Error
All I had to do was wait until the dead of night.
That was the plan, until my phone suddenly rang with a call from Eun Hayoon.
“Hello.”
“What’re you up to?”
“Just bought a few things I need for the stream. Why?”
“If you’re free, hang out with me. I’m bored.”
“No, I was just about to go over some Tower guides—”
“Oh, so you are free? Great. I’m waiting outside your place. Bye.”
“Wait, hold on—!”
I tried to tell her I might be a little late, but Hayoon hung up on me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Exactly one week ago, something about her had started going weird.
She’d been calling me like I was a daily quest—morning, noon, and night, without a single break.
It wasn’t that I hated it. Honestly, though? It was exhausting.
All I wanted was to sprawl out on my bed and watch some shooting videos in peace. Fat chance of that happening.
If I ignored the calls and tried to rest, she’d just show up at my door and make my life even harder.
“At this rate, how am I any different from some whipped husband…?”
The old saying goes that you can’t win against your wife. Well, this was close enough.
I stuffed the mask into my crossbody bag, then headed home to where Hayoon was waiting.
“Ugh, I really don’t want to go home…”
Just like she’d said, she was waiting right in front of the apartment lobby.
And she was dressed to the nines.
Even someone as dense as me could tell—Hayoon had gone all out.
An ivory off-shoulder dress that left her collarbones completely bare, plus heels she almost never wore.
As if that outfit weren’t enough, the girl who was supposed to be a national team athlete for South Korea had gone and committed the outrageous act of showing her bare face without even trying to hide it.
“Why are you so late? My legs hurt.”
“You show up out of nowhere and then complain? I was out pretty far. This is me rushing, okay?”
“Princess-carry me.”
“…What?”
I’d rejected her confession, hadn’t I?
I was certain I had turned Eun Hayoon down.
And yet here she was demanding a princess carry. Completely ridiculous.
“W-what did you just say…?”
“My legs hurt, so princess-carry me. Or… should we just go inside your place together like this?”
She even threw in an absurd threat for good measure.
If my parents hadn’t been home, it might have been manageable. Unfortunately, they were very much home right now.
You might wonder what my parents have to do with any of this—but there was a very real problem, which was why I was stressing out.
My parents adored Hayoon to an almost terrifying degree.
They openly called her their daughter-in-law. I honestly had no idea how much they liked her.
If Hayoon walked into my house right now… the outcome was painfully obvious.
So I made a decision.
“…Just this once. This is the kind of thing couples do, you know.”
“Couples? Then let’s be one.”
“What?”
“Wanna date me?”
“What the hell did you eat today…?”
Reluctantly, I scooped Hayoon up into my arms.
“Hey, seriously—did you eat something weird? Why are you so heavy?”
“…You wanna die? I’ve been dieting lately!”
“Whoa, whoa. Joke. Just a joke.”
Carrying her, I made it out of the apartment complex.
“Hey, how’s it feel touching a girl’s legs? Soft, right?”
At this point I genuinely started to wonder if she was trying to turn me into a criminal.
“Did you actually take something…? Get down right now, you lunatic.”
“I was just joking around a little. Jinwoo, can you take me all the way to the café?”
For the record, the nearest café from where I was standing was only about three hundred meters away.
“I really picked the wrong friend…. This is all my fault.”
“What’s wrong with me? And walk slowly while you’re at it. Don’t go fast and trip.”
She was even worrying about me falling.
I’d told her once that I used to trip a lot as a kid. Apparently she still remembered.
That was… actually kind of touching.
I walked to the café at a slower pace than usual.
Even if every step made me feel a hundred pairs of eyes and desperately want to dump Hayoon and run.
Before long we reached the café.
The happiness of finally being able to put Hayoon down outweighed even the joy of injecting the caffeine that powered my entire existence.
“Hey, I can put you down now, right? Carrying you inside the café would be mortifying.”
At that, Hayoon just smirked.
“What are you talking about? You have to pick me up again after we finish our coffee. My legs still hurt.”
“You should’ve just stayed home quietly. Why’d you even go out?”
“I made a resolution after you rejected me.”
“A resolution about what?”
I genuinely didn’t know, so I asked casually. Hayoon gave me a mischievous look.
“That I’m going to make you fall for me no matter what.”
“Uh… good luck with that.”
I tried to play it cool, but inside I was anything but.
My pulse was racing so hard it reminded me of the Olympic finals a year ago—the kind of thundering heartbeat that made you wonder if your heart was about to explode.
A heat so intense I wanted to rip my clothes off right then and there.
And then there was Hayoon’s smile.
Today, for some reason, meeting her eyes felt strangely difficult.
Trying to shake off the atmosphere, I downed the coffee the moment it arrived—without even tasting the bitterness or the aroma.
“Um… was I really that heavy?”
Looks like Hayoon had completely misread the situation and thought I was struggling because of her.
Watching her get all anxious, I put on the most punchable, slimy smile I could manage.
“You even have to ask? You’re not a baby. Of course you were heavy.”
“S-sorry…. From now on I’ll walk by myself.”
“Are your legs okay? Don’t force yourself if they’re not.”
“That was a lie.”
Ha… Hayoon again.
Why did I fall for her tricks every single time?
At this point I had to wonder if Eun Hayoon was some kind of natural-born genius at lying.
“Haaah…”
I pressed my fingers against my brow and crunched down hard on the ice that had once made my coffee so refreshing—taking my frustration out on the innocent cubes.
While I was busy abusing the ice, Hayoon slowly spoke up.
“I told you. I’m going to make you like me. Are you a little excited?”
“Not even a little. More importantly, if you’re done, get up. I’ve got plans tonight.”
Hayoon tilted her head.
“Plans? What plans?”
“I have a stream to watch. Want me to show you?”
I immediately opened the community app.
A few taps later, something appeared on the screen.
“…A girl?”
“She’s actually pretty good once you start watching. Lots to learn from her. I was thinking of treating her as a senior from now on—”
As if my cheeks had personally offended her, Hayoon squished them with a sulky expression.
“There’s a prettier girl right in front of you, you know? Someone you can actually touch, someone who might even become your girlfriend—and you’re going to look at someone else?”
“It’s not looking, it’s studying. Studying. I need to make money…!”
“How much could you even make from some stupid stream…!”
“Ten million won.”
At the words “ten million won,” Hayoon’s pupils blew wide open.
It was only natural.
Even as a top-tier national athlete, making ten million won in a single day was impossible.
While she looked ready to faint on the spot, I dropped an even more shocking, forbidden truth on her.
“And I made it in three minutes.”
“Th-three minutes…?”
Ah, wait a second.
She wasn’t going to get money-crazy and quit being an athlete to become a Hunter too, right…?
That would be a massive problem.
We’d both get dragged in and yelled at for sure.
I hurriedly added,
“B-but don’t become a Hunter. Keep being an athlete. The money… I’ll just earn it for us or whatever.”
I meant it in the sense that if she ever got hard up, I’d give her enough to live comfortably because we were friends.
It shouldn’t have been a funny line, yet for some reason Hayoon started grinning from ear to ear.
“That completely sounds like you’re proposing marriage to me.”
I hadn’t even realized what was wrong with what I said until she pointed it out.
A mistake born from the desperate urge to walk it back immediately.
My fault for wording it so terribly.
“L-let’s just go…”
“Excuse me, Mr. Do Jinwoo? Could you please answer the question? Hmm?”
Ignoring Hayoon’s words, I quickly escaped outside.
Could one little slip of the tongue really make my heart hammer this hard…?
Honestly, what a weird day.
Besides the café, Hayoon and I wandered around here and there until the streetlights were already glowing and evening had fully settled in.
I had just finished dropping her off and made it back home.
Her place was in completely the opposite direction, which was annoying as hell, but even so—how could I leave a girl alone late at night?
That uneasy feeling made me walk her home without even thinking about it.
“I’m home…”
“What took you so long?”
“Hayoon wanted to hang out, so we hung out.”
At my answer, Mom put on a meaningful smile.
“You two—”
The instant she was about to casually drop something dangerous,
“Mom… please…”
—my godlike reaction speed managed to stop her.
“You walked her home properly?”
“All the way to her front door.”
“Dinner?”
“Already ate.”
Puberty had long since passed, but I still went straight to my room and locked the door.
No particular reason.
It had just become a habit at some point.
I immediately put on the mask I’d bought from the shop.
I hadn’t noticed when I tried it on at the store, but there was zero sense of rejection.
It felt so natural that if I dozed off like this, I could easily wash my face tomorrow morning still wearing the mask without feeling a single bit of foreignness.
“Let’s see… Status window.”
Ding—
Wearing the mask had definitely raised my Agility and Mana.
Looks like stats gained from equipment showed up on the status window too.
“Heh heh… Everything’s going smoothly.”
I nodded and operated the interface.
Enter the Tower (Hard)?
[YES] [NO]
“Yeah.”
Up until that moment, I thought everything was going according to plan.
But that thought became utterly meaningless when a window dyed blood-red crackled into existence, spitting sparks.
ERROR!
ERROR!
ERROR!
ERROR!
ERROR!
Cause of error: Unknown.
Entering the Tower (Unique).
“What the actual f—!”
My vision plunged into darkness.