Chapter 11: Starting

Although he had overcome the crisis, Sihyun was still exhausted.

‘Phew. I almost ended up in handcuffs, seriously.’

But before he could even catch his breath, Gaeun opened her mouth quite naturally.

“So, Oppa.”

“……Huh?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

“Ask what?”

“Why I came.”

‘No, just now you were trying to frame me as a lolicon…’

Naturally, it wasn’t the time to argue about that, so he just quietly sighed.

“……Why did you come?”

“I came because I was worried.”

“……”

“The Bosingak incident happened yesterday, right? Your house is close to there.”

“That’s true.”

“Even if we don’t usually keep in touch, I was worried you might have gotten hurt.”

Her tone was much calmer than usual.

“So you came for that?”

“Yeah.”

“So you just came because you were worried?”

Gaeun smiled faintly and added a remark.

“That too, but…… Oppa, you’re unemployed.”

“?”

“So I came to give you a job.”

“……What?”

First, she suddenly burst in this morning, trying to frame him as a lolicon, and now suddenly a job offer?

“So what you’re saying is.”

“Yeah.”

“You came to give me a job?”

“That’s right.”

‘She’s always been unpredictable, but today is really out of the blue.’

His past naturally came to mind. His workplace was disintegrated on the day the ghost stories became reality.

Literally, the building ‘evaporated’ and the company vanished into history overnight.

“Oppa, what was the name of that ghost story back then?”

****

[Disaster-Grade Ghost Story – Overtime Resistance]

– Company executives remaining in the office building after sunset disappear without a trace.

– Primarily occurs in companies commonly known as ‘Joongso Companies’*.

– The building where the ghost story occurred gradually blurs, then vanishes after 24 hours.

****

At the time, news reported this phenomenon as a ‘new type of ghost story disaster,’ but for some reason, there were many reactions of ‘Serves them right!’ in online communities for office workers.

Because of this incident, Sihyun became unemployed overnight.

‘The work environment was definitely bad, but I was trying to hold out until I paid off my jeonse loan!’

Fortunately, it was classified as a ghost story incident, so emergency relief funds were issued, but even those were running low now.

“So, an escape-from-unemployment offer?”

“Yeah.”

“But what kind of job are you introducing me to?”

Suddenly, Gaeun gave a shy smile.

“Light of Dawn Guild Office Worker!”

“Wait, a guild?”

“Yeah!”

“And Light of Dawn?”

“Why, don’t you like it?”

“No, it’s not that I don’t like it, but……”

‘It’s not just any job; the scale is too big.’

Light of Dawn.

Currently the fastest-growing guild in Korea.

Especially recently, it had gained more attention due to the appearance of a new Awakener, and that new Awakener was Han Gaeun.

“It’s probably partly because of your dad, but you’ve also become quite famous lately.”

“Well, something like that.”

Gaeun shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.

“I suppose I did get some attention in Japan and Korea because of the [Fox Gentleman] incident.”

“That was a ghost story they were talking about a lot on the news, did you solve that?”

“Yeah!”

“That was… a disaster-grade ghost story, right?”

“That’s right. I got caught up in that incident while I was studying abroad in Japan.”

“And you dispelled it?”

“It just happened. You could say I was lucky?”

She added with a nonchalant expression.

“That’s how I instantly became the ace of Light of Dawn!”

Gaeun smiled brightly, raising her hand to make a V-sign.

“……”

Sihyun momentarily felt a gap between the Gaeun he knew and the current one.

He had only known her as a childhood friend, but now she was an ‘Awakener’ who directly handled ghost stories.

What’s more, a high-ranking Awakener who dispelled a disaster-grade ghost story.

Ghost stories capable of generating the Underworld were quite troublesome even in novels, making them difficult to dispel.

‘Surely Gaeun didn’t perform an equivalent exchange.’

Equivalent exchange.

A concept that appeared very rarely in novels, literally meaning making a deal with a ghost story.

Powerful ghost stories sometimes possess egos and make proposals to humans, the content of which is very simple.

[I will give you the power to grant your wish, so grant my wish.]

It seems like a very good method because you can gain power more easily than dispelling it and the ghost story also disappears, but in reality, it’s not like that at all.

This is because if you fail to grant the ghost story’s wish even after fulfilling the contract, a rebound too immense to handle will occur.

‘Well. Surely Gaeun wouldn’t have done that. She has some peculiar traits, but she’s not the type to hide her desires.’

Usually, those who agree to such deals harbor unfulfilled wishes in their hearts, so it was unlikely for Gaeun, who was ‘walking liveliness’ itself, to do so.

‘Besides, ghost stories that propose deals are rare to begin with.’

Anyway, Gaeun, who had become an ace, was now trying to recommend him for an office job at the guild.

“Are you recommending me because you think I might become an Awakener too?”

“No. It’s really just an office job.”

“……?”

“Honestly, I have no intention of making an ordinary person like Oppa fight; it’s just about doing paperwork and getting paid. It’s better than being unemployed, right?”

‘……That’s true.’

He wanted to at least pretend to think for a moment, but he was in a situation with no alternative, so,

“Okay, I’ll go for now.”

He had no choice but to answer immediately.

Gaeun smiled contentedly, saying, ‘That’s a good choice!’

He figured anything was better than being unemployed.

After all, he now had one more mouth to feed.

After making a rough decision, he naturally looked to his side.

The silver-haired girl was tightly clutching Sihyun’s lapel with her small hand.

“Luna, I’ll be out for a bit.”

Upon hearing those words, Luna’s golden eyes somehow trembled with unease.

“……No.”

Luna stared intently at Sihyun, slightly moving her head.

“Don’t go.”

Her small hand gripped Sihyun’s clothes even tighter.

“Luna?”

“No, Sihyun. Don’t go.”

The girl looked at him with anxious golden eyes.

‘It would be great if I could take her with me… but even if Luna doesn’t look like a ghost story right now, taking her to a guild full of Awakeners could reveal her true identity.’

Moreover, that’s where the Master who directly encountered Luna is. It’s clearly even more dangerous.

While he was deliberating, Gaeun stopped in front of Luna.

“Luna.”

A cautious yet gentle voice. Gaeun crouched down in front of Luna.

“Oppa is going to work for Luna. So you can let him go, right?”

“……”

Luna’s golden eyes subtly wavered, as if she had instinctively realized something.

“……”

“……Luna?”

The moment Gaeun tilted her head—

Ding!

An alert window appeared before Sihyun’s eyes.

[Warning! The state of the Ruin-Grade Ghost Story ‘Luna’ is becoming unstable.]

“……!!”

‘No, it said it couldn’t speak for a while, but it can display messages like this?’

Wait a minute, more importantly, Luna’s state is unstable?

The fact that an alert window is displaying a warning means this situation isn’t just a simple tantrum.

‘If I don’t do something right away, something big might happen.’

“Gaeun.”

“Yes?”

“Please step outside for a moment.”

Gaeun flinched slightly at his firm command to leave.

“……Why?”

“I need to talk to Luna for a bit.”

“……Are you doing this because she’s too dependent on you?”

“Well, something like that. As I said before, Luna kind of likes me? Haha.”

Gaeun was a bit suspicious, but since she didn’t sense anything particularly strange, she waved lightly and left, saying, ‘Okay, Oppa.’

—Click.

As soon as the door closed, Sihyun met Luna’s gaze at eye level.

“Luna.”

“No.”

A small whisper. Yet, its resonance carried a clear will.

Luna’s eyes narrowed, and the grip of her fingertips on Sihyun’s clothes tightened.

“……Sihyun.”

“……”

“Don’t go.”

Why was this girl so unwilling to leave his side?

Just yesterday, she was merely a cold, terrifying entity, enveloped in madness and emptiness.

A Ruin-Grade Ghost Story, that was Luna. But now, she was just a girl tightly clutching his clothes like an ordinary child.

“……Luna.”

Sihyun called out in a low, gentle voice.

The name that had warmed the girl’s entire body when she first heard it. ‘Luna’.

Sihyun slowly called her name once more.

“Luna.”

“……Mm.”

“Why are you holding on like that?”

Luna parted her lips slightly, then closed them again, her expression as if she didn’t know the reason herself.

“……I don’t know.”

“Is it because you’re afraid I won’t come back?”

“……If you leave, I don’t like it…”

Short words. Slightly awkward sentences. But Sihyun understood the meaning of her words at once.

— Don’t leave.

This wasn’t just a simple tantrum. It was the anxiety felt by a child who had just learned the emotion of ‘separation’ for the first time.

It seemed as if she was instinctively mimicking emotions that remained in her lost memories.

‘……No way.’

The content of the novel suddenly came to mind.

Ghost stories are beings who have lost something. They are usually pitiable individuals who have forgotten emotions or memories and fallen into ruin.

They don’t know why they became that way, nor what they yearn for so desperately as they encroach upon their surroundings.

Cruelly meaningless beings. He thought it was too much, but that was the basic rule of the novel’s world.

However, now, Luna, before his eyes, was expressing emotions for the first time. Unfamiliar, a little awkwardly.

“What will you do if I leave, Luna?”

“……I don’t know.”

“Do you just want to be by my side?”

Luna quietly nodded her head.

‘……It’s true.’

Perhaps the girl herself didn’t realize it, but this was clearly,

‘Luna is in the process of learning emotions.’

At this very moment, Luna, who was experiencing the emotion of ‘Don’t leave’ for the first time, didn’t even know how to express it. So the girl was simply clinging to him instinctively.

‘Now I understand clearly. The Luna in front of me right now is not a Ruin-Grade Ghost Story.’

She was just a girl trying to learn emotions. Neither a terrifying ghost story nor a collector showing only greed.

“Luna.”

He met Luna’s slightly wavering eyes directly.

A being with the colossal name of Ruin-Grade was now just a small child whispering ‘Don’t leave’.

“…Sihyun.”

Luna’s golden eyes looked as if she was afraid of losing the ‘warm thing’ she had found for the first time.

“Luna.”

He quietly, very carefully, asked the girl.

“If I promise to come back, can you wait?”

“……Do I have to wait?”

“I promise Luna I’ll come back.”

“Then…… I’ll wait…”

A very small whisper. The words that came from the girl’s mouth were so cautious.

Her tone, though seemingly an easy answer, conveyed how much she must have deliberated.

The girl was learning emotions. For the very first time, too.

‘At this moment, Luna isn’t a ghost story. She’s not ruin, but simply a child learning emotions.’

Sihyun very slowly reached out his hand,

—Swoosh.

He placed his hand on Luna’s head. A warm and soft sensation.

Luna’s round eyes trembled ever so slightly.

“……Why?”

The girl whispered softly.

“Huh?”

“Why…… are you doing this?”

Sihyun answered Luna’s question with a gentle smile.

“Waiting, it’s your first time doing it, isn’t it?”

“……?”

“I was so proud of Luna for trying her best to experience something for the first time, I ended up stroking her without realizing it? Haha.”

Upon hearing those words, Luna blinked her eyes very subtly, as if the word itself was unfamiliar to her.

“……Touch me a little more… Sihyun.”

Luna, eyes closed, slightly raised her head, feeling the touch.

‘Hmm, that word feels a bit dangerous…?’

“In that case, it’s correct to ask for a little more stroking, Luna.”

“Is that… how it is…?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to get arrested, you see.”

“I don’t really… understand what you mean, Sihyun…”

“It’s okay if you don’t understand. Anyway, I’ll be back soon as promised, so don’t worry. Okay, Luna?”

“……Mm. Sihyun.”

He added one last remark to Luna, who was still staring intently at him.

“And I’m Luna’s, right? I won’t disappear without a word.”

Sihyun chuckled, speaking as if making a light joke.

He seemed oblivious to how dangerous his statement had just been.

At his words, Luna’s eyes widened further, and she parted her lips.

“Sihyun…… come back quickly.”

Her golden eyes wavered with a subtle wistfulness.

Luna didn’t fully understand what that emotion was yet. Little by little, very slowly, she was learning emotions.

On her first day with Sihyun, Luna learned ‘how to wait’ for the first time.

* `Joongso Companies` (좋소 기업): A colloquial, often derogatory term in Korea for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are perceived to have poor working conditions, low pay, and unstable employment.