The 77-Year-Old Roommate
“…I’m sorry. He’s incredibly shy around strangers.” Feeling that they had been a bit rude to the legendary hunter Demian, Mari apologized on his behalf. Demian shook his head with a dazed expression. “Ah, no, it’s fine.”
Demian, looking deeply shocked, slumped back in his seat with a look of utter devastation. He can solo Kadmus in an hour? If an ability user of that caliber existed, there was no way Demian wouldn’t have known about him. Who on earth is he? Could he be the mastermind controlling Kadmus? Thump! Demian’s heart hammered wildly. To think that the almighty Kadmus had a puppet master behind him! And his name is Slender Forearms? But the name that was burned into his brain was that ridiculous alias: Slender Forearms.
“T-This is just…” Stunned by a reality that was incredibly hard to accept, Demian stared blankly at Yunjae. Sensing his intense gaze, Yunjae looked slightly uncomfortable and whispered to Mari.
“Mari, he keeps staring at me. It’s making me uncomfortable. Could you please tell him to stop?”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
“Ah! Well, he might actually just be looking out the window on this side, so…”
“Hey, you...! Then just deal with it!”
“But no matter how much I think about it, I’m pretty sure he’s staring at my status window.”
“Then say something!”
“But doesn’t he look a bit like a mobster? I’m kind of scared of people like that…”
“Ugh, seriously!” It was clear that if she didn’t say something, he would keep whining in her ear.
“Excuse me, Demian.”
“Ah, yes?”
“It looks like you’re trying to look outside. Would you like to swap seats so you can sit by the window?”
“No, Mari! That’s not what I meant! I wasn’t asking to swap seats...!”
“Then speak up yourself, you dummy!” At Mari’s exasperated shout, Demian snapped out of it, realizing he had indeed been staring far too blatantly.
“I’m sorry. I was just so shocked by what happened earlier...”
“Ah, yes.” Yunjae, still painfully shy, gave a brief reply. Still struggling to believe the situation, Demian pressed him further.
“Excuse me, but how on earth did you do that earlier...?”
“Oh, you just have to go to Kadmus’s dungeon and use Taming on him.”
“Huh?” What was that supposed to mean? He spoke of it so casually, as if it were a mere video game. Flustered, Demian stared at Yunjae with trembling eyes.
“Ah, I’m sorry!” Yunjae looked embarrassed, as if he had made a slip of the tongue.
“Before you go, you absolutely must max out your curse-type spells to lower his magic resistance, and make sure your Taming Mastery is fully leveled up! That’s the most important part!”
“We’re finally in Korea. So this is Incheon International Airport!” The hero who had protected the airplane from the monster attack, Slender Forearms!
“…Yeah. Must be nice. Getting a lifetime of free flights.” Because he had summoned Kadmus to eliminate the Exotic Birds and prevented a crash, the airline had gifted Yunjae a lifetime pass for free flights.
“And in first class, no less!” He possessed Mamon’s Grace, which multiplied all rewards by 300%. In truth, the airline had originally offered him economy, but the conceptual force of his passive had upgraded it to first class—which was three times better—leaving the airline executives utterly baffled. Still, giving up a single seat in exchange for guaranteed safety was a massive win for them.
“But I have no intention of ever leaving Korea! In fact, I don’t even want to leave my blankets!” Of course, the man in question had absolutely no desire to ever go abroad again.
“Anyway, where in Korea are we heading first?”
“I want to go back to the neighborhood I used to live in. But my memory is so hazy, I’m not sure if I can find it. What if I get lost?”
“You’ll find it. You still remember your house, don’t you?”
“But it’s been fifty-seven years. The subway lines must have completely changed by now.”
“Then we can just take a taxi.”
“Ah! As expected of you, Mari!” As he sighed in relief, Mari shook her head in disbelief.
“By the way, where do you plan to go now, Mari?” he asked. He was heading to his old home, but there was no reason for her to tag along all the way there.
“…Well.” Mari hesitated, unable to answer right away. Even if she continued working as a hunter here with her single firearm, a C-class hunter like her would barely make enough to get by.
“First, I need to find a place to live.”
“I see.”
“Real estate in Korea is notoriously expensive. I’ll have to look around carefully.”
“I knew it. They kept saying the housing market would crash, but I guess it just kept rising for fifty-seven years straight. How are ordinary citizens like me supposed to survive...? Even if I worked for fifty-seven years, I probably couldn’t afford a single apartment.” Yunjae let out a deep sigh, shaking his head.
“…Forget about that.” In truth, the sole reason she had come to Korea was to partner up with this absurdly overpowered guy. But despite his god-like abilities, this idiot refused to do any hunter work simply because he was “sick of hunting.” She realized it was time to lay her cards on the table, though she looked a bit hesitant.
“Since rent is so expensive... why don’t we look for a place together?”
“Huh?!” Yunjae gasped, his eyes widening in shock.
“Ah! C-Co-habitation?! I wanted to start with some casual dating first...”
“I’m just saying we should split the rent because housing is expensive, you idiot! If you start getting weird ideas, you’re dead!” She didn’t have the confidence to convince him to be her partner when she had no real power of her own, but she couldn’t just abandon him and leave after coming all this way. As she shouted with a flushed face, Yunjae let out a soft chuckle.
“Don’t worry! I’ve been trained by NPCs, so my standards are max level too!”
“What...?”
“Even Rosa, the shopkeeper NPC, was designed as a drop-dead gorgeous, leggy beauty. I think my aesthetic standards got permanently calibrated to her.” Mari’s eyebrow twitched.
“…So, you’re saying this Rosa is prettier than me?”
“Ah! I’m sorry! But Rosa isn’t actually an old lady! She’s only called that in name!” So there’s no way you could compare!
“Ugh.” Mari grimaced, feeling an inexplicable wave of defeat wash over her.
“Of course, you’re pretty too, Mari. You’re tall, and you have that cool warrior-woman vibe. It’s just that the NPCs were so ridiculously beautiful that...”
“Shut up.”
“Ah, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you!”
“Quiet! You look like the one who’s upset.”
“…Well, I’m just a good-for-nothing game character anyway. I don’t get upset.”
He was clearly throwing a tantrum. Seeing him hold a passive-aggressive grudge like the absolute embodiment of social anxiety and timidity that he was, Mari let out a weary sigh.
“…My bad. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s my fault for being a mere game character and comparing a real person to an NPC...”
“Oh, seriously! I said I was sorry!” Driven to the brink of tears by his relentless, guilt-tripping grudge, Mari wanted to scream. Having endured thirteen hours of his self-deprecating “I’m just a game character” routine during the flight, she was desperate to make it stop.
“Ah, but if you say it like that, it makes me look like the bad guy...”
“Oh, give me a break!” This guy was definitely a master of psychological torture. Maybe his timid, introverted personality was just a front. Maybe he was actually a genius at slowly draining a person’s sanity. As Mari stared at him with pleading, exhausted eyes, Yunjae finally nodded, his solemn expression softening.
“Alright! Let’s go then!”
This jerk is definitely still holding a grudge! He was pretending to be cool, but his eyes weren’t smiling at all. One wrong word, and he would immediately relapse into his guilt-tripping routine.
“Right, okay. Let’s go catch a taxi first.” He was truly an exhausting companion. It was undeniable that he possessed power far surpassing even the legendary hunter Demian, but she couldn’t help but wonder if partnering up with him was actually a good idea. He was the absolute pinnacle of social anxiety and passive-aggressive grudges!
“But really, thank you. I’m so glad the first person I met after returning was someone as kind as you, Mari.”
Huh? Seeing him beam at her, she wondered if he had actually let it go.
“Though the real problem is that I’m just a good-for-nothing game character...”
“Ah! I said I’m sorry! I’m really, really sorry!” Of course, a grudge of his caliber was never going to end that easily!
“Rosa might be incredibly beautiful, but you have something she doesn’t, Mari. And I really like that about you.”
“What?” She might not be as stunning as the NPC Rosa, but it seemed he had found a unique charm in her.
“What do you mean? What do I have...?” Having spent more than half of her twenty-seven years of life in the brutal hunter world, Mari had never heard anyone speak to her like this.
“NPCs are beautiful, but all their expressions and reactions are pre-programmed. It felt like being trapped in a world of mannequins. But you’re different, Mari. I love how expressive you are.” Hearing those words from a man whose charm stat was maxed out, Mari’s heart skipped a beat.
“I wouldn’t know. Is that so...?” In truth, she had always prided herself on having a stoic poker face. Flustered and embarrassed, Mari turned her blushing face away, pretending not to care.
“Anyway, I feel like I can die without any regrets now! I’m going to enjoy whatever short life I have left!”
“…You’re going to live for at least another fifty years, you know.”
“Ah! I’m in my late seventies! At most, I only have about twenty years left!” Refusing to back down on his claim of being a septuagenarian, Yunjae stood his ground. Mari nodded with a weary sigh.
“Fine. Then what on earth do you plan to do with those twenty years?” Yunjae looked at her with a soft chuckle.
“I need to make up for all the years I lost to that game.”
“And you’re going to do that by working part-time jobs? That is the definition of wasting talent!”
“Look at it this way, Mari. Let’s say you were born a genius marksman.”
“And?”
“But what if you were forced to do nothing but shoot for fifty-seven years straight, without even sleeping? You couldn’t do anything else, just shooting, day in and day out, for fifty-seven years.”
“Well...”
“Once you finally escaped that, would you ever want to pick up a gun again? No matter how good you were at it?” Put that way, his perspective actually made a lot of sense.
“But this isn’t a game, it’s—”
“A game is actually way more thrilling! There’s no sense of impact here at all!” This world was a playground of low-level weaklings; how could it ever satisfy a max-level player? Unless he fought someone on the level of the Demon God Mamon, he wouldn’t feel a single spark of excitement. Faced with the sheer, overwhelming reality of his max-level status, Mari fell silent.
“Besides, I’ve always wanted to try working as a waiter! I heard it’s the part-time job where office romances happen the most, so I absolutely have to try it!”
“…You idiot, is that seriously your ultimate goal in life?!”
“Ah! I’ve been single for seventy-seven years! Before I die, I just want to experience the thrill of sending a heart-fluttering text message to someone!” At the desperate cry of a seventy-seven-year-old virgin, Mari let out a deep, heavy sigh.
“Of course, there’s no way something like that would ever happen to a pathetic guy like me...”
“You could probably make it happen right now if you actually tried. Why are you always so gloomy?”
“But I’m just an ordinary guy who wasted his entire life on a video game.” He really, truly detested games. Mari let out another long sigh.
“Fine, fine. Do whatever you want.” She honestly had no idea if she could ever convince him to become her partner. Was she really making the right choice here?
“Anyway, thank you so much for staying with me, Mari! I’ll definitely repay your kindness!” But he certainly wasn’t a bad person. He might be timid and hold long-lasting grudges, but he was also the type who would never forget a favor.
“Alright. I’ll make sure to send you a massive bill later.” He was different from people like Jay or Jimmy, who only banded together for immediate profit. As she smiled warmly at the thought, Yunjae replied with a bright face.
“Yes! I’ll even carry you through a boss dungeon raid!”
“You’ve arrived, Demian.” Ryu Taejun, the leader of the Blast Guild, welcomed Demian as he stepped into Incheon International Airport.
“So you’re the strongest hunter, Demian Lewis?”
“Good to meet you.” Beside Ryu Taejun, the S-rank ability users acting as guards, Hoshino Akemi and Anton Chekhov, also seemed quite pleased to meet Demian, one of the world’s strongest hunters.
It made sense; at this point in time, the Nemesis Guild had not yet been formed to oppose the Blast Guild. Currently, the Blast Guild reigned supreme as the strongest guild not just in Asia, but in the entire world. In the future, the Nemesis Guild that Demian founded would grow powerful enough to rival them, leading to a fierce competition. But right now, Demian’s priority was to eliminate the Demon King Kadmus, which was why he had sought to cooperate with them so early on. However...
“We have to find him!”
“Huh?” Right now, Demian had found someone far more important than the Blast Guild. Although he had to meet them first due to their prior arrangement at the airport...
“What are you talking about?”
“Slender Forearms! We must find Slender Forearms!” Now that he had met them, he had to track down that absurdly powerful ability user.
“Eee? Slender Forearms?” Flustered by the bizarre name, Akemi, the beautiful Japanese girl dressed in Gothic Lolita fashion, looked down at her own forearms.
“I mean, I’m not twenty yet, so I guess I’m a girl, but...” She was nineteen, after all. So she could technically be considered a girl, right?
What is he on about? Why was he suddenly looking for a girl’s forearms? He was handsome, but did he have some weird fetish? As Akemi stared at him with suspicious eyes, Demian shook his head.
“N-No, that’s not what I mean! There’s a guy running around with the name ‘Slender Forearms’ and a strange red bar floating above his head! We have to find him!” At his words, Taejun, Akemi, and Anton exchanged bewildered glances.
Is this guy really the Demian Lewis?
What on earth is a ‘Slender Forearms’?
He’s a bit of a weirdo.
Sensing their shared skepticism, Demian spoke urgently, as if there was no time to waste.
“He is the strongest ability user currently in existence!”
“…Even stronger than you?” Currently, Demian operated independently without belonging to any guild. Despite this, his reputation was legendary because his individual power rivaled that of an entire guild. For someone like Demian to speak of another in such a manner was unprecedented.
“I don’t know for sure, but most likely!” In truth, since he had never fought him, Demian couldn’t measure the exact scale of his strength. However, the man had summoned the Demon King Kadmus—the very being destined to bring humanity to ruin—and ordered him around like a pet. If asked whether he could win in a fight against such a monster...
“He is undoubtedly stronger than me!” At that, Ryu Taejun, the leader of the Blast Guild, nodded with a serious expression.
“I see. Akemi, find him.”
“On it!” Flash! In an instant, Akemi’s body vanished into thin air.