Taehu swiped his thumb across his smartphone screen, and the banking app opened with a cheerful notification sound.
His account balance appeared in bold numbers at the center of the screen.
The figure, broken up by several commas, had far more digits than he was accustomed to seeing. Taehu stared blankly at the screen for a moment, then dragged his finger down once more to refresh it.
The spinning loading icon disappeared.
The balance remained unchanged.
It was not an error.
It was the result of the money he had earned from restoring and selling damaged items, along with the proceeds from loot he had accumulated while safely farming dungeons.
'Seeing it like this makes it finally feel real.'
The basic salary of a C-rank Appraiser at Iljin Appraisal Center had been barely enough to live on.
Even if he had saved every single won of that salary for years without spending anything, there was no chance he could have accumulated even a quarter of the amount now displayed before him.
It was the moment he truly realized just how much money the hidden value he had discovered was bringing in.
Taehu turned off his smartphone screen and stretched lightly.
Looking at the enormous balance in his account made even the lingering fatigue from working late into the previous night restoring the Legendary-rank fragment disappear completely.
He might have felt the urge to rush outside, eat expensive meat at a luxurious restaurant, or buy new clothes.
Instead, his feet naturally carried him toward the front door.
It was a pleasant weekend, and it had already been several days since he had last visited his parents.
After passing through the familiar neighborhood streets, Taehu stopped in front of the old steel door on the second floor of a small multi-family building.
He entered the door lock code and pushed the door open.
The rich aroma of soybean paste stew immediately reached his nose.
"I'm home."
Taehu took off his sneakers and stepped into the living room.
Hwang Seongjin, who had been precariously standing on an old plastic chair beneath the ceiling, turned his head.
"Oh, my son's here."
Hwang Seongjin held black electrical tape in one hand and a Phillips screwdriver in the other. The cover of the old fluorescent light in the living room had been removed and placed on the floor.
"What are you doing? Did the bulb burn out?"
"No. The ballast is acting up again. It kept flickering yesterday, and now it finally stopped turning on altogether, so I'm fixing it. It'll come on if I give it a few taps, then suddenly go dark again."
"You should've just replaced the whole thing with an LED light. If you called someone, they'd have it done in no time. LEDs use less electricity too."
At Taehu's words, Hwang Seongjin cleared his throat and tightened something with the screwdriver.
"Nonsense. Why would I pay to replace the whole thing when I can swap out one little part and make it work perfectly well again? Do you know how much a service call costs?"
"Good grief. You're seriously stubborn."
Taehu clicked his tongue, but still firmly held one side of the chair to keep it from wobbling.
Just then, the chopping sounds from the kitchen stopped, and Kim Misuk walked out while wiping her hands on her apron.
"You could've eaten before coming over. Why are you here so early? What are you going to do about dinner?"
"I came because I wanted to eat here. The soybean paste stew smells great."
"All right, wait a little. It'll be ready soon. Honey! Stop fiddling with that and come down already. Are you going to keep spreading dust everywhere until we're eating?"
At Kim Misuk's scolding, Hwang Seongjin reluctantly tore off a strip of electrical tape with his teeth and climbed down from the chair.
CLICK.
When he flipped the switch, the living room light came back on, but it still seemed subtly dim.
Taehu washed his hands in the bathroom and approached the dining table.
As he was about to set out the utensils, his gaze stopped on a local supermarket flyer spread across one corner of the table.
Several places had been circled in red pen, while a small calculator and scraps of receipts lay scattered beside it.
[Weekend Special! Domestic Pork, 2,500 won per 100g!]
[Limited Egg Sale! Maximum 2 trays per person!]
Prices for various products covered the flyer.
Some had been circled, only to have thick lines drawn through them afterward, clearly indicating that they had been crossed off the list.
His mother had probably been trying to work out the food budget for the next several days, choosing ingredients she wanted before giving them up over differences of only a few thousand won.
Something weighed heavily on Taehu's chest.
His banking app held an amount that an ordinary office worker might have to work himself to the bone for years just to see.
And even that sum had grown almost effortlessly over the past few days simply because Taehu had appraised an item and gone farming.
Yet his parents' daily lives remained just as strained as ever, their moods swayed by only a few thousand won.
His father had spent the weekend hanging from the ceiling just to repair an old light.
His mother sat with a supermarket flyer and calculator, trying to save one or two thousand won on meat.
While Taehu had been privately proud of himself for earning money, acquiring better equipment, and planning his future, his parents' lives were still trapped within the same narrow cycle of hardship.
'This isn't right.'
Taehu quietly folded the supermarket flyer and moved it aside.
There was nothing wrong with occasionally treating them to expensive Korean beef or buying them costly supplements and clothes every season.
But one-time gestures like that did not remove the fundamental worries from their lives.
Even if he handed his mother a luxury handbag worth several million won, she would simply return the next day to calculating the grocery budget and worrying about the electricity bill.
If he truly wanted their lives to become comfortable, he needed to remove the persistent financial pressure woven into their everyday existence.
Dinner was served.
Bubbling soybean paste stew, steaming rice, and a handful of side dishes.
That was all, but Taehu ate with greater enjoyment than he would have at any restaurant.
By the time he had silently finished about half his rice, Taehu was the first to break the silence.
"Mother, Father. There's something I want to tell you."
At the sound of his voice, Kim Misuk paused while placing a piece of meat onto her son's rice.
Hwang Seongjin also stopped eating his stew and lowered his spoon.
"Why are you suddenly getting so serious in the middle of dinner? Did something happen at work?"
A faint tension entered Hwang Seongjin's voice.
His parents knew that their son had recently established himself at the appraisal center and was earning more money, but the Hunter profession carried so many uncertainties that worry always came first for them.
"It's nothing like that. It's good news."
Taehu put down his spoon and looked from one parent to the other.
"Starting next month, I'm going to send you three million won every month for living expenses."
A brief silence descended over the old kitchen.
Kim Misuk reacted first.
"What? Three million won?"
Her voice jumped in pitch.
"Have you lost your mind? How are you going to send us that much money every month? How much do you even earn to be handing over three million won for living expenses like it's nothing?"
Hwang Seongjin gave an equally incredulous laugh.
"You fool. Don't start showing off just because you're earning a little more money. Three million won isn't pocket change. Take care of yourself first and save up properly for your own future and marriage."
Their reaction was exactly what Taehu had expected.
To two people who had spent their entire lives scrimping and saving, receiving three million won every month probably sounded like an unrealistic joke.
"I'm not showing off."
Taehu's voice was calm but firm.
"I'm not the same C-rank Appraiser who used to sit buried in the appraisal center warehouse and live on nothing but a basic salary. My performance is extremely good now, and I'm getting quite a few Special Appraisal requests. I've also been doing well finding things other people overlook and selling them legitimately. On top of that, I occasionally farm safe dungeons, and the income from that is pretty good too."
"Even so, no matter how much you're earning now, you never know what might happen later. Who knows when the Hunter industry could turn upside down? Your father and I can earn our own living expenses. If you have money like that, save it."
"Mother. Father."
Taehu leaned forward slightly and met their eyes with a serious expression.
"If this were an amount that put any strain on me, I wouldn't have brought it up in the first place. I genuinely can afford it. Easily. I'm making very good money now."
Taehu deliberately did not take out his smartphone and show them his bank balance.
If they saw the enormous figure with their own eyes, they would probably become frightened rather than happy, worrying that their son might have earned it by doing something dangerous.
"Just take it. Your son is earning money and wants his parents to live more comfortably. Why do you keep trying to stop me?"
"No, three million every month is still too much. Just give me one or two hundred thousand won a month. That's more than enough for your mother."
"No. I saw you earlier crossing things off the supermarket flyer over differences of a few thousand won. And Father, please stop climbing onto chairs and struggling with old light fixtures just because you don't want to pay a service fee."
Hwang Seongjin and Kim Misuk fell silent at Taehu's words.
Part of it was embarrassment at having their strained circumstances noticed.
More than that, however, they could hear the determination in their son's voice.
"I'm not doing anything dangerous. I'm making money safely, and I've already put aside more than enough emergency savings for myself. So use this money entirely for yourselves. Spend comfortably on living expenses. If there's something you want at the supermarket, don't put it back because of the price. Just buy it. And Father, if you need a reel or any other equipment for your new fishing rod, use this opportunity to get something proper."
Taehu continued his persistent persuasion.
Hwang Seongjin rubbed his chin and glanced at his wife, while Kim Misuk continued to fidget with her chopsticks, still looking uneasy.
"You're really sure about this? You're not going to end up struggling to pay your credit card bills later, are you?"
"I'm telling you, I'm fine. Why would I lie about something like this in the middle of dinner?"
Taehu decided not to give them any more time to think about it.
He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and lowered it beneath the table.
He quickly opened the banking app, selected his mother's account, and entered the amount.
It took barely ten seconds to confirm the transfer with his fingerprint.
"There. I just sent it. Check your phone."
"What? Already?"
Startled, Kim Misuk grabbed the phone she had left beside the table.
Right on cue, a clear notification appeared on the screen with a cheerful chime.
[Deposit: 3,000,000 won - Hwang Taehu]
Kim Misuk's eyes widened as she counted the digits.
Hwang Seongjin, craning his neck to look at the screen beside her, swallowed a cough.
"Y-you actually sent it. Hey! What kind of son transfers the money before giving his parents any time to think about it?"
"I'm going to send it every month anyway. Just consider today the first day of this month's allowance."
"Good grief. This is unbelievable. My hands are actually shaking."
Kim Misuk continued scolding him, but she could not take her eyes off the phone screen.
There was a strange sense of reassurance in seeing the figure of three million won sitting in the account.
It was not merely about the amount of money.
It represented the freedom of no longer having to agonize over every household expense.
Hwang Seongjin was clearly trying to control his expression as well, but he could not entirely hide the pleased smile creeping across his lips.
Deep down, he was proud.
His son had grown into a dependable Hunter who could not only take care of himself but also look after his parents.
"All right, all right. If you're going to be this stubborn about it, telling you to take it back would be wrong too."
Hwang Seongjin cleared his throat once more and picked up his spoon.
"But we'll save it properly instead of wasting it. If you ever urgently need money later, just tell us."
"I told you not to save it. Start spending it tomorrow. Father, please replace the reel on your new fishing rod with a good one first. At this rate, the fish will feel sorry for you and refuse to bite."
"You little brat. Are you taking shots at your father in the middle of dinner?"
Taehu's joke brought light laughter to the table.
Kim Misuk finally set down her phone as though conceding defeat and began eating her stew again.
The atmosphere filling the old kitchen had become noticeably warmer and softer than before.
Taehu scooped up a large spoonful of rice and put it into his mouth.
Three million won had just left his account, yet he felt dozens of times richer than when his balance had been at its highest.
He had personally lifted some of the harsh shadow that had hung over his family's everyday life.
The heavy satisfaction it gave him was different from the thrill of finding rare loot in a dungeon or restoring high-rank equipment from discarded waste.
"Mother, can I have some more stew? It tastes especially good today."
"Of course. I made plenty, so eat as much as you want."
His mother picked up the ladle and filled Taehu's soup bowl generously with tofu and zucchini.
Their ordinary, quiet family dinner continued pleasantly.
"Thank you for the meal."
Taehu grinned and picked up his chopsticks.
The conversation around the table did not stop until the side dishes were gone.
And in front of that warm dinner table, Taehu's firm goal of completely protecting his family's peaceful everyday life settled even more deeply within him.