Chapter 3: Meeting

The massage chair was expensive, but the massage effect was amazing.

My body, which was cool and relaxed, was so effective that I was instantly sent to dreamland even though I was lying on a sofa instead of a bed.

It didn’t just help me sleep well, but the massage that relaxed my body was also great.

They say it’s used for medical purposes, and my body really relaxed.

Of course, that alone won’t make all the fatigue I’ve accumulated so far disappear, but it’s enough.

And I’m not going to just use the massage chair once, right?

This chair that can turn on whenever there’s electricity is something I can use as I please!

Hehehe… I’ll cherish it for a long time and use it until every nook and cranny breaks down…!!

This lovely massage chair…!!

“Ugh… How long has it been since I’ve slept this well…?”

I stretched out as I woke up, feeling my body’s state normalizing artistically, without any discomfort, even though I slept on a sofa, not a bed.

I did some light stretching.

If there is a morning routine that has developed over the course of my life, it is a refreshing start to the day when I drink water after light stretching and wash my face.

There were many times when I couldn’t do that, so now that I’m retired, I should do it well.

This is also an act that gives me a sense of peace.

Oh, I’ve been to many places where it’s hard to sleep…

Oh, even I think I’ve lived a really hard life.

Still, I worked hard and earned a lot of money~

Let’s have a drink!

“Oh, maybe because I slept too well, I don’t feel like cooking.”

There have been many times in my life when I’ve tried cooking.

So I’m pretty good at it.

However, there’s a world of difference between knowing how to cook and wanting to do it now!

In times like this, delivery is the answer.

In this chaotic world where dimensions merge with Earth, cracks open, monsters from other worlds keep appearing, and not a single day is peaceful, do you know what field humanity, which was gradually adapting, developed first?

It was ‘delivery’.

It is not simply a delivery of food, but a delivery that includes a wider range of things.

It is not the old humanity that knew more about Earth than it did not, and it is not the old Earth that humans knew.

In short, it means that the world was fused together due to dimensional fusion, and changes and additions to the terrain, and the appearance of unknown creatures, etc., continued to occur, and even exchanges between countries that existed in the world were cut off.

Because of that, resources were insufficient, various defects arose…

It is said that it was a total mess in the beginning.

But now we have overcome it!

The fusion with other dimensions brought chaos, but that chaos was not necessarily bad.

At least it gave humanity new powers.

Powers that seem to come out of fantasy.

Things like magic, superpowers, auras, and internal energy.

And those powers allowed us to fight enemies that appeared in a more strongly fused dimension, but at the same time, they were the greatest help to humanity’s lives.

With the fusion, we could no longer return to the ordinary and peaceful daily life before dimensional fusion.

However, there was a power that allowed them to reach that close range, and the newly acquired power existed.

And the most important of these was delivery.

The most important of these was teleportation through magic!

With the appearance of powerful aquatic monsters in the sea, trade and travel through waterways became almost non-existent, and even air routes became extremely dangerous due to the appearance of winged flying demons, and disappeared.

As a result, exchanges between countries were almost completely cut off, but teleportation was what revived them.

Starting with light movement, large-scale, long-distance teleportation became possible, and it completely replaced the previous trade and distribution, and it became possible to transport not only goods but also people.

It was used for inter-country affairs on a large scale, but the element that was helpful in everyday life was delivery.

The super-fast delivery service that immediately delivers to the address you specify after ordering was like the light and salt of this era, where people who are afraid of going outside naturally increased.

However, while courier services were replaced by this type of space movement, it was different in areas like food delivery.

There were still delivery drivers in this area.

However, delivery drivers have become a much higher-level workforce than before.

In this era, deliveries are made via low-altitude motorcycles that have been modified to reach supersonic speeds.

They deliver as quickly and quickly as possible to prevent danger!

Accidents rarely occur because they deliver while speeding through the air to avoid crashing into anything.

However, since delivery drivers have to handle all that tremendous speed, only those who have realized the new possibilities for humans that have opened up with the advent of this era, called ‘Awakened Ones’, have taken on this kind of delivery job…and have become high-level workforce!

In return, the delivery fee has become very expensive, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

There were places that entrusted the delivery to ordinary people to save on delivery fees.

Until all of those ordinary delivery people couldn’t survive…!!

Oh, there were many cases where they physically died, but there were more people who simply realized their limits and gave up.

“Hmm, are you still tired?”

Judging from the fact that the thought of ordering delivery reached this point, it seemed that he was tired.

It was already accumulated fatigue.

Well, it’s strange that a massage chair can be relieved in one go?

Or maybe he just didn’t wake up fully?

Anyway, seeing him make such a grand speech about delivery just to order one delivery, I could tell that my condition was really bad.

Or maybe he was thinking of doing this kind of delivery work instead of being a mercenary when he runs out of money?

I heard it’s quite lucrative.

In the past, retired Awakened people mostly did delivery work, but now, even among ordinary Awakened people, since this job is less dangerous and pays well, they often jump into delivery work, which is a good thing.

Well, it’s not too late to think about the future later…

So how should I think about what I have to do now…?

Yes, deciding what to eat for breakfast today.

Now that I’ve woken up from a good night’s sleep, I don’t want to eat a normal breakfast…!!

“Oh, I want chicken and beer in the morning?”

But there’s no way there’s a place that sells chicken right now…

Chicken usually sells in the afternoon.

Then what should I eat…

I thought about it, but I got tired of looking for something, so I decided to just fill up on a hamburger.

“Hmm, it’s as filling as a bowl of soup.”

Since I work physically, I tend to eat a little more than usual, so I ate two hamburger sets and three more single items.

In fact, it was also because I didn’t want to pack lunch.

It’s called brunch, you know.

Breakfast + lunch.

Isn’t this an efficient choice?

Anyway, after eating, I just lazed around in the living room and rested.

I’m a person who can be considered a piece of firewood that’s been left over from the fire.

I’m just enough to just roll around the house without doing anything special.

However, there was an uninvited guest who broke my peace.

Bang!!

“Police!! Put your hands up!!!”

A large man appeared, not by opening the door as if he was going to smash it open, but by actually breaking the door open.

“Ah, damn it, this is why you brought me here??”

And a slightly smaller woman behind him.

“You’re not a cop, are you?”

“Hey, is that the right reaction to an intruder breaking into someone else’s house?”

They were intruders who suddenly appeared, but since they were all familiar faces, I didn’t bother to react.

“But why are you lying on the floor??”

“Are you enjoying the feeling of becoming one with this house… like playing with corpses?”

“You said you were retiring, but are you like an old man about to retire?”

“That’s because I’m so f*cking tired. A guy like me who’s worked hard can rest like this.”

Those two are so-called civil servants working for the government’s Awakened Crime Management Bureau.

The big guy is an office worker who doesn’t match his size.

But his position is high.

Was he a deputy manager?

The small woman is an external advisor.

Still, it’s okay to think of him as a civil servant.

They were both friends who became close over time.

Well, that’s how fate is.

I was moving around slowly, and soon I sat down on the sofa.

“You came at an odd hour. What brings you here? You don’t seem to be here to get a bite to eat.”

“Oh, well. I thought of you since I had some work nearby, so I came to see you.”

“Really?”

“Whoa, did you fix the door? Oh, damn it, I left my friend behind and we’re just playing shuttle bus…”

“Haha! Well, that could happen!”

Even so, we do cover for each other.

I wonder when we’ll start dating.

Well anyway, since it’s been a while since an acquaintance visited, we had a pleasant chat.

Before they left for work, they told me something.

“Oh, by the way, do you watch the news?”

“Sometimes? I saw it yesterday, for one thing.”

“Then you saw that too? The massacre of the elf tribe in the border area of the Northern Reconstruction Zone.”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was a one-time thing, but it seems like it’s going to get bigger than I thought?

The guy who did that is slowly moving south, turning the entire Reconstruction Zone into a wasteland.

He doesn’t move in a straight line either, but rather moves in a strange way, so the damage is even greater.

And if we continue that way… I heard we’ll probably run into that guy who rules the current Reconstruction Zone.”

“That salty dragon?”

The master of the Northern Reconstruction Zone that even the discriminatory elf tribe dared not touch.

That guy’s true identity is a subspecies of drake called a Elder Drake.

He belongs to a species called Elder Drake, and he speaks with great intelligence, and he boasts outstanding physical and magical abilities.

He’s a master of fire magic in particular.

There’s even an assessment that he absorbed all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and evolved.

Anyway, if that happens…

“You’ll get screwed, right?”

“The people under me will get screwed, haha!”

“Anyway, it’ll get a little noisy. I guess that’s not a story that interests you since you’re retired?”

“Right?”

The guys who said that without adding anything else, as if they just thought of it, greeted me and left and went back to work.

And then I fell asleep again.

‘Hmm, an unidentified monster from the Northern Reconstruction Zone…’

Why is it, even though it’s something that happens far away…

Somehow, it feels ominous…

I feel like we’re definitely going to get involved…!…

I guess so.

I quickly shook off my worries, shook my head, and lay down on the sofa, staring blankly at the ceiling.

What could happen to a retired guy?

As long as things are peaceful like now, that’s enough.

With that thought, I lay down comfortably and began to blank out.