Awakeners
With each passing day, the threat posed by the Awakeners only grew more severe.
Eventually the government realized that police forces alone could not contain them, and officially announced that a national address would be delivered to the public.
The next day, the president himself appeared and issued a national statement.
The substance of the address was this: military units and special forces would be deployed for public order and security, under measures approaching martial law.
When the statement was released, public opinion treated it as only natural.
The chaos sown by the Awakeners' appearance had swollen by the day, and vicious actors who behaved as if the law no longer applied had driven crime rates ever higher. What had first been received with wonder was, day by day, turning into a steadily worsening reputation — so when measures approaching martial law and the deployment of troops were announced, few people were truly shocked.
As the situation deteriorated, some among the Awakeners themselves began to step forward.
They declared that they would stand with the police and the military and fight those of their kind who committed crimes. They rose up across the country, determined to prove that not every Awakener was a villain bent only on crime.
With police, soldiers, and now Awakeners who claimed to fight for public order all entering the fray, the situation only grew more dire. Going outside at all became something people tried to avoid, and wherever an incident broke out, police and military moved in to lock the area down.
Nor was this limited to Korea.
In the United States, military units had already been deployed. In a country where firearms were legal, ordinary citizens had begun forming neighborhood watch groups or simply opening fire in response to Awakener violence. The federal government moved quickly, sending in troops to confront and contain criminal Awakeners.
The New Humanity — or Awakeners, as they were also called — had dragged the world deeper into chaos with every day that passed.
As a result, few people wandered outside without good reason. Even on gombang work sites, the mood was the same: once the job was done, everyone headed straight home. With the world so unsettled and dangerous, leisure outings and casual spending inevitably dried up. Even the entertainment districts, once packed with foot traffic, had grown almost pleasantly empty.
And then the public was shown, raw and unfiltered, what it looked like when the deployed soldiers, the police, and the Awakeners who had stepped up for public order clashed with the ones who committed crimes — and the spectacle was nothing short of staggering.
Some Awakeners could still be subdued with ordinary police or military firearms. Others could not. Those had to be faced by the Awakeners who had volunteered for the side of order. Watching them fight filled onlookers with terror and shock. Combat between Awakeners did not look like anything human. They fought with powers like the superhumans and heroes of Hollywood films — and those scenes seemed to drive home just how frightening and formidable the Awakeners truly were.
Nor was any of this confined to Korea. Similar scenes were unfolding in countries all over the world. Wherever a clash broke out, the surrounding area suffered heavy damage. In every sense, the Awakeners had become a global crisis.
Naturally, researchers, experts, professors, and politicians who studied social problems stepped forward to debate why these Awakeners had appeared so suddenly. One side argued they should be thoroughly controlled and detained; the other insisted that doing so would drive every Awakener into open revolt, and that it must not be done. The two camps were locked in bitter deadlock.
Awakeners were still appearing even now, and no one could say who might awaken next. The fact that an order had already been issued authorizing the killing of Awakeners who committed serious crimes was itself proof of how grave the situation had become.
But not all Awakeners were the same. Among them were stronger beings still — and, astonishingly, some of them could stop bullets with a strange energy that rose from their own bodies. The only ones who could face such people were other Awakeners. In a world that already held powers like that, the idea of controlling and detaining every Awakener was not only impractical — it was doubtful whether it was even possible.
Debates and problems of this kind were erupting worldwide. And no matter how long the discussions ran, they always converged on a single question.
Why had these Awakeners appeared in the world at all?
They had simply… shown themselves overnight. Of course, there seemed to be a period of symptoms before the change was complete. After roughly a month of that process, a person became a full Awakener.
Seong-min watched the social crisis and the shifting atmosphere with grave attention. He had every reason to. He was no ordinary person. He was not an Awakener — but he was a Transcendent who could command a Status Window. So he did not worry simply because Awakeners were causing trouble. Subduing the one who had broken into his place last time had not been particularly difficult.
Then, as February drew toward its end, Seong-min headed for a mixed-use officetel in Bangbae-dong.
He parked in the underground garage, stepped out, and made for the elevator. He pressed the button, waited a moment, and when the doors opened, stepped inside.
Floor 11.
The doors opened with the announcement, and Seong-min walked toward the unit number the man had given him that day.
Is he home?
He had deliberately come on a Sunday. Standing before the front door, he pressed the bell and waited for it to open.
It did not.
Not here…?
He was about to press it again when a voice came from inside.
"Who is it?"
"Is this Kang Jung-gil's place, by any chance?"
"It is… Who are you?"
"My name is Lee Seong-min. If Jung-gil is there, please tell him my name."
"One moment…"
Seong-min waited.
So he isn't alone?
A short while later the door opened, and a pretty, pure-looking young woman with long black hair appeared.
"Please come in."
Seong-min followed her inside and took in her fresh, neat outfit. From her age, she looked to be in her early twenties.
"Oppa is in the bathroom showering right now… If you wait on the sofa over there, I'll bring you some coffee."
"All right. Thank you."
He slipped off his shoes, went in, and sat on the sofa deeper inside. Meanwhile she went to the kitchen and prepared two cups of tea. Seong-min sat and looked around, then glanced toward the kitchen.
His girlfriend?
Long black hair, and genuinely beautiful. A moment later she came over carrying a cup of coffee on a tray.
"Here you go…"
"Thank you."
"Are you a friend of Oppa's…?"
"Not a friend, exactly… more of an acquaintance."
That was the only way he could introduce himself.
"I see… I'm Lim Ju-yeon. Jung-gil Oppa and I are dating."
So she really was his girlfriend.
"I hope I'm not interrupting the two of you…"
"No, it's fine. Really."
Just then the bathroom door opened, and a man emerged in track pants, bare from the waist up, toweling his hair dry.
"Oppa."
The woman who had introduced herself as Ju-yeon called out to him. He roughly finished drying his hair and walked over.
No question about it. He's the same kind as me.
You could tell just by looking at his body. He was in excellent shape, with muscle laid on in clean, balanced proportions. Broad shoulders, and an overall build that was genuinely impressive — the kind of physical change that appeared when you raised the Martial Power stat.
Kang Jung-gil came close and sat down on the sofa.
"Oppa, want a cup of coffee?"
Jung-gil nodded. She rose and headed for the kitchen.
"Girlfriend?"
"That's right."
"Looks good, and her personality seems good too."
"She's someone precious to me."
Seong-min nodded. He understood the weight of those words well enough.
"You came looking for me because of this whole situation, I take it?"
"Yeah."
If none of this had been happening, he would not have come today either. Seong-min had said it clearly enough before: if Jung-gil did not come looking for him, they would have no further business. And yet here he was, walking in of his own accord.
"What's going on right now is serious. It's not just domestic. It's happening worldwide."
"True enough."
Just then Ju-yeon returned with a cup of coffee and set it in front of Jung-gil.
"Oppa… I'll be in the other room, then."
"All right."
Giving us space on purpose?
It seemed that way. Jung-gil lifted the cup and took a sip.
"Go ahead and ask."
"…?"
"You came because there's something you want to discuss with me, didn't you?"
"What do you make of all this? The world has gone into chaos since these things called Awakeners appeared. More than that — you and I aren't Awakeners, but we're Transcendents."
"Transcendents… So that's what you call us, Seong-min."
"That body of yours — that's from raising the Martial Power stat, right?"
"More or less."
"You got your Status Window a full year before I did. That means you know more than I do."
"How far does your own knowledge go, Seong-min?"
Seong-min laid out everything he had learned so far while raising his Status Window stats. Jung-gil listened in silence. When the account was finished, he spoke.
"For the most part, what you know is correct. And if I add something further — the physical changes that come from raising stats do not cross a certain line."
"Don't cross a line?"
"Once they rise past a certain point, the changes stop there. Of course, the actual effects keep scaling in proportion to the stat. But physical transformation — the genitals, for example — stops growing once it has changed past a certain threshold. Naturally, you've been raising the Vigor stat as well, I assume?"
"Yeah."
"Then you don't need to worry. It won't grow so monstrous that women find it a burden."
Seong-min had, in fact, been watching his penis grow longer and thicker as he poured points into Vigor, and he had genuinely wondered whether the growth would ever stop. Hearing Jung-gil say that it would, he felt he could set the worry aside.
"The Appearance stat works the same way. As you can see, I stopped growing at 185.7 centimeters. Yours won't be identical, but it won't stray far either."
"How strong are you? You can't have spent a whole year just playing around."
"Hard to say."
Jung-gil gave a wry smile.
"Even I don't know for certain how strong I am."
"You weren't going all out when we fought that day either, were you?"
"If that's how it felt to you… then I suppose so."
"I've told you everything I know. So this time, tell me what you know."
The reason Seong-min had come here was not only the current crisis. It was also the certainty that this man, Kang Jung-gil, held far more information about the Status Window than he did. He wanted to hear it.
"Broadly speaking, you already have a solid grasp of Martial Power, Physicality, Vigor, and Appearance. What I've added are the finer details."
"Then what about the Speech stat? You told me before — that it makes you more mature."
"Mind if I smoke?"
Seong-min nodded as if it made no difference. Jung-gil rose, went to the window, and opened it. He sat, drew a cigarette from the pack, set it between his lips, and lit it with a lighter.
"Hooo…"
He exhaled a long stream of smoke.
"As I said before… I was a loser. A complete piece of human garbage. Pathetically small in every way that mattered. The reason I was able to become as composed as I am now is the Speech stat."
"You're saying the Speech stat changes your personality?"
"Not so much personality as… it lets you look at yourself clearly, and it steadies your center. Looking back, it was exactly the kind of stat a man like me needed. That's why, when I watched the way you carried yourself, I wondered whether you'd raised Speech the way I had. When I asked, it turned out you hadn't."
"So when you said I was a decent person… that was because of that."
"In that sense, you're clearly a better man than I was. And the reason you don't take much interest in the Speech stat probably comes from the same place."
Jung-gil thought of the man he had been a year ago and gave another wry smile. If he had to name the single best decision he had ever made, he would name raising the Speech stat.