Not a Bad Feeling
Around the time Choi Harin was wrapping up her conversation with the Cheonghwarang Guild master in earnest, I headed downstairs to unit 1903 to help Yeo-ul with the move — and froze solid at the utterly shocking spectacle unfolding before my eyes.
Shrring—!
Mark One's massive greatsword, Full Bloom of Silence, descended slowly through a wreath of black smoke, and with it came his low, rumbling voice, bursting forth as if he'd been nursing a grudge over never getting to do this properly before.
"This is... Weep, Hell's Demon-Slaying Blade!!!"
"Kyaaaaah!! There's smoke coming out!! Look!! Mom!! Look at this!!!"
......Okay. What I'm seeing with my own eyes is reality. It is definitely reality. And yet my brain is refusing to accept a single frame of it — the same feeling I had the first time I became a woman, maybe?
I tried to move, to make sense of the situation somehow, but my body wasn't cooperating in the slightest. In the middle of the living room, two young children who looked to be Yeo-ul's little siblings had completely lost their minds over Mark One's greatsword skill demonstration. Mark Two had stationed himself beside the wardrobe and was lying motionless inside it, for all the world like a corpse that had climbed into its own coffin.
Is he planning to enter eternal slumber or what? Why is he posed like that? Wait — he is a corpse, so maybe that's just how he is?
And over by the kitchen, Yeo-ul and a woman who appeared to be her mother were meticulously inspecting the plumbing, the walls, checking for mold.
"Oh? Unnie!"
Yeo-ul spotted me first and came running. A light, bright, sturdy little smile. The burdened, apologetic look from earlier had vanished completely from her face.
"We're almost done moving in! Mom— over here."
Yeo-ul gestured, and the woman — Yeo-ul's mother — approached with careful steps. She was far more gaunt, far thinner, with calluses marking the backs of her hands. But her eyes were unmistakably alive.
So this is what they mean by a mother's greatness, is it?
"...It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Yeo-ul's mother."
Her tone was humble, but the angle of her waist wasn't too deep. She didn't bow her head too low, and there was no sense of being forced down by power. It was exactly the angle where gratitude and dignity existed at once.
"To prepare a home like this for Yeo-ul... and to look after our... children as well... I truly thank you."
"......"
I needed to answer, but my mouth wouldn't open. I didn't know where to even start. Two hundred and ten years in Barzena. I had commanded hundreds of thousands of undead, sunk kingdoms, slain dragons, and draped an entire continent in death — and yet someone... no, more precisely, a human being sincerely saying thank you to me... was a first in two hundred and ten years.
My heart gave a single, quiet thump.
"...Um, well, it's nothing special. I'm supporting her because I need something from her too. Equivalent exchange, I guess? Something like that."
The answer that left my mouth was far softer than I'd intended. Yeo-ul's mother seemed briefly at a loss for words, then simply bowed her head deeply.
"Even so, I'm truly grateful. Really... someday... I will repay you. I promise."
"That's—"
I coughed for no reason. My throat had caught.
"...Think about paying me back later. For now, resting comfortably here comes first."
Yeo-ul beamed.
"Unnie's the best!!"
"Yeah, I am pretty amazing, aren't I?"
I flicked my eyes toward the kitchen stove, dodging the mother's gaze, which was growing more and more overwhelming by the second, and made a show of changing the subject.
"Ah, that gas range is a pretty old model. I'll have Kim Gunwoo replace it later."
"It's fine! You've already done too much..."
"I said it's fine. I'm only doing it because it'd be a hassle for me otherwise. If the gas blows, that's dangerous. You're going to play a very important role in my plans, you know?"
"Pfft... Yes, I understand, unnie."
And so the greetings ended, wrapped in awkwardness and a strange warmth I was feeling for the first time. I headed back upstairs, muttering to myself in the hallway.
"...Ah, shit. What is this feeling. I've never received anything like this..."
Something warm. A ticklish flutter in my chest. Something strange around my heart. An awkwardness so intense it made my head spin. Was this the feeling you got when you actually did a good deed with no price attached? It wasn't bad. As of yesterday I'd been wondering if I could never become a complete human being... but it seemed like there might still be a chance.
"Ha... this is such a pain. Seriously... Earth is... really good at getting under people's skin."
I lightly thunked my head against the wall for no real reason, then took a deep breath. It still wasn't settling, so I had no choice — I logged into the community to smother it in dopamine.
"Ah, shit. Where the hell did my dopamine go."
The dopamine I'd been hunting never showed up. All I got for my trouble was a fresh pile of stress and irritation. I set the screen down for a moment and slowly closed my eyes.
My heart was still ticklish. Annoying, awkward, funny — but not a bad feeling.
"...What even is this."
Not dopamine. It felt like real emotion, the kind a human being would feel, welling up. Still, holding onto something like this for too long would become a hassle, so I'd just feel it in moderation, I told myself — and arrived at my front door.
I opened it.
"I'm ho—"
The words cut off halfway. The living room waiting on the other side was complete chaos.
Ggumuri was bouncing up from the floor like a spring, playing hide-and-seek with Ibella, and our home protector Ibella was hiding behind the sofa. Whenever Ggumuri's round, terrifying eyes popped up over the back of it, she would shriek,
"Kyaaah!!! Ggumuri is too cute!"
and go rolling across the floor.
Her legs work just fine, so why does she keep rolling around all over the place....
I'd only been gone a moment to check on the move, and in that brief window the entire house had turned into an amusement park. And sitting quietly in the middle of that mess, on the sofa, was Choi Harin. She'd let down the hair she'd had tied up and was leaning back at her ease, as if my house were her house. Her expression was far calmer than when I'd first seen her at the gate — calmer even than before we'd parted. She looked like someone who had found her peace again.
She saw me and smiled, slowly.
"You're back?"
I shut my mouth at the utterly absurd situation, then answered very slowly.
......What is this vibe.
"...Yeah. I'm back, unnie."
Harin picked up a small paper cup of warm tea and held it out to me.
"I made some tea while I was waiting. Nothing special — just Solomon's seal."
"......"
"Earlier... thank you. Really."
There was nothing awkward in the way she said it. Nothing fake, either. It was the voice of someone who had finally let her guard down. She'd even slipped into informal speech, something she'd absolutely refused to do even when told to...
I took the tea and grinned, playful.
"So, did you wrap everything up okay?"
Harin drew a breath, then answered with real energy.
"Thanks to you."
The moment she said it, Ggumuri — who had slipped under my shadow at some point without my noticing — let out a little gurgle of a cute sound. Choi Harin heard it and smiled, faintly. Not fear. Familiarity.
"I'll play you everything I recorded."
"Alright. Let's take a look at the evidence our Harin unnie worked so hard to secure."
After reviewing every recording and every clip Choi Harin had captured through the System's functions, I decided not to take any further action for now, and to let her stay at my place instead. Humans who'd gotten greedy like that didn't break easily. They already knew where Choi Harin's home was. There was no telling when they might show up again. Better to prevent it from the start than scramble to clean up after the fact.
I checked on Choi Harin one last time — tension gone, sleeping soundly in the small room — and logged into the community.
Every time I posted anything, comments telling me to go climb the Tower showed up with suspicious regularity. As if they actually wanted me to climb it.
They want me to... do it?
Come to think of it, in all the time I'd been lurking around the community, I had never once seen a "go climb the Tower" comment on anyone else's posts. Only mine. Well — I was a newbie, and Kim Gunwoo had said the Tower was a good environment for Awakened to grow, so maybe they'd only recommended it to me. Even so, it felt far too unnatural.
After a moment's thought, I decided to take the bait. I checked the location of Korea's Tower, roughly told all the undead via telepathy that I was going out for a stroll, and left the house. Of course, I left Ggumuri at Choi Harin's side, just in case.