Chapter – 07.
This Place Is About to Catch Fire Soon!
I took a deep breath to calm my tangled thoughts.
As I stepped through the entrance of the shabby old building, a narrow staircase greeted me. It was so cramped it felt like the noise of the outside world was blocked off.
I climbed the cold, dusty stairs and pushed open a small door.
A tiny brass bell attached to the iron door rang with a cling—a bright, clear sound. Inside was a café furnished with old-fashioned, retro chairs and tables.
Not the kind of “retro vibe” people imitate—this was the real thing.
The place looked so faded and old it felt like they’d serve coffee in a clay pot the size of a cauldron.
“What the?”
“I—I’m a customer…”
A voice with a slight metallic rasp yelled from the counter. Startled, I blurted out that I was a customer before I could think.
An elderly lady with a hunched back and graying hair sat in an armchair with a blanket over her legs, a tuxedo-patterned cat perched on her like a doll, staring straight at me.
She didn’t look like someone who’d be involved in anything illegal at all.
Weird. I thought you could read people from their faces.
If I offered her my seat on a bus or subway, she looked like the type who would thank me and give me a red ginseng candy from her pocket.
The owner looked me up and down, then spoke loudly.
“What are you here for at this hour?”
“I, uh…”
“To drink coffee?”
“N–no!”
“Then why are you here?”
“I’m here to save someone!”
“…What?”
The grandmotherly owner’s warm gaze instantly turned sharp.
She said nothing, just stared at me—making me nervous.
Calm down. I’m rich, and I’m an F-ranker living day by day. Even if I die today, whatever. Might as well run my mouth.
“I know what kind of place this is.”
“And so what?”
“This is a recruitment spot for Awakened workers, right? I’m not here to look for a job. I came to ask if you could introduce someone to work for me.”
Even though the impending fire in this place was my top priority, I did need to save someone eventually.
Now even the tuxedo cat lifted its head to stare at me. Its narrow yellow eyes felt like they were piercing right through me. I’d never owned a pet before, so the gaze made me oddly uncomfortable.
“And why should I introduce anyone to you? What do I know about you?”
“Uh… good point?”
My stupid answer made the owner shove the cat off her lap, rummage under her blanket—and pull out a gun.
It was my first time seeing a gun in person.
Ah. So you’re a civilian.
After Awakened people appeared, illegal gun circulation became common in Korea.
At first, non-Awakened soldiers and government workers used them for self-defense, but after that savage era…
“Talk straight from now on.”
…the government started turning a blind eye to adults owning guns.
In… less lawful parts of society, anyway.
Meaning: this place was as illegal as I thought.
The gun’s barrel flashed as it pointed at me—and suddenly my mouth worked perfectly.
“Ma’am! I’m not a weird person! Oh—right, I can show you my Awakened registration card! It’s clean! Super clean!”
“Even weirder. Why would a girl like you come here?”
“Only people with… circumstances come here, right? I have very important circumstances!”
“The ones with ‘circumstances’ are usually shady or have a record.”
“I—I really don’t have a criminal record! I just have a sad story! So please, please put the gun down! I’m scared!”
The owner fell silent for a moment.
Ah. This was the moment. Time to mention the prophecy.
Her face didn’t twitch—not a single wrinkle moved. That alone told me she had seen everything life could throw at a person.
Her back was almost fully bent. If she still had to deal with dangerous work at her age, she surely had a story of her own.
I decided to make my first gamble.
“If you’re done talking nonsense, buy a coffee and leave quietly.”
“I’m not done. I’ll tell you the future I saw about you using my Awakened skill!”
Her gaze and the gleaming gun both seemed to say: Fine, amuse me.
I spoke seriously.
“Earlier, I passed by the train station and saw a vision of the future. This place is going to catch fire soon.”
Silence.
A suffocating stillness settled over the café like late-autumn frost.
The owner, whose expression hadn’t budged until now, finally frowned.
“When?”
“I—I don’t know the exact date. My ability awakened recently and I’m low-rank… I haven’t even had time to register officially…”
“And why would it burn?”
“I don’t know.”
“…”
Wow. I really came here with zero plan.
“If you want to die early, stay. Otherwise, leave.”
She pointed her wrinkled hand toward the exit.
“It’s best not to come to places like this. You look like a college kid—must be out of your mind to come here. Don’t make your parents worry. Go home.”
“Wait! Is it really that hard to find someone for hire? I have money!”
“So do I. Get out.”
No! Coming here was my best option!
Still… being mistaken for a student felt kind of nice.
So I still looked young to the elderly.
If she saw my bank account, she’d know I wasn’t just a young-looking girl but a loaded one—
I lifted my phone to show her when—
BANG!
“Where’s that crazy old hag—!”
A man kicked the door open.
Both the owner and I stared at the opaque plastic bottle in his hand.
It looked like a makgeolli bottle—filled with sloshing liquid.
His loud swearing shattered the cozy café atmosphere like a morning thunderclap.
“Wh–what the…”
While I stood frozen from shock, the owner reacted like this was nothing new. She calmly picked up the cat at her feet, tossed it over the counter, and it slipped like liquid into a box to hide. Only then did she thump her knee with her gun-hand and shout angrily:
“Seriously, f–sake, this early in the morning…”
“You call that a job match?! The bastard you paired me with didn’t hunt monsters—he tried to hunt people! And you said he ‘works well’?!”
So the guy he teamed up with in the Gate dungeon was a psychopath.
The cab driver’s words from yesterday came back to me, sending chills down my spine.
Not an urban legend—reality.
I knew murder inside Gates happened often. It spread like ghost stories online, and sometimes popped up in news about illegal raids.
But this was my first time being this close to the dark side of society.
I need to get used to this.
No choice. To survive, I needed the owner as an ally.
“You and everyone else who comes here knows the deal. Barging in screaming—what do you expect me to do?”
“There’s still a limit—!”
The man who was screaming threateningly moments ago suddenly choked up. The stench of alcohol hit me with every word he spat. He must’ve gotten drunk on purpose for this.
“You said you screen out weirdos! But that guy—he was waiting for the chance to kill someone! My friend died because of you. This isn’t about compensation anymore.”
“You really thought I was joking about that? Someone warned you, and you didn’t listen, did you? And now it’s my fault?”
The man had no rebuttal. He only glared, bloodshot eyes burning, face flushed with rage and grief. His sniffling was grating.
“What’s the name of the psycho who killed your friend. Damn it… even when I filter, more of these bastards show up.”
“Why—he looked normal! Pretty face and everything… but in the dungeon his eyes went insane!”
His hands trembled. His shabby jacket and hiking pants made him look like a cranky hiker, but the shaking told the real story.
As he described the psycho, his trembling grew like a washing machine going into spin mode.
“Even when I was in prison… I never saw a freak like him…”
Ah. So he was a criminal. Would it be rude to ask what he was jailed for?
“Tch. Says the guy who beat someone to death.”
The owner muttered, and my curiosity was mostly answered.
“What? I’m trying to straighten up and live right now—how could you compare me to that psycho?”
“Straighten up? Everyone knows you got drunk and caused trouble here just days ago! I let that slide once, and now listen to you. People like you forget your own crap real fast.”
“I said it was a drunken mistake! That’s different!”
I had no idea what triggered him again. Normal people like me probably couldn’t understand that logic.
I barely had time to react before he ripped off the bottle cap and started splashing the liquid everywhere.
The stench stung my nose and burned my eyes—accompanied by a surge of fear.
Gasoline!
I flinched back.
“You crazy bastard!”
“I’m going to sacrifice myself—yeah?! So people like me won’t have to suffer again!”
His eyes said clearly: If I go down, everyone here goes with me.
It was time for me to step in. I moved beside the owner, preparing to use my skill, and tugged at the man’s attention.
“Excuse me, if you ‘sacrifice yourself’ and I die too, you’re going back to prison, you know?”
“What?”
He finally noticed me. He stared, pupils shaking, then stammered:
“Who are you? Waiting for a job?”
“I’m someone who stands to lose if this place burns.”
“If you ended up here, bad luck. Go somewhere else. At least then you reduce your chances of dying a useless death.”
Wow. Thanks for the negative advice.
Wait.
Even if the café burns… I survive alone.
I already sensed that subconsciously, but realizing it fully made goosebumps crawl across my skin.
This is not something to take lightly.
Not long ago, I talked about death like it was nothing—quick, painless, whatever.
But now, with death staring directly at me, it was different.
A man about to ignite gasoline stood right in front of me…
I didn’t feel fear as much as an overwhelming emptiness—so strong it numbed my whole body.
People dying felt like some separate world, not mine.
I stared blankly at the gasoline raining around us—then fired a mana shot from my fingertip.
My F-rank Awakened ability.
