Chapter 2

1. I’m going to be the cafe owner?

I put flowers on Dad’s grave. 

Weeds were overgrown near the tombstone because I hadn’t visited it for the past year. 

“It looks like Dad’s face without a shave.” 

I laughed and murmured. 

Expressing my apologetic feelings in a joke like this was our father and daughter’s way of communicating. 

‘You should be an office worker, not a hunter.’

Dad would joke about how sorry he was when he got home late because of Dungeon Raid. 

He made a joke about what Hunter couldn’t do.

But every time I heard that I thought to myself: 

A Hunter is a hundred times better than an office worker. My Dad, who saves people, is the coolest. 

I’m proud that the S-Class Hunter who appears on TV every day is my Dad.

At least, that was until Dad passed away.

It wasn’t until Dad passed away that I realized it.

How sincere Dad was when he told me to work as an office worker instead of being a Hunter.

The year I turned 12, Dad entered an S-Class dungeon and never came back.

It was 13 years ago now.

It was only seven years since the so-called catastrophe. 

Catastrophe.

It refers to the day when monsters come out of cracks in dimensions that have opened up all over the world.

People were shocked by how powerful monsters were when they overpowered humans, and some said that the day of judgment had come and humanity would go extinct.

But that didn’t happen.

It was thanks to the Hunters.

After gaining transcendental power through ‘awakening,’ they gradually returned the world to its original place. 

Naturally, the world was enthusiastic about the Awakening or Hunters. 

There is a saying now that being a stable civil servant is better than being an E-class hunter, but that wasn’t the case back then. At that time, Hunter was not a job but a hero.

And Dad was such a Hunter.

He’s not just a Hunter, but an S-Class Hunter.

Even now, when more people are awakened, and Hunters become one of the professions, S-Class Hunters have more power than celebrities and make more money than most small and medium-sized businesses. 

Of course, it was more then.

Dad, who was one of only 5 S-Class Hunters in Korea at the time, was no different from a hero to me, no, to the entire nation. 

It was unimaginable that such a father would never come back. 

That’s why I kept asking my Dad’s colleagues who were helping with his funeral at the time. 

When will my Dad come back?

‘Your father… Hik… He can’t come back now. Junghyo-ya… I’m sorry… I’m really sorry… Hiks…” 

Looking back at it now, Dad’s colleagues must have been in trouble. 

Because I asked him several times a day when Dad would be back.

But it didn’t matter.

I couldn’t believe that Dad wouldn’t come back even if I had heard the answer dozens of times that he couldn’t come back. 

It was years later that I believed that.

Around the age of 20, I finally became independent after staying at the house of Uncle Minhyuk, a former colleague of Dad and now a guild leader of Hanwoon Guild.

When I decided to become independent from Uncle Minhyuk’s house, I felt the fact that I was alone.

My Dad was an orphan, and my Mom died during the catastrophe. 

After that, I completely cut ties with my mother’s relatives, so now I have to take responsibility for my life alone. 

Uncle Minhyuk caught me several times, but I refused. 

If I’m going to be alone anyway, I should quickly adapt and figure out how to live on my own.

Then the uncle handed me a bankbook.

‘This is how much I added to the money your father left. Wherever you are, whatever you do, don’t spend it for bad things.’

It was quite a lot of money.

Even when I was in high school, I had no idea that this kind of money would be waiting for me.

It was a relief in a way. If I had known I had money, I might have given up studying and living a lazy life.

I spend some of that money on college tuition. 

I started living by contracting a small officetel near the university. There is still some money left.

I was able to live without lacking for four years in college, but I couldn’t bear to think of luxury with the legacy my father left behind.

I couldn’t do that.

When I hear from somewhere that another hunter is dead.

When I heard that a certain building was ruined by a monster that jumped out of the dungeon gate.

Sometimes when I find ruins on the street that haven’t been recovered with an unexpected dungeon open.

I felt like I was living alone in a peaceful world.

‘Junghyo was judged to be non-awakened in this test as well.’

Uncle Junsu, who used to work with my dad, told me more than once that I should take the test.

It was natural.

Since Dad is an S-Class Hunter, he must have thought Hunter’s blood would flow in me too. 

However, my test results were non-awakened every time.

Uncle seemed to be disappointed, but I was happy.

‘I hate going into dungeons as a hunter.’

Hunters and dungeons were all things that took Dad away from me.

Dad, who was just a human being, not Lee Semyung, an S-Class hunter and hero.

I lived the life of an ordinary person with a happy heart. 

Instead of going to the dungeon every day and living a special but dangerous life, it was better for my skills to build up a normal life slowly. 

After graduating from college, I joined a small company. 

It was a company I chose despite the small salary because it was a job that could make use of my major.

It was a pleasure to be able to make money with my own hands, even if it wasn’t to save the world like Dad. So I wanted to work hard.

No, I had to work hard.

The company is so small that if I don’t work hard, I can’t figure out how it works, so I have to do it by myself—.

“Dad. I handed in my resignation.”

I crumpled the soju pack I finished drinking in front of my Dad’s grave with my hand.

The result of ‘hard work’ is this, after all.

The plan I took with all my passion was taken away by the above punk, and they didn’t even do it properly, and eventually transformed into a strange idea, and my vacation is not my vacation!

It seemed that if I stayed longer, my body and mind would get sick.

I sniffed and complained to my Dad with a little sulky. 

“I really didn’t want to live on the money Dad gave me, you know? I wanted to try to stand alone in a cool way… But…” 

I can’t.

I need to spend that money.

No one told me to save the money, but somehow I felt guilty.

But now I’m trying to put that guilt down for a while.

Dad always used to say this.

‘Dad’s dream is to live in a quiet place with a view of the sea with my daughter.’

Dad at that time, like me now, must have wanted to rest like this after retirement.

Now that I’m an adult, I know how that feels.

I want to rest, too, now.

Now, I also want to see the sea that Dad talked about. 

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I just want to play at the resort.

“I’m going down to a place where I can see the sea and try a small cafe.”

I have been working part-time at a cafe for 6 years. I also had a barista license. 

If possible, I will open a cafe farthest from the dungeon.

I’ve seen too many ruins created by Dungeon in Seoul.

“Don’t worry too much about me. I will never go wrong and live sincerely.”

I rubbed the tip of my red nose and stared at my father’s tombstone.

“Watch me. Dad. You know, right…?” 

My pronunciation is crushed. 

I stumbled and got up.

It was then.

It felt like something was sparkling and shining in the sky.

Is it because I’m drunk?

I rubbed my eyes and looked up at the sky again. There was nothing in the sky again. 

* * *

—Are you serious? Have you already tidied up your house in Seoul? I can’t. I should go down and make sure it’s safe where you live…

As soon as I got off at the station, I got a phone call from Uncle Junsu, who hit my ear. 

Uncle Junsu, the head of the Hunter Association, was Dad’s colleague who took care of me for a long time, as much as Uncle Minhyuk.

But he worries about me too much.

“Uncle, please calm down. It’s not that I’m going to go to remote village in the mountain. There are 2,000 people living in here. Hang up for now. I have to get on the bus now! If I miss that bus, I have to wait an hour!” 

36—2. Byeolcheon-ri, Yeongchun-myeon, Ganju-gun

This is the address of the cafe building I found after making a firm resolution in front of my Dad’s tombstone.

“There’s no place like this where you can see the sea better! Is this kind of view possible at this price in Seoul? And what about our side? A place with a population of 2,000!”

I didn’t choose this place because of the flashy (?) words of the village head who also works as a real estate agent.

Yeongchun-myeon had a small connection with me.

Dad once told me that he went to Yeongchun-myeon for a short time a long time ago.

‘The sea was very beautiful.’

I suddenly remembered that word, and when I searched the Internet, it was said that Yeongchun-myeon is a seaside town where no sudden dungeons have appeared in the past 20 years.

So even during the great disaster, it was a rare place where nothing had happened, and there was a story that people in this village only learned what a dungeon was on TV.

I hate dungeons, so I really liked this. 

I immediately went down to Yeongchun-myeon and found an empty inn building that had not been open for a long time.

It fascinated me that the beach was exactly 30 steps away from the building.

Also, the sunset on the beach is incredibly beautiful.

It was indeed the sea that Dad would fall in love with.

I immediately signed the contract.

It didn’t matter that Yeongchun-myeon was a small town with a population of only 2,000 and that there were almost no tourists, contrary to what the village head said.

No, it was rather good.

I shouldn’t have been so lazy and relied on Dad’s money all the time, but I didn’t want to live like I did when I was in the company.

“Ahem…You did a great job buying the building. Once upon a time, a famous fortuneteller came to Yeongchun-myeon to play and said that the site there was good.” 

The village head of the women’s association, who was drinking coffee at the real estate, muttered as soon as I stamped my seal.

What a nice place.

I stood in front of the inn building with a refreshed mind, remembering the words of the village head of the women’s association.

The beach was right in front of me, so I could smell the sea. Then, all of a sudden, a realistic thought came to me.

‘It’s nice to be refreshed, but I’ll have to pay attention to building management.’

Usually, I was a typical petit bourgeois, timid and full of realistic worries. (t/n: petit bourgeois means belonging to the lower middle social class or having the characteristics that are considered typical of this class, such as thinking money and possessions are more important than other things and not trusting new or different ideas.) 

No one would think that way if they saw me coming down to Yeongchun-myeon two months after I quit my job—.

Sometimes there are more important things than worrying about reality.

Anyway. I had already come and looked at it before signing the real estate contract, but the building was in poor condition.

It looks like I’ll have to redo the exterior wall paint.

All the old-fashioned wallpaper and carpets had to be removed, new wallpaper and tiles were attached, and the interior, which had been used as an inn, had to be remodeled into a cafe.

It was a huge construction that would take a month.

Still, I bought the building at a very low price, so I didn’t have to worry about the construction cost.

And didn’t I decide to stop feeling bad about spending the money that Dad had left me? 

I decided to look forward to the stability that money gives for the time being. 

“Kiyuung… “

It was then. A retriever whimpered from somewhere under my trunk. 

Since when have you been by my side?

I stroked the retriever’s head a few times.

By the way, what kind of Retriever is here and not a Jindo dog in this countryside? 

It didn’t look like a dog without an owner because the golden fur was so clean.

Boy, you’ve run away.

“Just go back.”

I said it several times, but the retriever stayed still.

I gave up chasing the dog and looked up at the building again.

‘Okay. Then, let’s choose an interior design company and check out the menu. But first, let’s go inside and order something to eat. Ah, I’m hungry.’

It was the moment I opened the creaking wooden door while stroking my hungry stomach.

The retriever entered the building before I did.

I took a step inside the building as I watched him go towards what used to be a counter.

Then, something strange popped up in front of my eyes.

System: The hotel is checking visitors…

Identified as the ‘manager’ of the hotel.

Class: Awakened as ‘Hotel Manager’ (Hidden)!

Skill: Acquired ‘Housekeeping’ (C).

“Yes…?” 

I’m going to be the owner of a cafe, not a hotel.

What kind of awakening is this?