Chapter 60 – Earning Your Keep (Part One)

“Hmm…”

Seated at the spacious dining table, Il-hyeon rested his chin on his hand and quietly observed the uninvited guest before him.

Munch, munch.

The woman sitting across from him, oblivious to his gaze, was hurriedly stuffing food into her mouth.

With her long brown hair, large eyes, and high nose bridge, she looked like an intelligent and sophisticated actress.

Though that impression vanished when he saw the rice grains messily stuck to the corner of her mouth and her shabby attire.

She was wearing Il-hyeon’s clothes, which were too big for her, making the T-shirt look stretched out.

“Eat slowly. You’ll get indigestion.”

At Il-hyeon’s words, the woman’s face flushed slightly. She put down the three pieces of meat she had picked up with her chopsticks and chewed with her mouth closed.

Fortunately, Il-hyeon was confident in his cooking, so the food seemed to be to her liking.

Il-hyeon pressed a hand to his head, wondering how he should process this situation.

He had touched a monster’s core, and suddenly, a person had popped into existence.

“You said you don’t remember anything, right?”

“Yes. To be precise, there’s nothing to remember.”

The woman swallowed the food in her mouth, then stabbed a piece of steak with her fork as she spoke.

According to her, she had just been born into the world.

But for someone who had just been born, she knew everything she needed to know about this world.

She possessed all the basic common sense, language, and social knowledge.

And as the scene before him suggested, she sustained herself with ordinary meals like a normal person, not cores.

She was different from his other summons, who constantly needed cores.

However, judging by the way her eyes lit up and she gulped while watching him toss cores to his other summons, she seemed to like them.

It seemed she could absorb cores, likely having inherited Il-hyeon’s Predation ability just like his other summons.

‘Did I really summon her…?’

Il-hyeon stared intently at her face.

To think he’d end up summoning a person.

But seeing the light that had burst from the core and the woman now tearing into a piece of meat before him, he couldn’t just dismiss it as impossible.

Then again, it was too absurd a fact to accept at face value.

‘I definitely didn’t intend to summon a person.’

Perhaps it was an instinct driven by his ability… He’d had no intention of doing this, yet here they were.

His mind grew complicated, wondering if creating a person like this would cause any other problems.

But regardless, this was his reality now, and he had to figure out what to do next.

“Do you have any special powers? Or what’s your general level of physical ability?”

“I’m not sure yet, myself.”

She said, shaking her head.

Having just been born, it seemed even she didn’t know her own capabilities.

Even to Il-hyeon’s senses, he couldn’t feel any powerful energy from her.

In fact, the energy she exuded was so faint it was hard to believe she’d been summoned from the core of an A-rank mutant monster.

She was even weaker than the mouse nibbling on an E-rank core in the corner of the dining room.

Amidst all these questions, Il-hyeon spoke again.

“So you don’t know how you came to be, then?”

“No. Who remembers how they were born?”

Having said her piece, she quickly lifted the bowl with both hands and drank the soup.

“In that case, do you… have any thoughts of wanting to be independent?”

“You just brought me into existence, and now you’re trying to abandon me?”

She dropped her utensils as if in shock.

Her already large eyes grew even wider.

Thinking he was trying to abandon her because she seemed weak and useless, she looked as if she would burst into tears at the slightest touch.

Il-hyeon, flustered, waved his arms in denial.

“No, no. That’s not it. I was just asking in case you wanted freedom. You’re different from the other summons, after all…”

“I don’t want to. Being here is the greatest freedom for me.”

She let out a sigh of relief and stroked the fox that had climbed onto her lap.

If she was really his summon, the fox was her senior by a long shot. Was it okay for her to act like that?

A strange thought crossed his mind for a moment, but Il-hyeon changed the subject.

“By the way, do you have a name?”

At Il-hyeon’s question, she thought for a moment before shaking her head.

“No. Please give me one.”

“Hmm… A name.”

Until now, he had never given his summons any proper names.

But she was a person, so she would need a name.

Lacking any talent for naming, Il-hyeon let her focus on her meal for a moment while he sank deep in thought.

She didn’t look like a foreigner, so he tried to think of a suitable girl’s name.

“Hyeon-seo. Let’s go with Kang Hyeon-seo.”

“I like it. It sounds like a good name.”

Il-hyeon had just said the first name that came to mind, but thankfully, she seemed to like it.

Her mood improved, and she started humming as she scraped another bowl clean.

“That was delicious.”

She—no, Kang Hyeon-seo—said.

She had polished off all the vast amounts of food that had been on the large dining table.

As the bowls in front of her became empty, Hyeon-seo placed a hand on her stomach.

Seeing this, Il-hyeon assumed she must be full after eating such an incredible amount.

But that wasn’t the case.

“I’m hungry…”

“Uh… that was the second round, wasn’t it?”

Il-hyeon said, dumbfounded.

He had already used up all the ingredients in the house, and when that wasn’t enough, he’d gone out for a massive grocery run to feed her, yet she was still hungry.

She alone had devoured enough food to feed ten grown men until they burst.

“I guess it’s because I was just born.”

Il-hyeon was at a loss for words at the sight of Hyeon-seo giggling with a chopstick in her mouth.

“…Let’s order delivery.”

“I want pizza!”

“Quiet.”

* * *

Lying in bed, Il-hyeon woke up.

Opening his eyes, Il-hyeon checked the clock on the wall and got out of bed.

He picked up his phone from the table.

Then, he checked for information on any Gates that had opened overnight.

After the last incident, he could no longer feel safe just because he was in the country.

He checked to see if his family or friends had been caught up in anything while he slept, or if any large-scale Gates had appeared and caused significant damage.

Fortunately, there was nothing major.

Aside from a considerable number of new Gates, there were no major incidents.

Geographically, there was no chance his family had been involved.

“How can anyone live with this anxiety every day?”

He muttered, shaking his head.

When Il-hyeon had called his parents to check on them after waking up, they too seemed shaken by the Gate incident.

Even more so because Il-hyeon had been on the scene, injured his face, and fallen unconscious.

He’d had to spend a long time reassuring them that he was perfectly fine.

‘Come to think of it, I’m already twenty-seven.’

Il-hyeon thought, looking at the date displayed at the top of his phone.

He had been out for a week after Christmas, so he only found out later that the new year had arrived.

When he’d just woken up yesterday, he had been too busy to pay attention to such things.

“Ughhh!”

Finished with his check, Il-hyeon stretched his arms wide and walked out into the living room.

The living room was filled with traces of Hyeon-seo’s massive feast.

Even though he had cleaned up the dishes, a huge pile of trash was stacked in one corner.

Il-hyeon’s own appetite had increased noticeably after becoming an Awakened, but it was nothing compared to this.

If she kept eating at this pace, his food expenses would likely increase tenfold.

“Ah, cold.”

Il-hyeon’s head dipped as something flew from behind and landed on him.

The phoenix had perched on top of his head, and a cold frost settled on the back of his neck.

It would change its body into whatever form suited its mood.

Il-hyeon raised both arms and grabbed the phoenix by its wings.

He then pulled it off his head and tickled it mercilessly on the sofa.

“I told you not to keep climbing on my head, didn’t I? Are you sorry or not?”

As Il-hyeon laughed and tickled its chest with both hands, the phoenix squawked and flapped its wings.

After enduring it for a while, the creature’s body burst into red flames as it flew up and away.

By then, the red fox and a gray, puppy-sized wolf had gathered at Il-hyeon’s feet.

It felt like he was suddenly raising a whole bunch of pets, something he’d never had before.

Though these companions were on a completely different level from actual pets.

Il-hyeon quickly washed up to get ready to leave, then opened another door.

He saw Hyeon-seo sleeping in bed.

Of course, the house only had one bed—his—so this was one he had roughly modeled and created for her.

“I never thought I’d end up living with someone like this.”

Yesterday, he had been too preoccupied to think much of it, but seeing her sleeping soundly while hugging a pillow made it feel real.

He was surprised that a complete person with a perfect sense of self had appeared, but it wasn’t so unbelievable that he couldn’t accept it.

In an age where summoning humanoid spirits was possible, there was no reason he couldn’t accept this.

Besides, he had grown somewhat immune to all sorts of surprising events.

It was a good thing he liked having space and had chosen a house far too big for one person.

He had expected his “family” to grow, but he never thought it would include a human.

There were plenty of rooms, more than enough to accommodate the new additions.

Click. Il-hyeon turned on the light in the room.

“Ugh… Just a little longer.”

As the light flooded in, Hyeon-seo flailed about in her sleep.

But Il-hyeon showed no mercy, pulling off her blanket and shaking her awake.

“Stop sleeping and get up. We need to get ready to go.”

“Ugh, okay…”

Hyeon-seo struggled to sit up, squirming.

Il-hyeon’s other summons barely slept and scurried around all night. He wondered who she took after.

Her messy hair was a tangled mess, and one of her eyes was still shut.

When Il-hyeon first joined, the response team used to be on standby, only heading out when an incident occurred. But after the cycle changed, they became so busy that a fixed work schedule was established.

There was still plenty of time before his scheduled shift, but he had something to take care of today and needed to go in early.

‘An hour should be more than enough…’

Il-hyeon thought, checking the time.

He was planning to go to headquarters early to get his Awakened rank tested.

Both for himself and for Hyeon-seo.

After Il-hyeon defeated an A-rank mutant monster on his own, headquarters had recommended he get tested. And conveniently, Hyeon-seo, who had no idea about her own strength, was here too.

Beep!

Just then, a loud signal blared from Il-hyeon’s receiver.

At the same time, an emergency summons message popped up on the phone he was holding.

It was a request to report to headquarters immediately, within twenty minutes.

“Hm? What’s this?”

Il-hyeon stared at his phone in confusion.

The only reasons he could guess were a shortage of manpower due to a surge in Gates, or the appearance of a particularly serious Gate.

Thump-thump-thump!

Suddenly, the sound of propellers roared from outside the window.

He went out to the living room and looked outside to see a helicopter hovering right in front of his apartment balcony, just as the sound suggested.

Not just Il-hyeon, but others on their way to work were also staring in fascination at the helicopter hovering beside the high-rise apartment building.

“Good morning.”

“Ah… yes. Good morning to you, too.”

The pilot, a now-familiar face, leaned out and greeted him, and Il-hyeon replied reflexively.

Il-hyeon, who had been smiling in disbelief, quickly snapped back to his senses and went back inside.

“Hey, hey, hurry up and get ready!”