Slimming's Meal Date
Slimming.
Slimming was a community streamer I'd been keeping up with a lot lately. With an average viewer count hovering between five and eight thousand, calling her a heavyweight streamer was no exaggeration. And right now, that very person was proposing a private meeting with me.
"Yes, that sounds good. Would it be all right if I sent you the place and time?"
Right then, another donation exploded across the screen.
Yes. Sounds good.
I nodded, then dipped my head.
"Thank you. That'll be it for today's stream. See you all next time."
"Bye~"
Basking in the viewers' fiery send-off, I hit the end-stream button right then and there.
The second I did, the strength drained from my legs and I crumpled straight to the floor.
"Hah… I should just be grateful I made it out alive."
My mana was already scraped clean. No matter how intact your limbs were, no matter how much stamina you had left—if a Hunter had no mana, you couldn't even keep yourself upright.
I was catching my breath for a moment when a blue status window floated up.
Returning shortly.
"Can't I rest a little first and then return?! I can barely even stand…!"
Returning.
"I said I want to re—"
My vision blacked out for a second, and before long I was transferred straight into my room.
What I saw the moment I got back was—
"M-Mom, Dad, how did you even get in…? I definitely locked the door!"
It was my mother and father. Without a word of warning, Mom hauled off and smacked me across the back.
I rubbed the stinging spot and looked at her.
"Jinwoo…! What if you'd died…!"
"Your mother's right. What were you thinking, pulling a stunt that dangerous?!"
Mom and Dad pulled me into a hug.
My parents weren't Hunters. Of course they had no access to the community reserved for Hunters—yet somehow they seemed to know exactly what had happened.
"How did you know I did something dangerous…?"
After a long silence, Dad shoved a phone in my face with the news already playing. The anchor on the screen opened her mouth.
The second the anchor finished speaking, the feed cut to footage of me—night-vision goggles and all—clearing the Iron Golem. It looked like the whole thing had been rebroadcast live from the moment my stream started; every second from the opening engagement to the final kill was captured.
My short review after watching the replay:
"Guns really are the best, huh?"
"Do Jinwoo!"
I understood how my parents felt, but I was just as aggrieved. Who the hell would want to waltz into Unique-difficulty Tower floors for fun? If I'd known this mess was going to happen ahead of time, even a battle junkie like me who loudly declared he'd take on hell difficulty would've hesitated.
"We… we thought you were dead. Do you have any idea how badly we were shaking…!"
"I was shaking too! Return wouldn't even work!"
"You little—!"
"Ack! I'm sorry! I won't talk back again!"
After the dust settled from that little storm—
"Jinwoo… money's money, but your life is what matters most. Can't you just quit being a Hunter…?"
The unshakable number one in our household's hierarchy begged me in a voice thick with sorrow. This was only the second time I'd ever seen Mom cry. I couldn't say a word.
Back when I was an ordinary person I'd never tasted that electric thrill in my hands, and the stronger I got the deeper I went into the Tower, the more I liked it.
On top of that, the money hitting my account was on a completely different scale from my athlete days. My name recognition kept climbing too. It wasn't an exaggeration to say I was living better than I ever had as a competitor. Hell, I even thought of the incurable disease as a blessing from the gods.
The words "I'll quit being a Hunter" simply wouldn't leave my mouth, so I decided to calm my parents down first.
"…I won't go into the Tower for a while. There's still no real news, and more importantly—didn't I fight pretty well?"
"Jinwoo…!"
It wasn't exactly something to brag about to my parents, but I still pulled up the community window and showed them.
Posts plastered wall-to-wall with talk about me—and then the coin balance.
A solid two and a half million coins.
"Dad, Mom. I made close to two hundred fifty million won off this one Tower clear alone."
"So? You want a medal for it?"
"Busted."
Mom's storm of scolding lasted until the sun came up.
The next day I met Hayoon at the same café we'd gone to before. Midway through an emergency caffeine transfusion, Eun Hayoon asked me—
"You… what the hell have you been doing in the Tower…?"
She'd probably watched my god-tier replay too.
"I told you. Streaming."
"Y-you fight things that huge every single time…? Are you out of your mind?!"
"That was the first time…. I didn't know a monster like that would pop out either."
Eun Hayoon's shoulders trembled and her eyes were turning red.
"Can't you just quit being a Hunter? If you die, how am I supposed to live…."
"Don't say creepy stuff like that. Who's dying?"
Parents, Hayoon—everyone just loved me too much. The fact that Hayoon, who knew better than anyone that guns were everything to me, was saying it out loud meant I really had her that worried.
"Hayoon, I came back alive, didn't I? Coming back alive is proof you're strong. Didn't you know?"
"…An E-rank talking big."
"The strongest E-rank there is."
We kept talking for a good while when—
"Eastern Gunslinger, right?"
A woman wearing sunglasses and carrying a parfait called me by my handle.
"…Slimming?"
"Shh."
I had given Slimming a time and place. The problem was that it wasn't today. I had no idea how she'd tracked me down, and from beside me I could feel a murderous aura for no reason I could name.
I was seconds away from bolting when one word from Slimming settled Eun Hayoon down.
"Girlfriend?"
"Ah, no."
"She's not my girlfriend."
For once Hayoon was saying something accurate—and right then she scooted over next to me and yanked my arm toward her.
"For now, let's just say we're 'married.'"
I was an idiot for expecting anything else. Sitting there spouting something not even a kid would believe.
Slimming stared at the smirking Eun Hayoon for a beat.
"Newlyweds are so cute~ Mind if I borrow your husband for a second? Business."
With that, Slimming sat down across from me.
"Sunglasses indoors is a little much, don't you think?"
Slimming pushed the sunglasses up onto her head and grinned.
"Gold medalist Do Jinwoo? I thought no way, but it really is you~"
"Ah, hello…."
Slimming and I were both Hunters and community users, so we knew each other to some extent. Eun Hayoon, though, was unawakened. Of course she wouldn't know Slimming, who was only famous among Hunters.
"Jinwoo, who is she?"
Hayoon asked, pressed even closer than before.
"Ahaha! So the wife's not a Hunter~ No wonder you wouldn't know me!"
A statement that basically screamed I'm a big deal in the Hunter world. Coming from a non-awakened person's seat, it was an annoying thing to hear. I'd fully expected Hayoon to throw a punch on the spot, but instead she just smiled sweetly at Slimming.
"…If ordinary people don't know you, I guess you're not all that famous."
"Right~ Oh! Let me introduce myself! I'm Slimming, a streamer active in the Hunter community~ Real name's Han Chaewon! Just call me Chaewon~"
"Yes, Slimming."
Classic Slimming. Getting along even with a gorilla like Eun Hayoon. You needed a personality that thick to become a big-name streamer, I thought blankly to myself.
"Ah, Jinwoo! Did you like the hundred million I gave you?"
"Y-yes…."
"I'm so glad~"
Glad my ass. Can't you see her sitting right next to me?! Hayoon is glaring daggers!
Eun Hayoon was staring Slimming down like she was ready to murder her on the spot.
"Jinwoo? What exactly is this 'hundred million' about?"
"Th-that is, Hayoon…."
In the blink of an eye I had become Hayoon's target, one wrong word from becoming a human beehive.
"I'll explain!"
In that life-or-death crisis, Slimming held out a hand of salvation.
Damn it, Slimming! Now I have no choice but to worship you!
Looking thoroughly pleased with herself, Slimming launched into her explanation for Hayoon.
"Jinwoo's fighting was just so cool, you know~? I ended up donating a whole million coins just to see his face once~ People usually call it a meal date, right?"
"…What?"
Hayoon's voice flipped an octave in an instant. I was just as rattled. When I looked at Slimming with pure panic on my face, she scratched her head and added—
"Ahaha! Don't look at me like that, it's scary~ I just wanted a meal date… I never dreamed he'd have a wife. You're both twenty, right? Kids these days move fast. Already thinking about a ba—"
"W-we haven't done anything like that…. We're not even dating to begin with."
"Hmm~? Is that so?"
Had I just stepped on a landmine? Slimming wore a meaningful little smile at my clarification—while looking straight at Hayoon.
"Then, would it be all right if I had a meal date with Jinwoo? A hundred million isn't that much money to me, but a hundred million is still a hundred million, right~?"
"…Do Jinwoo, do whatever you want."
Hayoon said do whatever I wanted. But if I actually did whatever I wanted, I wouldn't die in the Tower—I'd die in real life. Too bad. No choice.
"Could you just tell me here? I'm living under Hayoon's thumb, after all."
"Aww~ How sweet!"
Slimming's girlish face had somehow turned deadly serious.
"Jinwoo. No—Eastern Gunslinger. The Tower looks like it's going to break the Earth. Before long, this planet is going to be destroyed."
She had just announced the end of the world.