@aki-ham @weponxwrites
Y/N woke up almost two days later with her face being hit by Dentyça’s paw. She was hungry and tired of waiting for the woman to wake up naturally so she had to rely on force. With a heavy groan Y/N stretched out her body and crawled out of bed. As she walked into her kitchen she plugged her phone into a speaker and hit play on a short playlist she just made. It was an accumulation of songs that she had been dying to listen to the entire time she was in the red gate.
For Dentuça she took out five servings of frozen chicken that she had cooked and stored away for a quick meal, this spicific one also has onion and peppers mixed in. The chicken is served along with some rice and fried eggs, since there was no dish wide enough for Dentuça’s snout one of her cooking pan would have to suffice for now.
‘While I’m out today I should get one those kimchi making bowls for Dentuça’s food.’
As the still tired woman was planning out her day she started on her own breakfast consisting of a French omelette, a scone and some hot chocolate. While eating she figures out how to make an appointment with the hunters association and decides to schedule one just before lunch, having it as early as possible to get the entire thing out of the way. As she finishes the rest of her chocolate the peaceful atmosphere was interrupted with the painful ringtone of her boss.
“Hello— yes-yes I know and am deeply sorry for my absence, you see I was trapped inside of a red gate and-”
…..
“What..”
ʕ⁎̯͡⁎ʔ༄
“I’m sorry chairman Go, but I am unable to join the Jeju Island raid due to personal matters.” Jinwoo explained to the chairmen as they walk out of the hunters gymnasium.
Chairmen Go gives the young man a solem nod of his understanding. While walking back to the steak black car they arrived in the chairmen offers to drive Jinwoo back to the association building since he remembers him driving up to the building.
“I would appreciate that, thank you.”
‘I’m only taking the offer because I would feel bad for rejecting him twice in a row.’
As they are on their way back, chairman Go had to pardon himself to take an incoming call from chief Woo. Now, Jinwoo didn’t mean to eavesdrop on their conversation (his hearing is just that good.) but he couldn’t help but pay closer attention when the name of a certain bear wearing hunter was mentioned.
‘She’s at the association building and waiting in chairmen Go’s office to give the details of what happened inside of the red gate. Since I’ll already be there this will give me a chance to see her in person.’
ʕ⁎̯͡⁎ʔ༄
“Thank you for coming in today, I understand that this entire situation must have been incredibly painful for you, so when you’re ready please start from the beginning.”
With a shaky exhale Y/N began regaining the past four months.
“Once we entered the gate I could already feel that something was amiss but at the time I chalked it up to being nervous since it was my first C-rank dungeon. But as my party and I started our trek through my footing suddenly became uneven as it sank down. We went from the dungeon to the middle of a field of snow. Even through the shock the leader was able to reorganize the group and come up with a plan to survive the night, later on he also made the plan for how we were going to escape, but unfortunately— it was never able to be fully executed.
At first everything was going well, we had shelter and fire and eventually coats made from the fur of ice bears, and with the size of the animals inhabitants there was plenty of food. Until the twenty first day, we were on the hunt for the dungeon boss where a saber tooth cat beast snuck up and attacked one of our members. Though we were successful in defeating the creature we not only had some serious injuries but we lost the first member who was attacked.
Due to the injuries someone had gotten infected and fell ill. While roaming the woods I had spotted some medicinal herbs but since I was the only one about to care for the ill I asked two other members to harvest the herbs. Eventually the herbs were brought to camp but there was one less hunter, the person with them said that they were attacked and that the other hunter didn’t make it. Since the beginning this particular person had a slight disdain for the weaker member and as the day inside the red gate grew so did his disdain. I had my suspicion of what might have actually happened but with them being higher ranked then me I surely would have been killed if too many questions were asked. And with a sick person there I couldn’t risk their life too. Unfortunately, with the lack of proper medicine they still ended up dying.”
For the next hour stuck in that office recounting what happened and then being questioned.
“And with all of those high racking beasts how were you able to leave without a dungeon break, you must have beaten the boss no?” Chairman Go asked, his voice laced with skepticism.
This was the question that she was worried about, of course he was suspicious of a D-rank closing an almost A-rank gate practicality by herself.
“The truth is…. luck. One day I just so happened to spot a group of ice elves fighting a large pack of yeties, from what I saw even with the elves skills the yeti’s natural strength and numbers gave them the advantage, ending with most of the elves dying and the few that survived severely injured. With their distracted and weakened state I was able to kill them from a sight distance with my water magic.”
She then formed a small ball of water, using it as a visual demonstration of how she defeated the elves. “Luckly one of them so happened to be the boss and within seconds the gate to leave appeared.”
For a moment neither chairman Go nor chief Woo said anything, they just stared, deciding if they believed her completely bullshit story or not.
“I see, well that is very lucky indeed-” with this he lets out a hearty chuckle. “-I think that's enough questioning, thank you again for coming today and giving your statement. And you don’t have to worry, I will make sure that these are returned to their families.” Chairman Go said, taking the mementos of her fallen comrades and holding them close to his chest.
Y/N gave him a small smile in return and started making her way to the door when Go decided to ask her one more question.
“Oh right, my apologies but I have one more question. That cat creature that was on your shoulder when you exited the gate, what did you do with it?” This stopped the young hunter dead in her tracks. And as she tries her damndest to stay calm she manages to say- “What I was holding upon my shoulder were actually bundles of fur that I had skinned from the cat. And what I am to do with them has yet to be decided, though I’m thinking..a rug maybe, the fur is incredibly soft.”
Suffice with her response he lets her continue out the door.
ʕ⁎̯͡⁎ʔ༄
‘Holy smokes, that was a close call!!! I mean yeah, I already had an answer planned just in case, but why would he leave it at the end as a “Oh right one more thing!” kind of question! Ahhhhh!!!’
As she walks down the stairs of the association building adjusting her bags she suddenly smells someone behind her and before they can place their hand on her shoulder she grabs their wrist and turns around.
“Excuse me, do you need something?” She gave the man a skeptical glare while releasing his wrist and taking a few steps down onto the sidewalk.
He too walked down the rest of the stairs and onto the sidewalk but made sure to keep a polite distance. “I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just about to leave as well when I saw you walking down, Y/N right.
‘Who the hell is this guy?’ Y/N gives him a slightly disgusted look which thankfully was enough of a sign for him to start explaining himself.
“I promise I’m not a creep, I just remember you from a past raid.” The man then recounts your name and what happened on the raid.
“Oh yes, I remember you now. Though when we first met you were much shorter, and not only that but if I’m remembering correctly your eyes were much wider before, and your voice wasn’t this deep.”
Looking at him with such bewilderment Jinwoo can’t help but let out a soft chuckle.
“Yeah I get that a lot from the people who knew me before-” he motioned himself up and down “-all this. But I promise, I’m the same Jinwoo.” He then looks her in the eyes and gives her a warm smile. “But enough about me, I came over to see how you’ve been holding up after the red gate incident?”
“I’ve been doing fine actually, though after I got back home I went right to bed and didn’t wake up until today. But yeah, other than that I’m fine. And since the rest of my day is free I was planning to go to Costco.”
At that moment Jinwoo that's a closer look at the bags that she’s been holding and realizes that they’re for groceries
“Well from the look of those bags it's probably safe to assume that you have quite the shopping list. If it’s ok with you I would be glad to drive you there and back.” He gives her a welcoming smile while motioning towards his car.
Due to his high perception he was able to tell that she was incredibly suspicious of him even with her unreadable face. Which is why he was slightly surprised when she took him up on his offer, already walking towards the passengers seat. With her acceptance the both of them make their way towards the car.
ʕ⁎̯͡⁎ʔ༄
Jinwoo was having a hard time keeping his bewilderment to himself as Y/N placed enough bags of chicken in her kart to serve a restaurant. Then she went to the dry goods area and grabbed two twenty five pound bags of rice along with a plethora of spices and a giant kimchi bowl. After her shopping was complete she finished it all off with a sizable chocolate chip cookie.
“Are you going to be able to finish all that chicken before it goes bad?” Jinwoo questions as he helps organize the grocery bags within the trunk of his car.
“Of course I will, I’m already planning on making pho for dinner with this.” She explains, pulling out a rotisserie chicken from the kart.
Jinwoo decides not to question her, closing the trunk and walking over to the driver's side. After lending Jinwoo her phone for directions to her house he decided to try and make some small talk in order to fish out the real reason for talking to her.
‘Throughout this entire interaction I haven’t been able to sense any mana from her. Even false rankers have some amount of mana, why is she so determined to hide all traces of magic, appearing like a regular civilian.’
“Are you planning to make kimchi soon?”
“No, I’m not a big fan of kimchi. The bowl will be for mixing the maseca for pasteles.” She explains while taking a bite of her cookie.
“Is that also what all the chicken is for?” After agreeing with him the both of them fell into an awkward silence. Though it was Jinwoo’s plan to extract information from her he was abruptly brought back to the reality that he was never that good at making small talk, even though he had a drastic physical change he was still the same introvert from before.
“Pardon me if I come across as intrusive, but have you changed in some way that isn’t just physical, because it’s not only your appearance that's different but your also aura, it seems… stronger, sharper, more dangerous.”
…..
“The reason behind the changes is because a couple of weeks ago I had a reawakening, which is why I was at the hunters association today,they hoped that I would join the raid to Jeje island.” Jinwoo begrudgingly explained, cursing himself in his head.
“Oh my ghoul, really!!! I’ve always wanted to meet someone who’s had reawakened! Where were you when it happened, how did you feel, did the physical changes happen immediately or gradually. Ooo, has anything changed internally like with your blood or organs! Oh please tell me everything, I’m so ineffablely curious!”
With Jinwoo’s confection the young woman was made almost unrecognizable, journal in hand and riddling off questions faster than anyone can answer.
“Oh did anything trigger it, like getting hit by something, acquiring an item, or even eating something.” That last example was what caught Jinwoo’s attention the most, thinking back to their dungeon raid together he remembered the monster parts she kept stashing in her bag.
“I didn’t even know that people could reawaken by eating a magical beast.”
“Well there’s this theory that consuming certain parts like the heart or essence stone of a monster could force an awakening, but it hasn't been properly tested yet.” Taking another bite of the cookie she looks up at Jinwoo with her eyes beaming with excitement, she’s only ever been able to talk about monsters with Mr.Senshi so it felt nice that someone else was taking an interest.
“You seem to be very knowledgeable about magic beasts and dungeons, are you a researcher?” He asks while taking a turn into Y/N’s neighborhood.
“No, hunting was only a side hustle and chance to see interesting creatures. My primary job was working at a cafe not too far from here, but since I was absent and completely unreachable for seven days my boss fired me, so I will probably have to hunt full time now.”
“Because of the red gate? Are there not laws or something similar to protect hunters from situations like this?” Parking in front of her house he takes a chance to scan the outside before facing her.
“With hunting becoming a primary job for many people along with red gates being extremely rare the association hasn’t seen the need to implement laws for this. But the silver lining to all of this is that I’ll be about to encounter and feast on more magical beasts.” As she places the left over cookie into her bag her eyes begin to shift. Unable to continue staring into Jinwoo’s intense gaze, she looks out the window and notices that they were parked in front of her house.
‘Geez, is that what I look like when listening to people, no wonder people don’t like talking to me.’
“Thank you for driving me around, I’ll collect my stuff and then get out of your hair.”
As she unbuckles and leaves his car Jinwoo follows suit, heading towards the trunk to help unload her groceries. When they get to her front gate Y/N opens it and places her bags down, then grabs the ones from Jinwoo and places them inside. Standing up straight she looks him in the eyes to give her gratitude when Jinwoo interrupts.
“I will be establishing a guild soon and with your talents and knowledge you would be a great benefit to the guild, not only that but you’ll be able to see much more interesting magical beasts inside of B or A- rank gate then you would in E and D-rank ones.” He takes out his phone and hands it to her, the screen on an empty contacts page.
“And how soon will this be exactly?” Putting a hand on her hip she gives him a skeptical look. ‘Why on earth would he want an on paper D-rank hunter going into B and A-rank dungeons?’
“I already have an office building and I plan on acquiring an guildsmaster license after the Jeje island raid. So by the end of the week I’ll have a job for you.”
With this, the pay and the promise that she would be able to take home a monster carcass from certain raids she couldn’t put her number in his phone faster.
“I’ll call you when everything is ready.” Waving goodbye, Jinwoo walks back to his car and begins to leave.
ʕ⁎̯͡⁎ʔ༄
“Dentuça, I’m home and have acquired a bananas amount of chicken just for you, mostly.”
After putting the groceries away she begins preparing the rotisserie chicken for dinner.
First she removes the meat from the bones and stores for later, the bones are then placed into a large pot with some charred onions, ginger, and toasted spices. She allows the broth to simmer for two hours, making sure to take the spices out after thirty minutes. She also precut some cilantro, jalapeño and bean sprouts.
While it simmers she starts on Dentuça’s dinner, tonight she will be eating cilantro lime rice with chicken breast and vegetables. After washing and putting the rice to cook Y/N cuts and seasoning a mountain chicken she begins to cook it with onions in batches, storing the cooked chicken in the oven to stay warm until the rice was ready. Luckily everything finished around the same time so the only step left was to mix everything together. Starting with the rice, lime juice, and cilantro, once the juice is properly incorporated then the chicken was added along with some leftover corn.
As Dentuça begins eating her dinner the broth should be at the point where the carcass can be removed and the noodles can be cooked. Now the only thing left is the assembly! First the noodles and the broth followed by the chicken, cilantro, bean sprouts and jalapeños.
As Y/N sits down to enjoy her meal she decides to look up the Jeju island that Jinwoo was talking about.
“Oh, they’re planning another raid for the ants tomorrow, and they were even able to get some S-ranks from Japan to help. An operation with their S-ranks and our…ours?”
Remembering that Jinwoo mentioned that he was at the association building because of a request for him to join the raid, out not curiosity she look up his name to see if she finds something about him.
“He’s an S-rank!!”
