Angel Box Coffee Shop - Seoul
I stared at the sign in front of me, the neons flashing with a bluish glow as the first rays of sunlight lit up the horizon. The Black Bean coffee shop seemed to be newly opened, with a few customers scattered among the tables and the aroma of fresh coffee filling the air.
This was the place Hajin had arranged for us to meet before going to hunt monsters in the Hunting Grounds. A discreet, neutral spot, far from the prying eyes inside the Cube.
"05:45, let's go in..."
I looked at my watch once more.
'He must have already taken the pistol from Yeonha's agent...'
I thought, as I pushed open the door of the Black Bean coffee shop.
I entered the coffee shop, and quickly found Hajin sitting at a table in the back.
A small bell tinkled above the entrance, announcing my arrival. The strong smell of roasted coffee and freshly baked bread filled my nostrils as soon as I entered. The lighting was soft, creating a cozy atmosphere.
I scanned the place with my eyes and quickly found him, sitting at a secluded table in the back corner, leaning against the wall. Kim Hajin was there, as always, discreet with his ordinary appearance, his fingers drumming lightly on his coffee cup
"You've booked a seat pretty far away, huh!"
I commented, pulling out the chair and throwing myself into it.
Hajin replied, shrugging.
"You can't get something like that inside the Cube."
He pointed with his chin to a small black suitcase on the table. Elegant, but discreet. There was his Desert Eagle weapon, which he had received as a thank you for telling Yeonha about a monster's weakness.
"No problem, so you're going now?"
I asked Hajin, who nodded positively
"I'll just pay for this coffee and we'll go."
A few minutes later, outside the coffee shop, Hajin and I were standing in front of an employee of the Seoul Teleportation Station, who was responsible for issuing travel permits to people who wanted to leave Seoul, in our case, we were going to the city where one of Korea's famous Hunting Grounds - Gangwondo Wonju - was located.
She was typing something rapidly into the terminal, until she stopped, looking coldly at Kim Hajin.
Hajin repeated, frowning as he saw the amount appear on the screen.
"Is that just for the permit?"
"Yes. From Seoul to Gangwondo Wonju, it's 170,000 won."
The woman nodded naturally, as if it were the most common thing in the world.
Unlike going from Cube to Seoul, going from Seoul to Gangwondo came at a price. Kim Hajin stared at that figure, but 170,000 won wasn't a huge amount for me to pay, but for Hajin, especially now, when he was trying to save money, it was a steal.
Hajin let out a heavy sigh and ran his hand through his hair, as if the amount had just emptied his wallet right there.
"This should come with a warning: "Only for the rich or the desperate."
I added with a lopsided smile.
"But we're already here. Let's go before I start thinking too much and give up."
"At least you don't have a 300,000 dollar debt chasing you."
He muttered, about to slide his watch onto the scanner with a bitter expression.
"No, but I do have a girlfriend with increasingly high expectations."
I stopped Hajin's arm.
The clerk stared at me impassively, annoyed at our delay.
"We're Cube cadets..."
I took my student card out of my pocket and showed it to her.
She was about to tell us to leave, but in the next moment, her eyes widened and a much brighter voice came back.
"Ah, you're Cube cadets."
She quickly took my card, typed a few things into the computer and then stamped a seal on my wrist.
Hajin looked at me, surprised.
"Hey! Since when does this happen?"
"Huh? Didn't you hear instructor Kim Soohyuk say something about Cube cadets getting benefits? That's one of them."
"Ah! Now I remember..."
Hajin, too, took out his card and gave it to the employee who, before seeming only to fulfill an obligation, was now smiling as if she were serving two celebrities.
"Tsk! Just because we were Cube students, she completely changed the way she was treating us... that's prejudice.
Hajin grumbled beside me as we walked towards the teleportation portal. His expression was a mixture of indignation and disgust, his eyes still squinting at the employee who was already attending to someone else, with the same bored look as before.
"Welcome to the real world."
I commented, shrugging.
"People treat those with status differently, it's always been like that."
The scene in Gangwondo Wonju could be summed up in just one sentence:
"So many foreigners."
Hajin muttered next to me.
Like the Cube environment created by Hajin, Wonju was a global city. The difference was the climate. Here the air was denser, heavy with the metallic smell of residual mana and gunpowder. Although the buildings were limited in height for safety reasons - after all, monsters didn't care much for civil engineering - the city was still a bustling center for hunters and mercenaries.
Foreigners of all colors and ethnicities lined the streets, each with their own style and arsenal. There were futuristic sniper rifles, enchanted handmade bows, mana sticks - the whole world seemed to have gathered there.
Outside the "Hunting Agency" buildings, employees were actively tapping away on their tablets, negotiating transport, calculating the division of profits, organizing mission contracts. Probably also calculating the price of today's transportation, since everything here worked on the basis of demand, and demand was never low.
"So this is where the elite come to play hunter."
I muttered, watching the flow of people walking and doing business.
Although different from Seoul and Busan, it was indeed an unusual scene.
These large cities, dense and controlled urban centers, maintained a certain air of order, of civility, even with monsters prowling outside. Wonju, on the other hand, although modern, exuded something more primitive
It was the kind of thing that only those who read the original script knew. I, Theo, knew. And Hajin, of course, knew it too.
Korea was the main stage of the story. It was there that everything happened, not by chance, but by choice. By the author's pen. By the focus of the narrative. Reality bent to the needs of a plot.
That's why there are so many Towers. That's why there are so many Dungeons. That's why there's so much doom and glory compressed into such a small territory.
"We dropped a good amount today. How much do I get?"
A foreign voice with a crooked Korean accent caught our attention.
A Western hero, with tanned skin and bright green eyes, was showing the freshly hunted monster to his agent. The man was typing on a tablet, confirming the sale price as coolly as a supermarket cashier confirms the price of an apple.
English and Korean were the shared language of this world. Naturally, this showed Korea's importance and authority in the international community. While this sounded great for Korea, Korea was only one step away from hell.
It was a brutal paradox, a land on the brink of collapse, sustained only by the backs of those strong enough to turn it into something viable.
Heroes and mercenaries.
People who had enough power to turn monsters into money, tragedies into statistics, and chaos into economic development.
And the foreigners knew it. That's why they came. Like bees attracted to a field of flowers that was also a battlefield.
As we walked through Wonju's reinforced buildings, surrounded by mixed languages and magical equipment of all kinds, this reality became even clearer.
It was easy to forget, from the outside, that this whole system only worked because people were dying. Constantly.
"Five of the Nine Stars are Korean..."
I muttered, crossing my arms as I watched the two of them discussing the prices of the newly-collected monsters.
"And they still can't handle everything."
Hajin added beside me, a sharp look on his face.
He was right. Even with all this concentrated power, there were still too many monsters. Too many dungeons. Too many towers, it was total madness...