Along with the AI’s voice, the table and storage unit embedded in the wall slid smoothly out, and a sofa designed with ergonomic precision rose from the floor.
The basics of a smart home: built-in convertible interiors.
“Whoa… amazing.”
The twins froze with their mouths hanging open.
Technology they could never have imagined in their old home.
The children only poked the risen sofa with their fingertips, not daring to sit on it.
“Hyung… can we really sit on this?”
“Why are you acting so unlike yourself? Sit down and relax.”
At Du-ho’s words, the twins sat on the sofa.
Their bodies sank into the softness.
Du-bin leaned back and gasped.
Wow—
“It’s so comfortable it feels like my whole body’s melting.”
Du-na, too, seemed to relax at last.
“Ha….
“I’m sleeping here starting tonight~.”
Seeing them, Du-ho pointed toward the doors.
“Go take a look at your own rooms.”
The twins opened their respective doors cautiously and went inside.
Then, a short while later—
“Oppa!”
“Hyyung….”
When Du-na and Du-bin came back out, each was holding a pair of the latest smart glasses.
Du-na even came over to Du-ho looking teary-eyed.
“Hiiing… these are really expensive. Can we actually use them?”
“You used to say you wanted them all the time.”
“I didn’t think you’d buy us something this expensive.”
After telling the twins to use them well, Du-ho turned his head.
His father was standing by the living room window, quietly looking out over the Seoul skyline.
Du-ho remembered what his father had said not long ago.
Son, I appreciate the thought, but if I suddenly quit, it’ll be hard on my coworkers. Still, for your sake, I’ll slowly wrap things up.
Watching his father’s back, Du-ho smiled faintly.
Someone once said that simply resting wasn’t always good.
So.
Please do whatever feels easiest for you, Dad. Don’t push yourself.
With that quiet thought, Du-ho rubbed his stomach and turned to his family.
“Let’s eat first.”
He pulled up the holographic menu board.
“There is a resident-only chef service, but on moving day, this is what we do.”
“Jajangmyeon?”
When Du-bin asked, Du-ho grinned.
“Which one of you wants to place the order?”
Du-na quickly put on her smart glasses and asked, “Oppa, do we get the large sweet-and-sour pork?”
And a little later—
-Your food has arrived.
With the AI’s voice, the panel on the kitchen wall opened, revealing the drone delivery port.
Before long, Du-ho’s family was seated around the table.
Just as Du-bin was about to lift his chopsticks,
ding-dong—
the front doorbell rang.
“Who is it?”
Du-ho checked the person linked to the door on his smartwatch, and a neatly dressed middle-aged woman appeared in a hologram.
A visitor?
He hurried to the front door and opened it, where the woman greeted him warmly.
“Hello~ I’m from downstairs.”
“Ah, yes.”
“I heard you’d moved in, so I came by to say hello.”
“Hello.”
“My, are you the homeowner, young man? An awakened?”
When Du-ho gave her a puzzled look, the woman’s eyes lit up as if she could tell at a glance.
“My daughter’s a hunter too.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Son, what is it?”
When his parents came to the door, the woman greeted them happily as well.
“Hello~ Let’s get along as neighbors, hunter family to hunter family.”
She handed over a basket of fruit and went back downstairs, not forcing anything, only offering warmth and a sense of kinship.
She didn’t ask what guild they belonged to or what rank they were.
She simply welcomed them because they were in the same boat.
After closing the door and coming back inside, Du-ho set the fruit basket on the table.
His mother looked apologetic.
“We should have gone to introduce ourselves first….”
“We can do it little by little. Hurry up and eat before it goes soggy.”
Sluuurp.
Everything was still tentative and unfamiliar, but the taste of the jajangmyeon spreading through his mouth was as familiar and sweet as ever.
Du-ho dipped a piece of sweet-and-sour pork into the sauce and ate it, thinking back to the contract he’d signed two weeks ago with Director Na Yong-seok of the Administration.
An annual contract with a salary of 150 million won.
The truth was, he had refused the Administration’s original offer: 1.5 billion won for seven years.
Instead, he’d secured a 2 percent incentive on repair requests for items from outside guilds and a transfer to the first floor of the department.
A choice that let him stay free without getting tangled too tightly with the Administration, while still keeping the practical benefits.
Yes.
It was the right choice.
After the meal, everyone went to unpack their belongings.
Du-ho headed up the rooftop stairs to his own room.
When he opened the door and stepped inside, Isto and Hoguai came out of the Garage as if they’d been waiting for him.
“Ooooh!
-Du-ho nim! So this is our forward base, imkka?
-An independent location is not bad.
Before long, Hoguai came out of the room and stood by the terrace railing, his scope glinting.
-The view is open on all sides, and as the top floor, it is optimal as a sniper point. If we establish a position here, enemies within a two-kilometer radius can be handled easily.
“Enemies?”
-I won’t let even an ant get near here.
After saying his piece, Hoguai began seriously scanning every corner of the terrace and starting to plan a fortification project.
Meanwhile, Isto—
-Du-ho nim! I’m going to rip this house’s systems apart and rebuild them from scratch, hamda.
“Huh? What exactly are you going to do?”
-External hacking? No chance! Hehehehe.
“…….”
Watching Hoguai busily working on the terrace and Isto modifying the home’s security system, Du-ho shook his head with a wry smile.
Downstairs, he could hear his family laughing, and beside him were his strange companions.
Du-ho leaned against the railing.
Whoooosh…
The cool river breeze tossed his hair.
Mm…
So this is what happiness feels like.
“Not bad.”
* * *
3:00 a.m.
In the deep quiet of the night, with the whole family asleep, Du-ho tightened the knot on the Drake Leather Armor Jang Mun-seo had given him as a gift.
The inside was lined with soft wool.
Because…
He said the first floor of the Abyss was cold.
So he’d prepared as thoroughly as possible.
He had even studied information on the monsters in advance.
Then, suddenly, the news flashed through his mind.
‘Cheongcheon Clan Reopens 80th-Floor Raid.’
It would be nice if the news was a happy one, about clearing the 80th floor.
But if they failed again?
Du-ho turned and looked down at the sleeping family downstairs.
In the end, Seoul would be swallowed by the Abyss.
This new house they had worked so hard to move into.
The family who had been so happy today.
All of it would become foam on the water.
Du-ho clenched his fist.
To clear the Abyss’s first floor and secure even the smallest measure of safety.
No, to protect this happiness.
I have to go in!
Just then—
-Du-ho nim! My body’s itching so badly I’m about to rust!
-Mechromancer-nim. Even if only to change my name… no, to reach S-rank, let’s hurry and go in.
Du-ho let out a snort of laughter.
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
As he thought of the Abyss, a Dimension Control window appeared before him.
Would you like to proceed?
Accept / Decline
Without the slightest hesitation.
“Accept.”
Whoooom—
The air rippled, and a blue portal formed.
Du-ho stepped into it at once.
.
.
.
For an instant, there was a feeling of weightlessness.
As he emerged from the portal and drew in a breath, coldness rushed deep into his lungs.
“Ugh…!”
Startled, Du-ho hunched his shoulders.
Man… I knew it’d be cold, but it still caught me off guard.
He wiped the frost from his eyelashes and looked around.
This Abyss was a barren snowfield unlike the desert from before.