I woke up late in the morning.
I think I slept in a little too much, but with a body like this, I guess it can't be helped.
"Ugh, so heavy."
Even sitting up in bed was a struggle.
I could really feel every bit of these 120 kilograms.
"I'll have to start by losing weight."
I have only one goal.
To fully enjoy my youth at twenty.
To do that, I figured I had to lose weight first.
"No one would ever like a body like this."
The difference between my height in centimeters and my weight in kilograms is only 40. How ridiculous is that?
"Nngh."
I folded the bedding I'd been sleeping on and started cleaning up the room.
Snack bags were strewn everywhere.
I picked up the traces, one by one, that showed just how lazy the owner of this body had been.
"Huff, huff… Damn it…"
This is insane.
How am I out of breath just from moving around this tiny room?
"Ugh."
I was dripping sweat even in this cool weather.
The gray t-shirt, stretched out of shape by this huge body, darkened as it soaked up my sweat.
"Phew…"
I've cleaned up all the big stuff…
"A vacuum cleaner… no way there's one here."
A guy who didn't give a damn about cleaning wouldn't have bought a vacuum for his room.
"Should I ask the ajumma to lend me one?"
The ajumma living downstairs would probably lend me a vacuum.
I put on my slippers to go down the stairs, but with every single step, my knees trembled.
"This is driving me crazy, seriously."
Unable to bear the weight of my torso and thighs, my knees and the surrounding ligaments were screaming.
At this point, I was certain.
If the original owner of this body had kept living in it instead of stealing mine, he would have died very soon.
"Let's just say I saved a life…"
Feeling like I could topple forward at any moment, I slowly descended the stairs.
It took me minutes, not seconds, just to go down each floor.
How much time will it take to enjoy being twenty in this body…?
"Phew."
I roughly wiped the sweat from my forehead with my arm and knocked on the landlady's door.
Thump, thump!
"Ajumma, it's Do-jin."
A moment later, I heard the thudding of footsteps from inside.
The lock turned, and the door opened.
"Hey, pig. Who said you could come to our house?"
It wasn't the ajumma but her daughter who threw the door open, glaring at me with a defiant look.
A blonde bob that reached her neck, sharp eyes that seemed to pierce right through me, and a snarling mouth.
I quickly pulled information from my dormant memories.
Shin Yu-jeong.
A twenty-year-old Hunter aspirant, the same age as me.
One of the school bullies… who tormented this body back in high school.
"Huh? You not gonna answer?"
"S-s-sorry!"
What the fuck.
Why am I apologizing on my own?
"Sorry my ass. I'm asking why a hikikomori bastard like you crawled over to our house."
"W-well…"
This is insane.
My mouth was moving on its own.
It seemed to be because of the trauma this guy left deep in my mind.
The memories of being horribly bullied in high school cast Shin Yu-jeong as the predator and me as the prey.
"I-I came to see the ajumma…"
"What about my mom?"
As frustrating as it was to be trembling before a mere girl, it also felt… fresh.
How long had it been since I'd trembled like this in front of someone?
Anyway, this was a crisis.
Just as I was wondering what to do, since I couldn't get the words out properly…
A savior appeared.
"Shin Yu-jeong! Have I told you not to treat Do-jin like that or not!"
The ajumma, who must have heard our voices from the entrance, appeared and landed a powerful smash on Shin Yu-jeong's back.
Smack!
"Ah, Mom! That hurts!"
"Stop exaggerating! How can a hit from your frail mother hurt so much?"
"Frail? Ha, that's hilarious! You're not frail at all, Mom!"
"Oh my, listen to her. Do-jin!"
The ajumma suddenly called out to me while they were bickering.
"Y-yes?"
"Do-jin, what do you think?"
She said, holding out her slender arm to me.
Her fair skin and the fragrant body lotion tickled my nose.
The corners of my mouth crept up into a goofy grin before I knew it.
"You look very frail, Ajumma. Hehe…"
The ajumma lifted her chin slightly and looked at Shin Yu-jeong.
"See, sweetie? He says I look frail."
Ah.
My answer was perfect for the ajumma, but for Shin Yu-jeong, it was the absolute worst wrong answer.
"Hey, pig. Can't you read the room?"
"S-s-sorry!"
In times like these, begging for forgiveness is the best strategy.
There's a reason I managed to survive for decades as a Hunter without getting a single limb cut off.
Because I was strong? No.
It's because I knew when to bow my head.
As I squeezed my eyes shut and bowed my head, another smack rang out.
"Ah, Mooooom!"
"Do-jin is too scared to speak because of you! Get inside, you brat."
"You always pick on me. It's so annoying."
Shin Yu-jeong, who got hit on the back one more time, grumbled as she turned to leave, glaring at me from behind her mom.
She mouthed something.
You're… dead… later…
I wish I hadn't read that.
Only after Shin Yu-jeong went into her room could I finally catch my breath.
"I'm sorry, Do-jin. Our Yu-jeong is a bit fierce, isn't she?"
"N-no, not at all."
The ajumma didn't know. That Shin Yu-jeong was one of the bullies who tormented me so horribly in high school.
The original owner probably wanted to tell her several times, but it seems he didn't want to burden the ajumma, who even gave him a discount on his rent, with a sense of guilt.
"But what's the occasion? You're the one who never came to my house because you were scared of Yu-jeong."
The ajumma looked at me as if I were a strange sight.
"Ah, I was wondering if I could borrow your vacuum cleaner…"
"A vacuum cleaner…?"
The ajumma's eyes widened.
I get it.
The ajumma, who had visited my room a few times to bring me side dishes, would know. That my room was on the level of a pigsty.
"So, Do-jin, you're… trying to clean right now?"
"Huh? Ah, yes."
"Oh my!"
The ajumma covered her mouth with her hand, a touched expression on her face.
At this point, I was starting to wonder if she was messing with me.
"That's a great idea, Do-jin! Wait just a moment!"
She patted my shoulder and then ran off.
I stood there waiting for a moment, and the ajumma came trotting back.
Her breasts bounced inside her tight gray one-piece dress.
I swallowed without realizing it.
"Here you go. Do you know how to use it?"
"Of course I do…"
If a grown man doesn't know that, can you even call him a person?
"Oh, sorry. I guess I just got too excited."
"It's okay."
"Should I help you clean? It must be tough to do it alone since it hasn't been cleaned in so long."
This ajumma must be an angel.
It occurred to me that her attitude might have encouraged the original owner's rotten behavior.
The rent was cheap enough to be covered just by selling game items, and she refilled his stock of delicious side dishes every week.
People tend to develop a sense of urgency only when they're in some kind of danger, but with his food, clothing, and shelter all taken care of, there's no way he would have felt any.
But even as I thought this, there was no way the ajumma was at fault.
She was so good to him; the one who took advantage of it is the rotten piece of trash.
"I'll try it on my own first. I'll use the vacuum and return it."
"Okay. I have the day off today, so call me anytime if it gets too hard. Got it?"
"Yes."
I climbed the stairs, hugging the surprisingly heavy vacuum cleaner.
My knees didn't tremble, so I could climb more easily.
"Huff, huff…!"
The problem was that I was incomparably more out of breath than when I went down.
Thinking I couldn't go on, I sat on a bench to catch my breath for a moment before going into my room.
I plugged in the vacuum and sucked up all the snack crumbs and dust piled up in the corners of the room.
"Whoa, holy shit."
Every time the vacuum passed over it, the color of the linoleum flooring changed a little.
Just how much dust had to have piled up for this to be possible…?
I washed the rag I found dried up and rolling around on the floor several times and wiped the floor with it.
Sticky stuff was stuck everywhere, making it hard to move the rag.
"Enjoying being twenty is damn hard, fuuuck…"
The fact that I was cursing nonstop, something I hadn't done for about ten years, must mean I've gotten younger.
"Huff, huff…!"
With every wipe of the rag, I was as breathless as I used to be after swinging a sword thousands of times in my original body.
"Once I… huff… clean this damn room… heck… I'm definitely losing weight first…"
I clenched my teeth and pushed the rag forward, wiping with all my might.
My gray t-shirt was completely drenched in sweat.
"Ugh, so sticky."
I took it off, threw it into a makeshift laundry basket made from a cardboard box, and roughly wiped my body with a musty-smelling towel.
"Agh, how long has it been since this was washed?"
The answer immediately popped into my head.
"A-a week? For fuck's sake!"
At that point, you should call it a rag, not a towel.
"Phew."
At least I'd made it clean enough to sit on the floor.
I still needed to wipe away all the dust piled up everywhere, but I didn't think I could do it like this.
"Can't be helped."
It seemed like taking care of my body had to come first.
I sat down in a suitable spot, cross-legged.
Those Chinese guys, completely high on wuxia novels, sit in the difficult full-lotus position, but that's not necessary.
As the history of Hunters grew longer, more facts were scientifically proven.
One of them was the posture needed to gather mana.
The posture for gathering mana differed by country and by person, so scientists from all over the world gathered and conducted repeated studies to find the most suitable posture.
The result: there was no such thing.
It was proven that the most efficient posture was simply whatever posture allowed you to concentrate best.
"Ah, this isn't working."
I unfolded my legs.
My thighs were so fat that I couldn't even maintain the position for long, let alone concentrate.
"There are so many problems, in so many ways."
In the end, I changed my posture.
I sat with my back against the wall and my legs stretched out in front of me.
I slowly closed my eyes and gradually raised my concentration to feel the mana.
We may not feel it, but mana fills the entire world.
However, an ordinary person could concentrate their entire life and never feel it.
Only Hunters, who have broken free from the ordinary, possess the qualification to feel and, furthermore, wield mana.
"Hooo…"
My concentration deepened, and my breathing gradually lengthened.
Even though I've decided to live as Kim Do-jin, and no matter how uncomfortable this body is, one thing remains unchanged.
My soul is that of Son Si-woo, who reached the pinnacle of Hunters as an S-rank.
Pop, pop.
I could hear the sound of the mana particles, which were drifting in the air before me, popping one by one like soap bubbles.
It wasn't a real sound.
It was just my heightened senses perceiving it as sound.
A single thread extending from my body touched a mana particle.
Something's strange.
No matter how much of my memories remain intact in my soul and my mind, the speed at which I'm sensing mana is far too fast.
"Phuaa!"
I hastily sucked in a breath, short of air from the long exhalation.
The moment I opened my eyes, slowly steadying my ragged breath, a new world unfolded.
I could see mana.
"What in the world is going on?"
Even in the body of S-rank Hunter Son Si-woo, mana was something I could feel but never see.
And yet, that mana.
Retaining a piercingly clear blue color.
Was clearly visible before my eyes.