Uninvited Guests - 7
Even if The Dang Clan's Storm sold out day after day, even if Hwarin's skin grew smoother with every sunrise, the dreadful fact that I had to show up for work every morning never changed.
“Hey. Yunho! Get up!”
I yawned and stretched in bed at Hwarin's morning call. Lately I'd been burning the candle at both ends writing volume three of The Dang Clan's Storm, so sleep was in short supply.
Having to cut sleep short because the words wouldn't come, snatch a catnap, then scramble out of bed to open the shop the next day—that was my life. Even after transmigrating into this world and starting a full-fledged writing career, things hadn't changed much from reality. The only silver lining was that my commute took less than a minute.
I still wasn't living the dream of professional authors who sleep in till noon, brunch with a coffee, and write at a leisurely pace.
“Wash up already.”
Hwarin frowned slightly, clearly annoyed that I was still lounging in bed, and prodded me to get moving. I stared at her blankly with a half-asleep face.
“Hwarin. Your skin looks even better than yesterday.”
“Really?”
At those few words, her frown vanished in an instant.
It was true. They say a scholar who hasn't been seen for three days should be looked at with fresh eyes; Hwarin looked different before she went to sleep and after she woke up.
“Watching you grow more beautiful by the day fills this big brother of yours with pure emotion.”
I made exaggerated, theatrical gestures to drive the point home.
“What the hell is this first thing in the morning?”
Don't get all serious—play along with the skit once in a while, would you?
“I'm telling you, it's getting better.”
“Ohhh really? Then hurry up and check.”
Color flooded Hwarin's face as she perched on the edge of her bed and thrust her chin toward me.
Here we go again. Ever since her skin started recovering, Hwarin had developed a strange habit: she wanted me to touch her newly cleared skin so she could feel the difference for herself. Apparently my hands made the improvement hit harder.
“If I keep touching it, my hand poison will build up. I already checked yesterday.”
“What nonsense. Do I look like someone who'd get addicted to something as minor as hand poison?”
Fair point. Hwarin wasn't just the type who could chew rebar and digest it—she was half Dokin, capable of swallowing and processing deadly toxins. Still, she could just look in a mirror. Why did it have to be this?
It felt like the gamer who, after successfully enhancing a weapon to +20, couldn't just enjoy looking at it—he had to show it off in the global chat so everyone else would confirm it for him.
“Fine. I'll do it.”
I got out of bed with a reluctant expression and walked over to her.
“What, you don't want to?”
“Nooo.”
“Heh heh. What was that just now?”
I carefully began to touch the lower half of Hwarin's face. The mottled, blotchy skin that had once claimed her jawline was becoming a thing of the past. Her hidden beauty was rising rapidly to the surface. Half of her lower face was already clear, and even the worst patches had faded to the level of old, severe acne scars.
It felt like watching a high-school girl who had suffered terrible hormonal breakouts finally graduate, go to college, and completely remake herself.
The only problem was that she was turning into the complete package of a classic high-school bully—the kind that triggered my trauma. Once her face was fully healed and she barked “What are you looking at?” I had a feeling I'd flinch and look away on pure instinct.
“You're definitely getting prettier.”
Maybe I was still half-asleep. The words slipped out without any filter from my brain.
“Wh-wh-what? Ahh!”
“Good. That's enough.”
To recover the situation, I gave her T-zone a few firm presses like a massage and turned away.
“Aaaah. Whyyy?”
Hwarin demanded to know why I'd stopped in the middle.
“The sun's high in the sky. We need to get ready and open the bookstore.”
What, are you upset? That should be plenty.
“Um… Yunho.”
As I headed off to wash up, Hwarin called me back with a vaguely disappointed look.
“What?”
“My… upper body has gotten better too.”
“That's good to hear.”
“So, about that…”
Hwarin averted her eyes and, with timid little movements, started undoing the front of her clothes. What the hell are you doing, Hwarin? It's fine to show off a +20 weapon, but you don't go around sharing your account password.
“W-w-want to check here too?”
She pulled the front of her clothes open just a little and angled herself toward me.
“…What?”
For a second, the incomprehensible line she'd just spoken echoed inside my skull. Check what? How am I supposed to check it?
“No. It's not. I mean it's not like that. It's just… the healed parts here might feel different, you know. So… uh… um…”
Hwarin tried to clean up the words she'd already spilled, overloading herself in the process, while still holding the front of her clothes open in that timid grip.
What is this, Kongming's empty fort stratagem? She's from the Sichuan Dang Clan, not the Zhuge Clan. I strode straight up to her.
“Eek!”
The moment my shadow fell across her upper body, Hwarin let out a high-pitched squeak and looked away. Why say things you can't follow through on and then panic?
Maybe the daily skin level-ups had her too happy to think straight. Plus, Hwarin was terrible at gauging personal distance, so she might have just screwed up. After all, her streak of friendlessness had recently been just as long as her age—worse than a certain Kang Mo somewhere whose virginity matched his years.
“I'm touching.”
Gulp. The sound of someone swallowing hard came from somewhere when I made the casual declaration. Hwarin, this is the part where you're supposed to refuse. If I leave you alone, you're going to get yourself into real trouble.
Time to teach her a lesson.
I bent my hand at a sharp right angle—exactly like one of those banana free-kicks Thiago Motta used to fire for Inter that dropped at ninety degrees—and pinched Hwarin's stomach right through the open front of her clothes.
“Hey! Where the hell do you think you're touching?!”
Hwarin shot up off the bed like a kid who'd just been dunked in a scalding hot spring.
“What? You told me to touch your upper body.”
“Did I say to touch there?!”
“Then where was I supposed to touch?”
Kang Yunho knows nothing.
“That's… I mean… damn it.”
When I just looked at her with a completely clueless face, Hwarin scowled in frustration. This alone was a pretty good lesson, but if I wanted to really drive the point home, it still felt a little short.
“Hwarin. While I was touching, I noticed something…”
I deliberately leaned in close to her ear and spoke in a careful tone.
“Wh-what is it?”
“…You've been overeating lately.”
“Hey! Kang Yunho!”
“Hahahahahaha!”
I bolted into the washroom and locked the door behind me.
“When you come out, you're dead!”
Before I knew it, closing time had arrived. The customers and staff were all gone; only Hwarin and I remained.
“I'll be in the print room doing some printing. Just finish the rest of the cleanup for me.”
“Let's do it together.”
“I need to move my body at least a little.”
“I told you that was a joke earlier.”
“Whatever.”
Still clearly bothered by what had happened that morning, Hwarin hurried off toward the print room with quick little steps.
“Fine. When you're done, let's go get something to eat.”
I sent her off and handled the remaining cleanup myself. The staff had already done most of it before clocking out, so there wasn't much left, but finishing things properly was always the superior's job, wasn't it?
After the light tidying, I headed for the entrance to lock up—only to sense people right outside the door.
“Is this the place?”
“Yes. This is it.”
Suddenly several men in rain cloaks walked straight into the bookstore. Is it raining out there? They had the hoods pulled up over their heads too.
“Customers, we're closed for the day.”
Couldn't you see the “Closed” sign right at the front?
I put on the warm smile of everyone's friendly neighborhood Manager Kang and tried to shoo them out. But the men in rain cloaks paid me no mind and kept coming in.
“Customers?”
Maybe they were here for The Dang Clan's Storm. It wasn't the first or second time this had happened, so I was used to it—but rules were rules.
“You men seal the entrance. If there's another exit, find it and block that too. Only the deputy leader and the few I named stay inside.”
“Yes, sir!”
When the middle-aged man gave the order and pulled off his rain cloak, I realized something was very wrong.
Why the hell are martial artists from the Sichuan Dang Clan suddenly here?
The hair that was revealed when the middle-aged man removed his cloak was purple. Looking closer, every single one of the other men had purple hair as well.
“Where is the person you mentioned?”
“Over there. That one.”
At the middle-aged man's question, one of the martial artists pointed at me, and the full weight of that gaze slammed into me.
They weren't here with good intentions. The look in their eyes was anything but friendly. My body's danger alarms were blaring. At this rate, sleeping comfortably tonight was going to be difficult.
“Oh my! Looking closer, aren't you the Sichuan Dang Clan warrior who visited Daseogak last time? What brings you here?”
I put on an easygoing expression and walked toward the man who had pointed me out.
“….”
Even when I pretended to know him, the martial artist just avoided my eyes. Go ahead and say it out loud if you're here for something nasty.
Was this about The Dang Clan's Storm? I didn't know the details, but they'd already sealed the entrance. If they weren't here with good intentions, I was in real danger alone.
I needed to buy time so Hwarin in the print room could notice the visitors. I tried to keep the conversation going.
“Looking for volume three, by any chance? Unfortunately it isn't out yet. If you really came back because you can't wait for it, I can specially set aside a copy for you later and—”
“You're the owner of Daseogak?”
The middle-aged man cut me off and got straight to the point.
“Yes, I'm the owner of Daseogak. Now that I look, you're from the same Sichuan Dang Clan. Did this gentleman here praise The Dang Clan's Storm so much that you came to buy more copies?”
Please just say you came to place an extra order. I'll even give you a brand-new copy I pull fresh from the print room.
“Where is Hopil?”
Is Author Hopil your friend or something? I wanted to snap back but held my tongue. I dropped the customer-service smile and put on a serious face before speaking again.
“I cannot disclose Author Hopil's personal information. If you have a message to deliver, I'll pass it along.”
“You can't tell me, is that it… Fine. I never expected this to be easy.”
The middle-aged man's hand shot out and seized my throat in an instant. High-level martial artist. Even with my enhanced vision and reflexes, I couldn't dodge the hand that closed around my neck.
“Ghk!”
The grip around my throat tightened. I couldn't breathe. I tried to resist, but he shut me down with a simple move.
The middle-aged man didn't seem interested in killing me just yet. Once I was suffering enough, he set me back down.
“Now do you feel like answering my questions?”
“Why the hell are you doing this?”
I clutched my throat and asked the man.
“You already know why we came.”
“If this is about The Dang Clan's Storm, you're badly mistaken. The protagonist of The Dang Clan's Storm is a righteous chivalrous hero who hunts down a lustful villain. There's nothing to criticize. If you'd actually read it, you wouldn't have any reason to threaten me like this.”
There had been novels before that cast a Sichuan Dang Clan figure as a protagonist with a rotten personality who caused all sorts of trouble. And I'd never heard of the authors of those books coming to harm at the hands of the clan. Unless I'd written something that crossed a serious line—and I hadn't; I'd only written a story in which the Sichuan Dang Clan protagonist walked the proper path—there was no reason for this.
So why exactly had these people come looking for me?
“The so-called soulmate of Hopil is going to play dumb?”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“You're going to keep pretending not to know until the end. Fine.”
“What do you mean by—ghk!”
The middle-aged man's hand clamped around my throat again and lifted me clean off the ground.
“Tell me where Hopil lives. Otherwise I'll start by punishing you—the one who claims to be Hopil's zhiyin, his soulmate!”
“Why are you doing this?!”
I forced the air from my lungs and demanded an explanation. The middle-aged man spat his rage at me along with the reason.
It was something I had never expected.
“You bastards! How dare you! Publish the secret history of the Sichuan Dang Clan from over twenty years ago as a book—and still expect to live?!”