The karma that had been quietly drawing closer.
And yet the culprit behind it all—the one who had falsified his rank—arrived at the restaurant without a care in the world and immediately began eating.
The perfectly cooked rice and chewy shiitake mushrooms were delicious as he scooped them up with his spoon.
***
A few days later.
Monday came around once again.
– Hoo, hoo, hoo.
Perhaps the sight resembled the fire-spinning game known as 'Jiwulbun,' traditionally played on the eve of the first full moon of the lunar new year.
In the distance, a sorcerer could be seen gracefully circling his arm, weaving magic around his hand.
A vivid blue-green.
It was a new color of flame, painstakingly perfected through relentless effort.
Jung Haseong continued adjusting it over and over, trying to keep the flame confined within the radius of his hand.
Soon, the fire he had conjured traced a beautiful arc through the air, resembling the fins of an ornamental fish.
"Ugh!"
But at that moment, Jung Haseong flinched and abruptly canceled the skill, as though he had been burned.
No.
To be precise, it wasn't merely as though he had been burned.
He actually had been.
"Are you hurt?"
"No. Not that badly..."
Where I used to live, fire mages possessed such terrifying elemental resistance that trying to kill one with fire wasn't even worth considering in the first place.
Anyway, why are Earthlings so weak and fragile?
And out of all these frail vessels, how did this F-rank body end up being the one sturdy enough to withstand my soul?
"There's a saying here that every time you sigh, your lifespan gets shorter. If that were actually true, I'd already be dead."
Haa.
I quietly lamented my fate while Haseong wasn't looking.
This might be a slightly strange question, but do adult Earthlings still remember exactly what they dreamed of becoming as children?
To begin with, my own childhood dream was to become a scholar of magic.
And in fact, I managed to achieve that goal to an exceptionally high degree.
In other words, the soul inhabiting this body already possessed experience with success.
So would achieving a dream twice really be that difficult?
"Hmm."
This morning, I finally finished planning for the future—something I had been too preoccupied with survival to seriously consider until now.
After thinking long and hard, I arrived at a conclusion.
The new goal I sincerely wanted to achieve in this life was...
(A free and unemployed person with an abundance of money and leisure time, without a single obligation forcing them to do anything.)
It might sound a little ridiculous, but from my perspective, this was a goal I had chosen with genuine seriousness and urgency.
A lazy, carefree life.
Paradoxically, however, the first thing I needed to do in order to achieve that dream was work hard.
"At the very least, I should take responsibility for the mess I've created."
The tutoring contract was about to be renewed.
The new term would last the same three months as before.
From this point onward, the number of official lesson days would remain unchanged, but whenever I judged it necessary, I planned to visit Haseong personally even on his days off and continue the lessons.
If everything proceeded according to plan, Jung Haseong would eventually learn one more form of magic—or what people here called a "skill."
"Haseong, stop. That's enough."
"Yes?... Ha, no, I'm fine. I still have plenty of magic power left..."
"I can clearly see your concentration slipping. If you push yourself any further, you'll lose the progress you've barely managed to make."
And so, I finished the first lesson of the renewed contract, worth a total of 9 billion won, without incident and stepped out of the training room.
The clock on my phone showed seven in the evening, but since it was summer, the sky outside was still fairly bright.
"Do you want to go eat samgyetang?"
"Ah, yes. Come to think of it, Hunter Kim, you always decide what we're eating almost immediately after the lesson ends."
"Do you not like chicken?"
"It's not that I dislike it. I just find it kind of interesting..."
What's so interesting about that?
"Don't tell me... normal Earthlings don't think about what they want to eat every single day...?"
I pressed my lips shut.
This body had a particularly strong appetite.
Then I took out my phone.
For situations like this, I had already looked up restaurants capable of accommodating high-ranking Awakened people, so I intended to call and ask whether they were still open.
.
.
.
...Fortunately, the restaurant responded positively, and before long, we were seated in front of our food.
Tak.
By the time the samgyetang we had ordered was brought into the private room, Haseong, seated across from me, spoke.
"Excuse me..."
"Hmm."
"There's something I'd like to ask you."
"Go ahead."
"During the lesson a few days ago, you said something to me. You said I'd improved enough that I wouldn't need to worry even if I stopped taking lessons now."
Since it was rare for him to bring up anything personal, I listened carefully.
"...Did you really mean that?"
I hadn't expected such an anticlimactic question.
Whenever I taught him something, he learned quickly.
His attitude toward studying was so serious that, in terms of mindset alone, he was already halfway to becoming a proper wizard.
At first, I had assumed he was simply a talentless caster.
But when I considered the matter objectively, the man sitting in front of me was actually an exceptionally gifted disciple.
And Jung Haseong's excellent comprehension had undeniably contributed a great deal to the success of the lessons.
Tak.
I set the glass of water in my hand down on the table and thought.
Earth.
This world had only recently discovered mana, so its magical society was still somewhat violent...
Or rather, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that those dissatisfied with reality—people harboring powerful desires or some degree of abnormality—were currently more likely to awaken.
'Mutants are naturally drawn toward imperfection, after all.'
But that tendency usually disappeared rapidly as civilization advanced.
My own planet had been the same.
In ancient times, Alphaurins with powerful bodies capable of surviving what Earthlings called "awakening" were the ones favored by magic.
But after countless mysteries of the world were unraveled, it was ultimately true scholars who learned to wield magic in its deadliest forms.
'At Earth's current stage of magical development, intelligence probably doesn't make that much difference yet.'
As expected, there was certainly nothing wrong with a wizard possessing a mind suited for study.
Having finished organizing my thoughts, I offered my disciple a few words.
"When the person learning does this well on his own, the instructor gets to sit around eating chicken without worrying about anything."
"Hmm..."
"And by now, you should be able to feel your own improvement. I'm sincerely complimenting you, so stop worrying and just accept it."
However, Haseong's response was...
"I understand."
A few seconds later.
"Then if I keep improving like this, I'll eventually be able to work safely with you, right, Hunter Kim?"
"Huh?"
"You just said I was doing well."
Work?
The moment that word left his mouth, I slowly froze.
"Ah."
After a brief silence, a long-delayed realization finally struck me.
'Ah—'
That's right.
Only now did I remember the other piece of bait I had dangled in this borderline scam.
The Hunter Association's regular team system!
That's right.
At the beginning of our contract, I had definitely tempted the Guild Master of Garion with that completely unnecessary reward.
'In my head, I'd already assumed Jung Haseong and Seo Esther would eventually work together, so I'd completely stopped thinking about it.'
But just as when I had first made that contract, I still had absolutely no intention of keeping that promise.
"Hmm."
I chewed on a jujube from the samgyetang for a moment while carefully choosing my words.
Then I continued.
"But there's something I'm genuinely curious about. Do you really want to work with someone like me?"
Putting aside my plan to separate the S-ranks, I was honestly curious.
"Anyway, now that you can control your abilities properly, things like a teammate's defensive capabilities aren't nearly as important anymore. And considering my personality—I speak casually to you and don't even call you 'older brother' despite the two-year age difference. Honestly, I don't exactly sound like the ideal coworker."
Gulp.
After saying that, I tilted the teapot beside me and filled my cup with cold water.
"Isn't that because you lived abroad? I've never thought there was anything wrong with your personality, Hunter Kim."
No, wait.
What?
"Hold on. Abroad?"
"Actually, back when you first started speaking casually to me, someone I didn't know once criticized you behind your back in a hallway at the Association."
"..."
"When I turned around to explain, Hunter Ahn Yoonseung was already doing it."
My brother lived abroad for a long time, so he unconsciously speaks like that around people he's close to. Don't talk behind his back just because he doesn't follow the Korean age hierarchy.
True to his role as a defensive sorcerer, he had thoroughly defended his acquaintance.
'Why is he suddenly talking about me living abroad... Ah!'
This time, I could guess exactly where that fabrication had come from.
More specifically, several conversations I'd had with Yoonseung in the past had caused the problem.
During the early stages of my reincarnation, I had been inhabiting a body with incomplete memories and therefore couldn't answer even basic questions about living as a Korean.
Whenever that happened, I sometimes tried to brush away suspicion by joking about things like jet lag.
But since an ordinary person had no authority to check someone else's immigration records, it seemed Ahn Yoonseung had taken my excuses—
the excuses of an actual alien—
quite seriously.
I covered my head with one hand and opened my mouth.
"No, well, haha. I'm not sure how to explain this... Anyway, that's not the reason."
"I see."
"Actually, I speak casually simply because I prefer it... well, for economic reasons, I suppose. It's quicker and more concise. That's all."
"Aha."
As I scrambled to invent an excuse, Jung Haseong nodded with an extremely serious expression.
'I thought that if he really worked for the National Intelligence Service, his actual age might be different because of some disguised identity, but apparently that's not the case.'
Of course, from the outside, there was no way to know what Jung Haseong was actually thinking.
I awkwardly averted my gaze while vaguely denying the story Ahn Yoonseung had spread about Kim Giryeo having lived overseas.
By the time I fished a chicken rib out of the bubbling stew and started eating it, the hero sitting across from me spoke again.
"Anyway, I don't have any problem with honorifics. Like I've said before."
"Ah."
By 'before,' he meant a certain conversation we'd had when I first revealed my actual age to him.
– Jung Haseong. Now that you know I'm younger than you, why don't you speak casually to me?
– I'm more comfortable this way.
– You're more comfortable speaking formally?
– I'm not sure whether it's some kind of complex, but honestly, people have often looked down on me because of my age while I've been working as a Hunter. So I deliberately changed the way I speak in professional settings.
– Ah—
– And maybe it's because the few friends I had all died in a dungeon incident, but lately I haven't had many chances to speak casually to anyone. At this point, dropping the honorifics actually feels awkward.
– I see.
– F*ck, I shouldn't have asked.
The indescribable awkwardness of that moment...
Anyway, even after fully realizing that his teacher was a person severely lacking in consideration, Haseong still seemed determined to work with me.
From my perspective, that made his request even harder to deal with.
'I'm genuinely an F-rank Hunter now, with no possibility of improvement left.'
Thanks to the innate traits of an Alphaurin and the Sacred Tree Seedling, I had somehow managed to build up a degree of physical and mental defense.
But my offensive capability was zero.
Partnering with Jung Haseong when my own power was barely even noticeable...
No matter what tricks I tried, it was impossible.
"...It's good to hear that you don't mind the way we speak to each other."
Then let's take the direct approach from here.
"But about the team... No matter how good your results are right now, it's still a little... too early for us to work together."
"Am I still lacking?"
"That's right. You could put it that way."
From the very beginning of the contract, I had clearly stated:
'If you don't possess skills that I can acknowledge, you can't join my team.'
I squeezed my eyes shut and desperately tried to downplay the abilities of South Korea's number-one-ranked Hunter.
"I knew you'd say that."
Wait.
What did you just say?
"Then there's one favor I'd like to ask, Hunter Kim Giryeo. If you have time, could you please watch the afternoon news on YTV this Wednesday?"
While the alien sat there dumbfounded, the young Earthling calmly drank the steaming samgyetang broth as though it were cold water and made his request.
And when Wednesday finally came—
I couldn't stop trembling.
In my panic, I dropped my phone onto the blanket.
Because that damned fire wizard had caused one hell of a mess.