BCGWR Chapter 28 Part 1

Seeing Ji-su let out a sigh of relief and offer a bitter smile, Jung Ha-jin asked in a somewhat cautious tone, “If perhaps my actions made you uncomfortable…”

“Oh, no! Not uncomfortable at all, it’s just… I was worried I might have made a mistake yesterday, asking for all sorts of things to be prepared, so I was surprised… If it’s not that, then it’s fine.”

As he watched Ji-su hastily reply that he was absolutely not uncomfortable, his eyes softened once more.

After that, the two people and the hamster focused solely on their meal without exchanging a single word.

It was a quiet dining table, save for the sound of Toto diligently gnawing on vegetables, but there was no awkwardness or discomfort. On the contrary, Ji-su liked this kind of breakfast.

It was quiet. It was peaceful.

It was probably thanks to the mental-type skill applied to his brain, but even so, Ji-su didn’t find this false tranquility unsettling.

After finishing breakfast, Ji-su sat blankly on his bed, staring at the bathroom within his room.

He was supposed to go to a nearby low-grade dungeon for a walk and to train Toto’s skills, so it was time to get ready, but he simply didn’t feel like it.

The goal was truly simple. He just needed to go into the bathroom, wash, and get ready, yet his body wouldn’t move, and he couldn’t understand why something so easy felt so hard.

‘Come to think of it, Esper Jung Ha-jin exercises from dawn, buys groceries… showers, and even makes his own breakfast, he’s so different from me…’

He should have been motivated by that diligence, but Ji-su was still just staring blankly at the bathroom door.

Han Ji-su wasn’t originally like this either. Before the Cataclysm, Ji-su lived a more diligent life than anyone else in the world. Though, it was somewhat forced due to his profession as a top-tier idol.

But there were times he lived diligently for survival. That was right after the Cataclysm, until the South Korean government could function properly again in a devastated world.

During the period when the entire world entered a dark age, diligence alone wasn’t enough to survive. He constantly had to be on edge, striving to protect what was his, and fiercely fighting for survival.

For Ji-su, that was a terrible period he never wanted to recall. Even though South Korea’s state of lawlessness was relatively short compared to other countries.

The South Korean government miraculously announced its continued existence at a speed faster than other nations, and as a result, the dark age ended and the government was re-established in less than half a year.

Ji-su, who endured and survived this dark age, suffered from severe burnout rather than joy at being alive. It was probably from that time that he started procrastinating and neglecting even simple tasks.

At the time, he didn’t even realize it was burnout. He just thought he was tired, that his body wouldn’t listen because the tension had finally eased after so much hardship.

Still, the fortunate thing was that Ji-su wasn’t alone at that time.

After the stabilization, he reunited with Kim Hyun-ah, his long-time fan, and when he lived with Kang Jae-yoon in the Peace Guild, if he ever zoned out and procrastinated like this, Kang Jae-yoon would forcibly take him to the bathroom. And then…

“…”

…he would go in and line up several body washes with his favorite scents…

‘…What did he say then…?’

The mint scent…

“Ah…”

There it was again. He had unconsciously recalled Kang Jae-yoon and his memory was forcibly blocked.

Ji-su’s brow furrowed at the coercive power of the mental-type skill that kept imprinting itself whenever he tried to forget. Annoyance surged, then his mind instantly calmed. Ji-su now knew for sure that this sudden tranquility was also part of the skill.

“…This is really annoying…”

At the voice, brimming with annoyance and anger, Toto, who had been storing dungeon-derived grains from his dessert in his cheek pouches on the bed, suddenly lifted his head. Ji-su gently patted Toto’s head, who was staring up at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, and said in a gentle voice,

“No, not you, Toto… I would never say that to Toto.”

“Squeak…”

Toto, responding with a tiny squeak, hugged Ji-su’s fingers that were caressing his crown. Then, rubbing his plump cheeks, full of stored grains, he looked up adorably. He knew that if he looked up like this, his owner would smile and find him cute.

Ji-su did not betray Toto’s efforts. He offered a faint smile, continued stroking his head, and then kissed his crown, saying, “What would Daddy do without our Toto, huh?”

If Ji-su said things like this outside, many people would dismiss it, saying he was just a monster in the shape of a hamster, but to Ji-su, this was an undeniable truth, without a shred of falsehood.

Ji-su was certain that if he hadn’t had Toto and the person whose memory kept fading whenever he tried to recall them, he probably wouldn’t have survived in this harsh world.

Because of this, he often wondered if Toto, who had unexpectedly become devoted to him during the Cataclysm, wasn’t a gift sent by a god, a message to somehow survive and hold on with all his might when the Earth was turned upside down.

‘…Rather than a god… perhaps a gift from a Patron? Though I don’t have a Patron.’

Of course, it wasn’t that no Patrons had approached Ji-su so far. In fact, quite a few had. But Ji-su rejected all their offers.

From the outset, Ji-su couldn’t understand how to interpret these transcendent beings called Patrons, and thus couldn’t trust them. People said to think of them as constellations, gods, or transcendent beings commonly found in fantasy novels, but Ji-su had never once read a fantasy novel in his life.

As a result, the conclusion Ji-su drew from all the information he collected about Patrons from other Awakened individuals was singular.

They were perverts.

Not just any perverts, but if there were grades of perversion, they were top-tier perverts.

Of course, Patrons sometimes gifted good items or rare skills to their Protégés, but they often demonstrated a complete disregard for human privacy.