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Chapter 08
<The Next Day, at Woo-hyun’s House>
In front of Woo-hyun’s home, located in a hillside slum.
Kim Sun-hye, Woo-hyun’s mother, stood with a face full of worry as she saw her son off.
“Son. You must never do anything dangerous. Do you understand?”
The night before, after receiving his Player license, Woo-hyun had bought beef on his way home and revealed that he had become a Player while hosting a beef party.
Because of that, his father Cheon Jung-hyuk and mother Kim Sun-hye found out that Woo-hyun had become a Player, while his younger sister Woo-hee, who lived in a high school dormitory, was only told about it over the phone.
Though Sun-hye had reluctantly agreed, knowing their family’s dire financial situation left Woo-hyun no choice but to risk his life as a Player, her worries as a mother were still immense.
Even Woo-hyun couldn’t take on monsters barehanded, so some essential gear was necessary.
He had managed to save some military savings during his time in the Special Forces, and he intended to use that to purchase basic equipment.
But seeing his mother acting like he was heading into a battlefield even though he was just going out to buy gear, Woo-hyun reassured her again.
“Mother, today I’m just going to buy some equipment.”
“But they say Players never know when or where danger will strike.”
“Well, that’s true… but what could possibly happen in the middle of Seoul?”
Despite his words, Sun-hye couldn’t shake off her worry and followed him all the way to the front door.
And just as Woo-hyun stepped outside, he saw Se-rin waiting at the door.
As soon as both Woo-hyun and Sun-hye’s eyes turned to her, Se-rin bluntly said to him:
“No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t come up with an appropriate way to repay you for what you did for me. So I’ll repay you with my body instead.”
Her shocking words left Woo-hyun dumbfounded, and Sun-hye’s eyes went wide in surprise.
“Oh my…”
Panicked, Woo-hyun quickly snapped at Se-rin.
“Hey! How can you say it like that?!”
He immediately understood that when Se-rin said “repay with her body,” she actually meant helping him out by working alongside him—but to anyone who didn’t know her, it was the most easily misunderstood phrase imaginable.
Se-rin just tilted her head innocently at his scolding, which only deepened Sun-hye’s misunderstanding.
“My son’s all grown up. And now he’s even brought home such a lovely daughter-in-law. I guess I don’t have to worry anymore.”
Nodding approvingly, Sun-hye seemed to drift off into her own world, already accepting Se-rin.
Flustered, Woo-hyun said quickly, “That’s not it, don’t misunderstand.”
But Se-rin, still with her pure expression, added fuel to the fire:
“Then what about yesterday? I thought we worked together pretty well.”
At her second shocking remark, Sun-hye’s gaze sharpened. Sensing this was about to spiral into irreversible disaster, Woo-hyun grabbed Se-rin’s hand and bolted.
“I’ll be back later!”
<Some Time Later, Near Woo-hyun’s House>
“Why are you rejecting me? Someone like me would make a great partner.”
At her insistence, Woo-hyun sighed deeply before replying.
“You should have made it clear from the start that you meant being Player partners. You left out all the important words—that’s why she misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood? Misunderstood what?”
As Se-rin once again tilted her head innocently, Woo-hyun rubbed his face with both hands in exasperation.
‘Her social skills are hopeless.’
Still, he gave her a proper answer about being partners.
“We may have become friends, but we haven’t built enough trust to have each other’s backs. So the answer is no.”
Honestly, Woo-hyun knew that Se-rin would make an outstanding companion.
Her social skills were a disaster, but that hardly mattered during Player activities. And aside from her lack of social sense, all her other abilities were top-tier. She was definitely a first-class partner candidate.
From what he had seen in the first round, Se-rin wasn’t the type who would betray him out of some sordid desire.
And most of all, she was the only daughter of the chairman of the Daehyun Group. If things went wrong, there was even the possibility of gaining the group’s support. On paper, Se-rin was clearly a first-class companion.
But no matter how great she was, he couldn’t reveal his vampiric mechanism to her.
Someone like Se-rin would immediately grasp the truth once she saw him drinking monster blood, and then who knew what kind of danger that could bring in the future?
He hadn’t even told his family about his vampiric ability. Revealing it to someone like Se-rin, who was still basically a stranger, was unthinkable. That was why he had chosen to work solo without companions.
Hearing his reasoning—that they didn’t yet have the trust to rely on each other—Se-rin couldn’t find a counterargument. She only pouted her lips in dissatisfaction.
“Well then, take care. I need to go buy my gear.”
Turning away after saying that, Woo-hyun walked off.
<Some Time Later, Seoul National Forge>
Woo-hyun had resolved to live as a Player.
But he wasn’t some solo-leveling monster from a novel, capable of crushing enemies barehanded.
He needed at least some basic equipment. So he headed to the National Forge in Seoul.
As its name suggested, the National Forge was operated by the government. While the quality was lower than private forges, the prices were much cheaper.
High-ranking Players usually bought their gear from private smithies. But new F-rank nobodies like Woo-hyun—unless they were born with a silver spoon—inevitably came to the National Forge.
Even among the F-rank Players who came here, there were tiers.
Some had parents who gave them money, allowing them to buy decent gear made with effort by the blacksmiths. Others, like Woo-hyun, could only afford to rummage through the clearance bins of unsold weapons and armor.
And Woo-hyun was at the very bottom.
Even after scraping together two years of military savings, the most he could buy was a single weapon and a light piece of armor.
Player gear was expensive by nature. It was made from monster corpses that only Players could hunt, so the raw materials were already costly. Add in the fact that only Players could process them, and the labor costs skyrocketed.
With such high material and labor costs, even the clearance gear at the National Forge—once labeled “for Players”—started at several million won.
Standing at the entrance of the National Forge, Woo-hyun glanced at Se-rin, who had followed him all the way from his house.
“How long are you going to keep following me?”
“Until you trust me.”
Her confident answer made Woo-hyun sigh again.
“Trust doesn’t just appear overnight, you know.”
“Just like you’re free not to accept me as a partner, I’m free to follow you around.”
With no sign she intended to back off, Woo-hyun sighed once more at her hopeless social skills.
“Fine… whatever. I’m only buying equipment today and heading back anyway. Do as you like.”
With that, Woo-hyun walked into the National Forge, and Se-rin followed right behind him like a duckling after its mother.
<Some Time Later, Inside the Seoul National Forge>
“Where’s the clearance section?”
“Over there.”
At Woo-hyun’s question, the shopkeeper lazily jerked his chin toward some barrels in the corner.
When a Player died, their family usually sold off the gear they had used in life.
Since the prices started in the millions, and no one but Players could use such gear anyway, most families sold them off.
High-tier equipment went to auctions. But the low-tier gear of lower-ranked Players didn’t even make it that far—it was sold dirt cheap to the National Forge.
The Forge then gave the equipment only a basic inspection before reselling it at low prices to newbie Players.
Since they were second-hand and not crafted fresh by a smith, the prices were far cheaper than brand-new gear.
And because they were known as “the equipment of dead Players,” many people shunned them, driving prices down even further.
That was exactly what Woo-hyun was aiming for. He walked over to the barrels and began digging through the jumble of clearance weapons and armor.
As he searched, Se-rin watched and finally asked, unable to understand:
“Why would you buy that kind of stuff?”
Without even glancing at her, Woo-hyun kept rummaging through the barrel and answered.
“Because I don’t have money. You saw my house yesterday—you know my family’s poor.”
“Should I buy it for you?”
“No.”
“I have lots of money.”
“I can tell just by looking at your clothes.”
What Se-rin was wearing looked plain and simple on the outside, but every piece was actually equipment crafted by production-type Players.
Once the phrase “made by a Player” was attached, even a plain white T-shirt would cost over a million won—and she was covered head to toe in such gear.
Even without knowing from the first round that she was the only daughter of the Daehyun Group’s chairman, any Player could easily tell she came from wealth.
“I don’t want to owe you for something like this. Besides, I was taught that friends shouldn’t lend each other money. So I’ll just accept the thought.”
Hearing his earnest refusal, Se-rin didn’t bring up buying his gear again.
Even with her lack of social sense, she had enough awareness to pick up on that much.
