Chapter 53
Prestige.
In a sense, it could be seen as another social class that exists in modern society, after slavery was abolished.
Located in Songpa-gu, H-City is in the top percentile. Since it's a massive apartment complex of more than 9,000 households, priced at an extremely high premium, it is home to many people with reputations worth bragging about.
Because it's a place with a name known even outside, there are all sorts of little cartels scattered inside, bound together by the sense of belonging that comes from living in an H-City apartment and a bit of common ground.
And that's not meant in a particularly bad way. There are occasional groups formed by mothers with young children, people in the same line of work, or even residents of the same tower making a get-together.
“Did you hear? They said someone new moved into Building 307 this time.”
“Oh my, really? Was there an empty unit?”
“I think it was the 23rd floor. This morning I saw no big luggage, just a few people coming and going.”
Because of the difficulties of moving into a high-rise, once you go above a certain floor, a ladder truck becomes hard to use. Usually if you're going above the 15th floor, they cover the expensive elevator interior with thick nonwoven fabric for a while and move the furniture and other belongings that way.
“I wonder who it is.”
In front of Building 307, there’s a playground for the complex’s children. In addition, a space where their parents can rest is neatly set up on one side of the playground grounds.
Since H-City assigns parking spaces to each household, it was easy to spot an unfamiliar car. Even within Seoul, the average resident age is remarkably young, and because many households are raising small children, there is no surface parking for safety.
At that moment, Eve...
“W-whoa….”
I don't really know, but some man who seemed to be the one showing us the house came over, ran alongside our car, and guided us to the dedicated parking area. There's hardly any parking space on the ground level, and it seems most of it is filled with walking paths, convenience facilities, playgrounds, and the like.
The concept of a dedicated parking space is strange to me too. I was thinking you just shoved the car wherever the roadside looked a little wide.
“Yes! This is the underground parking lot. It goes up to the third basement floor, but... for now, I believe this section is the parking area used by the residents of Building 307. You should be able to use everything from here over to there.”
“Understood.”
“And... if you walk a little farther this way, this is the elevator.”
“Hwaaek.”
A shared entrance door, I guess? Where I used to live, there was just a single glass door standing there, and all you had to do was push it open. The security level was that lax. Here, even the shared entrance door requires you to enter the building and unit number, then type in a password separately before you can get in. So how do packages or delivery food get through?
“Ophelia, should we go straight up to the house?”
“Do you need anything?”
“I want to take a look at the first floor.”
“You mean the aboveground area of the complex.”
“Ah, yes.”
Since there's no aboveground parking, if you drive in, you go straight into the underground parking entrance. It’s not like there are no roads for cars at all, but most of them are for pedestrians and the like. Still, I want to see the outside.
Somehow it feels like once I go inside, I’ll be too lazy to go back out. But then again, I’ll keep being curious about it, so it’ll probably stay on my mind.
“Ah, then let’s go take a look at the first floor aboveground. I’ll escort you.”
The man showing us around agreed too. It was a shame, but I’d leave Minyum and Suri in the car, and once we got home I’d summon them with my summoning skill. Dangdang is small, so it’s fine, but Suri and Minyum are kind of...?
“Princess.”
“Hehe, yep?”
Ophelia didn't especially like the idea of a princess who looked dirty, as if she'd just woken up from a nap without washing, wandering around in a place where people could see her, but there was no way she could douse that high-pitched, excited reply with cold water the moment she called.
“Mm, never mind. Let's head to the first floor.”
“Yay!”
In the end, we took the elevator in Building 307 down to the first aboveground floor. The pedestrian paths were well laid out, and as befitted such a gigantic complex, the interior included all sorts of convenience facilities.
What's more, the place was so huge it even connected the apartment complex directly to the subway station.
“Building 307 also has a playground right in front of it, so it's the kind of place young children would like.”
What is this man even talking about? I'm an adult, so I don't really have much use for a playground or anything like that. I can just play Roblox at home and use my phone—what's with the playground?
“Wow, a slide!!”
—beep!!
On the playground called H-Concert Hall, there was a stage-like structure built to match the theme, and even a small but definite slide.
“Princess.”
“Hehe, yep?”
Ophelia didn't much like the idea of the dirty princess, who looked like she'd just woken up from a nap without washing, climbing atop a playground structure inside the apartment complex that didn't exactly look hygienic and sliding around the inside of the slide with the backside of her white long padded coat, though.
“Mm, never mind. I'll listen to the explanation, so please enjoy yourselves.”
“Yay!”
As before, the princess was so excited that I didn't really feel like stopping her. Clothes can be washed when we get home.
“Mwahaha. I'll flatten every slide in sight.. Gasp..!”
—beep..!
From far away it looked like she was just excited, but when I got closer, other little kids had already come here first and were playing. What's more, they all seemed really close, chatting and playing together.
For some reason, it felt awkward to approach.
I used to be the kind of person with a ridiculously strong social aura, where people would come up and talk to me even if I was just standing around (because I worked part-time at a convenience store), but after ending up in this body, that aura disappeared.
“Um....”
So I shoved my hands into my puffer coat pockets and went to the photo zone—its purpose, for some reason, I couldn’t figure out, and no one was looking at it anyway (it was a low-quality musician concept)—and idly loitered there.
Man, what am I supposed to do about this? I want to go ride the slide, but there are a bunch of little kids whose names I don't even know running around, and they even seem close, so it's hard to get in.
Was the world of children always this difficult? What do children even like hearing? Should I give them a Robux coupon or something...
“Hi?”
“Whoa!”
“Why are you so surprised?”
“A-ah, no... hi...?”
When someone calls out from behind while you're in the middle of a big deep thought, of course you'd be surprised! The one who startled me was a girl who was only an ant-poop's worth taller than me.
She had seven more kids trailing behind her like a mafia boss, and the eight of them were one of the massive cartels that divided the playground into thirds.
“What's your name? Did you move here? I don't think I've seen you before.”
“I-I moved here today. My name is Eve....”
“Eve? Are you a foreigner? Your hair is white too. How old are you?”
What a tactless way of speaking! Conversation is like a turn-based game, so you're supposed to ask only one question on your turn! If you ask two questions at once, how much trouble is the person answering supposed to go through..!
“I'm ten years old... and I don't think I'm a foreigner...?”
“Then why is your hair white?”
A boy standing behind the girl who had asked me the question answered.
“Are you an Awakened? Awakened people have their hair color change, right?”
“Really? Then are you an Awakened too?”
“I-I am.”
“Really? Then can you use superpowers? Show us!”
“Ah, not right now...”
—beep!
While I was reluctant to answer, Dangdang, who was bouncing around beside me to assert its presence, drew the kids' attention, and the kids behind me looked at Dangdang and said,
“What's this? A robot?”
“Ah, this is Dangdang... I made it...”
“You know how to make robots?”
“I-it's my Awakened ability.”
“This? So this thing fights?”
“No... this one doesn't fight...”
“What? Boring.”
—boom!
A lightning bolt flashed through my head. No, even Chae-rin unnie, the only S-rank Hunter in all of Korea, and the other famous A-rank Hunters who had gone into the Desert Mausoleum all said my ability was amazing..!
How dare these little peanut-brained grade-school brats know anything and call my Dangdang boring?! This won't do. I can feel my head suddenly turning cold. I'll make them pay for looking down on my first subject, Dangdang.
“Hey. Dangdang's really good at math. You brats good at math?”
“Ji-yun's in the gifted class?”
“That's right, I'm in the gifted class. We're learning quadratic functions.”
“Quadratic functions..? Dangdang, can you do that..?”
—beep!
“Our Dangdang can do that too. Dangdang, make up a problem.”
Dangdang's head monitor stretched out wide like a tablet, and a problem appeared on the screen.
Problem: The graph of the quadratic function y = ax^2 + bx + c satisfies all of the following conditions.
The axis of symmetry of the graph is x = 5.
The minimum value of the function y is -16.
This graph passes through the point (6, -15).
Find the value of a + b + c.
‘Wow, what the heck. I don't really know this either.’
Dangdang suddenly threw out an incredibly difficult problem. You could say this was basically an entrance-exam-level problem.
Even the gifted class was only ten-year-olds, fourth-grade level. So Ji-yun, who had been so confident, suddenly got a dizzy feeling.
“..It'll take a bit. Wait a second.”
“Okay, got it.”
But Ji-yun, trying hard not to give up and stay calm, was chewing on her side bangs as they fluttered in the winter wind, staring hard at the problem.
“Damn it. Don't you have any paper?”
“You can write on the monitor. Dangdang, make me a pen.”
—beep!
Following my request, Dangdang formed a pen from the side of the monitor and popped it out with a boing. Ji-yun, whose academic zeal was tremendous, wrote various equations on Dangdang's monitor and solved it very diligently, but...
“...I don't really know.”
“Dangdang, tell me the answer.”
—beep!
The answer that came out immediately was 0. I actually knew that.
“How about that? Dangdang's smart, right?”
“Wait, hold on—what do you mean just you get to make the problems? We get to make one too.”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Hey, Im Min-jae, go get my bag.”
“Why me?!”
“I'll tell the teacher you ate latiao at school.”
“Ugh, fine. Wait a sec.”
Ji-yun's underling (also an elementary school kid) dashed off in a flash, brought back Ji-yun's bag, and handed it over. Inside was a math workbook assigned as homework to gifted-class elementary school students.
—rustle...
“Here, solve this problem.”
“Dangdang, can you see it?”
—beep!
Ji-yun pointed to problem 13 in the math workbook, but Dangdang didn't need that. After scanning both pages of the workbook at once with the camera in the center of its tablet screen, Dangdang instantly derived the answers to every problem.
—tap, tap-tap….
At the flurry of answers being listed in an instant, accompanied by sound effects, Ji-yun's eyes went wide.
“W-wait! Are all of these answers correct?!”
“Yeah. Dangdang's a math genius.”
“Wait, hold it for a second! I have to do this because it's homework, okay?”
“What the hell are you doing, copying your homework answers with my Dangdang??”
“No. Homework is something you have to solve on your own.”
“Just a little! I'll just look a little bit!”
“Mm... then just for a moment. Hold it yourself and take a look.”
“Ah, okay!”
After handing Dangdang, which I had been holding in my hand, over to Ji-yun, I hurried over to the playground structure.
“The slide..!”
—whoooosh
The thrill of riding down the longest slide in the playground. The refreshing feeling of passing through the cold tube filled with winter wind. And the victorious joy of crushing the gifted class with intellect.
“Mwahaha.”
Today, I once again announced my greatness to the world!