Chapter 5
- Sogatamyeontanso: Answer me
"......"
A DM out of nowhere from a well-liked regular.
With the interrogation continuing, I finally pretended to give in and sent a reply.
- 39.7: ...?
- Sogatamyeontanso: Straighten out that question mark.
- 39.7: ...!
"Gasp..."
Coming in hot with a power trip before we'd even met... What a total old fogey.
Judging by that atrocious naming sense, the real person was obviously a bald guy in his forties.
"What a fossil..."
Of course, I didn't say that to their face.
I mean, a bald guy in his forties, and Awakened?
Their character's practically a fossil-tier veteran.
The fact they'd survived long enough to lose their hair was proof they were strong.
I had absolutely no desire to be torn apart alive by a veteran Awakened.
After a thoroughly logical and rational line of reasoning, I sent Carbon-bro a message in an exceedingly polite and respectful tone.
- 39.7: So, what business does a senior as esteemed as yourself have with me...?
- Sogatamyeontanso: ? What the fuck
- Sogatamyeontanso: You're not 39.7.
- 39.7: Hehe...
- 39.7: Sorry!
- 39.7: Lmao;;
- Sogatamyeontanso: ...No, wait. It is you.
I couldn't tell what part of my polite apology had seemed like trolling, but for some reason Carbon-bro had convinced themself it was me.
- Sogatamyeontanso: I'll believe you. You're definitely 39.7.
- 39.7: No;;;
- 39.7: So what is it?
- 39.7: Did Awakened Gallery unban me?
- Sogatamyeontanso: As if.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Don't you know posting gore gets you banned for at least a month?
"I don't."
Cue dramatic music.
Bam~ ba-ba-bam~
...Actually, I'd never properly read Awakened Gallery's announcements either, so I didn't know.
So there was a standard, and it wasn't just the mods banning people on a whim.
- 39.7: Then what is it, really?
- Sogatamyeontanso: You seriously don't know and you're asking?
- 39.7: Damn... What is it...?
- 39.7: I seriously have no clue what this is about;;
- Sogatamyeontanso: ......
After I kept playing dumb, an absolutely furious Carbon-bro finally got to the point.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Haven't you registered as an Awakened?
- 39.7: Ah.
"...Oh."
Come to think of it, there was such a thing as Awakened registration...?
I'd forgotten because I'd been so busy planning to troll Tower Gallery.
"Right. When you Awaken, you have to register first."
No matter how close the Tower was to a demon realm, it still had at least some basic laws.
And among those, Awakened registration was the most basic requirement—a rudimentary implant.
It was only natural.
If the Association left unregistered Awakened alone, crimes would happen.
A world where the state didn't function properly, there was no law or public authority, and every individual had enough firepower to kill dozens?
What is that, an ordinary American hood?
Places like San Andreas, Demon Realm Incheon, and the Shinan cartel.
Except now there were no cops, and guns were legal. Minor glitches, really.
To use a restaurant as an example, it'd be like Ngannou beating up customers with a baseball bat.
Only the owner was in the bathroom, and the cops wouldn't even take your call.
- Sogatamyeontanso: That's illegal...
And I'd become the Ngannou with the baseball bat.
Apparently, I was well and truly fucked.
"Gueeek!!"
Panicking, I started stomping around and doing the What-Do-I-Do dance.
But that only lasted a moment. Just as instinct dictated, I tried to lie and smooth things over.
- 39.7: N-no, I did?? I did, though??
- Sogatamyeontanso: Sigh... I knew it.
- 39.7: I really did...!!
- Sogatamyeontanso: Bullshit.
- Sogatamyeontanso: If you did, why aren't you in the database?
- Sogatamyeontanso: You're the only one who's cleared Lunatic recently.
- 39.7: What?
"How do you know that, Carbon-bro...?"
Was this person with the Association?
So they weren't some freelance, 'young-forty' Awakened middle-aged guy?
"Why would an Association employee have a fixed handle on Awakened Gallery...?"
Why was a bona fide go-getter hanging around such a dump with a fixed handle?
Wasn't Awakened Gallery supposed to be a cyber psych ward for young people whose lives had gone to shit?
I should've known better than to lie.
Anyway, this habitual trolling of mine was the problem...
- Sogatamyeontanso: Well, it's fine.
- Sogatamyeontanso: There's still a grace period, so you're not breaking the law.
"Whew... Phew..."
At Carbon-bro's words, I finally let out a sigh of relief. I'd been terrified I'd already committed a crime.
What the hell, I thought I was totally screwed.
You could've said that from the start.
- Sogatamyeontanso: Still, I'd recommend coming in as soon as you can.
- Sogatamyeontanso: The Association staff are working overtime because of you.
- 39.7: What what
- 39.7: Is that for real??
- Sogatamyeontanso: ...Honestly, I'm more scared of you reacting like that after clearing Lunatic.
"......"
Apparently, my trolling on Tower Gallery had put the Association on high alert.
Well, only a handful of Awakened had ever tried Lunatic before.
It wasn't strange for the Awakened Association to keep an eye on me.
...For some reason, I felt bad for the Association staff.
These people were working late because of me.
Carbon-bro continued.
- Sogatamyeontanso: If you're uncomfortable revealing your identity, at least do a temporary registration.
- 39.7: Ooh...?
- Sogatamyeontanso: For temporary registration, you just have to come in and get your mana measured.
- Sogatamyeontanso: There's no complicated paperwork or anything.
"Come to think of it, there was temporary registration, wasn't there?"
No matter how often the Association was called the Tower's public authority, its powers weren't all that extensive.
Awakened weren't going to obediently do what the Association said just because it told them to register.
So the Association had introduced a temporary registration system.
An attempt to identify Awakened, at least, as a way to prevent crime.
The plan was to get a rough idea of their identities through temporary registration, then entice them into full registration by offering all kinds of benefits.
Of course, this only applied to Awakened.
Non-Awakened people were kept in line with the usual whip.
Still, maybe because it was the twenty-first century, they didn't do anything as terrifying as strip non-Awakened people of their human rights.
At most, they assigned everyone an ID number and registered fingerprints from all ten fingers to keep track of them.
...It sounded like some utterly dystopian apocalypse setting, but it was just a basic resident registration system.
For the record, this was only done by the South Korean branch on the 0th Floor.
As expected, Korea really was Hell Joseon.
My patriotism was surging like crazy.
Flap...
- Sogatamyeontanso: So
- Sogatamyeontanso: When are you coming?
Carbon-bro kept sending me messages.
They didn't make it obvious, but their tone was gently pushing me to hurry up.
I stared at Carbon-bro's messages for a long while, then muttered with a reluctant look on my face.
"...I should go, huh?"
Awakened registration was illegal to skip in the first place, after all.
There weren't many Awakened who'd gotten away with hiding their power from the authorities and lived to tell the tale.
"Besides, temporary registration shouldn't be a big deal..."
There was no risk of my personal information being exposed, and I had nothing to do but climb the Tower and browse the forums anyway.
I could at least do that much to follow the law for once.
I didn't think it over for long. I promptly sent Carbon-bro a short reply.
- 39.7: I'll come tomorrow.
The IRL meetup was set.
*
*
*
The next day.
The Association lobby.
"Little one...?"
"I'm not a kid."
For some reason, I was locked in a standoff with the woman at the counter.
"Where's your mother?"
"I don't have one."
"Oh, did you lose your mom?"
"No, I don't have one."
"So you got separated from her at the Association?"
"I just don't have one."
"...You had one, though?"
"......"
...Yeah, I knew this would happen.
It was the same at the convenience store. Why would the Association be any different?
'No matter what, teasing me about my parents is crossing the line.'
Why did everyone keep trying to find the mother I didn't even have?
What was this, a family reunion? Huh?
"I'm an orphan."
"Oh... I-I'm sorry..."
The counter lady had just been Talulah'd, turning into human garbage in an instant. Flustered, she fumbled around and held out a handful of candy to me.
"W-want some candy...?"
"...No, thanks."
For the record, they were peppermint candy, scorched-rice candy, and red ginseng candy.
I did my best to ignore the suspiciously suspicious candy preferences of the woman at the counter, took out the candy I'd brought from home, and popped it into my mouth.
"Nom nom."
[ Caffeine Candy ]
- Rank: C
- Details: A candy containing the caffeine from ten cans of commercial energy drinks (about 1,000 mg) compressed into a single piece. It stimulates the central nervous system, temporarily inducing an alert state.
A special caffeine candy.
One made by concentrating ten energy drinks.
That tiny piece of candy contained 1,000 mg of caffeine.
Three times the recommended daily caffeine intake for an adult man!
It's the caffeine that's tripled...!!
'Well... it doesn't do much because of my resistance.'
I just eat it for the feeling.
It tastes like an energy drink, too, so it's surprisingly decent.
"......"
Meanwhile, the woman at the counter watched her candy lose in an NTR defeat, her face falling as she lowered her head.
Before long, a red-haired woman started walking toward me from a distance.
Jiggle!
"She said she'd come around this time..."
Oh... Um... Wow...
That... what was it.
Big.
Huge as hell.
Overwhelmingly so.
If I had to describe her, she had massive tits and hips that made me want to howl—an absolutely, devastatingly sexy figure.
And yet the lab coat she'd thrown on over her office clothes gave her an unexpectedly charming gap-moe.
As I silently went, 'Ooh... m-mommy...' and basked in the feeling of her being so damn hot,
she spotted me standing at the counter and flinched, murmuring to herself.
"...39.7?"
The familiar IP number followed.
At the sound of it, my face quickly turned pale.
Ah, no way...
This red-haired, big-boobed woman was...
"Sogatamyeontanso...?"
Carbon-bro.
You were a woman...?