Unfortunately, There Is No Status Window.
Unfortunately, There Is No Status Window.
As I entered the password on the door lock and opened the front door, the familiar air of home greeted me.
"I'm home...."
Home. Home. Sweet home. The home I missed so much. As expected, home is the best.
As soon as I entered the house, the fatigue I'd been putting off came crashing down. My limbs were being gnawed by a tingling muscle ache from the side effects of forcibly strengthening myself with mana, but with the tension released, mental and physical exhaustion flooded in like a tidal wave along with the muscle pain.
Especially the musty smell of the Goblin's Nest clinging to my clothes, and the traces of the ashes that were once goblins.
The padded jacket—wasn't it not supposed to be washed in the home washing machine? Hmm. The thought of roughly tossing my other clothes into the wash and then washing myself filled my head.
I was just about to shove the plastic umbrella into the umbrella stand by the entrance and tiptoe past the living room.
"Hey, you're back?"
My older brother, who had been lying sprawled on the sofa looking at his smartphone, poked his head out. What the? Why is this guy home?
Did he come down to the family home for the first time in a while? To run into him at this timing of all times. I twisted my body as much as possible to hide the stains on my clothes and nodded vaguely.
"When did you get home? I thought you said you were busy."
"Just now. I got some free time since it's the weekend. Anyway, didn't you say you were going to the Busan Terminal area today? Mom mentioned you were going to check out the university."
At that moment, my heart sank.
"Huh? Oh, no. I didn't go. I was at a café nearby."
"Really? The internet is in chaos right now. They say a strange black mist appeared at Busan Terminal and sucked several people in, and the stories from the survivors who came out of there are absolutely wild."
On the smartphone screen my brother held out, real-time news breaking news and community posts were displayed, and I pretended not to know as I looked at the screen.
An interview with the police conducted by a news agency and several eyewitness accounts from survivors spread by onlookers lingering nearby were neatly organized.
[Title: Thread on what a Busan Terminal gate survivor said.txt (includes police statement)]
Summary: A pitch-black gate-like thing appeared and swallowed people around it along with black mist, and inside the gate was a narrow, dark cave.
A monster that looked like a goblin came out from inside that cave, but some girl wearing a mask beat the monster to death and saved everyone.
Her weapon was apparently a transparent plastic umbrella sold at convenience stores;; The police tried to hold her to identify her, but she said she had to catch a bus and ran off. The police chased her to investigate further, but she disappeared at some point.
"Look at this. They say she cut down a monster with a plastic umbrella from a convenience store. Isn't this total fiction? Maybe all those people saw things."
"Hah, haha... Yeah, right. They must have been filming a movie. Or maybe the monster was made of sponge."
I broke into a cold sweat and forced myself to look away. There were naturally no CCTVs inside the goblin's nest, and when I was outside the nest, I was wearing a mask. Even if there was a video, I could just deny it.
But my brother's eyes narrowed as he scrolled the screen.
His gaze alternated between the 'eyewitness description' part on the smartphone screen and the clothes I was wearing right now.
"But from the survivors' descriptions, it's a black long padded jacket, a white mask, and black long hair. Wait, isn't that exactly the outfit you wore out today? The fit is exactly you too."
What was coming had come. Using my experience as a veteran, I maintained a poker face and answered brazenly.
"Are you crazy? This jacket is one Mom bought from home shopping. Go out on the street—there must be tens of thousands of clones that look like me. And do you think I'm the only one who bought an umbrella from a convenience store because it might rain today?"
"There was no weather forecast saying it would rain today..."
"I bought it because there was a sudden shower! You believe in a weather forecast with zero reliability? Anyway, it's obviously a coincidence."
"No, but even for a coincidence that's... Wait, what's that black dust all over your clothes?"
"Ah! When I went into the café, someone next to me must have dusted off a bunch of dirt and it got on me. Anyway, I'm going to wash up, so don't talk to me!"
I fled straight to the bathroom before I could be interrogated further. From behind me, I heard my brother's suspicious muttering, "No, that dust is like charcoal lumps...," but I forced the situation to an end by locking the bathroom door with a click.
Honestly, why did that guy have to come home on a day when this kind of annoying thing happened? Tch.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I roughly wiped down the padded jacket I was wearing with wet wipes, threw the clothes into the washing machine, and took a warm shower. Only then did I feel somewhat alive.
I flopped onto the bed and turned on my smartphone. The situation was developing much more seriously than I had thought.
[Breaking News] Simultaneous nationwide occurrence of 'Black Mist'! Mysterious gates appearing!
[Emergency] Gate Warning! If you discover a gate, secure a safe distance and report to the police!
[Special Report] Sightings of strange creatures reported in Seoul, Daejeon, and elsewhere! Military and police enter emergency alert!
The appearance of goblins and the emergence of gates weren't something only I experienced. They seemed to be the same species as the goblins I knew, so I wondered if it was related to me when I was male... but was that just speculation?
This strange phenomenon called 'Gates' had erupted nationwide—no, worldwide. Thanks to that, large online communities were literally on the verge of explosion.
[Title: Is the real Hunter era finally beginning???]
─ I just shouted to awaken in the living room lol
└ So did you awaken?
└ Mom called me crazy and slapped my back ㅠㅠ
[Title: Ah, the system trolling is insane. They give us monsters but no status window?]
─ My thoughts exactly;; I've been yelling 'Status window!' 'Inventory!' since earlier, but nothing shows up. Give me my skills!
└ What kind of Hunter story is this? When are the Awakeners coming out? ㅠㅠ I want to be an Awakener too ㅠㅠ
I scrolled down the screen and let out a snort.
"A status window, my foot. You've been reading too many web novels."
Unfortunately, this was not one of those web novels or comics.
Convenient compensations like a status window or a level-up system... probably don't exist in this world.
How nice would it have been if something like that existed? I really wish there had been something like Otherworld transmigration perks. If that had been the case, I wouldn't have had to struggle so desperately when I fell into the other world.
The guys on the internet making a fuss saying the Hunter era has begun would realize the harsh reality if they actually saw a person's neck being bitten off by a monster before their eyes.
How nice would it be if this reality were a web novel? Then even if monsters appeared and gates opened, the awakened people would take care of them. Then I could live a peaceful life without any annoying incidents.
As I scrolled down through the real-time best posts, the comment reactions to that 'Busan Terminal story' my brother had mentioned caught my eye. People's fantasies about a faceless hero were already swelling out of control.
─ They say she smashed a monster's head in with a plastic umbrella? What a fiction lol
└ With survivor testimonies and police investigations, you think it's fabricated?
─ A padded jacket and a mask? So damn stylishㄷㄷ 'The Stealth Swordmaster of the Terminal'?
─ The weapon being a convenience store umbrella really gives off that veteran scent. She must be a protagonist who reincarnated in another world and returned.
─ According to eyewitness accounts, she's a woman with black long hair, and even with a mask, you could tell she's a beauty.
└ You think she's just a mask-fish?
└ Right?
"Aaaagh—!"
I pulled the blanket over my head and kicked wildly. A stealth swordmaster? What the hell is that?
A wave of embarrassment washed over me at that cringey nickname reeking of middle school syndrome. Thank goodness I was wearing a mask! If it weren't for the mask I absentmindedly put on to block the stench of the nest, my face would have spread all over the internet by now, and I'd have to flee overseas instead of going to university!
Zzzzng-
Just then, text messages arrived in succession from an unknown number.
[Are you Kim Su-yeon? This is Officer Park, who was at the terminal scene today. The survivors you helped today and reporters from news agencies are earnestly asking for your contact information, saying they absolutely want to express their gratitude and conduct an interview. Would it be alright if I pass your number on to them?]
I pressed my throbbing forehead. So the survivors had been lingering around me like that, and now they were going to the police station and begging them to give out my number. Plus the reporters.
Still, fortunately, this police officer uncle seemed to not have forgotten his duty as a police officer, since he apparently hadn't given out my number carelessly. Small mercies, I guess.
And of course, my answer was already decided.
[Absolutely not. If you pass my number to them, I'll file a complaint immediately. Don't contact me again because it's bothersome. I didn't do anything so great.]
Send. And immediately block the number.
Meeting them in person is out of the question. Once I'm exposed to the media or get entangled with people even once, my peaceful daily life will be completely ruined. I wanted a calm life, but what is this mess all of a sudden?
I tossed my smartphone carelessly onto the bed and looked up at the ceiling.
The quiet room. The blue magic stones I took out of my pocket and placed on the desk were emitting a faint light. And inside my body, a mass of mana, clearly larger than this morning, was circulating silently.
The emergence of gates worldwide. The cruel reality without a status window. People's fuss. The barrage of contacts. And my distinctly increased mana.
"My peaceful college life... seems like it's ruined before it even started."
A deep sigh escaped me involuntarily.
If I had been an ordinary person who knew nothing, I would have been scared and quietly waited for the rescue team. Why did I have to crawl back into that stinking nest and swing an umbrella?
If I had just closed my eyes and pretended not to know for my own convenience, I wouldn't have been suspected by my brother or received calls from the police.
But.
'Officer! Don't yell at that student! That student is our savior!'
'That's right! If it weren't for this student, we would all have died in that monster lair!'
Outside the gate, the hoarse voices of the ajumma and ajussi who had just escaped the dungeon and were standing on trembling legs, yet still blocking the police and defending me, lingered in my ears.
"Still."
I slowly closed my eyes and let out a very small chuckle.
"No one died. So I guess that's a relief."
It was terribly tiring and annoying, but a day I would never regret. And so, it was coming to an end.