NOVEL NEXT 4. Hidden Madness
‘Yes, that day.’
Habin remembered that moment vividly.
‘It’ happened one afternoon. A school so ordinary it was almost boring in its peacefulness.
That day too, Taeseo, sitting behind her, muttered as he pulled out a new comic book.
‘Something happen to my life already. Whether it turns into a game fantasy, I gain abilities, or a raid opens up and it becomes a Hunter story.’
The books he brought every day were different, but Taeseo’s ramblings were similar.
Suddenly levels appear, monsters show up. Finally, the protagonist, an SSS-rank Hunter, solves everything.
He said it would be fun if he could live such a life too.
…What did I answer again?
‘But that’s a world where many people die, so if it were me, I’d rather…’
At that moment, Habin looking out the window was purely coincidental.
The clear, bright afternoon was dyed an ominous color.
As the sky suddenly darkened, everyone’s gaze turned towards the window at once.
In the eerie silence, in the middle of the playground covered in pristine white sand.
A black hole appeared. An incredibly deep hole with no discernible bottom.
And in an instant, countless monsters began pouring out from there.
Kieeeeek-
“Aaaaah!”
“W-What is this!”
“Everyone run away!”
The panicked students fled without anyone needing to take the lead. The homeroom teacher with a bewildered expression and the surreal blood-red sky.
It was Taeseo from the back seat, as always, who grabbed Habin’s frozen shoulders.
“My wish… came true.”
Seeing his eyes, which could have been either terrified or manic, Habin swallowed hard.
“…You can say that even in this situation?”
“System, system window… Levels and status windows have appeared!”
Habin immediately understood what he meant. So, status windows appeared like in a game?
“I, I too…”
“I didn’t get a level window, but that notification about gamification…”
“W-What’s going on?”
Friends who had escaped together to the basement murmured among themselves.
Each seemed to have discovered something, staring blankly into space. Gesturing towards something invisible.
“Notification window? Gamification?”
“What is this?”
Amidst the chaotic situation that was more than just noisy, but confusing. While everyone received notifications and gained something, only Habin could do nothing.
No notifications, no status window, no abilities appeared for her.
‘Is this Hyun Habin? I’m glad you’re safe at school. It pains me to tell you this so suddenly, but… Habin, your parents were caught up in the Gate…’
‘…What did you say?’
Even when, as if by a cruel twist of fate, everyone in her family except Habin disappeared.
No matter how hard she tried to become a Hunter to reclaim it all.
‘Status window! Status window! Quest!’
No matter how much she screamed like a madwoman, nothing came back. The world was silent, cruelly so, only to her.
Having given up on everything, what Habin faced when she came to her senses was the family debt. The loneliness of being left alone. The pressure of survival, not knowing if she could make it through even a single day.
Only such cold realities.
[So that’s how it was.]
‘!’
Gasp.
Habin quickly rose from her seat at the familiar voice intruding into her mind.
She hastily looked around. Thankfully, it was her room. It seemed she had fallen asleep after lying down on the bed for a moment.
The blue light seeping through the window suggested it was already dawn. Habin strode towards the pristine white sword—Ahezar—still lying on the floor.
And then,
Stomp-
[D-Don’t step on me! When’s the last time you washed those feet!]
The familiar voice she heard last in her dream. It was Ahezar’s voice. Habin recognized it immediately.
“…Who told you to pry into someone’s personal history?”
Faced with her murderous glare, Ahezar fumbled for words, clearly flustered. What kind of human had such an aura…
[I didn’t mean to pry… The first constellation usually shares all memories, you know!]
“This is why automatic synchronization systems are really awful, right? Like how they scrape all your contacts…”
[I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! More importantly, calm down. At this rate, the floor will…]
Crack.
“……”
Seeing the floor crack in the shape of the sword, Habin quickly lifted her foot.
It was the effect of her abnormally high stats after awakening.
Habin blinked, as if finally waking up.
[I clearly warned you about damaging the floor, human! It’s not my fault.]
“…This is bad. How am I going to fix this?”
Habin sighed briefly and headed to the bathroom to wash up, but suddenly stopped.
“Hey, don’t tell me this synchronization and sharing applies to this too…”
[N-No! Absolutely not!]
“…What’s your gender?”
[Neutral! I’m neutral!]
“Neutral? Really? You’re not just brushing it off?”
[N-No, I don’t have a gender to begin with! I’m not even human!]
Ignoring Ahezar’s grumbling, which sounded wronged, Habin nodded. Having just woken up, she realized she had been a bit too harsh momentarily.
“Right. I shouldn’t be treating you like this right now.”
[Exactly! Now, if you could listen to my story more seriously…]
“Hyun Siwoo.”
I should have asked Hyun Siwoo.
Habin muttered as she took out her phone. That bastard said he’d message me, but he clearly forgot.
Good thing I got his contact info yesterday. He’d never think to message first.
Tap tap tap. Habin’s fingers moved swiftly across her phone.
◆◇◆◇◆
Ding dong. Ding dong.
“……”
Hyun Siwoo doubted his eyes the moment he checked his phone.
Crazy One
Hey
Hey
You said you’d message
What’s this sword you left
It keeps talking about destruction;;
Is it obsessed with saving the world
A chuunibyou old fart collab;
I don’t need this kind of gift
Hurry up and crawl back home
Take it away
“What kind of development is this?”
[What kind of development?]
“I wonder what kind of development it is.”
[What kind…]
Hyun Siwoo and Neaiba, who had been singing in rounds, froze.
A state of complete mental shutdown.
“No, no, I can’t give up like this.”
Siwoo belatedly came to his senses and checked the message content again.
‘Let’s organize this.’
First, since the message said ‘the sword is talking’, it seems Ahezar’s seal was successfully broken, and given the circumstances, a contract was probably made too.
‘But what exactly is the problem?’
Didn’t she get along well with Ahezar in the previous iteration? She even asked me to bring it, saying she wanted to make it her first constellation.
Hmm.
What snapped Siwoo out of his deep contemplation was a KakaoTalk notification.
Crazy One
Read and ignored?
Are you angry?
The atmosphere seems strange no matter how I look at it.
“Well, if she’s already awakened, I honestly can’t win.”
[Why? Did something go wrong? Wait, now that I look at it, why did you save the kid’s name as ‘Crazy One’? Does it mean she’s crazy? That’s so old-fashioned, it’s lame.]
Neaiba pointed out. Siwoo answered without blinking.
“This is something you wouldn’t know, Neaiba. Do you know what Hyun Habin’s nickname was among Hunters before the regression?”
[What was it?]
“Not just ‘Power-Hiding Crazy’, but ‘Power-Hiding Crazy One’.”
[What does that mean?]
“A crazy person who hides their power.”
[……]
“So ‘Crazy One’ is relatively tame.”
[…What on earth did Hyun Habin do in her past life?]
Ignoring Neaiba’s stunned silence, Hyun Siwoo sent a reply.
Ok I’m coming home
‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this from the start. What on earth is she trying to say?’
And then came the reply with a cheerful sound.
Crazy One
Bring Melona when you come
◆◇◆◇◆
[According to your memory, your hostility from the system isn’t because of me.]
In Habin’s room. Ahezar, who had been sulking, muttered again from behind, seemingly tireless.
The Gate Crisis.
The memories of that moment.
Habin, who couldn’t see the system from the beginning.
These elements were absolutely not something to be overlooked.
[If everyone in the world was incorporated into the status window system but you couldn’t, then you must have been an error from the start. You fell out of favor with the System Administrator.]
“……”
[Your power is abnormal too. No matter how strong I am, it’s impossible to have that much power from the start. It must be an overload caused by an error…]
Forbidden participant.
The title that kept referring to Habin when she first saw the system window. So she had expected this to some extent.
But Habin focused on her phone without any particular response.
‘You don’t need to give me work from today!’
‘Are you taking a break?’
‘Yes!’
‘Until when?’
‘Forever!’
Goodbye, everyone! I’m throwing off all the shackles and bonds of this world and leaving to find my own happiness!
Habin was in the middle of sending messages to all the places she had part-time jobs. From today, there would be no more work forever.
‘Ah, I’m so happy!’
And then came that familiar voice, shattering this joy.
[…Sometimes, beings like you are born. Living errors. Surplus not included in God’s plan. Usually, they die easily when young, but you’ve managed to survive until now.]
“Right. So I should live even happier until the world ends. Thanks for the kind words!”
[Wait, did you properly listen to what I said?]
“Of course!”
Click. Habin opened an internet browser and accessed Netflix and YouTube.
“I’ve wanted to subscribe to these for so long, but I didn’t have time to watch because of work and I was saving money, you know?”
Ten thousand won a month.
You have no idea how large this amount seemed before.
But not anymore.
‘Now, what else should I subscribe to? Watcha? Wavve? Should I charge up some Kakao Page cash too?’
Habin had already cleared the remaining debt on the house with the 10 billion she received yesterday.
She opened her household ledger, neatly divided it by 25 years, and meticulously calculated living expenses, leisure expenses, and luxury expenses.
The conclusion was that she could spend lavishly.
Right after the Gate incident, prices had fluctuated wildly, but now in its fifth year, South Korea, true to being a country that achieved the Miracle on the Han River and produced many rankers, had stabilized prices faster than anyone else.
Now, there was little difference except for a slight increase in prices compared to five years ago.
In other words, 10 billion was still a huge amount of money, then and now.
Habin cracked her joints and gazed at the internet browser with satisfaction.
“All those times I had to pretend to know when everyone talked about watching Sweet Home or Tale of the Nine Tailed! I’m late, but I’m going to binge-watch them all now!”
[W-Wait. So you’re going to stay at home like this forever?]
“Of course I’m not staying at home.”
[Oh, then are you going out to fight?]
“No? I need to go to the PC bang I couldn’t visit before, and the karaoke, and the movie theater…”
She had made a rich and perfect plan. Of course, only plans for fun.
[D-Don’t you have any wishes?]
The once charismatic former war god, now the strongest constellation, sadly imitated a genie from a lamp.
[Tell me your wish! What can I do for you…]
Watching this, Habin tilted her head.
“Then, can you remove YouTube ads?”
[W-What is that?]
“If you can’t, then be quiet from now on!”
Click click. The mouse cheerfully moved through payment windows.
‘Wait for me, YouTube Premium!’
The only thing that could grant her immediate wish wasn’t Ahezar, but the monthly auto-payment from her magnificent bank account.
The motto of adult Habin, tempered by five years of hardship. Its collaboration with a 10 billion won bank account was incredible.
[I-I can’t believe the day has come when I’m treated so uselessly…]
Ahezar couldn’t believe it. As he was crumpling up with a hurt heart, denying reality.
Ding-
Tick tick. Tick. Tick-
Clank.
“Hey, I’m home.”
Hyun Siwoo had arrived at the house.
◆◇◆◇◆
Hyun Siwoo.
Ahezar had a good memory. When the seal was first broken, Habin clearly said it was Hyun Siwoo who brought Ahezar.
She said he was the human who had brought him to this house.
So when Ahezar first met Hyun Siwoo, he held a glimmer of hope for his visit.
[As expected, Hyun Siwoo! You’ve come to rescue me!]
And Hyun Siwoo closed his eyes wistfully and thought.
‘No, I’ve been caught too…’
Thud.
In an instant, Siwoo’s body was slammed against the wall. He was firmly grabbed by the collar.
The bag containing Melona slipped from his hand with a swish.
“Now, spill it properly. What was the deal with this gift?”
‘…I want to spill it too, really.’