Noonim[1] Is a Little… (1) >
‘So with this, I’ve met all of Korea’s S-Rank Hunters except one.’
I put the instant coffee into an expensive looking coffee mug and poured water. My preference was paper cups. It should be good to decrease disposable products.
‘Why isn’t there contact from the remaining one?’
MKC shouldn’t be in a situation to contact, and according to Song Taewon, Hanshin also seemed to be in a position where it was difficult for them to approach me.
Would the last one, Soodam’s Yoon Kyeongsoo, also be in a similar state? Seeing how appetizing bait was strewn about, but an S-Rank guild leader from, not even overseas, but within the country, was being this quiet, there was probably a reason.
‘How about Chief Song Taewon?’
He seemed like a good person, but he was also a difficult person, from my position. This instant coffee was a brand I hadn’t seen before, but it was good. Though it was a little sweet.
‘It’s a waste to leave him to die, but even so, if he stays alive……’
It would become the biggest hindrance to Haeyeon swallowing the Hunter a.s.sociation. The starting point of the Hunter a.s.sociation that the country was holding out behind, losing strength, was none other than Song Taewon’s death.
Without an S-Rank Hunter, and with the level of difficulty for dungeons going up, it was a natural sequence that the a.s.sociation became weaker. They couldn’t help but reluctantly pa.s.s the S-Rank dungeons they were managing over to the large guilds. While that happened, Seseong disappeared, and that empty place was eventually taken over by Haeyeon, which had neatly absorbed things.
‘So Yoohyun also received suspicion.’
Though with Seseong leaving Korea not long after Song Taewon’s death, there was the most talk asking if it was the Sung Hyunjae who killed him. Due to the circ.u.mstances, Haeyeon also seemed shady.
‘With Song Taewon’s personality, there would be no reason to be like ‘we’ll reasonably compromise’, and it’s obvious that he would keep on going up against guilds.’
Should I apply the keyword? But, he was a hard person to throw an insincere joke to… it felt like a too serious reply would come after saying it clumsily, so I wouldn’t be able to say it a second time.
There was still time, so should I just wait and see?
I had to get my key and take care of my things, so I decided to go back to Haeyeon. Of course, I had to erase the finger marks on my neck. It would be annoying if it was caught.
‘A mirror… Where was the bathroom again?’
I thought I had seen it near the lobby. I took out a potion and went to the lobby. Right now there weren’t any people in the building other than in the rearing room, so-.
“Han Yoojin-nim?”
It was Kang Soyoung. She was holding a 5-story cat tower in one hand, and five large shopping bags in the other. I had forgotten about that young lady. I reflexively covered my neck, but,
Thump
The cat tower and then the shopping bags fell to the floor and Kang Soyoung came up right in front of me in the blink of an eye. She pushed away my hand that was covering my neck and took out her cell phone.
“What happened? What about my Guild Leader and Yerim?”
“I sent them away first.”
“Putting aside Yerim, why did my Guild Leader do that?”
Kang Soyoung tilted her head as she took a photo with her phone camera.
“I mean, why a photo…”
“We have to put in a civil complaint. And Guild Leader needs to see it, too.”
“It is fine! Please do not make a call! Nothing much happened, really.”
“If nothing much happened, why would there be finger marks on a person’s neck?”
“This is just Chief Song Taewon worrying about me in his own way…”
Kang Soyoung’s expression became strange. Even if I thought about it, it sounded a little crazy.
Anyways, I coaxed her, asking her not to tell. I also made her erase the photo. Kang Soyoung sent me a vague gaze towards me the entire time, and took me all the way to the dorms.
There wasn’t anyone at home. The kids had been moved to the rearing facility, and that Yoohyun had taken Peace, and Myeongwoo was shut up in the Forge.
It was a long time since it was this quiet. It really was better for there to be someone at home. Was that why people raised pets?
On the whiteboard hanging in the living room, I wrote ‘in the middle of moving preparations’. Myeongwoo spent more than half a day in the Forge, and the subs.p.a.ce didn’t have cell phone signal, so business was relayed through writing like this. He came out about once every one or two hours to check.
‘It’s mostly luggage that hasn’t been unpacked yet.’
There wasn’t much need to unpack seeing how there were daily necessities and everything. This time, I should organize the things I should organize after moving, and throw the rest away.
I put all my things into boxes and put them in the living room, and borrowed an icebox and emptied the fridge, too. It was right next door, but it was summer. Besides that, I also packed the kids’ things that had increased little by little.
While I was doing that, Myeongwoo appeared. Along with a hot heat, whatever he was doing.
“Did you pack everything?”
“Yeah. More or less. I should ask them to move it now.”
“There’s no need.”
Myeongwoo took out a string from his inventory. The string that seemed to be made from metallic silver twisted together, increased in length and wrapped around the luggage. When it did, the luggage inside the string floated up into the air.
So this guy made something unusual again.
“I can put them in the Forge like this and then take it back out when we get there.”
“Ah, I guess you could use it like that too.”
It was a scam. Wait, couldn’t you possibly use it in dungeons? Like putting people in the Forge ahead of time so that more than the headcount goes in, or putting in a low stat healer and then taking them out to get treatment when it’s safe.
“Can you put people inside too?”
I asked Myeongwoo, who had moved the luggage into the Forge and come back out.
“No, it’s a pity but it’s impossible. It’s set up so that living beings are automatically kicked out when I’m not there.”
That was really a pity. Myeongwoo just needed to grow to stat A, before he could usefully use low stat healers or special a.s.sistance Hunters in up to high rank dungeons.
Then again, he was busy just making items.
Kim Sunghan had the mini portal key and the inner door key. When Yoohyun wasn’t here, he was now the new S-Rank Hunter, and as one of Haeyeon’s initial members, he was the same as the guild leader’s proxy.
When I received the key and went to find Suk Simyeong to handle my resignation, Yerim had fire in her eyes out of the blue.
“Ahjussi, you can’t be like this! After promising you wouldn’t go somewhere else!”
Right, I did. Suk Simyeong was also nodding his head behind Yerim.
“It’s the building right next door. Did your cla.s.ses end?”
“It is a rest period. Even if it’s a next door building! If you resign as well, then you’re really leaving – can’t you just stay? You even said that you wanted to leave the dorm room in reserve.”
“But would that be okay?”
“It is okay.”
Suk Simyeong immediately replied.
“At any rate, wasn’t there no work you did as a normal employee? Seeing how there are many Hunter personnel at Haeyeon, there is no provision restricting Hunter license holders from having side jobs.”
“You have to keep your promise, ahjussi! At the very least until my contract ends!”
Yerim screeched and the gleam in her eyes burned like she would grab my collar. If she spoke like that, then there was no helping it. A promise was a promise.
In the end, we decided to keep my normal employee contract with Haeyeon the way it was before. No, while Yerim was insisting that she didn’t know when I would somehow run off again, it increased to 3 years. At any rate, it was at the level of putting up one name.
I went back to the rearing facility and finally stepped into my new house. Even though the main entrance keys were in the hands of the guild leaders. Still, apparently if the entrance door broke or was tried to be opened without a key, a signal would go to each guild. I could just think of it like multiplex housing.
“The house is nice.”
It was much smaller than the 1st floor, but the 1st floor was too big and here was disgustingly big too. Maybe because of the flying magic beast, the ceiling was the height of two floors. There was an open loft with only railings, so it seemed like Blue, who liked high places, would have a lot of fun.
Outside of the person-use living room, there was also something like a monster-use living room, a s.p.a.ce separately prepared that was about the size of a small sports field. There weren’t windows for safety, but instead, the surface of one wall was filled with a special gla.s.s screen that reflected the scenery of the outside roof garden in real time. The other window-shaped screens were the same. Lighting similar to natural light also adjusted the light according to time and weather, like a real window.
There was a separate region set aside around the kitchen, with a durable door added according to my request. With this, there would be no problem over Blue attacking the fridge.
-Kkya! Kkya!
She was moved over to an unfamiliar place again in a day, but Blue was excited without even a bit of hesitation. In an instant, she flew up and perched on the loft railing and loudly cried. It was good that I didn’t need to worry about the racket.
-Chirp
Chirpie, who had another anklet because of Comet, ran to the screen reflecting the garden and flopped down. It seemed like it really liked the scenery. I should take it out tomorrow.
The baby dragon was still sleeping, so I placed her on top of a table.
“Myeongwoo, you said you already moved in, right?”
I asked Myeongwoo, who was helping me unpack.
Yoo Myeongwoo’s new house was the living quarters in the building’s[2] top floor. The floor level wasn’t high, but it seemed to be a penthouse. Since the resident was this resident, apparently they had also poured a lot of money into there. Suk Hayan and her team was lodging there, too.
“Yeah. They made it nice there, too. It’s so large that it’s a little empty to live alone… Truthfully, it’s a little lonely.”
Was that why he kept on staying in the dorm room?
“If you’re bored, come hang out. Should I give you a key?”
At my words, Myeongwoo’s complexion became much brighter.
“Then it’s good for me! But wasn’t it only for the contracted guild leaders?”
“I have an extra one. And I don’t have anyone else to give it to other than you. You’re the most reliable, truthfully.”
That younger brother was a guild leader, so once he came out of the dungeon, he would know to take care of Haeyeon’s. Would Yerim grumble if she knew I gave a key to Myeongwoo?
I gave him the mini portal key and the entrance door key. That Myeongwoo treated it as some kind of treasure, and received the keys and put them in his inventory.
“Ah, if you have time, could you make me some Mental prioritized integer increase equipment? It would be better if you add Mana as a sub stat. Integer increases for high rank equipment are too rare.”
“Of course I can. But it’s Mana and Mental? What about the other stats?”
“For the other stats, it’s enough with the ones I already have.”
They just needed to be enough to use while training the kids. The baby monsters were at most stat C. But, not only was the rank of the skill that required Mental and Mana high, the possibility of the usage targets being S-Ranks was high… I didn’t know when the Teacher skill would have to be used again, but in order to not be hospitalized, I had to raise them as much as possible. And wouldn’t the side effect of the fear resistance be less if the Mental was higher?
I wondered if I should turn off the fear resistance while I was at it, but decided not to when I thought of that brother b.a.s.t.a.r.d. It was because I had the fear resistance that I worried to a reasonable extent and it ended at being angry; if I didn’t have it, I didn’t think I could focus on anything. Yoohyun was Yoohyun, but Peace didn’t have much experience yet. Anyways, Yoohyun, this brat, really.
“Mana, Mental. Okay, I’ll make it right away after I finish the one I’m working on now.”
“What are you making?”
“That’s still a secret.”
That Myeongwoo said, smirking. I remembered that producing an S-Rank spear also didn’t take that much of a time, so could he possibly be making an SS-Rank already?
Arranging the luggage was more or less finished, and Myeongwoo went back to the Forge. If he went in here, then he would come back out in my house. Was he planning on not going back to his own house?
And in the meantime, a text had come to my phone.
[Hi honey[3] my brother Korea tomorrow:)]
It was Riette. Then, contact information that I guessed was Riette’s younger brother’s was also sent. She had grumbled that Yoohyun was blocking people from personally contacting me, so why was she sending me a text? Then again, with him directly giving me a translation item, he wouldn’t still be blocking people. The rearing facility was also complete.
‘Would people start to visit even from overseas now?’
While that was happening, it would be good if S-Rank Hunters who would be good to use the keyword on, came. They said it was okay to go slowly, but I wanted to fill up 50 and be free.
Koodangtang!
-Bbiiiik![4] Shwit!
‘What is it?!’
I heard a loud noise while asleep. When I snapped my eyes open and checked the time, it had just pa.s.sed midnight. Chirpie was still quietly sleeping; was it Blue? Why all of a sudden from a kid who slept when the sun set?
Tuung!
Geez, it sure was a fuss. I quickly went out and went up to the second floor where Blue had made her sleeping place. The baby gryphon was dead to the world between the pile of cushions she had shredded. The nicely folded wings went up and down following the breathing.
If it wasn’t Blue, then possibly?
-Kkiit, bbiik!
Was it Comet? I hadn’t thought of waking up Comet at all, so I had left it in a gla.s.s pen on one side of the monster-use living room. I should go down and turn on the lights.
-Bbiik! Siik!
Flap!
The baby dragon who was flying around dizzily landed on top of my head and the tip of its tail wrapped around my ear. I didn’t lock it, but I had closed the door. Did it know how to open doors?
“Comet!”
At the call, it rode my neck and shoulders down as if sliding, and hung onto my arm. Puffing, the two eyes that looked at me were really, really clear and bright. To the point that they were incomparable to during the day.
“You’re…… nocturnal, huh.”
-Bbiik!
I’m doomed.
[1] this is ‘noona’ (what boys call older sisters/older girls they know well) + -nim (respectful honorific), so it’s a respectful way of saying ‘noona’
[2] this uses the eng word transliterated, so I think yj is talking abt the connected building (which has been referred to w the eng word), not the rearing facility building (which has been referred to w the krn word)
[3] the krn word, which I’m 99% sure is NOT used as a term of endearment or sth to call sb, so it’s probably a translation error (as in, an in-universe tl error from whatever language Riette was using to krn, that the author purposely used)
[4] this is like the noise that chirpie makes (the one I tl as ‘cheep’) or ‘beep’ depending on context, but I left it as is, since it’s a diff magic beast making it, and it also makes other sounds and it would be kind of weird for me to tl one sound but not the others (which don’t really have good eng equiv)