With steam still rising off him, Haseol walked out of the bathroom.
He had finished showering in warm water and was wearing a clean white T-shirt and a pair of pajamas that looked expensive.
"......"
In the room stood a bed that was obviously expensive.
Beside it, he could see a terrace and the sea stretching out in a magnificent view.
Haseol sat down on the bed.
The blankets were soft and fragrant.
"What am I doing?"
He muttered to himself.
"Where is this?"
He muttered again.
"How did this happen?"
He kept muttering.
"I am just someone who graduated from high school, worked a little to earn tuition, had my wages withheld, and then spent a year unemployed while looking for a proper job. Just that kind of person."
With his head lowered, he muttered.
"Come to think of it, it is not as though I am particularly useless. Aren't there lots of people like me?"
Then, after muttering that,
"If there are lots of people like me, doesn't that mean there are lots of people who could work in my place?"
He tilted his head.
"Then why meee......"
Haseol lay down on the bed.
"......"
Then he closed his eyes.
"It'll work out somehow."
He muttered with a vacant expression.
That was the sort of person Haseol was.
He would agonize over every kind of thought about his circumstances and situation.
But once he crossed a certain line, he would let everything go.
Click.
The door opened.
"If you're done washing up, come downstairs."
"Yeees."
After that, all he could do was go wherever things carried him.
At Shura's words, Haseol got up from the bed.
He left the room and went down to the first floor.
Eska, Myun, and Shura were all seated on the sofas there.
There was one person seated in each of three directions.
The only way Haseol could avoid sitting beside the three of them was to sit in front of the TV.
So Haseol sat on the bare floor, blocking the TV.
"Why's he sitting on the floor?"
Myun threw a sofa cushion at Haseol, sounding dumbfounded.
"Thank you~."
Haseol spread the cushion beneath himself and sat on it.
"Um, the person from the chat room still hasn't arrived, right? Was it the vampire?"
"The King of the Night? They're on their way."
Shura, seated across from Haseol, answered as she drank coffee.
"Hey, are you the only one with a mouth?"
Myun spoke in disbelief.
"Help yourselves."
Shura answered expressionlessly.
"......"
Haseol smiled at Shura and thought.
This person wasn't normal either.
"Good grief. Look at the way you're acting after inviting guests over. Hey, Eska, Haseol, what do you two want to drink?"
As though he could not stand it anymore, Myun rose from his seat.
"Milk."
Eska answered first.
"Anything cold will do for me."
Haseol answered as well.
"All right."
Myun walked toward the kitchen.
He opened the cupboards as he pleased and began preparing drinks.
"Um......, when are we going to start talking?"
Growing impatient, Haseol was the first to bring it up.
"After I smoke a cigarette."
Shura finished her coffee, put a cigarette between her lips, and lit it.
WHOOSH!
At that moment.
Something flew from the kitchen.
It cut Shura's cigarette and embedded itself in the sofa.
It was a paring knife.
"Don't smoke indoors."
Myun had thrown the paring knife from the kitchen.
"This is my house."
Unbothered, Shura took out another cigarette and put it in her mouth.
"Want me to make it not your house?"
"If it is outdoors, I'll smoke even more freely."
Shura tried to light the cigarette.
Drops of water plopped onto it.
The cigarette became damp and wet.
"......"
Shura looked at Eska.
"Do not smoke in front of Haseol."
Blue light shone from Eska's hand as drops of water fell from it. She had soaked the cigarette with magic.
"Eska......"
At Eska's words, Haseol looked a little touched.
"Why?"
Shura asked as though she did not understand.
"It would be troublesome if cigarettes shortened Haseol's lifespan."
"......"
With the wet cigarette still between her lips, Shura stared fixedly at Eska.
Haseol was staring at Eska too, with an expression asking what exactly he had just heard.
"Are you planning to make me work long enough that you have to worry about secondhand smoke giving me lung cancer?"
Haseol asked in disbelief.
"We do not know when the Rootstreams will end, so should we not prepare for every possibility?"
Eska smiled sweetly and spoke as though it were only natural.
"Yes, yes. I suppose so. I can't have an ordinary life anymore, can I?"
Saying that, Haseol flopped onto the floor.
"Ahhh~, if I'd known this would happen, I should've done something, something, something while I still had the chance."
"What?"
Shura asked shortly.
"Anything. You know, gone to an amusement park, gotten a girlfriend, gone around trying good restaurants, traveled."
"You can still do that. You can do it while working."
"I can't."
"Why do you think you can't?"
"Because I don't have money."
"......?"
Shura froze for a moment at Haseol's answer.
"That has nothing to do with entering the world of supernatural abilities."
"That is why it is even more unfair."
Still lying on the floor, Haseol stared up at the ceiling.
"They're things I just watched from a distance, thinking, How nice~, but now it feels like I'm walking down a path completely opposite from them."
"If money is the problem, I will give you some."
"How much can you give me?"
"Open the table drawer."
At Shura's words, Haseol opened the drawer built into the table.
The drawer was full of stacks of fifty-thousand-won bills.
"Take as much as you need."
"......"
Haseol froze as he looked into the drawer.
"Shura."
"What?"
"Should I light your cigarette for you?"
"No."
Eska objected from beside them.
"Ah, no, no, that isn't what I meant."
Haseol closed and opened his eyes, pulling himself together.
"I don't know what will happen later if I use money like this. You surely recorded it on CCTV, then when I've almost forgotten about it, you'll charge me for it. With outrageous interest. That is how you plan to make me work for you forever. I'm not falling for it."
After saying that, Haseol lay back down on the floor.
"Do whatever you want."
Shura did not seem particularly concerned.
"Ah, but just one bill. I worked, so I'll only take enough for dinner tonight."
Still lying down, Haseol reached into the drawer and quietly took out a bill.
"This is fair compensation. I got rid of the ghosts today."
"All right, I understand."
Shura nodded calmly, then continued.
"You cannot go home."
"What?"
At Shura's words, Haseol sat up.
"Why can't I go home?"
"You are going to live here from now on."
"Why?"
Haseol asked.
"You are one of the five people who saw the future, and an ordinary person completely incapable of defending yourself. Can I simply leave a person like that anywhere?"
Shura spoke calmly, as though it were only natural.
"You will have to give up the home you used to live in."
Eska spoke seriously to Haseol as well.
"So......"
Haseol blankly continued.
"You are telling me to live in a two-story house with a view of the sea, a rooftop, a yard, soft beds, fragrant blankets, and a bathroom with plenty of hot water?"
"......"
"And give up a cramped, seven-pyeong room with no sunlight, mold growing in it, poor ventilation, and a washing machine that shook so hard it sounded like an earthquake?"
"......"
The look in Shura's eyes as she watched Haseol had changed slightly.
"How much money are you planning to get out of me? What on earth are you planning to make me do?"
The words poured rapidly from Haseol.
His expression looked happy and flustered, and as though he were trying to resist temptation.
But at the very least, he did not appear to have even the slightest attachment to his old home.
"Is he really an ordinary person?"
Shura pointed at Haseol with the cigarette that was still wet and asked Eska.
"At least in terms of abilities, he is an ordinary person."
Eska nodded.
"I thought he would need time to adapt to the world of supernatural abilities, but it is good that we do not have to give him that time."
Shura nodded as she looked at Haseol, as though she liked what she saw.
"What? No, I need a lot of time. Please give me time to prepare myself mentally."
"I brought the drinks. Drink."
Myun came over with the drinks and set them on the table.
"I was not even ready to enter Rootstream in the first place, but Myun kicked me and forced me inside."
"I brought you a drink, so why are you suddenly giving me hell?"
After grumbling at Haseol, Myun returned to the sofa.
"You were not prepared?"
"Yes!"
"And even though you were not prepared, you killed five ghosts inside and deactivated Rootstream?"
"......What? I did, but."
"Then you will not need to prepare next time either."
"Why is this where the conversation goes?"
"That is the truth."
"It is, but."
Not knowing what else to say, Haseol drank the beverage Myun had brought in great gulps.
"Besides, maybe you will be able to enter the next Rootstream too. Then you might not need to make such a fuss over me."
"If we can enter, we will take care of it ourselves."
Shura spoke calmly.
"You are the only one who cannot handle it."
"Ah. Right."
Haseol nodded and lay down again.
Come to think of it, Eska, Myun, and Shura were not saying they would not work.
If anything, they were the type to think hard and move diligently.
The only one here saying he did not want to work was Haseol himself.
And it was work to save the world.
"......"
Feeling somehow ashamed, Haseol felt his face grow hot and lay facedown on the floor.
"Are you crying?"
Myun asked teasingly.
"I'm not crying."
"Looks like you are."
"I'm not crying."
Haseol took a deep breath toward the floor, then sat up again.
"Something."
Haseol opened his mouth.
"I'm starting to feel like when I said I didn't want to work, I was just whining and throwing a tantrum."
"......"
Eska, Myun, and Shura merely looked at Haseol without answering.
Their expressions seemed to ask whether he was only realizing that now.
"I'll do it."
"Hm?"
"I'll uncover Rootstream's secret and deactivate it. I'll do it."
"You have thought well."
Eska nodded with satisfaction.
"But, you know."
"What now?"
Myun asked.
"While I work like this, save money, and resolve Rootstream, when it is over, could I go back to my ordinary life and live comfortably? Could we somehow make that happen?"
Haseol asked with a submissive grin.
"You can have this house."
Shura spoke calmly.
"Huh?"
"The money and things in the house are all yours too."
"Oh?"
"Check them later. If you need anything more, tell me. I will give you more."
"Wow."
Haseol could only utter blank exclamations, then pulled his phone from his pocket.
"Could you say that one more time?"
He turned on the recording function and spoke to Shura.
"......"
Shura watched the recording time tick up on the phone.
"Ha, this bastard."
For the first time, she let out a disbelieving laugh.
"If possible, I would also appreciate it if you could draw up a written contract."
Haseol did not stop there and added one more thing.
"Hey. Will that be all right?"
Myun, who was drinking warm cocoa beside him, asked Haseol.
"What will?"
"You do not know what a contract means in the world of supernatural abilities."
"Ah."
Haseol paused for a moment.
"Then please, just a verbal contract for now. You two can be the witnesses."
"Of course, we will witness it."
At Haseol's words, Eska chuckled.
"Then, Shura. Could you state your name and the terms of the contract?"
Haseol said that as he held his phone out before Shura.
***
"Phew......"
Haseol sat in a chair on the second-floor terrace, looking out at the sea.
He had placed a random book from the bookshelf on the table and wore a relaxed expression as he held a coffee cup full of cola, its carbonation bubbling away.
"College tuition, then graduation, then finding a job. Assuming I do not waste even one year by following the normal route."
Unlike his relaxed expression, the words coming out of his mouth were thoroughly calculating and worldly.
"It would probably not be until I was near middle age or old age that I could buy a villa like this. It might even be close to impossible."
After muttering that, he drank the cola in the coffee cup.
In fact, there was more ice in it than cola.
"Considering unpaid wages and the possibility that I might stay unemployed for who knows how long. Phew. This is a very good job."
He nodded.
"It is a job with the risk that I do not know when I might die, or what I will have to do from now on."
Haseol sipped his cola.
"But this is not the only job that puts lives at risk. There are tuna fishermen, snow crab fishermen, firefighters, soldiers. There are countless dangerous jobs."
He was talking as though he were persuading himself.
"I am actually one of the lucky ones. Stopping humanity from being annihilated by ghosts, what work could be more valuable than that? Ahahahahaha."
Haseol laughed, then drank his cola again.
"......"
"......"
Myun and Eska were looking up at Haseol from the yard.
"Isn't that kid crazy?"
"Leave him alone. Time will resolve it."
The two shook their heads.
Before them, they saw something flying in from far out at sea.
At first, the black shape was hard to make out, but as it came closer, they could tell it was a swarm of bats.
"If bats mean a vampire, then it must be Bisan, the True Progenitor and King of the Night!"
Haseol set down his coffee cup and rose from his seat.
"Since I am the owner of this house, I should go greet them! Ahahahahaha!"
Then Haseol rushed out of the room.
Eska and Myun stood silently for a moment, and Shura walked over to them with a cigarette between her lips.
"Should we drug him and put him to sleep?"
Shura made the suggestion with a serious expression.