Chapter 25 – Heads (Part Three)

After his work day ended, Il-hyeon was holed up at home, sitting on the floor and continuously practicing his transformation ability.

It was no different from his usual routine, but the backdrop against which he sat was completely changed.

Beyond the wide-open windows of his 72nd-floor apartment, with its marble floors, the Han River flowed.

This was the new home he had moved into.

It was spacious, comfortable, luxurious, and clean.

The space seemed perfect in every way, but if he had to point out one downside, it was that it looked empty.

Having moved from a tiny rented room and gotten rid of the few pieces of furniture he had, the already large apartment looked even more desolate.

“Should I make a groove here…?”

Il-hyeon was scrolling through his phone, looking at pictures of furniture.

He was trying to create furniture for his own use with his transformation ability, treating it as both training and a way to fill his empty home.

He’d started it half-jokingly out of curiosity, but he found it was becoming quite fun.

Despite using shoddy materials of only a few types, he created furniture that looked good enough to be sold on the market immediately.

Unlike in the past, when even making a small sparrow would come out crooked, his transformation skills had improved dazzlingly.

A rather impressive-looking cabinet was created, and he lifted it with one hand, placing it in a spot he had picked out earlier.

Lifting a cabinet nearly his own size now felt perfectly natural.

“Hmph.”

Il-hyeon looked at his finished product with satisfaction.

It seemed he had found himself a new hobby.

He sometimes summoned his creature to fly over Seoul for a change of pace, but creating something and filling his own space was also quite an appealing activity.

*Ding-dong!*

The doorbell rang, and Il-hyeon trudged over to the entrance.

He had a good idea who was visiting.

“You’re here?”

“Agh, it’s cold outside.”

“Whoa, nice place!”

His friends pushed their way into the entryway, each saying something different.

It was Kwon Se-hyeong and Kim Byeong-cheol, who had experienced that absurd incident at the barbecue restaurant with him.

They rushed over to Il-hyeon as if happy to see him, gave him a hug, and then carefully examined his face and body to see if anything had changed.

He was the same Kang Il-hyeon they knew.

There were cases where becoming an Awakened and gaining an ability changed one’s body, for better or worse, but seeing him unchanged, it seemed that wasn’t the case for him.

“Hey, you have no idea how much people are talking about you these days. You’ve totally hit the big time.”

“When I tell people you’re my friend, they don’t believe me.”

The friends came in, laughing and chatting cheerfully.

They placed the things they’d brought on the table and, without even thinking of taking off their heavy clothes, started moving around.

Without him saying a word, his friends had already started touring the apartment, exclaiming in admiration as they wandered from room to room.

At one point, Kim Byeong-cheol entered a room Il-hyeon was using for storage and saw a pile of strange objects.

“You said you just moved in yesterday, so what’s with all this junk? You planning on opening a scrapyard?”

“Ah, this? I was supposed to clean it up but forgot.”

Il-hyeon laughed awkwardly and mumbled an excuse.

He then casually kicked a few items rolling on the floor into a corner.

It was a pile of things he had gathered to practice his ability.

The friends let out a few more exclamations of awe before finally gathering and sitting at the table.

“Let’s get the drinks out first.”

At Kim Byeong-cheol’s nudge, Kwon Se-hyeong pulled out a bunch of snacks, soju, and beer from the black plastic bag he was carrying.

Seeing this, Il-hyeon got up and brought out a separate bottle of alcohol from the fridge.

It was a red bottle with a luxurious label.

“What, are you drinking the good stuff all by yourself?”

“You’d die if you drank this.”

Il-hyeon replied with a smile.

It was a special liquor made for the Awakened, for whom regular alcohol barely had any effect.

It was so incredibly potent that it wouldn’t be surprising if a normal person died immediately after drinking it.

As he absorbed Ether, even this was starting to feel a bit bland to Il-hyeon.

“Whoa, is that the alcohol I’ve only heard about, the one Awakened drink? It’s so surreal that one of my friends is an Awakened who joined Aegis.”

“I know, right? And this is the guy who used to lose to me in arm wrestling.”

“What ancient history are you digging up?”

The three of them began to catch up on everything they’d missed.

They talked about their other friends, but the conversation mainly revolved around what had been happening with Il-hyeon.

Although the flow was often interrupted by Kim Byeong-cheol cheering every time Lee Soo-yeon’s name came up.

“Right, tell us about your ability. I’m so curious.”

“I can’t. I’ll get fired from my job if I do.”

“Really…? Well, can’t be helped then.”

Kim Byeong-cheol smacked his lips in disappointment and picked up his glass.

He had come expecting to hear about Il-hyeon’s much-talked-about ability, but if there were company-imposed conditions regarding it, he couldn’t press the issue.

Of course, there were no such conditions; Il-hyeon had simply asked for it to be kept secret.

“Isn’t it dangerous out in the field? I’ve seen a ton of injured Awakened being carried away when I’m on duty.”

Kwon Se-hyeong asked.

As a special police officer, he’d been dispatched for scene control many times and had a good idea of how things worked on site.

“It’s not as dangerous as you’d think. In fact, it feels safer than other sites.”

Il-hyeon said.

Awakened skilled enough to join Aegis were some of the most valuable assets in the world.

It was crucial not to lose them under any circumstances, so both the government and Aegis deployed them on missions with extreme caution.

Even when assigned to high-rank Gates, they were dispatched with enough force to ensure safety, so there was actually less risk of serious injury compared to smaller companies that cut corners.

However, he had heard that things were only calm for now and would get a bit tougher when the next cycle arrived.

“You guys should be careful around Gates, too. I’m serious. It’s crazy overseas. People are dying left and right at every site.”

Il-hyeon told them with a serious expression.

But the story didn’t really resonate with Kim Byeong-cheol and Kwon Se-hyeong, and their reaction was lukewarm.

“Aw, it can’t be that bad. You probably feel that way because you only go to the really tough places. You’re in Aegis, after all, right?”

“Yeah, and I heard you went to Russia last week, right? That was a really unusual case.”

“Well… just be careful, anyway.”

As expected, his friends couldn’t quite accept it.

Having only ever heard about Gates through the controlled media their whole lives, it was natural they couldn’t even fathom what was happening outside.

They saw the occasional death caused by a Gate as something that happened in a completely different world.

‘Well… it should be fine, right? This is Korea, after all.’

If he had a friend living abroad right now, he felt he would have grabbed them by the collar and tried to convince them.

Of course, it was rare for Gates to cause major damage, and it wasn’t as if every foreign country was unconditionally dangerous.

But it wasn’t a situation where one could live as carefreely as the people around him now did.

Just as people don’t stop driving because of car accidents, they should at least be aware of the potential danger.

“Ah! I want to work with Soo-yeon too! Damn it, I’m so jealous I could die. I bet she’s even prettier in person.”

Kim Byeong-cheol, one of Lee Soo-yeon’s biggest fans, grumbled intensely.

“When did you ever meet her to be calling her that? Oh, right. That thing you asked for before.”

Seeing him reminded Il-hyeon of something, and he went into his room and rummaged through a drawer.

He then came back and thrust an object right in Kim Byeong-cheol’s face.

Kim Byeong-cheol, who had reflexively scrunched up his face and pulled his head back, saw his expression slowly change.

“Huh…? Whoa!”

Wildly excited, he shot to his feet and made a huge fuss.

Before his very eyes shimmered an authentic autograph from Lee Soo-yeon.

Wondering if he was dreaming, he slapped his own cheek hard enough to make a sound.

“Oh, is that real?”

Kwon Se-hyeong’s eyes went wide as well.

“Of course it’s real.”

Il-hyeon nodded with a silly grin.

He had pestered Il-hyeon so much for Lee Soo-yeon’s and Jeong Jin-seong’s autographs that he eventually asked them and got them.

Ghost hadn’t even been asked, but seeing this, he excitedly offered to give his autograph too.

As he took the other two autographs, which included kind messages with his name on them, Kim Byeong-cheol’s face looked like he was about to cry.

“Thank you!”

“Hahaha!”

Kim Byeong-cheol went overboard, even giving a deep bow, which made Il-hyeon and Kwon Se-hyeong burst out laughing.

That night felt particularly joyful.

***

An emergency summons while returning from a mission.

By now, Il-hyeon knew that you could never expect anything good from one of these.

It was late at night. A burning city brightly illuminated the blackened sky and streets.

Inside the transport aircraft, Il-hyeon stared down below with hollow eyes.

Fragments of buildings and fallen people could be seen intermittently, and the chaotic sight of a city in shambles came into full view.

“There are still a lot of people trapped inside.”

Lee Soo-yeon said.

Ghost flicked the cigarette he was holding in his mouth outside.

Il-hyeon’s gaze slowly followed the cigarette butt as it fell limply downward.

*BOOM!*

Before the butt could even hit the ground, a massive explosion erupted below it, and the sound of people screaming echoed once more.

“Let’s keep the casualties under a hundred this time.”

As Lee Soo-yeon’s impassive voice spoke while she stared at a monitor, the transport aircraft descended.