NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4
Chapter 4: The Black Book (1)
"……Hey. Huh? Are you listening?"
"………Huh?"
Consciousness rose to the surface.
It felt similar to waking up from a dream.
Eunha blinked like someone who had just woken up at the sound of Eun Bangwool’s voice from across the table.
……Was I so tired that I dozed off for a moment?
Just like yesterday, my mental state was a mess.
"……Yeah."
"Great! You weren’t listening."
Looking around in a drowsy haze, the peaceful scenery of the café came into view.
Lights that didn’t flicker. Weather that wasn’t gloomy. Air that wasn’t cold.
Across the table sat a girl with pure white rabbit ears twitching.
The glass window was clean, offering a clear view of the procession of cars racing down the road.
Bangwool, observing Eunha’s complexion, perked up her rabbit ears with a face full of concern.
"You look extra tired today. Want me to be your lap pillow?"
"Do you even have thighs to rest on?"
"I may be short, but my lower body is solid, you know?"
Engaging in pointless banter with Eun Bangwool, Eunha rubbed her chilly nape.
Like someone tormented by a nightmare, cold sweat had soaked through.
Feeling unsettled, she reached for her coffee, but upon noticing her hands trembling like quaking aspen leaves, she quietly hid them under the table.
Seeing this, Bangwool leaned in, bringing their faces closer.
"……Are you really okay? Did someone say something to you at the promotion test site? Like, ‘You’re just a stamina freak with no skills, it takes you over 30 seconds to run 100 meters, and you can’t even do a single sit-up or push-up, so you keep failing the test like a total loser’?"
"You really…"
Cold, hard facts filled with concern always had a way of sharpening one's mind.
Perhaps it had some effect, as the trembling gradually subsided.
Thinking that this kind of shock therapy worked quite well, Eunha casually took a sip of coffee.
…But she couldn’t shake off a lingering sense of unease, so she kept glancing at the café entrance, which was void of any presence.
From then on, it was just ordinary chatter.
Something about a [Rift Zone] collapsing overseas, allowing monsters to enter the city. Some idol supposedly dating an A-rank Hunter, and so on…
The gossip playing on the café’s TV ticked away the minutes of the clock.
Before she knew it, the clock hands pointed to 6 PM.
By this time, the strange unease from earlier had mostly dissipated.
‘Since I feel better now, should I head home? I should buy something tasty for Bangwool later.’
After finishing the remaining caramel macchiato, Eunha stood up.
She washed the empty coffee cup, placed it in the dishwasher, and habitually glanced around the café to see if anything needed tidying up.
Soon, Bangwool, who had also cleaned up the table, grabbed her handbag from the kitchen and approached Eunha.
Eunha gave a drowsy smile to the cheerful girl bouncing toward her.
The promotion test was over and done with. No point dwelling on it.
She decided to forget about the inexplicable nightmare as well.
Right now, what mattered most was how cute Bangwool was and what to have for dinner tonight.
Maybe some rice mixed with soy sauce and a fried egg.
"Let’s go now~… Huh? That’s a book I haven’t seen before."
"Hmm?"
And then, at that moment.
Just as they were about to turn off the lights and leave the café—
Bangwool, her white rabbit ears standing straight up, pointed a finger toward something.
Thump.
A nameless sense of dread.
Eunha followed the direction of the girl’s finger.
Where she was pointing—
The table they had been sitting at just moments ago.
There, a [black book] lay alone.
……It hadn’t been there earlier.
(『You’ve finally reached me, child.』)
A chilling sensation crept up her spine.
The pain from yesterday’s car accident and the nightmare of the [Pitch-Black Figure] resurfaced, freezing Eunha in place.
Thump. Thump.
A brief moment, like waking up from a dream… Her mind felt like it was slipping out of place.
The things she had dismissed as déjà vu or dreams were slowly becoming an unavoidable reality, tormenting her.
"Hmm… So you read books now? I thought all you did was work out for nothing. Unexpected."
"Bangwool, wait a second."
While Eunha hesitated, Bangwool, without a hint of caution, walked up to the table and picked up the [black book].
Did she even know what she was touching?
Fear be damned, Eunha rushed toward the girl.
"Huh? What’s wrong?"
"It’s not my book. What if something bad happens from touching it carelessly?"
"Really? …Maybe a customer left it behind?"
Eunha took the 'black book' from the girl as if snatching it away and examined it.
A thick book with a black cover, without even a title written on it.
It was larger and thicker than most academic textbooks.
The weight was considerable, making it difficult for Eunha to hold with her strength.
She placed it on the table and carefully opened it, revealing that even the inner pages were entirely black.
Flipping through the pages, there wasn’t a single letter, let alone a picture.
Just black.
That made it even more unsettling.
'What is this? It's too big to be a notebook... And it's not like black text was printed on black paper. What is this?'
Eun Bangwool, who had been watching from the side, seemed to realize that the [Black Book] was no ordinary object.
The girl pressed down on the newsboy cap she wore, lost in thought.
Her small body swayed gently like clover, and the pure white rabbit ears, pressed down by her cap, twitched slightly.
"Umm... then I'll just put it in the lost and found. The owner will come looking for it later, right?"
"…Could you do that? Thanks, Bangwool."
"No need to thank me~."
No matter how much they thought about it, there was no clear answer, so they eventually decided to place the black book in the lost and found.
Just as the girl said, the owner would probably come to claim it… or so they hoped.
And so, turning away from the ominous feeling the [Black Book] gave off,
Eunha left the café with Eun Bangwool and headed home.
…….
"…A delivery? That was fast."
But when she got home,
The [Black Book] she had seen at the café was waiting for her on the living room table.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I put it in the lost and found with Bangwool… so why is it here?"
Eunha, slumping onto the living room sofa, pressed her forehead as she stared down at the [Black Book] on the table.
Her head hurt.
What was she supposed to do with this?
…….
A few minutes earlier.
After suddenly finding the [Black Book], she had placed it in the lost and found, then caught a ride home with Eun Bangwool.
Even though the café was only a five-minute walk from her apartment, she enjoyed spending time with Bangwool, so she gladly accepted the girl’s kindness.
After arriving at the apartment, she gave Bangwool a thorough "dunga-dunga" until the girl was satisfied, then saw her off with a farewell, saying they’d see each other tomorrow.
Eunha waved until the girl’s car disappeared from sight.
She wondered how Bangwool managed to drive with such short arms and legs as she entered the apartment.
She was exhausted.
Yesterday, and even today, it felt like she had been trapped in a terrible nightmare.
Eunha let out a deep sigh as she looked up at the apartment building.
The name of the apartment complex was [Saetbyeol Apartment].
Located in Euncheon District, infamous for its high housing prices in Seoul, this was a nine-story apartment building with relatively cheap rent.
It was a corridor-style apartment with multiple units per floor, and it seemed the owner didn't have the funds to build an entire apartment complex—[Saetbyeol Apartment] stood alone.
Still, it had a designated parking area and a security office, and right in front of the building was a convenience store and a bus stop.
A few blocks away was a commercial district with a park and a monorail terminal.
It was impressive that they had managed to squeeze an apartment onto such a prime piece of land.
It wasn’t even an apartment complex, just a single building standing alone, making Eunha feel a bit sorry for the landlord, who must have poured their entire soul into buying the land.
But why was the rent so cheap…? Even Eunha didn’t know.
Was it a property with a history of incidents?
The rent was low enough that an ordinary café worker like her, who failed the Hunter promotion exams every month, could afford to live there without worry.
At first, Eunha had doubted whether it was real, but since she was introduced to the place directly by her regular customer, Ban Harin, rather than through a real estate agency, she just went with it.
…Anyway, that wasn’t the important part right now.
As usual, Eunha took the apartment elevator up to the ninth floor and opened the door to her unit, '904,' stepping inside.
That was when she saw the [Black Book] sitting conspicuously on the living room table.
"Haah…"
Finishing her brief recollection, Eunha let out a sigh loud enough to fill the entire living room.
It went without saying that she had never bought such a book, nor had she placed it on the table.
It was, without a doubt, the same book she had seen at the café.
So why was an item that had been placed in the lost and found now sitting in her living room?
There was no way Bangwool had played a prank on her… which meant the book must have grown legs and followed Eunha home.
A chilling sensation ran down her spine.
She didn’t want to touch it.
Her body trembled to the point where she wondered if she had always been this much of a coward, and her breathing grew ragged, narrowing her vision as if she had been sprinting.
Trying to calm her racing heart, Eunha lightly tapped the table.
'This is crazy. There’s no way it’s some haunted object in this day and age. Could it be an [Artifact] used by Hunters? …Whatever, I should eat first.'
How long had she been agonizing over it?
Eunha tapped her throbbing temples and got up from the sofa.
She decided to pretend she didn’t see it.
She would think about it tomorrow when she woke up.
On her way to work at the café, she could throw it in the garbage or, if that didn’t work, burn it to get rid of it.
She tried to think positively.
At the very least, since the book was here, that meant Eun Bangwool was safe.
Turning away from the [Black Book] on the table, Eunha headed to the kitchen.