Chapter 1: Appointed as Hunter’s Lust Manager (1)

The moment I realized I was living a second life in another world happened on a certain summer day when I was ten years old.

Having reincarnated with memories up to the age of twenty from my original world, I was naturally a bit more mature than other kids my age. Throughout my childhood, I carried the sense that this world’s sensibilities were slightly different from my original one, but it took that much time to truly grasp that this world was indeed somewhat different from the one I had lived in.

It wasn’t exactly because I was slow-witted; it was just that the world itself was structured that way, which is why it took so long. Excluding the video content on television or the personalities of ordinary people, many aspects were surprisingly similar to the world I originally lived in, and that was the reason.

A modern era developed to a level quite similar to the world I originally lived in. Yet, conspicuous non-human races like goblins or orcs didn’t live mixed among humans, and the occasional non-human races appearing on TV looked just like ‘people in costumes,’ not significantly different from ordinary people, so I couldn’t tell.

Of course, what had a more direct influence on my life than those fantasy elements was something else entirely: the fact that the people of this world had completely different notions of chastity and sexual morality compared to the world I knew.

When a female singer on an entertainment show tore her t-shirt, revealing her abs and breasts, my first thought was, ‘She finally caused a broadcast accident during a live show!’ But that singer continued her broadcast activities for over 10 years afterward without any breaks.

What’s more, I later found out that broadcast wasn’t exactly live either. They even uploaded it to YouTube calling it an old variety show, so it was around that time I realized it wasn’t an accident at all, but a kind of performance.

When I heard stories on the news like a woman secretly filming in a men’s bathhouse, I thought, ‘Ah, there are such oddballs even among female criminals.’ In kindergarten, when girls my age pulled down boys’ pants shouting ‘Ice cream!’ and playing pranks, I just made my brain understand it as, ‘Guess the girls in this area are just particularly precocious about sex compared to the boys.’ Even watching the boy who was pranked clutch his knees and burst into tears, I thought, ‘He’s still a child, so he’s just sensitive, I guess that’s why.’

I had lived for 20 years in the past Korea before reincarnating. Changing the deeply ingrained values in my brain during my second life, which I hadn’t even experienced for 10 years, was more difficult than I thought.

Especially, among everything, the most different aspect from my original world and the hardest thing to believe was the existence of a profession called ‘Hunter,’ which I had never heard of before. This included the background of why that profession existed and why it came about.

“The South Korean government today held an event celebrating the retirement ceremony of Hunter Kang Eunyoung, affiliated with Eun & Ok Co., Ltd., who captured 500 high-level monsters. Kang Yang declared at the ceremony that she would hand over her position to her juniors and dedicate herself solely to childcare afterwards….”

When such news was being broadcast so confidently on television, I thought I had somehow become the protagonist of The Truman Show.

I could have dismissed girls being a bit more precocious and boys being very shy as just the personality of some individuals, cheered on the female singer who revealed her breasts, thinking she was a woman with a really strong personality, or blamed the damn YouTube algorithm for driving me into the world of peculiar fetishes with the semi-nude men showing their collarbones in personal broadcasts. But accepting concepts completely different from existing common sense, like Hunters, Monsters, or Dungeons, took quite a long time-roughly about 10 years of my life.

…To be precise, it wasn’t that time naturally made me believe those things, but rather that the world forcibly pushed me into situations where I had no choice but to believe them.

Until just before the summer vacation of my tenth year, I was still living with half-belief and half-doubt about Hunters or similar beings. That is, until the tragic event that would completely change my future life occurred.

“Screeeech! Monster! A monster has escaped!!”

“Help me! Mommm!!”

“Quick, report it to the Hunter Guild! Quickly!”

Year 2065. May 5th.

My tenth birthday, when I came out for a walk with my parents to a children’s park in Chuncheon.

“Mom! Dad!”

“Taekyung-ah! Run away! Quickly!”

“Mommm!! Dad-daddd!!”

That sight of something, not a giant lizard or an iguana, but something else entirely, swallowing my parents whole. Ten-year-old me had to witness it helplessly from beginning to end.

Afterwards, one of the retired Hunters who was nearby appeared and somehow dealt with the monster, but my mother and father in this world no longer showed me their smiles.

Even as a three-year-old child, the difference felt significant, to the extent that I had to use my entire hand just to grasp a few finger segments of my father’s, but…

…those few finger segments of my father’s, barely recovered in the chaos, no longer felt significant.

Year 2065. May 5th.

Ten-year-old Sung Taekyung thus became an orphan.

Like any victim of a monster incident, I too accepted the sudden passing of my parents numbly.

To be precise, I had to accept it numbly.

No matter how much this world was a Korea different from common sense, the danger of a ten-year-old child being left alone in the world was undoubtedly similar to the original world.

In Seoul, where you can get your nose cut off even while awake, if I wasn’t careful, I didn’t know what schemes I might fall victim to behind the scenes under the guise of someone taking in a ten-year-old orphan who lost their parents.

In my previous life, I had heard countless stories about relatives stealing parents’ assets and starving the remaining children, or absurd cases of insurance companies extorting money back from eligible children by presenting strange clauses. Being slightly more mature than children my age, I had grasped to some extent how to survive in this world.

At the very least, I absolutely refused to become the main character of an internet social issues section article.

Fortunately, although my body was ten years old, my mind was practically like having lived 20 years. Adding my memories from the previous life and subtracting meaningless childhood ones, it was roughly about that much. Even so, the knowledge I possessed was just rudimentary, like that of a rookie, but still, finding someone who could truly help me in that crisis situation wasn’t that difficult.

First of all, I refused all the offers from relatives who had been out of touch for a while but contacted me first using my parents’ passing as the reason, without even properly listening. Some unheard-of distant relatives, even my paternal uncle’s eighth cousins, had contacted me offering help, but no matter how I thought about it, they didn’t feel like they were approaching me with any good intentions.

Other than that, there was a civic group calling themselves some ‘Monster Victim Relief’ offering to protect me, an orphanage declaring they would take custody of me, and even a group of runaway teenagers who somehow found out about me and attempted to break into our house, now without adults.

Fortunately, at least one of the best-maintained systems in this world was the police force. Most people who tried to do strange things towards me ended up getting restraining orders against them, so my human relationships were almost all sorted out. In this world, a ten-year-old boy was treated similarly to a ten-year-old girl in the original world, so the police were even more sensitive in trying to protect me.

With my safety secured, and after hastily searching for various documents and inconveniently going back and forth between the community center and district office through great effort, I was able to entirely protect the two-story house and savings left by my parents, despite being only ten years old.

Among the achievements I had accomplished so far in this world, there was no greater feat than this, and precisely up to this point was the domain I could handle by my own strength. The tasks to be done after that were no longer things I could do by myself; they were things that required the help of a truly trustworthy adult.

Since my parents’ assets had already entirely changed to my ownership, people aiming for the assets and trying to take me in as a dependent would no longer exist. In the first place, those who had aimed for that had already completely cut ties.

At this point, I had to find someone who could willingly give me help without expecting anything in return. Someone who could act as my temporary guardian and do things only an adult could.

Someone who had a certain level of acquaintance with me and my parents, and with whom there had been consistent interaction until recently.

Someone who didn’t see me as an object entangled in interests, but truly thought of me like family.

As a bonus, it would be even better if they were familiar with how to cope when experiencing damage from monsters, so among the acquaintances I knew, there was exactly one person who met all the conditions.

-Ding dong.

I thought of that person’s face and seriously moved my steps to the house next door to ask her for help. As I pressed the doorbell at the entrance and entered, instead of my childhood friend Kang Hye-eun, a slightly younger-looking middle-aged woman greeted me alone.

“Hello, Hye-eun’s mother.”

Retired S-Class Hunter, Kang Eunyoung.

After her retirement, her interactions with our house, right next door, became frequent. Coincidentally, because there were children of the same age in each other’s homes, the families knew each other quite well, making her a person with whom we had a close relationship.

She was also the one who helped me in every way, materially and spiritually, at my parents’ funeral when I had no proper guardian. …In the first place, the reason I am still alive today is also thanks to her help.

“T-Taekyung…?”

“It’s been a while, Hye-eun’s mother.”

From the aunt’s expression, seeing my face after a long time, I could feel genuine pity. It was a different expression from the adult relatives who had approached me with sinister intentions until now, so palpable was her true compassion for me.

…And as soon as I confirmed that look, I could easily grasp that I had found the right person to help me.

“Yes, how have you been these days? Are you eating well? School is….”

“I’m getting by. For a while, there were too many calls from everywhere, but now they’ve all been sorted out somehow. I think I’ll be going back to school soon too. I’m sorry I didn’t even have the time to give you a call.”

“It’s understandable you couldn’t contact me. Still, it’s a relief. Taekyung was mature since childhood, so you’ll probably overcome this resiliently….”

“Even for my parents’ sake, I must do so, right?”

“Sniffle, you’ve become so mature already at such a young age….”

Perhaps my numb attitude seemed quite pitiful to my childhood friend’s mother, as Kang Hye-eun’s mother grabbed me, saying I was pitiful, and burst into loud sobs.

…Actually, sad feelings weren’t absent, but I deliberately tried harder not to show my emotions. Anyway, grieving now wouldn’t bring my deceased parents back.

“Hye-eun’s mother, I actually came because I have something I want to tell you.”

“Yes, yes. Is there anything you need? If you’re hungry, should I make you some rice? No, wait. Instead, I’ll pack side dishes and rice for you so you can eat them for a long time. If not that, perhaps do you need living expenses?”

“It’s okay. I didn’t come today to ask for things like that.”

“Okay… If by any chance there’s anything you need, just say the word.”

Perhaps because she herself had experienced losing family members to monsters, she seemed to empathize even more and tried to help me, who had lost parents in a similar incident.

At that sight, I felt guilty, like I was exploiting other people’s emotions, but still, in the current situation, a ten-year-old child had to use everything available to the fullest in order to survive.

“Hye-eun’s mother, it’s not that anything else is wrong, but may I ask just one thing?”

“You can ask for many things, not just one.”

“Actually, my parents had taken out insurance in my name, but when I went to inquire about the insurance money, they told me to bring a guardian instead of me. However, there’s no one else I can trust as a guardian right now except you, Hye-eun’s mother. I apologize for causing you trouble for this reason, but could you possibly help me?”

“…….”

That her expression turned intensely sour for a moment upon hearing those words is a secret only I know, even until now.