Hwang Jiwoo (3)
"Wow, it's literally Dream City. This is incredible......"
"How much do you think this place cost to build? They say construction took less than a year."
"Still, it's got to be worth a few hundred billion won, right?"
"Nah, way more. Even if it's on the outskirts of Hanam, land this size has to be worth a fortune?"
Baek Ajin's friends buzzed around the grounds in high spirits, exploring every corner.
A luxury apartment complex.
A bizarrely-shaped bunker.
And even a garden where a babbling stream wound past a whole collection of art pieces.
"Whoaaa."
It was nothing short of an endless chorus of gasps and admiration.
Click, click!
A group of women struck a variety of poses in the garden, snapping photos.
And then—
Hmm?
There was a man watching them from a distance.
Baek Jinwoo himself.
Who are those girls?
He didn't know every policy and schedule of the Yubaek, but he did know that civilian access had been locked down.
Judging by the looks of them, they're not employees either.
If they were staff, they wouldn't be lounging in the garden at this hour. Thanks to Yoo Jia's policy of hiring as few people as possible while giving them the absolute best treatment, the headcount was tiny.
And a tiny headcount meant constant work!
Besides, there's no way an employee would be wearing outfits like that.
- My Lord, don't you sense something?
Hungyo, standing at his side, murmured.
"You think one of them has the Flame Body?"
- The odds are high, if you ask me. Shall we go take a closer look?
"Sure."
He had no idea who any of them were.
It felt a little awkward, too.
But with Pokryongi's surprise quest hanging over his head, he couldn't exactly sit it out.
Baek Jinwoo walked over toward the girls, then gave a polite nod of his head.
"Hello there."
Freeze!
The women stopped mid-motion, their eyes swinging toward him—and then locked solid.
Wh-what the—
What's going on?
Baek Jinwoo, right in front of me? Is this real?
They trembled from head to toe, as if they'd just been received into the presence of a living god.
And who was Baek Jinwoo, after all?
Wasn't he the hero of heroes, envied by every single citizen of the nation?
The confusion quickly melted into delight, and delight into pure joy.
"Kyaaah!"
"It's Baek Jinwoo! Ajin's brother!"
"What brings you here! Weren't you at the training grounds?"
Her friends threw everything else to the wind and crowded around him, while Hwang Jiwoo stood rooted to the spot, staring at Baek Jinwoo's face.
Insane.
She swore under her breath.
How could a human being be that good-looking?
Baek Jinwoo had always been handsome, but once his physical abilities had reached their absolute peak, he'd radiated a raw, untamed magnetism.
Broad shoulders, a chest that pushed out of his shirt, defined abs.
Even his clothes fit his muscles in perfect harmony, so that his whole body seemed to glow.
Ughhhh.
Hiccup!
She should have spoken up right then.
Should have said: I'm Ajin's friend. I want to become a Player—could you teach me, just once? Even ten minutes would be enough.
But instead, Hwang Jiwoo stood there like a mute who'd swallowed honey, unable to get a single word out.
She was just embarrassed.
Ah.
Baek Jinwoo finally put it all together.
"You girls. You're Ajin's friends, aren't you?"
"Yes!"
"Yes, oppa! C-could you sign something for me?"
"A photo for me! A photo!"
Good grief.
Baek Jinwoo felt his energy drain away in a single breath.
"An autograph...... I've never actually done one of those."
"You can just scribble anything!"
"M-me too, please!"
They swarmed him like ravenous hyenas.
Like fangirls who'd just run into their favorite celebrity, they dove in without a shred of hesitation.
Baek Jinwoo calmed them down.
"Okay, I'll do it all—autographs, photos, everything. So can you just follow my instructions for a minute? You're all driving me crazy here."
And then—
Whoosh!
He summoned Pokryongi right beside him.
"Alright, come one at a time. I'll take photos and sign whatever you want."
He needed to check for the Flame Body anyway.
If they were Ajin's friends, all the better.
I'll use the photo ops to get close and size each of them up!
"Yes!"
"Yes, oppa!"
Who was he to be disobeyed!
Baek Ajin's friends followed his instructions to the letter.
Click!
Taking selfie after selfie, doling out fan service one girl at a time, Baek Jinwoo kept a careful eye on the corner of his vision.
Current Period — 0 days, 00:00:00
The timer wasn't moving.
If the Flame Body were among them, it should have started by now. But it hadn't moved, which meant—
I guess it's none of them?
Train the Fire Dragon Mage (EX-Rank) beside a Flame Body (Body of Flame) for 100 days!
Beside.
He still had no idea how close that word—beside—demanded them to be physically.
It could mean within a meter, or perhaps it required actual physical contact.
Click, click!
He photographed all seven of Ajin's friends one by one and signed every single autograph.
For the signatures, he'd scrawled a messy doodle resembling a wiggling earthworm.
"Ahh, this is the best."
"Your signature is so cool!"
Cool? Which part exactly?
They were this thrilled over a half-hearted scribble—it actually made Baek Jinwoo feel guilty.
I should make her a proper one later......
And then, the last one.
A girl in a face mask stood frozen at a distance, apart from the others.
"Not getting one yourself?"
When Baek Jinwoo asked, she flinched.
"Hwang Jiwoo?"
"Jiwoo, what are you doing? You should get one too."
"Is she running a fever again or something?"
Her friends approached her with worried looks.
Baek Jinwoo followed them over.
Truthfully, he could have simply skipped her. But given his need to find the Flame Body, he had no choice.
And then—
Current Period — 0 days, 00:00:01
Tick!
The stopwatch, frozen until now, had finally begun to run.
"......!"
Baek Jinwoo's eyes flashed.
Found her.
The Flame Body (Body of Flame)!
It was you all along!
After seeing Ajin's friends off, he headed straight for the CEO's office at headquarters.
He hadn't said a word to the girl who was apparently Hwang Jiwoo.
Trying to explain would have been a joke in itself.
'Actually, you have a rare constitution called the Flame Body, so I'm going to need you to lock yourself away in training camp with my Pokryongi for 100 days—for my sake.'
Yeah, like anyone would agree to that. He'd be lucky if she didn't have him committed as a lunatic.
First things first.
Time to find out who this girl even was.
Baek Jinwoo summoned both Yoo Jia and Baek Ajin to the office.
"Ajin. I ran into your friends today."
"My friends? Whoa, the girls! They actually made it into the training grounds? I told them over and over not to go!"
Baek Ajin, startled, snatched up her phone as if ready to give them hell.
"It's not that."
He calmed her down first.
"I didn't meet them at the training grounds. They were hanging out in the park, and I walked over to them."
"You did?"
"Yeah."
"Why would you do that?"
Not just Baek Ajin—Yoo Jia was also looking at him with open curiosity.
"Well, Hwang Jiwoo, was it? Are you close with her?"
"Jiwoo? We're close! She was always sick, so we never really went out anywhere, but back in school she was basically my best friend. Why?"
Baek Ajin narrowed her eyes at him.
Come to think of it, all her friends were attractive, but Hwang Jiwoo's face was prettier than most.
"Don't tell me you're interested in her?"
"......?"
Yoo Jia's expression turned odd as well.
"No, no. It's nothing like that."
Baek Jinwoo explained the surprise quest in broad terms.
To unlock Pokryongi's true power, they needed Hwang Jiwoo, the bearer of the Flame Body. To do that, they'd have to bring her in for a hundred days.
"She's your friend. I was going to look into things first before asking—what she does for a living, whether she'd even be interested, and so on."
If she'd been a total stranger, he would have just approached her directly and made his pitch. But this was his sister's friend.
Proper consideration was the right call here. Besides, even if Hwang Jiwoo agreed, there would inevitably be contracts, legal issues, and other matters to review through Yoo Jia first.
"Ahh, hmm, well. I honestly have no idea what she's been up to since becoming an adult. She's never been much of a talker. Want me to ask her?"
"Yeah, I'd appreciate that."
"Okay."
Thud!
"Haaaah."
Back home, Hwang Jiwoo peeled off her face mask.
And at the same moment, a tidal wave of self-loathing bloomed in her chest.
In the end, I couldn't say a single word.
Idiot!
You absolute moron!
It had been a chance. A chance that would never come again.
The group chat was still on fire.
The friends who'd gone on the tour were sharing photos and gushing, while the ones who'd missed it for various reasons were drowning in envy.
But Hwang Jiwoo hadn't joined in at all.
Why couldn't I just talk to him?
Looking back, it was because she was simply too considerate. She'd been afraid of throwing off the mood.
Hadn't Baek Ajin warned them too—don't bother my brother?
And how shameless would it have been, on top of that, to ask a total stranger to teach her summoning magic?
"Sigh."
Hwang Jiwoo let out a long breath and buried her face in her pillow.
Right. Think of it simply.
You asked, and he said no. That's what happened.
Even if she had spoken up, there was no guarantee Baek Jinwoo would have said yes so easily, right?
Her parents called from outside saying dinner was ready, but she didn't have the energy to answer. She just muttered that she had no appetite and kept her door firmly shut.
And then, in that moment—
Ding!
A text message arrived.
Her group chat notifications were always on silent, so this was a personal one.
For me?
On her phone, the only people who ever messaged her were the girls in the group chat. She had almost no one else who'd reach out.
Who is it?
She finally lifted her head and checked her phone—and had to jolt upright in shock.
Ajin?
They'd been close in middle school, but once they'd been split into different classes, they'd never once contacted each other privately. Greeting each other at the occasional reunion was the extent of it—and Hwang Jiwoo had never even properly attended those.
She'd assumed there was a certain distance between them, so what was this about?
"......"
Whoosh!
Hwang Jiwoo sat up.
Her heart was pounding wildly.
If she was going as far as calling directly, something had to be going on, didn't it?
Tap!
She pressed the call button without hesitation.
In the end, Baek Ajin grilled her about this and that.
Occupation: Player.
Residence: Seodaemun District.
Guild affiliation: none yet.
Hwang Jiwoo answered each question faithfully.
And then—
"Actually, it's a job with seriously good pay. Interested?"
A job?
Huh.
Hwang Jiwoo's spirits plummeted in an instant.
So the call had just been a headhunting attempt after all?
And not even a proper job—an odd job at that......
"H-how much are we talking......?"
Hwang Jiwoo didn't have much money.
But if it was work introduced by a friend who sat on the board of directors at Yubaek itself?
It might actually pay quite well.
Since she needed to save up to buy a higher-rank summon, she wasn't in any position to be picky.
"The deal is a 100-day live-in commitment. One billion won, after taxes."
"Wh-what?"
O-one billion?
"What exactly is the work? Live-in... do I have to go catch shrimp or something?"
No, that couldn't be it.
Even shrimping wouldn't net her a billion won.
And hadn't Baek Ajin said she'd cover taxes on top of it?
Hwang Jiwoo's eyes lit up.
One hundred days of hard work—and in return?
She could afford to buy a single B-rank summon!
"Fair warning, it's rough. Zero downtime, and you can't be away from the site for more than an hour at a time. It's hard to explain over the phone—I'll fill you in in person. How about tomorrow? I'll come to your place."
But.
It was terrifying, too.
What kind of situation could it possibly be, that Baek Ajin was coming out with all guns blazing like this?
"So I can still say no after I hear the explanation?"
"Of course, of course! Don't worry about it. It's nothing sketchy, I promise."
Right.
She was her friend, after all. Surely she wouldn't rope her into something dangerous?
For now, she'd just go and see.