Chapter 55 - Glorious Return
After having his fortune told, Ma Dal-su repeatedly thanked me and left.
He looked very happy, as if he was now confident that he could finally fulfill his wish after seeing my fortune.
Well… If he remembers it well, he’ll succeed on his own, right? If he can’t, then that would mean it’s truly a fate that can’t be connected… I’ve told him everything.
“By the way, the customers coming these days are all very different from before…”
All the people who had their fortunes told by me since I started fortune-telling were extraordinary without exception. There were also many chance encounters.
Moreover, they were all people who could hold their own. Such people came with interest or trying to grasp at straws.
But these days, something is… something is different.
Back then, how should I put it… If they came as if searching for treasure, now it feels like they’re coming as if searching for a good restaurant??
Especially after Cheongsoha handed over the underworld to me, this tendency seemed to have strengthened even more.
“…Don’t tell me when those guys brought all the underworld superhumans to our house saying they were giving etiquette education or whatever, the people who saw me then spread some strange rumors?!”
I was already very uncomfortable and burdened by my appearance spreading here and there through the media, appearing in newspapers and news due to that cult encounter in Jeju last time… Now another uncomfortable suspicion has arisen…
“Aish. What’s with this, is it like in an RPG game where after you clear the main quest, another mountain to overcome appears like the next main quest?? This is absurd…”
Is the only fortunate thing that my personal information wasn’t completely exposed at that time? In that situation where EX-rank and S-ranks were clashing, there’s no way anyone could properly film such a situation, right? It’s not like that eccentric superhuman cameraman from America who’s an S-rank superhuman but lives as a paparazzi.
Rather, it seems more amazing that there’s any video that filmed even a bit of that situation. Come to think of it, how did they film that?? To think of filming in that situation… I suddenly think the person who filmed it is amazing too.
Still, these days my mind has become a bit, how should I put it… equanimous? It’s fortunate that something like that has grown even a little bit. Thanks to that, I feel like I’ve adapted faster.
It seems I’ve come to live a life with extremely clear pros and cons since starting this amateur fortune-teller life.
I got to know people I couldn’t have even dreamed of meeting originally, learned about the superhuman industry that I didn’t know well… My status rose, money became abundant, and I came to live without lacking anything.
However, I also got involved in more and more burdensome matters and was in danger at times… Above all, it’s just a very burdensome life. My current life, that is.
“If something comes, does something always go too… Life really is unpredictable.”
Sometimes I miss that old ordinary life, but there are pros and cons to both then and now, and there are certainly parts I’m satisfied with in my current life too.
Just as I sometimes miss it, sometimes such thoughts feel like overfed thoughts and complaints. Well, anyway, it’s impossible to go back now that I’ve come this far. It’s not like I can rewind time either… Aish, what am I saying now.
“Why am I suddenly having this moment of enlightenment… I should just finish eating the snacks I was eating…”
Anyway, throwing away the random thoughts that suddenly came, I went into the room to eat the snacks I was deliciously eating until Ma Dal-su came.
“Oh, I hope they didn’t get soggy or anything in the meantime?”
Those cookies were really delicious and crispy. It would be a big problem if they got soggy…
Still, when I actually picked them up and ate them, they had gotten a bit soggy but not completely, so fortunately they were still edible. Thank goodness…
Anyway, after finishing off the cookies that weren’t left in large amounts like that, my throat felt dry and I started craving something cool to drink, so I moved towards the refrigerator in the kitchen area while munching on one remaining cookie.
“This is a problem with having a big house. The distance to the refrigerator is too far… It’s annoying.”
Moreover, my room is on the second floor and the kitchen is on the first floor, so it was even more so.
And it’s even more annoying when going to do fortune-telling. Because my fortune-telling room is in the basement.
If I had put my room on the third floor because of the romance of having an attic room, wouldn’t it have been even more annoying? It’s fortunate I didn’t… Anyway, since it’s all my house, I made that place feel like a slightly secret personal secret base or hideout, and looking back, it was an excellent choice. Hmm.
Anyway, as I was advancing towards the refrigerator like that, I happened to hear news flowing from the TV that someone had left on without turning off.
[Breaking news!! Half of the ‘Great Heat Demon Realm’, one of the few demon realms in the world located in China, has been completely invaded by something deep green and is half-destroyed…!!]
“Huh?? Great Heat Demon Realm??”
Isn’t that the one located in China? One of the strongest and worst dungeons among those that couldn’t be resolved among the dungeons that burst and started eroding the Earth, a demon realm with tremendous high heat and endless sandy land where even low-rank superhumans can die just by entering.
And half of such a place suddenly turned green and is in a half-destroyed state?? What’s going on all of a sudden?!
[Such a strange phenomenon occurred, but because the cause is unknown, they are unable to move rashly on-site and are just having a heated debate…]
Hmm… But green… Covered in green in China… Oh?
“Oh, could it be…?!”
[While experts are presenting various opinions such as ‘The demon realm is evolving’, ‘There must have been internal strife in the demon realm’, ‘It must be the appearance of a new demon realm overwhelming the existing Great Heat Demon Realm’, etc., the cause still hasn’t been identified and…]
…I have someone in mind, but that’s not just my imagination, right?
But it matches quite perfectly…
[…What has been revealed so far is that if you just touch or brush against the sand that has turned deep green, your whole body rots away and you die without leaving a trace, and it’s been revealed that there are victims even among high-rank A-class superhumans, so a warning has been issued on-site not to go anywhere near the Great Heat Demon Realm…]
You die just by brushing against the green sand?!
“It must be Independent Demon…!!”
This must be the work of Wi Ji-young, who hadn’t contacted me since she had her fortune told saying she would cross the wall!
Seeing her move suddenly like this… Did she succeed in crossing the wall?! So she’s doing this to the Great Heat Demon Realm to test her power once?!
“That’s really tremendous power… As expected, EX-rank is really different, huh?”
“Oh? Why is the beach green there?? Is that some kind of special tourist attraction?”
“Oh, Dal-gi? When did you come??”
“I just came back from the bathroom! By the way, where is that place? It looks like somewhere I want to visit!”
Hmm, although Yeondal-gi was knowledgeable about the world even though she had been sealed for a long time, it seems there were things she didn’t know.
“Ah, that’s not a tourist attraction but the Great Heat Demon Realm…”
Anyway, that day I just thought, oh, Independent Demon has become really strong…
“…Huh??”
A few days later, a letter arrived from Independent Demon.
After finding and absorbing all the poisons Dam Han-ul told her about, entering closed-door training and spending a long time, Independent Demon finally crossed the huge wall and reached a great realm. She felt a strange emotion about the realm she had reached for a moment, then quickly escaped after seeing the state of the cavity she had been sitting in.
“…I’ll have to repair that place anew…”
It seemed she would have to do it herself since she couldn’t call anyone to fix it because of the poison energy.
Well, it wasn’t particularly difficult, but thinking that a troublesome task had arisen, Independent Demon slipped out to the outside after a long time and slowly walked around appreciating the sunlight and her mansion.
“As expected, it’s not intact.”
And her mansion that she saw after a long time was not in good condition.
It was stained with poison here and there, and many places were completely destroyed or melted.
“It’s good that I moved the things I was raising and the servants to the villa temporarily. If I hadn’t, they would have all died.”
Of course, there were some things that the servants couldn’t move with their abilities. And most of those things met their deaths.
Even the very few surviving poisonous creatures were all not intact. Although it was just poison that had escaped during the training process, the poison of Wi Ji-young, who had challenged transcendence and then entered the realm of a transcendent, was that powerful.
Wi Ji-young, who had been looking around the mansion as if taking a stroll with an expressionless face that seemed languid and decadent at a glance, collected all the poison energy that had spread throughout the mansion and beyond not long after, and moved her steps.
“Since I’ve reached it, isn’t it proper to test it once? There’s an excellent sandbag nearby too.”
With a faint smile, Independent Demon arrived at China’s demon realm, the Great Heat Demon Realm, and walked on without caring about the endless sand or the extreme heat pressuring intruders, then stopped at a certain place.
“This should be enough.”
Wi Ji-young, who had stopped, slowly stretched her hand forward, and a deep green water drop fell towards the bottom of the Great Heat Demon Realm from her index finger, which was the only one extended.
Tok!
Right after that, as a very faint sound rang out, a handful of sand was invaded by the poison energy and turned deep green.
Next was about ten handfuls. Next was land about the size of an ordinary house. Next was tens of thousands of pyeong, then land so vast it couldn’t be measured…
Saaaaa…!!!
In an instant, it writhed in pain, eroded by Independent Demon’s poison.
The monsters lurking below, the monsters that had made their homes above. All of them became a handful of poisonous water without even being able to properly scream out, becoming one with the green sand.
Like that, when half of the Great Heat Demon Realm had become a quiet green beach with no hot heat, no monsters, nothing but poison, Independent Demon Wi Ji-young smiled with satisfaction.
“Good.”
Although the sand stained with poison was already as good as under her control, Wi Ji-young, remembering the fortune teller who had allowed her to reach EX-rank, decided to leave them alone for now.
It seemed perfect for surprising him.
“Now it seems I’m ready to face you again.”
Like that, Independent Demon, thinking she had reached a sufficiently high realm, returned to her mansion and sent a letter she had written directly to Dam Han-ul, the only being who had caught Independent Demon Wi Ji-young’s heart.