Zzzzt. Zzzzt.

After lathering deep inside the roots of Kimin’s beard, the hairdresser started shaving his cheeks and chin with a razer carefully and exquisitely.

“Wow…”

The more the hairdresser finished her work, the more glancing eyes appeared.

Some people couldn’t stop from crying out and the hairdresser slowed down while shaving Kimin’s beard.

She brought a wet towel and wiped Kimin’s face carefully after shaving. Another hairdresser next to them looked at Kimin’s hairdresser with jealous eyes. 

‘Shoot… I want to wipe his face, too.’

When he looked at a mirror, there was a handsome guy whose appearance was second to none sitting in the chair.

It was his first time seeing his fine face like this.

He had no idea about his appearance with the burn scar before he learned the release skill. In addition, there was no mirror in the jungle after he learned it either.

He saw his face only through a reflection from the waterside.

Kimin thought, ‘I look like a pretty boy.’

The hairdresser blushed and spoke to Kimin.

“You are going to cut your hair… right?”

“Yes. I told you the two-block style.”

“Well… I know what you said, but…”

“Go ahead.”

She hesitated for a moment and opened her mouth with a red face.

“There is a popular hairstyle these days. Can I cut your hair that way? I will charge you the regular rate. Well… I think it’ll look good on you… So I really want to do it for you.”

Looking at the hairdresser’s smile, Kimin nodded.

Even her ears turned red and she went to get some cutting tools. Other hairdressers took advantage of the moment, surrounded Kimin, and began clamoring around him.

“Are you a trainee at an entertainment company?”

“No.”

“Oh my god, his voice is so dandy too.”

“Have you been cast on the street?”

“No…”

“No way!!”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Not yet…”

“Oh, gosh!!”

“What’s your dream girl like?”

“….”

“Don’t even dream about it. It’s not you!”

“How do you know?!”

While they chuckled with laughter, other male guests who were abandoned made unpleasant faces. In the meantime, Kimin’s hairdresser came back.

“Move, girls!!”

As soon as she brought a pack of this and that and looked around with piercing eyes, the other hairdressers were discouraged and went back to their customers.

The hairdresser was right.

The popular hairstyle looked so good on Kimin that the other guys around him looked too ugly compared to him.

Kimin rejected their offer to be a hair model at the hair salon and left with light steps.

The hairdressers stealthily slipped their business cards in his pocket.

He thought about what to do with the cards and bought a small wallet for the business cards. After he put all of them inside the wallet, he put it in the subspace pocket.

‘I don’t have time for that.’

Kimin went back to the motel, turned on the computer in the room, and started setting up a plan slowly.

‘The Osung group’

‘Dongsoo Choi’

‘Hayeong Choi’

‘The rulers’

A year in the jungle alone.

The names that made him endure the time were blinking on the word processor document on the screen.

Kimin laughed with his teeth exposed.

***

“Bro, I’m here.”

In a dark moody pub, Hyeongdoo Seo, Skyclo Monster Shop’s owner, waved his hand to someone.

“Yo. You’re here early.”

Someone came and sat in front of Hyeongdoo Seo. He looked liked Hyeongdoo as much as people could guess they were blood-related.

“Well, yea. I just came.”

“How’s your business?”

“Um… well… It’s ok.”

“It has to be ok. I’m providing the products.”

Hyeongki Seo was Hyeongdoo Seo’s brother. He was a skill user who rode high in a monster-hunting team which was called Sky Whistle.

Hyeongki Seo provided money and products to open Hyeongdoo’s Skyclo Monster Shop. 

“What is this?”

Hyeongki looked at a tablet screen that Hyeongdoo was watching.

“Oh, it’s an online broadcast I watch these days. They are Daepark and Minye.”

“What’s their concept? Gaming? Nudes?”

“Not that. It’s a little insane.”

Hyeongki laughed ridiculously.

“You watch something like that. Do they pour soy sauce on their heads or something?”

“No, dude. How far back are you talking about? If you talk like that thoughtlessly in front of people, they will call you an old stick. The Daepark guys are much smarter than you think. They sometimes broadcast provoking others into violence. Their content is about just teasing people around. I heard that their next target is going to be those people who believe in the superstition about the energy stone.”

Hyeongdoo raved about them without breathing.

“Oh, those people who believe that they get energy by touching the stone or something?”

“Yeah. They are the most pathetic idiots. I would rather workout than waste time like that.”

Hyeongki let out a sigh.

“Ok, ok. I don’t want you to just watch the smart people on the screen, but I want you to be smarter.”

“I’m perfectly smart. Oh… by the way. Um…”

Hyeongki looked at Hyeongdoo who was hesitating to talk.

‘This asshole got in trouble again.’

“What, again?”

“Well….”

Hyeongdoo kept moving his lips slightly and finally opened his mouth.

He said he irritated a curse magician a week ago and he didn’t know what to do about it at that moment. It was Kimin.

“I really thought he was just a homeless bitch. For real! That kind of bitch had a gallbladder, not just an ordinary one, but it was preserved so fucking well and was so glary! How could I not go mad?”

Hyeongki Seo listened silently and then almost passed out while screaming. Hyeongdoo said that he looked down on the homeless person and aimed at the guy with his shotgun while telling him to hand over the gallbladder.

“You fucking idiot. You gotta be so thankful that you are still alive and here drinking with me. Do you know how twisted those curse magicians are? They are just like psychopaths. They have personality disorders.”

“I know that…”

Hyeongdoo sounded gloomy.

“Ha… fuck. Should I go to the dark auction…”

‘Of all the stupid things to do! It’s going to be tough to find a well-made curse defense item even if I use all the money from the guild…’

Hyeongki scratched his head hard. He didn’t care about money while his brother’s life was in danger. Both of them didn’t talk for a while.

Then, Hyeongki Seo broke the silence.

“Do you know who the curse magician is?”

“No…”

“Motherfucker. You haven’t searched for him?”

“Hey! Just let me finish talking. I searched all of the lists and compared faces, but he wasn’t registered. What am I supposed to do?”

Hyeongdoo was irritated by his brother. Hyeongki was too freaked out to think about how rude his brother was to him.

The curse magician who didn’t even need a catalyst to paralyze someone was not an official skill user.

‘If he is a villain…’

If he was a villain, it would be better to let Hyeongdoo die as ‘a human being’ right here.

The curse magicians were like that.

No one could see what they did, but they were more outrageous than snakes and scorpions.

They could hurt someone even if they weren’t present.

However, it was impossible to punish them by law.

Why?

There was no evidence.

Was it certain that this curse was from this curse magician?

Was there a chance to record the magician while he was nailing a doll to secure evidence?

If someone did record it, could anyone prove ‘the cause and effect’ that the doll was related to the victim?

Because there were too many problems, this age tended to rely on violence rather than the law whenever they had a dispute with curse magicians.

Therefore, society tried to control them with serious rules under the slogan, ‘advanced prevention.’ Registered curse magicians complained about it, but nothing had changed so far. 

However, an unregistered curse magician?

Unless he got caught, no one could control him.

Hyeongki looked at Hyeongdoo with dark eyes and opened his mouth.

“…Give me the security camera footage.”

Hyeongdoo gave his tablet to him without saying anything. Hyeongki rewound the video again and again. 

At that moment he said, “What…?”

Hyeongki opened his eyes wide.

This curse magician was looking at the security cameras.

Normally, the curse magicians didn’t care about them at all.

They usually thought, ‘What are you going to do with the security cameras?’ in their minds.

However, this one cared about them.

He wondered if the magician was just fucking with him or not, so rewound the video a few more times.

He couldn’t clearly see the magician’s face because of the beard, but his eyes which were the most important were expressionless.

Besides, Hyeongki had to think about why the magician didn’t call his team to clean up Hyeongdoo’s dead body after killing him.  The only thing the magician did was threaten him not to call the police.

On the other hand, this magician did care about the control of society. At the very least, there was a high possibility that he might not be a villain. 

“…Hey. Hyeongdoo.”

“Yea.”

“Tell me what he took from the counter.”

“Roots of vetch… and a unicorn’s horn… Those two were pricey but the others were just normal ingredients.”

“So, in total, he took less than 20,000 dollars.”

“I guess so.”

The things he took weren’t expensive at all. It was even cheap for alimony on a life.

Besides, the most crucial thing was that Hyeongdoo was still alive after the magician took his hair a week ago. Even the paralysis curse would disappear after a few hours without any side-effects.

‘He is not a villain. Maybe he is just a curse magician who just awakened.’

If he was really an unregistered curse magician, not a villain, he could be a jackpot to Hyeongki on condition that Hyeongki could win him over.

Which side is he on?

Hyeongki racked his brains and bit his lip.

“Hyeongdoo. Are you close to the owner next door?”

“I know him well enough to say hello, but not much. Why? You think the bitch sold it there?”

“Did you check?”

“…No.”

Slap! Slap!

“Shit!!! Why!!!”

“You are a fucking moron. Just go kill yourself. Fucking idiot.”

Hyeongki slapped the back of Hyeongdoo’s head with a violent temper. Hyeongdoo figured out that his brother got really angry at him so he didn’t disobey and just kept getting beat up obediently.

***

Kimin shut himself in the motel for a few days except for eating outside. He ate breakfast by himself, but he ate lunch and dinner with Saehyun, the owner of Saehyun Monster Shop.

Kimin thought about what Saehyun had told him.

‘He said his skill is seeing people’s auras and mine is the same as someone else’s. Also, he cherished that person.’

“Anyway, I’m done eating breakfast. Let’s get started again.”

There were many problems piled up high and he was looking for solutions for them.

‘First of all, there’s the biggest problem.’

“I am… too handsome.”

It was really an enormous issue.

Everyone looked at him naturally when he walked outside. When he walked in crowded places for a little longer, girls tried to get his phone number. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ ‘Can I get your phone number?’

There were girls who just gave their numbers on paper to Kimin and ran away. Some girls even chased him secretly.

There was a probability of some strangers posting Kimin’s face on SNS.

At first, he enjoyed it a lot.

He had never seen favorable eyes directed at him in his life. 

However, this kind of attention was just troublesome in this situation where he was not supposed to stand out.

Kimin Kim was literally a black hole that sucked in people’s attention. Even if he avoided security cameras or dashcams, it was meaningless unless he avoided people’s eyes.

‘I need a disguising tool or a skill for this. I want to become a person who is ordinary enough to not stand out.’

Kimin worried about it and typed on a keyboard.

‘Mask type artifact’

‘Transformation pill’

Kimin felt troubled with the words on the screen and then deleted the ‘transformation pill’. It was single-use and also the transformation process was pretty bothersome.

Now only ‘mask type artifact’ was blinking on the screen.

‘But mask type artifact items are all illegal. Ha… What should I do…’

The reason why it was illegal was that it could disturb public order. Someone could transform their face without thought. 

He agreed because he could come up with more than 10 crimes that could happen with the mask.

He tried hard to find it through the black market because he thought he could get it, but he failed.

‘Well, it’s not the black market if I can search for it online.’

Kimin Kim had groaned while agonizing and then finally decided.

“Let’s just figure out the next one.”

As he clicked on [ New Document ], a new window popped up.

Kimin typed on the keyboard again.

‘How I can be strong.’

‘How I can overcome my weakness.’

Kimin thought about it for a minute and added more sentences.

‘1. Absorbing transition stones after hunting monsters -> It’s a standard procedure, but slow.’

‘2. Buying items and overcoming weaknesses.’

‘3. Absorbing someone’s remaining transition stone and running away!’