2
# My Daughter Is the Final Boss
## Chapter 2
She reacted far more dramatically than I expected.
I hadn't intended to shock her this much.
Yoo Eun-hye asked again as though she had heard me wrong.
“W-what did you say?”
“Huh? I said we should get married.”
“Wait a minute…… Have you been drinking?”
“No. I'm completely sober.”
I had cruelly pushed Eun-hye away in the past because I was flustered.
I had also abandoned Seol-ah, who had no one to rely on except me.
I had been thinking that I absolutely needed to take responsibility this time.
Objectively speaking, Eun-hye was far too good for a guy like me.
In truth, I didn't even have the right to say something like this, but I felt like I would regret it if I didn't say it now.
“Why didn't you talk to me about it in the first place?”
“When we broke up…… I promised myself I wouldn't contact you.”
“But you came back anyway?”
“……Because now, Seol-ah comes before my pride.”
Eun-hye was twenty-six, the same age as me.
But she was far more mature and thoughtful than I had been at that age.
She had probably made the decision to give birth to Seol-ah and raise her alone after agonizing over it in her own way.
After hesitating, Eun-hye forced the words out.
“I only came to you because my circumstances left me with no other choice. It's not because I still have feelings for you.”
“Yeah. I suppose so. I was immature back then. Considering how things ended, it would be strange if you still had feelings for me.”
“But suddenly talking about marriage…… Honestly, it's confusing.”
“……I figured. Yeah.”
I couldn't hold back the words that came from the deepest part of my heart.
I had suddenly proposed to her, but from Eun-hye's perspective, it was understandable that she would be confused.
After all, we had broken up, and Eun-hye probably didn't have any strong feelings for me.
She was different from me, who had spent years regretting it after belatedly realizing the emptiness left by Eun-hye's absence.
“I'm sorry.”
“No. It's okay.”
“Still, Seol-ah is your child and my child too, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I think a child needs a father.”
I began persuading Eun-hye with what seemed like the obvious truth.
Eun-hye nodded as though she agreed.
Seol-ah was five years old now.
She was at an age when she needed her parents' attention and love more than ever.
Knowing the terrible future that awaited her, that was even more important.
“You're right about that.”
“She may be your child, but she's mine too. I think it's only right that I take responsibility.”
“Seo-jun. I'm already grateful that you've let us stay here. Let's talk about that later.”
“Okay. Let's do that.”
I readily agreed.
There was no point trying to appeal to Eun-hye with words alone. They wouldn't truly reach her.
A happy family has a positive influence on a child.
For Seol-ah to grow up properly, the first thing that needed to change was the relationship between Eun-hye and me.
At the very least, I needed to escape the image of being her immature ex-boyfriend.
Time was approaching noon.
It was time to figure out lunch.
“Eun-hye. Have you eaten?”
“Hm? No.”
“Then, want to go eat something good?”
“Something good?”
Seol-ah, who had been quietly focused on her smartphone, reacted.
Our eyes met.
Her eyes seemed to sparkle.
How could such a beautiful child be my daughter?
I had to praise Eun-hye's genes.
“Seol-ah. Want to go?”
“Yes!”
---
“What does Seol-ah like?”
“I like everything!”
“Really? There has to be something you like the most.”
“Ice cweam!”
I had asked because I couldn't decide what to eat, and the answer I got was ice cream.
Even so, we couldn't have ice cream for lunch.
I promised to buy her some later and headed toward a nearby restaurant for now.
I didn't even know what Seol-ah liked……
I was blaming myself internally when I noticed Seol-ah hesitating beside me.
She seemed unsure whether to hold my hand with her tiny hand, so she compromised by tightly gripping the hem of my pants.
“Cough.”
“Did you choke?”
“No.”
A perfect straight punch aimed directly at my left ventricle.
She was almost unbearably cute.
She had grabbed the hem of my pants so subtly that it was barely noticeable, and she was watching my reaction.
Still, she seemed to have a fairly outgoing personality and appeared to want to become closer to me.
I hadn't realized she was this trusting.
“Seol-ah. It's dangerous, so shall we hold hands?”
“……Okay!”
Seol-ah took my hand without hesitation.
She held Eun-hye's hand with one hand and mine with the other, looking incredibly excited.
She looked back and forth between Eun-hye and me, then giggled happily.
And this child was supposed to destroy the world.
Honestly, I couldn't believe it.
I could almost believe that everything that had happened before my regression had been nothing more than a dream.
“We're here.”
We stopped in front of a bunsik restaurant.
Eun-hye blinked and looked at me.
“You don't like bunsik.”
“It's not that I don't like it.”
“Then why are we here?”
“Because you like it.”
Eun-hye especially loved tteokbokki.
On the other hand, I hated bunsik, and it had often caused minor arguments between us when we were dating.
It was something I had remembered and regretted after Eun-hye died.
I still didn't know why I hadn't eaten tteokbokki with her just because it was something I didn't particularly like.
Eun-hye looked at me suspiciously.
“Are you really Lee Seo-jun?”
“Of course I am. Can Seol-ah eat tteokbokki?”
“I can eat it!”
“Oh, really?”
“But Mommy always washes it in water before giving it to me……”
We entered the restaurant.
It wasn't some fancy tteokbokki restaurant where the price of a serving rivaled that of a chicken.
It was the kind of small tteokbokki shop that could have been found in front of a school long ago.
But as far as I knew, several years later, this tteokbokki shop would become famous as a popular restaurant and make a fortune.
Though it would eventually be forced out after the landlord raised the rent.
After we ordered, an elderly woman soon brought out our tteokbokki.
“Wow. It looks yummy!”
“Whoa. It really does.”
“Don't drool, you idiot.”
Seol-ah seemed to love tteokbokki just as much as she took after Eun-hye.
Eun-hye, of course, was already salivating at the sight of it.
As for me, I honestly wasn't thrilled.
Just as Eun-hye had said, it wasn't food I particularly liked.
But that wasn't what mattered.
I was simply happy that the two of them were sitting in front of me.
“Where are the small plates?”
After setting out the small plates and utensils, we began eating.
Eun-hye and I both picked up a piece of tteokbokki with our forks and put it into our mouths at the same time.
And then I realized too late.
“It's spicy!”
This was the famous restaurant known for its spicy flavor.
My mouth opened instinctively as the fiery Korean spice made my tongue tingle.
Meanwhile, a gentle smile appeared at the corners of Eun-hye's mouth.
“This place is really good!”
“Y-yeah. It is.”
Honestly, it was delicious.
Except for the fact that it was spicy.
“Mommy. Give Seol-ah some too.”
“Let's wash it in water first.”
“Aw. No. Just give me some.”
“It'll be spicy.”
“It's okay!”
Faced with Seol-ah's bold insistence, Eun-hye subtly wiped the sauce off the tteokbokki against the edge of the plate.
It would be spicier than if she had washed it in water, but she had removed quite a lot of the sauce, so it should be manageable.
Seol-ah speared a piece of tteokbokki with her fork and opened her tiny mouth as wide as she could.
She bit off about a third of the rice cake and chewed it like a hamster.
As Seol-ah busily chewed the tteokbokki, her mouth slowly opened.
“Uegh, it's spihy.”
“Seol-ah inherited the weak-to-spicy gene.”
“Who are you calling weak to spicy? Hup. Ha, it's hot.”
---
In the end, Seol-ah washed her tteokbokki in water before eating it.
While she ate, I talked with Eun-hye.
Eun-hye calmly explained her plans.
“I'm going to join a guild.”
“A guild?”
“Yeah. I became an Awakened.”
Twenty-five years ago.
In other words, ten years from now.
An unprecedented natural disaster known as the Collapse occurred.
Rifts opened simultaneously all over the world.
All kinds of monsters poured out of them, causing massive loss of life.
It was even worse because conventional firearms were largely ineffective against them.
Back then, I really thought humanity was going to go extinct.
But humanity didn't perish.
That was thanks to people who absorbed the mana leaking from the rifts and adapted to it, gaining special powers.
They could easily cut down the monsters that even the full mobilization of the military couldn't stop.
They called themselves "Hunters."
Eun-hye had been a hunter just like me.
But Eun-hye's talent wasn't even remotely comparable to mine.
I was a failure who had repeatedly flunked the hunter license exam.
Eun-hye, on the other hand, was a super rookie who joined the front lines not long after becoming a hunter.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that our levels of talent were worlds apart.
Just then, a hunter's interview was being broadcast on television.
—Hello. I'm Seong Su-hyeon.
Alongside footage of a handsome man being interviewed, footage of him cutting down monsters was also being broadcast.
Seong Su-hyeon was a hunter who had gained tremendous popularity thanks to his handsome appearance and outstanding abilities.
At this point in time, his recognition was probably higher than that of most singers or actors.
He was a frontline hunter and, before my regression, had belonged to the same guild as Eun-hye.
“Hunters. They make a lot of money, don't they?”
Their annual salaries were astronomical.
And it wasn't simply because they risked their lives fighting monsters.
Monsters were more profitable than you might think.
The cores, which were essentially the hearts of monsters, were called a revolution in alternative energy and traded at extremely high prices.
In the case of powerful monsters, their by-products and materials could also be sold for absurd amounts of money.
Monster materials were processed into equipment for hunters.
“But it's dangerous.”
“That's why I wanted to ask you to look after Seol-ah.”
“Huh?”
This was a development that hadn't happened before.
Had something changed during that brief moment?
I couldn't tell.
“I got a contract from a guild.”
“Wait. Don't tell me you signed it?”
“Not yet, but I'm planning to.”
“You read it carefully, right?”
“Yeah. They said they'd give me more than the average signing bonus and help me obtain my license.”
I knew the guild that had approached Eun-hye.
And I also knew very well the methods guilds commonly used at this point in time.
They paid part of the signing bonus upfront, effectively tying the hunter down.
It might not have been a huge amount to an established hunter, but for someone like Eun-hye, who still lacked financial means, it was a fortune.
After that, they treated hunters almost like disposable tools while saddling them with debt.
They would force them to purchase equipment and arrange Looters at ridiculous prices, pocketing commissions in the process.
At this point, there were still many loopholes in the laws concerning hunters.
Guilds took advantage of those loopholes to ensnare rookie hunters in a swamp of debt.
The same thing had happened to me, and Eun-hye was no different.
Unlike me, Eun-hye quickly demonstrated her abilities and proved her worth, allowing her to escape the debt trap before long.
Then she died in an accident.
Eun-hye's death was also one of Seol-ah's misfortunes.
The five misfortunes Seol-ah had suffered.
One of them probably included the death of the only person she could rely on, her mother, Eun-hye.
Even if that wasn't the case, I couldn't simply stand by and watch that future repeat itself.
Eun-hye was an exceptionally talented hunter.
But because of the guild's oppression, she died without ever getting the chance to spread her wings properly.
“Eun-hye, you.”
Who was I?
I was a repeat examinee of repeat examinees, having failed the hunter license exam a whopping seven times.
When it came to the license exam, I was practically an expert.
And that wasn't all. I also knew what would happen in the future.
If I made good use of that knowledge, I could definitely provide a better environment than any guild could.
“I'll raise you up.”