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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: A Rude Awakening
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‘Pitiful thing.’
A woman was looking at a red horizon. A ruin where there were no longer screaming people or howling monsters.
It was all her creation. A horizon crafted with a single gesture of her hand.
She gazed at that horizon and murmured.
‘How pitiful…’
*What’s so pitiful?*
Ha-ra stared blankly at the woman’s back. The sight of the woman standing under the crimson sunset was one of utter desolation. *You look more pitiful than anyone else here.*
‘Foolish girl.’
The woman muttered again.
Ha-ra scratched her head and looked around. The ruins of a collapsed city. Seeing the dust still rising, it seemed this had happened not long ago.
*Aigoo. I’ll get pneumonia in an instant if I stay here.* She covered her mouth and stepped back, when the sky suddenly caught her eye.
*Huh?* Ha-ra blinked.
In the red sky, Earth floated instead of the moon. And there were several of them.
*That’s strange. I’ve seen this scene somewhere before.* Thinking this, Ha-ra unknowingly took a couple more steps back. It was because she had tilted her head too far up.
Then, something bumped against her foot, and she looked down at the ground. Immediately after, Ha-ra screamed.
“Aaaah!”
What her foot had hit was a man’s corpse. A man Ha-ra knew. The face of the man she liked.
His disheveled red hair was soaked in what might have been blood, or perhaps that was its original color; she couldn’t tell. Ha-ra hurriedly knelt and called out to him.
“Kwon Wook! Are you okay?”
But there was no way a corpse would answer. Instead, someone else replied.
‘How could he be? I killed him.’
Startled, Ha-ra looked straight ahead. The woman who had been gazing at the horizon just a moment ago had turned her head to look this way. However, due to the backlight, her face wasn’t clearly visible.
But Ha-ra realized that the face was surprisingly familiar.
“You…”
‘Is that you, Noona?’
“What?”
‘Get up.’
“What did you say?”
The woman laughed.
‘You’re gonna sleep in this late?’
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“Get up! Is this you, Noona?!”
Because of Kang Ha-da, who had burst in like a thunderbolt while she was sleeping, Ha-ra had to force herself up without even properly opening her eyes.
And what Kang Ha-da shoved in her face was none other than Bok-hee’s SNS on his phone.
[@bokheethegenius Unveiling Team K's new member hehe. Oh, and look forward to the season's greetings too, lol.]
Ha-ra, still not grasping the situation, blinked slowly. Then she saw something like a flashlight in Ha-da’s hand and her eyes flew open.
It was the thing Ha-ra had carelessly placed in the entryway when she got home last night.
[Swagstorm Sword A (Creator: Bok-hee)]
“Where did you get this?”
“Noona, isn’t it yours?”
*Make up your mind, is it ‘Noona’ or ‘you’? And I’d prefer the former, thank you very much.* Shoving those words back down her throat, Ha-ra snatched the damn Swagstorm Sword from Ha-da’s hand.
Ha-da’s eyes sparkled.
“It is yours, right?”
Okay, so Ha-ra had been careless. But she couldn’t help it.
It was nearly dawn. She had tried to come in quietly to avoid waking her family, but her mother’s hearing hadn’t missed the sound of Ha-ra punching in the passcode.
The moment the *beep, beep, beep* sounded, her mother came out, turned on the light, and was horrified to see Ha-ra.
“Kang Ha-ra! You said you were going on a business trip, what is this state you're in!”
She was caked in black blood and smelled bad. In any case, it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Ha-ra just laughed and took off her clothes, while Hyeon-sook smacked her on the back, repeating, “I can’t believe this, I just can’t.” In the midst of that, she must have placed the Swagstorm Sword on the side table by the entrance.
She had planned to lie in bed and call her Constellation, but as soon as she finished washing up and lay down, she passed out as if she’d fainted.
And now, the present.
“It is you, Noona.”
[@bokheethegenius Awesome~ Dungeon got rekt~]
Among the people standing dazedly at the entrance of the collapsed dungeon, Ha-ra’s back was also visible, albeit very small.
What’s more, Ha-ra was staring blankly at the cave entrance, holding Se-heon’s hand very tightly!
Ha-da grinned slyly.
“You said you were on a business trip, but you went on a date with your boyfriend?”
*Is this guy crazy?* Ha-ra almost kicked Ha-da but paused. *Wait, so… boyfriend… is that right?*
“Like you said, I’ll consider it official business and cooperate.”
But whether Ha-ra was messing up her hair or not, Kang Ha-da, the one who asked the question, didn’t seem to think so.
‘Looks like the dungeon collapsed, so they probably just grabbed hands while running out.’
It seemed he didn’t even consider the possibility that Kang Ha-ra could be dating someone.
Anyway, Ha-da was also one of Team K’s followers, and when he first saw Bok-hee’s SNS post, he just thought another member had joined Team K and moved on.
However, the flashlight-like thing Bok-hee posted caught his interest. The equipment Bok-hee made was also a major part of Team K’s X-Tube content.
‘He’ll probably upload it to X-Tube soon.’
Thinking that, Ha-da was about to go for his morning workout when he discovered it.
What? The Swagstorm Sword.
He hurriedly took out his phone and compared the flashlight-like object in his entryway with the item on SNS. What’s more, the photo in the recent feed clearly showed Kang Ha-ra’s back.
“No way. Noona, did you join Team K? Are you going to be on X-Tube? That’s sick. Are you the new member? Is this related to why only one family member was allowed to visit when you came out of the Yeouido Dungeon?”
Ha-da fired off questions like a machine gun. Ha-ra didn’t even have a chance to retort. No one could stop the excited Kang Ha-da.
“This is freaking awesome. So what rank are you, Noona? Did you have a second awakening? No, that can’t be, we would’ve known. Then I’m gonna make an X-Tube channel. I’ll upload content like, ‘Spilling the Tea on My Sister Joining Team K.’ Make a guest appearance for me, Noona.”
But if she didn’t stop him, he looked ready to launch himself into space. In the end, Ha-ra lightly bonked Ha-da on the head with the Swagstorm Sword in her hand.
“Hey, be quiet. I just woke up, my head’s a mess.”
“Ow, what was that for!”
“And what X-Tube? Stop talking nonsense and get a job.”
“Ah! Just tell me!”
Even after being hit, Ha-da didn’t stop. Left with no choice, Ha-ra sighed and opened her mouth.
“It’s confidential, so be quiet. You can’t tell anyone.”
“Whoa, no way…”
Ha-da covered his mouth with both hands as if moved.
“To think a day like this would come in the life of the super-loser Kang Ha-ra.”
“Wanna die? That’s not it.”
“Then what is it? Did your rank go up?”
“No. That’s not it either…”
A slight conflict washed over Ha-ra. The desire to show off to Ha-da was slightly stronger than the need to keep it confidential.
In Ha-ra’s house, most things revolved around her father and Ha-da. Her father was a firm believer in son-preference; he had been very displeased when his eldest daughter, Ha-ra, was born, but was overjoyed when Ha-da came along.
Thanks to her father’s business, the family was well-off, but a subtle, unspoken discrimination existed between Ha-ra and Ha-da.
Furthermore, after Ha-ra awakened as an E-rank, even her mother, who used to dote on her, began to see her as somewhat lacking. Whenever she looked at Ha-ra, she would always say, “Aigoo, she used to be good at her studies, at least…”
So, the desire to show off just a little swayed Ha-ra.
But the moment she looked at Kang Ha-da again, Ha-ra remembered that he had a much bigger mouth than she thought.
*Yeah, no.*
Ha-ra raised an eyebrow and said firmly.
“No. It’s just that Team K’s business trip this time was related to Magic Stones, and since I’m from the Magic Stone Management Division, I went along as a consultant.”
“Then what’s this about being a Team K member?”
“That’s just Bok-hee being nice.”
As she said it, she wondered if it would work, but Ha-da once again covered his mouth, his face overwhelmed with emotion.
“No way… She called him ‘Bok-hee-ssi’… Sounds like they’re hella close…”
*That’s what you’re focused on?*
Ha-da took it a step further.
“Noona, get me Bok-hee’s autograph! What about Kwon Wook? Did you see Kwon Wook? You like Kwon Wook, don’t you, huh?”
*See him? I even got special training from him! A one-on-one meeting… no, wait, when I think about it, wasn’t that basically a one-on-one fan meeting?*
Suddenly, Ha-ra also felt a surge of emotion and covered her mouth. She had been too busy to realize it until now, but thinking about it, it was true.
Fortunately, seeing Ha-ra’s reaction, Ha-da seemed to believe everything she said.
“What’s all this noise in the morning! Aren’t you going to eat?!”
If it weren’t for their father, sitting at the living room table and loudly scolding the two of them, Ha-da’s fanboying would have continued a little longer.
“What is it, Ha-ra, aren’t you going to work today?”
“Yeah. I told you there was an accident on the trip yesterday. So I took the day off today.”
“What? An accident?”
Her father raised an eyebrow. Ha-ra laughed nervously and waved her hand dismissively.
“It was nothing serious. I’m fine.”
“You’d better be.”
Kang Jae-pil, who was folding his newspaper, took a long sip of the cabbage juice Hyeon-sook offered him with a straw and continued.
“A 9th-grade civil servant’s salary is peanuts. You have to at least stay healthy. What’s left after paying hospital bills? Tsk.”
“…”
He really knew how to leave her speechless.
Actually, she hadn’t taken the day off. It was just that when she came out to the living room and checked her phone, there was a message from Kwon Wook.
*Because of yesterday, special training today will be difficult. Rae-young is hurt, and you went through a lot, so let’s just rest today. And if you’re hurting anywhere, make sure to go to the hospital. Got it? The aftereffects of an accident are scarier.*
Such a sweet text. If she could, she wanted to show it to Ha-da and boast loudly, ‘Hey, see this? This is how much Kwon Wook worries about me!’
But, to say it again, Ha-da really had a big mouth.
Of course, her fear of Chief Jeong also played a part. If a rumor spread by mistake, she’d be dragged in by Chief Jeong and completely torn apart.
*Ah, is this what life is?* Ha-ra vaguely thought that maybe it was better to live alone. It was clear that her privacy wasn’t well-protected here.
Thinking about it, for this business trip too, she had broken out in a cold sweat trying to make excuses because Hyeon-sook had clicked her tongue and said, “What kind of business trip is this for someone who just got out of the hospital?” In the future, there would be even more things that were hard to explain.
Just then. *Beep, beep, beep,* an alarm went off. It was Ha-ra’s. She quickly looked at her phone and let out a surprised, “Ah!”
[Yulli Ticketing]
Ticketing! Ha-ra shot up from her seat.
Kang Jae-pil frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, sorry, Dad. I just remembered something…”
Ha-ra practically shoved the rest of her breakfast into her mouth and scurried to her room.
When Hyeon-sook said, “Hey, help with the dishes in a bit!” she had readily answered, “Yes!” but the words were immediately forgotten. Because of the ticketing.
Today was the concert ticketing day for Ha-ra’s favorite idol.
