Chapter 18
W-waaahhh!!!
Not long after Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin went outside, a loud wail came from beyond the reception room door.
What the heck?!
What's going on?!
Of course, with both of them being Awakened and having sharp senses, there was no way they could miss that sound.
The sight that met them as they rushed back into the reception room was the security staff, pacing helplessly and not knowing what to do. And Eve, crying their eyes out like the saddest person in the world.
E-Eve?! Why are you crying?!
Eve-ssi!? P-please calm down!! What happened, Chaeyeon-ssi?!
I-I don't really know either..?!
Clutching Daengdaeng tightly in their arms, they bawled and bawled, and even when Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin tried to soothe them from the side, it didn't do any good.
Daengdaeng! T-then at least put on TiniPing!!
At Han Dohee's words, Daengdaeng did put TiniPing on YouTube, but that wasn't going to work. As the crying spread beyond the wide-open reception room door when Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin came in, Suri and Minyum, who were waiting in a corner of the first-floor lobby, heard it too.
ㅡCrash!!
When Minyum burst through the reception room door, scooped Eve into their arms, and patted their back, the crying finally stopped.
M-Minyum! Suri..! I missed you!
Minyum had now grown to about the size of a sturdy adult man. As Suri, perched on Minyum's shoulder, dropped the candy it had been holding in its mouth onto Eve's stomach with a little plop, Eve's heart slowly began to settle.
Since becoming an adult, Eve had been alone all this time and had soothed that loneliness by going on the internet. The loneliness they'd somehow been holding together with adult male testosterone had eased somewhat after awakening, thanks to Minyum, Suri, and Daengdaeng.
Daengdaeng was the only golem left, and the Gallery was impossible. The one person Eve had at least met before, Han Dohee, had gone and left them behind, and today they'd been swept up in a Gate incident, which made things hard.
Suri and Minyum had been away for a long time dealing with Gate monsters, and after getting jostled by the crowds at Hangang Park, they'd built up quite a bit of stress.
Then, with no rest at all and left alone in a place they'd never been before, Eve's hurt feelings exploded, and they went into full panic mode.
Only after Minyum and Suri came running over in a panic, hugged them tight, and rocked them gently did the tears finally stop.
E-Eve? Are you okay?
D-don't leave me alone...
A, uh...
Han Dohee jabbed Yoo Chaerin, who was standing there blankly, in the side with her elbow and frowned. Leaving a ten-year-old kid in a place they'd never seen before—if they were shy around strangers, even an adult would have a hard time.
From the situation Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin saw, it was as if they'd left a ten-year-old, parentless kid alone with just one adult stranger designated as the guardian. As Yoo Chaerin put it, Eve was a potential civilian Awakened.
A skill could become a bomb or a shield depending on an Awakened's emotions. They'd just triggered the abandonment trauma of a child who grew up without parents.
E-Eve-ssi! Would it be okay if you stayed with your golem friends!?
I-I'll stay too!? I'll stay with you too!?
Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin were sweating bullets, trying hard to soothe Eve's hurt feelings.
At their side, they had the original security staff bring out a pile of snacks a child would like and lay them all out on the table, and Han Dohee, with Eve sitting on her lap, diligently opened the snacks and fed them.
But even with Yoo Chaerin and Han Dohee doing everything they could, Eve stubbornly refused to eat the snacks. Not because they were still holding a grudge.
'I'm so embarrassed I could die..!'
Just because there wasn't a single person they knew, they'd broken down crying as if the world were ending, so from self-proclaimed manly-man Eve's point of view, their face was burning hot with embarrassment.
E-Eve..? Are you okay..?
Eve was covering their face with both hands and shaking their head at Han Dohee's question. To anyone watching, it looked like Eve was really upset.
* * * * *
The drained Han Dohee and Yoo Chaerin quietly slipped out of the now-calm reception room and started scolding each other.
Unnie, are you crazy? Y-you left a kid without parents alone with someone they didn't know?!
A-and you? You just followed along when I called you!
I only listened because it was you saying it! Ugh, I can't even live, seriously!
Since the objectively greater share of the responsibility lay with Yoo Chaerin, she was left speechless. Pressing a finger to her throbbing brow, Yoo Chaerin racked her brains trying to figure out how to soothe Eve's hurt feelings somehow.
What does Eve like...?
Hmm... Hachuping?
Didn't work.
Damn. What is it, then? I don't really know either.
After putting their heads together for a moment, one thing did come to Han Dohee's mind.
Mana stone?
Mana stone? Why?
Looks like it's used to make golems. You saw Suri, right? That thing was made from rare metal and mana stone. It's supposedly a hidden piece.
A hidden piece..! At that age already...
After hearing the exact specs of Suri that Han Dohee mentioned, Yoo Chaerin was thrown into great shock. With about 7 kg of rare metal and one mid- to low-grade mana stone, you could make a golem on the level of a B-rank combat unit.
In terms of price, that meant you could mass-produce B-rank combat Hunters for around 15 million won each. That was efficiency on a whole different level from recruiting and raising a proper Hunter.
What's more, its growth potential was practically endless. If the guild admission process for children under 13 hadn't been so absurdly complicated that it was nearly impossible, it would have been a top-priority recruit.
And as time went by, there was a high chance it would actually end up doing Hunter work, so they couldn't leave it with such a bad image.
We need to win them over somehow...
You've got plenty of mana stone left, right? Why don't you give some to them? Rare metal would be good too.
Would that really work?
Or maybe, hmm.
Han Dohee briefly thought about the post Eve had written on the Gallery. Stuff like calling anyone who liked male Hunters "dung-gay" and saying they really liked female Hunters. The more she thought about it, the bigger the gap between Eve themself and that Gallery post seemed to get.
Mana stone seems better...
That side didn't really have any good ideas either.
* * * * *
Eve-nim, would this be okay?
Wow... yes!
By then, Eve had been guided to a private room furnished with a top-of-the-line computer, together with the golems. Really, though, the computer itself wasn't what Eve needed most; what they really needed was blazing-fast Wi-Fi and a phone for the Gallery.
This is the newly released model. It has an anti-mana barrier function and a high-spec mana-detection function designed for active Hunters, along with a rare-metal outer casing and a mana-reinforced film...
This side wasn't really a problem either. As long as the Gallery ran smoothly without lag, that was all that mattered.
Oh, wow. Really?
We'll have the desktop that was set up here delivered to your home later on.
Really?! This phone is mine too?!
That's right.
Heehee.
Daengdaeng was happily playing around on the ultra-luxurious bed. Suri was looking around every corner of the assigned room, and Minyum, who was getting along with the horse sprawled on the floor, was in a separate spacious living room.
The security lady left the call button by the front door and went off, but honestly, it was better without her.
No strangers around, just golems. I'd already eaten plenty of snacks, so my belly was full. And it wasn't even that late yet, so with just that much, everything was totally okay.
Wow, that's really fast.
Unlike the old phone, which lagged a bit, I now had a brand-new phone that was super light, had a great design, and was perfect in every way. It's nice that Daengdaeng makes money through stock trading, but not being able to use my phone myself was incredibly inconvenient.
Daengdaeng, I'm going to transfer the data. Can you take out the SIM card?
ㅡBeep?
Um... there's a really tiny thing here. Something shaped like this?
The internet search function was this convenient—when I searched Google for SIM card, a bunch of pictures popped up. After I showed one of those pictures to Daengdaeng, Daengdaeng soon nodded.
ㅡSquelch
Uing...
It came out from a slightly gross place, but whatever. The SIM card really did come out.
Unfortunately, this meant Daengdaeng lost its call function. On top of that, without data, searching outside would be hard too, right? Still, having the phone in my hands was more convenient.
Stocks... hmm...
I even had the feeling that if I occasionally tucked the SIM card into Daengdaeng's... backside, that might solve it too.
Whoa! It works!
After that, I placed the newly received phone on Daengdaeng's back and tied it on with a strap. I was going to transfer the old data over with Smart Switch and make it completely my phone.
While Daengdaeng would get bored if it just sat still the whole time, I tied it on so it could move around however it wanted.
While the data transfer was going on, I then...
Minyum! Come here!
ㅡClack!
Minyum was interacting with the horse lying on the spacious living room floor. Unfortunately, that horse golem and part of Minyum were what turned Han Dohee's car into a golem.
I felt sorry for Minyum, but for now I thought it would be better to give it back.
Got it? I'll make you something even better later.
Minyum nodded, a little disappointed. My golem really is a good kid.
I do need to succeed, though...
I felt a little sorry for the horse golem I'd never seen before, too. It had only been born a short while ago, and now it had to go back to being a car. Still, it was someone else's car, so I couldn't just use it however I wanted. This time was an exception because I'd used it to save Han Dohee.
Suri, want to give it a try too?
Maybe because it realized I was about to try something new, Suri also came out into the living room and sat on the desk. Since restoring the golem I'd already made to its original form was affected by Command Issuance...
{Command Issuance : F
You issue orders to your faithful servant. As the rank goes up, commands can be delivered faster and more accurately.}
It's still F-rank. Still, can't be helped!
For now, I sat in front of the horse golem's head and patted it. It definitely felt like something made from a car, with its eyes flashing like headlights.
Horse... return to your original form..!!
ㅡPrrr.
Seems it won't be easy...
As expected, succeeding in one shot was impossible. Suri, who had been watching from the side, seemed to be flapping its wings and saying something to me.
Huh? What did you say?
ㅡKiiit
How? Like this?
ㅡNod-nod
The neck? How am I supposed to do the neck? You mean hit it?
ㅡShake-shake
After spending days together, I'd gotten to the point where I could sort of understand what Suri was trying to say. I wasn't exactly sure how I was understanding it—just that it felt like the meaning was being sent straight into my head. And I could see some of it in its body language too.
Okay! Got it!
Ahem! Hear the princess's command! Horse golem, return to your original form!
Once I actually said it out loud, it was really embarrassing.
Ugh...
I was starting to wonder if Suri had just been teasing me.
[You have partially recovered the princess's majesty. The rank of Command Issuance has increased. Command Issuance : F -> F+]
Ehh?! Really?!
[The 'Horse' golem, following the princess's command, regains its original form.]
ㅡCrackle..
W-Wow..!
Minyum's body and the entire horse golem lit up with a bright blue light, and before long they returned to their original forms.
But....
The car... is it okay for it to be here...?
A car had appeared right in the middle of the living room in the top-floor suite of the Shilla Hotel.