By Zephyria In a secluded corner of an old alley, there was a restaurant operating without a sign. The only clue to what this place was could be found on the squeaky steel sliding door: a sticker that read “Hangover Soup.” Yet, the place was packed. As busy as the inside was, there was a considerable line of people waiting outside.
The only items on the menu were Hangover Soup for fifteen thousand won and alcoholic beverages. Near the menu, faded posters and signed laminates were haphazardly taped to the wall. Of course, they weren’t celebrity autographs, but…
Hangover Soup restaurant – Hunter Bae Won-woo
It’s a restaurant famous for Radish Greens! – Hunter Yang Hye-jin
They were Hunter signatures.
And skillfully navigating through the crowded space was a young man with black hair. Dressed in a gray hoodie and a black apron with a soju brand logo, he nimbly moved through the narrow restaurant, carrying trays full of steaming earthenware pots in both hands.
“Hangover Soup is here.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Boss, two Hangover Soups for us!”
“Okay.”
“Please add two extra bowls of rice too.”
“Yes, coming right up.”
The young man memorized the orders with a glance and busily headed to the kitchen. Just then, a buzz-cut man asked in a booming voice from behind.
“Hey, can we get more soju?”
“No, you can’t. This is your second bottle.”
“What are you talking about? It’s our first?”
“I saw you putting the empty bottle in your Inventory earlier. No can do.”
The young man pointed to the simple menu next to it with his index finger. The message scribbled in black magic marker on the A4 paper seemed to show the writer’s firm resolve.
Soju is limited to
Two bottles
Per table
※To prevent troublemakers and fights
The young man collected the empty dishes and earthenware pots from the next table and went into the kitchen. The man awkwardly took out an empty soju bottle from the air, and the man sitting across from him scolded him, saying he knew it wouldn’t work.
“See, I told you. That part-timer catches exactly how much everyone drank. It’s strictly two bottles.”
“His senses are ghostly. I put it away more nimbly than when I catch Monsters. Is he a Hunter?”
That’s right.
But the man across from him shook his head.
“Team Leader Han asked about it, but he’s just a regular person.”
“What is it, that? The trendy thing. Hidden Strength Hunter. Or maybe he’s an Unregistered Person?”
“Nah, the fine for being an Unregistered Person is huge. And if he’s a Hidden Strength Hunter, he’d be sucking honey while raiding Dungeons, why would he be working part-time at a Hangover Soup Restaurant?”
The young man’s back twitched for a moment, but the buzz-cut man didn’t seem to notice. He nodded in agreement.
“True. Those guys hiding their strength are desperate to look cool somehow.”
“Team Leader Han is determined to bring that guy in if he Awakens. He says if he’s this good even before Awakening, he’ll be at least B-rank after….”
Leaving behind the murmuring Hunters, the young man entered the kitchen and chuckled as he poured water into the sink. I probably Awakened before you. As if a distant Hunter senior can just bring me in or not….
The young man. His name is Cha Eui-jae. Possessor of the dynamic visual acuity to catch people sneaking empty soju bottles and the superhuman strength to carry several steaming earthenware pots at once. There was a reason why he, a Hunter hiding his strength, didn’t suck honey while raiding Dungeons and settled down in this old, run-down restaurant.
A few months ago, Eui-jae had opened his eyes in what seemed to be a junkyard. How long had he been unconscious? After blinking his eyes, which wouldn’t open properly, for a while, his senses, which were in disarray, slowly began to return.
“Where is this, urgh…!”
As soon as an unpleasant stench hit him, stomach acid rose from within. He hadn’t eaten anything special, but his exhausted body vomited repeatedly like a crazy germaphobe. The world was spinning, and he didn’t have the strength to lift a finger.
Unfamiliar Monsters endlessly pouring out of the collapsed ruins. Right, he remembered fighting the Basilisk that appeared last and stabbing its head with a knife. And….
When he barely managed to lift his eyes, he saw a huge black hole in the middle of the dark blue night sky. It had appeared as if to bring about the Doomsday of this world, but now it was so commonplace that he couldn’t imagine a sky without it. Commonly known as the Black Hole.
You can’t see the Black Hole inside a Rift. That meant he had returned to reality. Once his consciousness became somewhat clear and he grasped the situation, what followed was a physiological need.
“I’m hungry….”
He needed to eat something. Eui-jae grabbed the trash piled haphazardly beneath him and stood up. He leaned against the dirty wall to catch his breath for a moment, but he was so exhausted from the earlier vomiting that he slithered forward along the wall like a mollusk.
Forcing his staggering legs to keep moving, he continued to walk until the smell of cooked meat wafted from somewhere. Eui-jae instinctively opened his eyes wide and looked around. He saw a light shining alone at the end of that alley. Eui-jae continued to slither toward it.
He arrived at a shabby restaurant without a sign. Beyond the glass of the steel sliding door, an old woman was sitting alone. The Grandmother, who was sitting with her back to the door peeling garlic, slowly turned her head at the sound of someone approaching. Eui-jae leaned his face against the glass and mumbled.
“Is it… possible to get a meal… now…?”
Of course, his whole body was battered and emaciated, and he was standing on trembling legs, so it probably sounded more like “Ish it… poshible to gedda meal… nao…?” but he didn’t have time to realize that. Even after seeing his appearance, which resembled a homeless man who had barely escaped from a psychopath murderer, the old woman didn’t scream but got up from her seat and opened the door.
“What are you doing standing there? Come in quickly.”
Warmth and the smell of meat broth wafted out from inside, enveloping Eui-jae. Eui-jae stared down at the Master with a dazed expression.
“What’s with that state? Did you roll around in a dirt field somewhere? Did you go to that Dungeon or something?”
“Ehhh….”
The old woman clicked her tongue and gestured for him to sit anywhere before disappearing into the kitchen. Eui-jae awkwardly went and sat at the table in the farthest corner. A moment later, a bowl of rice and a milky beef bone soup were placed in front of Eui-jae.
“Eat up quickly. The Hangover Soup will take a while.”
“…….”
“If you’re not going to eat it, I’ll throw it away.”
Eui-jae, who was looking at the rice bowl with a bewildered expression, finally bowed his head and looked back at the Grandmother. As soon as she finished speaking, the old woman turned around and went back to her seat to peel garlic.
As soon as he had food in front of him, his appetite, which had been incomparable to before, surged. He emptied the bowl ravenously, as if possessed. As the milky bone broth entered his empty stomach, he felt his body, which had been shivering from the cold and hunger, slowly warming up. Eui-jae thought that maybe the light he had seen in the alley was the Grandmother’s halo as he scooped rice into the soup.
After satisfying his immediate hunger, Eui-jae’s eyes slowly began to take in the scenery of the restaurant. A cathode-ray tube TV on the shelf, faded soju posters and an old wall-mounted fan, a large wall calendar distributed by some association. It was an old establishment where the traces of time could be felt intact.
How much time has passed since I entered the Rift? Eui-jae looked closely at the calendar.
’20… what year is it?’
He blinked his eyes wide once in disbelief. The year written on the wall calendar was eight years later. He wondered if he had seen it wrong and rubbed his eyes, but the letters printed on the paper wouldn’t change.
Eui-jae stopped breathing. The sense of reality he had barely regained was trying to leave him again. Confused, he scooped up the broth that had collected in the tilted earthenware bowl and drank it again. He thought he should calm his stomach since his head was spinning.
Just then, a calm narration flowed from the cathode-ray tube TV on the shelf.
―…Eight years ago today, a level 5 Rift occurred in the West Sea.
…Eight years? Eui-jae swallowed the broth again.
―As the Rift suddenly escalated to level 1, the government additionally deployed S-Class Hunter J, 14 A-rank Hunters, and 30 B-rank Hunters into the Rift, and the Rift disappeared a week later. However… the Hunters dispatched there unfortunately did not return.
Familiar people’s identification photos were listed in a row on the screen. They were the people he had desperately searched for while rummaging through mountains of corpses.
Eui-jae’s heart ached for a moment, but he ignored it and continued to watch TV with an indifferent expression. After the photos of the B-rank and A-rank Hunters had all passed, the photo of S-Class Hunter J, who wore a black mask covering his entire face, was displayed alone.
―The Awakened Management Bureau acknowledged that all the Hunters who entered the Rift had died three months after the Rift disappeared.
With those words, the screen changed. Eui-jae put an empty spoon in his mouth without scooping up any broth.
‘Everyone died?’
Everyone, including S-Class Hunter J, died?
He continued to move his hand, unaware that he was still spooning the air. On the changed screen, a middle-aged man had already appeared and was giving his closing remarks.
Song Jo-heon │ S-Class Awakened │ Samra Guild Leader –
―If it weren’t for J, our country would have no future. Eight years ago, we lost a hero in Incheon. J and the 44 Hunters who bravely entered the Rift. They gave us the future. We have a duty to look ahead and move forward.
The man with a somber expression looked at the screen and spoke solemnly.
―West Sea Level 1 Rift 8th Anniversary Memorial Documentary, “To J.” This concludes our program.
The words “This program was produced with the support of Wave Guild and the Awakened Management Bureau” appeared at the bottom of the cathode-ray tube, and the screen went dark for a moment. Eui-jae replayed his memories several times to make sure he had heard correctly.
―Acknowledged that all the Hunters who entered the Rift had died.
―Eight years ago, we lost a hero in Incheon.
―8th Anniversary Memorial Documentary, “To J.”
Is this a dream? Will I wake up if I close my eyes tightly and open them again? But even he could feel that this was reality. The Black Hole he had seen earlier, his stomach filled as much as the empty earthenware pot, and the spoon he had unknowingly dropped with a clatter were proof.
Eui-jae couldn’t hide his bewilderment and grabbed his head. The Hunters dispatched to the West Sea Rift had all died? As far as he knew, that was absolutely not true. No, it couldn’t be true.
Because Hunter J, Cha Eui-jae, was the only survivor, and he was here eating Hangover Soup!