Identity (2)

The monster that had terrorized the ordinary citizens was gone.

The people who had been on the verge of panic finally began to settle down, helping the wounded one by one and waiting quietly for the rescue team to arrive.

I looked down at the thick blood smeared across my fist. I was still dazed. I hadn’t even felt like I was hitting anything; it had been more like the instant my fist landed, it burst apart with a wet pop.

It was also the first time I’d ever experienced that strange sensation of the energy surging through my whole body and converging into a single point at my fist.

I flexed my hand open and closed. Right now, even if I squeezed out all the mana I had, it amounted to almost nothing.

I turned my head. Seo Gwang-pal had been slammed into the bus and knocked unconscious. Now that his helmet was shattered, his bald head was on full display, gleaming under the sunlight.

To wipe out Big Lava with a single blow and then put a professional hunter down so easily... I had to admit it: the power of Judgment of the Superhuman was ridiculous.

And yet that cheat-like skill came with a fatal limitation.

The amount had gone down again, just as always. Once for Big Lava, and once more for Seo Gwang-pal. In total, two million won had disappeared so far.

It was a strange feeling. What if that had been real money? I definitely would’ve regretted spending it. In the past, I’d been a miser to the bone. Every time I spent money, it felt like I was bleeding out.

But this time, I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could at least say I’d spent it on the right thing.

What bothered me more was something else. The system only recorded withdrawals. Was there no way to increase Awakener's Balance? Couldn’t I have money deposited into it somehow, like a salary? Couldn’t I save up into it myself?

...I have no idea.

I racked my brain, but nothing came to mind. The one billion won I’d accumulated over my entire life still sat there like digital cash, but it wasn’t infinite. To put it another way, it was like a well that had only its drying days left. If I kept drawing from it, over and over, eventually the bottom would show.

And when that day inevitably came, what would I do then?

...

Money had been my greatest problem in my previous life, too.

It feels like I’ve fallen into a whirlpool of reincarnation.

Worrying about it wouldn’t solve anything right away. I’d have to figure it out gradually. Somehow. I had to find a way out of destiny’s wheel.

“Um, excuse me.”

Someone called out to me.

When I turned around, I saw the pregnant woman I’d met on the bus.

“Thank you so much for helping us.” She bowed to me, both hands supporting her enormous belly. “I’m so grateful I don’t even know how to begin thanking you.”

The little boy beside her bowed along with her, imitating his mother.

“If you’d give me your contact information, I’ll make sure I repay you somehow.”

I may have been obsessed with money, but I hadn’t done this expecting anything in return. I’d acted on impulse, but instead of feeling bad, I felt lighter, as if something had unclenched inside me.

“It’s fine.”

From all around me, I could feel pricking stares. Their eyes were full of awe.

“He’s a hunter, right?”

“I don’t know. He’s got his face covered like that, so I can’t tell who he is.”

“Seo Gwang-pal was C-rank, wasn’t he? He took that guy out in one shot... Is he B-rank or higher?”

“No way.”

It was a little burdensome, honestly.

“May I take this with me?”

I tugged lightly at the purple handkerchief that covered my face.

“Of course! Yes, of course! Oh, I’ll buy you a new one.”

“This is enough.”

The child standing beside the pregnant woman didn’t say anything. He only stared up at me with bright, round eyes.

“Mister. Are you really a hero?”

...

He must have heard me say something about being a hero. I’d only blurted it out in the heat of the moment, but now that I thought about it, my face burned a little.

I nodded awkwardly.

“Well. I guess so.”

The boy’s mouth fell open.

“...Whoa. Really?”

Seeing his innocent excitement eased the tension in my chest. The hero I’d once admired, Jin Shark... If I’d met him when I was little, I probably would’ve made that same face.

I bent down and picked something up from the ground. It was a toy character wearing a steel suit, the one the boy had dropped. I placed it back into his arms.

“Shh. This is our secret. Heroes have to hide their identities, after all.”

The pregnant woman smiled warmly when she saw that. The boy nodded so hard it looked like his head might come off.

“Yes!”

Sirens began wailing somewhere in the distance, and the rescue team finally arrived. One by one, the people began heading their way. I exchanged a final glance with the pregnant woman, and we parted there.

“We should get going too. The child was really shaken up.”

Led by his mother’s hand, the boy kept turning back to look at me.

I lifted one finger to my lips.

The boy grinned and copied me, making a little shushing sound of his own.

I watched the backs of the gentle mother and son for a while, then eventually turned and walked in the opposite direction from the others.

I headed toward where Big Lava had fallen.

When a monster is slain, the right of claim belongs first to the hunter who brought it down.

Big Lava was entirely mine, but there wasn’t anything worth salvaging from its remains now. It had been turned to pulp by a single punch.

Still, that was fine. The finishing touch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was something else entirely.

Although its body had been ripped apart, something had fallen to the ground. I picked it up.

It was small enough to fit in one hand: the core crystal that formed the heart of the monster.

When I peeled away the sticky, filthy coating, a red-tinted mineral surfaced beneath it.

Then as now, monster crystals were a precious resource. They were used in semiconductors and as battery materials, and they were highly liquid as well. There were even specialty exchanges that would cash them out instantly.

Of course, their value rose in proportion to the monster’s rank. A quick search was enough to tell me the market price in real time.

[[ Big Lava ]] Crisis-class.

- Crystal: $8,023.

About ten million won in Korean currency.

In the future, the value of monster crystals would rise even higher. That was because they weren’t just useful; they were also treated like jewels in their own right. Wealthy women, in particular, went crazy for crystals with their strange, elusive colors.

Wasn’t that ironic? The most horrifying existence in the world represented one of the most beautiful things.

What a bizarre world this was.

I held the crystal up and let it catch the sunlight. As the red mineral was exposed to the light, it gradually shifted to an orange hue.

When a monster became a mutant, its crystal changed with it. Just as a four-leaf clover symbolized luck, mutant crystals were worth even more.

Usually, they sold for ten times the normal market price.

“One hundred million won.”

Even saying it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out loud didn’t feel real. Around this time, my annual salary had been hovering around thirty million won. To make one hundred million, I would’ve had to grind through more than ten straight years of brutal manual labor.

Of course, hunting monsters came with its own share of danger. But if I actually made money using my awakened abilities... maybe I could blast past the ten billion I’d spent my whole life saving in no time at all.

And I already had one hundred million in my hand.

“Ouch.”

Pain, which I’d forgotten under the rush of adrenaline, surged back in all at once. The sting on my forehead meant I’d probably split it open.

One by one, the injured people climbed into the ambulances. My phone kept ringing without pause.

They were messages from Karki, the foreign worker who worked with me at the factory.

It was a moment of choice. Should I go to the hospital like an ordinary person, or keep going down this extraordinary road?

When I looked around, I spotted the CCTV mounted on a utility pole.

I still hadn’t registered as an awakener. I didn’t have a hunter license either. But there was no law saying an ordinary person couldn’t beat a monster to death.

There were plenty of skilled hunters who worked freelance, after all. That said, attacking a hunter was still illegal, and I’d stirred up Dio Guild—a group with a reputation for being loud, troublesome, and impossible to ignore. There was no way they’d let this slide quietly.

Rumor had it Dio Guild punished people with ruthless, thorough retaliation. But I had no intention of turning myself in obediently.

Besides, it was satisfying enough to have personally put a nasty bastard like that in his place.

All right. Let’s see you try something.

I’d covered my face, so if I was lucky, I might be able to avoid revealing my identity. Hmm. For now, I should probably run as far as I could.

I turned my back on the CCTV and slipped down a side street. When I came out onto the main road, crowds were pouring out of the subway exit, and I melted naturally into the flow of people.

I loosened the purple handkerchief that had been covering my face and wiped the blood from my forehead.

Blending in among the people in the middle of the city gave me a strange sense of déjà vu. There was one thing I’d learned painfully through my previous life: the world didn’t care about me.

Whether my grandmother, too poor to receive proper treatment, died of cancer, or my younger brother was murdered by a villain, no one cared about my suffering.

Only after dying and waking up again did I understand it clearly. Money was a mirage. A banknote, taken by itself, was nothing more than a scrap of paper, and one billion won was just a number on a ledger.

But once it passed through the machinery of capitalism, the story changed. Without money, I couldn’t even have afforded the warm beef-and-radish soup my grandmother used to make, and without money, I couldn’t even rent a semi-basement room.

If I had been rich, my family would never have been exposed to all those dangers in the first place. I could have hired hunters, bodyguards—whatever I wanted.

So in this life, I had to become rich.

Not to be pushed around by anyone. Not to protect myself, but to protect my family.

Spending thirty years working myself to death was inefficient. I needed something easier, something faster.

How?

I had always been too afraid of losing money to invest in anything at all. I’d saved stubbornly until I’d reached ten billion won. I still had a vague memory of stocks and cryptocurrency, but ever since the gates opened, the market had collapsed, so that wasn’t especially useful anymore.

Should I become a hunter and make money that way?

That wasn’t a bad idea.

But I had a better plan.

In my last life, all I ever did was endure. For thirty straight years. Rain or snow, scorching fever or freezing cold, I never once took a day off from work. The place where I’d cried, laughed, and despaired so much was my workplace—and the answer had been right there all along.

I checked the giant clock on the side of the high-rise building. Somehow, I’d lost time.

Late as it was, I decided to take the fastest possible route to work.

“Taxi!”

I reached out a hand, but it was useless. Thanks to the chaos caused by Big Lava, the road was jammed solid, and there wasn’t even a taxi in sight.

What now?

While I was still debating it, a noisy sound came from nearby.

Bang-chak! Bang-chak!!!

It was music blaring from the motorcycle of a deliveryman waiting at the light. He’d tuned it so ostentatiously that, even in broad daylight, gaudy LED lights were flashing all over the bike. Both of the driver’s forearms were packed with tattoos.

Our eyes met.

“What are you staring at?”

He frowned as if I’d been the one picking a fight.

I ignored him and waved a hand in the air, still trying to flag down a taxi. The deliveryman watched me for a moment, then killed the engine.

“Hey. Are you a hunter?”

There was blood running down my forehead, and my work clothes were filthy with pieces of monster carcass. My fist was smeared with green blood. He’d be perfectly justified in mistaking me for a hunter.

When I didn’t answer, he took that for a yes.

“That mutant monster that popped out in Eunpyeong District—you were the one who took it down, right? I saw it in the breaking news.” He tapped his Bluetooth earbud with a finger. “Get on. I’ll give you a ride.”

I wanted to ask him why, but I decided to hear the answer later.

I climbed onto the back seat of the motorcycle.

“Where to?”

“Ilsan Hunter Industrial Complex. And if you can get me there as fast as possible, even better.”

The deliveryman snorted. “You know what? I’m the third fastest guy in Eunpyeong District.”

“Then who’s first and second?”

“Both dead.”

He jerked the handlebars hard, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with my body thrown backward, the motorcycle shot forward at full speed.