As Gio ate rice cooked in vegetable stock brewed from all manner of produce grown in the garden, along with a plump grilled fish, he said,
“A ghost story?”
“Kkururuk.”
“It didn’t sound bad to me.”
Honey had shown something akin to concern over the ghost story of “Black Cloak” that had sprung up around Gio, but Gio did not care one way or another. His naturally easygoing temperament was partly responsible, but that was not the only reason.
“If they think of me as a ghost story, I’ll have a little less reason to worry about being attacked.”
That was why Gio had tolerated the Collectors’ ploy that was not quite a ploy.
“After returning to Earth a few times, I realized something. No matter how thoroughly Earth was turned upside down and its environment reorganized worldwide, a haunted Portrait is still a rare existence. This is no joke. It honestly wouldn’t be strange if I were dragged into a laboratory and tortured.”
He considered himself “a slightly unusual case of an Awakener.”
Unlike ordinary Hunters, who came into contact with the Source through the System, he had fused with the Source directly, so that assessment was not entirely wrong. The problem was that the people of the world would not see it that way.
“In the thirty-one years I didn’t see Korea, I could tell it had become another step closer to hell. A boneless piece of fried chicken like me wouldn’t last a single day before plummeting into the abyss.”
“Kkuruk?”
“Yes, I’m not actually fried chicken, but that isn’t Daddy’s point. The problem…