chapter 160

Episode 160

And Gio wasn’t thinking about anything.

“Those Mangdung fruits dried out too much again.”

“Kkung.”

“It’s all because there are too many suns.”

How could there be three suns under the sky.

“This isn’t right.”

He was wailing in front of the Mangdung fruits that had turned into something like gold.

“We’re too warm.”

Giovanni, imbued with the divinity of the sun. A teddy bear containing the previous Sun God. Honey, a light-attribute evolved waterbird who had received the love of those two in abundance.

In a cabin where three suns, big and small, lived together, the fruits drying out happened in an instant.

“We have to overturn this divinity right now.”

“Kkung kkung kkung...!!”

“Kkuu...!!”

Leaving behind the waterbird and teddy bear trying to stop the pig who got angry when it couldn’t eat something tasty, Dana sprawled out, peacefully washing her face like a cat. A house filled with suns and warm all over was no different from paradise for her.

Gio flopped down in the yard.

“Grandmother, I’m sorry. This potato has become an idiot who can’t even dry a single fruit properly anymore.”

“Kkuu.”

“I am a talking potato. The only thing I can do is talk. I think this is my identity.”

“Kku...?”

The previous Sun God was confused, unable to understand why this son-sun referred to himself as a potato. His identity was closer to the sun than to a potato, and closer still to the Origin.

Gio, composing his sorrow, spoke as he swept up the Mangdung fruits hardened stiff, like an old man with a straw sack.

“I know very well that I don’t resemble a potato.”

He admitted it whenever it came to mind, but it didn’t seem all that harmless, either. A real potato can’t turn people into paint.

“More than a potato, I resemble the silkie in the yard. All black, the whole thing...”

“Kkurrrr.”

“You must like it because you’re both birds, Honey. Next time, I should draw you a feather cloak.”

If he had to compare himself to something—he had enjoyed wearing all black since his Seo Gio days—he would have to find something unmistakably nothing but black.

“Maybe it’s even more so because, thanks to Mr. Argio, I’ve been craving shiny things lately.”

Or maybe the soot in a furnace, or a crow as big as a house. Even to Gio, it seemed hard to find any connection between himself and a potato. Even so, the reason he couldn’t let go of the potato was in his childhood.

“It’s all because of the elders.”

To the residents of a mountain village in Gangwon Province, Gio was nothing but a high-functioning potato that talked well.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t be objective about himself just because he was Seo Gio. When you taught high schoolers who had so much energy they practically exploded, it was impossible not to be. And he didn’t exactly have a harmless-looking face, either.

“It’s kind of funny, though.”

People treated Seo Gio as an extraordinarily special great man even if he did nothing but breathe.

It was like they thought he’d done something even when he hadn’t done anything, and no one—including Seo Gio—knew what, exactly, that “something” was. He didn’t know why they were like that, but he remembered letting it be because it was funny just to watch.

“Everyone seems to think of me as too difficult.”

“Kkuu-uu...”

“So, at least in my heart, I keep going on about being a potato.”

To remind himself that he was just an ordinary human being, nothing special.

“Human rebellious psychology, honestly.”

If you all hadn’t made me out to be difficult in such an interesting way, I wouldn’t have had any reason to go on about being a potato.

Seo Gio knew well just how un-special he was.

He could do a lot of odds and ends, his grades were pretty good, and he had a reasonable number of friends, but that didn’t mean he was perfect in every field the way people around him imagined.

“I’m such an ordinary person, yet everyone treats me like I’m something so special.”

On top of that, his face was exceptionally handsome, so people around him tended to perceive him as someone too daunting. Gio knew it was a ridiculous misconception, but others didn’t.

“Only the elders in our mountain village saw through my fleeting essence.”

So the nickname “potato” couldn’t help but be all the more welcome.

“It feels steady.”

The so-called hometown of the heart.

“It’s kind of funny how everyone flounders just from looking at my expression, but...”

“Kku??”

“I’m scared I’ll end up truly mistaking myself for someone who is something.”

“Kku, kkuu.”

“No. I’m not special.”

Seo Gio knew his place.

“I’m ordinary.”

He was merely an ordinary person with bizarre social skills.

“...”

“...”

Gio checked the teddy bear’s wavering gaze and nodded. He felt like he knew what it was imagining and fearing. But it was a misunderstanding.

“...No matter how I am, I won’t go outside and loudly shout, ‘I am a potato.’”

“Kku.”

“Not just that I won’t shout it—I’m not going to say it at all. I know it’ll sound like I’ve lost my mind.”

What kind of embarrassing thing would that be.

Gio dearly loved the additional identity of “potato” that the peaceful mountain-village elders had given him, but that was that, and this was this. Even Gio, the most adorable introvert in the world at home, still had to live in society.

“I only act this ill-mannered at home. Outside, I always live properly with manners and polite behavior. You don’t have to worry that your son will act immature in society as well.”

There are many grandkids in Korea who are treated like little pups, but those grandkids don’t go around in society insisting they’re little pups. Even elementary schoolers don’t do that, and he had no intention of doing it as a twenty-nine-year-old dark-haired man who was practically an uncle.

“Kkung kkung?”

“Why am I an ‘uncle,’ you ask?”

“Kkurrr.”

“It means I’m basically about to be in my thirties any day now.”

It felt a bit ambiguous to call him a youth.

“Since the first digit is still a two, it feels ambiguous to call me an uncle, but...”

For one thing, since he was a portrait, he wasn’t adding more years just because the year changed, but even so, due to the many special circumstances surrounding him, it felt like Gio really was an uncle.

“And the current me is thirty-two, so I think ‘uncle’ is right.”

“Kkung...?”

“Or not—if it’s twenty-four plus thirty-two plus twenty-nine, am I just the elderly...?”

In any case, it hurt his conscience to call himself purely a youth.

“Anyway, what should I do with all these Mangdung fruits?”

What else?

“I guess I’ll make some blood dumplings.”

Pill-refining method: Grind the thoroughly dried fruit into powder, mix it with Lulupu’s juice to make a dough, form it into dumplings, and dry them in a dark place for at least a week; it becomes a medicine good for bleeding and its recovery.

“I’ll need to draw a bit more Lulupu.”

At the word “Lulupu,” Dana, who had been sprawled out, lifted her body. Perhaps influenced by the clear day, unlike the night before when she looked like the Milky Way, she now carried a lucid blue glow.

Dana glittered with pale blue light and bonked her head against Gio’s calf, thunk-thunk.

“Mung-mang-mang...”

“This time, Dad’s going to use it to make medicine.”

“Aek.”

“Ah, you just want to come along.”

“Aek-ong.”

“Then let’s do that.”

The giant cat Dana often served as a dependable escort.

* * *

Meanwhile, there was another place that had been stirred up by the existence of “Hunter Seo Gio.”

“I didn’t know an anti-cat had such an ability.”

“Ho ho, it was truly remarkable. To let people see souls...”

“It’s not a confirmed matter, so I think it needs review.”

It was the Sun Church and the Moon Church.

Religions that served traditional gods fundamentally followed providence, and naturally had great interest in the birth and death of life. And these two were, before the Church of Death, the religions closest to funerals.

“In any case, I hear the monster called an anti-cat doesn’t tame easily.”

At an elder priest’s words, a younger priest agreed.

“Yes. From what I looked into, it’s said to be a tricky monster even tamers can’t handle.”

“Is that the conclusion when you include not only domestic tamers but all cases overseas as well?”

“Yes. They say this is the first case in the world of successfully taming an anti-cat.”

“This is something even overseas would covet...”

“It seems a commotion has already started among tamers.”

A tamer’s authority and honor depended on how many monsters they tamed, and how diverse and difficult those kinds were. If it was true that an anti-cat had been tamed, then the hunter named Seo Gio would gain quite a high-quality reputation.

“They say anti-cats don’t leave any opening for humans to approach in the first place.”

“I don’t know that field well, so I’m asking—can’t you capture one by force?”

“I hear if you offend it, it burns everything around it.”

“If it’s a hunter with flame resistance...”

“It’s flames that burn souls, so they say even hunters with strong resistance would have a hard time.”

“Goodness, flames that burn souls.”

The priests, who couldn’t help but be sensitive to the topic of souls, murmured.

“I’d like to catch a glimpse of that power—would it be possible?”

“Since he’s a talent the Collector has kept tightly hidden, it doesn’t seem easy.”

“He seems to be a hunter receiving all of the Collector’s affection... If we approach clumsily, we’ll pay dearly.”

“But doesn’t the truth of that ability need to be verified?”

“What authority do we have to judge its authenticity?”

“Ahem, my apologies. My feelings got ahead of me.”

A hunter’s command authority was always with the guild they belonged to, and interfering meant you were willing to play a battle of nerves with that guild. The Sun Church didn’t particularly want to pick that kind of fight with one of Korea’s top three guilds.

“I understand how you feel. If the anti-cat truly has the power to interfere with souls...”

“It could be a great help when the church’s priests are mobilized for funeral masses.”

“It would also greatly help the Sun Church’s image. Because of the recent dungeon-opening incident, the church’s influence has shrunk a lot lately.”

“The novice priests are still anxious.”

“At times like this, shouldn’t we show the church’s strengths and honor so that the novices and believers can put their minds at ease?”

Another elder priest showed reluctance.

“But isn’t the one who can handle an anti-cat a tamer, not a priest? Even if the anti-cat’s ability is real, the church wouldn’t be able to tame that child...”

“Could we not receive some help from the hunter named Seo Gio in that regard? I heard that even during ‘Temple of the Deep Sea’ he displayed healing power close to the sun; if so, his feelings toward our church shouldn’t be bad. Even if he was caught up in such an incident, faith is...”

“No, listen. The problem isn’t whether his feelings aren’t bad—we should be worried about turning even good feelings bad, shouldn’t we? I hear he disliked attention so much that he’s lived as an unofficial hunter until now.”

“But now that he’s shown himself openly, he must be thinking of living as an official hunter. Even so, I agree we don’t need to earn Hunter Seo Gio’s dislike. If that ability is real, we must approach as politely as possible.”

“More than anything, I...”

A priest in his middle years continued.

“I believe his ability is real.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Is he not the Collector’s hunter, of all things?”

“Ah, indeed...”

“He’s not someone who would favor carelessly.”

Collector Visabel’s tastes were well known; if there was the most basic condition, it was “be capable and diligent.” With his discerning eye, he would never cherish a hunter full of nothing but bubbles to that extent.

“If Guildmaster Visabel acknowledged him...”

“We have no choice but to believe it.”

“If not the Collector’s eye, what can we believe?”

A man whose life’s purpose is his collection, after all.

“But we still don’t know his exact abilities.”

“Trying to gobble up another guild’s hunter abilities without any effort would be the mindset of a wicked fellow.”

“T-that is true, but...”

It was extremely rude for someone who wasn’t even a guildmaster to rummage through an innocent hunter’s personal details. Information like what his exact abilities were, what skills he used, what his rank was.

“Now that things have come to this, what will be known will be known in time.”

The elder priests knew how to read the flow.

“He showed his face, and a guild as big as the Collector didn’t control it... That means they’re ready to show that hunter named Seo Gio to the world.”

“Isn’t the best stage to debut a hunter a dungeon? It’s not as if the world lacks dungeons to raid, nor is it lacking guilds curious about his abilities...”

“If there isn’t a suitable place, we could provide one from our side. Would it not be possible to request collaboration on the Gangwon dungeon raid that was discovered before?”

“In any case, we’ll soon be able to learn whether Hunter Seo’s ability is genuine. Ho ho—if possible, I’m truly curious about the ability of that child called an anti-cat.”

As they said that, the priests soon looked toward one young priest.

“...”

Priest Kang Seodam, who had previously gone on a dungeon raid with “Hunter Seo Gio,” clenched his teeth in secret.

‘O Sun.’

Please grant this priest the courage to endure the hardship given to him.

(To be continued in the next episode)