“Time with me? You have to stay with me until we clear the quest. If you go to a café without me, I’ll get so upset I might cry.”
Why did he make it sound like a playful tantrum, but with the undertone of seduction? Kim Sibaek just let out a chuckle—he wasn’t the kind to fall for that willingly.
Just as they were finishing the last plate, Biendeoé began to stir.
[Death and Beauty senses your presence.]
Biendeoé gave a few feeble flaps of her wings. It wasn’t as if an Incarnate Body could get tired or physically strained, so it was obvious—she was faking it to get some attention. Maybe it was because she was still a young deity; she was completely transparent.
“You’re awake?”
He handed her a few large grapes he’d brought separately. He thought they were green grapes, but they turned out to be Shine Muscats, a variety developed a few years ago. Biendeoé had really liked them when she’d stayed in the penthouse. Sure enough, the sulking deity slowly sat up and started pecking at the grapes.
“Does that crow not need to eat?”
“No. The moment it’s formed as an Incarnate Body, it gets locked in that state. In simpler terms—no calorie consumption.”
“Sounds pretty convenient.”
“Not really. It’s like an adult squeezing into a baby’s clothes—uncomfortable in more ways than you’d think.”
Kim Sibaek gently patted the back of the young god’s head as if humoring her silent plea for attention.
[Death and Beauty asks what happened to the Eid Portal.]
“They say it was cleared without any problems. Oh right, Woon-ah—I forgot to ask while we were inside. What happens if the Eid Portal isn’t cleared?”
Tae Woon casually sipped the last of his caramel macchiato and answered without hesitation.
“If you fail to clear it within the time limit, the host mutates.”
“Mutates?”
“Basically, they die. They transform into something halfway between a monster and a human. And it doesn’t stop there—they start producing monsters. You could say they give birth to them.”
“…They create monsters?”
Kim Sibaek instinctively furrowed his brow. Creating monsters—that sounded an awful lot like…
[Death and Beauty speculates it might be similar to Mak Slechth’s Paladins of Chaos.]
It reminded him of the Edokers he’d once fought. Of course, these beings likely weren’t as apocalyptically powerful as the Paladins of Chaos unleashed by Mak Slechth—but still.
“Oh right—while you were asleep, I charged your dead phone.”
Tae Woon handed him the phone from his pocket. As soon as it powered on, a message popped up.
[Glad you woke up quickly! ^^*]
When had he sent that? Kim Sibaek looked up and locked eyes with Tae Woon, who was grinning just a few steps away.
The emoji—clearly targeted at someone his age but styled like a Gen Z message—made Kim Sibaek let out a laugh.
Weird… there’s no other messages. I thought phones these days saved all missed calls and texts?
He figured Bae Ji-han would’ve spammed him with messages or calls. Anyway, now that Biendeoé was awake, he could just reach out himself.
“Texting someone? Already made a new friend? Where? Who is it? Do I know them? Why?”
As he awkwardly fumbled over the keypad, Tae Woon suddenly started interrogating him. Kim Sibaek responded coolly.
“Yeah. It’s for a blind date.”
The moment those words left his mouth, something gave a sharp crack. Startled, he looked over—Tae Woon had just broken the handle off the mug he’d been holding.
“Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
“…I’m fine. Must’ve been a defective mug.”
Tae Woon casually swept the broken ceramic onto the tray. Kim Sibaek scratched his head. His face had looked a bit tense just now… was he seeing things?
Well, the kid wasn’t hurt, so that was what mattered. He shook off the thought and finished typing out the message.
***
[yoBAEJi-hanYouDead?]
[Spill the tea, what the hell you doing]
[Still hospitaling??]
[It’s “in the hospital,” you illiterate dumbass]
[If you keep ignoring us, we’ll just assume you pissed yourself in the portal out of fear lol]
[BAE]
[JI]
[HAN]
[You really shit yourself huhㅠ I’m spreading the rumorㅠ]
“These bastards… have no idea what I’ve been through…”
Bae Ji-han gritted his teeth as he read the group chat messages popping up in preview.
Time flowed differently inside and outside the Eid Portal. When he came out, over a day and a half had already passed. He wanted nothing more than to strut around bragging for a whole week about everything that happened there, but there was one big problem.
“Argh! I signed a confidentiality agreement!”
The attention-seeker tossed and turned miserably on the bed. That’s right. The reason no post ever popped up titled “Story Time: I Got Trapped in an Eid Portal with the Seven Guildmaster” was because, the moment they cleared the portal, Gwak Yoonsang hauled them all in and made them sign confidentiality agreements.
“I trust you all understand the need for discretion. This concerns national security, so we ask for your full cooperation.”
Some had suffered minor injuries during the raid, others needed psychological care, so while they were en route to the hospital as a group, they were cornered with the documents and had no choice but to sign. Even Bae Ji-han, who had been halfway through typing a clickbait post titled “Isn’t Tae Woon washed up? lol He’s weaker than the S-ranks I know,” ended up signing under silent protest.
Frustrated as he was, he still understood. Even as a high schooler, he knew that if footage of Kim Sibaek defeating the Portal Keeper ever got out, the impact would be immense.
Lying sprawled across the bed, Bae Ji-han recalled the scene from that day.
“O Death—take what is no longer beautiful.”
Under any other circumstances, he would’ve cringed at the line. But in that moment, the instant those words were spoken and the blade descended, a radiant light scattered. Through it, a black bird with broad wings soared like a hawk. The monster was gone in an instant. And at the center of that radiance—him.
The monster vanished without leaving even a corpse. Just like how even the hardest ice eventually melts in sunlight, as if that was simply the natural order of things, the creature that had devoured everything was eradicated—utterly and completely.
He had only blinked once. In that blink, the monster that had filled his entire vision with dread disappeared, leaving behind only a halo of light.
Days had gone by, yet every time he thought back to that moment, his heart still pounded like it was happening all over again. Bae Ji-han didn’t have much of a vocabulary—his reading was limited to textbooks and game guides—but the feeling he’d experienced was unmistakable. It was a sense of reverence, the kind he imagined someone might feel while standing in a quiet mountain temple.
Was that black bird the baby crow the ahjussi was keeping? He did say he saw it as a guardian deity…
Was it connected to his abilities somehow? How could someone with that kind of power have stayed completely under the radar? He collapsed right afterward—was he alright? What if he was still unconscious from pushing himself too hard to save them? A whirlwind of thoughts tangled in his head.
“Shit. If I pull the Mom Card, I’m gonna get chewed out… Should I just ask Section Chief Gwak how ahjussi’s doing?”
Gwak Yoonsang had clearly known Kim Sibaek even before the portal incident. Sure, the fastest way to check would be through Tae Woon, but Bae Ji-han didn’t have the guts to call the 7777 Guildmaster’s office. That left Gwak Yoonsang as his only option.
He’d been calling and texting nonstop with no response. Maybe he was still sick. Or maybe—to someone like him, a useless high school kid—he’d already been forgotten. That thought stung more than he expected.
In the end, bracing for the inevitable smack from his mom, the unplugged PC, and confinement to a study café, Bae Ji-han reached for his phone. He hadn’t noticed the message earlier—his notifications had been off.
Assuming it was just from a friend, he lazily opened it—only to have his eyes go wide.
[Ji-han. This is Sibaek ahjussi^^]
***
Out of all the orphanages in Korea, Somang Orphanage in Gangbuk had become the most famous after the Cataclysm. On the day disaster struck, six children from there Awakened—and four of them were S-ranks.
It was such an unprecedented event that people even joked the place had holy energy or perfect feng shui. Some Awakening fanatics even tried to eat dirt from the orphanage grounds. Unfortunately, Seoul had yet to be fully reclaimed from monsters, so that wasn’t happening.
One of the six Awakened children from Somang Orphanage was Yang Eunho, an A-rank Hunter who now served as the Chief Secretary and bodyguard to Guildmaster Tae Woon. Of course, Tae Woon was far stronger than his own bodyguard.
As a talented Hunter, secretary, and protector, Yang Eunho found himself lost in thought, tracing the origins of the current situation. It had all begun with the emergence of The One Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken.
