Wasn't.
"You handled the job well."
"······Is that so?"
"Yes."
Kim Hajin silently gazed at her for a long while before speaking in a choked voice.
"That's...... a relief."
The boss had nothing more to say. Just then, an employee brought out coffee. It was an Americano. Kim Hajin picked up the cup with trembling hands and brought the coffee to his lips······
"Ahack! Ah, hot, shit!"
"······."
Whether it was extremely hot, he sprang upward like a spring, then sat back down and clicked his tongue, trying to overcome the heat.
He looks fine on the outside, but he’s not in his right mind on the inside. He’s already lost it.
The boss looked at him with pitying eyes.
"Ahem. Ah~ my. I asked for something cool, but I suppose my words didn’t get through······."
Kim Hajin cleared his throat awkwardly with a hem-hem. The boss nodded and asked again.
"How was the job?"
"······They say the first time is hard for everything. That’s all."
"Right. Earning money isn’t easy."
The boss grabbed the coffee cup Kim Hajin had set down. Then she released mana, blowing away the coffee’s heat.
"Still, my boy. Money is the only thing you can trust. All the more so for people like us."
"······Us?"
"We don’t have families, do we? Haven’t we grown up without family our whole lives?"
"······."
At those words, Kim Hajin seemed to fall into thought. Then he soon gave a short laugh and nodded.
"Well, if you put it that way."
The boss was quite pleased with his answer. The more she saw him, the more she liked the kid.
Today was especially so.
His bullet had shattered the mana barrier and killed the target. What had smashed the mana barrier was definitely ‘Anti-Magic’ mana.
As expected, my eyes weren’t wrong.
Kim Hajin would surely become the hidden card to kill ‘that bastard.’
"Ah, right. By any chance, can I receive the reward in goods?"
"Goods?"
"Yes. In items."
Kim Hajin knew the boss possessed many good and expensive items. Moreover, since the boss was poorly informed about market prices, if he asked for ‘goods worth 300 million,’ there was a high probability she would give him something more expensive and rarer.
In other words, she was a pushover. Besides, wasn’t he someone with incredibly good luck?
The boss, unaware of Kim Hajin’s sinister thoughts, pondered for a moment before nodding.
"Understood. I’ll prepare the items myself."
"Ah, good. Then the job is done, so I’ll be leaving now. Li Xiaopeng."
If only I’d known it would end this quickly, I wouldn’t have needed to buy a cat. Kim Hajin muttered something incomprehensible and rose from his seat.
However, the boss grabbed his sleeve.
"No."
"······Excuse me?"
"From now on, not Li Xiaopeng."
The boss looked up at Kim Hajin’s face and said.
"Try calling me Boss."
"······."
A chilly wind blew past the two. Her hair fluttered in the wind, and Kim Hajin quietly gazed into her eyes.
He gulped─ then slowly moved his lips.
"I’d rather not."
"Yes······ huh?"
The boss’s eyes, which had been full of confidence until just now, went blank.
"What?"
"It's just, I haven’t decided yet."
"······What did you say?"
The boss furrowed her brow.
But Kim Hajin was not intimidated at all; instead, he spoke even more boldly.
"How and where I belong is for me to decide. But I think it’s a bit early for that······ Hehehe."
* * *
Late at night.
I returned to the Cube. My mind was hazy, but the sensation of pulling the trigger, the fresh blood scattering into the sky, and the head that hadn’t even retained its shape were still vivid before my eyes.
I walked aimlessly down a dark path with a soiled heart.
Huu.
Before I knew it, I was in front of the dormitory.
I opened the door with fingerprint recognition, and saw Evandel and Hayang on the living room sofa. The two were asleep while hugging each other.
I approached and stroked the sleeping Evandel’s head.
"······?"
Evandel opened her eyes blearily. Looking at me with a face full of sleep, Evandel grinned. I held her in my arms. Evandel rubbed her cheek against my shoulder and asked.
"Did you buy something tasty······?"
"Ah."
I forgot. I should have bought some Italian specialties at least.
"Hmm?"
"Tomorrow, we’ll eat tomorrow. For now, you should go to bed. It’s late."
I returned to my room and laid her on the bed. The bed that was originally my sleeping space was now Evandel’s, so my spot was now the sofa.
"Awake?"
When I went to the sofa, the cat was sitting upright and yawning. I smiled lightly and lay down on the sofa. The cat watched me silently, then trudged across my body and settled on my abs. Then it gave a big yawn and curled its body into a circle.
"······You’re unexpectedly cute."
I stroked its back and slowly fell asleep.
* * *
Midterms had begun. However, this semester’s midterms were somewhat desolate and silent compared to the first semester. Perhaps because so many incidents had occurred during the previous midterms, entry for families and reporters was strictly prohibited.
There were even rumors that they had considered abolishing the midterms altogether.
It seemed different from the original story’s progression, but it didn’t really matter. I had quickly finished the second semester midterms in a skip-like manner anyway, so whatever happened here was something I had never known from the start.
"─Ah, today’s exam was so hard, really."
"─The difficulty is insane. Shouldn’t we sue the professor?"
Right after the first written exam.
I walked while letting the cadets’ complaints flow past me.
They were complaining about how hard the written test was, but for a top-ranked student like me, the written exam was nothing more than a day when class ended quickly.
"Hey. Kim Hajin."
But someone suddenly appeared from behind and blocked my path.
It was Chae Nayun.
I silently tilted my head.
She had made a bold entrance, but seemed troubled about what to say; Chae Nayun moved her lips and fidgeted with her fingers while gauging my reaction, then asked briefly.
"······Going to the study room?"
"No. Home."
At that, Chae Nayun’s eyes narrowed.
"What. Don’t you study at the study room?"
"Yeah."
I answered like that and started walking again. Chae Nayun followed behind me.
"Then, don’t you have stuff like summary notes?"
"Nope."
Chae Nayun’s shoulders flinched. The next moment, she blocked my path again and looked into my eyes. They were rather pitiful.
"······Hey. Help me out. I messed up today’s written exam too."
"Now? It’s exam week right now."
"Let me cram at least. They said you can raise your score by 10 points if you just memorize the important stuff."
"Wouldn’t Yoo Yeonha have that better prepared than me?"
"I······ had a fight with Yoo Yeonha."
Just then, a text message arrived on my smartwatch.
The sender was Kim Hosup.
[Hajin! I finally found out who Agus Benjamin is!]
My eyes went wide.
‘Agus Benjamin,’ real name Fernin Jesus.
It was a message saying he had found out where and what Tomer’s father was doing.
[What is it? Where is he?]
I quickly sent a reply.
[He’s nowhere to be found. He passed away already.]
"······Huh?"
[What does that mean? Explain in detail.]
[He was living at a Korean nursing home until 4 years ago, but he died 4 years ago. I didn’t know he was already dead. Plot twist, plot twist.]
"······."
Then it made sense. Why the Book of Truth couldn’t find Fernin Jesus’s current location.
How do you find where someone already dead is?
[Got it. Thanks.]
[And Hajin. I decided to quit my job. So I applied to the information guild you told me about.]
[Yeah. Good choice. For now, send me that nursing home address.]
After sending the message, I checked the date.
September 7th.
The next main story was approaching soon. If I could resolve the Tomer matter before then, it would mean removing one knife from my back.
"Yaa. I’ll buy you something tasty······."
Ignoring Chae Nayun who was muttering to herself, I ran toward the Portal Customs Office.
End.
"······Wow."
Milan, Italy.
In the master bedroom of the Colaion mansion’s annex, Vanessa and Paulo were reviewing the assassination incident that had occurred last Friday on CCTV.
"As expected, perfect."
Indeed, Jeronimo’s workmanship was perfection itself. Zimens died in a single blow, and the assassin disappeared as if he had never existed. In Turin, which could be called the Colaion’s sphere of influence, he had escaped thoroughly without leaving a single hair behind.
"But, noona. What did Zimens get hit by to die?"
His younger brother Paulo asked. Vanessa rested her chin on her hand and rewound the CCTV. However, from the poor-quality footage, she couldn’t clearly make out such details.
"I don’t know."
"I think······ it’s a gun."
"Come on, no way."
Guns were still very useful weapons in modern times.
People say they’re just well-assembled toys compared to relics, but in fact, the firearms market wasn’t much different in size from the relic weapon market.
Because cold weapon relics are traded only between guilds, between guilds and individuals, between individuals, and at special places like the ‘Auction House’ or the ‘Violet Banquet.’
In contrast, guns can be used easily by everyone, and with high-end luxury models, they can even sufficiently stop mid-to-low grade monsters.
In other words, far more active trading occurs with them than with relics.
"Jeronimo doesn’t have any mercenaries who use guns, do they?"
However, guns are exactly at that level. Self-defense items that let ordinary people deal with weak monsters.
Strong people have no reason to use guns.
"No, no matter how I look at it, it seems like a bullet······."
"How would a magic bullet pierce a barrier? More importantly, you."
Vanessa’s face hardened frighteningly.
"You need to keep your mouth shut tight now. Absolutely, no matter what happens, you can’t open your mouth. We know nothing about this incident."
Today’s matter is a secret we must take to the grave.
The Colaion Godfather values the safety of his family above all else, so he would undoubtedly be furious about the Zimens assassination incident. No matter how much of a scoundrel that guy was, the Godfather holds the belief that the punishment for a family member’s sins must be carried out by the family itself.
"······Of course, I won’t open my mouth."
Paulo nodded with a face that said ‘why would you even ask that?’
"······."
But Vanessa was worried. In movies, it was always this kind of kid who made a slip of the tongue······ The older sister, who couldn’t trust her foolish younger brother, reluctantly even took out a ‘Mana Oath Document.’
* * *
[Sunshine Sanctuary]
The nursing hospital where Fernin Jesus had stayed was on the outskirts of Seoul. However, this nursing hospital, from the name on its sign to its exterior, looked more like a comfortable rest home than a hospital.
I cautiously approached and knocked on the door.
Knock, knock.
Before long, the door opened. Beyond the half-opened door, a middle-aged woman who appeared to be a caregiver appeared. She smiled brightly at me. The moment I too smiled and was about to open my mouth,
"Well if it isn’t... isn’t this Hajin?"
"······Excuse me?"
My head froze in confusion. It felt like I’d been struck in the back of the head with a hammer, and a brief silence passed. But I quickly came to my senses.
Kim Hajin, and before that, Kim Chundong.
Chundong was not a rock but a person. There was enough possibility that he had moved around and done things himself.
And thinking about it carefully, from Chundong’s original home to this hospital seemed like it would take about 10 minutes.
"Ah······ Yes. Hello. It’s been a while."
I said that.
Fortunately, as if nothing was strange, the caregiver’s reaction was normal.
"You must be busy with hero classes these days. What brings you here? Come on inside first."
Saying so, the caregiver guided me inside.
I followed the caregiver inside.
"······."
I looked around. The interior was much larger than it had appeared from outside. There were also five or six people in the living room. They were playing baduk and janggi while chatting with one another. Then they glanced at me and chuckled.
“It’s been almost a year. What brings you here?”
The caregiver asked then.
“Ah. It’s nothing, really…”
I stopped for a moment and pondered. How should I bring it up?
“Nothing, really?”
“…Um, it’s about Mister Agus.”
“Agus… Ah. The South American gentleman?”
I nodded quickly.
So Chundong and that man had known each other. Well, the past of an extra like Chundong was up to the co-author anyway. It seemed like he had set something up to complicate things, but this time, it wasn’t that bad. He probably never imagined I would find it this quickly.
“Yes. Did that man happen to leave behind any keepsakes or anything?”
“Keepsakes… He didn’t ask us to keep anything separately, but I think there was something.”
“A letter?”
“Huh? Oh. A letter. How did you know?”
My eyes widened for a moment.
A letter.
Thankfully, it seemed even the setup I had arranged hadn’t changed.
“Where is that letter?”
“We placed it in the memorial park with his ashes. But why?”
“Ah, well…”
This answer required a bit of thought. I didn’t know what Chundong’s personality had originally been like. But judging from the caregiver’s gentle gaze and the smiles the patients had just given me…
“I had a promise with him.”
At the very least, hadn’t he been reasonably close with the patients?
“Is that so? Well… you did go around talking to everyone without discrimination. I think it was probably Seho Memorial Park.”
“Ah, thank you.”
I bowed deeply.
After exchanging a few more words, I ran to the columbarium the caregiver had mentioned.
[Seho Memorial Park]
“…Hm.”
This was my first time coming to a memorial park too. Overseas travel was the same, and now I kept experiencing things in this world that I hadn’t even done in the modern world.
Scratching the back of my neck, I entered the memorial park.
There were hundreds, thousands of funerary urns stored in the memorial park, but my Thousand-Mile Eyes quickly found his name.
“Agus Benjamin,” engraved in Korean.
In his niche, a letter was stored alongside the urn.
“A letter…”
Just as the caregiver had said, a crumpled yellow envelope lay beside the urn.
I slowly reached my hand toward the urn. But just as I was about to touch it, I withdrew my hand.
I already knew what was written inside. Shouldn’t the opening of that will be left, at least, to the hands of his only blood relative?
…What if the contents changed?
Because of that worry, I reached out again and took out the letter. It was full of squiggly writing, Spanish or something, but when I translated it with my smartwatch, the contents were unchanged from what I had set up.
What a relief.
I put the letter back and turned around.
Then I logged into the Violet Banquet.
In a situation like this, there was only one response the Truth Agency could give to its client.
[This agency has found Fernin Jesus.]
[The fee is 300 million won.]
[If you would like to hear the answer, please pay the full amount.]
* * *
Meanwhile, in Cube’s penthouse.
While Kim Hajin was fiddling with the letter at the memorial park, Yoo Yeonha was sitting in an antique chair, receiving Team 3’s report.
“…Volunteer work, you say?”
Team 3 had traced Kim Hajin’s past in reverse order, and thanks to that, Yoo Yeonha learned something new.
—Yes. From the time he turned eleven until before he entered Cube, we found quite a number of records showing that he did volunteer work at orphanages, nursing homes, long-term care hospitals, and the like.
“Volunteer work…”
Yoo Yeonha thought deeply.
Born an orphan, but at some point realizing the extraordinary talent he had been given and entering a military academy.
It was a splendid rags-to-riches story.
If it had been me, I probably would have thrown my shabby, pathetic past into the trash from that day on.
But Kim Hajin did not forget his past. No, rather, in order not to forget it, he had continued volunteering.
That sort of person, Yoo Yeon