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Episode 6
“Uh… w-well, I do know a place… but what on earth did a young lady like you do to get a criminal record…?”
“Attempted murder on a guild traitor. Almost got sent to the slammer.”
I’m usually terrible at lying like this. I couldn’t even make jokes like that normally. But look at how a person can change. The sheer absurdity of myself made a laugh burst out on its own.
“Ah… hahaha!”
The taxi driver finally shut his mouth.
“Mister, if you know a good spot, mind recommending it? Pretty please?”
I nudged the driver, whose chatter had noticeably dried up.
I had my own rational reason for this. Taxi drivers drive all over the place and meet tons of people, so there was a good chance he might know something about that kind of underground stuff.
“A young lady like you… mm, so that’s why you couldn’t get a job. In that case, there is one place that comes to mind…”
He actually knew one.
“Where is it?”
“…”
Why the hesitation now?
“Come on, if you know, please tell me. Hmm?”
The driver still hesitated. Well, I had a foolproof method for moments like this. Since time immemorial, there has been one absolute best way to open a locked mouth.
“I’ll pay you quadruple the fare.”
“You know the market near the train station on the way to the hotel?”
Turns out the amount was far too tempting to refuse. As if his silence had never happened, the driver began spilling everything he knew.
“There’s a tea room in that market. It’s on the second floor. It used to be a traditional tea room, but halfway through, it turned into a cafe. Called ‘Garam Cafe.’ It’s run by an old non-awakened civilian.”
Listening to his smooth explanation, the scenery matched what I had seen through my vision.
“But that place isn’t just a regular cafe.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s an unregistered hunter employment agency. Completely illegal. They hook up jobs for uncertified awakeners, hunters, or folks with criminal records.”
Even though it was just the two of us in the taxi, the driver lowered his voice as if someone might overhear.
I quietly swallowed my nerves.
In my entire life, I had never done a single illegal thing.
‘I almost had a heart attack just taking out a loan from a second-tier financial institution.’
Now I had to walk into a place that sounded straight out of a crime movie? Having been an ordinary office worker until just a few days ago, fear hit me first.
Wait, hold on.
‘Humanity’s destruction is right around the corner—who gives a damn?’
The ultimate cheat key for courage—’The End of Humanity’—crossed my mind, and suddenly I stopped giving a damn again.
“Mister, what time do they open?”
“A-Are you seriously going?”
“I’m not in a position to be picky about shady jobs right now.”
“That’s not the problem! If a young lady like you takes a job there, you could die in a dungeon and nobody would ever know! Do you have any idea how many crazy psychopaths are out there these days?!”
“It’s fine. I’m usually the one doing the tearing apart.”
The inside of the taxi went completely dead silent thanks to my lie.
Maintaining a comfortable atmosphere, we arrived at the 5-star hotel. I pulled out the cash I had withdrawn earlier.
“Mister, don’t go spreading rumors about me. I’ll know if you do.”
I grabbed a stack of cash from the bank envelope, which turned out to be four or five 50,000-won bills.
When I handed it to him with a genial smile, the driver’s eyes widened, and his hands trembled as he took the money. He hurriedly unloaded my luggage from the trunk and sped off before I even had time to say anything.
However, captivated by the dazzling exterior of the Taejeong Helios Hotel, I stopped paying attention to the taxi driver.
‘Awesome!’
I had arrived at a place I thought I’d never set foot in during my entire life.
The hotel, bearing the name of the Sun God, was literally a small sun in its own right.
The area around the building shone as bright as broad daylight. Walking through the massive, jewelry-box-like revolving door, reality finally hit me.
‘I can never return to the life I had before contracting with the constellation.’
My life path had taken a sharp turn in an instant. I had ended up on a carousel out of nowhere, but when the ride stopped, only a dark, empty amusement park might be waiting for me.
Still, what could I do? Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.
Grabbing my room key, I trembled inward amidst people dressed sharply like business executives. Even with plenty of cash now, I felt intimidated simply because I had never been to a place like this before.
The moment I opened the door to the hotel room I booked for a long-term stay, though—
“Whoa…”
The night view stretching beyond the wall-to-wall glass windows was foolishly gorgeous. Gorgeous enough to make me temporarily forget all the miseries suffocating my mind. I approached the window and stared blankly at the cityscape.
After taking a hot shower, I tossed my exhausted body onto the huge, plush bed. I hadn’t eaten dinner, but I didn’t feel hungry at all—I was just too tired.
Whether humanity was going to end or not, I wanted to sleep first and think later.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.
Soon, it would be a world where even gods are dead. Humans exist for gods to exist, and gods exist for humans to exist.
‘If I fail to change the unique SSS-grade oracle, and I’m the only one left in a world like that…’
Then what do I become?
At that thought, the red giant standing before me in the oracle crossed my mind.
‘Ah, so it might not be a solo survival show after all…’
I really didn’t want a survival partner like that, though.
A vague, inexplicable loneliness crept quietly into my chest.
Fatigue was one step faster.
Without even thinking about organizing the messy luggage, I fell fast asleep wrapped in the fluffy bathrobe.
Amidst the busy crowd of people who all looked like they had places to be, I took my sweet time eating breakfast alone and capped it off with an after-meal coffee. Having adjusted to the luxury in no time, I left the hotel with an air of leisure.
Now, I was planning to take a taxi to the location I had seen in the B-grade oracle yesterday.
‘It was Garam Cafe, right?’
Honestly, worst-case scenarios kept popping into my head.
‘What if the place I’m heading to isn’t just an illegal gate brokerage, but is also involved in all sorts of other crimes?’
It felt deeply unsettling, but backing out now felt too late.
Since every oracle I received—even the low-tier ones—was ultimately tied to the unique SSS-grade oracle, this cafe-slash-illegal-office wouldn’t just be some random location where a minor fire broke out in daily life.
And…
If innocent lives were at risk, I wanted to prevent it if I could.
Whether I actually could or not, I didn’t know. But if I could somehow raise hell and stop it, I wanted to.
‘Even if I’m standing on ground where someone might have died, I don’t want to watch people die with my own eyes.’
What a gloomy thought for a bright spring morning. A sigh escaped me.
Passing through the hotel lobby, a marble ornament reminiscent of a Greek temple caught my eye.
Out of nowhere, the mythological figure of Cassandra flashed through my mind. Blessed by the Sun God Apollo with the gift of prophecy, but cursed to never have her predictions believed because she rejected his advances.
‘What if people don’t believe my words either?’
What if my claim—that the end of humanity begins right here on Korean soil—gets brushed off as the gibberish of a train-line lunatic? There would be nothing I could do.
That would literally make me a powerless prophet.
On top of that, there was a new limitation I discovered over breakfast.
I couldn’t even ask the constellation about the specific oracles I was curious about myself.
Infuriatingly, due to favorability restrictions, I couldn’t even hear the reasons why.
What kind of half-baked divine proxy is this?
If so, there were only a few things I could do.
First: Cuss out the constellation for giving me such half-assed abilities.
Second: If things start going sideways, make every effort to end my own life before anyone else, just to avoid the ending where I’m the sole surviving human left behind.
‘Never. No matter what happens, I am absolutely NOT staying behind alone with that unknown entity! That must never, ever happen!’
My hands involuntarily clenched into fists from the sheer tension.
Surviving alone, losing my mind in a burning world… I must have betrayed my entire country in a past life to deserve that.
Ever since the constellation offered the quest, dangling the promise of untangling my twisted karma and causality, I had felt it deep down.
Yeah, I must have sold out the nation in my past life.
Otherwise, my fate couldn’t possibly be this messed up.
‘It’s not like I can jump on a time machine to beat up my past self, either.’
One who can bear the weight of causality.
It nagged at me that I couldn’t grasp the exact meaning behind that phrase. What on earth was this causality thing anyway?
Deciding I might need to go on a past-life regression experience sometime soon, I got into a taxi.
It wasn’t very far. Reaching the vicinity of my destination, I got off immediately and walked down the street I had seen in my vision.
Surrounding the modern, sleek train station were dilapidated, undeveloped buildings. On the narrow sidewalk in front of them stood a crowd of busy commuters and elderly street vendors.
I stopped in front of one of those run-down buildings.
It looked identical to the scenery I saw through my oracle ability.
On the second floor, a faded, tacky blue window vinyl spelled out the shop’s name: ‘Garam Cafe.’
“…”
Even though I had boldly marched all the way here without asking questions, standing right at the entrance made me hesitate.
According to the taxi driver I met yesterday, even criminal villains frequented this place.
As an F-rank awakener, if a dangerous situation broke out, I had zero capability to escape…
[I have money.]
‘Do you have any items besides money? Something like an escape stone or a weapon for emergencies?’
[Uncertain comfort like that is useless right now, okay? Let me see something tangible with my own eyes.]
[Constellation ‘Prophet of the Sun’ gifts you ‘Golden Sheep Summoning Coupon x1’.]
‘Did I really get tangled up with a total creep?’
I still hadn’t formed a solid conclusion on what kind of entity this constellation was. Which was why I had no clue why it was handing me something like a Golden Sheep Summoning Coupon.
Come to think of it, besides the oracle skill, there was one more passive skill I had acquired:
S-Rank Divine Power.
Inherited from ancient Pythias—the priestesses who directly received and delivered oracles from the gods.
[Passive Skill: S-Rank Divine Power]
Absolute protection granted to the sacred proxy delivering the divine will.
So from now on, I was a weird hybrid: an F-rank dealer-position mage slapped with extreme S-rank divine power.
Since it was a passive skill like the oracle, should I think of it as an automatic barrier? I hadn’t tested it out yet, so I didn’t know for sure.
‘Even if I want to think positively, doubts keep forcing their way in.’
What if, at a critical moment, this passive skill becomes the very reason I’m prevented from dying…?
Wanting to live yet dying, wanting to die yet being unable to die. This ridiculous cycle. Is this even a life worth living?
To be, or not to be—that is the question.
