But Still, I Want to Go Home
"But still, I want to go home."
"What?"
"I've been away from my hometown for fifty-seven years..."
At those words, she shut her mouth, utterly speechless.
Everything Yunjae was saying sounded completely insane, but the problem was that it might actually be true. After all, anyone looking at him would think he had literally popped right out of a video game.
"Listen. Korea is no walk in the park."
"Pardon?"
"There are portals everywhere over there. It's an incredibly dangerous place."
As she made one final attempt to persuade him, Yunjae offered her a bright, beaming smile.
"You really are a good person, Miss Mari."
Faced with the gentle smile of a beautiful boy—a sight truly rare in this harsh world—Mari's face instantly flushed crimson.
"W-What do you mean by that?!"
Thump!
The way he talked was bizarre, and he was a bit of a dummy, but for some reason, he constantly triggered her maternal instincts. Combined with the sheer presence of a beautiful boy who could only be described as lovely, Mari's heart fluttered in spite of herself.
"But regardless, I am going back to Korea. I'll have to take a plane, right?"
"You'll need to buy a ticket first. But it won't be cheap. Intercontinental travel has become extremely difficult, and with portals appearing in the sky, plane tickets are astronomically expensive."
Ever since the portals opened, traveling between continents had become a monumental task. Flying was dangerous due to the risk of aerial monster attacks, and as flights became rarer, prices skyrocketed. Budget airlines were a thing of the past.
"...It was so much easier in the game."
Back then, he could just step through a portal to cross over, but the real world was indeed different.
"Well, I suppose this makes it feel like a real adventure!"
"What in the world..."
"Then I guess I have no choice but to go on a hunt just this once."
With a resigned sigh, he scanned the bounty flyer and spoke up.
"Well then, I'll go earn some plane fare!"
"W-Wait! You're going right now?"
She had witnessed his strength with her own eyes, but hunting all by himself!
"Would you like me to power-level you?"
"...What?"
"Ah, never mind! I just remembered they call carrying someone 'power-leveling'! It slipped out!"
"Pfft!"
"Anyway, if you follow me, I'll give you everything else we get!"
At that, Mari's eyes wavered with a complex mix of emotions.
"Y-You'll give me everything...?"
"Yes! I only need enough for my plane ticket and a place to stay!"
In truth, she had come here to make money, but Jimmy's death had thrown a wrench into everything. Jay had likely taken off already. The two of them had clashed ever since they first formed their team anyway.
"...Alright, then."
She would have to start over alone here. As a low-ranking C-class hunter living hand-to-mouth, the world was full of scammers, and finding a trustworthy team was incredibly difficult.
With a gloomy expression at that thought, Mari agreed and walked over to Mayor Manson, who was waiting for their conversation to finish.
"He's not interested in a full-time position. He just wants the bounty."
"I see."
Mayor Manson didn't seem to have high expectations from the start. Sure, the kid had defeated a Red-tailed Monster, but wasn't he just a crazy person?
"It really is hard to find a decent awakened ability user these days. Should I just call in a guild after all?"
"You'll have a headache dealing with them, too."
"True. Compared to them, this kid is actually quite polite."
It wasn't as if Yunjae was uniquely bizarre. There were plenty of awakened individuals with loose screws. In fact, Yunjae's brand of madness was remarkably harmless.
"Anyway, we'll be back soon."
"Go ahead."
Mari was only a C-class hunter, and Yunjae seemed completely uninterested and ignorant of how the world worked. Losing interest, Mayor Manson immediately took his leave.
"Are we going right now?" Mari asked as she walked back to Yunjae.
"Ah! Yes! It's a hassle, so I'm going to finish it all in one go." Yunjae replied, his face still showing his reluctance to hunt.
"Seriously... Hold on a second. Let me get my gun—"
"Ah, you don't need to bring anything like that."
"What?"
"You only need that."
Yunjae pointed at the laser blade she had used to cut the monster's tail, implying it was more than enough.
"No, wait!"
No matter how strong he was, going out there completely empty-handed was insane!
"We need at least one gun!"
"It's fine!"
Yet, he was overflowing with confidence. He had beaten a Red-tailed Monster to death with his bare fists, but she couldn't help but worry that they were cruising for a bruising. What if he had just been incredibly lucky that day? With a deeply anxious expression, Mari followed behind him.
"This should be a good spot."
Yunjae suddenly stopped right in front of the exit of Point 6.
"Hey, this is just the exit!" Mari said, looking at him with utter disbelief.
"Ah! My aggro skill is max level, you see. Don't worry!"
"What?"
It happened in that very instant.
With a nonchalant look on his face, he quietly uttered a single word.
Taunt
The moment the skill activated, a crimson light began to ripple outward in all directions.
"W-What is this?!"
Utterly bewildered by the spectacle, Mari flinched and stared at him.
Rustle, rustle!
And in that exact moment!
"O-Oh my god!"
An overwhelming horde of Black-tailed and Red-tailed Monsters began to swarm toward Yunjae like a black tide.
"Whoa! Emergency! Emergency!"
The defense personnel watching from the Point 6 exit shrieked in terror and immediately sounded the alarms.
"W-What on earth did you just do?!" Mari screamed, practically scolding him in her panic.
Before her voice could even fade, Yunjae calmly chanted in a low murmur.
Nova Field
BOOOOOOM!
In that split second, a colossal tempest of lightning rained down upon the swarming monsters!
"W-What is this?!"
Screeeech!
With agonizing shrieks, hundreds of monsters were instantly charred black and collapsed to the ground. Mari's jaw dropped.
She wasn't the only one; the Point 6 defense personnel who had just sounded the alarm were frozen in sheer disbelief.
Yunjae let out a soft chuckle and glanced at Mari.
"I'll cut them."
"W-What?"
It seemed he had wiped out every single monster that had emerged from the portal in this entire area in less than a single second.
"...Right."
The profit they would make from this was bound to be astronomical. Mari, still gaping, handed him the laser blade.
"Let's only look for the red ones."
The price difference was fivefold. True to his word of only needing enough for plane fare and rent, Yunjae went around searching solely for the red tails.
Slice.
But the moment he severed a tail...
"Wait! Why did it multiply into three?!"
To her utter shock, the severed tail had miraculously split into three identical pieces. Mari stared at them, her face pale with bewilderment.
"Ah, my reward is multiplied by 300%, you see..."
"Are you sure you don't want to be a hunter?"
The power Yunjae had displayed at Point 6 was the definition of shock and awe.
According to him, he had merely used a basic grinding method—pulling mobs with a wide-range aggro skill and then wiping them out with an AoE spell—but...
"Yes! I really don't want to hunt anymore!"
The scale of it was simply absurd. No awakened ability user on Earth could pull off something like that. Even launching a military missile wouldn't produce such a devastating result!
On top of that, his rewards were tripled! Having witnessed the monster tails multiply into three right before her eyes, Mari found it completely incomprehensible that he refused to work as a hunter.
"Just what are you..."
Upon learning of this, Mayor Manson was left utterly dumbfounded. Still, from the town's perspective, it was the ultimate bargain. After all, Yunjae hadn't touched a single one of the countless Black-tailed Monsters, leaving them for the town to harvest.
"Please, stay here! I'll grant you whatever you want! Please?"
The mayor desperately tried to hold onto him, but...
"I'm sorry!"
Though introverted, timid, and polite, Yunjae was surprisingly stubborn. In the end, his resolve couldn't be broken, and he was now preparing to depart for Korea.
"By the way, are you going to Korea too, Miss Mari?"
When he asked her this at the airport, Mari flinched slightly before replying.
"Well, I'm a hunter, so..."
Even so, she had no real reason to go to Korea. Korea was a perilous place with an exceptionally high density of active portals, making it a difficult environment for a hunter of her caliber to survive.
Despite that, the reason she chose to head to Korea was simple.
If only I can become his partner...
She had witnessed his terrifying power firsthand. Of course, one could say she was just freeloading off him since she lacked any real power herself, but in this chaotic world, shouldn't one possess at least that much survival instinct?
"Anyway, I'm glad! It's going to be a long flight to Korea, so it's nice to have company!"
Having finally returned to reality, Yunjae wore a bright, cheerful expression. With the Goddess's Holy Armor safely stored in his inventory, dressed in casual clothes, he looked no different from any ordinary young man in his twenties. No, actually, he looked more like a late teenager, and his delicate features leaned far closer to a beautiful girl than a boy.
"...Well, it's going to take about thirteen hours."
Mari, who harbored a secret fondness for him—hardly surprising given his maxed-out charm stat—replied with a slightly fluttering heart.
"It would be so quick if we could just use a portal."
Yunjae grumbled with a look of lingering regret.
"Can you stop talking about the game already?"
"Ah! I'm sorry!"
But the real issue lay in his bizarre way of thinking, and the floating status title permanently hovering above his head: Slender Forearms.
"What's up with that guy?"
Naturally, they drew stares from everyone in the airport.
"It says 'Slender Forearms'! Pfft!"
In this day and age, language barriers no longer existed. With instant translation technology readily available, anyone could read the floating text and understand its meaning. It was only natural that people giggled as they pointed at him.
"Ah! I should have worn long sleeves!"
As he lamented, looking down at his pale, slender forearms that lacked even a trace of fat, Mari burst into laughter.
"Why don't you try working out?"
"Ah! I already tried, but no matter what I do, my forearms just won't get any thicker! And I only made this username as a joke... I really shouldn't have picked such a silly name."
Seeing him instantly pout, she chuckled softly.
"Well, it suits you perfectly anyway."
"Ah!"
Ignoring Yunjae's dejected sigh, Mari changed the subject, wanting to move past the embarrassing username.
"Anyway, what are you going to do once we get to Korea? You don't even have a place to stay. Why not work as a hunter to save up some money?"
"It's fine. I still have money left over even after buying the plane tickets, so I'll use that to find a place. And then, I'm going to get a part-time job!"
He really, truly detested hunting.
"Why take the hard road when you have an easy way to make a living?"
"I'm a seventy-year-old man with not much time left to live! I want to spend my remaining days living diligently and doing only what I want to do!"
Mari let out a deep sigh at his completely unconvincing claim, given that he looked absolutely nothing like a septuagenarian. He said he had been sucked into the game at age twenty and lived there for fifty-seven years. That would make his chronological age seventy-seven. But looking at his face, which resembled a mid-to-late teenager—and a beautiful girl at that—how could anyone take him seriously?
"...Suit yourself."
Would she really be able to convince him to partner up with her? She wondered if she was just chasing a pipe dream. But then again, she had nowhere else to go, and since she had no family left, the location didn't particularly matter to her.
Her family had all perished during the Portal Incident, and Mari had become a hunter to seek vengeance. However, because she had to fight monsters using conventional firearms without any special awakened abilities, she was merely a low-ranking C-class hunter.
Maybe this is my chance to turn my life around.
Since Korea had so many active portals and dangerous monsters, guilds and powerful awakened ability users were everywhere. If she was lucky, she might even get recruited by a major guild.
"But Miss Mari, why do you work as a hunter?"
"What do you mean, why?"
"Well, hunting is dangerous, not to mention incredibly tedious."
"...I don't find it tedious at all."
"But it's dangerous. And tedious."
Seeing this absolute epitome of introverted timidity repeatedly emphasize how tedious it was, she realized he must be thoroughly sick of it.
"Well, it's the only thing I know how to do. Besides, being a hunter pays better than most other jobs."
She answered bluntly, though that wasn't entirely the truth. Just like any other industry, the wealth was concentrated in the hands of the successful few. For someone like her, she had to risk her life just to put food on the table. But explaining that would only make her feel miserable, so she quickly shut her mouth.
"But hunting is a complete waste of life! Take it from someone who wasted fifty years of his! If you do nothing but hunt, you'll reach my age without having built any foundation for your life!"
"Shut up!"
He was polite, but he could be incredibly annoying in his own stubborn way.
Mari quickly checked the flight schedule.
"We'll be boarding soon. You should be grateful to Mayor Manson. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't even be able to get on this plane."
Currently, Yunjae had no official identification. Naturally, he shouldn't have been allowed near an airport, but Mayor Manson, deeply impressed by his terrifying power, had pulled out all the stops to recruit him, even issuing him a Point 6 citizenship.
"I'll definitely come back to help you someday!"
Because Yunjae had promised to return the favor for free in the future, it wasn't a bad deal for the mayor either.
"Yes, even though I don't have much time left to live, I will live my life with a heart full of gratitude!"
"No matter how generous I am, you're still in your twenties!"
"I played for five hundred thousand hours! There's no way I'm in my twenties! I spent my entire youth just trying to get past the mid-level zones!"