Shinyeom (2)
"Whoa, this is your place, oppa?"
Han Yerim, her face alight with excitement, immediately started rummaging through the house.
"It's pretty spacious, huh?"
"Spacious? This?"
"Yeah, compared to my room it's huge. Like twice the size?"
"......?"
Could you even call that a room? The question crossed my mind for a moment, but I decided to let it go.
"...Just settle down and go to bed."
"Oppa, there's only one bed?"
"There's enough room for you and Jian to fit."
"Eck."
Han Yerim's face twisted in disgust.
"Even so, oppa, sharing a bed with a stranger on the first night is a little..."
"I-I feel the same..."
"...Ah. Is that so?"
It was a problem I hadn't even considered. Then again, I wouldn't be too keen on sleeping in the same bed as a guy I'd just met either.
"Can't I just sleep next to you, oppa?"
"That's the floor."
"We slept on the floor plenty of times back in the day."
In the end, we settled on Choi Jian taking the bed while Han Yerim and I took the floor.
"I-it's a bit much, sleeping in the bed by myself...?"
"It's fine. Please just go to sleep."
"I'd rather you take the bed, Yeonwoo, and I'll sleep on the floor!"
"Huh? Then I wanna sleep in the bed with oppa too."
"That's too cramped. No."
"Ghk."
I roughly pulled out some blankets and spread them on the floor. It was a bit tight for two people, but still roomier than cramming two into the bed.
"So I just lie here, right? Next to you, oppa?"
"...Don't glue yourself to me."
"Aww, why not?"
"Nngh..."
Something that sounded distinctly dejected drifted down from the bed, but it was probably just sleep-talking.
I should get some sleep too.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but drowsiness hit me fast.
...What's she doing now.
Han Yerim was already out, or trying to be — she was wriggling around, trying to tuck my arm into her embrace the way she used to as a kid. I slipped my arm in for her, and she immediately settled, her breathing evening out. She's not a child anymore.
Feeling as though I'd gone back in time, I drifted off to sleep.
"...Ugh."
The hangover was no joke. Clutching my splitting head, I barely managed to get to my feet — and found the two of them still sleeping soundly.
"Geez."
How on earth had I ended up letting people into my house.
"I need to get them out of here, fast."
But to do that, I had to send them into a Gate. We needed to make money one way or another if we were going to find a place to live. And to send them into a Gate, I needed to buy Gate entry tickets. Or buy a Gate itself. Obviously not something you could pull off on pocket change.
The first thing I did upon waking was worry about money. And thoroughly hungover, at that. I had no idea how I'd ended up like this.
"Haa..."
Honestly, it wouldn't even be a problem if I just had money. If I just had money.
I needed to get equipment for Choi Jian and Han Yerim, buy Gate entry tickets, hire a porter to take into the Gate with us, and get a warehouse for the byproducts we'd haul out of it...
Obviously my saved-up part-time wages weren't even close to enough. Even with a loan, I had my doubts it would be possible.
I'm going insane.
Why did I ever get it into my head to run a guild.
No choice, I guess.
At this point, the only option was to raise Choi Jian and Han Yerim to SSS-Rank as fast as possible. To do that, the status window needed to show me something — the way it had advised me on Choi Jian's training last time. But so far, nothing was appearing.
What even is mana control training, or training to cultivate composure, anyway.
It wasn't as if I knew much about Awakened to begin with. There was no way I'd know those kinds of training methods.
"It'd be nice if it showed me some actually useful advice."
If it had never shown me anything, that would be one thing. But considering how readily it had displayed advice when I was growing Choi Jian, it was pretty disappointing.
"Mmm..."
"Haaawwn."
While I was venting at the status window, the two of them started waking up one after another.
"Oppa, good morning..."
"Did you sleep well, Yeonwoo?"
I gave them a rough nod.
"Wash up and get ready. We're heading out right away."
"Yes..."
"Okay."
There was a minor scuffle over who got to shower first, but that aside.
"I'm ready!"
"Me too, oppa."
"Let's go, then."
I somehow got the two of them ready and stepped outside.
"......?"
"Ah, hello?"
"...Yeah."
I locked eyes with the neighbor I'd run into a handful of times before. He stared at me, then shifted his gaze to the two people standing behind me.
"...?"
Then he looked at me again, and his face settled into an expression I couldn't quite put into words.
He's thinking something weird, isn't he.
I briefly considered explaining myself, but—
"Well, have a good one."
Come to think of it, it wasn't as if I owed him an explanation. I gave him a rough nod and left the house.
"By the way, Yeonwoo, don't you need to make an appointment for a law office?"
"I already did yesterday. I happen to know a lawyer I ran into last time."
"Oppa had something like that come up?"
"When I received the inheritance."
"Ah."
I led the two of them, who'd gone strangely quiet after that, to the place I'd arranged.
"Yeonwoo, over here!"
There, looking oddly excited, was the lawyer.
"Well now. I never imagined I'd be seeing you again this soon."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. You have no idea how delighted I was when you said you had questions about a guild contract. I never dreamed you'd actually decide to run a guild yourself."
"Haha... it just kind of happened."
He'd been smiling genially, but when he spotted the two people behind me, his smile filled with interest.
"Then these two are your new guild members?"
"Ah, hello...!"
"Hello."
"A pleasure. I'm Min Yoongi, attorney. Please, have a seat."
We sat down at Min Yoongi's invitation.
"So, could you tell me in detail what brings you here?"
"Ah, well..."
I explained to Min Yoongi why I'd made this appointment — that Choi Jian had nearly signed a suspicious contract, and that Han Yerim's contract didn't seem legitimate.
"Hmmm..."
"This is the contract that guy left last time. I don't know this industry well, so... is this the standard?"
Min Yoongi looked over the Shinyeom contract I'd handed him, then chuckled and handed it back.
"Not in the slightest. If this were industry standard, every Hunter in this country would have fled to America or Japan by now."
"I figured as much."
"That said, this is the first I've heard of that particular guild, so I had no idea this kind of thing was going on. Frankly, it's hard to pull this off without word getting out."
"That's... true."
Honestly, that was what I was most curious about too.
"Shouldn't this have already spread online or somewhere? If they're handing out contracts like this."
"There are usually a few possibilities."
Min Yoongi adjusted his glasses as he spoke.
"One: they provide benefits and welfare generous enough that guild members never say a word. Two: the opposite — they keep mouths shut through threats and pressure. Those would be the representative cases."
"...Yerim, did you get anything from the guild while you were there?"
"Huh? No? Not really? If anything, they didn't give me enough — that was the problem."
"What about threats?"
"Nothing like that either."
"That's what she says. Come to think of it, I don't think she even got the money she was owed."
I looked back at Min Yoongi. He was still smiling as he turned to Han Yerim.
"Han Yerim, I believe? May I ask you a few questions?"
"Yes, that's fine."
"Not you personally — have you ever seen other guild members receiving something from the guild? Cigarettes, perhaps, or alcohol. Or some kind of gift."
"...Ah, now that you mention it."
Han Yerim's expression shifted as something came back to her.
"They did give the guild members something. I asked for some too, and they said I was still too young?"
"That would be it, then."
"...Do you have an idea what it was?"
"Yes."
Min Yoongi nodded.
"Awakened are, physically, extremely healthy. The powerful self-healing granted by mana can reverse most damage."
"R-right?"
I knew that much. But why bring it up now?
"Thanks to that, Awakened are far safer from things like cigarettes and alcohol. Dependencies, addictions — those vanish the moment you cycle your mana."
"...Ah?"
"It seems they were handing out something rather interesting in lieu of compensation. Something that's hard to obtain in Korea even if you have the money."
Was there anything more to say? It wasn't hard to tell what he meant. The problem was that I couldn't believe it.
"So you're saying..."
I looked at Min Yoongi in disbelief, asking if I'd guessed right.
"That's my speculation, at least."
Min Yoongi nodded as if it were nothing.
"It is a benefit, after all."
"......"