By Zephyria “Mu-hae. I heard you picked up a kid?”
As soon as he entered the Electronic Store, Director Gil greeted him familiarly. Jin Mu-hae walked inside, recalling the events of the previous day.
The man left all alone amidst the dead miners. With mysterious eye color, he only furrowed his brow without answering any questions about his identity.
He brought him back to Goryeo City last night, and rumors seemed to have already spread.
Mu-hae rummaged through the items scattered on the workbench and opened his mouth in an indifferent voice.
“He’s not a… kid. He’s quite tall.”
“These days, kids start growing again early. When you go to the academy, there are already tons of them as tall as me.”
“That’s because you’re short, CEO.”
“You little punk, you got no respect for your elders…”
It might sound harsh, but Director Gil always spoke in such a brusque manner. Mu-hae half-listened to his nagging and picked up a round piece of equipment.
He pressed a button, and a wire made of specially processed material popped out with a whirring sound.
He had entrusted it to him, just in case, after it was completely wrecked in a previous commission. He had somehow restored it perfectly.
“You fixed this?”
Even though his temper was a bit nasty, he was still the most skilled electronic store CEO in this neighborhood. As Mu-hae admired, another question flew at him.
“I heard you took him to Teacher Jung. Where did you get the money?”
“I just asked for a light examination. I picked him up, after all.”
“Teacher Jung was looking for you, anyway. Maybe five minutes ago?”
“Really?”
Mu-hae glanced sideways, and Director Gil was pressing buttons on the terminal with a cigarette in his mouth.
999 Deal. The price, which was suspiciously one Deal short of making it four digits, was infuriating.
When did he start worrying about where he got the money…? As he muttered inwardly, he added a comment as if he had heard his thoughts.
“Take that one Deal and buy some crackers.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Buy some for Teacher Jung too.”
“He doesn’t eat cheap snacks.”
“He eats them when he doesn’t see you.”
Director Gil’s faded blond hair shook back and forth with his chuckling laughter.
Jin Mu-hae nodded perfunctorily and swiped his hand across the terminal.
Beep-!
As the beep announcing the payment rang out, Director Gil clicked his tongue and said a word.
“Looks like you’ll have to do another job on the side?”
Mu-hae clicked his tongue in response and checked his balance.
He was right. As he said, this month was going to be tight. All because he picked up a strange man from outside the Dome the day before.
“Do you happen to have any good commissions?”
“I don’t know about me. But since the other day, everyone’s been going crazy trying to catch the Thorn wolf.”
“Why a wolf all of a sudden…?”
“An old man who lived in Central became a natural man and got eaten. But his will is on his internal chip? So there’s a mess over the inheritance.”
It wasn’t uncommon for there to be public commissions with rewards… But from the sound of it, it could be a waste of time.
All sorts of riffraff would jump into something like that. It might be more reliable to do a few odd jobs instead.
“Wouldn’t the body and the chip already be melted?”
“Melted or not, they’re offering 30,000 Deal for even the remains. Aberrant are not Beast, and even guys with all their limbs intact are going outside the Dome, saying they can catch a Beast.”
“…Sounds like finding a needle in a desert.”
“Do it if you want, don’t if you don’t.”
Mu-hae nodded vaguely again and packed his equipment into his bag.
As he left the musty Electronic Store, a cool breeze brushed the tip of his nose.
Soon, the mottled buildings made of construction waste filled his vision.
Location Information ▶ [Goryeo City]
West 81.2240, 12.0771
A street lined with illegally extended buildings, Starlight Road.
Even within the slums divided into east, west, south, and north, this most isolated place, the western slums, was Jin Mu-hae’s hometown and base.
He had no memories of his very early childhood. He had simply been a member of this alleyway from the moment he could remember, and like the other kids in this neighborhood, he had grown up tough and barren like a weed.
It was a comfortable yet uncomfortable shackle, in that he had a place to stay, however shabby his origins might be.
[UNION/GR Deposit/Withdrawal – 24,557 Deal]
‘Suddenly having unexpected expenses.’
Jin Mu-hae frowned and turned his steps.
Since he had received a call, it was time to go meet the man of unknown identity.
Clang.
As he entered the building, which was too simple to be called a hospital, a cheap speaker made the sound of a metal bell.
“You’re here.”
A languid voice was heard from inside the room. It was Teacher Jung, one of the few doctors on Starlight Road.
“How did it go?”
Jin Mu-hae asked without greeting, and the man wearing glasses lifted the curtain and came out, gesturing towards the inside of the treatment room as if he was used to it.
“See for yourself.”
Perhaps it was because of the scar that ran across one side of his cheek, but Teacher Jung’s words sounded serious despite his scholarly face.
Mu-hae entered the treatment room with an unusually polite attitude.
Rustle.
As soon as he crossed the threshold, a bed on the far left of the room, with the curtains half-drawn, came into view.
Someone was sitting there blankly. The man was sitting on the bed, using the blanket he was given to cover himself like a nest, staring into space.
His jet-black hair looked as soft as sable fur, and his eyes contained a mysteriously reddish light…
It was the unidentified human that Jin Mu-hae had picked up from the scene of the tragedy the day before.
“He’s awake.”
“He was awake when you brought him.”
“Well, yeah.”
What on earth was this guy? Even though someone had come, the man didn’t even bother to look at him.
He seemed to have been staring intently at Mu-hae when he picked him up, but now even that little bit of interest seemed to have disappeared.
“He’s twenty-two years old.”
Teacher Jung spoke casually from beside Jin Mu-hae, who was looking at him with a dry gaze.
Immediately, the conversation they had the day before flashed through Mu-hae’s mind.
‘Why a patient all of a sudden?’
‘I picked him up. In Kahn Lano.’
‘There aren’t any safe zones around there.’
‘Maybe he fell while moving somewhere. He doesn’t seem like a miner…’
‘He looks like he was raised well.’
‘Yeah. He doesn’t have any calluses on his hands.’
‘What’s his name? How old is he?’
‘I don’t know. I asked, but he keeps…’
‘Wah… Wah.’
‘He only makes sounds like that.’
Certainly, the man didn’t seem to be in his right mind. Eventually, Mu-hae gave up on finding out his identity and went home early.
But Teacher Jung had checked the man overnight and seemed to have found something.
“Was there a medical record?”
“No. No internal chip either. Not even a birth record or citizen registration.”
He had asked with a hopeful expression, but a dry answer came back.
…No internal chip?
Jin Mu-hae frowned slightly. People who lived in Central usually had expensive internal chips implanted.
Could it be that he was from the slums despite his neat appearance?
Beep- Beep-!
Just as Mu-hae was about to get lost in thought, a sudden beep was heard in his ear.
Turning his head quickly, he saw the man playing with a portable recorder that must have been hospital equipment.
He poked at the screen floating in the air, and smiled brightly as if he was having so much fun when his fingertips passed through it. He looked like someone who was seeing a machine for the first time.
“Then how did you know? Can you find that out through a diagnosis?”
“No. He told me.”
He spoke…?
Mu-hae turned his head back towards the bed, and the man finally looked at him.
His jewel-like eyes stopped, as if observing the other person.
After a long time, the man muttered in a small voice.
“Hungry.”
It was a completely random remark.
Slurp.
In front of a cheap street stall. A man sitting on an old chair was constantly moving his chopsticks.
The man was surprisingly good at using chopsticks, considering he didn’t seem to be in his right mind. The pure white noodles were endlessly sucked into his red mouth.
Chew, gulp. Chew, gulp.
It was hard to tell if he was even chewing the food, as his jaw barely moved a few times, and the bowl was already empty again.
He was eating so deliciously that even Mu-hae, who already knew the taste, was starting to wonder if these noodles were really that amazing.
‘He’s really acting like someone who’s been stranded for 10 years.’
But even though he had been stranded for a long time, the man’s hair was a moderate length and his face was smooth and radiant.
Whenever he wiggled his legs, his fine black hair shook as if to show off.
He certainly didn’t have the look of someone who was born and raised in a humble neighborhood.
It was as if he could get an overflowing reward if he found his lost family.
“Hoo.”
Something was still strange. It was strange that he was in a dangerous area outside the Comfort zone with that appearance.
His skin was smooth and glossy, yet he acted like he had never had a proper meal in his life.
He had already emptied his third bowl in a short amount of time. The noodles here were just so-so in taste, but the portions were incredibly large, so even Mu-hae, who was well-built, felt full after one bowl.
Mu-hae, who had been waiting for him to finish eating, finally spoke to the man.
“Where do you live?”
He didn’t expect much, but as expected. Instead of opening his mouth, the man simply stared at him.
Then, swish. He quietly reached out to Mu-hae’s bowl of noodles.
Munch. Slurp.
‘Is he crazy?’
The man began to steal Mu-hae’s noodles and swallow them.
Jin Mu-hae pulled the bowl, thinking that this would never end if he let it go on like this.
…But what do you know. The bowl he was trying to take didn’t budge. He wondered if he was mistaken and put more strength into it, but it didn’t move at all.
Mu-hae had never been pushed back by force by anyone while working as a mercenary. If he put his mind to it and used his strength, even a strong man would be easily suppressed…
“Give it back.”
Jin Mu-hae frowned, feeling somehow humiliated. But the bowl of noodles showed no sign of returning.
“If you don’t answer, I won’t buy you any more.”
Eventually, he made a warning that even he thought was childish, and unexpectedly, a slight conflict flickered in the man’s eyes.
Was this a human or a beast? The man only reacted to food.
‘Damn it, should I have picked him up.’
He had brought him back because he had met him in such a dangerous area yesterday, but a man of unknown identity with no records was suspicious the more he looked at him.
He had brought him back out of human decency, and he had even entrusted him to the doctor in the hopes of receiving a reward…
No matter how he looked at it, something was wrong. At this rate, he wouldn’t even be able to get paid, let alone take him anywhere.
He was healthy, so should he just let him go his own way? Jin Mu-hae was already in a situation where he couldn’t get a normal job due to his identity issues.
Before things got any worse, maybe it would be wise to write off the hospital bill as a donation to a crazy person and get out.
But…
‘You’re lucky to be alive. A little kid was wandering around outside the Dome.’
‘He didn’t even know how dangerous he was, just sitting there staring blankly at the sky.’
Funnily enough, a memory from the past flashed through Mu-hae’s mind. In his hazy, forgotten memories, he too had once been left alone outside the Comfort zone.
The scene was so faint that he wondered if he had seen it in a dream, but it was definitely not a lie.
Teacher Jung had also speculated that some of Mu-hae’s memories had disappeared from that day onwards.
…A strange and annoying sense of kinship pricked at his heart.
Certainly, it wouldn’t be right to just leave a hopeless and mentally unstable guy anywhere.
Especially not one with a face that was more than just pretty, but one that was likely to be in ‘demand’ here and there.
The man’s body, which he had glanced over, was smooth and without any excess. He was also good-looking, and if he thought about it, the man had been stared at several times by people ever since he had come here.
He didn’t want to be nosy, but he could see the man being dragged to a bad place in the blink of an eye.
“Haa.”
Mu-hae sighed and ran his hand down his forehead. So, was he supposed to take this guy home and give him temporary protection?
As if knowing his worries, gulp, gulp. The man inhaled the noodles without even breathing.
Soon, the empty bowl was placed on the table with a thud. The man, who had been blank ever since he saw the food, finally made eye contact with Mu-hae.
Was he finally full?
No. He was holding the empty bowl tightly, as if he had remembered the warning that he wouldn’t buy him any more if he didn’t answer.
“If you don’t want to talk, at least gesture.”
The man paused for a moment and pondered at the suggestion he had made without missing the timing.
Then, he turned his head to the side. Mu-hae also turned his head, thinking that he was finally getting a clue.
“……”
But his gaze was simply directed towards the city entrance they had come through, beyond the nearby buildings.
The speculations that had been swirling in his brain were completely blown away. He had no idea what this guy was.
“There.”
At that moment, the man suddenly spoke.
It was the first time he had heard his voice since he had said, ‘Hungry,’ on the bed.
The man’s gaze, which he met again, was inexplicably strange and eerie.
As he met his clear eyes, which didn’t match his blank attitude, Mu-hae felt a chill run down his arm.
“This time, that.”
The man pointed to the steaming meat with his fingertip.
Then, drip, drip…
“Crazy.”
He started drooling with a perfectly normal face.