Chapter 1
Why do people want to become Hunters?
Probably because of money, or fame... and the odds, I think.
The head of a world-class electronics conglomerate probably makes about that much money too, but people don't actually want to become one. First of all, the odds are practically impossible, and I doubt many people could even keep the position if they did.
But Hunters are different. Plenty of people have seen a friend who was a high-school graduate and unemployed until yesterday suddenly become a B-rank Hunter and drive around in a nice car.
Just looking at it makes your stomach turn, and you start wondering whether you could become like that too.
[인셍망헷음 : Baby, wake up
Good morning]
-ㅇㅇ : Whoa; the kid smells like cigarettes
ㄴ인셍망헷음 : I'll smash your fingers
-ㅇㅇ : It's 9 p.m.—what morning, lol. You live in New York?
ㄴ인셍망헷음 : I'm a mixed-race foreigner, a white-haired, blue-eyed beauty
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Beauty (with plenty of adult-onset illnesses)
ㄴ 인셍망헷음 : Please send your address~! You've won the giveaway~!!
“Sigh.”
Posting a wake-up community post, even though it isn't morning.
-ㅇㅇ : Did you awaken today?
ㄴ 인셍망헷음 : I'm already awakened, why would I awaken again?
ㄴ ㅇㅇ : Ah~ so that's the gimmick?
Even if I write something like this on the Hunter community, nothing really changes. It's just a daily routine. For a graveyard-shift convenience-store clerk, there are more people to talk to on the community than in real life.
After getting up from the mattress tucked into one corner of the tiny one-room apartment, I shuffled into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
For a house the size of a fist, why is there even a bathtub in the bathroom? Every time I look at it, I feel like tearing it out, and for the past few days that feeling comes back every time I see it.
'There's a tub too... should I soak for a bit?'
Probably because the weather had turned chilly. In this tiny one-room apartment with no proper insulation against the cold, it was already 9 p.m., long after the sun had gone down. My body had gone cold in the chilly air, so maybe I should soak in some warm water.
ㅡSwoosh....
I'd already lived here for three years, and this was the first time I'd properly filled the bathtub. I only ever used it for hand-washing laundry or, every now and then, a shallow soak, so the tub was surprisingly clean, with not a trace of grime on it.
“Wow, that's warm. If the whole house were this temperature, how nice would that be.”
I hadn't even soaked in it yet, but the narrow bathroom was already sweltering with warm steam.
To keep this air from escaping, I closed the bathroom window, which was just a little bigger than my face, and the moment I stepped toward the bathtub, which had filled up to a decent level,
“Oh—”
The hand I'd planted on the slippery wall slid away, and I smacked the hair dryer I'd hung there without unplugging it, sending it tumbling into the tub.
ㅡSPLOOSH!!
If it had ended there, I could've gotten away with throwing out just one cheap 35,000-won hair dryer.
“Damn—”
My head and body slid into the tub first, and my consciousness cut off.
* * * * *
“Pwah!?”
I saw electricity. Not as the energy that flowed through wires, but as if I'd literally seen electricity with my eyes.
Fortunately, I didn't seem to have become a living wire, and my breathing was desperately ragged. Longing for breath is proof that you're alive.
As I felt like I'd become Nikola Tesla, I was overcome with gratitude for being alive at that very moment.
“Ugh... why does my voice sound like this...?”
This was probably the aftereffect of getting zapped and having Auto-Tune installed in my throat.
“No, there's no way that's possible, right?!”
But it didn't sound like that. It was clear and clean, with no mechanical noise at all. A soft female voice.
“A-ah...?”
It was an absurdly feminine, thin voice. So much so that it could be heard even through my waterlogged ears.
My body was dizzy from the aftermath of the short circuit, but I struggled up from where I'd fallen and turned my eyes toward the mirror.
“What the....”
Even through the blurry vision muddied by water, I could make out an extremely white silhouette. This was it.
There was a character in an anime I watched recently who got struck by lightning and her hair turned yellow.
“That's ridiculous, okay?!”
Or maybe Marie Antoinette syndrome, where extreme stress turns your hair white.
“That sounds plausible!”
I raised my tingling hands and rubbed my eyes hard, and my vision gradually returned.
But the ceramic sink touching my solar plexus was ice-cold. Touching my solar plexus..? Had my sink always been this high?
“Uh...?”
What I saw reflected in the bathroom mirror, now that my vision had cleared, was
“Wh-who is that...?”
A complete stranger. No, could I even call her a person..? A girl with a beauty so striking she almost didn't seem real. Doll-like bright white hair and eyes with an enigmatic blue sheen.
Her long white hair was soaked and stuck to her cheeks, and the muscles I'd built through years of labor were nowhere to be seen. Only after I stood on my tiptoes did the faintly raised....
“Hiiik?!”
I hugged myself without thinking and squeezed my eyes shut. Somehow it felt like I'd seen something I shouldn't have. This was... no matter how I looked at it, not an adult woman's body. A scene protected by law, something that could never be shown in media.
I had no idea what on earth was going on. It was beyond my common sense, and my brain wasn't turning at all. Thinking I might be dreaming, I stuck out my tongue a little and bit down on it, but.
“Ow...!”
It hurt horribly. Sometimes you feel pain in dreams too, but this wasn't that hazy kind of sensation. It was a vivid pain, as if it were pulling me straight into reality.
When I sat my tiny body down on the toilet to steady myself, the cold toilet seat startled my whole body.
Just then, while I was squeezing my eyes shut and trying to steady my foggy head.
ㅡBEEP-BEEP-BEEP!!! BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!!!!!
A loud phone ring from outside.
“Right..! The convenience store!!”
I didn't know how much time had passed, but the 10 o'clock start time I was supposed to clock in for was probably long gone. I hurried out, opened the door, grabbed the phone lying on the floor, and answered it.
“Lee Harang, you crazy bastard?! You didn't show up for your part-time job, and even after ten calls you still didn't answer?!”
“M-Manager!”
“Uh... wh-who...?”
Right. Come to think of it, my voice right now was the voice of a young girl, something I could never mistake for my old self. The manager's flustered voice came through the phone, and my own mind was spinning rapidly.
“Um... are you the manager..?”
“Y-Yeah! Are you by any chance related to Harang..?”
“Ah, I. Well...”
After a long time spent wondering what excuse to make, I came to a conclusion.
“I'm Harang oppa's younger cousin..! He just got into a car accident..!? I don't think he can come to work..?”
“A car accident?! Oh dear, I see. R-right! That must have been a shock. Then Harang is now...”“
“H-he's unconscious! I don't think he can answer the phone!”
“Then... w-well, it can't be helped. Got it! Tell him to rest well when he wakes up... and, uh, what was it...”“
The manager seemed to think for a moment, then asked me in a doubtful tone.
“So... your younger sibling... can't come in to cover the convenience store shift, right..?”
“Huh? Me?”
Manager, I really didn't think you were that kind of person.
“I don't think I can.”
“I figured~? Sorry about that. Got it. If Harang wakes up, could you let him know I called..?”
“Yes... I'll do that.”
Even now he's looking for a part-timer? Even after I told him it was a car accident, that's his reaction? He's a total lunatic.
After getting through that crisis, my mind was fully back on track. My arm, which had gone numb from lying on the hard tile floor for too long, was fine again, and after I thought for a moment, the headache disappeared too.
“Sigh... what on earth is this...?”
I went back into the bathroom, squeezed my eyes shut, and wiped the water off my body. Somehow it felt like something I shouldn't be looking at.
Ignoring the mirror reflecting an extremely illegal scene, I crouched in a corner of the cold one-room apartment and let out a long sigh, gradually feeling my thoughts return.
“Could this be...?”
No, I don't think so.
There had never been any phenomenon anywhere in the world where awakening changed your entire body. Ugly people became ugly Hunters, and pretty and handsome people became Hunters exactly as they were.
I'd heard of things like your skin improving a little, or the hair you'd lost growing back a bit.
“....”
Just in case, I quietly muttered a single word into the empty air.
That thing only awakeners could see.
“S-status window..?”
ㅡFlash!
[ Status Window / Name : Eve
Age : 10 / Gender : Female
Occupation : {Princess of a Fallen Kingdom}
Rank :
Skills : {Golem Creation : EX}, {Powerless Princess : F}, {Command : F}, {Summons : F} ]
“I-it's real..?”
It really appeared. A translucent blue interface, finished with a decorative border shaped like plant vines. Just like a game interface.
Commonly called a 'status window.'
A princess of a fallen kingdom..? What does that even mean..? And why is the name Eve again..?
It even says I'm 10 years old. Since it comes out by accurately recognizing the body's age, it's probably not wrong. And the gender is female...
The fact that my occupation is Princess of a Fallen Kingdom. The fact that my body changed. And the fact that my skill grade is even...
“EX rank..? Like an iPhone Pro Max or something...?”
Even an EX-rank skill I didn't even know existed.
As far as I know, you need to go through a government-run rank assessment before you can get one.
I stretched out my slender, snow-white hand and tapped the Golem Creation skill, and a detailed explanation appeared.
[Golem Creation : EX
The final bastion for rebuilding a fallen kingdom. By consuming the wealth and materials you own, or the equivalent value of those things, it creates golems to serve you.]
“Huh...?”
A fallen kingdom, huh? It seems related to my occupation. But making golems, huh.
The golem I remember is just the stone golem from a game I played as a child. Or maybe a Mikgol? That'd be a little stronger. It's even level 1. It seems like a growth-type skill, but do I really have to level up something that's EX-grade..?”
“Sigh... what do you mean... 'Golem Creation,' of all things...?”
The moment I finished lamenting over the explanation I couldn't understand, the smartphone in my hand suddenly shrieked, floated into the air, and began to twist.
“W-what now--?!”
I was already backed into a corner. Right in front of my eyes, with nowhere left to run, the smartphone crunched and crumbled, changing shape.
ㅡThunk....
Before long, what finished changing and fell to the ground was.
“This is... a golem..?”
Golem.
It was a palm-sized golem made from a smartphone. It walked on four legs, and its face was like a tiny phone screen.
ㅡBeep
[Bank balance : 80,721 won]
Even worse, the little glowing monitor in place of its head even jabbed at my weak spot.
ㅡBeep, you're a beggar.
“Uuugh...”
I felt depressed.