The Uninvited Guest (1)
Pshhhhhk—
The capsule's hatch lifted, and a cool breeze came in with it. Not the clinging damp of the jungle. Clean air-conditioning.
"Aaah. Back from the dead!"
I stretched and pushed myself up out of the capsule. Every joint in my body creaked, but my mood had never been better. Sweat had soaked the inside of the leather armor, and I couldn't have cared less. The numbers from that payout window were still tap-dancing through my head.
"Hyung, I carved up every last one of them and came back. I made a fortune, I'm telling you!"
The moment I climbed out, I went looking for Hyung first. He was already on his feet in front of the monitor, face flushed, waiting for me.
"I saw, you money-ghoul. Didn't think you'd actually vacuum the whole map."
"So how much did I make today? Come on, hurry!"
"Marker-kill bonus alone is a hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars. Add the base pay and the allowances, and you're looking at nearly two hundred grand."
"Two hundred? Whoa, in won that's... two hundred seventy million? No—almost three hundred million?"
I swallowed. It was the kind of money you couldn't even begin to convert into burger combos.
"......Eyes light up the second it's about money. And you bagged a Waldstein Series on top of it. Kid, you actually hit the jackpot today."
"Almost worth going to high-five Dad."
Grinning so wide my mouth nearly reached my ears, I swung one leg over the hatch. I was just about to haul the rest of myself clear of the capsule.
"Huh?"
Something hot surged from the tip of my nose and pattered onto the floor. Tok. Tok. Bright red blood. My head spun in the same instant. The world pitched hard, and my legs wouldn't take my weight.
And the place Christopher had cut me hurt. Badly. Like a white-hot iron pressed into the wound.
"What—what's wrong with you?"
Hyung's startled face blurred and drew away. I mumbled through eyes that wouldn't focus.
"Hyung, I think I'm dying. Gotta sleep a litt—"
"Hey! Stay with me! You can't just pass out like this. Wipe the nosebleed first!"
His shout, half a scream, reached my ears. I felt those rough hands shaking my shoulder, but my body was already heavy as wet cotton.
"Dunno. I'll stop the bleeding after I get up......"
My eyelids weighed a thousand pounds. Even as my mind cut out, three hundred million won and the shape of the Waldstein stayed tattooed behind my eyes, sharp as ever. Those, I wouldn't give up even dead.
"Hey! Hey, Go Tae-min! This little—fine, sleep! Sleep, damn it! But we're throwing your debut party later tonight, so at least tell me what you want to eat before you go under!"
At the sound of his voice, my closing eyes twitched. Just barely. Instinct.
"......You're buying, right?"
"Yeah, you brat. I'm buying! I know exactly how hard you worked out there. You think I can't spring for a meal? So pick something."
A declaration so generous it would never have left his mouth on an ordinary day. I clung to the last thread of consciousness and spoke the magnificent name I had never let past my lips—not with a wallet like mine. Premium Korean beef.
"Hanwoo......"
"You said you don't even like beef, you bastard! Always going on about hamburgers being a complete food, hunting those down every single day!"
His dumbfounded shout faded out beyond my slipping awareness.
The reek of disinfectant stabbed at my nose, and my head throbbed.
......Huh?
I didn't trust the scene in front of me. I was fairly sure I'd demanded hanwoo from Hyung and then died a glorious death (allegedly), but the moment I opened my eyes it wasn't a grill I saw. It was an unfamiliar white ceiling.
"Mm. Where is this......"
A cracked voice scraped out the instant I parted my lips. My throat was dry as the Sahara, and my whole body creaked like I'd been run over by a truck and then told to stand up. I turned my head. Beyond the window lay a city I didn't know.
This wasn't Hyung's workshop. It wasn't our basement one-room either.
"And where is this supposed to be. Don't tell me I actually crossed the river of the dead to high-five Dad."
"Dad, my ass. Your face is way too shameless to go meet the ancestors."
I turned at the familiar, prickly voice. Hyung was sitting on the sofa beside the bed, tapping at a laptop, looking at me like I was hopeless. Whether he'd been up for nights on end, the dark circles under his eyes looked ready to slide all the way to his jaw.
"Hyung, why are we here? We were supposed to go eat hanwoo."
"This guy wakes up and the first thing out of his mouth is food. Do you even know where you are?"
"Where?"
"A hospital. A hospital. You don't remember opening the capsule and collapsing in a puddle of blood? You have any idea how bad you scared me, you little shit?"
"Huh? I did? I just felt a bit tired. Thought I took a nice nap."
"A nap? You were out cold for three days, dead to the world. Doctor said it was nervous-system overload. A normal person would've blacked out ages ago, or the capsule's safeties would've kicked in, but you held the line on that brute-force will of yours until your body went into shock."
Three days, flat on my back? I jolted upright in shock—and immediately folded back onto the sheets under the heavy pain in my side.
Agh! Why does it hurt this much.
No. That's not the point.
"Three days? Then what about my money? My hundred and ninety-six thousand dollars! And that Waldstein sword!"
I shouted like I was about to grab him by the collar. Three days meant nothing next to the number about to land in my account, and that absurdly expensive famous blade.
"Unbelievable. Even now, that's what comes first?"
He clicked his tongue and turned the laptop toward me.
"Relax. The payout cleared clean. There's over two hundred sixty million won sitting in your account."
"What? Why two hundred sixty?"
"They withhold 3.3 percent at the source, idiot. And the Waldstein Series got delivered safe to the office. Here. Look at the CCTV."
The screen showed the familiar door of the office. In one corner, set down with care, was a long black rectangular box. Even at a glance, it gave off an aura that was anything but ordinary.
Only then did I breathe out and lean back against the head of the bed. My side still hurt, but thinking about the balance made it bearable.
"Hyung, the hanwoo promise isn't canceled, right?"
"You made hundreds of millions! If you've got any conscience, you're buying this time!"
"What are you talking about. Every last one of my brain cells remembers you saying you'd pay. No backing out now."
I snickered and flicked the IV pole. The bag of fluid swaying there might as well have been nodding along.
Yeah. Life really is one big score.
Set beside the years I'd spent rolling through mud in the jungle outside Kisangani, locked in staring contests with earthworms, the air in a hospital VIP room was obscenely sweet.
Anyway.
"Hyung, how long do I have to stay here? I think I can move a little now."
"Hang on. Doctor should be here any minute."
Almost before he finished, the door opened and a physician in a white coat swept in with a cluster of nurses. Rounds, apparently. He skimmed the chart hanging at the foot of the bed, then looked at me kindly over his glasses.
"Mr. Kim Min-su. Are you with us?"
Kim Min-su...... An unfamiliar name. I smiled awkwardly and nodded.
"Yes, thanks to you. Bed's so good I slept like a rock. I could probably skip sleep for a week now."
"Haha, please don't joke like that. Let's see. First...... the test results aren't bad. No external trauma. Brain waves and bloodwork are normal. If I had to name a cause...... extreme overwork. What on earth do you do with yourself, driving your body this far? This is the level of someone doing high-intensity labor through several nights without sleep."
He wrote temporary shock due to overwork on the chart and went on.
"Your nutrition is unbalanced, and your chronic stress markers are high. The body simply couldn't take any more and switched itself off. Fortunately, Mr. Kim, your baseline fitness is excellent, so you've recovered quickly. Still, you need to rest for a few days. Sleep properly, and eat something good."
"Yes, thank you."
The staff filed out, and quiet settled over the room again. I leaned back against the bed and looked slowly around. A heavy sigh escaped on its own. Hyung, packing up the laptop, tilted his head at the sight of me.
"What? A minute ago you were raising hell to be discharged, and now you don't want to leave?"
"No, it's not that."
"Then what. Something else hurt?"
I worked my lips, then gestured around the room. However I looked at it, this was no ordinary hospital room. The place was spacious, with a private sofa and even a TV.
Damn. Of all places, they put me somewhere nice.
Another long sigh slipped out.
"I was thinking the bill's going to be brutal."
At that perfectly sincere worry, Hyung let out an incredulous little laugh. Then he tapped me on the head.
"Worry about things worth worrying about. This is a veterans' hospital. You're a person of national merit. It's free, idiot."
"What? For real? Free?"
"Yeah. Under the merit benefits you won't pay a single won, so relax."
Fireworks went off in my head.
"Whoa, jackpot! Pure profit!"
The face that had been pure misery a moment ago split into a grin. Offering this body up for the country had been worth it after all. Who knew the title of person of national merit could feel this solid.
"And I was out for three days, so I saved on food that whole time, right? Whoa. Slept through three days of meals without spending a cent. Hyung, I think I get sick in a very thrifty way."
"......Is this guy actually insane."
Hyung shook his head like he'd seen something he was never meant to see.
A belated celebration got underway at Hyung's workshop. The guest list was Hyung, his wife, So-yeon, and me. The four of us spread newspaper across the floor and grilled hanwoo.
"Tae-min, eat this first. Three days without food, and your face is half what it was."
His wife piled meat onto my plate the moment it finished cooking.
"Hey, save some for me......"
"You eat every single day. Tae-min just woke up from a hospital bed. And you're worried about the meat?"
Hyung lifted his chopsticks like he meant to protest, then tucked his tail at one razor-cold look from his wife. That was her, all right. Her talent for beating a man with words alone was nothing ordinary.
Eyes damp with emotion, I put a perfectly cooked piece of sirloin in my mouth. Juice burst across my tongue. So this was what capitalism tasted like.
"Thank you. It's seriously delicious."
"I'm glad. So hurry up, meet someone good, and get married already. Then I can relax."
"......Khk!"
An arrow out of nowhere nearly sent the meat down the wrong pipe. On reflex I used So-yeon, chewing with tidy determination beside me, as a sturdy shield.
"So-yeon, want Uncle to wrap you a special hanwoo bite? Here. Open up."
I laid two pieces of meat on white bread, dabbed them with salty ssamjang, and popped the wrap into her mouth. There was too much of it. Her cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's. She was so cute I poked one.
"Mmm, nom nom......"
She worked her cheeks, chewed, and swallowed, then picked up a well-cooked piece with her chopsticks. That small hand brought the meat right up to my mouth.
"Uncle eat too. Aaah."
"See? Our So-yeon's the only one."
I took the meat she offered without a second's hesitation. The rich savor of beef filled my mouth, and a smile came on its own. If she'd wrapped it in white bread the way Uncle likes, it would have been even better. That missing two percent of carbohydrate left a small ache, but say so in front of meat my niece was feeding me by hand and his wife would definitely smack me across the back.
Boisterous talk. Meat cooking on the grill. Hyung, grinning in that irritating way of his, pushing soju on me.
This is good. Really.
For the first time in a long while, it felt like living as a person. Not long ago I'd been up in a jungle reeking of blood, settling the demon mask back into place. You never really know where a life will turn.
When the happy meal was over, his wife and So-yeon went up to the workshop roof to look at the stars. Hyung emptied his glass and jerked his chin toward a corner of the shop.
"Oh, right. You ought to check this too."
There sat the long black rectangular box I'd seen on the laptop. Waldstein Series No.113.
Right. That was here.
I shot to my feet and walked up to it. Up close, the box wasn't ordinary plastic. A red LED blinked like a pulse across a carbon-fiber case with a faint sheen.
"Fingerprint lock. If it isn't you, it never opens."
"Whoa. How'd they get my fingerprint?"
"Must've scanned it when you logged into the VR. I don't know the details either."
"What? If this goes wrong, doesn't that blow my identity?"
"Come on. You think the Nova people are dying to know your full name? They just hold biometrics—iris, fingerprints—because it's one person, one account. That alone doesn't tell them who you are, so quit yapping and open it."
I swallowed and set my thumb on the scanner in the center of the case.
Diriring—
A bright electronic chime, and the clasps released. The heavy carbon-fiber lid lifted slowly, and a blade black as pitch showed itself from inside. Waldstein No.113.
We leaned over the box at the same time. A moment later, two completely different sounds broke out of us.
"Ooh."
"......Huh?"
Hyung was the first to react. The face that had swollen with expectation collapsed into disappointment in an instant, and he stared blankly down at what lay in the box.
"This is really a Waldstein Series? The NAA guys didn't screw up the delivery, did they?"
The sword gave off none of the brilliant gleam of a luxury piece, none of that signature oppressive aura. A faded black blade. A crude hilt without a single ornament. It looked worse than a practice sword you'd find rolling around a junk shop—a lump of scrap iron.
To my eyes, it was nothing like that.
......My god.
As if possessed, I reached out and took the hilt. The moment my fingers touched it, a strange sight opened in my vision.
Tuduk. Tududuk.
Thin white lines rose over the ink-dark blade, writhing upward like something alive. Strange. I had never in my life seen an object with this many white lines rippling across it. A pleasant thrill ran through me as I lifted the sword.
"Interesting sword. This one's throwing a fit because he's hungry."