Still Adapting

Early that morning, the woman washed up and sat before the mirror to put on her makeup. Dabbing foundation across her face, she asked,

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? …I've got a shift."

The part-time job ran every other day, so Tuesday was free and Wednesday — tomorrow — he had to go in.

"What kind of job?"

"A café."

Her hand paused mid-touch. She glanced over at Kang-jun, who was sprawled diagonally across the bed, and the look in her eyes said she hadn't expected that.

"You're making money off something like that? …Does it even add up?"

"If you live carefully."

"You don't seem like that type."

"Which is why I never save any."

She snorted, a little tch, and turned back to the mirror.

"If you want to make real money, hang around outside the dungeon. The women there have cash. Older ones will slip you a fat allowance just for sitting next to them and drinking coffee."

"Sounds like you've done it a lot."

"I used to pick up spending money that way."

Spending money, she called it — but she'd almost certainly earned dozens of times a café wage. Kang-jun could have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠done the same if he wanted to, of course, but right now the groundwork mattered more.

If I want into the Hero Association, I have to look as ordinary as possible.

His ID listed him as twenty-one — seven years shaved off. He could always claim the card was a little worn if anyone asked, so that wasn't the real worry. The problem was the trail leading ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠up to now.

The organization wouldn't dig into him from day one, but the moment his rank climbed, people would start watching. And when they ran a background check, the suspicious gaps would be obvious. He'd built a new identity, sure — but a fabricated person always had holes.

Six years ago, a swarm of monsters had torn through the 35th Zone and left the entire district nearly flattened. The material and human losses had been staggering. Fully twenty thousand people had vanished as if they'd evaporated. Even now the 35th Zone wasn't completely cleaned up. The administrative systems at the zone's center had been wiped out, and everyone kept passing the buck, insisting it wasn't their problem. The Hero Association was never going to take on that kind of grunt work, so the place simply stayed abandoned.

Nearly every record in the zone had been destroyed in the chaos, which made it the perfect place to quietly insert himself. Most of the people who could have verified a childhood there were dead. With the right story, he could paper over the rest.

Of course, showing up as an instant powerhouse would have been more than enough to raise eyebrows on pure suspicion — which was exactly why he'd planned the café job first. Without that consideration, he wouldn't have given a part-time gig like this a second glance. Taking work near the dungeon, though, was for the trait If You Keep Pounding, It'll Happen Eventually. If he wanted to find civilians with high stats, dungeon teams were the easiest hunting ground. Heroes were still off-limits for now.

Once her makeup was finished, the woman left her phone number and a white envelope on the vanity and walked out. Kang-jun rolled around on the bed a while longer before finally getting up. Scratching his stomach, he peeked inside the envelope. Five hundred thousand won. On the note inside, scrawled in bright red lipstick: Draw. He tore the paper with the phone number into shreds and flushed it down the toilet with a stream of piss.

He packed his things roughly and left the motel. Then he ducked into a burger chain, watched other people head off to work, and took his time enjoying a morning set.

His next destination was already decided: the private training halls that existed in every zone. In this world, success meant joining a dungeon team or becoming a Hero, so scouting talented ability users was big business. Most of these private gyms were essentially the front yards of management agencies.

The 42nd Zone had a private training hall that the Villain Organization quietly backed from behind the scenes. Players couldn't exactly walk in and announce themselves, of course. Register there, and the organization would reimburse part of the fees later on its own.

Kang-jun called the Zone Chief of the 42nd Zone and got the name and location of the place. About a thirty-minute walk brought him to the entrance. He took a long pull of strong coffee and stepped inside.

Even first thing in the morning, the training hall reeked of sweat. There were more people than he'd expected, and the interior looked fairly polished. Photos of famous alumni lined the wall by the entrance, with trainer profiles displayed beside them.

Kang-jun walked straight to the front desk, where a female staff member was already looking him over.

"First time."

"Ah, here to register?"

"Yes."

"Fill this out, please."

He entered his personal details exactly as they appeared on his ID. For the address, he said he hadn't found a room yet and left it blank. The staffer handed him a locker key. Clothes and shoes all had to be changed for indoor gear.

Having brought nothing of his own, he changed into the communal set in the locker room and came back out. A female trainer was waiting. Men usually got female trainers; women got male ones.

"How did you hear about us?"

Her face was ordinary, but her body was ideal. Kang-jun let his eyes travel up and down once, discreetly, then sat.

"I don't need private lessons. I just want to rent the facilities."

"Ah, I see. But our training hall is pretty well-known. All the trainers have strong résumés. We've even produced Heroes."

"Right."

"We do a lot of discounts, too…. If you look here, we throw in one extra session for the price of nine. Most people take the ten-pack."

This wasn't some ordinary gym — it was a facility for developing abilities — so the prices were enormous. A single private lesson ran about five hundred thousand won. Daily lessons would burn through roughly fifteen million a month, even by a rough count. Not that anyone actually trained every day…

The reason it stayed popular despite the cost was simple: good stats meant good treatment, no exceptions. Even joining the most miserable dungeon team put money in your hands that ordinary civilians couldn't imagine. Failing that, you could still get scouted as a bodyguard or high-end security. And the people who had nothing better to do ended up here.

"No. Just the facilities."

"Ah. Then look at the usage fees. The common room is a hundred thousand for four hours a day. A private room is five hundred thousand for four hours."

The prices were genuinely staggering. The organization covered part of it, but not all — a private room was still out of reach. And that was only four hours.

"Common room."

"If you buy seven days of four-hour sessions, we bill it as six."

That wasn't bad. Seven hundred thousand became six hundred. He could cover that with what he had on hand. The five hundred from the motel helped, too.

"I'll take the seven-day package."

And so Kang-jun set foot in the absurdly named Muscle Mania Training Hall.

A good-looking guy with a good body walking into the common room naturally drew a few looks. Showing up at a place like this already meant you had some talent among civilians, so popularity tended to follow on its own.

Kang-jun paid those stares no attention. He'd come purely to train. Even being generous, he was only a little better than a greenhorn right now. He could handle the organization's instructors, sure — but that was seasoned experience talking, not raw stats. You couldn't hand out business cards with numbers that hadn't even hit twenty. The trainers here had all at least completed their first Awakening as a baseline.

Still, being a training hall, sparring was common. Sometimes members picked fights with each other and settled it under the pretext of a match. And funnily enough, even a place like this had its quiet little power struggles. …Well — wherever people lived, that kind of thing was inevitable.

…At any rate, Kang-jun sketched out a rough schedule and, starting the next day, settled into the grind.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he woke up, did morning meditation, worked his café shift in the afternoon, then wandered the streets in the evening until he found a suitable woman and took her to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a motel. The remaining weekdays he ate breakfast and headed straight to the training hall, wrung out about eight hours of sweat, and finished with evening meditation. Weekends he invested in coupons and traits.

In particular, he openly seduced Park Hae-su, the Zone Chief of the 41st Zone. She'd completed her first Awakening — good as a sex partner, and not bad for triggering trait conditions either.

As if by unspoken agreement, they spent every Saturday night burning through each other. The first time he'd finished inside her six times in a row and sent her straight to heaven had clearly landed as a decisive hit. After that, every time Kang-jun saw her he tended to drop the last rein of reason he was still holding. He even used magic to pound her without mercy.

Ironically, the act of driving into her seemed to apply a reciprocal impact effect to him as well — because on their fourth meeting, a trait evolved. …Apparently the gauge he'd been filling for months of enthusiastic shaking had finally topped out at exactly the right moment.

If You Keep Pounding, It'll Happen Eventually, however, still refused to trigger. Kang-jun was starting to wonder if betting on such a low probability ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been a mistake.

Park Hae-su seemed ready to make him a kept man if he'd let her — she even offered to let him stay at her place whenever he wanted — but Kang-jun turned her down. Seeing her once a week on the weekend was enough.

Two months shot past like an arrow. Cherry blossoms bloomed in a rush and fell, and then the greenery thickened. The roadside trees put out dense leaves that, every time the wind stirred them, looked like thousands of butterflies taking flight.

Spring was slowly leaving, and the sleeves and hems on women's clothes grew shorter by the day. The season of visual feasts was approaching.

In those two months, Kang-jun had raised his stats considerably as well. Strength +2, Agility +1, Stamina +2, Intelligence +1, Magic +4.

And at last, If You Keep Pounding, It'll Happen Eventually triggered once. It was last week, the fourth time he finished against Park Hae-su's hips.

Seeing that, he couldn't have been happier. Fifty coupons' worth of investment had finally paid off. One more trigger and he'd break even. …Of course, when that next one would fire was still anyone's guess.

Kang-jun was just starting to think about looking into dungeon teams when a call came in from Girlfriend Number One. She'd been out for about a month herself.

"Who?"

Kang-jun barked a laugh at that.

"When did he get out?"

"You know his number?"

"Yeah. Text it over."

Not long after the call ended, the Ogre guy's number landed in a text. She tacked on a clingy little note at the end about meeting up later.

Kang-jun dialed the number immediately. Rrring. Rrring. The tone went on forever. He kept trying through a few unanswered attempts until the ringing finally cut off with a click.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Me? Lee Kang-jun."

A rough snort blasted through the speaker and made it crackle.

"Why, you coming to find me?"

"42nd Zone."

Beep. The moment he heard the zone number, the guy hung up. Kang-jun wondered how he planned to find anything with just a zone number.

A long while later, the phone suddenly rang again. Kang-jun saw the number on the screen and smirked.

"Yeah."

"I told you — 42nd Zone."

"Take the subway."

Beep again. Kang-jun waited another long stretch. The sun was already starting to sink. So much for the training hall today — completely shot.

He was mid-yawn, flashing a smiling look at a woman walking past, when the phone rang yet again. Same guy, of course.

"Hey, you coming or what?"

"Here where?!"

"Where did you get off? Is there a number or something around you?"

What kind of absolute idiot—

"I told you the 42nd Zone earlier!"

"You—…"

Kang-jun finally broke into a full khuh-huh-huh of laughter. Ah, this guy was genuinely hilarious.

"Fifty-three, right? Wait there. I'm coming."

…And when Kang-jun saw the Ogre guy standing dead center in the middle of a thoroughfare with his arms crossed, he understood in his bones exactly why the man's Intelligence was a five.