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Chapter 10
“Really? That’s great.”
Not only was her headache gone, but the energy that had been blocked by the penalty was now circulating briskly.
She felt so good she thought she might be able to fly like this. Songi shook her head, brushing away the last traces of drunkenness.
“This isn’t something we can just gloss over. Since when could you tame people?”
“Who knows? I don’t even know myself. It just suddenly felt like I could.”
“Suddenly? Does that make any sense?”
Awakened ones could gain new skills as their job proficiency increased, but the limits imposed by rank were very clear.
A telekinetic who could barely lift a baseball couldn’t suddenly move a boulder the size of a house overnight.
What had happened to Morae went several levels beyond that.
Of course, there were very rare cases of Awakened who displayed abilities beyond their rank. Most of the time, it turned out their rank had simply been mismeasured from the start.
Songi spoke seriously.
“How could you suddenly gain that kind of power?”
“If you think about it, it’s not that different from animal taming. I didn’t perfectly train you or turn you into a vassal. I just lightly touched part of your wavelength.”
“So you’re saying you used only a tiny bit of power, and yet my body feels this light, like it’s about to take off. Isn’t that even more incredible?”
“There you go exaggerating again.”
“I’m not exaggerating! This is the first time you’ve ever tamed a person!”
“That’s just because I’d never tried it on a person before. I didn’t even know it was possible.”
Songi thumped her chest in frustration, but Morae was simply happy. She smiled softly and leaned her head on Songi’s shoulder.
“Still, it feels nice. From now on, whenever you have a headache, I can make it go away. Right?”
“Stop saying such carefree things. Don’t you think you need to get your rank remeasured?”
“Eh, why?”
That was when someone knocked on the front gate.
“Who is it?”
Morae asked from the rooftop railing. The man standing by the gate looked up.
“Ms. Kang Morae?”
“Yes, that’s me. What is this about…?”
“A registered letter from the Ability Administration. Please come down to receive it.”
“The Ability Administration?”
Could registered mail even arrive at night?
Morae hurried down and accepted the letter. As she tore open the sealed envelope and came back up to the rooftop, Songi asked,
“What is it?”
“Uh….”
Morae unfolded the documents and handed them to Songi.
“They’re telling me to get my rank remeasured.”
The rank evaluation counter at the Ability Management Agency was crowded from early morning.
“Hunter Kang Morae, your remeasurement request has been received. When it’s your turn, we’ll send a call to your device, so please make sure to check it. If you’re more than ten minutes late, you may not be able to be evaluated today.”
“Yes.”
Morae bowed politely to the clerk and turned away. Pulling her cap down lower, she entered the waiting room, and Songi hurried over.
“Morae, Morae, are you okay?”
“Why?”
“There are so many people. Are you dizzy? How’s your breathing?”
“Ah….”
Because of aftereffects from an accident she’d had as a child, she’d suffered from panic disorder for a while, but she had overcome it.
It had been a long time since she’d been in such a crowded place, so she was sweating and her heart was pounding, but it wasn’t unbearable.
Songi wiped the sweat running down Morae’s chin.
“Look at all this sweat.”
“It’s just hot.”
Morae brushed it off vaguely and changed the subject.
“There really are a lot of people. Looks like we’ll be waiting a while.”
“What number are you?”
“197.”
“What the hell, that many?”
Whenever Awakened gained even a single new skill, or their skill proficiency rose just a bit, they applied for rank remeasurement.
Even a single-rank increase meant access to far more dungeons.
The same was true even without entering dungeons. For ordinary commissions, a higher rank meant more choices and double the pay.
So even knowing how rare it was for ranks to actually change, people couldn’t help but cling to hope.
As Morae sat down in a corner, Songi whispered,
“Something feels fishy.”
“What does?”
“The moment your ability changed, they sent a remeasurement request like they’d been waiting for it. Don’t you think you might be under surveillance?”
“Why would they surveil an E-rank?”
“…….”
It didn’t make sense. There was no reason for the agency to monitor a lowest-rank Awakened.
“No, it’s just that the timing’s too perfect, it’s suspicious…. But if they called you in themselves, shouldn’t they at least not make you wait? Seriously, there’s nothing I like about this.”
Grumbling softly, Songi grabbed Morae’s shoulder.
“Morae, remember what I said, right? You’re only getting your rank measured.”
“Yeah. Keep it a secret that my taming lowers penalty values.”
“Your taming is incomparably more effective than stabilizers. That’s why the best option is not joining an institution, but signing a one-on-one contract with a high-rank Awakened. You know what I mean, right?”
Being able to replace stabilizers was a pretty useful ability.
But no one liked being tamed by someone else.
Honestly, who would entrust their wavelength to another person, knowing what they might do with it—especially a high-rank Awakened?
Songi was fine with it because they were friends, but no other Awakened would allow that. They’d rather just take stabilizers.
“You’re the only high-rank Awakened I know.”
“I’ll take care of everything. Just wait. I’ll make sure you move out of that rooftop room before the end of this year.”
Morae chuckled and pulled out her phone, which had been vibrating nonstop.
When she swiped the screen, the <Beautiful, Gyeon> fan café she’d logged into at dawn opened automatically.
[Full Member Board] The reason there were casualties in the Yongin dungeon this time is……
Author: ㅇㅇ
Because of that damn dog bastard, right? Admit it?
↳ Admit. If Gyeon had gone in from the start, no one would’ve died.
↳ I heard he ran away in the middle of the raid.
↳ An Awakened bailed during a raid? Are you crazy??
↳ Our dog’s gone nuts lololol
↳ If you watch the raid video, you’ll see that Hunter Gyeon Sooho completed the raid and exited. Those who were tragically lost died before Hunter Gyeon Sooho entered the dungeon. Please refrain from baseless slander.
↳ Funny how it’s anonymous, yet I somehow feel like I know who wrote that……
↳ Gyeon-mom, we told you last time you shouldn’t do this here.
↳ Whew~ smells like old man vibes.
Every time a reply was added to the comment she’d carefully written at dawn, a notification chimed. As Morae read the mocking posts, her expression drooped.
It wasn’t just this time. For some reason, similar comments always appeared under her posts.
Morae held out her phone to Songi.
“Songi, does this really sound like something some old geezer wrote?”
After glancing over the comments carelessly, Songi’s expression turned exasperated.
“You still haven’t left? Why are you going into an anti-café on purpose and stressing yourself out?”
“I didn’t know it was an anti-café….”
<Beautiful, Gyeon> looked like a fan café at first glance, but in reality it was an anti-café, with the hidden meaning of “No matter how beautiful, he’s still a dog bastard.”
She’d thought it was strange that there was so much hate toward Gyeon Sooho for a fan café.
Before long, she realized that the normal-looking exterior was just a disguise in case they got sued—but even then, she couldn’t bring herself to leave.
Someone had to stand up for Gyeon Sooho.
“Are you waging an independence movement or something? Doesn’t it hurt getting beaten ten thousand to one?”
“Just tell me why it sounds like an old geezer.”
“Start by ditching the periods. Why are you carefully putting full stops in every single comment on a community post?”
“Ah….”
Suddenly, the waiting room grew noisy.
“What’s going on?” Songi muttered, lifting her head—just as the door opened and two men walked in.
Without realizing it, Songi grabbed Morae’s wrist.
“M-Morae.”
“Huh?”
“Look over there.”
“Wait, I’m almost done fixing it.”
“This isn’t the time—gah! They’re coming this way!”
“What’s coming?”
Unable to resist Songi’s urging, Morae finally looked up. When she spotted someone, she sucked in a breath.
“Why is Hunter Gosan in the rank remeasurement waiting room?”
