Stranger (6)
Since last night, a fine rain had fallen, and by afternoon the drops had grown heavy.
Lee Chun-bae sat in the living room, staring blankly out the window.
At regular intervals, when the wind and rain came rushing down in sheets, it felt as if someone were knocking at the glass.
There was no way to go out fishing on a day like this.
The Gunwoo, named after his grandson, was anchored in the harbor.
Lee Chun-bae took a sip of makgeolli.
The carbonation pricked his tongue, and the mellow scent of grain spread through his mouth.
Using chopsticks like a side dish, he picked at a piece of sour kimchi.
It was a humble little drinking session, but at moments like this Lee Chun-bae could finally feel at peace.
There was only one thing missing.
Lee Chun-bae lifted his head.
On the table across from him, another cup of makgeolli sat waiting.
It had been poured for someone who was no longer there.
“……”
Lee Chun-bae said, “Have a drink too.”
There had been someone who always came looking for him whenever it rained.
A young man from Indonesia named Roby Rompis.
“When it rains, makgeolli is the best, right? Ain’t that so?”
Roby would come to Lee Chun-bae’s house with a shopping basket stuffed full of food.
Sometimes the basket held a pair of shoes or a set of clothes for Gunwoo as well.
“This one’s for Gunwoo! A present!”
Lee Chun-bae could still picture him beaming as he came in through the front door.
Even with the age gap between them, they were something like two generations apart.
The taciturn old fisherman and the talkative, bright young man made an oddly good pair of friends.
For all Roby’s cheer, he had one weakness.
“……I miss my mom. I miss Maya too, and my daughter…….”
When the grief came flooding up, he would burst into tears like a child.
Lee Chun-bae would pat his shoulder and quietly pour him another drink.
Every time, Roby would look up through wet eyes and say in a trembling voice, “Chun-bae. If I mess up out at sea, make sure you tell my family I love them, okay?”
“I will.”
“Promise me for real. I’m serious.”
“Good grief. I said I would, didn’t I? You brat!”
“Hehe. Thanks, Chun-bae.”
Only after hearing Lee Chun-bae’s answer would Roby finally smile, flop over, and sink into a deep sleep.
Whoooosh.
Lee Chun-bae snapped out of his memories at the sound of rain pounding down as if a hole had opened in the sky.
No one sat in the seat where Roby had been.
He might never see him again.
This was all Lee Chun-bae could do for him—a small act of mourning, nothing more.
“Sorry, my boy.”
To keep tragedies from repeating themselves, he had written letters to famous hunters in Seoul.
One of them, someone connected to the Dio Guild, had come to meet him in person.
I think they said he was some kind of cult leader.
Thanks to that, Lee Chun-bae’s situation had improved a little, and his grandson’s walk to and from school was now guaranteed to be safe.
And yet.
After that, there had been no separate contact from the hunters.
Lee Chun-bae took it in stride.
They were always busy fighting monsters.
They talked about dedicating themselves to the safety of citizens and the nation, but hunters were still, at heart, a group that pursued profit.
If they let this pass without further action, Lee Chun-bae had no intention of blaming them.
It was only regrettable that he could not settle Roby’s grievance for him.
No, no. That’s not right.
Lee Chun-bae shook his head.
By nature, Roby had a kind heart. He would never want revenge against the sea monster.
What Roby truly wanted was probably……
Just for the family back home to be happy.
Lee Chun-bae took a worn wallet from inside his chest pocket.
When he opened it, he found a few crumpled bills inside.
It was true that, with the cult leader’s help, his income had gone up compared to before.
But that was only a relative improvement.
Even with the increased earnings, it was still tight raising a grandson on so little.
Soon, Roby’s family would be coming to Korea.
They were coming to receive his body.
I’d like to show them some token of respect, at least.
Fishing alone wasn’t enough to make that possible.
If it were up to him, he’d even go work in a factory.
But on rainy days, there wasn’t a place in his back or knees that didn’t ache.
The old body of Lee Chun-bae grew stiffer with every year.
When you get old, you should at least give up your greed.
Lee Chun-bae let out a sigh and opened the window.
Cold air brushed against his face.
He stretched a wrinkled hand out into the rain.
On his palm, raindrops bounced as if they were dancing on a stage.
Then, all at once, inspiration struck.
Lee Chun-bae’s only hobby, aside from reading poetry, was writing his own.
He wiped the rain from his pants.
Then he opened his notebook and picked up his pen.
Using the rain as background music, he pressed his thoughts onto the page as they came to him.
The edges of the thick notebook were frayed and worn.
By now, he had already written more than a hundred poems in it.
How long had it been?
Lee Chun-bae let out a breath and set down his pen.
Just then, the door opened.
“I’m home from school.”
At Gunwoo’s voice, Lee Chun-bae rose from his seat.
“Grandpa. We have a guest.”
Lee Chun-bae faced his grandson standing in the entryway.
Beside Gunwoo stood someone else.
A young man, tall and sharp-eyed.
He had a rather cutting look, but for some reason Lee Chun-bae didn’t find him unfamiliar.
“Hello,” the man said.
“My name is Choi Yongki, from the Dio Guild. I came after receiving your message, Mr. Lee Chun-bae.”
His clear voice rang through the modest house.
Lee Chun-bae reached for the table by the window.
“Come in, come in. Just in time for a guest.”
* * *
It was hard to define Lee Chun-bae’s impression in a single sentence.
He looked somewhat worn, yet he also carried an air of detachment and romance.
“Thank you for coming all this way to such a humble place.” Lee Chun-bae smiled faintly and went on, “When that day comes! When that day comes, I’d love to see Mount Samgak rise up and dance with all its might!”
It sounded abrupt, but I soon realized he was reciting a line from Sim Hoon’s poem The Day It Comes.
“So that day really will come. Welcome, Mr. Choi.”
Lee Chun-bae called me Mr.
Seated beside him was a child staring up at me with bright, round eyes.
“This is my first time seeing a hunter up close,” Lee Geon-woo said.
“The hero of Gangnam came to our house…… I’ve got to brag to my friends.”
Just as I had once dreamed of becoming a hero when I was young, hunters were objects of admiration to teenagers.
Lee Chun-bae slapped his forehead.
“Ah, right. Look at my head. A distinguished guest has come.”
Then he hurried off and took something out of the refrigerator.
There was nothing to serve with the drinks except seaweed and sour kimchi.
Lee Chun-bae frowned.
“I’m sorry. I don’t have much to offer in the way of household goods. Would you like some makgeolli, at least?”
“That’s all right. I’m on duty.”
For a while, the sound of rain echoed through the living room.
The house was old, but the wooden rafters and beams had a certain charm to them.
All right. Time to get to the point.
“Mr. Lee Chun-bae, the hunter you singled out, Na Sang-min, could not come because of another assignment. I hope you’ll forgive me for coming in his place.”
“Oh, no. It’s an honor just to have someone think of an old man like me.”
“For reference, I’m a D-class hunter.”
Since I was here as Dio Guild’s representative, I couldn’t conceal my identity.
I had to say plainly that I was not an S-class hunter.
Lee Chun-bae exchanged a glance with Gunwoo.
For a moment, disappointment might have flickered across his face, but—
“What’s important about that? What matters is that we met.”
“That’s right. Heh.”
Like grandfather and grandson indeed.
The two of them smiled in the same way, showing their teeth.
“Understood. Then.”
I leaned forward and got down to business.
“Could you explain the monster you saw?”
“Ah, yes. It was when I was sharing a drink of makgeolli with a friend by the nearby sea.”
Lee Chun-bae picked up his pen.
Then he unfolded the notebook at once.
“All of a sudden, this thing with long legs, like an octopus, came up above the water like this…….”
Awkwardly, the pen sketched out the shape.
“I heard it with these ears, plain as day. It said, ‘Ugh, disgusting,’ and then disappeared.”
Its appearance, the place it had shown up, its ability to speak.
The more I heard, the more certain I became.
That’s the Dirty Kraken.
When his statement was finished, Lee Chun-bae lowered his head deeply.
“This is shameless of me, but allow me to say one thing. That thing took my friend’s life. ……I don’t even have the face to meet Roby’s family when they come from his homeland.”
Roby.
He must have been Lee Chun-bae’s dead companion.
The old man’s wrinkled lips trembled.
“Truth be told, my wife was killed by a monster too. Other fishermen as well. My grandson too. This must never happen again. Mr. Choi, I beg you, please.”
Fate was a strange thing.
Something I had started for my own gain had, somewhere along the way, become someone’s desperate plea.
What should I say?
Don’t worry.
Leave it to me.
I’ll kill that bastard for sure.
There were many answers I could have given him.
The rain, and the romance of old age.
All of it blended together, and before I knew it, I had fallen into a mood.
A thick notebook on the table caught my eye.
The worn edges told the story of years gone by.
“What’s this?”
“Poems I scribbled down.”
“May I take a look?”
“How embarrassing.”
Lee Chun-bae handed over the notebook.
I flipped through a few pages and read.
His handwriting was neat and orderly, much like his personality, and it decorated the white pages beautifully.
One in particular caught my eye.
A month has passed since the phone rang.
I don’t watch television anymore.
I wait only for the day I die.
I have no lingering attachment to life.
I pray that I won’t wake up tomorrow morning.
……
The title of the poem was Lies.
Judging by the date marked on it, it had been written quite some time ago.
Perhaps even before he met Gunwoo.
From the calm wording, I could almost hear the desperate cry of an old man who had lost his wife and fallen into despair.
I turned the page back.
There was another poem written just moments ago.
The title was Lantern.
I’ll be back from school.
I’m home from school.
His voice is strong.
His fresh youth is dazzling.
I still want to live.
I want to shine a little longer.
To protect that lantern.
He clenches his fist and stares out at the sea.
Unlike the poems he had written earlier, this one carried a firm, unyielding will.
I closed the notebook.
I understood at once who the lantern referred to.
It was the child standing beside Lee Chun-bae, smiling between boyhood and youth.
I liked reading, but I had never had much scholarly depth when it came to literature.
Even so, Lee Chun-bae’s quietly written poems were enough to move me.
“You write exceptionally well.”
“It’s nothing special.”
“At this level, you could hold your own exhibition. If you want, I can help arrange it.”
“Oh, no. An old man like me? What would I do with that?”
“I’ll look into it through my manager. If the promotion is handled well, it could even turn a profit.”
Lee Chun-bae waved his hand bashfully.
“Haha. My writing making money? I never imagined something like that.”
Like a deflated balloon, the old man’s frame was small.
All he could offer me was 300,000 won.
It doesn’t matter.
“Old man” is a respectful way to refer to an elder.
At the same time, it can mean a benefactor, a noble person.
My second life had pulled me here and led me to this place.
For me, a man walking the path of a hero, what meaning would this incident bring?
I took Lee Chun-bae’s hand in both of mine.
“Instead, I have one request too.”
“……What kind?”
“Please keep writing poetry.”
“Ah, yes. I understand.”
I stood up.
It was time to say goodbye.
“I’ll go finish up what I have to do in the meantime.”
As I stepped out the front door, Lee Chun-bae and Lee Geon-woo called out in unison, “Thank you.”
Their voices carried both age and youth at once.
When I opened the door, the rain came down even more clearly.
Mud splashed everywhere.
Heo Da-yeong was waiting for me in the car parked outside.
When she spotted me, she opened the door and hurried out.
“Hunter Choi! Is the meeting over?”
Heo Da-yeong ran toward me, opening an umbrella as she came.
After finishing with the client, I stepped into the rain.
Heo Da-yeong tilted the umbrella toward my side.
“Where are we going now? Should I take you home?”
[Hero Skill Shop]
3. Poseidon
1) Blessing of Water
: Deducted proportionally to mana consumed.
There was training I had to go through for underwater combat.
“To the pool.”