Chapter 63
Chapter 63
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 63
Chapter Title: Teacher Yoo Euisul's Home Visit
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No matter how much easier it had become to resolve Anomalous Phenomena compared to the past.
Anomalous Phenomena still posed a massive threat to humanity.
'Awakeners' were humanity's final bastion and sole means of dealing with them.
As such, Awakeners had no choice but to live lives utterly divorced from ordinary people.
Awakeners had no privacy.
The moment their status as Awakeners was announced, they became the target of every media outlet.
And whenever an Anomalous Phenomenon occurred, they had to drop everything and stand ready to deploy to the site at any moment. That was the basic principle for all Awakeners.
The number of Awakeners needed to resolve an Anomalous Phenomenon ranged from a minimum of five to as many as forty.
The sheer variance made it clear: Anomalous Phenomena were riddled with variables.
The more Awakeners, the better.
No one—not even the Awakener Association—could predict whether it would involve mental attacks
or physical ones.
Thus, the rule was to always be prepared to deploy immediately upon an outbreak.
...Of course, there were exceptions.
Yoo Euisul.
She had a pathological aversion to teaming up with other Awakeners.
And theoretically, she could handle any Anomalous Phenomenon solo.
So every other Awakener operated in teams of at least five.
For that reason, Awakeners rarely made firm plans.
You never knew when or where one might strike.
That was why Yoo Euisul always called Lee Jia on the day of.
Pre-scheduling was pointless.
Well.
It was also true that lately, both the Awakener Association and the Awakeners themselves had grown a bit lax.
Awakeners were human, after all.
Peace dulled the senses.
In the past year, there had been serious injuries from Anomalous Phenomena, but not a single death.
So their sense of safety was bound to erode.
However.
The world had changed dramatically in the last two months.
The cycle of Anomalous Phenomena had shortened from two weeks to one.
And something suspected to be an Anomalous Phenomenon had occurred not in a designated zone,
but in an ordinary home.
Fortunately, the incident in that home—the so-called 'black smoke'—
had merely awakened an ordinary woman named Lee Jia as an Awakener, with no other casualties, so the matter was closed.
But the mere fact that an Anomalous Phenomenon had appeared in a private home was unprecedented.
Lee Jia had encountered the mysterious black smoke and survived.
More than that, she'd awakened with dual abilities thanks to it.
Her sudden rise to the Awakener Association's top priority was inevitable.
What was the connection between the black smoke and Lee Jia?
What was the identity of the god she served?
With nothing clarified, the Association decided to monitor her.
...Well.
"Monitoring" mostly meant Kim Junghwan watching her streams every day—and as a VTuber fan, he was thrilled with the gig.
It satisfied both Lee Jia and Kim Junghwan just fine.
Her secrets were one thing.
But her abilities were invaluable from the Association's perspective.
The Awakener Association existed to protect humanity from Anomalous Phenomena, so it naturally classified its Awakeners' abilities by rank.
Lee Jia was rated special-class.
The criterion was simple: if an ability couldn't be replaced by anything else, it was special-class.
...For reference, Yoo Euisul's total immunity to mental attacks,
Chairman Scheduled Hwan's dual abilities,
and Kim Junghwan's lie detection all qualified them as irreplaceable special-class Awakeners.
Thus, with Lee Jia's meteoric rise, the Association assigned its strongest Awakener, Yoo Euisul, to protect her.
The problem was,
Yoo Euisul wasn't one to follow orders meekly.
Association Chairman Scheduled Hwan worried about the two's relationship.
Luckily, his fears were unfounded.
Yoo Euisul actually liked Lee Jia.
She wasn't investing her precious time just because Lee Jia was important.
Simply put,
Lee Jia clicked with her.
The Yoo Euisul who recoiled from 'person-to-person' conversations
somehow didn't feel that way with Lee Jia.
Why she liked her,
why those repulsive feelings didn't arise,
she couldn't say.
But Yoo Euisul liked Lee Jia.
Perhaps the first person she'd felt any fondness for in the decade since becoming an Awakener.
If Lee Jia got offed by some Anomalous Phenomenon one day,
or her mind shattered beyond repair...
"..."
That would be a problem for Yoo Euisul too.
She resolved herself.
From now on, she'd keep Lee Jia by her side.
Yoo Euisul's feelings weren't possessiveness, exclusivity, or twisted affection—just simple fondness.
Calling it 'friendship-level liking' wouldn't be wrong.
Having Lee Jia handle Anomalous Phenomena alongside her was the best way to boost her survival skills, which led to this resolve.
If there'd been someone stronger, Yoo Euisul would've forced them together.
Truth be told,
humans felt this way all the time.
With friends,
lovers,
family.
The thought 'I can't let this person die' came naturally with even a sliver of fondness.
Yet,
this utterly ordinary emotion felt profoundly alien to Yoo Euisul.
Even back in the early days, as other Awakeners dropped like flies, she'd barely blinked.
...In that sense,
with the self-proclaimed strongest Awakener vowing to protect her,
Lee Jia wouldn't die even if she wanted to now.
Yoo Euisul teaching her personally was also to heighten her survival odds.
The Association's curriculum was solid, even by her critical standards.
But too theoretically perfect? That was the flaw.
Anomalous Phenomena weren't solved by 'theory' or 'logic.'
They demanded 'intuition' and 'instinct.'
At least, that's what Yoo Euisul believed.
Anyway, she'd carved out precious time today to properly teach Lee Jia about Anomalous Phenomena.
Then she'd hopped in her sports car and raced to the address Lee Jia gave.
And.
"...Huh."
She froze.
Yoo Euisul, who never faltered before any Phenomenon,
was thrown by this.
The house looked ready to collapse any second.
Maybe a wrong address? She called Lee Jia again.
[See the open door on the third floor? That's our place... Oh, there you are.]
Yoo Euisul's eyesight was sharp.
Even if it wasn't,
that pink-haired girl waving both hands and her chest with a beaming smile
stood out like a sore thumb.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Hey."
"Yes?"
"You get it by now, but I'm not one to pry into others' business."
"Yeah, you look the type."
"So I don't really care what you do at home usually."
"Right."
"But."
Then Yoo Euisul pointed somewhere, face twisted in disbelief.
"What the hell is that?"
What she'd jabbed at was unmistakably
the traces of Mockery's Price.
No need to lie.
"It's where I banged my head."
"...Huh. I watched your stream recently, so I kinda know... What was it called? Concept?"
"RP?"
"Yeah, RP. So a hole like that in the floor isn't RP, it's real..."
"Pretty much."
"...Headache. Moving on."
Finally tearing her eyes from the mockery mark,
Yoo Euisul scanned the rest of the place.
A few seconds later,
she gave her succinct verdict on my home.
"This is bad."
"Yeah, it's pretty bad."
"Just to check, why are you talking like a mosquito since earlier?"
"No soundproofing at all. Was gonna mention it, but if you could lower your volume a bit..."
"No. And I don't buy it. Even without soundproofing, talking this quiet..."
That was when.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The neighbors' plea for quiet erupted from next door.
Yoo Euisul looked baffled.
I shrugged.
"See?"
"...Unbelievable. This a house?"
"So why meet here? We could've gone to the Association or a café."
"You're a VTuber."
"Right?"
"Red pill? Blue pill? Whatever, you gotta hide your identity."
"Y... yeah?"
"That's why home. Association's paparazzi central."
"Oh."
"Just in case, if you ever visit, don't go through the main entrance. Use the staff underground lot. Taxi, flash your ID to the guard—they'll let you in."
"Uh... th-thanks."
"What? Spit it out."
"No, just..."
I was surprised.
Yoo Euisul.
Wiki said she had zero interest in people.
I knew she liked me from the start.
But even accounting for my value,
this level of consideration? Unexpected.
This was.
Maybe.
No way.
Oh damn.
Was it really?
I blurted out what I'd been holding in.
"Do you like me?"
Euisul's a dyke.
No, wrong phrasing.
Euisul's a lesbian.
Instead of answering,
Yoo Euisul just
"..."
glared into my eyes silently.
A chill ran down my spine.
Sensing my slip, I waved my hands frantically.
"J-joking! Total joke!"
"Whatever. Let's go. Training or whatever, I'll get sick staying in this dump."
"That's kinda rude to my home..."
"Sue me."
"Where to?"
"Where else."
Then Yoo Euisul
spun her car keys and spoke again.
"My place."