Awakeners of the Skyscraper # 1
“Keong-keong-i─, Keong-keong-i─, keong, keong─, Keong-keong-i─, Keong-keong-i─, keong, keong─.”
Oinoi wandered through the sunlit rice paddies, singing a very peculiar song.
Was she in a good mood?
“Oinoi, did something nice happen?”
“Muh-heh-heh! Master of the house, you must not be startled when you hear this…! This Oinoi has conquered stage 2 with a mere 100 won…! Not a single nymph in all the world could blast through a ruin overflowing with mummies for just 100 won…!”
She'd made it all the way to stage 2 on a hundred won.
She'd been hammering away at the arcade machine since yesterday, and it seemed her skills were coming along nicely.
Shwip—.
I walked around the neighborhood with Oinoi, collecting the wooden traps I'd set up earlier.
For the record, a wooden trap was made by weaving branches together—touch a twig and fwap! a barrier would drop from above, pinning the animal underneath.
But not a single beast had been caught in any of them.
As I clicked my tongue at my empty haul, someone who had been watching me spoke up.
“You really thought dog-squirrels would get caught like that? These guys are brilliant. Look—see them up there in the tree, staring down at us right now?”
He was a man around my age.
An awakener, maybe?
He must have been one of the challengers who'd come to catch a dog-squirrel. The badge hanging around his neck was proof of it—a Dog-Squirrel Adoption Permit.
Professor Park, the village head, hung one of those on every visitor who came through, you see.
No permit, no dog-squirrel. Simple as that.
Anyway.
Just as the aspiring dog-squirrel trainer had said, the dog-squirrels had climbed up into the trees and were peering down at us. Clutched in their paws were almonds—the very ones I'd stuffed into my traps.
“So it was a bust.”
And here I'd been trying to catch Kwang-kwangi.
Even the drones I'd deployed hadn't picked up any sign of the little rascal.
━Keong-keong…!
Just then, something came sprinting from far away, scurried up my leg in one smooth motion, and perched on my shoulder. It was Keongkeongi.
The aspiring dog-squirrel trainer's jaw dropped.
“That one! Look at the size of him—that's Keongkeongi, the Chief Dog-Squirrel, isn't it? Incredible! I never dreamed I'd see him with my own eyes! Could it be—are you Ha Ildo, Keongkeongi's trainer?”
“Yes, that's me. Ha Ildo.”
Lately, more and more people had been recognizing Keongkeongi and me.
Something about posts about us popping up on the Awakener social networks, apparently.
Thanks to a post titled “True Story: I Saw Keongkeongi and Ha Ildo” topping the charts a while back, I seemed to be building a name for myself as something of a dog-squirrel authority.
Of course, nobody knew better than I did that fame like this was fleeting—but hey.
Getting attention felt good. I couldn't help it.
Hoping to help out a junior in the field, I spoke seriously.
“Catching a dog-squirrel takes patience. The truth is, we don't catch dog-squirrels—the dog-squirrels catch us. You get chosen. That's how it works.”
“Is that so? I'll keep that in mind. By the way, I read on the internet that dog-squirrels like people wearing hats. What do you think about that?”
“It probably varies from squirrel to squirrel, but I can't say I've noticed any particular love for hats. If they do have preferences, they like almonds over peanuts. And they seem to take to children more than adults.”
More kids—who'd come out holding their mom and dad's hands just to play—ended up adopting dog-squirrels and taking them home than the awakeners who'd come specifically to find a partner.
Even I, the foremost dog-squirrel scholar in the country, couldn't tell you why.
# # #
━Kwang-kwang…!
I was just about to fall asleep when I heard something that sounded like knocking at my door.
It wasn't an actual knock, of course—it was an animal's cry.
Shwip—.
I got up from my computer and opened the window.
Kwang-kwangi.
It seemed to be prowling around near our house.
“Showing up at 10 p.m., huh. It's always at night with you. Are you nocturnal or something?”
━Keong-keong…!
Keongkeongi, who'd been fast asleep, stirred on his cushion as well.
Looking ready to bolt outside and brawl with his rival at any moment.
━Jjeuji.
Angangi, Emperor of the Honey Ants, was as laid-back as ever.
Shwip—.
I stepped out into the yard and filled a food bowl to the brim with almonds—the kind dog-squirrels loved. Then I placed one of the yellow candies Lee Jina had given me on top.
Thump—.
After setting the bowl on the ground, I quietly withdrew and spread my internal mana out in every direction—a technique I'd used in the rift not long ago.
Turning the entire surrounding area into my domain, in other words.
Fwaa-shwip—.
With my senses sharpened, something moving registered against my awareness.
“Freeze!”
I fired the net gun I was holding in my hand.
A five-million-won net gun—the kind that could immobilize even C-rank monsters, at least for a little while.
Pshoosh, fwaaaap—!
“Hye-eek…! A nymph-phobic net, this is…! Hye-eek…!”
But when I looked closer, the creature tangled in the net was Oinoi.
Oinoi, who had been crouching in the yard, was now flailing about helplessly in the netting.
“Oh no, sorry! I didn't know you were there!”
Unlike Lee Jina or Yu Ari, I wasn't a detection-type, so reading signs and presences through mana was an area where I had plenty of shortcomings.
The moment I freed her from the net, Oinoi sprang to her feet and unleashed her fury.
“That net was thoroughly nymph-phobic, it was…! Nets have ensnared countless nymphs throughout history…! Never must the trailing end of a net be left within a nymph's reach, it must not…!”
According to Oinoi, many nymphs had been captured by nets over the ages.
What became of them afterward, she didn't say.
Anyway.
To apologize, I fished a ten-thousand-won bill out of my pocket, but Oinoi's reaction was lukewarm at best.
“This Oinoi prefers coins, she does…!”
Apparently Oinoi liked hundred-won coins—ones she could feed into the arcade machine—more than paper bills.
I dug the coins out of my pocket, handed them over, and Oinoi's anger melted away.
“Five coins…! With this, I can make it all the way to stage 3, I can…! But more importantly, this Oinoi wonders what the Master of the house was doing just now…!”
“Me? I set out food to try to catch Kwang-kwangi.”
Shwip—.
I turned to look at the feeding bowl I'd laid out for the little rascal.
And then, something astonishing.
The bowl had still been heaped with almonds—but the yellow candy I'd placed on top was gone. Only the candy.
Did Keongkeongi or Angangi eat it?
“Was it you two?”
━Kreureung…!
━Jjeuji…!
They both seemed to be denying it.
Well, it was true these two weren't the type to scarf down random things they found lying around. Then who had swallowed the candy in the middle of all that commotion?
“It came right into our yard.”
There was only one way to find out.
I called Seo Yerim.
“Yerim, you're recording our yard on CCTV, right? Think I could take a look at the footage? There's something I want to check. From about ten minutes ago.”
━You know you can check that from your own computer, right? Hold on—I'm nearby, I'll be right over.
And so, around 11 p.m., Seo Yerim stepped into the yard with her secretary, Ahn Youngeun, in tow.
“Hello, Ildo. Hi, Oinoi! Hi, Keongkeongi! Look at Keongkeongi—he's gotten bigger, hasn't he? He's way bigger than my palm now!”
Secretary Ahn Youngeun adored dog-squirrels.
Swoosh— Keongkeongi bolted.
As the secretary chased after him, Seo Yerim asked me a question.
“You wanted to see the CCTV? Hey, don't you think you've been asking me for one thing after another lately? What goes around should come around—that's just good business.”
Come to think of it, she had a point.
I'd been leaning on Seo Yerim for a lot lately.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, she spoke again.
“If you've got nothing on tomorrow, come to Telos headquarters in Macheon City. Not me—the company itself has work for you. Oh, and the yard CCTV—I already sent the access link to your TelTalk. You have a Telos service ID, right?”
After fumbling through registrations on a few different sites, I was finally able to pull up the CCTV feeds from our yard on the site Seo Yerim had pointed me to.
Roughly twenty minutes ago.
I scrubbed through the footage, and in the blink of an eye, there it was—the moment the candy vanished.
“Let's slow it down.”
Scrrr—.
Playing it back at the slowest speed possible.
While Oinoi and I were squirming around tangled in the net, some bizarre thing went fwap!, snatched only the candy, and vanished—all of it caught on camera.
What on earth was that?
Ahn Youngeun, who'd been peering at the monitor alongside us, tilted her head.
“Looks like an animal with a bunch of legs. See that? Don't those look like legs? It was moving so fast it barely got captured, but the shape kind of reminds me of an octopus or something. What do you think, Yerim?”
“No idea. I'm tired. Youngeun, let's head home. Anyway, Ildo—don't forget. Telos HQ by lunch tomorrow.”
Whoosh—.
With that, Seo Yerim was gone.
All that remained was me.
I kept rewatching the CCTV footage, but I couldn't identify Kwang-kwangi any better than before. I did, however, have a good idea of where the little critter had gone.
The firewood pile stacked in front of our yard.
“You in there?”
━Kreureung…!
Rustle—.
As I approached the woodpile, I heard something throwing a tantrum inside it. To think it had been nesting in a spot like this all along.
The saying about the darkest place being right under the lamp was really true.
━Kreureung…!
“Okay, okay. I won't bother you. Live well, then. I don't know what kind of animal you are, but you like almonds too, don't you? That's why you and Keongkeongi fight every day, isn't it?”
Shwip—.
I set the bowl piled high with almonds near the woodpile and backed away. Forcing myself on a wary animal would only stress it out, after all.
Reluctantly, maybe I should give up on taming Kwang-kwangi—
And here I'd thought a new animal partner would help me grow stronger, too.
# # #
━Kwang-kwang…!
I was asleep when someone rapped on my bedroom window.
I scrambled out of bed and threw open the window, and a strange creature the size of my palm went fwap! and darted into my room.
“Whoa! That scared me. Who are you?”
━Kwang-kwang…!
It was a creature that laughed kwang-kwang.
Its cry was loud enough, but its appearance was even stranger.
“A spider?”
It was a spider.
A spider about the size of my palm.
Its body was smooth like jelly, and its coloring was dazzlingly iridescent—it kept shifting its colors at will, the way octopi transform themselves underwater.
“It's a total gaming spider!”
Didn't gaming mice and keyboards come in shades exactly like that?
But the coloring read almost like warning colors, and a spider that size was plenty terrifying, so I tensed right up. What was I going to do if it lunged at me?
Fortunately, this gaming spider didn't attack. It climbed up onto my desk, and then began waving its two front legs from side to side, alternating left and right.
It looked like it was dancing. Or maybe bowing in greeting.
━Kwang-kwang…!
“Is that how you say hello?”
━Hio-ong…!
What kind of sound was hio-ong supposed to be?
Just as I was flustered by a cry I'd never anticipated, a kreureung— echoed from the living room.
━Keong-keong…!
━Kwang-kwang…!
Keongkeongi came tearing in like an arrow and chased the gaming spider off, and I watched the two animals disappear into the yard, feeling flustered in more ways than one.
And so, the next morning after sleeping it all off—
“Aha…! Now that I see it, it is without question a Ghost Spider, it is…! The Ghost Spider is a species of wolf spider that spins no webs…! An exceedingly, exceedingly rare individual, it is…!”
“Is that so?”
“It can freely alter the colors of its body to conceal itself and more…! And the silk it produces is exquisitely beautiful—the nymphs once wove great quantities of it into clothing, they did…!”
So that was it.
Just as I was marveling that such wondrous creatures really existed, Oinoi added something even more surprising.
“Its temperament is fairly gentle, but it is deeply wary of humans…! Even nymphs find it impossible to tame, so this is the first this Oinoi has ever heard of a Ghost Spider approaching someone of its own accord, it is…!”
I'd already pieced together how skittish it was around people. I mean, no one in this village had ever gotten a proper look at Kwang-kwangi, had they?
So had it come to see me last night because of the yellow candy Lee Jina had left behind?
“So you're telling me the Kwang-kwangi living here is a Ghost Spider?”
Shwip—.
As I stepped out of the yard to head for Telos headquarters as promised, I stole a glance at the firewood pile.
Kwang-kwangi was nowhere in sight—perhaps it had gone out—but from within that woodpile, Oinoi had retrieved a spiderweb that shimmered in gaming-console colors.
“Ahh…! I have acquired the silk of a Ghost Spider, I have…! With enough of this, one could make clothing…! But even a small amount is plenty for crafting a necklace-like charm, it is…!”
Whoosh—.
Oinoi darted into the house to work on her necklace charm. She'd been planning to come along to Telos, but apparently she wanted to stay home today.
“Well, can't be helped.”
Leaving Keongkeongi and Oinoi behind in the village—Keongkeongi hadn't come home the night before—I carefully packed up Angangi and set off for the city of Macheon.
Korea's foremost IT corporation.
Just what kind of request would they have for me?