We’re Not Strangers, Are We?

I couldn’t… breathe.

I’d taken a hard blow to the solar plexus.

“Agh!” “Han-!” “-kay!” “-ere!”

What in the—

“Haaah—”

As I finally managed to suck air into my lungs, I realized I was soaked.

The punch had sent me flying into the next table, knocking it over and dumping everything on it all over me.

When I lifted my head, all the other customers were gone. Only Kim Tae-min’s group and I remained—

“Han-gyeol, are you okay?”

Ju-won, having found some wet wipes from somewhere, began cleaning the mess of bar snacks off my face.

Beyond the cool touch of the wipes, I could see Kim Tae-min grabbing Ahn Su-yeong’s arm. From his posture, it looked like he’d stopped her just as she was about to slap him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean? It was self-defense, I’m telling you.”

“That’s bullsh—”

Pop-!

My spirit shot out.

For a moment, everyone’s attention was drawn to the spirit, which brightly illuminated the dim interior of the pub.

And a thought stabbed into my mind.

‘Bad!’

“Hey, wait a sec—”

FWOOSH—!

“GUWAAAAAAAH—!” “KYAAAAAK!”

Kim Tae-min burst into flames. Ahn Su-yeong screamed, yanked her hand free, and scrambled backward.

Fortunately, the fire didn’t spread to her.

“Stop!”

‘Why? He hit you! He’s bad!’

“…That’s enough. Please stop now.”

‘…Fine.’

The flames quickly died down, and the spirit zipped back into its intangible horn.

I could feel that it was sulking. Sorry.

Thud-!

The charred form of Kim Tae-min collapsed.

“Tae-min!”

The guys from Kim Tae-min’s table rushed over.

“Hah, he’s alive.”

They checked his vitals.

What a relief, I thought. It’s not like I’ve never killed anyone before, but it would have been a problem if he’d died here.

Kim Tae-min’s friends glared at Ahn Su-yeong and Choi Yu-jin. They couldn’t bring themselves to look in my direction, aiming their glares only at the women.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you mean, ‘what are we doing?’ Didn’t you see that bastard Kim Tae-min punch Han-gyeol in the gut first?” Ahn Su-yeong’s sharp voice rang out.

“Still, does that mean it’s okay to just set him on fire?!”

“What? If he hadn’t thrown the first punch, that… that magic wouldn’t have even activated! And for what? Just for putting a hand on his shoulder? Self-defense? My ass!”

“Fuck, didn’t you hear Tae-min? He said there’s no telling what kind of crazy shit he’d pull. See? He gets punched in the gut and just incinerates someone—”

BANG-!

The door flew open violently, and a man strode into the pub.

Dressed in a black coat, black boots, and black gloves, the man silenced the room with his presence alone.

He scanned the inside of the pub, his gaze landing first on me, crumpled on the floor, and then on the charred heap that was Kim Tae-min.

“The situation is over. Bring them out.”

He spoke to the people outside without turning his head, then spun around and walked back out.

A crowd of people rushed in from outside. Cops.

The police swarmed in and began dragging all of us—my group and Kim Tae-min’s—out of the pub.

*

“I have a rough grasp of the situation. You were being harassed, you were attacked first, and your startled spirit emerged and counterattacked. Is that correct?”

“Yes…”

Kim Tae-min had been taken to the hospital—an Awakener-exclusive one, most likely.

Everyone else, including my friends and his, had been identified and sent home.

Only I remained, sitting in front of this man, the one who had first entered the pub.

Up close, his aura was even more formidable.

His eyes, as black as his attire, calmly reflected my image within their deep darkness.

“Well, I heard the story.”

“Pardon?”

“You must really be a promising talent. I didn’t expect to get a call from your guild so quickly. Then again, for a Spirit Summoner, I suppose it makes sense… Anyway, it was nice to hear from an old comrade after so long.”

“That… old comrade you mentioned is…”

“Choi Ji-ho. If you’re from Elemental, you should know him, right? I hear he’s the Guild Master’s secretary. I never thought I’d get a call from the secretary of that busy Guild Master.”

“Ah, him. So you’re his friend…”

“You don’t seem to know him well. It doesn’t matter for the current situation. This incident will be handled appropriately. The guild has testified that you’re an inexperienced Spirit Summoner, so it’ll be closed with the explanation that ‘the spirit, enraged that its contractor was attacked, launched an unexpected counterattack.’ Your Contribution will take a bit of a hit, but considering you practically burned a man alive, you should be grateful.”

Oh, so this is that informal ‘rule-of-thumb’ justice among Awakeners? They said the law can’t cover conflicts between Awakeners, and I guess this is what they meant…

“…Thank you. But, um… what happened to Tae-min, I mean, the victim?”

“He’s pretty burnt. But he’s an Enhancement-type Awakener, so he’ll probably get back to normal. Still, he’s an interesting one. A C-rank throwing his weight around non-Awakeners, just because of his rank.”

The man clicked his tongue.

He’ll get back to normal?

What, so it was no big deal?

In that case, I’ll have to pay him a visit as Seo A-gyeol later and suck out a good chunk of his Innate Vital Energy.

The more I think about it, the angrier I get.

“Now that this seems to be settled, do you want to go home?”

“What? Ah, no.”

“Don’t bother with pointless lies. Choi Ji-ho mentioned you’re planning to join the Expeditionary Force for a gate exploration, right? You can’t enter a gate with them if you have a recent demerit on your Contribution record.”

“What? Is that true?”

That can’t happen.

“Of course, it wasn’t a major demerit, so it won’t last long… but there is a faster way.”

“A faster way?”

“Yes. You can earn back the Contribution points immediately. If you do it within a certain period, it’s recognized as a sign of ‘remorse’.”

Then he muttered to himself, “Hah, who are they to decide what counts as remorse,” and “This is why these incidents never stop, because they’re desperate for manpower.”

Hmm, does he hate Awakeners? But he called the secretary an ‘old comrade,’ so he must be a pretty powerful Awakener himself.

“So, will you do it? Choi Ji-ho said to tell you that by the time you’re done, the Expeditionary Force will be assembled.”

“Yes.”

I didn’t have anything else to do before entering the gate with them anyway.

“Then here’s a list. Since it’s a favor, I’ll recommend a few. First, this one is—”

*

I felt like I’d just experienced what it’s like to have ‘connections.’

What others call ‘deep-rooted corruption’ must be incredibly useful for the person benefiting from it.

After washing the bar-snack soup off my body, I saw missed calls and notifications on my phone.

Messages from Bae Ju-won, Ahn Su-yeong, and Choi Yu-jin.

I replied to their worried questions, telling them I was fine.

After reassuring my classmates, it was time to soothe my spirit.

“It’s… not that you did anything wrong.”

‘Really?’

“If anything, you did a great job.”

‘Really?’

I mean it.

Truthfully, if this had been inside a gate instead of outside, an immediate and proportional counterattack is exactly what you should do in the face of a sudden assault.

If you don’t, you’ll hesitate for a moment and end up dead. The right move is to counterattack first and assess the situation later.

“But next time, hmm, how about you ask me first? It could just be friends joking around.”

‘Okay!’

“If I’m in a situation where I can’t answer, or if I don’t answer, then you can strike back… as hard as you can.”

‘Great!’

“Thank you.”

‘…But I’m hungry.’

“Hungry? Want some Innate Vital Energy?”

‘Yes!’

I gave it 20 units of Innate Vital Energy, and it returned to its horn, sated.

I noticed its arms and legs were getting a little longer.

Now that the spirit was placated, it was time to look at the list.

The list the man had given me detailed various ‘volunteer’ activities I could do, with a few underlined in pen.

The underlined ones were his recommendations, but something else caught my eye.

– Report an Unregistered Gate

The Contribution points were enormous.

Just reporting one would not only restore what I’d lost but raise my Contribution rank by several levels.

And as it happened, I knew of a few unregistered gates. But I’d heard that doing this leads to a bad end.

It was just something I’d heard through the grapevine, so I didn’t know the details.

In that case, I just had to ask someone and hear it for myself.

Who to ask?

An insider.

*

“I’m not an insider.”

“You’re not?”

“I just left my guild because of a little disagreement. I’m not a criminal…”

Wasn’t that ‘disagreement’ a crime, Yoon?

His family name was Namgung, I think. Anyway.

“Still, you must know something, right?”

“As far as I know…”

This was the date I’d promised as part of my pledge during the ‘Green Forest’ raid. Now it was Namgung Yoon’s turn. I had to fulfill my promises whenever I had a spare moment.

“You’ll probably just end up on a blacklist.”

“A blacklist? I thought you’d just get killed.”

“You’d get killed if you’re weak, right?”

“Ah, I see.”

“And it’s stupid to report an unregistered gate just to raise your Contribution. It’s just a number. You’d be better off opening a black market in the unregistered gate. That’s much more useful.”

“That makes sense.”

“Plus, once word gets out that you’ve reported one, you won’t be able to enter any unregistered gates at all… You might not know since you just Awakened, but a lot of Awakeners use black markets.”

“So that’s what the blacklist is for?”

“Yes. And you’ll make an enemy of the original owner. If you’re strong enough not to care about making enemies, well, there are countless other ways to use an unregistered gate.”

In truth, one gate is like one other world.

Of course, that other world might have more gates in it, but still.

To just hand it over to the government for a mere number on a screen was, he argued, far too inefficient.

A reasonable point.

‘Report an Unregistered Gate’ was officially rejected from my list of volunteer activities.

Well, I’ll just find something else.

“So, what did you do with the others?”

“Hmm?”

“On your dates.”

“Um… watched a movie, went to a board game cafe, things like that? Was there something you wanted to do?”

“Ah, no?”

“So are we just going to stay in this cafe, then?”

His attitude was basically, ‘You plan the schedule.’

You’re the one who wanted the date, not me.

“Well, no, but…”

“Don’t be so nervous. You’re the one who did me a favor, right? And you can speak casually when we’re outside.”

“…Alright.”

“So, what now?”

“…”

*

In the end, we went for a walk in the park.

He said just talking was fine.

“As a Flame mage, don’t you burn through a lot of mana potions?”

“I do, but we’re that much stronger.”

“I’m not trying to cut you from the team, so you don’t have to make excuses.”

“Okay, yeah, it uses a lot.”

“Then do you have something like a ‘Simsang’?”

“Simsang? What’s that?”

“Ah…”

Another win for Elemental today.

“It’s like, for an additional effect, you imbue the element with your own… hmm… heart? Something like that. But I’ve only heard about it, so I don’t really know.”

“So there’s something like that…”

“Didn’t your guild teach you? Then again, you did set your guild on fire and run.”

Namgung Yoon wasn’t a sex offender.

He was more… a perpetrator of dating violence?

Either way, he was an impatient bastard, but guilds tend to hate the guy who burns the place down and bolts more than they hate a sex offender.

Unless you’re building a guild with a unique purpose like mine, there’s no way he’d be accepted.

So, his Contribution had been tanked because of the arson, and I knew that since the rumor had spread, he had no way of raising it again.

“That was…”

“That was?”

“That was me being… passionate.”

“Ah…”

It’s definitely fun having gathered a bunch of psychos. And it’s great for me, since I can drain their Innate Vital Energy without feeling a shred of guilt.

“Well, I gave up on Elemental to join that guild. They just wanted my abilities, and she was in love with someone else.”

“Ah…”

I take back my previous thought.

It made sense. A C-rank Elemental Mage would have been a shoo-in for Elemental right after Awakening.

I thought he couldn’t get into Elemental because he’d burned down a guild, but it turned out there was more to the story before that.

“You must have been pretty passionate, to give up on Elemental. If it were me, I would have joined Elemental first and then helped her.”

“Looking back, that was the right answer. I should have gotten in there first before doing anything. Hah… I really gave her my heart and soul.”

“She must have been pretty?”

“…She was. …Not as pretty as you, though. Even if I went back to that time… Ah, what an idiot. I guess I’m still not over her. It was my first love, so I was so stupid—”

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up over the past. What’s the most important thing?”

“What is it?”

“The here and now. So give me your heart and soul, too.”

“What? That’s—”

His next words were smothered by a kiss.