“This is kind of embarrassing. I invited you to eat, but ended up making you cook.”
“It’s fine. You’re a busy guy. Skipping the meat in meat noodles is understandable.”
Cha Eui-sung simmered the sauce with practiced ease, then glanced over at Seo-ryong, who was splashing around beside him.
“Seo-ryong, can you get the noodles ready?”
“Okay.”
Once the slightly limp, cooled noodles were placed in a bowl, Kim Jeong-baek quickly poured the sauce over them. He topped it with slices of meat, and only then did the dishes make their way neatly onto the low table.
“Looks better when Uncle makes it.”
“Eui-sung Uncle’s food tastes good too!”
“Sure, but… it looks kinda unappetizing.”
Cha Eui-sung stepped out into the living room, listening to the exchange. The meal setup, with everyone sitting on the floor around the table instead of using the sofa in front of the TV, was casual—so familiar and overly cozy it didn’t even feel awkward.
“Still, this is unexpected. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who cooks for himself.”
Kim Jeong-baek, while mixing his noodles, tried to make small talk with an awkward grin, but Cha Eui-sung didn’t respond—he just picked up his chopsticks.
He was right. Cha Eui-sung usually got by on cereal, energy bars, or shakes for most meals.
But before his life took a dramatic turn, he’d had an ordinary routine like everyone else. A time when he had to eat hearty meals with cheap ingredients just to make it through the day. Days when he lived steadily, eating alone to reassure others that he was doing okay.
He glanced across the table and saw Seo-ryong chewing on a piece of meat. At that age, Cha Eui-sung had been just as adept at dressing, eating, and sleeping on his own. Probably.
Their eyes met, but neither said a word. He was the first to look away, staring at the TV for no reason.
—”All Hunters describe their Awakening as the best moment of their lives. Honestly, I think I’d say the same. Life-changing! Like hitting the jackpot!”
—”And to gain a supernatural ability on top of that? Just imagining what kind gives me chills!”
—”One lucky shot!”
That damn Hunter channel. Probably because regulations were looser at the time, they really said whatever they wanted. Disgusting, considering they never even covered low-ranked Hunters.
“I wanna be a Hunter too.”
“What? I thought you said you were gonna be a doctor.”
“A doctor who’s also a Hunter.”
“That’s not a thing.”
The poor little lamb born into this BS world pouted. He’d heard that being a Hunter always made it into the top three dream jobs for elementary schoolers, but witnessing it firsthand, the popularity really hit home.
It was ridiculous. How could a job gained purely by random Awakening become a future career dream?
Saying I wanna win the lottery when I grow up would get you labeled as a problem child. And yet here they were—two adults at this very table, both Awakened. Unregistered by the state, and technically both Awakening criminals.
“You know I never ask about anything that’s not work-related, right?”
Kim Jeong-baek spoke up as they both stared at the screen, expressions blank.
“But I feel like this is something I should know. Is the target here? In Seoul?”
Hmm. Cha Eui-sung stirred his noodles without answering. Through Kim Jeong-baek, he’d already been preparing several things in Seoul. Everything was going smoothly, but if anything went wrong, he’d need to prioritize. It was probably time to share. They weren’t just in a simple client-contractor relationship anymore. Which one was the real goal?
“Why bring that up over a meal?”
“Huh? You’re the kind of guy who would talk about that over a meal, boss.”
“You’re right.”
“You’re acting strange.”
Thankfully, Kim Jeong-baek was weak to money, but not completely brainless. He wasn’t going to blurt out stuff about the Demon King or the Hero. He even casually shook his head like he genuinely didn’t care about the deeper details.
“It’s here. That’s why this stupid pretend-family routine matters.”
“Okay.”
“Now, could you not talk with your mouth full?”
“Mmpf.“
Still, the whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth. Sure, he’d put Kim Jeong-baek to work, so it wasn’t strange for him to know that Cha Eui-sung was hovering near Moon Tae-young. But the fact that his target was literally right beside that man… That hit different.
Worse yet, if push came to shove, he wouldn’t hesitate to throw Kim Jeong-baek in his place. And now that very man was acting as guardian to the kid glancing shyly in his direction—
“Tch…”
He could live without morality or humanity, but something about Seo-ryong’s gaze made him squirm. In the end, Cha Eui-sung stuffed the rest of his noodles into his mouth and got to his feet.
“Thanks for the food. The sauce was especially good.”
“Leaving already? Take care.”
“I get invited over, end up cooking, and then get waved off like it’s nothing, huh?”
“Aww, come on. Next time, I’ll really treat you right.”
Yeah, not coming next time. He hadn’t planned to stay long anyway, so there was no regret. As he walked across the yard, he overheard their voices again, like a bonus track.
“Is that guy your uncle-boss?”
“If I call someone boss, it means they make me money. If they don’t but still have authority, then it’s teacher.”
Great life lessons there.
Still, thanks to that little exchange, the confusion clouding his mind cleared up a bit. His vision, which had been locked entirely onto the System, was starting to broaden.
Yeah. What mattered now wasn’t playing detective to uncover the System’s secrets. It was preventing the apocalypse.
No curiosity or fear could outweigh the desire for a happy life that would last decades.
And to reach that future, Cha Eui-sung knew exactly what he had to do.
No matter what lies or deceptions he had to use, he had to get close to Moon Tae-young. He had to become someone important—maybe not as much as revenge, but still precious. So that when Moon Tae-young’s mission ended, he’d still leave the world in one piece.
Now that I’ve found my direction, there’s nothing to be afraid of.
All that was left was to drive the Savior Gauge upward—like a thermometer plunged into boiling water.
***
“…the fuck is this shit?”
CRASH!
The glass cup shattered into tiny pieces. He’d thrown it so hard that the part that hit the wall exploded, spraying glass shards everywhere.
Cha Eui-sung stormed back and forth through the house, his insides boiling, until he finally burst out in another fit of rage.
“This goddamn gauge—don’t tell me it’s broken?!”
[SAVIOR GAUGE]
■■■■□□□□□□
□□□□□□□□□□
22%
It had already been three weeks since he’d received the System’s message. Day and night had cycled twenty-one times, yet the gauge remained stubbornly stuck at 22%.
As if the tutorial had ended, the bar now stood frozen in a cruel, indifferent display, clawing at his nerves.
“It said I was doing great! It said to keep up the good work!”
He could scream, he could throw himself on the floor in frustration—nothing changed. Cha Eui-sung knew that. But the helplessness still made his skin crawl.
Since that day, he’d circled around Moon Tae-young eight times, exchanged words with him on five occasions, and even swallowed his damn pride and acted happy to see him twice.
Hell, he even felt like they were getting a little closer!
But despite everything, the gauge refused to budge—and now he was starting to wonder if Moon Tae-young had been playing him this whole time.
The more they met, the more his affection for the guy bled out. Was Tae-young just messing with him, putting on a friendly face while quietly screwing him over? That bitter, poisonous thought gnawed at him.
“This difficulty level is fucking ridiculous! I’m doing everything by the book—what more do you want from me?!”
Was it time for booze? Maybe that’s what he needed. Some excuse—any excuse—to shove a bottle down his throat.
But lately, even sober, he was managing not to twist people’s words out of shape and actually listen for a change.
Just yesterday, he’d tested something out. With no progress in sight, he faked a sudden collapse in frustration. Lingered just long enough to be caught by Moon Tae-young’s Qi Sense, then vanished—only to let himself be found slumped against a wall.
Tae-young tended to react more when Cha Eui-sung pretended nothing was wrong, rather than when he looked visibly shaken. Probably because seeing a potential threat look weak put his mind at ease.
And yet, that whole stunt had only raised the gauge by a measly 2%. It had gone up, so that meant they were growing closer… technically.
Cha Eui-sung didn’t think the System was malfunctioning. He recalled the time it had gone out of its way to guide him with that cringey messaging—
“King: Your connection with the High God is weakening. The gauge may not be visible for a while!”
If it had broken down, it definitely would’ve popped up with some melodramatic line like that.
Come to think of it, Tae-young did seem to be avoiding him. Not blatantly, but… different. The guy wasn’t exactly cutting him off, but their conversations weren’t flowing like before.
Why? What the hell did I miss?
He’d synced up well with Kim Jeong-baek and Seo-ryong. Neither of them had screwed anything up. He still wasn’t mingling with the locals, so there shouldn’t be any gossip going around.
That meant it had to be something personal to Moon Tae-young. Cha Eui-sung fell into a spiral of grim contemplation.
Friends…
He’d never had friends to begin with. That hadn’t changed even after regression. In fact, having used people left and right after returning, there weren’t any he could even call friends anymore.
Getting people to follow him was easy. But “friendship”? That was an alien land, even to him.
So once again, he turned to books and movies as his textbooks. He didn’t believe everything in them was real—but who the hell could he even ask for advice on this kind of thing?
He remembered how, when he was little, his mother had loved the relationships between characters in noir films. She’d had quite a few friends, too—at least until the illness took her away.
So, after binge-watching noir movies nonstop for two days and nights, Cha Eui-sung came to a realization.
Yeah. I need to make Tae-young’s heart race with something more intense.
The deep bonds and loyalty between movie characters—those came from bold actions and slick, cool dialogue. Maybe this damn Demon King bastard was so numb that normal human interaction didn’t move him at all. Maybe that’s why he kept subtly avoiding people—because nothing ever got through.
If that’s the case, then it was time to go on the offensive. Time for a full-on, aggressive approach. Like some kind of… friend shield tactic?
Just wait. Grinding his teeth, Cha Eui-sung crouched and began sweeping up the shards of the glass he’d smashed earlier.
He had a plan now—and he’d shove it down that Demon King’s throat if he had to.
