On the Way Home!
“Heh heh heh!”
Three days had already passed since I’d left the training grounds.
In that time, the days had been peaceful enough—nothing but training and climbing, over and over.
But there was one piece of news so good I couldn’t stop grinning.
My NewTube subscriber count.
Was this what people meant when they said just looking at something was enough to fill your stomach?
“Hell yeah. This is me.”
Barely five days after creating the channel, my subscribers had already blown past eighty thousand.
“Shorts really are the meta.”
Over the past three days, from the first floor to the third, I’d put on a show of crushing monsters with nothing but my hands clasped behind my back—using only Heavenly Demon Descent.
That overwhelming performance, layered with Yeongjae’s sharp eye for cinematic flair, made the videos pure magic. The NewTube algorithm seemed to have caught on, too; the view counts were already sitting in the hundreds of thousands.
“Gotta admit, the engagement feels good.”
Half the comments were pure praise. The other half was a messy mix of envy and thinly veiled harassment.
Praise was nice, and jealousy wasn’t exactly a bad look either—but still.
“These bastards are staring at my body way too hard, though, right?”
Thanks to the sleeveless habit I’d built up from every workout, I’d kept wearing tank tops in the Tower purely for comfort. That, apparently, was all the fuel the internet needed. I’d left the attention alone at first—engagement was engagement—but there seemed to be no end to it.
Workout videos are one thing, but the climbing footage too… At this rate the comment section is going to be nothing but body and face talk.
Which was why I’d already told Yeongjae to start covering things up a bit more.
“Should I just ask Seonghwa for a spare martial arts uniform?”
If it was the Hall of Ten Thousand Demons, there had to be uniforms for cult disciples lying around somewhere. And over the past three days, Seonghwa had become a complete slave to the modern food I kept feeding her—so she was surprisingly willing to grant most of my requests.
MSG truly is supreme.
Even a holy relic of the Heavenly Demon Cult—with all its ancient history and mysterious spiritual power—was helpless before the overwhelming savoriness of MSG.
That’s the only reason I managed to stop her from leaving Manmajeon…
I didn’t even know if she could leave, but better safe than sorry. Rationally speaking, I had zero interest in that shameless woman—but with a face that looked like someone had reverse-engineered my ideal type down to the last detail, there was always the chance of some emotional impulse I couldn’t predict.
I had to prepare for every contingency.
My place is already cramped with just me in it, anyway.
A one-room studio of barely eight pyeong. Living there with two people would be a nightmare in every way. I’d considered moving, now that I was making decent money—but now I had Manmajeon. Once Manmajeon existed, the urge to upgrade my apartment just… evaporated.
No need to set up a home gym. No reason to bother with a commercial fitness center either. Sure, I was still locked into a contract at the gym I’d been using before, but I’d called ahead to check, just in case of unexpected complications.
They’d agreed without hesitation. In return, as a token of thanks, I’d promised to do a gym livestream sometime soon.
Which meant this body of mine was free. No more agency people, no more sponsors, no more strangers constantly asking for my number—all the annoyances that had been hounding me were gone.
I had no idea there were so many people that confident in their own faces…
I’d been laughing it off with sheer willpower until now, but I’d been right on the edge of my limit. Besides, Manmajeon’s training grounds were in a completely different league of efficiency compared to any ordinary gym.
“Thanks to that, the muscle I lost has started filling out again a little.”
Compressing my muscles any further had become impossible, so the volume was gradually increasing instead. According to Seonghwa, though, my current physique was already at its optimal state—and if I kept packing on muscle from here, my skeleton wouldn’t be able to support it.
My answer to that was simple.
Then I’ll just grow the skeleton.
Which was why I was now 165 centimeters tall. Three centimeters in three days. Even Seonghwa had looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
Of course, the Heavenly Demon Body had its limits too.
Shame, but 168 cm is probably the ceiling.
Anything beyond that, and I could feel my body’s balance starting to fall apart. So the plan to grow tall enough to look down on my little brother had, unfortunately, been cancelled.
There was one truly absurd downside that came with this superior physique, though.
“Ugh, I’m already hungry…”
The fuel efficiency was godawful. It felt like I’d gone from a compact economy car to a full-blown sports car. A baseline of five people’s portions. Up to ten when I was really hungry. No matter how much I ate, my stomach emptied itself in no time.
My basal metabolic rate alone had to be several times higher than a normal person’s, thanks to the changed constitution. Which was why, right now—
“I’m starving…”
I’d woken up that morning and immediately put away four chicken breasts and ten eggs, and yet a few hours later my stomach was already hollow again.
I opened the delivery app.
“What should I eat.”
This ridiculous body of mine only absorbed the good stuff, so I no longer needed a strict diet. Unlike the old days of meal prep, I could eat whatever I wanted. The only thing I held back on a little was fat—ever since Seonghwa casually mentioned that eating too much of it might make my chest grow even bigger.
Today was the day I’d planned to head to my parents’ place, but I was leaving late—after lunch—so I needed to secure a solid sense of fullness before factoring in travel time.
“Ah, right. Gotta order for Seonghwa too.”
I’d told her I might not be able to enter Manmajeon for these three days, so our MSG addict was already glaring daggers. I needed to stockpile food for her in advance.
“Why does that girl like Korean food so much when she’s an ancient Chinese holy relic? I figured if she was going to get hooked on anything, it’d be jjajangmyeon.”
I’d brought her kimchi stew on a whim, just to let her try it. At first Seonghwa had given me the strangest look, asking why anyone would boil red cabbage and eat it. Now she was a complete prisoner of the flavor. In just two days, I’d ordered well over ten portions of kimchi stew for her alone.
Something about that clean, refreshing taste had her completely hooked.
“She eats like a monster for how small she is.”
At least I had the excuse of a terrible metabolic rate. She didn’t even have that—she just… ate.
“She asked for army stew–style kimchi jjigae today, right?”
Well. As long as you were Korean, there was no way you could dislike watching a foreigner[?] fall in love with kimchi stew.
“I’ll even throw in the extra army stew toppings, special for you!”
I was feeling generous. By the time I’d finished ordering everything, the total came out to three hundred thousand won.
“At this rate my monthly food bill is going to hit ten million…”
One more freeloading mouth to feed meant one more reason I needed to keep making money.
I placed the delivery, sprawled out fiddling with my phone, then demolished everything the moment it arrived. After that, I opened Manmajeon and delivered the bag holding ten portions of stew straight inside.
Then I sat around long enough for it to settle, before finally springing to my feet.
“I should bring a gift too, right?”
It had been a while since this son—well, daughter—had come home. I couldn’t exactly show up empty-handed.
My current budget is…
Roughly five hundred thousand in cash, ten mid-grade magic stones, and eight low-grade ones.
“Magic stones are basically my paycheck, and there’s a lot to consider there…”
And the cash was already looking pretty tight once I factored in rent and food.
“…”
Yeah. The big gifts would have to wait for next time.
“Ahem… If you think about it, I’ve only been awakened for less than two weeks.”
Spending so much time in Manmajeon—that room of spirit and time—had clearly scrambled my sense of the clock a little.
“I’ll just grab some expensive wine so the two of them can set the mood.”
The main presents were already covered: the hair-loss cure (a regeneration potion) and the virility elixir (an ogre’s heart). Pair those with a nice bottle of wine for ambiance, and surely Father and Mother could have a very pleasant evening together.
“At this rate I might end up with a third sibling.”
Given their ages it was mostly a joke—but if I also threw in that bizarre technique for drawing out turbid energy that Seonghwa had taught me…? At that point, nobody could really say what the future held.
“Better go buy that wine first.”
I grabbed my wallet, threw on a decent coat, covered my face just enough, and set out. Using the extreme footwork I’d polished in the training grounds, I reached the nearest department store in an instant.
“Definitely nice to skip the taxi fare.”
I quickly bought the five-hundred-thousand-won red the clerk recommended, then headed straight home without letting my eyes wander anywhere else. Gift secured—time to leave for my parents’ place.
“Alright. Luggage was packed last night.”
I gathered the bags I’d prepared the night before along with the expensive wine. I’d briefly considered withdrawing some pocket money for them, but in two weeks the S-Class hunter living stipend would start depositing straight into my parents’ account. With that kind of money landing in Mother’s bank, pocket money hardly meant anything.
Everything ready, I climbed into the taxi I’d reserved in advance. (With this much luggage, getting home on footwork alone was out of the question.)
I sat in the back seat and stared blankly out the window.
Mmm… nice.
Luck was on my side this time. The driver was the quiet type. Thanks to that, I could watch the streets roll by and sink into my thoughts the whole way home.
An hour and forty minutes later, we arrived on the outskirts of Uijeongbu in Gyeonggi-do.
“Ugh!”
I paid near the house, stepped out, and immediately stretched hard to shake off the stiffness.
“Man, took an extra twenty minutes.”
The trip had run longer than usual. Roadwork was still ongoing on the street I’d wrecked, and the resulting traffic control had stretched the commute. Since the house sat in a slightly tucked-away spot, I had to walk a bit with my bags after getting out of the taxi—and then my parents’ place came into view.
“Ahh, home sweet home!”
The detached house Father had insisted on choosing filled my vision. I hurried over with my luggage, punched in the door lock code, and stepped inside. The familiar smell of the house brushed against my nose.
“Your son is home!”
I announced my arrival and strode in with full confidence.