Shout-Out

"Fuck! My rental house!"

One whole wall of my home had vanished, zombie and all. It was a profoundly shocking sight. And yet—

...Hoo. Calm down.

I drew a long breath and took the situation apart as calmly as I could. Somehow, the house didn't come down. The place spent ordinary days groaning like it was one stiff breeze from collapse, and then, faced with this, it was perfectly fine. I was honestly startled by how much sturdier it was than I'd given it credit for.

"Fuck! My rental house!"

And I despaired at the fact that the house was not mine.

It was a building that failed at the basic job of being a home—monsters threatened my life in it every single day—and still the government, in its pathetic excuse for welfare, handed places like this out free of charge.

Meaning it isn't my house.

Which meant that if I broke it, the repair bill was mine to pay.

...What do I do?

Getting into the Tower required an Awakened certificate. To get one, I had to file an Awakening report, and the moment I was registered as Awakened, I'd be thrown out of the rental housing. Somewhere in that process, the caseworker was going to discover that my house had been renovated into an open-concept floor plan.

...I'll have to pay damages.

At that horrifying realization my hands and feet started to shake, and my heart launched into a somersaulting tap dance.

My current bank balance hovered around 1,300 won.

Damages would only come to, what, ten thousand times my balance? Twenty thousand...!

It was serious enough that I was going to have to sell my organs.

Hmm.

Should I sell the left kidney, or the right? I was deep in the dilemma of a lifetime when—

Ding. Ding!

The system window went into convulsions and started firing off alarms.

Oh. Right.

The system auction house had a function that let buyers message the seller anonymously. Leave a message unread for thirty minutes and an alarm was supposed to go off. Something like that.

Nice timing.

Impressed by how cleanly the alarm had landed, I opened the message window.

Major guilds, the Korean government, and even unemployed bums with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠nothing better to do. More people than I could count had sent me requests to sit down and deal.

They want to close the bid on the spot, huh.

Run the auction the ordinary way and it would take three days. Reach a price through conversation, though, and a private trade could go through immediately.

...Maybe I should negotiate a little.

With that thought, I started sending replies one by one.

To speak only of the result, I made the deal with the guildmaster of Cheonghae. She'd named the highest price, for one thing.

The guildmaster's face is pretty.

...That was a joke. I just liked her attitude at the table. Baekho Guild had called the next-highest number, but their tone made me not want to sell to them from the very first word.

The negotiated price was 350 million gold. In cash, that came to 35 billion won.

"...Whoa."

My heart pounded wildly at money I had never once touched in my life. I wanted to gasp out loud and throw a backflip, but noise like that would bring monsters swarming, so I barely held it in.

But 35 billion won... how many hamburgers is that, exactly?

I was a man who had gotten through plenty of meals on freebie hamburgers scrounged off Hunter Gallery. If you've received something, paying it forward is only right.

The second I exchange this gold, I'm spreading it around.

I was about to head straight for the exchange when my body lurched. My balance went out from under me, and the world started spinning.

"Huh?"

I whipped my head around toward the wall I'd just demolished. Monsters coming through would be the lucky outcome. A hole that size, and a wild bear crashing in wasn't out of the question.

My vision's getting blurrier... At this rate I could faceplant on the living room floor and end up as lunch for Teacher Bear. I spun my thoughts as fast as they would go.

...Magic Library.

There was a heavy thud. I forced the skill to activate at the very last second, and lost consciousness.

"Ugh... nngh..."

"Administrator. Are you all right?"

When I came to, a beauty with black hair and crimson eyes was looking down at me, my head pillowed on her lap. The librarian of the Magic Library.

It worked. Thank god. Had bolting straight into the Magic Library actually been the right call? I was just starting to feel relieved that I was alive when something else snagged at me.

...What is that?

Some unidentified object was blocking half my vision. I reached out on reflex. Squish. An enormous, yielding softness filled my hand. Squish, squish. It was absolutely a sensation I was feeling for the very first time, and yet some part of it felt familiar—the exact feeling you would get, say, from touching a breast.

"Ah."

The instant I realized what it was, I shot upright and apologized.

"No, I— sorry."

"...? Might I ask why you are apologizing?"

She tilted her head as she asked.

"...I touched it. Your, uh. That."

I carefully extended a finger toward her enormous boobs.

"Ah. If that is all, it is quite all right."

She gave me an expressionless smile. Contradictory as that sounds, that was genuinely how it felt.

"I am no different from your property, Administrator, so you may treat me as you please. Should you wish it, I shall undress this inst—"

"No. I'm not that much of a degenerate."

"I see. Understood."

No matter how much of a gutter-trash regular I was on Hunter Gallery, the kind of fixed nickname that screamed LET'S GOOO!, doing that in real life was a bit much to ask. She was, on top of everything else, a peerless beauty on a level that could slap a supermodel across the face a good seventeen times.

Not happening.

For a twenty-one-year veteran shut-in who never left his room, it was simply beyond me.

...Anyway.

Judging by the system window, my body had been forcibly shut down.

Guess I did burn through mana a little too recklessly. As I recalled, I'd used up most of it making the grimoire. And in that state I'd gone and blasted a Fireball over a meter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠across, so of course I'd passed out.

"Miss Librarian, thank you for looking after me while I was down. I'm all right now, so I'll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be going."

"Please return safely."

I was just about to press the exit button under her send-off when a question occurred to me.

"By any chance, what's your name? Miss Librarian."

She seemed to hesitate for a moment, then spoke a single line.

"I am Serena."

"Mm."

I smiled lightly and pressed the exit button.

"I'll be counting on you from now on, Serena."

Pure white light washed over me.

The moment I stepped out of the library, a goblin was there to welcome me.

"Kieeek—!"

I slipped past its club, equipped the baseball bat I'd enshrined with care in a corner of the living room, and brought it down. Wham. The goblin received a thorough corrective education.

"Hoo..."

Exercise the second I opened my eyes. Was a life even allowed to be this healthy?

Better clean up the corpse.

Once I'd confirmed the house was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠safe, I handled the cleanup. I rushed through it so I could go file my Awakening report, but—

"Hah... hah..."

A little movement was all it took. I was so out of breath I thought I might collapse.

Apparently my body still wasn't in one piece.

I should rest a bit.

I took the freshly wiped baseball bat with me into the bedroom, locked the door with a click, and threw myself down on the blanket spread across the floor.

Rest a reasonable amount, and once I'm okay, I ought to go to the Association.

With that thought I turned on my phone, and after an age of loading, I got onto Hunter Gallery.

Oh? What's this?

A quick look around showed the place packed with news of Cheonghae Guild's Floor 50 clear. I'd just sold my grimoire to Cheonghae's guildmaster, Cheong Haerin, so the timing left me with a strange feeling.

She really is something. As a person, and in every other way, she was someone you ended up respecting. There was even talk that Korea might have fallen if not for her.

I was skimming the gallery like that when several posts with unusual titles caught my eye.

"What the hell is going on?"

From the context, they were clearly talking about the grimoire I'd sold. I had absolutely no sense of what had actually happened.

First, read the recommended posts.

I started working through the highly upvoted posts in order.

I kept touring the gallery, and that was when I found someone with a familiar fixed nickname.

"Huh?"

Every last bit of Korea's attention was pointed straight at me.