Creator’s Favoritism #Episode 10 - Read Creator’s Favoritism Episode 10 Online - All Page

Episode 10

I had a dream about my grandmother while I was unconscious. In the dream, I was a young child who had just entered elementary school.

The young me was fixated on a tablet PC, sucking my thumb. It was one that the government had distributed to children from vulnerable households.

A children’s program featuring puppet dolls was playing on the tablet PC, creating a nostalgic scene.

Grandmother fanned my forehead as I lay with my head in her lap.

I could feel the rough texture of her summer pants. I rubbed my cheek against them and said,

“Grandmother, tell me about the conception dream again.”

When I was young, I often begged to hear that story, which I had already heard hundreds of times. Grandmother’s wrinkled hand gently stroked my face.

“My Sun-woo’s conception dream, I dreamed it. In the dream, a calf came through the main gate. Its eyes were so big and gentle…”

Grandmother began the conception dream story again, the one she had told countless times. Listening to her voice made me increasingly drowsy as her rough fingers affectionately brushed through my hair.

“Maybe that’s why our Sun-woo is so kind. Oh, my sweet child…”

(T/N: Conception dreams are dreams elders of a family will have before a child is born)

* * *

I woke up because of the pain. It felt as if I had been beaten for about a week by the seven dwarfs from Snow White.

Ugh.

I blinked my sticky eyes to check my surroundings. I was lying on a bed made of thin metal frames. A small pot sat on the windowsill of the white wall.

In this warm atmosphere, there was an unmistakable smell unique to hospitals. The clothes I was wearing were clearly crisp patient gowns.

The National Armed Forces Capital Hospital. The name of the hospital, unfamiliar yet familiar, was printed on the patient gown.

I struggled to sit up and slowly drew back the curtain surrounding the bed. Sunlight fitting for late afternoon streamed through the glass window.

The surreal events of the emergence of the sealed gate and my awakening as a hunter replayed automatically in my mind.

I was frustrated that I couldn’t know how I had been moved here since I had fainted before things were properly wrapped up.

‘What happened to Kang Chagyeong…?’

I wanted to check outside the window, but my legs had no strength. As I moved only my upper body while sitting, I suddenly stopped, struck by a strange sense of déjà vu.

The last thing I remembered before losing consciousness was certainly an intense pain that made me think I was going to die.

Even now, of course, sharp pain followed every movement of my muscles, but it was clearly not as painful as it had been then. I began to examine my body in a daze.

My entire body, which had been literally tattered just before the hunters arrived, had recovered to a state that was at least presentable.

‘I’m sure this foot was broken.’

With a puzzled feeling, I looked at my left leg, which was wrapped only in white bandages without any splint.

It seemed like a lie that I remembered my ankle being bent at an angle that could never be considered normal.

‘Perhaps I’ve been lying here for a few months.’

Enduring the throbbing in my head, I unbuttoned the top draped over my bare body. My upper body was covered in blue and black bruises.

If I had been unconscious for a few months, these bruises should have disappeared by now.

Even on my thigh, which had been quite deeply scratched, only a palm-sized band-aid was attached. I couldn’t understand what was going on.

At that moment, the hospital room door opened carelessly. Startled, I hurriedly closed the patient gown I had left open.

“Oh my! You’re awake?!”

The nurse who discovered me sitting up exclaimed in surprise. As soon as I nodded reflexively, she shouted towards the hallway in a booming voice.

“Hunter Maeng Sun-woo has regained consciousness!”

The previously quiet hospital suddenly became noisy. People in white gowns rushed into the room, and about a dozen medical staff surrounded my bed.

“Close your eyes, open your eyes, bend your waist, stretch your arms up, cough.”

I followed the doctor’s incessant requests, creaking and groaning, without knowing what was going on.

The doctor, who had nodded solemnly, left with the medical staff without saying a word. Only after the youngest-looking doctor gave me one last curious glance did he exit the room.

My throat was dry from severe thirst. As I looked around, wondering if there was any water, a narration box appeared in front of me.

「Tito writes ‘Maeng Sun-woo character setting.txt’ on his notepad with a serious face. The sentence ‘Squinty-eyed character. When he opens his eyes… seems to get stronger?’ is slowly written.」

Our Tito sure likes to put a lot of effort into creating settings.

As I was internally sneering, there was a knock on the hospital room door.

“Come in.”

As soon as permission was granted, the sliding door slowly opened. Standing beyond it were a doctor in a white gown and an expressionless man in a suit.

“Hello, Sun-woo. You are Sun-woo, right?”

I nodded in affirmation to the doctor’s question. The man with a gentle smile on his face strode toward me.

“I’m a teacher from the Korea Ability Gifted School. You must have been very shocked by being caught up in the gate yesterday, right?”

‘Yesterday?’ It was hard to believe. The fact that all that chaos happened just yesterday was simply unbelievable.

The fact that I had recovered this much in a day, despite being beaten to the brink of death, was certainly because I had awakened as a hunter. Even if I was F-rank, my recovery ability was incomparable to that of civilians.

“Congratulations on awakening. The video was really heroic. You were cool.”

‘Video?’

What’s he talking about?

I couldn’t fully grasp the words of the man who introduced himself as a teacher. Just as I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, he opportunely cut in again.

“Since Sun-woo has no contactable relatives, we’ve received an enrollment consent form from the children’s foundation that was taking care of you.”

He placed a white piece of paper in front of me. This children’s foundation was the place that had taken care of me after my grandmother passed away, when I had nowhere else to go.

I blankly stared at the consent form, which bore the signature of the children’s foundation teacher.

The Korea Ability Gifted School was a national institution that took in and nurtured high school-aged hunter candidates.

Typically, hunters who awakened at a young age had high awakening ranks, and the public preferred young hunters over middle-aged ones. As a result, the ‘Haniyoung’ students were as famous as any high-ranking hunter.

To think that I would be enrolling in such a place…

The sense of reality that hadn’t fully returned began to creep in.

It was at that moment that the man in the suit, who had been silent until now, suddenly spoke up.

“Excuse me, but is your name Maeng Sun-woo?”

“Huh? Yes.”

“I’m Kim Yuchan from the Hunter Management Department of the Gate Disaster Response Headquarters. We’ve confirmed that you’ve awakened with an F-rank unique skill. Is that correct?”

His voice and tone were strangely authoritative. Without waiting for my answer—while I was still trying to grasp the situation—he continued.

“Please open your status window and read out the skill name and its description exactly as it is. We’ll be conducting a secondary verification later, so not even a single letter should be wrong.”

It was well-known that only fellow hunters could read each other’s skill descriptions. Since the man in front of me, who called himself a team leader, was asking me to read the description, he was likely a civilian.

From the government’s perspective, securing as many accurate hunter skill descriptions as possible was crucial for national security.

Thinking about it that way, it made sense that they sent such an intimidating employee. I had no choice but to open my status window and read out the skill description of as he instructed.

Meanwhile, the man held his mobile phone with the recording app running close to me.

“Please keep in mind that information related to awakening cannot be leaked externally. Thank you for your cooperation.”

He said this with a face that didn’t look thankful at all. After putting his mobile phone in his inner jacket pocket, he left the room like the wind.

“Haha, those people are always a bit like that…”

Once the door to the room was completely closed, the man awkwardly tried to smooth over the situation.

“By the way, Sun-woo. You know that all minors who awaken as prospective hunters are registered with the state and receive education, right?”

Even if I wasn’t interested in hunters, I knew that much. I sat quietly with my arms crossed, lost in thought.

Since Kang Chagyeong had awakened with me, she would also be enrolling in Haniyoung.

Then, the genre of the webtoon Tito was trying to draw would be school, action, supernatural abilities…?

My head was aching from trying to predict what kind of developments would follow while recalling various genre clichés.

“Since there’s no guardian… Hmm… I wonder if it would be better to assign you to a dormitory as a pre-enrollment student…”

The man, who had been muttering to himself for a while, noticed my thoughtful face and immediately put down his chart.

He crouched down to match my eye level as I sat on the hospital bed and looked straight into my eyes.

Park Hoon-min, School Nurse. His title and name were embroidered on the chest of his white gown.

“Sun-woo, about one person a month awakens as a hunter nationwide every year. You’ve become one of them.”

The man’s voice was imbued with a firm sense of mission.

Anyway, it was fortunate that I would be following the same path as the protagonist of this world. If we attended the same school, I’d probably appear more often in the webtoon panels.

It was a difficult success in taking the first step of the ruthless plan that was said to have the favor of the gods.

* * *

Park Hoon-min, who had left after telling me to rest, returned not long after with meal trays in both hands.

A delicious smell wafted from the tray, which was piled high with food: black rice, kimchi and bean sprout soup, bulgogi, and japchae, all neatly arranged in each compartment.

Park Hoon-min kindly placed a spoon in my hand.

The food looked good, but I was still curious about the “video” he had mentioned earlier. I glanced at him cautiously before opening my mouth.

“Teacher, about that video you mentioned earlier… What exactly do you mean? Is there a video of me?”

Park Hoon-min smiled brightly at my question. He really had a kind face.

“Ah! You just woke up, so you don’t know. After you eat, look up the video. A citizen who was at the gate edited and uploaded it today, and it’s really cool!”

The citizen who survived the gate with me must have been Director Park and the assistant director. Even in that chaotic situation, they didn’t let go of the camera like war correspondents, and it seems they ended up making a video. Of course, they didn’t get my permission.

I wanted to check the video platform right away, but it was impossible since Park Hoon-min was standing by with a bright smile.

I felt an unspoken pressure to eat quickly.

Finally, after pushing the gritty rice down my throat, he disappeared with the white tray.

My smartphone, with its glass screen shattered into pieces, was neatly placed on the bedside table in the hospital room. Kindly enough, even the charger was plugged in.

‘I wonder if it will even turn on when it’s this broken.’

The durability of the budget smartphone was remarkable. Although it took a long time to boot up, the phone turned on safely.

As soon as the phone booted up, all sorts of missed calls, texts, and social media notifications flooded in like a tsunami. It was the effect of my awakening news being spread nationwide through system messages and the media.

[Saw the news. It’s an honor that a hunter worked at our restaurant. Don’t get hurt. Work hard as a hunter. You’re a patriot. I’ve deposited your last paycheck.]

The first text I saw was from the noodle shop owner.

There were also plenty of texts from my classmates. I had gotten along well with everyone at school, but most of them were from kids I wasn’t particularly close to.

Park Yuhyeon
[(Sent an emoticon)] (4)

Seo Naeun
[Heyheyheyheyheyheyhey] (5)

Kim Chaemin
[Don’t pretend you don’t know lolololol] (13)

Kang Jinhyuk
[So, can I upload your graduation photo to my account???] (3)

Kim Sang-o
[Hi, Hunter] (1)

3rd Year Class 6 Notice Room
[Sun-woo seems not to be reading] (243)

Haneul Children’s Foundation Teacher Seo Eun-ae
[Sun-woo. Everyone at the foundation…] (1)

Just as I was about to close the application without reading any of the messages, one name caught my eye amidst the flood of contacts.

[Haneul Children’s Foundation Teacher Seo Eun-ae: Sun-woo. Everyone at the foundation was shocked to hear the news. It hasn’t been long since your grandmother’s funeral, and it seems like too many big things are happening to you. We’re worried. I’ll pray for good luck for you.]

Teacher Seo Eun-ae was the person who managed the children’s center where I had been staying until yesterday. Perhaps out of consideration for me, she didn’t ask me to contact her separately.

I wanted to reply, but the authoritative face of the man who had told me never to leak information about the awakening came to mind, and I couldn’t move my fingers.

‘Right, the video.’

While repeatedly reading the teacher’s text, I suddenly remembered the video I hadn’t seen yet.

‘What should I search to find it?’

As soon as I accessed the video platform site, I was greeted by the currently most-watched trending videos.

The moment I carelessly read the list of videos with view counts easily exceeding several million, I realized I didn’t need to search for anything.