For the Family (1)
Im Du-ho stopped in front of the apartment building’s second-floor entrance and stood there for a moment.
The hand holding the bag of meat trembled faintly.
Only after the fear of having come back from the dead did the happiness of awakening finally catch up to him.
No, I’m fine.
After steadying his breathing, Du-ho spoke the words he hadn’t managed to say earlier to the super-intelligence.
“Thanks for today.”
“Uh… Mechromancer-nim doesn’t need to say things like that. Ehehe~”
“Still, thank you.”
“I-I understand.”
Just as Du-ho was about to press the doorbell, the front door swung open.
“Oh! Oppa!”
Im Du-na, dressed in a red tracksuit, welcomed him with a bright smile.
Her gaze fixed on the bag in Du-ho’s hand from Yun’s Butcher Shop.
Her eyes sparkled as she asked, “Oppa, what’s that?”
“Pork belly.”
“Wow!”
Du-na bounced in place and shouted into the house, “Du-bin! Oppa bought meat!”
“To think that one is Mechromancer-nim’s blood relative… truly simple-minded.”
You’re one to talk, being disconnected from society yourself.
“Huh? Me?”
“You didn’t even know what a credit card was.”
“…Eek!”
His mother’s voice came from inside the house.
“Goodness, why is everyone making such a fuss…?”
Coming out from the kitchen, his mother stopped short when she saw Du-ho. She frowned behind her thick glasses and peered ahead.
It looked like her eyesight had gotten worse.
Once she realized it was Du-ho, she welcomed him with a smile.
“My eldest son’s home early today? You must be tired.”
“I’m fine. More importantly, here.”
Taking the pork belly from Du-ho, his mother’s brow creased slightly.
“Honestly… you worked so hard for that money. Why buy something like this?”
“I work so we can all eat. Days like this should happen too.”
Those were the words Du-ho’s father always said.
His mother’s eyes widened just a little before a faint smile spread across her lips.
He really did resemble his husband so much.
Then Im Du-bin came out of the small room.
Seeing the sweat on his forehead, it looked like he had been doing sit-ups at home.
“You’re here, hyung? What’s with the meat?”
“Yeah. So you can eat and get fat.”
“Wow— I was trying to build my body, and you do this?”
“So, you don’t want to eat it?”
“Hey! Guess I’ll have to start building it from tomorrow.”
Du-bin grumbled like that, but unlike Du-na, he didn’t make his happiness obvious.
Grrrrowl.
His stomach, however, didn’t lie.
Soon, heavy footsteps echoed from the passage stairs.
“Huff….”
When Du-ho turned around, he saw his father in work clothes.
Sweat and dust were mixed across his face.
“Why are you all out here?”
“You’re home, Father.”
“Oh? Our eldest son got off early?”
“Yeah, it worked out that way.”
Du-na hurried off to the bathroom, soaked a towel in water, and handed it to their father.
After he wiped his face, Du-na said with a wide grin, “Dad, Oppa bought pork belly!”
“Did he? It can’t be either of my twins’ birthdays… no way, is it mine?”
Everyone burst out laughing at their father’s joking tone.
Du-ho asked him, “Father, want a glass of soju?”
“Sounds good.”
“Mechromancer-nim, alcohol impairs judgment, so I strongly recommend avoiding consumption.”
I’m going to die of high blood pressure because of you, not the booze.
“Oh! Then that won’t do. I’ll switch to dormancy mode for a bit.”
* * *
As the family grilled the meat, the air inside the house turned hot and steamy.
“Hey, Im Du-na. Don’t put so much on!”
“You put even more on, didn’t you?!”
“I only put two pieces on!”
“What are you talking about? I saw you stack them on top of each other!”
“Ohhh, caught ya?”
Watching the twins bicker in front of the meat, Du-ho couldn’t help laughing.
Then Du-bin spoke up.
“Hyung, did you see the news? They said a rift opened on the Bundang Expressway this afternoon.”
Du-ho’s hand froze for a moment.
Keeping his expression unreadable, he asked, “A rift?”
“Yeah. But the funny thing is, it vanished in record time. Usually hunters take a full day to clear one, but this one disappeared after twenty minutes. Isn’t that crazy?”
This time Du-na jumped in while wrapping meat in lettuce.
“I saw that too. Didn’t they say a driverless taxi got sucked in? But besides that, nothing really happened, right?”
“A taxi got sucked in and you think nothing happened? That’s exactly the kind of thing that counts as happening.”
“Hey! Why are you picking a fight with me, Du-bin?”
In the end, their mother flipped the meat and scolded them. “Enough with those ominous stories at the dinner table. Just eat your meat. I wonder how terrified the person inside must’ve been.”
At her words, Du-ho’s lips tightened.
If I said that person was me…
“Mechromancer-nim, if you’d like, I can summon a humanoid and prove it.”
Stay quiet.
At that moment, his father lifted his soju glass.
It was a silent signal: have a drink.
Du-ho raised his own glass and clinked it lightly against his father’s.
“You’ve worked hard, son.”
“You too, Father.”
“You rascal.”
After taking a sip of soju, his father’s face quickly flushed red.
Du-ho looked at his father’s hands without saying a word.
The thickened knuckles and calluses spoke of years of hardship.
He turned his head and looked at his mother.
She was frowning slightly, straining to see everyone’s faces more clearly, and it made his chest ache.
For the sake of these two.
And beyond that, for his own happiness.
I need to go into the Abyss.
“Ooh! So you’re finally taking the first step toward world domination!”
I’m going in because I need money!
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
As he rubbed the back of his neck, his phone on the spare charger rang.
When he went to check, he saw:
Assistant Manager Park?
* * *
Du-ho stepped outside and answered the call.
“Yes. This is Im Du-ho.”
> Hey! Why the hell aren’t you answering the hologram call, you bastard!
“It’s broken.”
> Broken? Where the hell are you right now!
“At home.”
> What?
“I said I’m at home.”
> Home? Shit, home! Wow… you crazy bastard. I told you to bring the pelvis part, didn’t I?!
“……”
> You’re not answering me?! Hey, Im Du-ho! Start preparing to turn in your resignation tomorrow, got it? You brat, I treated you like a person and you get ideas and pull this crap…
Without a word, Du-ho held the phone to his ear and listened to Assistant Manager Park’s drunken shouting for over five minutes.
Click—
The moment Assistant Manager Park hung up, Isto’s voice burst out urgently.
I dare him!!!
“I’ll tear that bastard limb from limb right now!”
Don’t tear anything. I’ll be the one who gets arrested.
“Oh!”
Then Du-ho turned—and suddenly Assistant Manager Park’s voice was echoing in his head.
> Hey! Why the hell aren’t you answering the hologram call, you bastard!
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I recorded the voice of someone who’s not even worth tearing apart.”
Seriously, what the hell?
“Why would you do that?”
“Just because.”
For some reason, Isto’s voice sounded sly. They hadn’t spent much time together, but the little brat felt like a rugby ball you never knew where it would bounce next.
So Du-ho firmly warned him, “Don’t get any weird ideas.”
“Hmm…”
“I’m going to give him a chance.”
“Ehh, people can’t be fixed once they’re broken. Mechs maybe, but people, no.”
Ah, enough already.
“I have my own plan, so don’t go acting on your own. You’re extremely suspicious right now, got it?”
“Y-yes sir…”
* * *
Back at the table, Du-ho’s father asked, “What was the call about?”
“Work.”
“Work’s been rough lately, hasn’t it?”
Du-ho shook his head.
“I don’t think it’ll be rough anymore.”
His father couldn’t understand what he meant, but he could feel that something about him had changed.
“Sure. Who’d doubt our son? Hah-hah.”
Du-ho looked at his family.
His mother, full of worry; his father, whose body had been worn down by hardship; his twin younger siblings, who might have to give up their dreams if things went on like this.
Du-ho made up his mind.
Tomorrow…
I’ll register as an awakened.
If he wanted to sell the things he acquired in the Abyss, awakened registration was absolutely necessary.
Well…
He’d have to keep it a secret from his family.
If I said I was going into the Abyss, both of them would stop me for sure.
He lifted his soju glass, and his father lightly tapped it with his own.
“I love you, son.”
“…Me too.”
The liquor went down his throat.
Tonight, for some reason, the soju…
was sweet.
A smile spread across his lips.
It was, truly, a warm evening—one he hadn’t had in a very long time.
* * *
After the pork belly party ended, Im Du-ho returned to his room.
A cramped, tiny room.
Du-ho sat on the bed and let out a sigh.
His father came in after a knock.
“Thanks to my son, I’ve had more luxury than I know what to do with.”
What’s so great about that?
His father patted Du-ho’s shoulder and fiddled with his smartwatch.
Soon, an alert rang on Du-ho’s phone.
> 150,000 coins have been deposited.
“Father?”
“Use it to meet up with your friends and have a drink.”
He knew how precious this money was.
Wasn’t it money earned by taking on dirty work because humans were cheaper than androids?
“You don’t have to do this, Father….”
Before he could even finish, his father left the room.
Left alone, Du-ho stared at the 150,000 coins on his phone screen.
“Mechromancer-nim? Why are you sad?”
“……”
Soon, Du-ho collected himself.
It was time to have a proper conversation with this strange creature.
“You… what’s your name?”
“I don’t have one. What would you like to call me?”
“You want me to name you?”
“If Mechromancer-nim gives it to me, it would be an infinite honor!”
Du-ho thought for a moment.
Then a myth he’d read as a child came to mind.
“Isto… how about that? It comes from Hephaestus, the blacksmith god.”
“…Isto. Not bad.”
“What?”
“No, thank you. Isto… is subtly pleasing.”
> The super-intelligence’s name has been registered as ‘Isto.’
The system voice brushed his ear.
“Isto.”
“Yes, Mechromancer-nim.”
“Don’t call me that weird thing. Just call me Du-ho.”
“Absolutely not! Mechromancer-nim is the one who will rule the world, and I am the one who serves such a great—”
“Hey, hey, enough with the world domination crap already. I’m getting sick of hearing it.”
When Du-ho shook his head, Isto made a suggestion.
“Then… how about Du-ho nim?”
“Is that your absolute limit?”
“Hehe, at least a minimum of respect should be kept.”
With that, Du-ho opened his status window.
> MAIN
> Name: Im Du-ho
> Job: Mechromancer
> F-rank Lv. 9
> Experience: 82/102
> Traits: Super-Intelligence Summon/Unsummon, Garage
> Collection: Isto
> Skill: Metal Manipulation
> Mana Affinity 47, Machine Knowledge 92
> Crafting Power 86, Mana Circuit 15
> Available Stat Points: 36
He frowned as he checked the window.
“…My level went up.”
“Oh! You’ve piled up quite a few stat points too. Congratulations!”
“You were the one who did all the work. What exactly are you congratulating me for?”
“I’m Mech… no, I mean, I’m Du-ho nim’s loyal servant!”
Hmm.
He’d be really great if only he didn’t keep talking about world domination.
“That is our mission, Du-ho nim?”
Du-ho changed the subject.
“Super-Intelligence Summon can be called again. That’s what you mean?”
“That’s right. Since you’re currently F-rank Lv. 9, you only need to raise it forty-one more levels.”
“So it works in fifty-level increments?”
“Yep.”
“And you can also be dismissed?”
As Du-ho idly touched the status window’s Unsummon option,
“I-I’ll work even harder!”
“Oh? Really?”
“Yep!!”
“Then you should stop talking about world domination, too, right?”
“That… well….”
Isto fell silent, unable to answer.
Apparently, world domination was the base layer of what made Isto, Isto.
In the end, Du-ho just shrugged and took his finger off the unsummon option.
“I’ve got an allergy to world domination, so don’t mention it.”
“Eh? There’s a disease like that?”
“Humans can be like that over small words.”
“I’ll be careful!”
All right, then.
“Isto, you said earlier that you’d turn Garage into an inventory in the rift. What does that mean?”
“Ah! Would you like to come into Garage?”
“Come in?”
In that instant, a portion of the air rippled like water.
“You mean go in there?”
“Yep. It’s your private space!”
He’d had a little soju already.
Du-ho was pleasantly buzzed.
Maybe that was why he boldly shoved himself into the unknown ripple.
Before long, a small storage space opened up before his eyes.
Then…
> Toxins detected in body.
> Decomposing toxins.
> Condition optimized.
Du-ho’s drunkenness vanished in an instant.
He felt fresher than usual.
Wow… this is—
“Amazing.”