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“Huk!!!”
“...”
I bolted upright with a sharp gasp, like I’d just clawed my way out of a nightmare, eyes darting around the room. White bed. Curtains enclosing me on all sides. The murmur of a familiar TV drifted into my ears. At the same time, the sharp tang of disinfectant mingled with the faint scent of food, tickling my nose.
(What the hell… where am I?)
(A hospital? No… fuck, what the hell is going on…)
My head throbbed. And then it hit me—my left arm? What the hell happened to my left arm?
Like I was possessed, I frantically groped at my left shoulder with my right hand. What the fuck… why is it still attached?
(…Was it… a dream?)
(…)
No way. The elephant-sized wolf tearing my arm off yesterday wasn’t a dream. The gruesome sight of white bone exposed through ragged flesh, blood pouring out everywhere—that was brutally, painfully real.
But… how? No matter how advanced modern medicine and healing magic might be, how could this…?
Relief at still being alive washed over me, but the disconnect between my memories and reality left me utterly bewildered. That confusion vanished the instant a familiar face pulled the curtain aside.
“Master…”
“...”
The word “Master”—one I thought I’d never hear again. Elphy threw herself into my arms. I patted the back of my crying slave, feeling in my bones that I had truly returned to everyday life.
Yeah. For now, I’d set aside the questions of how I’d gotten here… and how I’d come back alive at all.
Right now, the important thing was that I was here, wrapped in this girl’s embrace.
“Uh… yeah… Elphy…”
“I’m fine now… so can you let go? I can’t breathe…”
“Nooo waaaay…”
“...”
Her tears soaked into my dry hospital gown. I could feel the stares of people beyond the curtain as I kept patting my slave’s back. It was embarrassing. Mortifying, even. But I didn’t hate it.
I really thought I’d never see her again… Who could’ve guessed I’d make it back alive like this?
Being hugged so tightly I could barely breathe felt good, but at the same time, a single thought crept into my mind.
(Hospital bills and admission fees…)
(Just how much is this going to cost…?)
It felt like I’d been lying there for ten years, but Elphy told me it hadn’t been a year, or even a month. Just one day.
“What? No… seriously?”
“Yeah. Do you have any idea how worried I was? You wouldn’t wake up…”
She looked like she was about to cry again at the thought that I might never have opened my eyes. I patted her back just like before, but while I appeared to be comforting her on the outside, my mind was somewhere else entirely.
(What the hell? Was it really a dream?)
(No… if it wasn’t, how could I be…)
How could I be sitting here patting this girl on the back?
No healing magic, no modern medicine I knew of could reattach a severed left shoulder in a single day. Caught between common sense and this impossible reality, I sat there with a dazed, vacant expression.
“What’s wrong…? Why did you stop patting me?”
“It’s just… I’m trying to figure out how I’m even alive right now. I can’t wrap my head around this situation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what I mean… how badly I was hurt…”
“Hurt?”
“?”
What kind of reaction was that? I’d expected her to be shocked seeing the half-destroyed state I’d been in, but she claimed I’d been brought here with only my clothes torn. The sense of dissonance dug even deeper.
“Wait… so I was just unconscious…?”
“That’s right… Anyway, why did you go into that dungeon in the first place?”
“Was it because of me? Did I nag you too much?”
“No… it wasn’t like that…”
I couldn’t bring myself to admit that some bastard had beaten me up and dumped me in the dungeon. My pride wouldn’t allow it. I forced an awkward smile and tried to brush off her question.
“S-so, who was the first person to find me?”
“I want to thank them properly, maybe give them a gift or something…”
“Huh? Oh… wait a second… where did I put that business card…?”
“...”
A business card, huh. Made sense. Anyone who could go in and out of rifts wouldn’t be an ordinary person. According to Elphy, he worked for some small company… but it obviously wasn’t a normal job. He was probably a professional rift handler.
Gaehwa Environment… Kim Minhyuk…
“Same name as Minhyuk, right? It’s kind of amazing. Maybe it’s fate?”
“...”
Fate, she said. The comrade I’d known—the one who was no longer in this world—had no connection to this man. Still, just sharing the same name somehow made me feel a strange sense of closeness.
“Yeah… they say even brushing sleeves is fate. At this point, it’s more than fate—it’s destiny…”
“He’s probably still at work, right? Calling might be too much… Should I send him a text right now?”
“What should I write?”
“Just say thanks for saving me, that I’ll buy him a meal, and to contact me when he has time.”
My body felt light. My mind was clear. I actually felt like I’d been reborn—right up until the moment I looked at the hospital receipt. Suddenly my condition took a sharp turn for the worse.
“What the… fuck… I was only in here for a day and they took a few pictures. Why is the bill this huge?”
“Haa… I don’t know… What are we going to do? There’s only two hundred thousand won left in the account.”
“Are we going to end up on the news? A female demon and a human man, starving to death right in the middle of Seoul…”
Starving, my ass. Fuck. No matter how bad things got, starving to death in 21st-century Seoul was a bit much. I forced a laugh and told her to stop making such terrible jokes, but on the inside I was completely lost about what to do next.
(Haa… how am I supposed to pay this month’s rent?)
(What about the phone bill? Water and electricity?)
The more I thought about it, the more holes I saw that money would pour out of. And in the middle of all that, this damn slave of mine was talking about sex videos again… My head was already pounding, and now what the hell was this about a “well-endowed amateur guy and an active JK demon”?
“What do you mean, what is it? It’s the concept and title for our first porno.”
“You’ve got a massive cock. I’ll wear my school uniform like this… exactly like this…”
“...”
This crazy bitch. She was going to drive me insane. I’d wondered what she was doing every night instead of sleeping… so she was staying up watching stuff like this? If I’d known, I never would’ve bought her that computer. I let out a sigh of regret, but it was already far too late for that kind of thinking.
“What? Why are you sighing? I’m being serious!”
“Since we’re doing it anyway, I wanted to do it properly, so I bought a camcorder online…”
“What?! A camcorder?”
“Yeah… ah… no! I mean, not exactly a camcorder, but…”
She’d bought a tiny little device to record our precious memories. Fuck!! It was the same damn thing! I was so stunned my mouth wouldn’t work for a second. How much did you pay for it? How much did you spend?!
“Nooo… this is an investment! The return rate is better than that cryptocurrency you lost money on before…”
“Shut up!! Don’t even mention cryptocurrency! And stop changing the subject!”
“How much was it?”
“I… I got it for a reasonable price… nothing that would affect our livelihood…”
“...”
Reasonable? Don’t think you can dodge this with a vague word like that. I started firing questions at my fidgeting slave.
“So what exactly is ‘reasonable’? Give me a number. Got it?”
“Okay, fine… I’ll tell you… Five…”
“Five hundred thousand?!!”
“…teen. Haha;;”
“...”
Fuck. Are you testing me right now? How much money did you spend that you’re acting like this…? I suddenly felt dizzy. I’d said six and she said “teen.”
“Wait… then is it seven hundred thousand? Did you spend over a million?”
“N-not quite that much… down…”
“Six hundred? Five hundred?”
“…Down.”
“...”
Fuck… so seven hundred thousand? No… damn it… that was two months’ rent. And she spent it on a camcorder? When I told her to return it immediately, my slave looked up at me from below with the most pitiful expression she could muster. Not a chance. I warned her firmly to take it back right now.
“Hing…”
“Hing? What the hell is ‘hing’! Ha… I’m actually going to lose my mind… huh?”
“But today was the cheapest it’ll ever be…! I got all the discounts and it was an insane price…”
A chance to buy something worth a million for only 799,990 won. No… fuck. 799,990 was basically eight hundred thousand, wasn’t it? This girl had deliberately used “up” and “down” to muddy the point so she wouldn’t get in as much trouble. How devious. Ha… Fine. As her merciful master, I’d let it slide this time.
Only ten minutes after being discharged, I let out a deep sigh, keenly feeling that I had returned to daily life once again.