Chapter 6
Blink, blink.
Still only half-awake, Du-ho looked at Isto with a bewildered expression.
“You were on the internet all night?”
Behind Isto, an old laptop sat running hot, puffing out heat.
The video Du-ho had been watching made his brow furrow.
It showed training footage of Hunters.
Where the hell did you even get this stuff?
-Ah! I went into the Dark Web and found plenty of useful things, hamda.
“What?!”
He shot out of bed and forcefully shut the laptop down. The moment the screen went dark, the room fell silent.
“Why would you go there!”
-I masked the IP, so there’s no problem, imkka?
“That’s not the point. Why did you go there in the first place….”
Then Du-ho noticed the pouch of magic stones.
When he opened it, Isto said,
-I ate a bit while processing the data, imda.
“You were busy all night, so I guess you got hungry.”
Du-ho let out a sigh.
He didn’t mind the magic stones.
After all, Isto had been the one to hunt the demonic beasts.
But still.
We can’t keep doing things like this.
At that moment, an aggrieved look seemed to flicker across Isto’s LED face.
-I’ll show you some results, hamda!
“…Results?”
-Here we gooo—adda-dadda-dadda!
Along with Isto’s ridiculous antics, unfamiliar knowledge came surging into Du-ho’s head like a tsunami.
Ugh.
He clutched his head and groaned.
When the headache finally eased, he snapped, “What the hell was that about!”
-Uh… I put swordsmanship into your head, hamda?
“Swordsmanship?”
-It’ll fit you like a glove, imda. Heehee~
The thought that this was nonsense had barely crossed his mind when the sword techniques and footwork really did settle naturally inside his head.
As if his body had known them for years.
The problem was…
That bastard!
“This is assassination technique!”
-I put it in just in case, imda. Out of devotion, you know. Heh heh.
He grabbed Isto by the head with an assassin’s glare, looking ready to twist it off if necessary.
“What the hell did you watch?”
-That? I collected videos by this guy named Vlad Su and reorganized them to suit you, Du-ho nim.
...Who?
-Vlad Su. They say he’s the strongest in the shadows, hamda.
Damn it!
Du-ho clutched his head in horror.
That guy’s an Interpol red notice assassin…!
-Exactly, hamda.
What?
-If he wasn’t amazing, would he have evaded capture all this time? And don’t worry, Du-ho nim. Because I analyzed and reconstructed the footage, I tuned out Vlad Su’s weak spots too, heeheehee.
My head hurts.
I’m going to lose it.
...If I really wanted to, I feel like I could send just about any human packing.
It was a strange, unexpected surge of confidence.
And with it came a thought:
Do I really need to keep tiptoeing around Assistant Manager Park?
That didn’t mean he planned to do anything to Park, of course.
It just meant—
I could be the one holding the upper hand, couldn’t I?
Just because he had awakened didn’t mean he intended to quit his job right away.
Why not?
Because as a Mechromancer, I need machine parts, and the Machine Upcycling department has them lying all over the place.
In other words, a dimwitted boss might actually be better than a smart one.
…Though I’d still have to train him first.
Having sorted out his thoughts, Du-ho picked up his phone, filled out a half-day leave request, and sent it off.
As soon as Du-ho arrived at the Hunter Administration Bureau, he headed straight for the Machine Upcycling department.
He’d even tested the assassination technique by slipping past the hallway ceiling cameras to enter the office, and…
It really works?
There were no cameras inside the office.
Privacy laws, apparently.
Assistant Manager Park, naturally, was nowhere to be seen.
As always, he was the sort of man you might not see until nine-thirty.
Convenient for me.
Du-ho walked over to the broken android and began gathering the parts he needed.
“Isto, come out and carry this for me.”
The air rippled, and Isto appeared.
When the broken android rolled its eyes toward him, Isto’s LED eyes flickered.
-Oh~ a colleague, imkka?
“What colleague? The thing in its head is just a simple AI, so it can’t do whatever it wants like you.”
Whirr—.
With an exclamation mark flashing in its eyes, Isto picked up the android.
-Aha, so I’m the special one, hamda!
“Specially troublesome, maybe.”
-Eek!
Isto moved the android into the Garage, and Du-ho finished tidying up as well.
That took care of that…
“Should we go get registered now?”
.
.
.
Du-ho found the Awakened Registration Office.
“This is my application for new Awakened registration.”
As the document floated over the hologram, the woman at the desk froze mid-motion. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted on their own. She looked utterly disbelieving.
After a moment, she asked hesitantly, “You’re really… twenty-six?”
“Yes.”
“If this is true, then….”
Du-ho pointed to one part of the hologram with his finger.
“I don’t want to be in the spotlight.”
The place he indicated was the box marked Consent to Personal Information inspection: No.
The clerk didn’t dare ask anything else.
The registration process moved along at lightning speed.
Afterward, he visited the compensation department and filed for the Rift clear-up fee. Before long, 5 million coins were deposited into his account for real.
That was when the clerk at the counter asked, “What would you like to do with the magic stones?”
“The magic stones?”
“It says in the remarks that you took down sixty-two ratkins and one Kings Ratkin.”
At that, he remembered what Han San-ho, the guild master of HanSan Guild, had told him.
As long as you register as an Awakened, you can exchange those magic stones immediately. ...Once you leave the Rift, I’ll note it down in the remarks right away.
What a conscientious man he was.
But the problem was that the magic stones were Isto’s “staple food.”
-You can exchange them, hamda. We can always get more stones.
Du-ho shook his head and answered the clerk.
“I’m going to keep them as a souvenir.”
“A souvenir?”
“Yes.”
The clerk merely nodded, finding it odd, and didn’t ask further.
Whirr, clang, whirr. Clang.
Assistant Manager Park Gyu-tae opened the department door and stepped inside.
“Im Du-ho, you fucking lunatic!”
He was already seeing red because of the half-day leave request he’d checked that morning.
So he dares take a half-day because I chewed him out yesterday?
“You want to get yourself fired, you bastard?”
Grinding his teeth, he turned toward the spot where the android had been.
...It was empty.
What the…?
“It was definitely here.”
Park rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Still nothing.
“H-how the hell did this happen?”
Then the hologram above the desk flickered.
Park, looking near tears, hurriedly pressed the accept button.
“A-Assistant Manager Park Gyu… no, Assistant Manager Park Gyu-tae?”
-Oh, Assistant Manager Park. You can just come in this afternoon, right?
“Ah… well… actually, there’s been a serious problem….”
-What do you mean? It just needs a waist part replacement, doesn’t it? Didn’t you run the diagnostic program?
“W-what?! Ah, I mean… well….”
-Forget it. I need it sent to Paju in the afternoon, so get it fixed fast. Why drag out something that should’ve been finished ages ago?
Click.
The call ended, and Park stared at the spot where the android had been, looking shell-shocked. Then, pulling himself together at last, he called Im Du-ho.
Meanwhile, Du-ho was riding a driverless bus.
As he sat there, he remembered seeing his mother struggle with worsening eyesight during last night’s meat party.
Haa.
I want to get her treated somehow… but money is the problem.
-Du-ho nim.
Hm?
-Is the reason you want to enter the Abyss because of money, hamda?
Wasn’t one magic stone worth 50,000 coins?
Ten of them would be 500,000 coins.
Well…
I can’t exactly deny it.
-Du-ho nim, I’ll work hard and make money, hamda!
“…Yeah. I’m counting on you.”
Then it happened.
Whirr, whirr—.
His phone vibrated.
Assistant Manager Park Gyu-tae
He answered the call.
-Hey, you fucking psycho!
Beep.
Du-ho hung up at once.
But the phone rang again.
After that, every time Park called hurling abuse, Du-ho would reject and accept the call in the exact same rhythm.
And then, at last—
Come on, seriously.
-Stop hanging up! Let me talk!
Only then did Du-ho bring the phone to his ear.
-What the hell do you think you’re doing?
“What do you mean?”
-You took the android, didn’t you?
“What are you talking about?”
-You took it and then took the afternoon off just to screw me over!
“I took a half-day because I have my own reasons. And how am I supposed to carry something that heavy? Try making some sense.”
-You bastard!!!!
Just as Du-ho was about to hit end call—
-Don’t hang up! I went too far. Don’t hang up, just listen to me.
“…I’m listening.”
-I know you’re pissed about yesterday, but the android still has to be repaired right away. Mr. Im Du-ho, you’re a pro. If you’re a pro, you have to take responsibility for the work you’re given. So… hurry up and bring the android back.
Park’s voice had dropped considerably.
The swearing was gone, leaving only a carefully soothing tone behind. If this kept up, before Du-ho got fired, Park Gyu-tae himself might be the one in deeper trouble for failing to manage even that properly.
Only then did Du-ho realize it.
Having something to rely on really does make all the difference.
It was the kind of thing he’d never have dreamed of doing before.
“I’ve already filed for half-day leave, so I’ll be in this afternoon.”
-Y-you crazy—
Click.
Du-ho ended the call immediately.
Then he looked out at the scenery sliding past the window and muttered,
You should get scared for once too.
Not long after, the driverless bus crossed the Han River, and Yeouido began to come into view in the distance.
Wow…
The sound of admiration escaped him before he could stop it.
Skyscrapers ringed the center of Yeouido in concentric circles. What that shape meant was obvious.
Those buildings must be surrounding the Abyss.
In particular, five supertall towers stood like spears stabbing into the sky.
Massive structures that looked as if they easily exceeded 100 floors.
So I really get to see this with my own eyes.
The closer he got, the more overwhelming the scale became.
The buildings blocked most of his view, so he still couldn’t see the Abyss itself, but imagining a gigantic sinkhole at the center made his heart beat faster.
Isto said casually, almost as an aside,
-The buildings surrounding the Abyss in a circle belong to the Five Great Hunter Families, hamda.
“How do you know that…?”
Du-ho trailed off, glancing at the other passengers.
-I looked it up last night, imda.
What ridiculous nonsense… I thought that area was a no-filming zone.
That was exactly right.
The Abyss district was tightly controlled.
That was also why Cyborgs distrusted Hunters.
In the past, a Cyborg had once said on television,
“You’re all being deceived! If Hunters really joined forces, they could wipe out the Abyss! But they keep it around on purpose for power!”
Not long after, his cybernetic brain implant was found in a trash heap in a Natural resident district.
Didn’t they say his neural backup from the data center had been wiped too?
Honestly, he didn’t believe in conspiracy theories.
Anyway.
How the hell did you even see this?
-I’m Isto, hamda. It’s all over the Dark Web. It’d be stranger not to see it, heehee.
Isto added breezily,
-The Abyss is divided into three zones. The first zone belongs to the Five Great Families. The second is commercial facilities and Awakened housing. The third is where the newer guild buildings are, hamda.
Hmm…
So that’s how it was.
-For reference, HanSan Guild was in Zone 3 too, hamda.
...Why are you telling me that specifically?
-Because someday, you’ll need obedient underlings, hamda.
Haa…
Let’s just not.
Then the driverless bus came to a stop, and the announcement drifted through the cabin.
“Passengers, from this point on you will need an Awakened registration card. If you do not have one, please disembark and proceed to the opposite side of the road.”
Click—.
The doors opened, and a Hunter boarded the bus.
“Please present your registration card. Those who do not have one, please get off.”
Only then did several passengers grumble as they rose from their seats and stepped off the bus.
Du-ho took out his phone and opened his certificate.
Awakened Registration Card
Name: Im Du-ho
430703-3××××××××
Date of Registration: 2069. 07. ××
This certificate created restrictions and distinctions.
Watching the passengers get off outside the window, Du-ho fell into thought for a moment.
Am I… part of this world now?
He still didn’t know.
The Awakened life he had vaguely dreamed of was, in the end, nothing more than a breakthrough he had grasped so he could be a little happier with his family.
Soon, the Hunter who had finished the inspection stepped off the bus.
Once the vehicle passed the checkpoint, the scenery changed just as Isto had said.
From Zone 3 to Zone 1, the closer he got, the more the buildings changed in size and pressure.
In particular, the item shops, weapon stores, and blacksmiths scattered throughout Zone 2 stood out.
Yeouido, cut off from the rest of the world, really was another world entirely.
Not long after, the bus announcement came again.
“This stop is the final stop for this bus: the Abyss entrance. We wish you a safe return today.”
A polite announcement, and yet one that carried a chill of steel underneath it.
As Du-ho rose from his seat, a shiver ran down his spine.