In the end, I didn’t even know what kind of ability I had.
But time was fair.
Whether I worried or not, time passed without stopping.
Meanwhile, the old man told me not to register for no reason.
“Why pretend to be an ability user? The meta of the strong hidden is over.”
“Think about it. Imagine you came to register while explaining your ability.”
You see numbers above your head.
And they’re increasing.
But what kind of ability is it? Who knows?
“Wouldn’t they just stare at your face for a while before giving you a number?”
“Still, I have some looks, right?”
“I thought you were mentally ill, so I was going to give you a doctor’s number, you idiot!”
The old man gave my head a hard slap with his right hand.
So it puffed up.
Old man’s hand did.
He mumbled with a look of surprise for the first time.
“…Your head is really hard.”
“Humans have tough skulls!”
The old man talked again while sprinkling ointment on his hand.
“Anyway, if your ability is worthless, not registering is definitely an advantage.”
“But not registering is illegal.”
“If you don’t get caught, it’s legal.”
Maybe tired of talking, the old man took a sip of water.
And as soon as he wet his throat, he continued talking.
“If it’s ambiguous, has no precedent, and you don’t know what your ability is? You’re screwed.”
“If I’m the first, doesn’t that mean my name will be listed?”
“What do you think will happen if your name is attached to a rare disease?”
Thinking as the old man suggested.
From now on, they’re going to name this disease after you.
It’ll be called Kim Shinwoo Disease.
“Oh…”
“Now you get it?”
“It’s super cool?”
“F*ck, I’m the idiot for expecting you to understand.”
The old man began to wrap bandages around his hand with an exhausted expression.
Once he finished wrapping, he said to me with a slightly serious face.
“You haven’t looked into how the ability registration process works at all, have you?”
“Isn’t it just going to the Community Service Center to register?”
“Sit down. I’m going to start the sh*tty stories.”
After listening to the old man’s lengthy explanation, only one thought existed in my head.
If I register, I’ll seriously be f*cked.
*
The ability registration process the old man talked about was more sh*tty than I expected.
The first thing you have to do is submit a form.
To register your ability, write the Ability Awakening Report appropriately in hwp format and submit it online.
If you find it hard to use the internet, write it out by hand at the government office and submit it.
Then, about three days later, you’ll receive a text telling you where to register your ability.
The registration location is designated according to your ability, so sometimes it can be quite far.
If you’re really unlucky, you might have to go to an island.
Once you arrive at the designated location, you follow the instructions.
The whole process ends with them drawing blood from the ability user and then handing you a necklace thirty minutes later.
The necklace is linked to bio-signals and the activation of the ability, recording various information in real-time.
Finally, it’s over!
“Nope, keep listening.”
“F*ck.”
Depending on the classification of the ability, most require a usage license.
Especially for dangerous abilities like fire or electricity, you need a usage license that matches your output limit.
You can only obtain the license after passing a licensing exam that happens once every quarter.
What if your ability grows or changes?
Then you have to re-acquire the license.
It’s also impossible to secretly raise your ability output.
If you exceed the limit, the necklace detects it and contacts the nearest government office.
Then, within 48 hours, you must go to the closest office and submit a justification.
“Want me to tell you something even sh*ttier?”
“What is it?”
“This is just the tutorial.”
“Mother…”
If you have income due to your ability, you need additional business registration.
Using your ability outside designated areas requires that you submit the time, date, and scope at least three days in advance.
When doing banking tasks, you need to issue a special security card and security certification separately.
You have to register your residence and report every time you move.
This is the K-Ability Registration that the world admires and sheds tears over.
“Just tell the ability users to commit suicide.”
“It wasn’t this strict originally.”
The old man laughed hollowly with sunken eyes.
“All because of one insane ability user.”
“What kind of bastard was it?”
“He was a f*cking nerd. He called himself the ‘Super Electromagnetic Wave’ and walked around wearing a school uniform.”
A school uniform huh.
Is he perhaps a juvenile delinquent hunter?
“Was he a minor?”
“He was 31, wearing a middle school girl’s uniform.”
At 31… that’s an ajumma isn’t it?
But it’s fine.
The most important question remains.
“Is he pretty?”
“……He’s a guy.”
“F*ck.”
I shouldn’t have asked.
Another abyss was about to engrave itself in my mind.
“Did you call for me, Master?”
Oh! I didn’t call you! Get out, HAL!
As I settled the primal abyss, suddenly the old man started grinding his teeth.
“I keep thinking about it, and I feel like I’ll go insane.”
“Are you that horny?”
“You f*cking dog.”
He tried to hit my head, but upon seeing the bandage wrapped around his hand, he displayed superhuman patience.
With a sigh, the old man continued.
“Anyway, in terms of power and utility, it’s pretty significant for just abilities. It was quite formidable.”
“So, it’s just robbing ATMs or breaking IT security right?”
Upon that, the old man let out a chuckle and listed numerous places.
“Hospitals, banks, airports, roads, power plants, government offices, businesses, broadcasting companies, base stations, schools, commercial areas, residential areas.”
“What’s with that all of a sudden?”
When I asked, bewildered, the old man simply said flatly.
“Those are the places he paralyzed.”
“…..What a true piece of sh*t.”
“By the way, he did all that in just one day.”
“Wha—F*ck, he’s a diligent little bastard!”
The old man seemed to be about to stretch when he suddenly stood up.
“More than anything, it was incredibly tough dealing with him.”
“How tough are we talking?”
“Touch him and you get discharged. Touch anything metallic and get electrocuted. Conductors? Controlled.”
“What did you catch him with?”
The old man looked at me as if questioning why I was asking such an obvious thing.
“I beat the sh*t out of him with wooden sticks while wearing rubber gloves.”
“By yourself?”
“……No.”
At that moment, the old man’s expression stiffened slightly.
I wondered what was the matter, but once I heard the content, I was amazed that much was all that stiffened.
“I had companions with me…”
“And?”
“This guy had a piercing in his d*ck, and he got electrocuted there.”
“This is what… a hunter?”
The fantasy about hunters was already half shattered.
By the way, the criminal they caught was supposedly being used at the power plant.
If there’s a human Pikachu, they have to make use of him.
Let him produce electricity quietly.
“Anyway, do you understand why you shouldn’t register your ability now?”
“I’m dizzy…”
At least South Korea was said to be in a better position.
Russia’s registration rate exceeded 100%, reaching 140%.
In China, it’s reported that domestics are registered without the ability user even realizing it.
And in Japan, all registration procedures are done solely by hand and fax.
A seal is, of course, essential.
*
Closing the discussion on registration, I thought about it after finishing training and returning home.
I was about to register when I just ended up getting hurt.
Since my ability is ambiguous, it’ll definitely get tangled from the start.
– You can’t register this ability here, sir! I’ll let you know another location, so go there.
– The place you just mentioned said they sent you here because it’s under their jurisdiction.
– Ah! I must’ve made a mistake. It wasn’t here; it was somewhere else. I’ll let you know that one.
– …I just came back from there.
Could it be that the start will be all tangled?
It’ll be hell till the registration is over.
– To verify what kind of ability it is, we’ll start the test.
– Please go for additional tests elsewhere.
– Ah, it’s ambiguous, let’s do a few more.
– Just to be safe, we’ll need to restrict entry to several places.
– Some data has been lost; let’s start this from scratch.
Registration is over?
Then from that moment, it’s the real start.
– Ability use is denied here. Constantly sustained abilities cannot enter.
– Ability users need to read the waiver here and sign it by hand before entering.
– I’m sorry. This is a No-Ability Zone, so you can’t enter.
– Since you’re a constant user, you’ll be categorized as having income due to your ability. Please register as a business.
– We currently have no units available in our apartment for ability users.
– For constantly sustained users, please enter the security certification each transaction.
– Are you an ability user? I’m sorry, but you can’t subscribe to this insurance product.
Asking help from those ambiguous is likely to backfire hard.
How are my parents doing?
Nope.
They’ll probably force me to register while saying let’s eat some katsu.
They did that when going to the dentist or getting vaccinations.
Moreover, if someone reports me just because I’m an ability user, it’ll get even messier.
The reward for reporting is considerable, so unregistered ability users are golden goblins and walking ATMs.
And that reward is of course paid by the person who gets reported.
In this crazy world, they told me to hunt monsters, but instead, I’m hunting for bounty rewards.
Thinking about that, the old man is still a pretty decent guy.
The downside is that he’s crazy and doesn’t have a brain.
However, his brain was regenerating, so one of his shortcomings was about to disappear.
That won’t do.
A character must be completed with a fatal flaw.
I can’t accept the final form.
I promised to pluck weeds before admission.
Weeds ought to be pulled as soon as they’re seen.
But just before I slept, I suddenly got so pissed that I yelled out loud.
“K-Ability registration, did it really f*cking die?!?!”
“You idiot! Hurry up and sleep!”
“Yeah.”
So I quietly went to sleep.
*
After that, I kept going back and forth between the training center and home until the day of admission.
Classes were replaced with training, and I only attended on exam day to take the test.
In that way, having graduated from high school without any memorable moments, the day of entering the academy finally arrived.
It was the day of admission, but my parents just sent a text saying, “Do it yourself.”
And then they immediately went on a long trip abroad.
Should I press the button saying someone will have a sibling at 20?
Let me start with myself!
In the end, the one who saw me off on admission day was the old man I had suffered with for three years.
“I can’t believe I have to see this old man’s face on a day like today.”
“I didn’t want to see your face until today either, you f*cker.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t pluck the hair from either side of the old man’s head.
Was it the hunter’s instinct? Every time I aimed at him, he seemed to detect it and ran away.
“I’m amazing at weeding.”
“Stop joking around or I might really kill you.”
Just before stepping into the academy, I asked the old man.
“Now that I think about it, I’ve been hitting you for three years and still don’t know your name.”
“Oh right, I don’t know your name either.”
“Fine, but why don’t you know my name? What the hell.”
Then suddenly the old man clenched his right fist, raising his fingers one by one while speaking.
First the index.
“You idiot.”
“Yeah.”
Then the middle finger.
“You dog.”
“Why are you calling me that?”
Finally the ring finger.
“You b*tch.”
“What do you mean?”
And then he folded and unfolded three fingers simultaneously while saying.
“Why do I need a name? You have three answers to respond with.”
“F*ck.”
A sigh escaped me, but there was no other way.
It’s fine if he tells me his name now.
I reached out to the old man for a handshake, saying.
“I’m Kim Shinwoo. I received a lot of help over the past three years.”
“…Ryu Kang-hyuk. But can I eat the side dishes without you?”
“Kang-hyuk, I can’t get any without my parents since they’re on vacation.”
“Then… am I going to starve to death?”
“Please die for once. You’re wasting oxygen.”
We simultaneously relaxed our hands, and Kang-hyuk waved at me.
“Don’t die. If you do, I’ll give you some generous compensation.”
“…Compensation? Are you going to kill me?”
“I’ve wanted to kill you once in a while.”
“Just once, right?”
“…More like a bit often.”
I replied while also waving.
“Anyway, see you next time.”
“If I meet you as a corpse, can I keep your head?”
We exchanged finger gestures of disdain simultaneously.
“Watch your head, not mine.”
“Yeah, right? You probably won’t wake up ever again?”
“You fcking btch.”
With that, we parted ways.
It was truly a foolish meeting and a foolish farewell.
But he was a precious benefactor in a way.
As I stepped into the academy, I recalled my original objective.
I’m going to break him.
I’m going to smash Kang-hyuk’s head.
Just that, and nothing more.
In that moment, suddenly feeling hungry, I turned back towards the dining area.
And soon, I ran into Kang-hyuk again after a few minutes.
We both sat at different tables, feeling awkward.
