Chapter 4 – Home Sweet Home

An hour ago, Hee-na followed Woo Min-ah out of the gate.

She parted ways with Woo Min-ah after exchanging brief greetings, and was handed over to the rescue workers.

Since she was not seriously injured, Hee-na received simple first aid, left her name on the gate damage list, and headed home.

…Or rather, she had tried to go home.

“My home!”

Hee-na screamed in despair. Her mental state, which had stood firm even in front of the monsters inside the dungeon, crumbled to dust.

The dungeon gate swallowed everything in its surroundings. Only ruins remained where the gate had formed.

Therefore, since she had been sucked into the dungeon while working overtime at the office, she had expected that the office building, which was at the center of the gate’s rampage, would not be intact.

“I can accept the office building, fine! But why did even my house have to get caught up and disappear!”

However, she had not expected that the range of the gate’s rampage would be this wide.

Hee-na had rented a villa near the office under a jeonse lease due to her commute, but when she trudged over and arrived there, only a collapsed brick wall stood.

There was absolutely no trace of a house left. Even the household items she could have salvaged were completely, entirely ransacked by the dungeon gate.

“You thief bastards!”

Hee-na began to swear, pointing her finger at the sky.

The rescue worker who was observing her realized that Hee-na had not suffered a physical wound, but rather a huge wound to her heart.

For Koreans, a home was like their soul.

“The place where you lived got caught up in the gate’s rampage. A temporary shelter has been set up at a nearby elementary school. Shall I take you there?”

The rescue worker patted Hee-na’s back with a very gentle hand.

After gasping in anger for a long time, Hee-na barely opened her mouth.

“…I’m fine. If it’s the elementary school, I know where it is too. I can go by myself.”

She was grateful for the kindness, but she simply did not have the peace of mind to be with anyone. It was because anger welled up within her at the suffocating reality.

‘What do I do? Since the office building vanished, the company that pays my salary is as good as bankrupt, and the house… how much compensation will I get? It won’t be a large sum. My home! My deposit! My furniture! My money! What do I do! Even being kicked out with just the clothes on my back would be more hopeful than this!’

Although it was narrow and shabby, it was a jeonse home built with the blood, sweat, and tears of her brother and Hee-na.

Even though she could not go home often due to being overwhelmed by overtime work, it was one of the few comfortable spaces where she could warm her back and lie down…

“…What do I do if that disappears! My home! Oh, my home!”

It was the moment she was about to beat her chest and lie down in a reality that was not just harsh, but miserable.

With a pop, a system guide window rose before her eyes. Hee-na stared at the status window and muttered blankly.

“What is a hidden skill, and what is ‘Home Sweet Home’?”

The guide window even kindly answered Hee-na’s question.

Hee-na’s eyes rapidly scanned the skill window.

The skill description was still half-hearted, and the unlock condition was both miserable and absurd.

What were the odds that a person who awakened into a bizarre Hidden Class called ‘Homemaker’ would lose their home and scream in despair?

However, such facts were not very important to Hee-na. It was because the skill content itself was truly full of hope.

‘It provides a home? A home… through a skill?’

If it was true, it meant a house had dropped out of the sky out of nowhere.

Indeed. This was a skill greater than winning the lottery!

It was content she could not believe, yet had no choice but to want to believe.

‘Surely it won’t tell me to go fetch materials to build a house like the skill, right?’

Hee-na cast the skill, unable to erase her doubts until the very end.

“Home Sweet Home!”

When she cast the skill, a door appeared on top of the half-collapsed wall along with a faint light. She quickly walked around to check behind the wall, but there was nothing behind it.

Hee-na swallowed hard and pulled the door. Nothing was visible beyond the door.

‘What will come out?’

She could not even imagine what kind of scene would unfold. Hee-na took a small breath and stepped to the other side of the door.

The moment she entered the door, what she felt was the fact that this place was entirely hazy.

“This is a house?”

As she muttered, a system window rose before her eyes.

“Shabby standard one-room…?”

Hee-na dismissed the notification window and slowly looked around. The place where she was currently standing was a small one-room studio of about 3 pyeong.

A small sink was placed in a corner, and a door that looked like the bathroom entrance was attached to one wall. It was a room of a size just barely enough for one person to get by.

For Hee-na, whose only place to lie down right now was the spacious gymnasium of the temporary shelter, it could even be called more than she deserved.

…However.

“Why is this place so filthy?”

Hee-na was shocked by the condition of the house.

The wallpaper was discolored yellow, and black mold had formed in a corner of the room.

She didn’t know how they had gotten there, but there were also cobwebs here and there, and the floor was so dirty that she wouldn’t even feel bad walking around with muddy feet. Asphalt would be cleaner.

To Hee-na, who was appalled by the messy state of the house, the system asked whether she wanted to sign the contract.

Hee-na ignored the system window and strode toward the bathroom. When looking at real estate properties, the bathroom was the most important thing to Hee-na.

The system acted like a licensed realtor in name only, desperate to sell the studio right away.

It kept displaying the window in front of her eyes and asking about the contract. As if trying to distract her, the system windows kept popping up repeatedly in duplicates.

Well, this was practically half-coercion.

“Did you think I would fall for such a trick?”

Hee-na snorted and flung the bathroom door open.

As soon as she opened the door, a strange smell of urine brushed the tip of her nose.

“Ugh, what is this smell!”

It smelled bad, as if the bathroom had not been cleaned for months. Moreover, the joints between the floor tiles were pitch black, and the mirror was so stained with water scales that it looked rusty. The sink and toilet, which should have been white, were also yellow.

“You’re giving me this trash as a house?”

Hee-na stamped her feet in anger. There was no messier house than this. Truly, this was a zero-point property.

“I’m not signing! Show me a different house!”

Hee-na shouted into the empty air. Then, the system window popped up again with a beep.

The ‘No’ button that was supposed to be next to ‘Yes’ was gone. It was absurd.

“Where is the ‘No’? I’m going to press ‘No’, ‘No’! No! I don’t want to!”

She said it several times, but now the system only displayed the same phrase.

“Show me something else!”

“No!”

“Why is there only one choice?”

If the system had been a physical entity, she would have grabbed it by the hair immediately.

However, the system was an invisible entity, and in this situation, there was only one choice Hee-na could make.

“Alright, you swindler! Yes! Fine, I’ll sign!”

When she shouted ‘Yes’ while huffing, the system finally seemed satisfied.

The Homemaker of the Dungeon