54 — Chapter 54

Riddle: What had four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?

The answer had been tentacles.

Then here was the real riddle: fifteen years ago, a monthly wage of 400,000 won; six months ago, 2.8 million including hazard pay. Starting this month, who was the Special Unit ace taking home 9 million after tax?

Even if you missed the first riddle, this one should’ve been easy.

It was me—the one who’d just reached Middle Level.

---

“Congrats on the promotion to Middle Level. You deserve it… but why did you come here again?”

“They served a giant squid from the West Sea soaked in tanker oil, so the cafeteria nutritionists went on strike. The mess hall’s closed. I have nowhere to eat.”

“Normal people don’t come all the way to a relief center because they ‘have nowhere to eat.’ And you’re making decent money now, aren’t you?”

“As a working adult, money flew out of my wallet just for breathing.”

The White Tower’s relief center sat near Seoul’s outskirts, the wall of Ground Zero visible in the distance.

As always, I’d snagged a seat among the homeless, and Moon Ah-rin looked at me like I was up to something shady.

I understood.

She was probably suspecting I’d blown money on something weird again.

But this time, I actually had circumstances beyond my control.

“Where did all that money go?”

“It’s all written here, down to the last won.”

“This is… a household ledger? Handwritten?”

“Is that strange?”

“No, just… if you keep a ledger this meticulously, how are you out of money…?”

By the tray return.¹

She pulled off her rubber gloves, put on her glasses, and started reading this month’s expenses from the top.

The pitiable “circumstances” crammed on the crumpled paper were… a lot.

“Chojang 2,800 won, bottle deposit 110 won, a box of Choco Pies 3,600 won, ‘dating account’ 1,000,000 won—dating account!?”²

“Oh, that. Commander Cheon So-baek told me it’s good to save consistently, so I put some in.”

“Hayan… do you know what a ‘dating account’ means?”

“Of course. What do you take me for?”

It was the account you created to build credit ahead of the day you robbed a bank.

When I was little, my childhood friend and I even tried it, but we got turned away because we weren’t old enough to open one yet.

As payback, every lunch break I’d secretly prop the café door open so all the nice air-conditioning would leak outside.

I hated dating, but “bank robber” had still been on the bucket list for after I retired from the Special Unit.

“Commander Cheon So-baek deposits ten million won into it every month, so the principal will come back fast. I think of it as an investment.”

“Sigh…”

Maybe “financial management” had been too advanced a concept for Moon Ah-rin, who knew nothing about it.

She found another suspicious item further down and sighed again.

“‘Friend fee’ 200,000 won… what’s this?”

“I made a big mistake to No Yeon-hwa recently. She doesn’t remember, but she said it left her with a bad feeling, so she ordered me to buy her dinner every weekend.”

“She doesn’t remember, but insisted on that… why?”

.
.
.

Because I remembered.

I’d gotten swallowed by her Word-Spirit and made a scene, then proudly blurted out who I really was.

Turn No Yeon-hwa into a Transcendent Awakened, then use her Word-Spirit and Channel to forcibly awaken all of humanity.

If that worked, not only would it reduce the damage from Gates, it would flip the entire balance of power overnight.

When a ridiculous out-of-spec existence who hunted Archdukes tore out his conscience and calculated only benefit, this had been the kind of “solution” he could show the world.

It had been exactly the kind of idea “me-who-returned-to-Earth-unsaved-by-the-Outer-God” would’ve come up with.

A fallen version of myself in a parallel world.

Just thinking about it stirred a dumb, romantic ache in my chest.

Of course, these days, increasing the number of closing-time markdowns at the supermarket mattered more to me than creating a world for Awakened only through Word-Spirit.

Would she help if I bumped up the ‘friend fee’?

Even after I lost my memories thanks to Mala-nim, she sometimes suffered fits listening to that mysterious voice recorded on her headphones—so asking No Yeon-hwa personal favors would be hard for a while.

Sensing I didn’t want to say more, Moon Ah-rin moved on through the rest of my expenses.

“Okay, next… private detective retainer, 700,000 won.”

“I hired someone to find whoever’s been tailing me lately. This is the third one. The last two suddenly stopped answering.”

“‘Hire a hacker to breach the Bureau server and reduce Commander Ha Yeri’s listed height by 0.3 centimeters,’ 1.2 million won…”

“I’m going to shave it down a little each month. I want to see when she notices.”

They said once your spending ballooned, it was hard to shrink it—but these were all essential to survival.

If I cut even one of them now, I might lose any reason to live in this world.

After scanning it all, Moon Ah-rin neatly folded the ledger and handed it back, looking like she disagreed with every line.

“Hayan.”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you just hand me your account book?”

“I’m managing just fine on my own. And actually, the reason I’m short on money isn’t just the expenses written there.”

So-called necessities of life—clothes, food, and shelter.

For me, the money I spent on those barely amounted to what you’d use raising a stag beetle larva in the woods.

Even with all the little leaks here and there, it didn’t make sense that I’d be broke enough to eat at a relief center.

But life always managed to bloom hardships in the most unexpected places.

“Then where did the rest go?”

“Well…”

The truth was, most of it was going somewhere not far from here—just beyond the wall.

---

Sector 4 of Ground Zero.

On the outer wall of the temple built by the Cult of the Void, laborers were painting a strange mural.

It stretched like a panorama around the structure, divided into four grand panels. The first was nearly complete.

A radiant purple-eyed god with countless tentacles, hunted by four other gods—an image like some primordial myth.

The second and third panels were still being sketched and brushed in little by little.

In Ground Zero, where money never flowed, a project this massive should have been impossible. But thanks to an anonymous donor, the mural was slowly taking shape.

The anonymous donor.

In other words, me.

“Brother Hayan, isn’t it.”

“It’s been a while, Brother Sebas… And Sister Margaret?”

“She’s in morning lessons, teaching the children in the chapel. That child you sent us last time is studying there too—would you like to see them later?”

“I will.”

The time for the next Council meeting was drawing near.

It had happened because I was swallowed up by Word-Spirit, but when I interrogated Perez last time, I’d uncovered that the ones pulling strings were Karzos’s faction. That meant I had to talk to Velada.

Not to mention I still needed answers about the date of the next Council, and information on Necropolis.

From my pocket, I pulled out Patel’s mask and slipped it on.

I couldn’t show Velada my real face.

Luckily, in Ground Zero—a place crawling with wanted men and criminals—wearing a mask hardly made you suspicious.

While waiting, I pointed at the crowd gathered to admire the mural.

“Is it always this busy?”

“Yes. Sector 4 has been livelier and safer lately, so not only believers but residents stop by for a look. If you’re worried about damage to the mural, we can—”

“No, it’s fine. Proceed as you are.”

It was paid for with my blood-earned salary, but since I wasn’t the one who’d wanted it in the first place, I didn’t want to fuss over it.

The true commissioner was none other than Mala-nim.

The very reason I had no choice but to eat at a relief center while getting scolded by Moon Ah-rin was because Mala-nim had ordered all this.

I spoke quietly to the being who had no eyes, yet kept wriggling out from my sleeve to admire its ancient image etched on the wall.

“Would this be enough to atone for my mistake last time?”

『Fear not!』

“I’m glad you’re satisfied. But maybe we should wrap this up soon? At this rate, I’ll go bankrupt. Surely you don’t want your only follower digging through Yoo Se-byeol’s trash just to lick the yogurt lids she leaves behind, do you?”

『Fear…?』

Mala-nim tilted her head as if to say, “Aren’t you already doing that?”

It hurt, how little she appreciated my efforts to gather every last drop of Star Scar.

The mural in the middle of Ground Zero was eating up way more money than I’d expected.

I had to hire workers and artists, and even escorts to get them in and out of the barricades safely.

Worse, there were too many eyes watching the work.

With the Cliff of Pilgrims just itching to interfere, if someone took offense and scrawled something obscene on the mural, we’d have to start from scratch.

If this was just a “hobby,” I’d have liked to stop here. But Mala-nim was vehemently against it.

『Fear not!』

“…You mean it has to be finished?”

『Fear… not!』

Ever since she’d absorbed her second Star Scar on Earth, Mala-nim had become more active. Not only did she directly wield tentacles, she also seemed dead set on gathering believers inside Ground Zero.

“If you really want your past known, you could just tell people the way you tell me.”

『……』

I’d told her it would take months more of my salary. Mala-nim fell silent, as if hesitating. Then, carefully, she spoke.

『Fea—』

Before she could finish, the Channel cut off, stabbing me with a migraine.

Hot liquid slid down from my upper lip. A cerebral hemorrhage, caused even though I always kept the Channel at max bandwidth.

I looked back up at the first mural panel.

“Mala-nim… have you had some kind of falling out with the other Outer Gods on Earth?”

『Fea…r… not…』

“Fine. Let’s just keep going until it’s done.”

Clearly, Outer Gods were too far above humans for me to fully grasp. Their meaning never quite came through.

So I’d just have to wait until the mural was finished to learn what tied Mala-nim to the others.

At that moment, the prayer bell tolled and the chapel doors swung open.

Children poured out in a rush for lunch, like a school of sardines.

The Cult of the Void’s orphanage-turned-prayer house was proof they’d planted deep roots in Ground Zero.

Today’s lunch was takoyaki stuffed with a twenty-legged octopus caught in the West Sea.

Seeing the kids holding skewers and plates instead of iron pipes and glass shards really drove home how much the times had changed.

Among those bright smiles, I was sure some would grow into crime bosses or bank robbers in the future. Brilliant seeds of delinquency just waiting to sprout.

But for now, I ignored the unripe seeds and looked for one already rotten to the core.

My eyes found Velada—the one I’d left in the prayer house after the last Council.

She was surrounded by children of her apparent age.

Her eyes were hidden by mimicry, but she couldn’t disguise the crude horns on her head. A cap sat awkwardly atop them.

The fourth-ranked Archduke’s Familiar, side by side with powerless orphans.

It was obvious which side was really dangerous.

“Never seen this chick in our block before. Boss, what should we do with her?”

“Hey, girlie, which crew are you from?”

“Th-This being is…”

“‘This being’? You think you’re some big shot?”

“I am the Supreme Commander of the Seventh Legion of the Demon Realm, a servant of the Hooves of the Stat—”

“Cut the tongue-flapping, will you?! It’s lunchtime, not story hour. How far are you planning to run that mouth of yours?”

“Keep yammering like your lungs are filled with hot air, and next time your eyeballs will be the ones skewered on these sticks. Who do you run with?”

“Spare me, please! At least my life… Ah! Patel!”

Velada, who’d been cornered and beaten by the orphans, spotted me and darted behind my back in an instant.

She clutched a sharp toothpick, trembling, while the kids followed her, brandishing skewers.

The boy who looked like their leader met my gaze through the mask.

“……”

“……”

The air grew taut.

Without even pulling my hand from my pocket, I pointed at the skewer hidden behind his back with just a jerk of my chin and shook my head.

The boy seemed to realize I was one of his own—someone born of Ground Zero. His bravado crumbled, and he backed down.

“…Hello.”

“Yeah.”

Sensing the gap in standing, he greeted me, and the rest of the kids hurried to bow.

“Hello~!”

“Hey, kids. You got any money on you?”

“Money? We don’t have that kind of stuff, mister.”

“……”

“N-No money at all, bro!!”

“…Is that so? Next time, carry a little around. Anyway, I need to talk with this lady here. Go have lunch first, alright?”

“Okay~!”

“Got it. Velada noona, play with us again later!”

Kids really were the cutest when they were still young.

As I watched the little pack trot off together, Velada cried out in terror.

“They’re demons…! They must be soaked in demon blood! We have to report this to the Special Unit at once!”

…Says the one who’s actually a demon.