Awakening Ability

The day after the kiss marks, Se-ah noona and I finished lunch, and then the sofa arrived.

Unlike the last crew, these delivery workers kept their clothes on. It wasn't that they weren't trying to impress me — they simply didn't need to.

"Is this some kind of trend? In the middle of winter, no less..."

The two workers carrying in the sofa wore ordinary long-sleeved coveralls up top. Down below, though, they had on see-through leggings so sheer you could make out not just the panty lines but the panties themselves.

Plenty of women at the gym showed panty lines too. For all I knew, this was just how people dressed these days.

"Noona's headed back, and I've got the place to myself. Maybe I'll watch some TV for a change."

Se-ah had stepped out to take care of some work, leaving me alone in the apartment with this wide new sofa. It was comfortable, sure — but it was also lonely. When noona was around, the conversation never stopped.

Figuring I could use the sound of other voices — and catch up on the world while I was at it — I turned on the TV for the first time in a while. I flipped through the channels until I landed on a show that looked interesting.

The woman answering the MC's question with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a smile was apparently the invited guest. Beneath the title card, smaller text read Han Dahye, Goddess of Management.

"She really does look elegant..."

How to put it? She was a type I'd never seen before. The kind of face that made you think, so people can actually look that refined?

Her brown hair fell all the way to her shoulder blades, swept to one side and draped forward, waves curling at the ends. A full chest, full hips, a cinched waist — and just a hint of softness at her lower belly that stirred up that particular hunger only a MILF could provoke.

The MC recoiled in exaggerated shock at the idea that she'd had no hobbies. I was a little surprised myself. I'd always figured someone at the CEO level would at least enjoy golf — you know the type. Doing business out on the course.

A pleasant smile touched her lips, as if she were remembering that moment. It was the kind of smile that made even the person watching feel happy.

That one caught me off guard. Even if livestreaming had gone mainstream, I never would have guessed that a conglomerate chairman's daughter would do it as a hobby. It might have been a prejudice on my part, but I'd assumed people like that spent their free time on more... refined amusements.

The way she said it, she looked genuinely happy. I found myself hoping the yandere who watched my stream could look that happy too.

"Let's do this!"

I steeled my resolve and let my body slump against the sofa back. Steeling my resolve didn't mean I was about to actually do anything, of course. Besides, the yandere liked it better when I quietly followed my manager noona's instructions. The advice of a manager who'd turned multiple streamers into corporate-level successes was not the kind of thing that failed.

"Nngh... did I overdo it yesterday? My whole body hurts."

A commercial break came on, and I got up to grab some water. I'd been aching all over since morning. Going at it with two women when I still wasn't used to any of this had apparently been too much.

I barely made it to the kitchen and poured cold water into a glass. I tended to switch cups depending on my mood that day. I put the pitcher back in the fridge, picked up the glass, and started back — and that was when it happened.

"Ack!? Ow..."

Halfway down the hall, dragging a body that refused to listen, the strength in my hand gave out without warning. The glass hit the floor, shattered, and a shard sliced across my left foot.

I watched the blood hit the floor, then bent down to check the wound. It was torn wider than I'd expected, and there was a lot of blood welling up. Right in the middle of the cut, a fragment large enough to see with the naked eye was still lodged in the flesh.

"That hurts... and my phone's on the sofa..."

I grabbed my ankle for no useful reason and tried to think. First priority: get to the sofa and pick up the phone. I started to stand as slowly as I could, trying not to send any vibration through my foot — and that was when a yellow light began pouring from my hands.

"Huh!? Wh-what is this now?"

I was already panicking from the blood and the gash. A bizarre new development on top of that was the last thing I wanted. The light spilling from both hands carried tiny motes inside it — the same kind of particles I'd seen yesterday when I stroked the back of Se-ah noona's head.

The motes drifting in the air began gathering toward the wound.

"Ah, please... what are you doing?"

I was on the verge of tears, praying that whatever this was, it at least wouldn't make things worse. But the more the motes collected, the more the wound shrank before my eyes. Even the tiny shards I hadn't been able to see through the blood and the big central fragment were pushed out by the new flesh growing in.

"Is it... healing?"

Over the span of about thirty seconds, the wound closed completely. Not so much as a scar remained — just smooth, unblemished skin. Every last fragment had been forced out.

"This is completely insane... this is straight-up a superpower!"

The words left my mouth before I could stop them. A superpower. A force so far beyond the human category it barely belonged in the same conversation. And in this world, that power was real.

"Don't tell me this is an awakening ability?"

Right. The essential prerequisite for becoming a hunter.

I decided to think about all of that later and switched my brain over to mindless, single-celled mode. What I needed to do right now was clean up the shards all over the floor.

I made my way carefully back to the kitchen, dampened a towel, and gathered the fragments. I set them on a piece of tissue, wrapped them up, then sealed the whole thing in a plastic bag for a second layer. I set the bag of shards aside, then wiped the blood off the floor and off my foot.

"Hah... I just wanted a glass of water. How did it come to this?"

I'd been so startled that I'd forgotten the ache in my body entirely. It was only after I sat down on the sofa and the tension drained out of me that the pain came creeping back.

"I think it hurts even more now."

Slumped against the cushions, I picked up my phone.

"Awakening ability, awakening ability..."

I searched the term online. The internet being the repository of all things, I found information almost immediately.

"Nothing all that useful, though."

I spent about an hour clicking around, but most of it was the same handful of facts recycled over and over.

The conclusion, in other words, was to go to the Hunter Association and get my ability verified.

"I should get in touch with noona, huh?"

There was too much I didn't know to handle this alone. She would be in the middle of work, so I sent a text — and the phone rang almost immediately.

"Calm down, noona. I'll explain."

I talked her down from her panic and walked her through it step by step. Explaining it, though, meant I also had to explain that my foot had been sliced open. The result of which was...

"Wait! Noona? Noona!?"

She hung up before I could get another word in.

"I emphasized about five times that it was already healed..."

Still, I wasn't about to complain about noona coming over. For some reason, I always calmed down when Se-ah was nearby.

I sat on the sofa and waited. The intercom buzzed in less than ten minutes. Opening the door immediately would only make her worry more, so I checked the screen first, then let her in.

"Welcome ba— wait, huh!?"

"Your foot!? Are you sure it's okay? It didn't scar, did it? Does it hurt to walk?"

The second I opened the door she was inside, dropping to her knees. She turned my foot this way and that, firing off questions without giving me a second to breathe.

"I'm fine! I'm fine, so come in first and we'll talk, okay?"

"R-right. You did say it was all healed."

I shook her by the shoulders until she finally collected herself. She still didn't look convinced, glancing at me sideways as she followed me to the sofa.

"Your foot is really okay, though? You're sure?"

She asked the moment she sat down.

"I already told you it is. Here. Look."

I lifted my left foot and held it up in front of Se-ah noona's face. She took it in both hands, examined it from every angle, and then looked up at me.

"Where did you even get hurt?"

"See? I told you it was completely healed."

I grinned at her. She hadn't been able to find so much as a trace. That didn't seem to sit well with her, because her face scrunched up.

"I'm being serious here, you know."

"I know, I know."

I pushed the foot she'd just released back in front of her eyes.

"You must really like my feet if you're examining them that seriously. Want another look?"

"You...! When did you get this mean!?"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding! Ahaha!"

Her face went red as she snapped at me. That much I'd expected. What I hadn't expected was that even while she was angry, her eyes kept flicking back to my foot.

Don't tell me she actually liked them?

A foot fetish?

Even if that were true, I was in no position to judge. My own fetishes covered just about everything that wasn't genuinely obscure. I had no business talking.

"Still... you awakened an ability. It's not that rare on its own, but a recovery ability. And at this level..."

"Is it that impressive?"

Noona had been sitting there with her arms folded, turning it over in her head. She looked at me with an expression that was halfway to disbelief.

"You're asking because you actually don't know?"

"Of course I don't."

"Haa... of all the abilities for a kid this naive to end up with, it had to be recovery..."

Naive? I wasn't naive. I was ignorant. I'd never expected to have anything to do with hunters — or awakening abilities, more precisely — so I'd never bothered to look any of it up.

"Listen carefully. The lowest rank, F-Class recovery, takes ten minutes to heal a wound the length of one finger."

I glanced at my own finger. Was a cut that long considered serious? It was no joke, sure, but hunters fighting in the field had to take worse than that on a regular basis.

And it takes ten minutes to heal that?

My own wound had been a little shorter than a finger. The glass had torn it wide, though, so the overall area had been considerable. And it had taken about thirty seconds to close completely.

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"How long do you think E-Class takes to heal the same wound?"

"Huh? Um... one rank higher, so... seven minutes?"

E-Class still had five ranks above it. From B-Class or A-Class up, a wound like that would close in no time. That was my reasoning, anyway.

"Nine minutes. It drops by one minute with each rank. A-Class takes five."

"For real? You're not joking?"

Noona nodded, and she didn't look like she was lying. She had no reason to.

"Then what about me? Mine took about thirty seconds."

"I said it drops by one minute with each rank, right? So does that mean S-Class takes four?"

The math said yes — but she was asking on purpose, which meant the answer was no.

"S-Class is in a category of its own. It could be one second. It could be four minutes. Depending on the ability, it could take over ten."

"Over ten minutes? At S-Class?"

Didn't a higher rank automatically mean a better ability?

"Instead, the range expands, or it comes bundled with abilities from other categories."

"Range as in... like a wide-area heal?"

The kind that showed up in games all the time. I didn't play enough to know the details, but I knew the concept — the thing you used in party-based games.

"Not that kind of range. The categories of things you can heal get broader."

"The categories you can heal...?"

I felt like I almost had it, and at the same time I couldn't quite picture it.

"This is just an example, but say everything up through A-Class can only heal what you can see. Then S-Class can heal things you can't see — diseases, organs, that sort of thing."

And the broader that range became, the longer it took. That was the trade-off, apparently.

So that's why it can take over ten minutes.

There were cases with no downside at all, she added — nothing but advantages.

"Then am I S-Class?"

Maybe it was an ability specialized purely in recovery, which was why the time had dropped so dramatically.

"Yeah. That's exactly why it's a problem, so wipe that smile off your face."

Noona squished my cheeks between her fingers and let out a long sigh.

"A high rank is a good thing, isn't it? I don't see the downside."

"There is one. That's why I'm sitting here worrying about it."

I wanted to answer, but she was stretching my face left and right, so I couldn't get the words out properly. If she was tugging on me like this, the situation had to be a genuine headache.

"I'll put it simply."

Se-ah noona sighed again and spoke.

In the entire world... fewer than ten?

"That means the Association and the guilds will all come after you in earnest."

Yeah...

I could see why that would be a pain.