The Shape of Paradise (1)
I sipped the last of my chocolate milk. “...” It couldn’t be that she abandoned me. She couldn’t have just left me here and run away. She even gave me this card. I swallowed the lump in my throat, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill, and took a bite of my cream bread. “She’ll definitely come back... She has to... She promised.”
Just as I finished the last of the bread and drained the large carton of chocolate milk, a voice called out. “U-um, are you, by any chance, Kang Hyunseo?”
Yeon Eunseo, Yeon Eun-ah’s younger sister, arrived, panting for breath. “Oh, yes!” I greeted her brightly, and she let out a long, weary sigh. “I’m so sorry. My sister just told me you were in the park and left. I’ve been wandering around for ages.”
Ah, so that was it. What a relief—I hadn’t been abandoned after all. I stared at her intently, and she smiled and reached out to shake my hand. “Hello. I’m Yeon Eunseo.”
“Oh, right. Hello. I’m Kang Hyunseo.”
She had black hair and a gentle appearance. If Eun-ah resembled a cat or a hawk, this one was more like a hamster or a squirrel. I stared at her for a moment, struck by her small-animal vibe. “You’re a hunter?”
Can someone this weak really be a hunter? When I asked, Eunseo made an embarrassed face. “I look a bit weak, don’t I?”
“It’s not just a bit.”
At my words, Eunseo looked slightly crestfallen. Her expression was so expressive that I felt sorry for saying it. “Was my sister very strong?”
“Ah. Um. Well.” I rolled my eyes. Now, how should I make an excuse? I rummaged through my pocket and pulled out my temporary ID. “I’m a bit lacking, so please understand.”
“Yes?”
When I showed her the temporary ID, Eunseo covered her mouth. “...Huh? Yes? Uh...?” She looked back and forth between me and the ID. “Oh, I-I’m sorry. I was just a little surprised.”
“Why?”
“My sister said you were a hunter clearing the front lines.”
Well, I suppose it would seem strange—someone on the front lines who is unregistered and has a learning disability. Anyone would think it was odd. “I’ve never had a rank assessment, but I can pull my own weight wherever I’m put.”
When I said that with confidence, Eunseo looked at me as if I were absurd. “Ah... I see.”
She had the look of someone wondering if that was even possible. Then again, what crazy guild would use an unranked hunter on the front lines? Especially a kid who looked like she’d break if you poked her. She thought for a moment before opening her mouth. “No, it’s fine. You must have your reasons. It can’t be helped.”
“...”
“Tell me when the time is right.”
Even if I told her, she wouldn’t believe me. ‘Actually, I’m the Lone Demon King. Hahaha. Are you surprised?’ Who would believe that?
Just as I was ruminating on my complicated feelings, Eunseo smiled and said, “My name is Yeon Eunseo. Believe it or not, I’m the ace of our D-class guild. My main position is supporter.”
I’d only heard of supporters. So, these were the kinds of people who did that job. “I’m Kang Hyunseo, no rank. My main position is dealer.”
“I see.”
“Um, or maybe I just do everything? I deal, I tank, I draw aggro, and I do first aid. I do everything except healing.”
“You’re a funny person.” Eunseo returned my temporary ID and said, “Why don’t you come to our guild for now? You said you didn’t have anywhere to eat or sleep. We’ll provide everything.”
I frowned at the radical offer. What kind of trap was this? “...Is it okay to let an outsider in so easily? You don’t even know who I am.”
“Hehe.” A wicked laugh! Right, she must be aiming for something. As I tensed up, Eunseo said, “We should live by helping each other.”
She smiled and held out her hand. Help? We’d just met! She didn’t know anything about me! What on earth... Her sister suddenly gives me a card, and the younger sister offers food and shelter? Could this be some kind of bonus quest?
I narrowed my eyes, observing Eunseo’s expression, and then, in a very defensive posture, I lightly grabbed the tips of her fingers. “My, you’re like a cat.”
“...I’m not trusting you yet. Got it?”
Just as I was holding her fingertips, *Ding*—Eunseo picked up her phone, checked a message, and tilted her head. “...” With a giant question mark floating over her head, she said to me, “Hyunseo, is there anything you want to eat?”
“Yes?”
“No, my sister...”
And so, a month passed in the blink of an eye after meeting her.
The Nakwon Guild, run by Yeon Eun-ah. True to its name, this small guild, which pursued an atmosphere like a utopia, was a micro-guild consisting of only four people. D-class hunter Yeon Eunseo, E-class hunter Park Hyungtae, E-class hunter Cha Ildo, and me, an unregistered hunter. These four were the entirety of the guild’s members. No, wait—wouldn’t a group this size usually be called a party? Anyway.
Our main work was mining and gathering in floors that had already been cleared, or dealing with low-level mobs that had respawned in cleared areas. In other words, to the large guilds, we were just a third-tier or trainee-level group. They claimed we were a busy guild with monthly schedules for mining and mob clearing, but recently, with the Tower of Heaven having been cleared and replaced by the Tower of Life, we were in a vacation period with nothing to do.
Currently, the Tower of Life was only cleared up to the first floor. In other words, the entire tower was the front line, so the second and third tiers had nowhere to go. ‘So this is what it’s like to have a break period after a tower is finished.’ Well, it wasn’t like this happened more than once every ten years.
I looked around the quiet guild office, which also served as Yeon Eunseo’s apartment. My life consisted of watching news and internet posts about how far the clearing had progressed, solving middle school equivalency exam workbooks under Eunseo’s nagging, and playing games during my free time.
‘Ugh, I’m getting restless.’ I stretched my stiff lower back and let out a sigh. For the past few days, I had been living while suppressing the urge to return to the tower. The tension of being able to die by a hair’s breadth. The thrilling heartbeat when I succeeded. The desire to slice and crush something was bubbling up little by little.
‘Besides, I have to get rid of this damn system window.’
[The new body must be updated in the tower.]
It seemed to have gotten a bit darker—was I imagining it? ‘Ah, if I live like this, I might just go crazy from boredom.’ Maybe a retired life didn’t suit my constitution after all. I slumped my body, feeling a dry, parched sensation. “Aaaah. I’m bored.”
“Hey! Kang Hyunseo! You haven’t finished your workbook yet, have you?”
“...” I sat up straight again and started solving the workbook. “Why do I have to know what the speaker is feeling...” I flipped through the elementary school equivalency exam workbook. “I could just live as an elementary school graduate...”
At my words, Park Hyungtae, who was sitting on the sofa playing a game, clicked his tongue. “Tsk, absolutely not, Kang Hyunseo. You have to go to Seoul National University, which I couldn’t get into.”
A man with blonde hair, tanned skin, piercings in his ears and tongue, and large tattoos on his arms and back. 25-year-old E-class hunter and current unemployed person, Park Hyungtae, poked me with his foot. “Got it, Kang Hyunseo? Study like your life depends on it and go to SNU for me.”
“...Why should I?”
“Hey, when your older brother tells you to do something, you say, ‘Yes, brother,’ and do it. You talk too much~”
This bastard, really. “...Teacher! Can I cut this guy’s throat?”
“No! Finish your workbook quickly!”
“Ugh.”
“Heh heh, grow up for another ten years if you want to cut my throat.”
“...” If I really cut it, Eunseo would get mad at me, right? I gnawed on my pencil and read the passage again.
[The sea can do anything.]
[It lifts the bright red morning sun,]
[And it floats ships, too.]
Hmm... Maybe it used water abilities to force a hemorrhage from the seven orifices and then floated the body in the air? It would look like a bright red ball, after all. Was the last line about cutting off just the abdomen and letting it float? That would be perfect as a warning sign.
“Mr. Cha Ildo. This must be a description of combat and a warning, right? Like a corpse spraying blood.”
At my words, Cha Ildo, a man in his mid-40s, stared at the workbook. “Let’s see...” As Cha Ildo stared at the workbook with a serious expression, I kindly added an explanation. “There’s nothing that makes things bright red except combat. Is it magic-based? I thought it was the warrior type, but it seems like a trap.”
“...” Cha Ildo covered his eyes with a troubled expression. “Oh my. Our Hyunseo, what on earth...”
“Why should I?”
Cha Ildo nodded and closed the workbook. “Forget it. Give it up. Just grow up healthy and strong.”
“Hey! Mr. Ildo! Stop bothering me and go away!”
Eunseo, who had finished the dishes, approached me. The scent of her shampoo wafted over. Eunseo, who had reopened the workbook, began to explain. “Now, look here. This is a poem about the sea and a father.”
“It’s not a combat description? It says it made it bright red.”
“...The sun is red.”
“Why is the sun red? Red is blood.”
Isn’t the sun yellow or white? Was the sun red in reality? No, it wasn’t? As I spoke as if I really didn’t know, everyone sighed.
“Ugh, that’s true. It’s strange that the sun is red. Red is for sunsets.” Only Park Hyungtae took my side. “Right! This must be a description of a massacre site, right?”
As I said that excitedly, Eunseo glared at Park Hyungtae. “Park Hyungtae, will you be quiet? Now, Hyunseo, then how about this?”
I read the text Eunseo pointed to. It was a story about a man with a kind heart toward others. “Hmm.”
“What kind of heart do you think this man has?”
“He probably plans to stab him after putting him at ease like this.”
“...”
“He’s giving him something first to put him at ease, then he’s going to take everything away.”
This is right, isn’t it? This is definitely the correct answer. Kyaa, I haven’t killed one or two of these guys. As I confidently clenched my fist, Eunseo held her forehead with a look of someone who had lost everything.
“Ah, why? This is right.”
“Kwahahaha, right. That is right.” As Park Hyungtae laughed, holding his stomach behind me, Eunseo threw a roll of toilet paper at him.
For several days, Eunseo checked Hyunseo’s condition and couldn’t hide her astonishment. While Hyunseo’s understanding of math was surprisingly fast, her level of Korean, ethics, and social studies was at a hopeless level. Especially ethics—it was like trying to teach something to someone already filled with their own world; it felt like trying to pour water into a bottle filled with black, sticky liquid.
Everything about Hyunseo was strange. Starting with the fact that she had no identity at all, her twisted common sense, her extensive understanding of the tower, and even the murderous intent that occasionally flashed in her eyes. On top of that, she slept just lying on the floor, felt anxious if she slept for more than three hours, and ate only enough small amounts of food to not die. There was even a time when she ate food waste for dinner, which made Eunseo angry.
Is this what it feels like to bring a wild beast into the house? In the end, the day Eunseo called her sister was about a month after she had brought Hyunseo home.
“Sister, what kind of person did you send me?”
[Ah, Hyunseo?]
“There are one or two strange things about her.”
[Why?]
“It’s like she’s someone who never lived in Korea. No, it feels like she never lived on Earth.”
At Eunseo’s words, her sister, Eun-ah, was silent for a moment as if choosing her words. [I’m sorry, if Hyunseo hasn’t told you, I can’t tell you her identity.]
“...”
[As I said before, in the tower, that... you know?]
“Yeah. I can feel it just by looking at her behavior and the things she says about the life she lived.”
[I suppose so.]
“But is she really okay?”
[Yes, if she can just fix her twisted way of thinking.]
“If she can?”
[Maybe. She might become a tremendous hero?]
“A hero?” The kid who asks every day if she can cut someone’s throat? The kid who occasionally exudes murderous intent as if she’s really going to kill someone? Eunseo had no choice but to hang up the phone, filled only with questions.
“Hyunseo is a hero?” Just as she was tilting her head, *Buzz*—the guild’s dedicated phone rang. Yeon Eunseo answered the phone, startled. “Ah, yes, this is the Nakwon Guild.”
[Ah, hello. This is the Hunter Bureau. It’s nothing else, but...]
As she listened to the call, Eunseo’s expression became increasingly serious. “Oh, I think that would be difficult. Ah, yes, yes. Yes. Ah, is that so.” She let out a deep breath and rubbed her forehead.
“Yes, 10 times the compensation. Yes... emergency... I understand. I’ll talk to the guild members.”
Eunseo, who hung up the phone, stared at the ceiling and closed her eyes. “For a small guild like ours, entering the inside of the tower already...”
Eunseo frowned. Usually, they wouldn’t call up to the third tier for a clearing floor. Because it was a problem that should be solved at the second-tier level. But now, there was a shortage of hunters. Ever since the second tiers of the Sky and Seoul guilds suffered heavy damage in the Tower of the Firmament, the second tiers had been suffering from chronic manpower shortages.
“If things go well, it might be an opportunity to raise our rank.” It might be an opportunity that came to Park Hyungtae and Cha Ildo. If they participated in a battle like this and achieved results, D-rank wasn’t just a dream. “But it’s too dangerous...”
A little greed and a large sense of anxiety were dividing her mind. “If I tell the two of them, they’ll definitely say let’s go.”
The conditions were too good to just ignore. Hunters were, in the end, day laborers looking for work, and if they started pulling out of things like this, the work would dry up. There weren’t many choices. Eunseo bit her lip. “Should I go...”
Hyunseo’s face flashed through her mind. Half of her felt that since she lived in the tower, she would definitely be a help. Half of her felt that she couldn’t take someone who had lived in the tower. But in the end, she wasn’t Kang Hyunseo. She would have no choice but to ask her directly and hear her answer. Having made her decision, Eunseo clenched her fist tightly.