A Yeochoding in Body! A Yeochoding in Mind Too?
"Are you certain it's really Hunter Choi Min-woo?"
The Association Chairman's office sat at the very top of the Korean Hunter Association headquarters. There, an old man whose towering, two-meter-plus frame was muscled to the point of bulk broke a long silence, gazing out over the Seoul cityscape as it sparkled and thrummed with neon.
As his weighty words rang out, a silver-haired woman in a crisp business suit adjusted her glasses out of habit and nodded. The neon light streaming in from the window had half-concealed the old man's figure; now, little by little, it came into full view. Beneath his immaculate black suit, his body was carved with countless scars.
Stroking his thick, shaggy pure-white beard, the old man beckoned to the woman standing behind him.
"Honestly, I found it hard to believe at first, too. But taken together—his movements, his abilities... and the Awakener DNA results on top of all that—there is no doubt. This is Hunter Choi Min-woo, the man declared dead six years ago."
With a grave expression, she nodded as though to seal her own conviction, then handed the old man a tablet. On its screen played security footage from inside the Association, recorded that very morning.
"Well, I'll be... Forget abilities for a moment. The resemblance alone is uncanny."
"...Chairman, will you be going to see her?"
Kim Aran, the Chairman's chief secretary, asked in a serious tone. The man called the Association Chairman gave no answer, his fist clenched tight.
The super-handsome heartthrob who'd basked in everyone's admiration as an S-Rank hunter—that was me, Choi Min-woo. And now here I was, squaring off against a colossal trial first thing in the morning.
"You have to eat your bell peppers, you know?"
"Uwaaah..."
My sister smiled sweetly and speared the bell pepper on my plate with her fork. The aroma wafting off the pepper dangling from its tip struck my nose with a stimulation so intense it was almost fascinating. Something here was deeply, profoundly wrong. I had never been a picky eater—not once in my life. And yet, for some reason, the mere sight of the bell pepper in front of me now set off an instinctive revulsion.
"Eat well and you'll grow up big and strong?"
"I'm not a little ki—mmph?!"
The instant I opened my mouth to protest—face twisted with resentment at being handled like such a baby—my sister's fork charged straight into it without mercy.
Chomp!
"Wh-what is this?! It's bitter! It's gross! Bleeeh!!"
The distinctive bitterness of bell pepper flooding my mouth wrenched my face out of shape all on its own. This is supposed to be food?! This had to be a dish the devil invented to torment humanity. Why does something this disgusting even exist?!
"So it's not just your looks—your tastes have changed too?"
"Ughk!! Blegh!!!"
"An S-Rank hunter, stumped by a bell pepper... adorable."
My sister had been resting her chin on her hand, toying with the end of the fork handle, and now the corners of her mouth stretched all the way up to her ears. She had always been the caring type, devoted to me, her one and only younger sibling. But the way she was handling me right now felt somehow different from usual. Which meant... wasn't I being treated, quite openly, like a little kid?
"...Wh-why are you patting my head?"
When I lifted my head cautiously and asked, my sister answered with a bright, guileless smile.
"It's like having a baby sister—it's adorable. Isn't this exactly what it would've been like if you'd been born a girl, Min-woo? My little brother coming home as a Yeochoding..."
A baby sister. And a Yeochoding at that. The instant those two phrases landed, I understood at once exactly how my sister was seeing me now. Come to think of it... I hadn't actually gotten a proper look at myself yet, had I?
"Dense as ever, even after six years. Ah... right—for you it's only been one day, isn't that what I said?"
As I blankly ran my hands over my own face, my sister gave me a gentle smile.
"Here. This is what you look like right now."
As if to say I might as well take stock of my own appearance now that things had come to this, she handed her smartphone over to me, screen and all. On it was a photo, apparently taken the night before: me, fast asleep, lying meekly atop a bed. Long black hair spilling down to the waist, just like my sister's. Skin white as polished jade. And that perfectly round little face only small children have. The me in that photograph was, quite literally, an angel descended from heaven. A beautiful young girl so cute she'd send most celebrities packing. That was me, now.
"Hooo... Hooooh..."
No wonder my sister had made such a spectacle of fussing over how cute I was. Wait. I'm fucking adorable, aren't I?
"Ahaha, still a shameless narcissist, I see. Not one thing has changed. Grandpa's reaction if he saw you right now would be something else."
"Eughk...!"
Grandpa. At that one casually dropped word, my brightened face drained to a deathly pallor in an instant. I'd forgotten. Ever since returning from the Gate, I'd been running myself ragged trying to prove that I was Choi Min-woo, and in all the chaos it had slipped my mind completely: I had barged into the Association looking like this, out of nowhere, and thrown a tantrum while I was at it. The news was bound to have reached Grandpa's ears by now.
"...I'm gonna go get some air. Be right back."
Having made up my mind, I scrambled to my feet and headed for the front door. My sister, still gazing dreamily after me with that dazed look, waved cheerfully and told me to take care.
I was Choi Min-woo, the S-Rank hunter they called the strongest. And now here I was, fleeing in terror from a grandfather I might not even run into, tail tucked between my legs. In the form of a fragile little Yeochoding, no less. Being a pretty girl was a bonus. Yep. I really am cute.
Squeeeak!
Brushing aside such trivial thoughts, I hurriedly pulled open the front door. Yes, Grandpa was scary—that part was true—but it was no lie that I was curious how the world had changed in six years.
Even my sister's smartphone was nothing like the ones I remembered. It folded, of all things—a phone with a glass screen that bent in half. Right up until I'd entered that Gate, I'd never even heard of such technology. All sorts of new gadgets and media I'd never experienced must have sprung up like bamboo shoots after the rain, just waiting for me. And yet... hadn't today's weather been perfectly clear, without a single cloud in the sky? Then why was a shadow falling over me right now?
"Heh heh heh. I knew you took after us, but seeing it with me own eyes—why, now I'm certain of it, I tell ye!"
"...Hwuh?"
The apex of all hunters—said to exist only one per nation. The Association Chairman. And among them, the man who represented South Korea: Chairman Choi Jang-hoon, blessed with overwhelming strength, a razor-sharp mind, and charisma to boot. Wasn't he said to wield physical power so absolute that even S-Rank hunters could hardly stand in his presence? And yet ordinary citizens and hunters alike had never once seen the Chairman take the field himself. Because of that, whispers abounded that he was nothing more than an idol inflated by rumor.
Every time I watched people trade those groundless stories about Chairman Choi Jang-hoon, I secretly thought to myself: 'You'd stop doubting real fast if you saw it with your own eyes...'
Even I, an S-Rank hunter who had climbed to the very summit, could never deny the Chairman's strength. Choi Jang-hoon, still active in the field as Chairman of the Korean Hunter Association, was none other than my...
"...Grandpa..."
...my own grandfather, after all.
"BWAHAHAHA! Well look at you, all cute as a button!! My grandson, who I thought was dead, comes home to me as a granddaughter! Why, anyone who saw you would take you for our grandson's little girl!"
"Ughk... Uuurghk..."
Seized by the scruff of my neck in Grandpa's hand, I dangled in midair, legs swinging helplessly beneath me.
"A Yeochoding in appearance, perhaps, but an Awakener is still an Awakener, I see. Who would have imagined you'd leap right off the top of the twentieth floor. Boldness does have its limits, you know."
Secretary Kim Aran, seated primly on the living room sofa, took an elegant sip of her coffee. So what if my appearance and stats had dropped to a small child's level? I was still an Awakener. I had something to believe in—which was why, the instant my eyes met Grandpa's, I shot straight between his legs. Then, channeling a touch of my Body Enhancement ability, I gathered power in my legs and launched myself high into the air. I spun once in midair, touched down lightly atop the wall, and without a moment's hesitation threw my body downward.
But then—
"Back from the dead, and now you want to play tag with your grandpa, is that it?"
Just as I was about to plummet toward the ground with a fierce whistle of wind, Grandpa's kindly smile—waiting for me on the floor below—filled my vision. And just like that, I was caught, good and proper, in his grasp.
"AAAAAH!!! Let go of me!! I'm gonna get eaten! I'm gonna die!!!"
"Goodness me... anyone who heard that would think I was a bad man."
Could my Yeochoding looks be having some kind of effect on him? Grandpa's face, once purely benevolent, flooded with hurt in the space of a breath. This was the man who used to drive me to the brink of collapse in the name of "training," mercy neither asked nor given—and right now honey was practically dripping from his eyes.
"I-if you don't put me down this instant, you're really going to regret it!!"
"...Regret it how, exactly?"
Grandpa stroked his beard, looking genuinely curious, and cocked an ear toward me. Voice thick with tears, I declared with all the pride I had left:
"I'll throw a tantrum! I'll lie right down on the floor and go waaah-waaah!"
I, Choi Min-woo—the S-Rank hunter they called the strongest—was casting my pride aside to threaten a full-on temper tantrum. Tossing the last scraps of my dignity onto the floor, I was effectively announcing that I would do anything at all to squirm out of his grip.
"..."
My words seemed to have quite the effect; a hush settled over the living room. And through it, Kim Aran—still sipping her coffee as she watched the scene unfold—spoke up in a perfectly grave tone.
"Did becoming a Yeochoding make your brain younger as well?"
"...Uwaaah?"
Huh... come to think of it, maybe it did?