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Episode 9
Now what on earth is that supposed to mean?
Just looking at it, it was a complicated story that couldn’t be understood all at once. Let’s set that aside for a moment.
I turned my attention to something that wouldn’t be bad to grasp right away.
‘Increase in Resistance Stats.’
Since the future where the Red Giant appears is SSS-rank, unless I raised my resistance accordingly, I’d undoubtedly go insane when the actual event takes place.
Putting that aside for a moment—
Whether it was an SSS-rank or a C-rank oracle, being forcibly subjected to viewing it caused quite a shock to my mental state. Having an A-rank resistance added to my stats was actually pretty useful.
‘They say even people who see ghosts never truly get used to a ghost suddenly popping out no matter how old they get—so how could I?’
Until just a few days ago, I was nothing more or less than an F-rank awakener office worker. For someone like me to stumble upon state-level secrets…
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
Before I knew it, a long shadow was cast over my head. I quickly pulled up the towel draped over my head and looked up to see the tall, light-brown-haired young man from earlier. His gentle eyes made him look like a good-natured person.
“Are you alright?”
“Ah, well, I’m fine.”
Feeling awkward, I didn’t know what to say. For now, I held out the plastic carrier I had managed to keep wrapped in my arms.
“The owner’s cat is inside. I’ve never raised a cat before, so I don’t know if it’s okay…”
“Ah, Chil-seok! Thank you for taking care of Chil-seok. He’s the owner’s cherished cat. I’ll put him in the inner room of our shop for now.”
The well-built young man took the carrier where the tuxedo cat was huddled completely motionless.
He immediately opened an opaque sliding door in the far corner behind the counter, went inside to place the cat down, and stepped back out.
“Is this… your shop?”
“It’s my father’s shop, but I stepped out to help him for a bit.”
“Ah.”
“I came out early because we had a catering order, and I happened to notice the flames rising. What a relief. By the way, did the mister who splashed the gasoline walk in while smoking a cigarette?”
“No.”
“Oh boy… The owner’s going to flip out.”
“Why?”
“Because it seems the fire started from a cigarette butt.”
“What? A cigarette butt?”
The gentle-looking young man sat down across from me at a comfortable distance. Before starting the story, he scratched his head in embarrassment.
“It seems someone at the billiards hall upstairs didn’t put out their cigarette properly and threw it out the window. Unluckily, it flew right through the window with the open screen and landed on top of the gasoline. A cigarette butt was found near the window.”
Hearing that, I couldn’t help but spill out these words:
“Wow… Is that how sloppily the prophecy gets connected?”
At my words, the well-built young man looked flustered.
“Pardon?”
“To be honest, I came to deliver that news to the cafe owner.”
In an era of awakeners, it should be fine to mention having prophetic abilities, right?
“I’m an F-rank awakener, and one of my abilities is seeing the future. I happened to see that cafe burning while passing nearby, and I couldn’t just ignore it, so I stopped by. But as soon as I tried to tell the owner, she pulled out a handgun right away. Is she normally like that?”
“Ah, haha… She hardly ever pulls it out, though.”
The young man laughed awkwardly in a loud voice while watching my reaction.
Soon, he hesitated before asking me:
“…That cafe. Do you know what kind of cafe it is?”
“It’s a place where criminals grab coffee before heading out, right?”
“That’s… not entirely wrong!”
Thinking I roughly knew about the cafe, the young man got straight to the point.
“You’re not planning to report it to the police, are you?”
“Report what? I’m not reporting anything.”
“…Really?”
“Yes.”
“Could it be that you came looking for a job…?”
“No. I don’t do hunter work.”
It must have been truly unexpected.
Unfitting for his large frame, his softly drooping eyes opened wide as soon as he heard my answer, silently shouting: ‘Then why would an ordinary-looking woman like you come here?’
Feeling extremely exhausted since morning, I had no desire to spill all my personal circumstances to a strange young man.
“You seem like an ordinary awakener yourself. You seem to know the owner pretty well?”
“Ah. Well, the owner is quite famous around here.”
“How is she famous?”
When I asked, the light-brown-haired young man merely gave a subtle smile and didn’t answer.
Hmm, that silence spoke volumes.
An ordinary elderly woman wouldn’t carry a gun around. Even if tattoos could be considered fashion, that was one thing.
“Since you seem to roughly know about that cafe, let me tell you: poking the Hunter Bureau won’t do any good. In fact, it’s better not to report it.”
“Why? If I report it, will the owner come to kill me?”
“The owner won’t personally move. She’s elderly and no longer active.”
Which meant other henchmen would move instead!
“As she said, aside from ex-convicts with records, many people who can’t receive government protection come here too. Ordinary citizens of South Korea who did nothing wrong, but were forced onto a different path just to make a living.”
The young man’s expression turned serious.
“I don’t expect you to know the details. But you at least know that such people exist, right?”
“I know.”
“Those people jump into this work without insurance, even knowing how dangerous it is. Because this is the only place that takes a reasonable commission and connects them to safe work. Places tied up with loan sharks leave you with no way out if you sign a contract wrong.”
“I know.”
“Really?”
In the past, because of the owner of the fried chicken shop where I worked part-time, I had personally seen what happened when someone took out private loans and couldn’t pay them back on time.
The collectors would linger blatantly right in front of the entrance, occupying tables without ordering a thing, creating a threatening atmosphere for the customers.
Back then, the reason the owner resorted to loan sharks was that he couldn’t get government support.
He had borrowed money from tier 1 and tier 2 financial institutions, but unluckily, an unexpected Gate opened, destroying his home. He lost the ability to repay the loans, and his credit score plummeted endlessly.
In the end, he had no choice but to knock on the doors of shady places.
‘I wonder if he’s doing well now.’
The day he had to shut down his business and gave notice to me, his only part-time employee—
I still couldn’t forget the look on his face back then.
“There are many reasons—like having your body broken, but because you’re a B-rank awakener, it isn’t recognized, so you can’t get jobs because getting government aid or disability benefits overrides it. Things like that.”
Even though ten years had passed since the first Gate opened, the holes in the welfare system hadn’t been patched.
And this was just the extent of what I roughly knew.
Even after the ‘savage era’—where power held sway over law—had passed, the benefits received by high-rank awakeners and hunters who contributed greatly to the country far exceeded the subsidies given to those in need of welfare.
‘That’s why everyone tries to become an awakener and work as a hunter.’
Rather, an awakener like me who just wanted to work a normal office job was an anomaly.
Because even among low-rank awakeners, the vast majority worked separate jobs while hustling with hunter work as a side gig.
But I couldn’t do that.
Even with my family pressuring me, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Slaying monsters inside Gates was something someone with weak nerves like me could never pull off. All I wanted was to live quietly, peacefully, and modestly.
‘And yet a coward like me is the only one who knows the world-ending scenario.’
Is that why I lose my mind at the very end, unable to handle the stress?
As I stared gloomily down at the table, the light-brown-haired young man quietly continued speaking.
“Thanks to you, the fire didn’t spread big, and I’m grateful for that. If we were unlucky, the fire would have caught onto the surrounding shops too. Even so, from now on, if possible, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk about the cafe to people around here. And I’d prefer if you didn’t come back either.”
“Ah, well, I came because I happened to have business at that cafe.”
“Pardon? Why?”
“Because I need to gather criminals to commit crimes.”
At my words, the good-natured young man’s expression twisted into something strange for the first time.
Roughly three days after the fire commotion at Garam Cafe.
“Aren’t you going to work? What on earth are you doing, lounging around here instead of working?”
Owner Park Il-sook nagged as if she couldn’t stand it anymore, directing her complaints at me as I sat slouched in a corner of the cafe like a loan shark.
For those three days, I had been spending my daily routine taking taxis back and forth between Garam Cafe—which doubled as an illegal awakener manpower agency—and a 5-star Helios Hotel.
I knew very well that the people making a living in this commercial district were whispering behind my back.
I accidentally overheard the owner of a nearby dumpling shop gossiping about me with an employee while casting wary glances my way during lunch yesterday.
‘Must look pretty bizarre for a woman with all four limbs intact to have no job and clock in daily at an illegal awakener manpower agency.’
I only realized now through her nagging that rumors were circulating—asking whether Grandma Park Il-sook, the owner of Garam Cafe and the illegal awakener agency, took out money and failed to repay it, leaving her under the watch of a debt collector.
“There are even rumors like that floating around? People sure don’t have anything better to do.”
“The one with nothing better to do is you!”
The owner spat out disgruntledly.
“I told you to go home and stop breaking your parents’ hearts!”
“I don’t have parents. I’m fine.”
Recalling that I had cut ties with my parents made my chest—which hadn’t even felt heavy—suddenly feel refreshingly clear and comfortable. Without realizing it, the corners of my mouth curled up slightly.
Seeing that, the owner brought up my parents no further. Instead, she started nagging about a different topic.
“Because of you, weird rumors are spreading about me too! As if I’d ever fail to repay money! If you haven’t found anyone worth mentioning after slouching around my cafe for three days, just get lost.”
“I’m bored—shall I read your future, owner?”
At my subtle persuasion, the owner’s wrinkled brow twitched.
“…Forget it.”
“Why? You saw for yourself that my ability has some credibility.”
“Ah, if you’re going to be noisy, get out.”
“Are you kicking me out right now? I’m raising your cafe’s revenue by a lot.”
“You talk about overworking an old woman like that?! Make your own coffee from now on. What kind of coffee do you drink so damn much of… at this rate, you’re going to end up eating Chil-seok’s food next!”
Once the hunters gathered in the early dawn to pick up illegal Gate jobs and vanished in the blink of an eye, the cafe remained utterly idle for the rest of the day.
It was the very picture of an old, ordinary market-corner cafe, where bored neighborhood elders came by, ordered a single cup of tea, killed time, and quietly departed.
It wasn’t that I had absolutely nothing to do. Still, sitting around endlessly waiting for the specific awakener I wanted left me with plenty of idle time.
So, to kill time, I used my abundance of money to order every item on the cafe menu, before eventually cycling back to an iced Americano loaded with syrup—drinking five cups a day.
Since liquid alone felt insufficient, I reached over to help myself to the default complimentary snacks, only to get smacked on the back by the owner.
“Owner. Is it always this slow around here once the hunters take their job offers and leave at dawn?”
