## Chapter 179 – (10)
Right after our touching reunion.
We escaped Jongno-gu and found ourselves at a café.
It was the perfect place to escape the heat and have a long conversation.
“That kind of thing…”
As we slowly recounted everything that had happened to us, Lee Hwan nodded with a sorrowful expression.
He seemed to feel responsible for everything that had occurred.
Every time we laughed while sharing how much we had suffered, Lee Hwan seemed even more distressed than us, hanging his head low.
We, on the other hand, were just laughing it off, saying, “Oh, that happened.”
Seeing Lee Hwan looking at the floor like a guilty man, Sophia finally stepped in.
“Lee Hwan-ssi.”
“…Sister.”
Sophia gently patted Lee Hwan’s shoulder.
Warmly.
“It’s not your fault, Lee Hwan-ssi.”
“…Sister…!”
As if saved by Sophia’s compassionate words, Lee Hwan looked at her with admiration.
It was times like these that I truly felt she was a nun.
With just a few words, she alleviated a man’s guilt.
That wasn’t something you could imitate.
It was only possible because it was Sophia.
It required a voice and expression that could put people at ease.
But my mind kept drifting back to her on the hotel bed.
That side of her that only I knew.
To have such impure thoughts while witnessing this compassionate scene.
Is this what it feels like to sin?
“…But Sister.”
“Yes?”
Lee Hwan slowly looked back and forth between the two of us.
The two of us sitting side by side.
“…You’re sitting next to him.”
“Ah.”
Lee Hwan said with an awkward smile.
Come to think of it—
Sophia and I looked at each other simultaneously.
After being together for almost an entire day, sitting next to each other felt so natural.
When we came into the café, we sat next to each other without even thinking about it.
Sophia replied with an awkward smile.
“Ah… I guess I’m just used to it…”
“In just one day…”
Lee Hwan made a complicated expression at that answer.
I guess it was understandable from his perspective.
It must seem like our relationship had become closer than his in just one day, despite his months of meetings with her.
It might actually be closer.
At least I didn’t call Sophia “Sister.”
“Ahaha… Oh, right!”
Sophia handed me a piece of paper.
While escaping Jongno-gu and moving to the café, Lee Hwan and Sophia had stopped somewhere for a moment.
On the surface, it looked no different from a police station in the real world.
But after hearing their story, I learned that there was a Paranormal Division inside the police station.
They had gone there to report the successful exorcism of the urban legend.
But that wasn’t all.
[Urban Legend Management Headquarters Contract]
“So this is it.”
It was the contract to become a formal exorcist.
Originally, you had to get a license and take an exam.
The Urban Legend Management Headquarters itself was somewhere between a government agency and a public corporation, so the competition was fierce.
Nevertheless, there was a way to bypass all the exams and competition.
And that was the urban legend exorcism I had performed.
“Since you solved two urban legends, we were able to negotiate conditions equivalent to those of a seasoned exorcist with several years of experience.”
Lee Hwan said he had worked hard to negotiate.
Sophia nodded beside him, as if acknowledging his efforts.
“Oh…”
I was slightly impressed as I received the contract.
The salary was much higher than I had expected, and there were many benefits provided.
Looking at the benefits alone, it was like looking at the perks of a new credit card.
Everything from airline miles to discounts at large supermarkets and gas stations.
There was a long list of benefits that could be of some help.
Actually, these benefits didn’t seem very helpful to me.
It’s not like I was going to live here forever.
What caught my eye more than the benefits was the authority.
“What is ‘urban legend access’?”
“Ah.”
Both of them reacted briefly when I read the phrase written on one side of the contract.
Then Lee Hwan took out his phone.
“It’s something like this.”
“…This is.”
Looking at the phone, there were red dots on a map.
“These red dots are urban legends.”
“…There’s one marked here too?”
I pointed to the café we were in.
“Don’t worry. The urban legend marked here is one that helps humans. If you look closely, the color is also orange.”
As Lee Hwan said, the color was slightly different from the other red dots.
Still, an urban legend that helps humans.
Lee Hwan smiled when he saw my slightly disgruntled face.
“Urban legends aren’t always harmful to humans.”
“…Is that so?”
So far, the urban legends I had encountered had all attacked me, so I didn’t really believe it.
Then Sophia, who was sitting next to me, turned to face me.
I also turned my head to look at Sophia at her sudden movement.
Sophia’s face and beautiful nun’s habit came into view.
Sophia ostentatiously and carefully put her hands behind her back and showed off her clothes.
…It was hard to tell if she was showing off her clothes or her chest.
Probably her clothes.
It’s just that her overwhelming figure stole the show.
“Ahem! L-look at the clothes.”
“Ah, yes.”
I snapped out of it at Lee Hwan’s cough and looked at Sophia with the purest eyes I could muster.
Is there something strange about her clothes?
But no matter how much I looked, I couldn’t find anything strange.
Come to think of it, I had asked Sophia why she was still wearing a nun’s habit even though she had quit being a nun.
She had said it was a garment that had resistance to urban legends, right?
As soon as I thought that far, Sophia gave me the answer.
“This nun’s habit is actually one of the urban legends.”
“…This is?”
“Yes.”
The outfit Sophia was wearing was also a slightly special outfit enhanced by the power of an urban legend.
It’s not like urban legends are always harmful.
This nun’s habit, despite being an urban legend, had the ability to block attacks from urban legends.
This phone app and the nun’s habit that Sophia was wearing were both close to being urban legends, so you needed urban legend access.
“If you have the authority, you can borrow one or two urban legends.”
The authority to borrow urban legends in the form of objects.
It was attractive.
“Hmm…”
If I’m lucky, one slot in my inventory might be filled.
“Take a good look at the contract and submit it later…”
“I’ll do it.”
“Yes?”
I answered before Lee Hwan could even finish speaking.
After all, the role I had to play in this world was that of an exorcist.
There was no reason to refuse when they were offering me good conditions.
“…Um, a pen, please.”
“Ah, h-here you go.”
Lee Hwan looked at me blankly, as if he hadn’t expected me to accept right away, and then belatedly panicked and handed me a pen.
While I was signing, Sophia was smiling brightly next to me, as if she was excited about something.
“I look forward to working with you in the future.”
“…Okay.”
If we’re doing the same exorcist work, we’ll probably run into each other a few more times.
I didn’t expect her to want to run into me, though.
“I’ll submit this for you. I have to go to headquarters this time anyway because of the urban legend incident…”
“Can I get the app in advance?”
Having finished the contract right there, I asked Lee Hwan on a whim.
Lee Hwan readily nodded, asked for my phone number, and sent me a link.
When I touched the link on my phone, the app naturally started downloading.
The installation was suspiciously fast.
I later heard that it couldn’t be deleted.
It was an urban legend-like app.
“You can avoid most urban legends with this.”
Sophia said with a smile.
“…I see.”
But I had no intention of avoiding urban legends.
Why would I avoid my hidden quest, or the elixir filled with yin energy?
Moreover, unlike the hotel urban legend that teleported me to strange places, the urban legends that appeared on this app only showed those that had a physical form.
Having a physical form meant that physical exorcism was possible.
I had already proven that my martial arts were strangely effective against urban legends.
“I’ll have to avoid them carefully.”
I lied to reassure Sophia while fiddling with the app.
First, my target was the urban legends in this area, Jongno-gu.
***
Slurp.
“Hmm.”
It felt like it had been a long time since I had a hot cup of freshly brewed coffee instead of a cold one.
The Paranormal Division of Jongno-gu.
He was the section chief there.
With so many people, there were also many urban legends, so the Paranormal Division of Jongno-gu was always busy, but today was an exception.
Actually, there were occasionally days like this.
Days when urban legends were unusually quiet.
On days like these, everyone in the Paranormal Division quietly kept their mouths shut and enjoyed the leisure.
They drank coffee, and they always ate delivery food because they were always busy, but they went out to eat for the first time in a long time.
That leisurely morning passed, and it became afternoon, but the Paranormal Division was still quiet.
“…Today is unusually—”
“Shhh!”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
As soon as a rookie who hadn’t been in the Paranormal Division for long opened his mouth, the senior who was one year ahead of the rookie panicked and gestured for him to be quiet with his finger.
He made the sound so violently.
A sound like a snake threatening came out of his mouth.
“You… you were going to say it’s quiet today, weren’t you?”
“H-how did you know…”
“Don’t you know that saying things like ‘quiet’ or ‘leisurely’ is forbidden in the fire department and the Paranormal Division?”
Bbrrr—
As if on cue, the phone rang.
“Aish! I told you!”
“N-no, this time it was the senior…”
The two argued for a bit before the senior finally answered the phone.
He watched the scene from afar and sighed.
Calls to the Paranormal Division were usually one of two things.
Either an evacuation-level urban legend had appeared, so they had to send an emergency disaster text message to the citizens, or they had to send an emergency call to an exorcist to subdue the urban legend.
As you might have guessed, most of the time, they had to do both.
“Yes, yes… yes? Yes…”
Originally, calls to the Paranormal Division were often from high-ranking officials, so there was nothing to say other than “yes.”
In the face of power, you had to be a yes-man.
“Um… Section Chief Choi.”
“…What is it?”
Then the senior who had answered the phone cut off the call and spoke to him.
“They said the urban legends have disappeared?”
“…Yes?”
It was the first time he had heard of missing urban legends.
