Episode 270 [ Another world? (3) ]
Grumble.
A car with Kyung-hoon and a female awakener was speeding down the street.
The road was unexpectedly quiet. Now that I think about it, the expressions on the faces of people walking on the streets were not that bright.
Seeing Kyung-hoon’s expression, the awakened person opened his mouth.
“As you may know, gas prices have risen a lot because of monsters. Awakened people like me have a lot to earn, but ordinary people have a hard time living.”
Kyung-hoon narrowed his eyes at the woman’s words.
“I guess 2005 was before the cataclysm…”
“What do you mean?”
“no. Rather, what should I call you?”
“It’s Maria.”
Kyung-hoon looked again at the woman driving. But no matter how I looked at it, it didn’t look like a foreigner.
“I’m Korean. “I originally had a different name, but everyone calls me Maria.”
Maria glanced at Kyung-hoon. It seemed like he was asking me to tell him Kyung-hoon’s name.
“This is Kyunghoon.”
It was a place that didn’t matter if I revealed it anyway.
“Then Kyung-hoon.”
Maria held out her hand to Kyung-hoon as she drove.
“Please give me the ID card on your chest.”
“Ah.”
Kyung-hoon handed her the ID card hanging on the front of the gown.
She checked the ID card.
“I guess… he didn’t kill me, right?”
“I just fainted.”
“Whew, that’s good. If the person had died, it would have been impossible to fix it. I might have become a fugitive too…”
Maria sighed in relief and put away her ID card.
Now seemed like the time to ask. Kyung-hoon opened his mouth. “Why did you take me out?
”
She glanced at Kyung-hoon.
“But do you know what it is doing?”
Maria looked at him with a dumbfounded expression.
“What on earth are you thinking…”
She continued.
“Even though I am not a combat awakener, I can quite clearly see that other awakened people have a certain level of skill.”
Maria pointed at Kyung-hoon with her finger.
“But I still don’t know how skilled you are.”
“Furthermore, if an awakened person uses mana to weaken people’s cognition, what level of awakened person should he be?”
As expected, cognitive reduction technology using mana was counterproductive to properly awakened people.
Maria sighed.
“You were trying to get into a fight earlier, right?”
“….”
Kyung-hoon answered in silence.
“As expected… he had a very scary expression.”
Apparently, Kyung-hoon’s expression was easily understood by certain people.
“The only reason I helped at that time was because I didn’t want to die while trying to stop an unthinkable awakened person.”
“Well, I’m tied down to the company, but honestly, I don’t like the company. “I have no intention of giving up my life for a company like that.”
After grumbling for a while, she looked at Kyung-hoon and sighed.
“But you don’t even know where you infiltrated… If I ask you why you went there, can you answer?”
Kyunghoon shook his head.
It could not be said that he had been caught up in the overlord’s rampage and had traveled across dimensions and time.
Maria shrugged. It didn’t seem to be a very important question.
The answer was hard for Kyung-hoon to understand, but he decided to skip that part.
Kyung-hoon asked again.
“Then why are you helping now?”
If that was the reason, it would have been enough to just get them out of the building. There was no reason to lead the way by car like this.
The woman looked back at Kyung-hoon.
“Because you feel sorry for the scar on your face?”
Hearing her words, Kyung-hoon stroked his face with his hand. There were traces of burns under his right eye. Wounds were also visible on the hands and arms.
Unfortunately, it seemed like he drank the potion too late. It was treated, but the scar remained.
“You’re not saying you didn’t notice the scars on your face, right?”
Maria looked horrified at the sight of Kyung-hoon examining the burns.
‘I heard that many high-level awakened people are crazy. Could it be that he is an amnesiac awakener?’
Kyunghoon shook his head. I didn’t know there would be this much left, but I knew there were scars.
“Then what… if it’s not that reason, is it because it feels strangely close?”
Maria chuckled as she spoke. It was because it was strange even to think about it.
But Kyung-hoon did not laugh. He was feeling the same way as her.
I felt the same way I did when I saw my doppelganger that day.
When I saw her, I felt warm and comfortable. It was definitely a face I had never seen before, other than a doppelganger, but it seemed like someone I had seen for a long time.
Maria shook her head and dismissed the useless thoughts.
“Well, anyway, I just need to guide you to the Awakened Center and that’s it. “I have to go back and take care of things.”
It didn’t take long to reach the Awakened Center.
Thinking about the hardships I had endured over the past few days, it felt like a world away from home.
Maria parked her car in front of a four-story building.
When Kyung-hoon got out of the car, Maria waved at him.
“If I ask you later, please help me at least once.”
It wasn’t just help either.
“Of course.”
Kyung-hoon also nodded willingly.
Rather than getting him out of the building, the information he heard on the way to the Awakening Center was of great help to Kyung-hoon.
Fortunately, this world was no different from the world he knew.
Buuuuung.
The car drove away and Kyung-hoon watched the car leaving for a long time.
And he looked at the four-story building.
[Awakened Center Seoul Branch]
The sign that had been rolling along the main street was standing properly in front of the building.
Of course, the building was still intact. The vines surrounding the building were not visible.
Kyunghoon entered the lobby.
The public service offices on both sides of the lobby, which had been desolate a long time ago, were now very busy.
“There is no response. “Not an awakened person.”
“Let me do it one more time. “Are you sure you were awakened?”
“It’s not possible. “Please go back.”
“Is this the answer? “Is the compensation too small?”
“I gave it to you properly, excluding taxes.”
“Is it because of taxes? Oh my god, you took out almost half of it, right? “What on earth has the country done for us?”
“No, when are you going to deal with the monster that came out of Yangsuri! How many weeks have the controls been in place already? “Let alone ruining the farm, you have to let me go home!”
“I have too much work to do. If you’re in a hurry, talk to the guild directly.”
“No, if you have money to give to those people, there is no Ollie here. “Please do me a favor.”
The sounds coming from both civil service offices rang in his ears.
“Then where should I ask…”
Fortunately, there was an information desk inside the lobby.
A bored-looking receptionist greeted Kyung-hoon.
“How can I help you?”
“I want to find an awakened person.”
“Is it because of party matching? To find an awakened person, go to the [Awakened person complaint] window in the civil service room on the right. “Did you bring the Awakened card?”
“Awakened card?”
“If you don’t have an awakened card, you can’t check it…”
The story was that only the awakened person could check the awakened information.
“Could it be that you were trying to find an awakened person even though you were not an awakened person?”
The receptionist looked at Kyung-hoon with a pitiful expression.
When I thought about it, the awakened person wasn’t the problem.
Kyung-hoon had no way to prove his identity.
The ID card I had was useless, and there was no Jin Xiawei or Eve to forge the documents.
“[Awakened Prosecutor] was in the civil affairs office on the left, right?”
But fortunately, I was able to hear good information from Maria a little while ago.
Leaving behind the guide who was looking at Kyung-hoon with a puzzled expression, Kyung-hoon headed to the place where awakened people were tested.
The civil service office was very complicated and noisy.
And unlike the lab, armed police were guarding the door.
[Awakened Prosecutor] There was a long line in front of the counter.
It seemed that the technology for testing with a mobile phone had not yet been developed.
“There is no response.”
“There is no response. “Not an awakened person.”
“There is no response.”
People placed their hands on the blue glowing mana stone one by one, and the official sitting behind the mana stone called out the results in a blunt voice.
As Kyung-hoon filled out the documents on one side, he noticed that most of the people in line were not recognized as awakened people.
He probably came because he thought he was an awakened person, but it was all just an imagination.
“Oh congratulations. “The awakened person has been confirmed.”
There were people who changed the color of the mana stone, but only two people came out until Kyung-hoon examined them.
“It’s level F. Please go to the next window and register. Detailed explanations will be provided at the awakened person registration window.”
When dealing with awakened people, the civil servant’s voice brightened slightly, but only for a moment.
As time passed, it was Kyunghoon’s turn.
“Next person. “Please give me the documents.”
Kyung-hoon handed over the document, and the civil servant looked at the document and raised his eyebrows.
“Application for naturalization?”
The civil servant glared at Kyung-hoon. Kyunghoon shrugged his shoulders.
“Is there a problem?”
“….no.”
The woman, who was silent for a moment, shook her head. Instead she looked towards the door.
Crash.
The police officers, who were looking at the people with bored faces, moved the control stick. From safety to rapid fire.
They put their finger on the trigger and glared at Kyung-hoon.
It was an understandable measure, but Kyung-hoon couldn’t help but feel bitter.
[Application for naturalized awakened people]
After the awakened people appeared, many countries around the world competed to implement a system to attract awakened people from other countries to their countries, and it was a system that also existed in the world where Gyeong-hoon lived.
Korea in this world also implemented it like other countries, but it was only a formal system.
“There is no reason for awakened people to naturalize in Korea. “It would be much better to go to the United States or Europe.”
Kyung-hoon recalled the story he heard from Maria.
Thinking about it now, among the many pieces of information I heard from her on my way to the Awakened Center, [Application for Naturalization as an Awakened Person] was the most useful.
Maria also seemed to have misunderstood Kyung-hoon’s identity when asked about his identity.
In any case, it was the best method for Kyung-hoon, who could not prove his identity.
It became a ridiculous situation in which Koreans naturalized as Koreans, but it was enough to just think of it as naturalization in another dimension.
“You know that you have to reach a certain level to apply for naturalization, right? “If you are simply awakened, you can be immediately arrested as an illegal immigrant.”
When I saw the police officers with their guns raised, it seemed like they were going to arrest me right away, not that they could arrest me.
“I know.”
Kyunghoon nodded.
The civil servant shook his head with an embarrassed face, and the people in the civil affairs office stopped what they were doing at the sudden event and all looked in Kyung-hoon’s direction.
The civil servant who checked the documents opened his mouth.
“Place your hand on the mana stone and inject mana. The color changes depending on the mana granted. If you pass two steps, naturalization will be recognized.”
As Kyung-hoon raised his hand, the civil servants also looked at the mana stone with sparkling eyes, and everyone in the civil service office looked at the mana stone. It is a
mana stone that changes color depending on the amount of mana. Checking the level.
It was an ignorant method, but it seemed novel in its own way.
Kyung-hoon placed his hand on the mana stone and pulled up the mana. Although he
could not pull it up as easily as before, the mana still followed his will.
Kyung-hoon’s hair shook and the civil servant sitting in front of him She could feel the wind blowing from Kyung-hoon’s direction.
While she was looking at
Kyung-hoon with a puzzled expression, he blew mana into the mana stone with all his might. Although he
had not yet opened the dimension, when he jumped into this world, not a single star was visible in the gap between the dimensions. It
seemed difficult to return easily.
In order to return to the original world, help was needed. In order to receive help, one had to have something of value.
Moreover, it was a world where a cataclysm was just around the corner.
There was no Eve and no power. If I wanted to show my value, I couldn’t hide.
I had to reveal myself in order to do something and to return to the original world.
Huaaaaa!
The mana stone began to shine brightly.
The color of the mana stone changed randomly.
From blue to white and then another. With color…
The mana stone, which had changed color several times, eventually turned pink.
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
of color. The entire civil service office was bathed in pink.
The public official’s face, which was stained pink, hardened.
“Oh my god. A… .It’s class A.”
“omg!”
“Really?”
“Nonsense!”
Along with the civil servant’s words, sounds of gasping could be heard everywhere.
It was the first grade to appear officially. It was natural to be surprised.
Kyunghoon grinned.
“If it’s like this, there won’t be any problem, right?”
She could only nod.
