By the time he turned twenty, Kim Giryeo had entered one of the most meaningful periods of his life. He met his mother, and that same year, he also began his working life in earnest.
Wiling.
Dmmk.
Kim Giryeo once worked at a bathtub factory. In truth, he did not stay there for very long. He realized that although simple labor might earn him enough to live on for the moment, there would be no future for him if he kept doing it.
'Surprisingly, it's manageable, but I definitely can't do this for long.'
So, after thinking long and hard about how he wanted to live his life, Giryeo finally made a decision.
A correctional officer.
He had heard that, among jobs offering guaranteed employment until retirement, the examination for correctional officers was one of the easiest to pass.
'I originally considered becoming a military officer, but since I was exempted from military service for being an orphan, it'd be difficult for me to enter the military now...'
It was around this time that he switched to working for a delivery company. His previous job frequently required late-night shifts, leaving him with almost no time to study. Delivery work, on the other hand, seemed to offer him more control over his schedule.
On top of that, a guy he knew from the factory offered to sell him his old motorcycle for cheap.
Giryeo decided to give it a shot and started his new job. Just as he'd been told, learning to ride the motorcycle wasn't particularly difficult.
"Hey, you crazy b*stard! I ordered spicy pig's feet, so what the hell is this? They're freezing cold!"
Of course, Giryeo was the sort of person who followed traffic laws to the letter, so during his first month on the job, he ended up hearing every insult imaginable...
But as he gradually became accustomed to riding, things began to improve.
He turned out to be better at it than he'd expected.
Then, one otherwise peaceful day...
"Giryeo-ya... I'm sorry to ask, but do you have any money saved in your bank account?"
Lee Hwayoung suddenly asked him whether he had any savings.
"Money?"
"My back's been hurting, so I couldn't work for a few days this month. Because of that, I'm a little short on money for the utility bills..."
When Giryeo had first left the orphanage, he had firmly resolved to refuse any requests for money.
But had that resolve weakened with time?
Giryeo readily handed Lee Hwayoung 250,000 won. He was already paying half the rent every month anyway, so he figured covering a little extra for just one month wouldn't make much difference.
...However, contrary to his expectations, Hwayoung's requests gradually grew larger.
"Giryeo, Mom doesn't have any money for groceries. Could you lend me some?"
At first, she asked him for 50,000 won in cash, saying she needed it to buy groceries at the market.
"Son... I'm sorry, but I don't think I can work this month because I'm sick."
A few days later, she said that her health was keeping her from even looking for work and left him responsible for all of their living expenses.
"Mom is really sorry."
"It's okay. It's only for a little while."
"Yeah. Once my back gets better, I'll go back to work and pay you back."
Perhaps it was because she had promised to repay him, but Giryeo lent Lee Hwayoung money again.
Each time, his savings dwindled rapidly, but for the moment, he could still manage.
The young man lived honestly and never wasted money on luxuries. He had saved almost everything he'd earned from both the factory and his delivery work, so he still had money to spare.
Yeah.
He had managed to save thirty million won by the age of twenty-two, so something like this...
Two months passed after his biological mother stopped working because of her back pain.
His bank balance fell from twenty-nine million won to twenty-eight million, then eventually to around twenty-seven million.
And that was when, over dinner one evening, his mother suddenly brought something up.
"Giryeo-ya, actually... there's something I need to tell you."
Lee Hwayoung revealed that she was deeply in debt.
"I had such a hard time living alone without you that I ended up taking out a loan... But no matter how much I pay back, the amount just never seems to go down."
"A loan?"
"The collection notices keep coming these days, and they're driving me crazy..."
The documents his mother showed him clearly bore the traces of bank loans.
Including both the principal and accumulated interest, the total came to roughly twenty-seven million won.
And, as fate would have it, Giryeo happened to have exactly enough money in his bank account to pay it all off.
"They won't let me extend the repayment period anymore. If I can't pay it back in one lump sum, we'll lose the deposit on the house... What am I supposed to do?"
And so, she took Giryeo's hand and began to plead with him.
Could he help his mother, as her son?
Of course, she'd pay every last won back later.
There was nothing to worry about. Once her back improved, she'd return to work the following month.
"How could I say no?"
Ordinarily, no one would readily agree to a request involving such an enormous amount of money.
But their relationship wasn't that simple.
"Uhm..."
This was the family bond he had longed for all his life.
"You're really going to pay me back... right?"
"Ah, of course! Don't worry. How could I possibly not pay back my own son's money?"
In the end, Giryeo used every last bit of his savings to pay off Lee Hwayoung's debt.
But it was okay.
His mother had promised to repay him.
He could always save up the money for his exams again. Besides, his mother had been taking care of the household while he studied. They were going to keep living together anyway, so between a mother and her son, this much was...
Yeah.
There was no way it could be okay.
"Huh."
Had it been two days since he'd given Lee Hwayoung the money?
After finishing his delivery shift, Giryeo returned home and, within three minutes of walking through the door, let out a hollow laugh.
The moment he opened the front door, the first thing he saw was the disordered living room.
Unease creeping over him, he searched the house.
Sure enough, several things were missing.
A few pieces of clothing.
A wallet.
A phone.
And the suitcase that should have been standing on the balcony.
"She's not even answering her phone."
To put it simply, Hwayoung had run away.
"Did she block me?"
It had been only forty-eight hours since he'd given her the money.
Giryeo raised a hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He truly hadn't expected this.
Not once had he imagined that she would simply pack her things and disappear.
"What about the deposit on this place...? Is she planning to give up the apartment too?"
If he explained the situation to the landlord, perhaps there was some way he could get in touch with his mother, even if only briefly.
But at this point, what difference would a few exchanged words make?
The empty living room.
Standing in its center, Giryeo slowly crouched down on the floor.
"If I'd known it would end like this, I should never have asked whether she was going to pay me back."
Ironically, that was the first thought that came to him.
Yeah.
The truth was, some part of him had already suspected that he might never get his money back.
And even knowing that, he had still given it to his mother.
Even without a written promise or anything else to guarantee repayment.
He simply hadn't wanted to lose the mother he had only just found.
Money or no money, he would rather have spent his life living with his family.
"Ah..."
And yet, ironically enough, that very money had become the reason his family fell apart.
It was such an empty, meaningless ending.
Giryeo stared blankly out the window.
By the time he came back to his senses, the light of the setting sun was already spilling into the room.
After that, Kim Giryeo worked even harder.
He was angry that he had been forced to start again from nothing, but regardless of how he felt, a person needed money to survive.
During the day, he worked deliveries.
At night, he studied whenever he found the time.
Even then, he still held on to a small measure of hope for the future.
"Ugh, winter really is freezing."
However, there was one thing that must not be forgotten.
The world this young man lived in was the world after the Dungeon Shock.
"Grrr..."
One day, after completing a delivery, Kim Giryeo stepped out of a building and noticed a stray dog in the alley.
But when he looked more closely, he realized it wasn't the kind of stray animal he was accustomed to seeing.
"Hmm?"
Red sclera.
A magic stone protruding from its back.
With an appearance that unnatural, the creature could only be—
"Monster!"
Gasp.
The moment he recognized the monster, Giryeo instinctively tried to flee.
But the creature was on him before he could even get the motorcycle started.
Tududuku... Ssak!
A sickening sound of flesh being torn rang through the alley.
"--Ack!"
The F-class monster lunged at Giryeo and sank its teeth savagely into his leg.
In a panic, he swung his helmet at it, but even after taking the blows, the black beast refused to let go.
Crack, crack.
It began chewing through his right leg as though it had gotten hold of a dog toy, gnawing at him mercilessly.
"Let go! Let go!"
Kim Giryeo nearly lost his leg that day.
Fortunately, things did not reach that worst-case conclusion.
Soon afterward, an E-rank awakener who had spotted the beast in the alley rushed over to help.
Shot!
The black dog quickly died beneath the hunter's attack.
Kim Giryeo's injuries, however, remained severe.
"H, heugh..."
"Ah! Oh my goodness! Are you okay? A... an ambulance! I'll call an ambulance right away!"
The world around him looked unreal, drenched in red like the light inside a butcher's shop.
What in the world was happening?
He'd been injured this badly.
Would he ever even be able to walk normally again?
"You'll be able to walk."
A few days later, Kim Giryeo lay in a hospital bed.
The doctor was making his morning rounds, and only moments earlier, the physician in charge had given him an assessment of his injured leg.
"Can I walk?"
"Yes. The surgery went well."
But that only meant walking was 'possible.'
"But from now on, you shouldn't run or engage in strenuous exercise."
"Yes?"
"The damage was too severe, so some lasting aftereffects are unavoidable. If you put too much strain on the joint from now on, you'll only make it worse. You'll have to take proper care of it."
If he couldn't stand for extended periods or even run for a short distance, didn't that mean there would inevitably be serious limits on the kind of physical work he could do?
"Is that so?"
And the injury wasn't the only damage this incident had caused him.
"Oh, right. My motorcycle was destroyed too."
Korea had a solid health insurance system, so he'd assumed the medical bills wouldn't be too severe.
But surgery for a fracture this serious cost considerably more than he had expected.
If he'd known something like this was going to happen, maybe he should have taken out some insurance.
Then again, since riding a motorcycle was part of his job, perhaps he wouldn't have been approved anyway...
"What am I going to do about the rent?"
You've hurt your leg, so just take some time off.
He couldn't afford to accept advice like that.
If he rested today, he might have nothing to eat tomorrow.
After all, people couldn't survive without money.
For some people, a few hundred thousand won might be nothing more than the price of a night out drinking.
For this young man, however, that same amount was enough to bring him to his knees.
And for someone without a single family member there to help him back up, falling once could easily mean never being able to stand again.
A few months later, Giryeo had recovered to some extent.
However, just as the doctor had warned, the injury had left lasting aftereffects. Even moving his leg beyond a certain angle remained difficult.
His condition would gradually improve with time, but if he wanted his leg restored completely to the way it had been before, he would need an item obtained from a dungeon.
"The average cost of reopening the leg and treating it again with high-grade potions is around 350 million won..."
Haha.
I've never even seen 100 million won in my life, and now you're adding another 250 million on top of that?
"My head hurts."
Kim Giryeo took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.
He had started smoking out of curiosity after becoming an adult, but never before had he smoked so many cigarettes one after another.
The savings he had painstakingly accumulated were completely wiped out during the period when his injured leg kept him from working.
Worse still, when he desperately turned to the government for help, he was told that there was no financial assistance available for young people in his circumstances.
"Even with my body like this, they're telling me to work as long as I'm still technically capable of earning money..."
Nevertheless, Kim Giryeo did everything he could to survive.
For the time being, since his physical condition had changed somewhat after being bitten by the monster, he decided to take an awakening test just in case.
"It's 12Aw. The examinee has awakened as F-class."
Although he had awakened at the lowest possible rank, he still tried entering a gate.
"Shaaaak!"
"Ugh."
But because of the trauma from the attack, his body began trembling uncontrollably whenever he saw a monster.
There was no way he could continue working as a hunter like that.
Still, he believed there had to be something else he could do.
No.
Even if there wasn't, he would have to create an opportunity for himself.
He needed money to cover his living expenses, and once he had that, then...
Then what?
Now that he thought about it, why had he been holding on so desperately?
'What am I even trying to accomplish by staying alive?'
He had originally wanted to become a civil servant because he wanted stability.
If he worked for the state, at least his salary would arrive on time.
And he'd thought that with a stable income, he could maintain his life...
The life he shared with his mother.
For a long, long time.
"..."
But that family had already fallen apart long ago.
His mother had abandoned her son twice.
What kind of family fell apart over an amount of money equal to barely a year's salary for an ordinary office worker?
Kim Giryeo thought about it for a moment.
If I'd been more affectionate, would my mother have stayed?
If I'd been a better-looking son...
Or if I'd had some extraordinary talent, like being exceptionally good at studying.
Would things have been different?
But whatever the reason, it seemed that she simply hadn't found her son appealing enough to keep as family.
Then how did he look to everyone else?
Did people in this world simply not want someone like him as family?
Did that mean he would have to live like this forever?
Abandoned by others.
Alone.
Struggling just to survive.
"All my life."
Suddenly, Kim Giryeo grew tired of trying.
There was no deeper explanation for it.
All at once, everything became unbearably tiresome.
Struggling to earn money.
Clinging to his textbooks.
Even trivial things like cleaning his room.
And it was around that time that strange things began to happen.
For some reason, he started forgetting things that had only just happened.
He would find himself standing in front of the sink without remembering what he'd gone there to do.
Sometimes, he couldn't remember the passcode to his own front door.
These lapses in memory began happening again and again.