First Meeting With Him
Hansik was getting a shoulder massage from his father.
He did it even without being told.
Looking at something like that, Hansik understood why his father had said he’d leave him behind.
“Kkheum, oh, feels so good. The pressure is just right, doesn’t hurt at all. Good, there, right there.”
But Hansik seemed to like his dad more than the guy who always nagged him to move. Was that a misunderstanding?
“How long do you plan to stay in Busan?”
Tsk, I suddenly wanted to go too.
“A week.”
Actually I’d planned three nights and four days, but I ended up booking a whole week out of generosity.
“What?! A week?! That’s too long, you know.”
“If you want something from Dad, tell me now. I’ll prepare it. And today, like at lunch, don’t eat only jajangmyeon. Eat something good for your body, like samgyetang or something.”
“Kkheum, there’s a place near the site that serves jajangmyeon for four thousand won.”
“Dad. You’ll get diabetes. Jajangmyeon is straight blood sugar spike, they say. You have to take care of your health. Eat something good for the body and tasty. Like samgyetang, a nourishing food that gives you strength.”
“Kkheum, I want to but my allowance is only fifty.”
Whoops.
“Dad. Then use the money for rice on the card. Here, this is my card, so you have to use credit cards too to raise your credit score. Use it without worry. If you get bored being alone, order delivery.”
“Hahaha, living with a son and getting a card is something. But Doosik, are you working part-time these days? If you’re working, then just come to the site with Dad, the daily pay is twenty, just…”
“No, that’s not it…”
Should I tell Dad about the delivery lord plan?
But if it were the Dad I knew now, he’d probably get angry and say not to make Hansik do hard work. No, when you think about it, Hansik hadn’t even seen his father for long… yet here he was massaging his father’s feet.
Let’s think positively.
Proxy filial piety. He’s doing great.
“Don’t just spend money when you have it. Save every penny. Later when Doosik gets married, he’ll have a dowry at his in-laws’ house.”
“Marriage…? I have no such intention.”
Suddenly Dad jumped up at those words.
“What? You’re already thirty now, you have to get married! What does that mean, are you single? You’re doing that? Do that when you’re over fifty. You’re just joking. Men should at least have a woman by their side…”
Suddenly the tension dropped.
But Dad still finished his speech with a dejected look.
“Happiness from getting married and having kids, you can never know until after you get married. When you raise them it’s hard, but seeing them grow is enough to make your chest swell. And doing filial piety like you, Doosik, how great it is. So find a decent woman and don’t hesitate, just go for it!”
“What? These days if you do that it can land you in jail, Dad. And these days being single is the trend.”
“Puhat? Being single? What’s so good about eating and living alone. When you get married you won’t have anything left. Remember that yellow-haired guy from the manual labor company? The one who looked like a stork at Mom’s funeral.”
Huh? I didn’t know his last name was Hwang, but I remembered that face.
He was a handsome guy of Dad’s age who put on a lot of airs and had a flashy image.
“That guy when he was young, relying on his good looks, didn’t catch any woman and look at him now. He worked manual labor a thousand times, bought nice clothes, joined mountain-climbing clubs on weekends, but it didn’t do anything for him. He just ended up in lawsuits for affairs or something.”
“I get it, stop nagging.”
“It’s not nagging, it’s becoming bone and flesh, man. Doosik, so don’t just lock yourself in the house. Go to Busan and catch a decent woman for dating. The weather is good, go outside and date.”
“Yes.”
But Dad wasn’t saying that.
Dad himself had been a hikikomori for six years, never going outside the house?
Whatever. Whatever. I just swallowed it all inside.
And Dad.
He forgot the most important thing. It wasn’t that he wasn’t dating, it was that he couldn’t.
“And later, even if you get married, leave Hansik behind.”
“Dad!”
“Oh, feels so good… Hansik, scratch my back a little too.”
* * *
I unpacked the packages that arrived via Rocket Delivery and put the Rider suit on Hansik. The carbon protective gear was fastened tightly like armor everywhere, so it wouldn’t flap in the wind.
Long live.
“Why? Do you like it too?”
Nod.
Hansik stood in front of the mirror and examined his own appearance after cooking up his looks.
Ghost Rider style. The skull itself suited the outfit perfectly.
“I know it suits me, but I still have to wear the helmet. If I walk around like this, people will get scared by my skill in public places and I’ll get a fine.”
Down.
“Here, use this. It’s a Bluetooth helmet, so I can talk to you too. Um, since you can’t speak, you can only listen.”
Down again.
“But how much progress this is. Always walking around naked with white bones showing, and now you’re from primitive skull to civilized skull? How much do you think this outfit costs? If I sold everything in my closet I couldn’t buy this. It’s really expensive. It’s all carbon. Even though it’s made in China, I chose the lightest one since you’re weak. And ta-da.”
This time an electric scooter.
I opened the heavy box.
“This is your commuting kickboard.”
Long live.
“The battery is in here, charge it on time and put it in your bag.”
Nod.
So he’s an all-round butler who handles things without needing help.
Hansik started reading the electric kickboard manual carefully.
“Then I’ll go buy some stuff. Take the pickaxe and shovel out of the packaging and keep them separately. I’ve been absorbing AI at home. And clean the bathroom too. I’ll do recycling on my way out. But can I borrow the electric kickboard?”
For a moment Hansik shook his head no, then nodded again.
Like drawing a circle with his head…
I glared at him with a flash, and he waved his hands saying he didn’t misunderstand, shaking his head no.
“Do your best.”
Nod.
“And the place we’re going is Oryukdo Gate in Busan. You remember what I said? It’s not a problem entering Oryukdo Gate, but getting to Kalid is the problem. There are no monsters near Kalid, but monsters could appear on the way. Prepare a countermeasure. Is giving too many orders?
Nod.
* * *
The next day,
“Dad, this is a new smartphone. Use it. I already ported the number to you. I saw your old phone’s screen was cracked and it was an old model.”
“Isn’t this expensive?”
“It is, but you have to use a good one too, Dad. And it’s a couple phone with me.”
Dad didn’t turn on the smartphone and just examined it closely.
“… Thank you. But you’re going today?”
“Yes.”
“Already? It’ll be jammed on the weekend.”
“I’m taking the KTX.”
“Really…?”
I explained one by one how I filled the fridge with a pot of curry, jangjorim, and all kinds of side dishes,
“I got it. Take care and come back safely.”
“Yes. Eat well and take care of your rice.”
“Yeah.”
Dad kept complaining until the end, but there was nothing he could do.
I couldn’t leave Hansik behind.
The reason I was going to Busan was to make Hansik work.
[Seoul Station]
“Wow, so many people.”
[Busan Station]
The world had really changed.
Busan Station was two hours and thirty minutes by KTX.
[56The MOTEL]
I unpacked my bags in the motel room I’d booked cheaply for one week at twenty thousand won through the app.
Drew the curtains,
“Summon.”
Space opened. And,
Hansik in Rider outfit with helmet on appeared, holding a pickaxe in one hand and a shovel in the other.
He was shaking his arms as if it was heavy as always.
“Hoo, it won’t work. I have to raise my stats. Status window.”
I poured all three allocatable points into strength.
As a result,
+——+——Status——+——+
Strength (STR): 6
Agility (AGI): 4
Constitution (CON): 3
Intelligence (INT): 17
Wisdom (WIS): 25
Luck (LUK): 3
#Allocatable Points: 0
+——+——+——+——+——
With strength rising from three to six, Hansik’s shaking arms stopped.
Looking at Hansik cheering, it felt meaningful.
Hansik’s current strength stat, inheriting twenty-five percent of my stats, was 1.5.
He had the strength level of activating the butler trait at home.
“Wait, stay still like that.”
I attached a bodycam to Hansik’s straight posture with Velcro.
So it wouldn’t lose angle no matter how it shook.
And connected it to the laptop to check if it was playing in real time.
Next,
“Ah. Ah.”
Microphone test.
When I spoke, a voice came from Hansik’s helmet.
“Good. This should allow communication with others in emergencies. Okay, take the phone too. Don’t lose it, right? At Oryukdo Gate we’ll just pick up clams, no need to help others. Nod if you understand.”
Nod.
“Good. Then, let’s depart.”
Hansik clenched both fists and showed his resolve, gave me a light high-five, and went out through the motel door with energy.
I opened the laptop and watched Hansik’s bodycam. I started the kickboard, departed. He followed traffic rules too. He was plain and simple.
From the motel to Oryukdo Gate was a fifteen-minute walk, five minutes by electric kickboard.
Many people stared at the shovel and pickaxe sticking out of the bag with weird looks, but since people in strange outfits were usually hunters, no one started a fight. It was as simple as acting naturally.
And we arrived at Oryukdo.
The wind hit the speaker.
“Wow, what a super car. Wow, Rolls-Royce…”
In the parking lot in front of the gate, various famous supercars were parked while enjoying the sea breeze.
You could see the buying power of high-income jobs like hunters.
Hansik carefully parked the kickboard in the corner in case he scratched a supercar, and headed to the destination as ordered.
The Oryukdo Gate entrance was actually on Oryukdo Island. A floating bridge connected from the parking lot to there.
Swish, swish.
Hansik spread both arms left and right and walked forward carefully.
The gate was B-class.
A pretty high-grade gate, but as everyone knew, the boss monster Kalid was harmless, so many hunters liked it as a Doksa hunting ground.
“Oh, nice Doksa concept?”
A man fishing off the bridge slipped his sunglasses down and showed interest in Hansik.
What he was sitting on was a shield. A hunter.
Whether it was praise or ambiguous, Hansik gave a thumbs-up, and the man replied with the same thumbs-up and smiled happily.
“Your personality is bright and good.”
Saying that, the man approached Hansik.
Then he put his hand in the pocket of the leather jacket he was wearing.
Watching Hansik’s bodycam on the laptop screen, I felt a bit tense.
What the man took out was a huge badge.
“I am Kim Taesu, detective of the Awakening Crime Investigation Unit in Nam-gu, Busan. They call me Tess-hyung in this world. You’ve heard of me, right?”
Looking closely, it was a Hunterpol identification card.
His gaze sweeping Hansik from head to toe under the deep black sunglasses was felt clearly.
But why informal speech on the first meeting? More than that, it seemed he had business.
“It’s nothing special. You’ve heard of Bae Hyeongsin, right? He was the last witness to the A-class awakened criminal. So I have to take off the helmet a bit? Please cooperate.”