Chapter 96
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
Once the main point was over, we really got down to drinking beer.
Trying to erase the bitter tingle left on my tongue, I kept knocking them back one after another, and before I knew it I had no idea how many beers I'd had.
“Don’t drink too much.”
“Why? I’m going to drain a rich friend’s wallet a bit.”
“Even buying this place won’t bankrupt me, so drink in moderation.”
“Why are you so cool?”
He grumbled as he clinked glasses.
I wish I could say things like that someday too.
Once the topic turned to private conversation, we became noticeably livelier and kept talking.
“Seo-ram said we should go watch baseball. Seems like they want to make me a fan of their team somehow.”
“Do you know the baseball rules?”
“…….”
Yoo Ye-na was quietly drinking.
Usually when that happened, it meant she didn’t have a good answer.
And even so, when I kept staring, Yoo Ye-na calmly set her glass down and answered.
“Baseball rules aren’t essential to daily life, are they?”
“Isn’t that common knowledge?”
“At the very least, I’ve never been in trouble because I didn’t know the baseball rules.”
“Right now?”
Thwack!
The tip of a shoe under the table kicked my shin.
This girl is actually smart, and she has a good head on her shoulders, but she seems to have these little missing pieces one by one.
Maybe because she’d decided early on to inherit her father, the Hunter Association chairman’s, position, she wasn’t interested in anything else.
Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The phone in Yoo Ye-na’s hand rang.
She let out a short sigh, probably because it was a work call, and stood up from her seat.
“I’ll take this call for a second.”
“Ah, perfect. I should have a smoke too.”
Just as I was getting up, Yoo Ye-na’s telekinesis pressed gently on my shoulder.
“I told you not to smoke when you’re with me.”
“Ah, geez. Fine.”
“Give me the cigarettes.”
“…….”
See? She doesn’t believe me.
How did she know?
I was going to head straight to the smoking area as soon as I stepped out to answer the phone.
“Isn’t this a kind of violence too?”
“Yeah, I’ll hit you a little.”
Since I couldn’t beat the shameless Yoo Ye-na, I ended up grumbling and handing her the cigarettes.
But then I felt something odd resting on top of the cigarettes.
“……?”
Receiving the cigarette pack, Yoo Ye-na looked down at the square condom that had been neatly stacked on top of it.
That was the condom Baek Yeon-hwa had brought earlier.
A situation ripe for misunderstanding.
I spoke fast, like I was using a speed skill.
“Wait. It’s not what you think.”
“……Your ex-girlfriend really was thorough, huh?”
“No, that’s not it. Hey, wait!”
“I’ll be back after my call.”
There was a hurried edge to Yoo Ye-na’s steps as she stormed out.
Though hidden by her hair, her ears were probably red.
“Haa, damn.”
If I explained it, she’d understand, but it had already given me a weird image. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to mention it to Ryu Seo-ram later.
She’d definitely roast me hard.
While I was idly checking stocks because I had nothing better to do, Yoo Ye-na came right back, sat down, and awkwardly cleared her throat.
“Ahem, so. Have things been that hard lately, to the point that you had to ask your ex-girlfriend for help?”
“No, that’s not it. That isn’t mine. The... customer brought it, so I set it aside.”
“Do matchmaking clients really carry stuff like that around?”
“Haa, how long are you going to keep talking about this? Just give it back already.”
“I hope you don’t take me lightly.”
“Okay. Give it back.”
“Can I tell Seo-ram about this?”
“If you do, I’ll really get angry.”
“Pfft, you don’t get angry over something like this.”
She slid the cigarettes and condom across the table. Her mask-like, composed expression remained. She must have steadied herself while taking the call.
“You actually get angry surprisingly often. More often than back in Hunter Training Center days, I’d say?”
“Do you have that many troublesome clients?”
“A lot.”
The conversation naturally shifted to clients. The mood was relaxed, and the conversation flowed well.
It was the definition of a loose drinking session.
It almost felt as if Yoo Ye-na was reassuring me that days like this would keep going.
“Anyway, there was this Mr. Cheolsu. He’s got a thing for loner types, and he’s been at it for months now—”
“There’s even a loner-type fetish?”
“There are all kinds of tastes. And then there are times when—”
Buzz!
This time it was my phone.
“What the hell.”
Checking what kind of text it was at this hour, I found the magic sentence that made me sober up in an instant.
-----
[Web text]
Kim*seon, 357,000 won, paid in full.
Fresh Magic Sashimi Restaurant.
-----
“…….”
“Why?”
Yoo Ye-na called out to me when she saw me frozen like a stone, but I had no energy left to react.
It felt like all the blood had drained out of me.
Dizzy, I slowly started gathering my things.
I didn’t even have anything with me, but I still made a show of packing up.
I was that panicked.
“I, I, I think I need to go.”
“Now? All of a sudden? Where to?”
“The sashimi place. F-Fresh Magic Sashimi Restaurant.”
I don’t even know how fresh it is.
There should be sashimi.
Thankfully, I didn’t need to bring a weapon.
“A sashimi place? What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“I, I told you.”
Even my speech was starting to stutter.
“There are tons of things to be angry about.”
* * *
I hadn’t planned to eat something expensive from the start.
If I ate something expensive, the boss, who’s stingy to begin with, would get angry, so I planned to keep it light.
Kim Ju-seon had handed me a card, telling me to eat dinner with it, but at the time I didn’t even have the energy to think over the menu.
Only Kim Ju-seon’s fleeing back floated through Kim Yang’s mind.
‘Did he hate it? Was he angry?’
His face had gone ashen, so it didn’t seem like it was merely because he had an appointment.
Though there was our own grievance too, since it was the aftereffects of <Residual Heat>.
‘Was it too much for him?’
Still, running off in such disgust like that—didn’t that hurt the people left behind too?
“Hmph! Spending other people’s money is truly delightful!”
The only one who seemed unaffected by the aftereffects of <Residual Heat> was Renea, who was grinning from ear to ear as she looked for the restaurant.
Baek Yeon-hwa, whose expression was likewise grim, followed after me and asked.
“Did he dislike it that much?”
“…….”
I stopped in my tracks.
Kim Yang realized that Baek Yeon-hwa had been worrying about the same thing.
“Of course, it was because of the movie’s aftereffects. But still... did he hate getting close to me that much that he shoved me away so harshly and left?”
A face that looked like it might burst into tears at any moment.
I gave her shoulder a reassuring pat.
“Th, that can’t be it.”
“Really?”
“Y-yeah. The b-boss too, that was because of the movie.”
“I suppose so?”
Truthfully, though I called it comfort, it was no different from saying it to myself.
It’s okay.
There’s nothing to worry about.
While I was forcing myself to pull my mind together and search for a place to eat dinner again,
“That boss too is just too much. Why get so upset over something like that?!”
The oblivious old lady started grumbling in the name of sympathy.
“No matter how much he hated it, to just leave her behind and bolt like that!”
“…….”
“…….”
“How rude! How can the boss of a matchmaking agency push women away and leave them so embarrassed!”
“…….”
“…….”
“This one will give him a proper dressing-down later—oh?”
Renea, who had been spitting out threats, spun around to face the two of them. Her eyes were round and wide, showing she’d just realized something.
“When this one tried to kiss him, I was only shoved aside. The boss didn’t run away.”
“…….”
“…….”
“Tsk, does that mean my kiss was better than the two of you holding hands? Oh-ho, hohoho—! This is just too—!”
“…….”
“…….”
“This one prefers a man with a decent job, though. Hoooooo! What am I to do—!”
Wasn’t there a saying that the sister-in-law who meddles is more hateful than the mother-in-law who nags?
Watching the clueless Renea go on and on, what surged up in me was anger more than a sense of loss.
As I huffed and tried to cool the heat in my head, a shop called ‘Fresh Magic Sashimi Restaurant’ came into view.
In the fish tank out front was a fresh, huge yellowtail, and the sign said a magic tank maintained the water temperature so you could enjoy it at peak-season flavor.
Of course, simply maintaining the water temperature alone couldn’t possibly make it taste like peak-season yellowtail—
[Chef from a pirate ship on the Rajesta Continent!]
[Extreme freshness preserved through magic. A peak-season freshness aquarium developed by a mage from the Magic Tower!]
[All the taste of a sailor’s meal, with a brutally striking visual.]
Looking at the sashimi photos—not pretty, plated arrangements, but rough-cut slices that made you feel the harsh sea—I couldn’t take it anymore.
“L-let’s go.”
I took the lead.
That was the chain of events that led to the boss’s corporate card getting raided.
* * *
If there was one thing I’d overlooked, it was getting so worked up that I’d forgotten the simple fact that payment means the meal is over.
In front of Fresh Magic Sashimi Restaurant.
“Dummy?”
“…….”
I heard Yoo Ye-na’s sigh from behind me as she stood there with her arms crossed.
“If you’ve already paid, that means the meal is already over. What exactly did you come here to do?”
“I-I didn’t have time to think that far.”
I was too angry to hold it in, thinking about how I’d somehow have to severely punish the bastards who had swiped my card to gorge themselves on yellowtail I couldn’t even eat.
“Thanks to you, the drinking session I hadn’t had in a while got broken up in no time.”
“Ahem, sorry about that.”
“Haa.”
I wanted to find out where those guys had gone, but I had no clues.
With my shoulders slumped, I was thinking about how to rough up the employees tomorrow when—
“This wasn’t how I meant to give it to you.”
Yoo Ye-na took something out of her bag and held it out.
Out of nowhere, it was a knife.
It was shorter than a person’s forearm, but a little longer than a dagger.
“What is it?”
“A gift for this Axis incident. I know you’d rather get cash, but I can’t hand that out often from this side, given our circumstances.”
The inscription on the knife in its sheath was an old saying, the kind even in the old Murim only older folks would use.
It was obviously a ridiculously expensive knife.
“The blade is named Danya (斷夜). I had it made by asking the master craftsman Jang Mook-heon, who’s famous even in the old Murim.”
“Jang Mook-heon? Who’s that? I don’t really know that far.”
“You can think of him as someone incredibly famous.”
Hmm.
But there’s one problem.
“I don’t have a hunter license, so I can’t carry weapons around.”
Because I’m part of the 3rd Floor, the law restricts what weapons anyone other than hunters, police, or soldiers can carry.
In fact, even people coming from the other floors are brought in only after strict screening.
At my words, Yoo Ye-na shrugged.
“That’s just barely within the legally permitted range. Both weight and length. I gave it to you to use for self-defense.”
“Ooh...”
It was nice to have something better than the folding knife I carry every day.
“Ahem, by any chance, how much—?”
“You want to convert the gift into cash?”
“No! That’s not it! I mean, what if there’s some emergency or something!”
As I hurriedly tried to explain myself, Yoo Ye-na snorted and whispered under her breath.
“On a 3rd Floor scale... low end, five hundred million. High end, one billion?”
“Five hundred million and one billion?”
No way.
“One billion?”
When I asked in case I had heard wrong, Yoo Ye-na nodded as if it were obvious.
Crazy.
“Originally it should be worth more, but I adjusted it so it wouldn’t violate Seoul’s weapons-carrying law—”
I quickly hugged it to my chest and answered while keeping watch on my surroundings.
“I need to get home quickly!”
“...You said you were looking for your employees.”
“The employees can handle it—they can eat some yellowtail!”
Was 300,000 won really the issue now?
I had one billion won in my arms.
* * *
The next day.
I had gotten to the office early and was searching the internet for information on Master Jang Mook-heon.
“Auction price was 3.7 billion? Crazy... they should’ve made mine just a little longer.”
Seeing properly made weapons sell for insane amounts made me a little disappointed, but then again, the fact that I had one billion in my arms made me proud all over again.
‘Could I buy at least an apartment bathroom and the master bedroom with this?’
It feels great.
As the feeling that I might really be able to buy an apartment soon kept swelling inside me,
A door opened soundlessly.
Kim Yang, who had come in to work, saw me and flinched, then greeted me cautiously.
“G-good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“……?”
Confused, Kim Yang sat down.
Trying hard to act like nothing was wrong, she finally gathered her courage and looked my way.
“B-boss, a-about yesterday.”
“Hey, if you were going to eat, you should’ve eaten something expensive.”
“...?!”
It was funny how startled she was, lifting even her hips slightly off the chair.
“Huh? Huh?”
“300,000 for three people? You should’ve eaten something more expensive.”
Since it was already spent anyway.
Wouldn’t it be right to say they spent it in grand style?
“Th, the yellowtail. I-it was expensive.”
“Come on, it’s an employee dinner. I can afford to treat you to that much.”
At my answer, Kim Yang finally couldn’t hold back and suddenly reached out to pull both my cheeks wide.
“Aaaagh?!”
“Who are you?! W-who are you! Boss! B-bring our boss back!”
“It hurts! I said it hurts!”
Since my skin didn’t peel off, did she really believe I was the real me?
With her mouth hanging open, Kim Yang plopped down in her seat.
“R-really? Y-you’re n-not angry?”
“I said I’m not. And quit it and get to work.”
“N-next time we can eat again—”
“Don’t make me angry first thing in the morning.”
“…….”
Only after hearing that answer did Kim Yang smile in satisfaction.
“S-see? Y-you tightwad.”
“Why do I have to be called a tightwad after I bought it for you?”
I stared at her in disbelief, and Kim Yang snickered before answering.
“I-I’ll treat you next time.”
“Really? Then I’m eating yellowtail?”
“Y-yeah. H-honey.”
Startled, I stared at her, and Kim Yang covered her mouth with her hand before answering awkwardly.
“S-sorry. Movie aftereffects.”
“Ah... right? Be careful with that. Don’t say that in front of people for no reason.”
“S-sorry.”
Even while apologizing, the corners of Kim Yang’s mouth were faintly lifted in amusement.