Seoul (16)

Fortunately, Kim Min-hyuk was able to persuade Hochi. He didn’t dissuade or stop him from going outside. He just prevented him from taking the wrong way, saying he would bring him to a delicious restaurant he knew.

However, Kim Min-hyuk felt he had overcome one big crisis.

If Hochi had gone outside and walked down the street, gazing and searching around for different kinds of restaurants… It would have gotten crazy to the point where Kim Min-hyuk didn’t even want to imagine the situation that would take place after that.

Kim Min-hyuk took Hochi, Seregia, and Yong-yong to a nearby Korean restaurant.

He had been there quite a few times before. They had seats in individual rooms, so they wouldn’t have to encounter other customers.

They weren’t concerned about spreading rumors because of the thorough training the employees there received.

Fortunately, it was not mealtime, so they never ran into anyone else in the restaurant. However, they had no choice but to interact with the staff who guided the group to the room.

And so, they chatted a little bit.

“Isn’t that him?”

“I think you’re right.”

“Hey, he’s the guild leader. I’ve been to the guild before. I’m sure it’s that guy.”

“How interesting. People like that live in their own world.”

Of course, Kim Min-hyuk had to eat to live. The others didn’t have to.

Kim Min-hyuk was also an Awakened, so he could hear the staff’s murmurs from the room’s corner. The others must have heard it, but they went into the assigned room without a care.

Kim Min-hyuk came out separately and asked the manager not to spread rumors on SNS. The manager assured him that it would not happen, but Kim Min-hyuk was dubious.

After talking to the manager, Kim Min-hyuk entered the room late, and Hochi was already ordering food.

“From here to here, please,” Hochi said, dragging his finger from the menu’s first to last page.

The puzzled waitress looked at Kim Min-hyuk instead of Hochi.

Kim Min-hyuk asked Hochi on behalf of the employee’s innermost thoughts. “…Are you planning on eating everything?”

“Of course.”

Hochi was sure. Kim Min-hyuk was about to ask the employees to bring everything, but then he remembered some course menus on the menu.

Even if they ate all day, they couldn’t possibly finish.

Hochi said with a smile as the waitress went out, “Ha! I wanted to give it a try.”

Kim Min-hyuk murmured inwardly, “I knew it.”

So instead of ordering the whole menu, he just let them order to their tastes.

“Good job,” Seregia praised Hochi.

Her posture was upright.

Seregia, who enjoyed sprawling across the sofa, seemed annoyed by how she had to sit upright.

“But at this rate…”

Kim Min-hyuk thought it was a relief that nothing had gone astray. Accidents could have happened many times, just coming this far.

Fortunately, so far, everyone had been calm, not creating any major accidents, either because of their desire for delicious food or because of the excitement of coming outside.

Come to think of it, Yong-yong was exceptionally quiet.

“Uncle.”

“Yes, Yong-yong?”

Just in time, Yong-yong called out to Hochi. Kim Min-hyuk was most worried about Yong-yong.

Children often made a fuss in restaurants.

If Yong-yong brought out the mantis, it wouldn’t end up simply as a disturbance, but something far worse.

“Can’t we have the mantis with us?” Yong-yong said, pointing to the mantis trapped in the box.

Hochi readily gave consent.

“Yes, you can. Let’s eat together.”

‘No!’ Kim Min-hyuk wanted to shout out aloud.

Sitting side by side with a G-class monster? Kim Min-hyuk wouldn’t be able to bury it no matter how much he paid onlookers and reporters.

But before Kim Min-hyuk could even open his mouth to persuade them, Yong-yong had already taken the mantis out.

Kim Min-hyuk couldn’t bring himself to tell the child to put it back.

* * *

The food came out, and the meal was more peaceful than Kim Min-hyuk thought it would be. It was especially impressive to see the mantis eating with manners.

“You eat human food well,” Hochi commented.

“I usually eat everything nicely,” the mantis answered.

The fact that it was eating with etiquette was a big blessing. It’d be even better if humans weren’t part of its diet.

Anyway, they were all enjoying the food, and Hochi had fun eating.

Seregia and the mantis really ate well.

Whenever Yong-yong became interested in the employee serving the food, Kim Min-hyuk’s whole body froze, succumbing to a terror, but it never turned into a big problem.

Of course, Kim Min-hyuk was not able to eat properly because of his nervousness and anxiety.

He was nervously chewing on his food when the door opened again.

He thought there might be a new dish that a waitress was bringing in, but instead, an old man entered.

The old man introduced himself as the store’s owner and thrust a pen and paper at Hochi.

“I’m sorry, but may I ask for your autograph? I’ve been a fan since you were a professional gamer.”

Hochi picked up the pen and paper and thought for a moment. He didn’t say that he wasn’t Ho-jae.

He was not Ho-jae, but his clone, but it was more troublesome to explain that he was a completely different being.

It would just make them more confused by explaining.

‘Ah, how am I supposed to sign?’

Hochi didn’t even know how to sign autographs. He grabbed the pen.

Hochi was somewhat excited.

Suddenly, someone took the pen away from Hochi, who had been thrilled and was debating how to sign it.

“What are you doing?”

It was Lee Ho-jae. He snatched the pen away, signed the page, and returned it to the owner.

“When did you come?” Hochi asked with a hoarse voice.

“Just now. This man asked me to sign.”

Then the owner talked to Ho-jae for a while. He really felt like a true fan.

“Of course. I went there during the finals. At that time…”

When they heard that, they could tell the owner was a real fan.

The two briefly talked about the past.

The owner looked really stoked. He apologized for interrupting the meal, and left at the right time.

“What a surprise,” Kim Min-hyuk commented.

When Lee Ho-jae appeared and took away the pen, Kim Min-hyuk could feel his heart pounding once again.

He was worried that he might beat the owner up, but he had acted more rational than Kim Min-hyuk had expected.

“Why on earth did you think of this as a surprise?” Lee Ho-jae questioned as if it felt unfair.

Hochi, Seregia, and even Yong-yong looked surprised.

Yong-yong even looked a bit dazed.

Lee Ho-jae stroked Yong-yong’s head and told Kim Min-hyuk next to him. “You asked me to work, but then why are you working?”

Then he reached out and picked up a braised short ribs and disappeared again.

It was a sudden exit, just like his unexpected entrance.

It had been a short visit, but Lee Ho-jae’s appearance had made a big impact on the table.

He disappeared with a handful of braised short ribs.

Hochi and Seregia’s eyes were glued on the braised short ribs bowl.

Cheng!

The two chopsticks clashed in the air.

“You’ll yield this to me, won’t you? I haven’t tried any of it yet.”

“No.”

While watching the two of them swinging their chopsticks in a silly fight, Kim Min-hyuk called in an employee to order another braised short ribs.

He thought to himself, “…I can’t do this. If he leaves them alone with me, I’ll die of stress first.”

Lee Ho-jae had told Kim Min-hyuk to ask Hochi to do whatever he wanted. But Kim Min-hyuk had no intention of doing so.

It would have been good if they had just stayed calm in the flat, but Hochi and the rest didn’t want to do that .

If they were going to behave like this, he should have never let them out. He was sure there would be trouble somewhere.

Or maybe Kim Min-hyuk himself would explode under stress.

Kim Min-hyuk decided it was better to let Ho-jae get to work.

[Lee Ho-jae]

I was back at the Sangam World Cup Stadium. It was strange to meet a fan of my professional-gamer self after such a long time.

When I was a professional gamer, I didn’t pay much attention to my fans. The most important thing to me was the game and my victory.

Now that I thought about it, it was not much different from the relationship between a god and their believers. However, the relationship differed in terms of faith, power, performance, and support.

It didn’t seem like a bad idea to get together with my old fans. Some fans were so enthusiastic that I still remembered them, but the man I met at the restaurant was not a fan I remembered. He was probably one of the countless fans who came to the stadium.

Actually, at first, I assumed he was saying he was nothing more than that. When the man with thinning hair said he was my fan, I thought he just wanted to be friends with me. But after listening to what he said, I learned he genuinely was my fan from when I was a professional gamer.

He had said he was 36 years old—just a little old-fashioned and younger than me.

I could tell that I was quite old for a human. Considering all the time distortions I had experienced on the 60th floor, how old was I now?

I didn’t know.It may have only been a dozen years or might have been thousands. However long it was, it was long enough to make it difficult to calculate.

Whenever I was engrossed in doing something, I ignored the time. It was an old habit of mine.

It’d completely escape my mind, and wouldn’t realize until later.

My mental health or proficiency had not been affected by the passage of time, and my habits remained unchanged. The tendency to forget about time had become more pronounced since I turned into a god. Perhaps you could say it was a side effect of gaining godhood.

Changing habits was not easy.

“Quest Window.”

A hologram, akin to a system window, floated before my eyes. The Quest window contained the talks of the gods of the Hundred Gods Temple. And there was only one thing they wanted from me.

[God of Duel-Return of Powers]

[God of Light-Zit Pop! Blow it up!]

[God of Death-Thanatode Purification][1]

Some gods offered simple conditions like the God of Duel. Some asked for something like the God of Death. And some even asked for something as absurd as the God of Light.

What was I supposed to do for the God of Light?

Should I go to a planet with no one there and make it explode? Or maybe I should show him the incineration of a sub-dimensional space?

[God of Order-?]

[God of Adventure-?]

Some gods had question marks behind their names. These gods haven’t specified what they wanted yet.

It was tricky. I had to wait to ask for something while the gods could freely ask me to do whatever they wanted. If I didn’t obey, they would make it so that I wouldn’t get what I wanted.

If that had been the only way, I’d be happy not to do anything overall. But this quest window was made by Kirikiri.

I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t like it very much, and above all, I was unwilling to do these tasks and didn’t desire anything from the gods.

In the end, I still accepted it.

“I still don’t like it.”

Suddenly, Kirikiri’s face hovered over the quest window. She looked a little disappointed.

“Heng, I made it. The system didn’t make it.”

“That’s why I took it.”

If Kirikiri had not made it, I would’ve never accepted it. Another reason for receiving the quest window was that it made communication with Kirikiri easier.

“Can I enter?” Kirikiri asked.

I nodded. Kirikiri disappeared from the quest window, and after a while, she popped out of the air.

“Tada! I’m here!”

“What are you so happy about?”

Kirikiri looked around.

“Is this a temple?”

“Mn.”

I was going to use this place as a temple. It was still plain in many ways, but I could leave that to Yong-yong . I knew he would decorate it enough to lead us to a world filled with grandeur and beauty.

“Heng, how’s the quest?”

“I’ll start when I connect to the 60th floor. I think I can do the quests one by one.”

I had to fulfill the requests of the gods one by one. Just in case, I had to make sure their conditions didn’t become twisted.

There was no such risk right now, so I was going to solve the simple ones first. The first thing to deal with was the God of Duel.

In the God of Duel’s case, there was nothing to worry about. He simply wanted his power returned. That was all.

There has been no talk of the price of using the power so far or if the power could be revoked, or offering a new power. I only had to give it back.

Until now, the God of Duel did not seem interested in how weak the power would be, and what changes I’d made. This simplistic way of thinking alone showed how harmless the God of Duel was.

The God of Duel was a god who did not become the enemy of anyone unless they created a situation in which he had to fight. And with my nature, the God of Duel could not threaten me even if I became his enemy.

“You’re not trying to fight, are you?” Kirikiri asked with a slightly worried look.

“No. Do you think I’m a gangster who’ll challenge anyone to a fight? “

“…Heng.”

What was with that pause? I feel like she does think that way.

Bitter.An acrid taste lingered in my mouth.

I asked the question I had prepared. “I have a question.”

“What is it?” Kirikiri was still very lively.

“What does the God of Adventure want from me?”

“Heng-heng, I don’t know.”

I looked seriously at Kirikiri, who spoke in a mischievous tone. “Kirikiri.”

At my pressing voice, Kirikiri puffed out her cheeks. Then she began to engage in a serious conversation. “I’m worried about you.”

“What?”

There’s nothing to worry about. I don’t think I’m going to be in huge danger again.

Even so, I was confident of getting through.

“You’re taking one step—one step towards your goal. I expected everyone to give up on the way, but you came all the way here. I don’t think you’ll give up, change your mind, or break before you reach your goal.”

The question grew bigger in my mind.

Then why?

“I’m worried about what will happenafteryou achieve your goal.”

I sat in silence for a moment to think of the meaning behind her statement.

“Everything has an end. You, who always moves forward, will have to stop someday. Not because of a wall you cannot surpass, but because you will inevitably reach the finish line.”

“So, what do you want from me?” I unconsciously answered in a slightly high-pitched voice.

“Heng-heng, don’t be so angry,” Kirikiri laughed playfully.

Only

As always.

“You’ve always acted according to what you think is right. Naturally, you’ll get the consent of the God of Adventure.” Kirikiri, who left with those last words, disappeared back into the air.

The temple, which had been a little noisy for a while, was desolate again. My quiet sigh echoed in the temple. As expected, it was tricky.

Note/s from Imagine:

[1]: Not Thanatos, more information will be revealed later on. (though it’s not anything really relevant)