Chapter 12
The next day.
After awakening Dad, the last member of the family who hadn’t awakened, he told me all sorts of things.
He talked about the dangers of my incredible ability to awaken people artificially, and how important it was to keep that ability hidden.
I’d never realized it before, but Dad’s insight was astonishingly sharp and practical.
“Completely hiding away might be convenient in the short term, but sooner or later, someone will catch on. In today’s society, there are eyes watching everywhere and ears listening in. It’s far better to voluntarily step into the government’s surveillance network and register as someone with an ability they consider ‘completely harmless and useless.’ That’s the perfect cover.”
They say that to hide a tree, you should hide it in a dense forest.
Dad’s advice was the perfect answer for maintaining my peaceful life as a recluse.
“So I should blend in by pretending to have a worthless ability.”
“That’s right. As long as you don’t draw anyone’s attention, you won’t end up in danger.”
And so…
“The person from the government who contacted you. It would be a good idea to get in touch with them again.”
I found myself considering contacting someone I’d already turned down rather brusquely once before.
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In the end, I swallowed my misgivings and called Team Leader Seo Jiyoon, the person I’d turned down so brusquely.
I gave her a convenient excuse: after discussing it seriously with my family, I’d decided there was no reason to hide that I’d awakened.
The following afternoon. The same café where I’d met Team Leader Seo before.
Sitting across from me was Team Leader Seo Jiyoon, dressed in the same neat suit I remembered.
Her eyes glimmered with a mixture of tension and anticipation as she faced the survivor who’d saved people during the disaster dubbed the ‘Busan Gate Incident’—and an Awakened whose abilities were still unknown.
“Thank you for making this difficult decision, Ms. Kim Suyeon.”
“I reached this conclusion after discussing it thoroughly with my family. If they hadn’t trusted me, I wouldn’t have contacted you again.”
I spoke casually, making sure to give the impression that this was all thanks to my family. I wanted her to feel at least a little goodwill toward them, not just me.
Little bits of goodwill tended to add up and turn into something much greater. There was no harm in getting someone from the government to like me.
“In that case, let’s get straight to the point. May I ask what kind of ability you awakened?”
Team Leader Seo asked seriously as she took out her tablet.
An ability to breathe fire? Or perhaps a physical enhancement ability? Countless images of combat-ready Awakened must already have been flashing through her mind.
I’d rescued the survivors and made it back alive from an unfamiliar environment full of strange creatures called goblins and a place known as a Gate…. She must have high expectations of me.
I wanted to tell her, Sorry! It’s a non-combat ability!
Lightly chewing on the straw in the iced tea on the table, I answered in the most matter-of-fact tone I could manage.
“The ability to burn fat.”
“……Pardon?”
Team Leader Seo’s fingers stopped typing midair. She looked at me as if doubting her own ears.
“D-do you mean some kind of self-enhancement ability that burns the energy in your body in an instant to give you explosive strength…?”
“No. I literally just burn fat. It uses up calories. You lose weight.”
Hmm. Why was it so funny to see a serious-looking beauty wearing such a dumbfounded expression? I could barely keep from laughing.
I smiled at the dazed Team Leader Seo and held out my hand.
“Seeing is believing, right? Would you like to try it yourself? It’s very effective. It hurts a little, though.”
Team Leader Seo offered me her wrist with a doubtful expression. I took hold of it and used the ‘Vitality Conversion Method,’ just as I had with my family.
But unlike when I’d used it on my brother, Mom, and Dad, I sucked every bit of the mana produced by burning her calories into my own dantian, leaving not a single trace in her body.
The service where I plant mana in people is for family only. No benefits for anyone else.
“Ugh…!”
Team Leader Seo’s brow furrowed at the sudden pain, but true to her reputation as an elite agent, she didn’t scream and roll around on the floor like my brother. Well, I hadn’t made it hurt as much as I did with him, either.
The Vitality Conversion Method treatment was over in five minutes. I let go of Team Leader Seo’s wrist and glanced toward her abdomen.
“How does it feel? Doesn’t your suit seem a little loose?”
Team Leader Seo wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and felt around her waist. Then she opened her eyes wide in disbelief. There was enough room in the waistband of her skirt—which had fit like it was tailored just for her—to fit half a fist.
“Th-this… My weight changed in an instant…”
“Pretty effective, right?”
Team Leader Seo was stunned by the miraculous weight-loss effect unfolding before her eyes. But only for a moment. She soon recovered her composure as an agent and asked, baffled,
“I mean, I understand that your ability is impressive, but… what does this have to do with surviving in a Gate? Did you kill monsters by burning their fat?”
“How could I? I have to touch them to use it. I’d be dead before I could lay a hand on a monster. Besides, I only awakened this ability after I got out of the Gate. I had no idea what awakening was until I’d escaped.”
“Then how did you survive that terrifying place? This ability doesn’t seem like it would be capable of a feat like that…”
Team Leader Seo seemed to swallow the rest of her sentence: ‘It’s utterly insignificant.’
Well, I understood. An ability that simply burned calories was completely non-combat.
“My awakened ability was irrelevant. Of course, those monsters called goblins were awfully weak, too.”
If a goblin faced an ordinary adult man in a well-lit place… one kick would finish it off.
“I just ran desperately toward the exit. I had a strange feeling that air was flowing out in one direction, so I followed it and found the exit. Then I looked around the Gate…. I realized more people might have been swallowed up, so I bought a few things at the convenience store nearby and went back in.”
“Most people wouldn’t go back into such a dangerous place in that situation…”
Team Leader Seo’s eyes flashed coldly for a moment.
“Even so, for an ordinary high school girl to go back into a place crawling with monsters armed with nothing but a convenience-store umbrella….”
“I’m not sure, but I think I just felt, ‘I can handle this,’ at the time. Honestly, I don’t know where I found that courage, either.”
But at my sigh-filled complaint, her suspicions seemed to melt away.
I continued the story with a few convenient excuses.
“After that, I lit up the cave with a flashlight, marked the exit with glow sticks, and slowly made my way through with the umbrella as a weapon, sending the survivors toward the exit. I only awakened after I got home, once I’d relaxed and the tension finally wore off.”
Team Leader Seo seemed at a loss for words at my shameless yet flawless explanation.
From her perspective, she must have been looking for some unknown Awakened who’d gained incredible combat power inside a Gate and slaughtered monsters. Unfortunately, on paper, I was just ‘a high school girl who survived by chance, then went back into the Gate to rescue the other survivors’ and ‘an ability user who could help people lose weight.’
Team Leader Seo let out a hollow sigh and scribbled something on her tablet. She was probably writing something like [Combat power: 0; non-combat, everyday-life ability user; threat level: lowest; deserves credit for the courage to reenter the Gate and rescue survivors.].
While she was struggling to hide her disappointment, I casually brought up the real reason I’d contacted her.
“Um, Team Leader.”
“Yes. Go ahead.”
“I was thinking of putting this ability to use and offering one-on-one diet massages. Would it be illegal for an Awakened person to make money that way, or would I get hit with a huge tax bill?”
At my serious business inquiry, Team Leader Seo looked completely dazed.
An Awakened person asking an agent from the Temporary Headquarters for Emergency Gate Response—an organization concerned with national security and the threat posed by Gates—about opening a diet massage shop. It must have been completely beyond her understanding.
“……Sigh. Specific regulations on the commercial activities of Awakened people are still pending in the National Assembly. For now, there shouldn’t be any particular legal issues as long as you report your taxes properly. The laws regarding Awakened people haven’t been finalized yet.”
“Oh, what a relief! Thank you.”
And so I successfully settled into a corner of the government’s surveillance network under the lowly yet perfect title of ‘diet masseuse.’
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After that, a few things happened, but none of them were particularly important.
If there was one thing I learned, it was that there were plenty of people in this world who wanted to lose weight quickly and easily.
“No! If you don’t watch what you eat, you’ll keep gaining the weight back!!!! I can’t burn your fat for you every single time!!!”
“I’m sorry! But it’s so hard to resist delicious food!!!”
“You need to curb your appetite!!!!”
Some people even booked a diet massage once every two weeks.
Well, I mean… personally, I was happy to gather quite a lot of mana, but even if I burned calories to get rid of fat, there were still problems like loose skin from weight gain and stretch marks!!!
“I have plenty of money! Please keep doing this for me, ma’am!!!!”
“Just eat less!!!”
Hmm. I was starting to regret using the Vitality Conversion Method to offer diet massages.