“Hey, Jinwoo.” said the burly man as Jinwoo hung up his hard hat and clocked out. “You want to hit the gym with me and me mates? Maybe bulk up a bit?”

  ‘Mates?’ Jinwoo thought. Was his boss some sort of homosexual polygamist? Not that Jinwoo would judge him if he was, but it was unusual enough to be noteworthy, and it was always good to be on good terms with the boss’s significant other. Then he remembered that the word was also used as a form of slang for ‘friends’. “Sorry, boss.” said Jinwoo. “I’ve got to take my little sister to the hospital.”

  The big man looked worried. “Is the sheila sick? If you need the day off tomorrow, we can handle the work without you.”

  Jinwoo shook his head. “No, she’s fine. It’s our mother that’s sick. She’s got the Eternal Sleep, so Jinah needs to see her every day.”

  The big man nodded. “Let me guess, your sis is a Sleeper, and has the same blood type as your mom, so she has to spend the next few months trading blood with your mom so that your mom can wake up and go home.”

  Jinwoo looked surprised and nodded. “That’s it exactly. How did you know?”

  “Me wife’s a nurse at the hospital. Children’s Ward. D Rank healer, you see. She told me they had developed a treatment for the Sleep and told me how it works, so when you mentioned your mom’s condition, I figured that would be why your sister has to visit her. Well, when she reaches a point where she can go to the hospital on her own, you’re welcome to join us.”

  Jinwoo nodded. “Do you mind if I ask you something, Boss?”

  The man shrugged. “Go ahead, ask me anything. Course, I might not answer if it’s too personal.”

  Jinwoo nodded again. “You seem to have a different accent than the rest of the guys on the team. Are you from a different country?”

  “You’re damn right I am. Besides that Brit that subs in occasionally, everyone else is from America or Canada, but I’m an Aussie.”

  “A what sir?” Jinwoo asked, confused.

  “From Australia. Course, me wife’s a kiwi, so she’s got a different accent as well.”

  “The fruit or the bird?” Jinwoo was even more confused with that comment.

  “From New Zealand. We got married just before we set out for this place. She’s pretty religious, and wouldn’t share a room with me otherwise. Course, now she’s got a bun in the oven so I have to work extra hard.”

  Jinwoo nodded. “I actually understood that. You’re saying she’s pregnant.”

  “Yep, now you’re catching on. You’ll learn English one way or another.” The man laughed, waved goodbye, and walked towards two other large men.

  Jinwoo left as well, and went home. After he got there he took a shower to wash off the day’s sweat and then took Jinah to the hospital.

  Jinah made sure to use the bathroom before being hooked up to the machine this time, and spent most of the time she was hooked up to the machine studying. Jinwoo tried to sit there and watch videos on his phone, but after thirty minutes he started to get bored. He switched over to the Guild app and, after checking on something, laid down on the ground and started doing push ups. He managed thirty of them before his arms got too tired to continue, so he rolled over on his back and started situps. After thirty three of them he couldn’t continue, so he stood up and started doing squats.

  Jinah stared at him, wondering why he was working out, but didn’t say anything. He was probably just wanting to get up and do something, and figured he would work out so that he could get in shape while staying in the room with her.

  The next morning Jinwoo quickly ate his breakfast, took his E rank Elixir pill, and grabbed his things to leave. “What was that?” Jinah asked him. “You taking a vitamin now?”

  Jinwoo picked up the bottle and showed it to her. “You mean this?” She nodded. “This is called Elixir. It’s kind of like a vitamin, but just for Awakened. You can’t take it or it will make you sick.”

  “An Awakened vitamin? Why would that make me sick? Do Awakened need a large amount of vitamin B or something?”

  Jinwoo shook his head. “It has mana in it, and some other stuff. Not sure what exactly, but it slightly increases your mana capacity every time you take one, maybe a few percent at most.”

  “So, you’re taking performance enhancing drugs, now?”

  “No, it’s more like drinking a protein shake after a workout. It’s permanent, and doesn’t have any bad side effects if you take it properly, other than giving me a slight headache that fades after an hour.”

  “So it’s a pill you can take to make yourself stronger? Sounds like a steroid to me.”

  “But it isn’t. I told you, it’s more like protein powder.”

  “Then you have to use your magic and Awakened abilities and it makes you recover a bit stronger?”

  Jinwoo shook his head. “Not really. If I use my powers I will grow a little faster, but I don’t have to. The Guild gave it to me, along with a workout routine that they want me to try, so I can get stronger.”

  “Is that why you were working out last night at the hospital?”

  `

  “Yeah. They wanted me to get in better shape so that I could do more if I had to go into a dungeon. All guild members also get all of the free training courses they want, and their family can go for the basic ones.”

  “So your boss is giving you steroids to make the workout routine more effective.”

  “They are giving me food supplements to maximize my gains.” he said, then sighed. “We’ll talk bout this when I get back. I’m going to be late for work.” With that he grabbed his jacket and left.

  After a long day of work he returned to the apartment and took Jinah to the hospital. She looked like she wanted to ask the Nurse something, but decided not to. When they were done they bought something to eat and went home.

  They had to be careful with what they were buying. Every restaurant either only served awakened of non awakened food, or had a ‘mana’ and ‘non-mana’ kitchen, and the food was prepared separately. One could order a non-mana ingredients in a mana dish, but not the other way around. This was because, if a non-awakened person ate magical plant or monster parts they would get Mana Overload. Sleepers would eventually recover from it, though it could result in them losing consciousness, going into a coma, or other serious symptoms, but if a person was unawakened and not a Sleeper, they could gain enough mana from a single meal to develop symptoms of Eternal Sleep. Though their condition would be stable, they would remain in a coma indefinitely until they received the new treatment.

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  For this reason, Jinwoo only ordered from a non-mana restaurant, as they never used dungeon plant or monster parts and therefore he wouldn’t risk making Jinah sick, even temporarily. This meant that all of the ingredients that the restaurant used, however, were imported, so the price was higher than when they ordered lunch from a mana restaurant at work.

  Several days passed and Saturday arrived. They went to the hospital early that morning and at noon they left to go shopping. They hadn’t brought many things with them from Korea, only the essentials, so they would need to buy more things to make their apartment comfortable.

  “So, do you want to get some fried chicken now?” asked Jinwoo, and Jinah shook her head.

  “Let’s do that for supper. Keiko has been talking about this sushi place in town, so I want to try it.”

  “Keiko? Who’s that? Did you make a friend?” He supposed she could be talking about someone she met online, but hopefully she had made a friend in the city.

  “Watanabe Keiko. She lives on the fourth floor of our apartment building with her parents, but she’s 18.”

  “She’s Japanese, but speaks Korean?”

  “Well, her step mother is Korean, and her little brother is half Korean, so she learned it. She heard me speaking it while talking to myself, and introduced herself.”

  “Ah.” I said. “So you have a study buddy when learning English.”

  “Actually, she already speaks English, and agreed to help me learn it. She took the classes in middle school and finished learning it when they moved here three years ago to work for the guild.”

  “They are in Fenrir?” Jinwoo asked. “I take it that means one of her parents is a Hunter?”

  “Yeah, her father’s a C rank Hunter, and her mom’s a D rank Alchemist, so they earn a good living. Keiko’s also Awakened, but won’t tell me what type. Her parents don’t want her to become a Hunter until she graduates, so she’s staying quiet about her skills and rank.”

  “Makes sense. If word got out that she was Awakened people might try scouting her.” They walked to the sushi place and went inside. Jinwoo only had three hundred shards to spend today, and would need to start saving up the thousand shards for their rent, so he couldn’t spend like this for at least another month. He just hoped the place wasn’t too expensive.

  The restaurant offered both Mana and Non-mana options, so Jinwoo got the Mana menu while Jinah got the Non-mana one. It seemed to be a decent quality restaurant, but not extravagant. He looked over the prices on the menu and, while they were a bit more than he would pay for a meal normally, they weren’t too ridiculous. Jinwoo ordered sashimi made from one of the D rank monster tuna off the coast, as well a glass of E rank Divine Juice. While the meat was technically from a monster that was a higher rank than him, he wouldn’t be eating much of the meat, so he should be able to handle the higher level of mana.

  Jinah ordered some type of sushi from the non-mana menu and a soda with her other items. She really wanted to try the sashimi as well, but, as they didn’t have any tuna from normal fish in stock, she couldn’t order it.

  Once they were done they walked down the main road. She looked in the various store windows and saw several thing she liked, but when she saw the prices she decided not to buy them. Eventually they found themselves in the front of a tailor’s shop and noticed several dresses in the windows. While none of them were practical, she was impressed with the quality and craftsmanship. “Hey, Jinwoo, do you mind if I take a look inside?” she asked.

  Jinwoo shrugged. “Just don’t get too attached to anything. Things this nice are usually pretty expensive.”

  Jinah stepped inside and saw the wracks of clothes in the main showroom. They all seemed to be low grade Awakened clothing, with each rack only having six or twelve items of clothing hung on it. A sign behind the counter said ‘All outfits can be adjusted to the customer. Sale price includes the size adjustment.’

  Most strange, however, was a ten year old girl with fox ears and a tail sitting on the counter. She wore a pink kimono and a red belt. “Hello.” said Jinah, walking over to the girl. “Do your parents own the store?” The girl shrugged. “Are you Awakened?” Jinah asked. It was rare for anyone to Awaken before puberty but it did happen occasionally. The girl shook her head.

  A sixteen year old girl, also with fox ears and a tail, walked up. She wore a white kimono with a gold belt. She pulled out a marker board and wrote something on it in Korean before showing it to them. “We are summons. Our master owns the store.”

  “Wow. I haven’t heard of a summon that can communicate.” said Jinwoo. Most of the time summons only had instincts and could follow basic commands. These must be high quality summons.

  “Ones that can are rare,” the summon wrote, “we can’t speak, but we can write.”

  “And you know Korean.” Jinah responded. “Is your master Korean?”

  “No, I’m American.” said a skinny man in a nice suit before stepping into the front of the store. “I just happen to speak Korean, as well as Mandarin, Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, Arabic, and English. I like learning languages. And they understand every language I do.” The man bowed slightly. “Gerald Taylor, the Tailor.” he said. In Korean the name of his occupation wasn’t the same as his last name, but Jinwoo realized that it would be the same in English.

  “Your name is your occupation?” he asked in English.

  “I would be lying if I said my name didn’t influence my choice of a job.” he responded in English, then switched back to Korean so that Jinah could understand him. “Do you see anything you like?”

  “I haven’t really looked around yet.” she said, before going to one of the racks. “The few outfits I have seen are all really cute.”

  “That’s why I made them, actually. I like making cute things.” Jinwoo started watching the man. Maybe bringing his 15 year old sister into the shop of a guy that liked ‘cute things’ wasn’t the best idea, especially considering the apparent age of his summons.

  He realized that the suit the man wore was made out of fine silk, and sensed a good bit of mana coming off of it. “Is your suit a piece of magical equipment?” Jinwoo asked, and Gerald nodded.

  “Yes. All of the outfits I sell here are. This is made of A rank spider silk and an A rank Essence Crystal. I made one for the Guild Master, Gabriel Nolan, then decided to make one for myself. I have some of the silk left over if you want me to make you one too.”

  Jinwoo knew that just the crystal would be worth over a million shards and shook his head. “I can’t really afford that right now. I’m only E rank, so it will take me a while before I can save up enough.”

  Gerald nodded. “In that case, maybe I can interest you in an E or D rank outfit, then?”

  As his finances were currently, with what such items normally cost, he would have to spend everything he had to get an E rank outfit, and it would take him at least a few months to save enough for a D rank outfit. “Maybe later.” He went towards Jinah to try and get her to stop looking at the clothing, as he knew they wouldn’t be able to afford anything here, but she brought over a blouse and a pair of pants.

  “These two are so cute together.” she said, showing them to Jinwoo.

  “I’m not sure we can afford…” he started to say, then he noticed the price tag. Each one only cost thirty shards. “Wait, why are they so cheap?” he asked himself.

  “I didn’t use Essence shards to make them, just E rank materials.” said Gerald. “There is a stagnant E rank dungeon about twenty kilometers from here that has two plant type monsters and three insect types. The pants are made from a type of flower from that dungeon, so they are technically a really tough form of Flax. The shirt is made from the cocoons of E rank Sleep Butterflies in the same dungeon, so it’s silk. The materials are durable enough on their own that they are hard to damage, but I worked a few special effects into them, like auto-cleaning and a limited self repair. Normally, if an Awakened wore them the two effects would happen automatically, using the wearer’s mana, but as she isn’t Awakened, she’ll need to use something else.”

  He went behind the counter and grabbed a tiny key chain, and brought it over. “This Key chain has a tiny mana crystal in it that makes it glow in the dark. I sell them for five shards as an accessory. If you put it in the pocket, though, it will release enough to activate those functions. Of course, it will use up the mana eventually, and you’ll need to buy another every few weeks, but it will let you use those basic functions. Or, if you want it to last a little longer, just carry it some other way and only put it in your pocket if the clothes get dirty or damaged.”

  Jinah nodded and begged Jinwoo to buy the outfit for her, and sighed. “Fine, but you’ll have to pay for future keychains yourself.” Jinah went to the dressing room to try them on and Jinwoo asked about the dungeon. “You said there was an E rank stagnant dungeon?” He asked Gerald. “What about the other enemies?” If it was only E rank, maybe he could join a team heading out there on his day off and earn some extra money. He wasn’t as desperate to earn money as when he lived in Korea, but with him working twenty days per month, earning one hundred shards per day, and having to pay one thousand for a three bedroom, one bath apartment, half his income was going to rent, making it difficult to save up for some descent equipment before he got a raise. Also, next month he would have to spend another 150 shards on a bottle of thirty E rank Elixir pills, as the guild set the cost at five each, which would leave him with even less money.

  “Well,” said Gerald. “The two plant monsters you might run into are Blood Briers and Poison Cloud Flowers. The briers are carnivorous, and like to grab the exposed skin of Hunters to absorb their blood. The Flowers are a variety of colors, but they draw you in with their beauty, then spray a narcotic pollen in your face. It doesn’t do much more than make you intoxicated, but it makes you an easy target for the insects. The first is the sleep butterflies. They start as larva about the size of your forearm, and eat the Flowers and non-monster plants, but after a few days they build a cocoon and turn into butterflies. They like to spread a powder from their wings that will make you extremely tired, letting the other enemies eat you. Then there are the Giant Honey Bees. They build nests in the ceiling and feed on the flowers. They might just ignore you, but if you happen to get too close to their nest, they will swarm and sting you. Their venom is an E rank poison, and mostly causes intense pain similar to capsaicin. The last insect is the Giant Scorpion. They like to drop on you from above or hide in the walls and ambush you. They have a poison that paralyzes you, and they like to eat their victims alive.

  If you are well prepared, though, with eye, nose and mouth protection for the pollen and butterfly dust, and at least E rank leather armor for the other three, it isn’t a particularly difficult dungeon. The Fenrir guild rarely send Hunters into it, as the profit margin on the materials there are a bit low, but several others do, and there are plenty of independent teams going in, as everything reproduces so quickly. A team can go in every other day and, as long as they don’t get greedy, the insects and plants will restore their numbers before the next group arrives. As long as you pay the dungeon owner the one thousand shard fee for a spot, and don’t kill the lower D rank queen at the end of the dungeon, anyone can use it.”

  After seeing that the outfit fit her really well, Jinah left the changing area and Jinwoo walked to the front counter where he spent sixty five shards on the outfit. Jinah looked really happy as the older fox girl put her clothes in a bag.

  “Thank you for the information.” Jinwoo said to Gerald. “Maybe I can go there some day and earn a few stones.”

  “No problem. If you do decide to go, give me a call first. I might need more materials, as I use E rank materials, but not Essence Stones, to make all of the clothing for non-awakened. I might have you bring back some flowers or cocoons for me.”

  Jinwoo agreed and he and Jinah both left the shop happy.