Chapter 21
Taepyeong City.
The city I'd moved to.
The world that changed after I suddenly saw a part-time job posting, contacted the manager, and went for an interview.
In this changed world, completely different from my everyday life, I'd done nothing but work ever since I arrived.
I still didn't know all that much about what Taepyeong City was actually like.
All I knew was that there were otherworlders, Hunters, and that humans were about as rare as dragons.
Since I couldn't just sit around playing because the world had suddenly changed, I'd been working according to my contract.
I had no intention of giving up a part-time job with such a high hourly wage.
But I couldn't stay like this forever, either.
Until now, every relationship I'd had with people had been with customers I'd met at the convenience store.
I thought I needed to see with my own eyes how people in this world lived.
Elf Friella, who rolled around on construction sites.
The vampire manager who risked her life over figurine gacha.
Ms. Lumina, the dullahan who went back and forth making deliveries with a headless body.
The dwarf who'd tried to pay with money from another world.
The lich who'd shown up in a sharply tailored suit and held out a corporate card.
The doppelganger con artist who'd tried to scam me while pretending to be a customer.
Even a golem wearing a police uniform.
Just taking a rough look at the faces I'd encountered across the counter was enough to make my head spin.
“…Now that I list them one by one, this lineup is seriously insane.”
There must be plenty of other races I hadn't met.
More varied races would be coming in as customers from now on, so I should get a sense of what kind of world this was in advance.
So instead of spending my first day off resting at home, I decided to look around Taepyeong City from one end to the other.
With the mindset of a tourist.
So I simply headed outside.
As I got ready to go out, I turned on my smartphone and checked my messaging app.
-Transmission failed
-The signal is unstable.
There was no connection to the Korea I had originally lived in.
I'd tried texting and calling people I knew in Korea, but nothing went through.
I hadn't had many acquaintances to begin with, but I couldn't even contact the older guys and coworkers I'd known when I worked at the factory.
As though this were a completely different world.
No wonder the manager had been so surprised that I was connected to this world.
One thing was certain.
Taepyeong City was a completely different kind of world from the cities I knew,
and I still had no idea how to get back.
Why was I so calm about it?
I'd nearly lost my life when the factory went under, my wages were delayed, and I was evicted from my rented room; I hadn't had the luxury of being surprised that I couldn't return to my original world.
‘Taepyeong City isn't actually all that different from Korea, when I think about it.’
Except for the fact that there were a few—or, no, a fucking lot of things here that weren't human.
Besides, just as I'd suddenly found a job here, I might suddenly be able to return again.
For now, I had to adapt to this world.
When I left the house and walked down a road where people were gathered in little clusters, I felt once again that this was another world.
Bwaaaang-!!
A deer beastkin jaywalking.
“Where the hell are you looking while you walk!”
A rhinoceros beastkin, gripping the steering wheel, bellowing at the jaywalking deer beastkin.
“Fucking noisy.”
“Hey, did you see that? I saw it on Shorts the other day…….”
Even the high school students snickering as they passed by looked anything but ordinary.
One of them had no legs and floated through the air.
Another had horns jutting from their forehead like a demon,
while a lizard with skin covered in scales stood beside them.
There was also a half-human, half-bird who looked like a harpy.
There was even an otherworlder with four arms and four holes in their short sleeves.
What a bizarre sight.
In this wide street, I was the only one who looked human.
Maybe that's why.
“Look at that person. Isn't that a human?”
“Huh? You're right.”
“I've never seen a human before!”
“Wasn't that idol you used to stan human, too?”
“I've decided to forget that. An idol who's been caught up in a dating scandal isn't my oppa anymore.”
Passing high school girls glanced at me and squealed and whispered.
This kind of attention was a little unfamiliar.
It was the first time in my life I'd received such fervent attention from high school girls.
In the past.
-Hey, your boyfriend's walking by over there.
-Fuck off. Do you want to die?
I'd heard things like that before,
but seeing them sneak glances at me, giggling and laughing among themselves, felt strange.
When our eyes met,
“Aaaah!”
“He saw us!”
“We made eye contact, right?”
After making a huge fuss,
they came rushing over.
They approached with quick little pattering steps.
A ghost high school girl with no legs stared at me with curiosity written all over her face, then spoke first.
“Excuse me, oppa, you're human, right?”
Oppa.
What a pleasant sound that was.
After returning from the army, I'd become much more accustomed to being called ajusshi.
The factory aunties called me bachelor.
The older guys I worked with called me hey.
Those were the terms people used to address me, but now it was oppa.
It would have been perfect if the person showing interest in me weren't nonhuman.
To be honest, I was a little scared.
Of the high school girls who were curious about me.
A ghost, a demon, a lizard person, and an otherworlder with four arms.
Their gazes were full of goodwill, but the sight before me wasn't reassuring at all.
“I-I am.”
I stammered, feeling intimidated for no reason.
Ah, this is embarrassing.
“See? I told you he was really human.”
“So he really is human.”
“Amazing.”
“How old are you, oppa? Nineteen? Twenty? I don't really know human ages.”
“I heard humans don't have mating seasons. Is that true?”
A barrage of questions rained down on me.
Their eyes sparkled.
The attention was too much.
“My age is, uh……. Twenty-eight.”
“Whoa! You're totally an ajusshi!”
They'd been calling me oppa just a moment ago.
High school girls in every world switch gears so quickly it's suffocating.
“But you look really young!”
“Humans are apparently baby-faced by nature.”
“Oppa, your skin is so soft! When do you shed? How many days is your exfoliation cycle?”
The lizard girl poked my forearm repeatedly as she asked.
“Humans don't shed. We just go to a bathhouse and scrub off our dead skin.”
“Dead skin? What's that?”
“Uh, it's the dead skin on the surface that we physically remove with a towel…….”
“That's insane! You forcibly peel off your own living flesh?! Humans are barbaric!”
The four-armed girl covered her mouth with all four hands and gasped.
No, your appearance looks more barbaric to me?
But I couldn't bring myself to say that to a high school girl with such delicate sensibilities.
“Oppa, oppa. What does a soul taste like? I heard human souls are really sweet and delicious. Would you perhaps be willing to sell me just a tiny bit? I'll buy you a Wack-a-Ball!”
The demon girl with horns on her forehead bared her fangs and licked her lips.
Wait, wasn't that appetite rather than curiosity?
It was the first time in my life I'd seen a high school girl propose bartering for a soul.
“I have somewhere to be. I need to go, okay?”
I cautiously backed away, feeling like I'd really be eaten if I stayed any longer.
“Hey, you've scared oppa!”
“Aww, are you leaving already? It's my first time talking to a human!”
“Yeah, don't go! Ah, ajusshi! Then what's your Stargram ID?”
“Could you take just one picture with us? I'm going to post it to my story with the caption, ‘Spotted a wild human’!”
The ghost girl floated right up in front of my face and thrust her smartphone camera at me.
A wild human?
What am I, a PoXmon?
“Guys, I don't use social media…….”
“Come on, don't lie! Who doesn't use social media these days!”
“Hey, press the shutter already! V! Oppa, make a V, a V!”
In the end, I was forced to stand awkwardly, making a V with my fingers, surrounded by the lizard, harpy, ghost, demon, and four-armed high school girls.
Click, click-!
“Whoa, your pose is insane. The filter came out gorgeous.”
“Anyway, I'm leaving! Keep the pictures safe and make sure they look pretty……!”
Only then was I finally able to leave.
Phew, they sucked all the energy out of me.
Honestly, their appearances were strange, but they weren't all that different from ordinary high school girls.
I more or less got it.
The atmosphere of Taepyeong City.
From the latest trends to people's behavior, it wasn't all that different from Korea.
Being otherworlders didn't mean they liked completely different things.
I could sense a lot from that brief conversation.
“Maybe that's why I didn't feel much of a sense of crisis.”
It really was almost exactly like the Korea I'd lived in.
The busy downtown area looked even more like Korea.
Loud, flashy signs.
People walking between them.
From the fashion and music playing in the streets to the street vendors.
It looked exactly like someone had picked up a Korean Rodeo Street and moved it here.
That's when I spotted a familiar sign: a gukbap restaurant.
Drawn in by the warm, comforting smell of gukbap that stirred a man's heart, I went inside.
“One special, please.”
After ordering and looking around, I let out an involuntary hollow laugh.
A minotaur sitting at the table across from me had its face buried in a ttukbaegi, slurping up the broth.
“Mmm! Nothing beats gukbap for a hangover!”
Is it okay for a cow beastkin to eat this kind of thing?
But my question quickly disappeared.
Quite a variety of beastkin were already sitting at the tables, clustered around bowls of gukbap.
Pure humans were almost nowhere to be seen.
Even the auntie serving the food was a dwarf.
No matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find another pure(?) human like me.
“Special coming up.”
The gukbap was delicious.
The broth was seriously rich.
The kkakdugi was especially good.
It was one of the best bowls of gukbap and servings of kkakdugi I'd ever had.
No wonder even cow beastkin couldn't resist eating it.
Damn, that's good.
After filling my stomach, I went outside and walked down the street.
The streets were brimming with energy.
Apparently, prejudice between races wasn't all that strong.
I saw a wolf beastkin swishing its tail, a demon youth walking arm in arm with someone, and a harpy-and-elf couple sharing snacks with their arms around each other's shoulders.
It was a world where different races dating each other was perfectly normal.
Of course.
“Hey, you bearded bastard! Can't you walk straight?!”
“You primitive old elf-eared geezer! Think looking young makes up for everything? You ancient hag, always going on about ‘back in my day’!”
“You little shit, are you trying to die?! You picked the wrong day. I'll kill you and go to prison!”
Not everyone was friendly.
An elf and dwarf, supposedly sworn enemies, were grabbing each other by the collars and arguing.
“That's far enough.”
An ogre in a police uniform stopped the two of them.
The two, who had been baring their teeth and growling, scattered at the ogre's thunderous bark.
“I think I've got the general idea now.”
Okay, assessment complete.
I just had to get used to the fact that they were otherworlders, right?
Maybe Taepyeong City was a more livable place than I'd expected.
It was just as I was thinking that.
-Spirit Divination / Tarot / Saju: Gifted Fortune-Teller
-I will show you the future.
An old, shabby building suddenly caught my eye.
For some reason, I couldn't seem to take my eyes off the old sign hanging from the shabby building.
How should I put it?
It felt as though that sign were calling to me.
‘Since I've come all this way, should I give it a try?’
A fortune-teller's shop in such a mysterious city might really be able to see the future, after all.
As if under a spell, I opened the door to the fortune-teller's shop.
The moment I opened it, the acrid smell of incense stung my nose.
Dim lighting added to the mysterious atmosphere.
“A customer has arrived.”
A captivating voice that tickled my ears.
Inside the cramped, old shop sat a veiled woman before a crystal ball.
“Come in. I've been waiting for you.”
“……”
“You've come to have your fortune told, haven't you?”
“Ah, yes.”
“I can see everything.”
The woman's voice had an oddly sacred quality to it.
I cautiously approached her.
“What is it that brings you here, traveler?”
I saw.
The adorable bat wings fluttering at her waist.
Was Ms. Fortune-teller a demon?