Chapter 16
Seeing Seo-ah off on a morning school run that felt no different from any other, I was struck only belatedly by regret.
"Goreuk. Weren't you having a hard time with how overbearing your master is?"
"No. Not that much. My sister is always good to me."
I should never have let my familiar meet Lee Seo-ah.
"Don't say that. Just because someone is kind to you doesn't mean you should accept everything."
"But..."
"You have to make it clear when you like something and when you don't. What feels like kindness to one person can be a burden to another. To Gobra, you seem to be that way now."
"Um... is that so?"
"That's right. My master is simpler than you think, so if you don't speak plainly, it'll only get harder later. If you don't correct it, someday you'll cross a line. That is fatal to any healthy relationship."
I watched Seo-ah and my familiar walking side by side ahead of me, talking as they went, and chewed on my lip until it hurt.
My instincts wanted to rush over and shut that mouth for good, while reason shouted just as hard that I should never raise a hand in front of my soon-to-be daughter.
I kept pace behind them, flinching every few steps just to restrain my legs from darting forward on their own.
"Still, I don't dislike Sister. She seems weird sometimes, but I never thought that was bad. Sister... for reasons I don't really understand, I think she's always trying her own way to do what's best for me."
When she glanced back at me, something warm settled into a corner of my chest.
Whose daughter had I gotten, anyway, that she could talk so sweetly?
I was smiling to myself when the familiar beside her gasped in admiration.
"Goreuk. Lee Seo-ah, you already know kindness. That's truly admirable, and impressive."
"Ah, no. I'm not really..."
"I heard you were only fourteen years old. To be considerate of others at such a young age is no small thing. You can hold your head high."
Wait, no. Seo-ah, why are you getting embarrassed over a goblin's praise? Don't do that. I told you not to blush.
"No one's ever said something like that to me before."
"If a child has done something admirable, it is only proper for an adult to praise her. It seems there have been no proper adults around you. That's a pity."
Then the familiar gave me a sidelong look.
It was the kind of expression that seemed to say I was being scolded for never doing even something that obvious, and for some reason I felt strangely guilty.
"But Lee Seo-ah, you must still understand something while you're young."
"What is it?"
"That children are meant to receive consideration, not to be the ones giving it. You are far too withdrawn. It seems even toward this master, who makes such a fool of herself, you are always watching her mood, but you shouldn't be."
"...Then what should I do?"
"You need to learn how to rely on others. Even if it's only this unreliable master and Gobra, who is not even human, there are adults here who want to look after you. So I want you to let yourself be cared for a little more, to be spoiled now and then. That won't take away the kindness coming to you now. Don't be afraid."
Seo-ah's round eyes, turned toward my familiar, widened just a little.
Then she hesitated, parted her lips as if to say something, and came to a stop.
We had reached the school before either of us noticed.
It looked like she had something she wanted to say, but in the end Seo-ah shut her mouth and only bowed her head in place of words.
"Goreuk. Have a good day."
"I'll come pick you up later."
"Yes. Thank you."
Once she was out of the reach of the cognition-interference spell, Seo-ah skipped away.
I waved until her small figure was no longer visible, then glanced off to the side.
My familiar, who had been waving as well, noticed my gaze and looked up at me.
"What. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Because it's unexpected."
"Goreuk?"
"You seem strangely kind today. I know full well you don't like humans."
I had only introduced them so they could meet and get acquainted, but he was being unusually friendly to Seo-ah.
When I stared at him in confusion, he answered in a matter-of-fact tone.
"My master has misunderstood something."
"What?"
"Gobra has always been kind."
"You're lying without even bothering to lick your lips."
I was about to snap back in disbelief when I paused.
"And... it's not that I hate humans from that continent. I just don't like humans themselves."
His yellow eyes lowered sadly.
They vanished beneath his lids for a moment, then surfaced again, calm and quiet.
"Master. Lee Seo-ah seems like a good human. It was only a short conversation, but Gobra felt that I would like to be an adult to that pitiful child."
"Listen to you, a goblin daring to overreach."
"At the very least, Gobra is certain I am better than you are now."
"You little bastard."
I almost stomped on him right there, but I squeezed my eyes shut and held back.
It was infuriating, but he wasn't wrong.
I had been with her for days and still hadn't noticed what even a goblin who'd known her for less than an hour could see.
Just as he had done, I should have had a serious conversation with Seo-ah, and I hadn't done it even once.
My heart had run ahead of everything else, and without ever thinking about how I looked in the eyes of the child before me, I had acted on my own with thoughts like, This should be good. This should be enough.
I had wanted to become a parent, and yet I had done the very things a parent should never do.
I felt so ashamed and miserable I wanted to crawl into a hole and vanish.
At the same time, I was grateful to Seo-ah.
I was thankful to the child who could still say she didn't dislike me, even after all that.
So I didn't want to lose her, not for anything.
'I need to do better.'
Once I'd made that firm resolve and opened my eyes, my familiar, who had been standing with his arms folded around the sign in his hands, asked quietly, "Have you finished reflecting?"
"Yeah, you brat. Let's go."
Saying that, I turned on my heel and left the school behind.
My familiar followed, falling into step beside me.
Was it just my imagination, or did the sunlight feel especially fierce today?
I went with my familiar to the Awakened Management Bureau headquarters.
This sprawling compound had most of the conveniences an awakened person could need.
We had come here to exchange mana stones and get my familiar fitted for some proper gear.
But just as we were about to pass through the entrance gate, we were stopped.
The reason was my familiar.
"Familiars aren't allowed inside."
The guard blocking us said that while looking straight at him.
Then he tilted his head.
"Um... you're a familiar, right?"
A familiar.
It was a third-circle, attribute-less spell used to command beasts.
In this age, there were plenty of awakened people dressed in loud, distinctive ways, the sort you could spot among Hunters, Guardians, and academy students at a glance.
It was only natural that there were many magic users as well.
Even now, you could still see people walking around with small animals or even predatory beasts in tow.
It wasn't so different from how people had once kept dogs or cats as pets.
And yet, even in this modern world, there didn't seem to be any other case of someone making a monster, of all things, their familiar, let alone an ugly goblin classified as the weakest of the weak.
In other words, that made me the first.
He wasn't technically a familiar, but since I'd already talked my way into the city that way, that was how he was being treated.
His presence was impossible to hide even with the cognition-interference spell, so I'd dressed him up to make him look harmless as best I could.
When I looked at my familiar, he immediately stepped forward.
"Correct. Gobra is this master's familiar."
He was saying that because we'd rehearsed it in advance.
But the guard's reaction was strange.
"A goblin speaks...? And in Korean?"
Goblin speech was normal.
Humans just couldn't understand it. There were only minor differences from tribe to tribe, but they had their own language of communication.
"Huh? Wait. Come to think of it, how are you speaking Korean?"
I hadn't noticed at all, because he'd been using it so naturally from the very first time I summoned him.
My familiar looked at me as if I'd lost my mind.
"Goreuk. What nonsense is that? Master taught it to me."
"I did? To you? Korean?"
"Master taught Gobra the continental common tongue and told me the Korean language at the same time."
"Did I? Why would I do that?"
"Master told Gobra never to forget Korean and made me memorize it. She put up posters, and every time I got the spelling wrong, she hit my calves with a stick. Gobra still remembers the pain from back then, so I will never forget Korean. Did master forget that?"
"...Now that you mention it, I think I did."
If it was the time when I was teaching him to speak, then it must have been not long after we made our contract.
Back then I'd gone through so many vicious things that I vaguely remembered trying to half-force myself to blank out.
"Ahem."
"Hmm?"
"Goreuk?"
The guard coughed to get our attention.
"Um, abusing a familiar is a crime."
He said that while looking at my familiar with a pitying expression that was nothing like before.
"Could you accompany us for a moment for the sake of his protection?"
"..."
At the guard's words, I faced my familiar and scratched my head.
Things were twisting in a weird direction.
Well, either way, we were getting inside, so maybe it didn't matter.
And so we entered the grounds.
Of course, there was no ridiculous scene of me being hauled off to jail or my familiar being protected by humans.
"S-special Class?! H-How terribly rude of us!"
The guard asked for my identification, and when I handed it over, he let us through without another word or question.
It seemed he'd confirmed through the identity check that I was a Special Class Awakened.
"What's so special about Special Class that gets that kind of reaction?"
"They're kind of like a mercenary badge for guys like me who came back to Earth after going to another world."
After looking it up a bit on my Device, it seemed there weren't many Special Class awakened people to begin with.
And for some reason, Korea seemed especially sparse in that regard. At most, there were fewer than a hundred returnees in each city.
Compared with foreign countries, where there were hundreds per city, the difference was pretty severe.
At least they said the country's qualitative advantage was high enough to put Korea on par with the United States, but honestly, I wasn't convinced.
"Goreuk. Then are those people monsters too, like you, master?"
"No, they're just losers. I told you that when I summoned you."
"Hmm? Ah, that fellow you said you'd bullied. He was a returnee."
Since the subject had come up, I found myself a little curious about how the glasses guy and the maid were doing. What were they up to now?
If my senses couldn't catch them, maybe they were inside that strange room again, or maybe they'd already left.
So I chatted idly with my familiar as we moved along, then found the exchange counter.
When I showed my ID and Special Class certificate to the employee, who kept sneaking glances at my familiar, she jumped and hurriedly scrambled to help.
"W-What can I do for you?"
"I want to exchange mana stones after a hunt."
"In that case, if you could put the mana stones you have into the collection box beside you..."
Following the employee's instructions, I checked the collection box.
It was a decent size, but this wasn't going to work.
"I've got a lot. I don't think they'll all fit in here."
"P-Pardon? For transactions larger than this, only guilds or institutions can handle them."
"Then use that one."
"O-Of course. Please wait a moment."
Well then, how much would my first earnings as a Hunter amount to?
"We have confirmed 621 mid-grade stones, 195 upper-mid-grade stones, 31 high-grade stones, and 12 top-grade stones, for a total of 859 mana stones. With the Special Class benefit, the fee is waived, bringing the sale price to 2.846 billion won."
"...?"
Had I heard that wrong just now? 2.8 billion?
"We have deposited the amount from your transaction just now."
At the same time as the employee spoke, my Device, tucked into the inner pocket of my cloak, gave a soft ding.
When I took it out and checked, my previously opened account showed a figure a little over 3 billion won.
Subtracting the money I'd extorted from the loan sharks before, it was clear that roughly 2.8 billion won had been deposited.
Strange. After living here for a few days, I thought money's value wasn't all that different from the old days.
So had I really made that kind of fortune from a single hunt?
"What the hell, this was a honey pot?"
"What are you talking about, master?"
"Hey, Bra."
"Goreuk. Why are you looking at me with those disgusting eyes all of a sudden?"
My familiar backed away warily.
I grabbed his shoulder with a wicked smile.
"You said you needed a sword and armor, right? Come on. I'm going to have you fitted with something really good."
"Why are you suddenly acting like this? Let go of this hand and talk."
"Just because. It's a reward for all your hard work, and it's been a while."
It was also because I wanted to give him a reward for all the hard work he would still be doing.
"Heh, heh, heh."
"Goreuk. Somehow I have a bad feeling about this."
"It's just your imagination. Come on, let's go. I glanced around earlier, and there are a lot of workshops here, hey."
I dragged my familiar, who was giving me a skeptical look as if to say, There is no way my master would act like this, out of the exchange counter.
I needed to finish this fast before this idiot, who had an annoyingly sharp sense for trouble, caught on.