Chapter 27

Date.

For someone who grew up in the apocalyptic hell of Ground Zero, that word was nothing short of terrifying.

The memory stretched all the way back to my orphanage days.

Back then, people called it an age of “romance.”

There was no such thing as the Special Unit yet.

It was when the second Archduke in Korean history appeared.

From the West Sea—what people now call the Sea of Decay, an army of the dead made landfall and marched east, turning half the nation, including the entire Hoseo region, into a land of death.

After witnessing the world they knew collapse before their eyes, people began obsessing over one thing: how to awaken an ability and survive on a peninsula now split into fragments of fragments.

Rumors spread like wildfire. That you had to expose yourself to Gate energy regularly. That you had to offer massive sacrifices to an Outer God to be chosen.

Some even claimed you had to drink the blood of an Awakened. Crimes driven by that madness spread everywhere.

Of course, research into Awakening had been ongoing worldwide since the first Gates appeared.

The Bureau made it clear: no method had ever been scientifically proven to trigger Awakening.

At best, they could only say that abilities sometimes followed bloodlines.

But that didn’t matter. It was the age of romance.

Everyone chased their own self-styled methods for becoming Awakened, a frenzy of self-development.

Ground Zero was no exception.

Even in the orphanages filled with kids left behind in that chaos, there was hierarchy.

And in that hierarchy, I was the weak one—fragile, useless since childhood.

The strong were the rare few who awakened powers. Even the adults at the orphanage didn’t dare touch them.

My only childhood friend was one of those.

There’s a lot I could say about him, but the first thing that comes to mind is… dating.

One summer, he awakened while getting beaten up for pickpocketing.

After that, with a strange look in his eyes, he started dragging me into alleys, waving around pipes and nail-studded bats, and asking me which one suited me better.

He’d talk about “personal colors” and “killing power.”¹

And once I picked, he’d use it to beat me, saying it was training until I awakened too.

If I said neither suited me, he’d just switch between both and hit me harder.

Of course, no matter how many times my skull cracked, I didn’t awaken.

But he never stopped dragging me out on what he called “dates”—beating me senseless, then shoving a weapon in my hand so we could mug random passersby together.

Looking back, I guess those were just pages of a childish summer memory.

Years later, he reappeared, leading some shady group called the Black Serpent’s Shedded.

He’d changed so much I barely recognized him at first.

Now he’s dust scattered across the universe. At best, I can only remember him sometimes.

To me, a “date” meant an effective way to beat someone into submission—basically, a declaration: I’m going to thrash you right now.

So when Cheon So-baek casually said the word date, my heart dropped into my stomach.

I felt like an axolotl with a leash tied around its neck, forced to crawl along the bottom of a fish tank.

“What kind of feeling is that even supposed to be…?”

“You still don’t understand? After I explained it this much?”

“T-to be honest, I don’t understand anything about you, Hayan. Even the fact that you showed up here this morning just to eat is… baffling.”

Moon Ah-rin let out a sigh as she ladled a bowl of clam soup onto my tray.

The White Tower’s charity program was bigger than most Prayer Houses—regularly touring slums and handing out food.

Usually it was left to junior mages, so when the so-called Saint of Salvation herself showed up, the crowd alone was enough to make it newsworthy.

She had only come because it was her day off, but overwhelmed by the swarm of people, she looked flustered.

Even so, with her hands trembling as she tried to serve food with dignity, she seemed to have grown stronger inside.

“Well, the cafeteria’s closed today. Where else was I supposed to eat?”

“Most people wouldn’t walk all the way to a soup line just because the cafeteria’s closed… Besides, you get paid by the Bureau, don’t you?”

“Being an adult means bleeding money just by breathing. You know how it is—when you’re zero-years, your pay’s pathetic once they cut the pension.”

“I mean, that’s true, but still…”

After all, Awakened working under the Bureau were civil servants—paid out of taxes.

Besides, I wasn’t exactly alone.

Once I factored in all the expenses required to serve Mala-nim with proper devotion, it was only natural my wallet stayed empty.

I couldn’t say that out loud, of course, but when Moon Ah-rin heard about my finances, worry clouded her open, honest face.

“Is that really true? If it’s bad enough to affect your basic living, this is more serious than it looks…”

“Yes. Especially this month—I spent 1.7 million won trying to pull the new <SSR Gargantua, the Elite Monster Cat> in a mobile game. I can’t keep going.”

“Anyone can see you’re broke because you spend money on ridiculous things!! What happened to your sense of economics?!”

“Ah!”

I flashed my smartwatch to show the pull history, and she practically fainted.

But Mala-nim had been saying she wanted it for ages.

Moon Ah-rin set down the ladle, slipped the watch off my wrist, fiddled with something, and handed it back.

A little lock icon had appeared at the top. Every time I tried to make another purchase, a warning popped up and the payment got canceled.

“Haah. Sometimes you’re a terrifying mage, and other times you’re like a kid left by the river.² Talking to you makes my head hurt.”

“Then we’re a perfect match. Looking at you makes my stomach hurt.”³

“I don’t even know where to start fixing your common sense, but for starters—when Commander Cheon So-baek said ‘date,’ she didn’t mean what you think.”

“Then what did she mean?”

At my innocent question, Moon Ah-rin stopped rubbing her temples.

From her fingertips upward, her muscles locked up, then tremors and a faint fever followed. Her pale skin, set off by her blonde hair (a side effect of Awakening), flushed red from her neck up.

“S-so, a date is between a man and a woman…”

“Between a man and a woman?”

“H-holding hands… walking together… just the two of you—”

“You look for prey that seems weak. When they’re separated from their group, you use numbers to overwhelm them in one go.”

“No, it’s not!”

Oh, but it was.

If you failed the hunt or didn’t read the other party’s mood, you got eaten instead—like a pair of praying mantises where the female bites off the male’s head.

Having seen through it all, I clicked my tongue and tipped back the rest of my soup.

Then I sighed and asked the still-flustered Moon Ah-rin, who couldn’t give me a straight answer:

“Be honest. Ah-rin, you’ve never been on a date in your life, have you?”

“Wh-what? I—I mean, that’s true, but…!”

Figures.

Why was I trying to get advice from someone with zero experience?

I hadn’t come here just for a free meal; I wanted intel on Cheon So-baek before the date.

She had worked in the Special Unit’s Firepower Support Unit for three years, so she’d know more about the Commander than I did.

But that was as far as it went.

If I trusted Moon Ah-rin about dating, I’d end up a cold corpse by tomorrow—like a roundworm flushed out after deworming.

“Please listen to me! E-even if I don’t have experience, a date is definitely not what you think—”

“I understand. I had my fantasies about romance when I was young and stupid too. More importantly, tell me about Commander Cheon So-baek.”

“About the Commander?”

“Yeah. Preferences, little habits—anything. Tell me everything you know.”

“I’m not sure… Ah!”

Moon Ah-rin brightened as if she’d remembered something.

“She has a sweet tooth. There’s this drink she always orders at the café, but the name is super complicated.”

“Besides that? Any weaknesses?”

“You can’t just ask that… Our Commander is perfect.”

So there really were no weak points.

Public opinion agreed with Moon Ah-rin: Cheon So-baek was an Awakened worthy of succeeding the Heavenly Immortal.

Talent and beauty. Brains and martial skill. A face like a flower.

She had a lot of fitting epithets, but if I had to pick one, it would be “Havenly Raiment Without Seams”.⁴

It wasn’t just magical talent; in both Tower administration and personality, there was nothing to criticize.

I figured she must have a mischievous streak, but apparently that never showed up in anyone else’s evaluation.

Was she only like that with me?

“For the Tartaruga matter, she put me in charge. Even with some members opposed, she said she’d take responsibility.”

“There was opposition?”

“Not none. People said it was dangerous to let an individual handle a Familiar. Especially…”

“The Red Tower mages.”

The Red Tower’s occasional territorialism was a double-edged sword for the Firepower Support Unit.

Smoothing out their complaints always fell to Cheon So-baek.

In the end, I’d gotten nothing useful.

As the meal wrapped up, the volunteers started cleaning.

I stood as well—remembering to slip the pile of clam shells they’d set aside for stock into my sleeve for later.

“Alright. It’s almost time, so I’ll get going.”

“Okay… um, Hayan.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know how you ended up with this appointment, but… please take good care of the Commander.”

“‘Take care’ of her? Me? Why? Is there some special reason?”

Moon Ah-rin, wearing rubber gloves for dishwashing, stared at the running water for a moment before finally speaking.

“It’s just… I’ve watched her for years, but sometimes I can’t even tell if she’s really smiling.”

The date spot was in Gangbuk, right in the shadow of the Red Tower.

If Ground Zero was a lawless wasteland, then the districts under the four Towers were the safest in Korea.

The Red Tower, especially, stood out—since it was the only one with one of the Seven Immortals as its master. Development here outpaced every other region.

The streets were vibrant, decorated everywhere with crimson crests—the mark of the Cheon clan, practically their private territory.

“Here you are. Why are you so late?”

“I actually arrived early, but the plaza was packed. And since I’m not friends with you on the smartwatch, GPS tracking didn’t help.”

“Just call me So-baek.”

“Commander Cheon So-baek?”

“So-baek.”

“…So-baek-nim.”

She appeared in casual clothes, draped with a light shawl instead of her usual robe.

She looked younger than a grade-schooler when she’d first fallen into the Demon Realm. And yet here I was, addressing her with honorifics. But shame? Not in the slightest.

The gap in status was something I could feel in my skin. What did formality matter when the difference between us was that of a baby axolotl to its aquarium owner?

If I hadn’t been so “experienced” in dates, I wouldn’t even have been able to talk to her without tripping over myself.

But even I nearly faltered when she dropped the sudden question.

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you notice anything different about me today?”

Ah. It had come.

The first killing move—the opening technique that decided life or death.

Answer wrong even once, and it was a straight kiss with the goddess of death.

Hesitation or uncertainty was fatal.

I heightened my senses with Awakened perception, scrutinizing every detail of her appearance.

“You wiped and reapplied your lip balm from this morning. Same type, but with a faint blue tint to match your shirt. The nail decal on your left index finger that chipped during the Joint Reinforcement Training has been redone. Your socks are still white, but the length now covers your ankles—probably to protect against the new flats you’re wearing, since they haven’t broken in yet. Normally you’d go for comfort, but you raised the hem of your skirt by 0.7 centimeters to make your legs look longer, so you chose slightly higher heels despite the discomfort. And finally, the last two centimeters of your hair are burgundy—that suggests your mana hasn’t fully recovered yet.”

“Ugh… that’s kind of creepy. Are you a pervert or something?”

Her expression soured as she fiddled with her skirt hem, then jabbed me in the chest with her finger.

Even after all that effort, it wasn’t enough?

While I scrambled for a comeback, I felt a faint tug of mana at my fingertips.

In that moment of distraction, she had taken my hand.

“Well, it’s still better than no attention at all. Anyway, shall we go?”

“Where to?”

“I told you—this time, I’m going to prove I’m someone you can trust. Just follow me.”

From the start, it felt like my Extreme Magic had been sealed away.

If I wanted to survive this date, I’d have to give it everything I had.