บท 123: Before the Setup – I
"I'm sorry, Hannah."
"Don't be sorry. Be better."
"Ahaha..." I let out a wry smile and rubbed the back of my head.
We were at my fancy top-floor office in Elysium's new headquarters.
To say that I was in a lot of trouble with a lot of messes to clear up would be an absolute understatement.
After all, I had promised Hannah to help with the halfway point prepwork, but ended up almost missing it. Then there was the promise I made to pick up Jinhee and the others to explain a bit more... something that fell to Maldong instead since I took so long.
And that didn't even begin to cover the mess with Seonhwa or the bombshell Flone apparently threw in the mix by bringing their very much biological daughter 'Rosie' to visit the family.
Honestly, there was embracing a role and then there was immersing yourself a bit too much in a role. It would have been fine for Roselle to just look the part, but she had to go ahead and then use her dream/reality bending sorcery to actually become their daughter...
But anyway.
That stuff could all be cleaned up later. Top priority right now was to get the halfway point squared away so that I could get my dear sister on my side to save me from myself.
And to start with that...
I sat at my fancy mahogany desk (how did they get that here anyway?) and started flipping through the paperwork. "It looks like you have everything in order?"
The personnel slots to run the Tutorial and Neutral Zone were all filled up. The Golden Stamps were prepared and used on Jinhee, Seunghae, and Eun Yuri. We restocked the VIP shop with more cool stuff since I had mostly cleaned it out in the past. And we even threw a bone to the other organizations to let some of their people in.
In short, my lovely wife had everything tidied up and taken care of as usual.
Hannah rolled her eyes and walked around to sit on the desk right next to me. "Of course I do." She reached out to poke my forehead and said, "My annoying as hell husband would be drowning in work without me."
"Considering I can do minor temporal manipulation now, not really, but I appreciate you anyway?"
Hannah blinked.
I smiled.
Hannah blinked again and then said, "...That's a joke right?"
I shuffled the paperwork back together and set it aside. "Anyway, looks good, Honey."
Hannah's eye twitched and she said, "Hey. If that's not a joke- Mmph?!"
I pulled Hannah in for a kiss and then said, "You've been under a lot of stress, so how about we get rid of a bit of that for you, hm?"
"W-Wait." Hannah pulled back and said, "You're just trying to distract me from- Hnngh~? W-Wait, not theRE~!"
xxx
Back on Earth. The high-end Cafe Blanca that Hannah always took me to have business meetings at.
My lovely and competent wife was still busy recovering after working non-stop, so I was making the rounds to pick up a few threads I left tangled up.
Starting with my baby sister.
Jinhee gave me a side-eye while sipping on a fancy gold-dust milkshake thing that cost around the same as a college textbook.
I had stuck with plain black coffee and a simple strawberry crepe.
A long silence stretched. Mostly because the other people in the cafe could sense something was up and were staring directly at us.
After a while though, Jinhee broke the silence. "So, Oppa. Care to explain why you've left us in the dark after saying you'd spill all the beans?"
I sipped on my coffee and said, "It's complicated. But I had to take a mental wellness break."
Jinhee gave me a blank stare. "...A mental wellness break? You?"
I let out a bright smile and nodded. "Yep! Turns out therapy is great. Wouldn't recommend the exact treatment I went through, but it definitely straightened some things out."
Like how I was essentially a composite soul built up from a regret, a wish, and an ideal. And that there was an entire backstory segment of my life that I missed by not paying more attention in the beginning, but c'est la vie. Sometimes, that was just how the cookie crumbled.
Jinhee groaned and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Oppa. At this rate, I'M going to be the one who needs therapy." She narrowed her eyes and said, "Since when were you going to plan on dumping the fact that you cheated on Seonhwa Unni with Flone Unni and had a kid?"
"Okay." I held up my hands and said, "I know how it looks-"
"Do you though?"
"I do. But there really is a proper and logical reason for all of this. I just can't tell you yet because-"
Jinhee rolled her eyes and said, "Not high enough clearance, top secret stuff, yada yada..." She sipped on her shake and then said, "I swear, Oppa. If you're just making this shit up, I'm going to completely disown you and then write a revenge story out of your life."
I placed my hand over my heart and said, "Cross my heart and hope to die, Sis."
"I'll plan your funeral then."
"Ouch."
Jinhee stirred her shake a bit and looked inside her cup, frowning. "...For something stupidly expensive, this doesn't taste too good."
I gave her a blank look and said, "You think that gold would ever taste good when poured on stuff?"
"I did." Jinhee shoved her shake aside and frowned. "...But I dunno if it's going to be worth shitting gold later."
I blinked and said, "You've been hanging out a lot with Hannah, haven't you?"
Jinhee crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Well, if I can't hang out with my big brother, I might as well hang out with my sister-in-law, right?"
"...Anyway." I picked up a fork and knife and started cutting my crepe. "Are you and the other girls prepared?"
Jinhee nodded and said, "Yeah. Grandpa Maldong explained most of it last time." She frowned and said, "Is it really going to be that dangerous though?"
I waved my hand and said, "Don't worry about it. You girls are getting the VIP treatment with me by your side, so it'll be fine. If anything, just think of it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to get first-hand experience at being a webnovel main character."
Jinhee frowned and stared into my eyes.
I blinked and tilted my head. "What?"
"...Huh. You're not lying."
I reached up to grab my face and frowned. "Do I have a tell? I thought I had a good poker face, but all the girls keep saying they can figure out when I'm lying..."
Jinhee laughed and said, "Of course. But you'll have to get it out of them." She lowered her arms and started swinging her legs a bit. "This is the only secret weapon against my reckless Oppa who keeps hiding things from us, so I can't give it up that easily, can I?"
"Fair."
Jinhee smiled. And then that smile turned a bit mischievous, matched with a sly sparkle in her eyes. "Sooo... Oppa."
I had a bad feeling, but I slowly nodded and said, "Yes?"
"When are you going to tell Mom and Dad that you married Miss Seora and her older sister too?"
!$@!@#!@#!
xxx
Paradise, the outskirts of the Empire and hotbed for Parasite activity.
"Huh." Sung Shihyun adjusted his wolf mask and looked around at the wasteland filled with Parasite corpses. "Is it just me, or does Queenie seem pretty dumb today?"
Seol stabbed his spear into the ground and rested against it, frowning. "Yeah... this is a bit weird."
The Parasite Queen should definitely be on-guard. After the ridiculous antics that Jihu recently pulled, she should be trying to reserve her forces and build them up as much as possible.
Even though Seol and Sung Shihyun went out of their way to taunt them all, she should have restrained her forces.
But the Parasites had rushed forward without thinking. Medusas, Hydras... even a whole Nest. Forces that shouldn't have been moved were thrown their way and milled through like nuts in a blender.
Figuratively and literally considering all the chunky brown bits scattered around from Sung Shihyun testing out the skills he 'learned' from Jihu.
Sung Shihyun frowned and said, "You think something changed because of Jihu leveling up?"
"Hm..." Seol frowned as well and said, "The only things
coming up should be the spirit realm invasion and reviving the world tree. I needed to get Eun Yuri's help with that, along with some other people... but Jihu shouldn't."
"Think causality's swinging back to bite him like a bitch?"
Seol stared off in the distance, activating the Nine Eyes.
But there was nothing. No color at all.
"...I don't know. At least, there's nothing that I can see."
"Huh." Sung Shihyun frowned and stared at the Imperial Palace. And then he glanced at Seol. "Hey. Wanna make a run at it?"
"What?"
Sung Shihyun waved his sword to the palace and said, "You know? Scouting. This is weird, so that crazy bastard could use some intel, right?"
"...You just want to see if you match up, don't you?"
Sung Shihyun shrugged and said, "Your words, not mine. I just want to be the proper hero here and help out our pal Jihu." He paused and said, "If the Parasite Queen just so happens to show up, or the Army Commanders block our path..."
"Meh." Seol pulled out his spear and said, "Not like things can get crazier from here anyway."
"Alright!" Sung Shihyun rested his sword over his shoulder and said, "Time to solo the Demon Lord!"
"...You were a JRPG addict before you came to Paradise, weren't you?"
"Oh shut up, gambling addict. If you were in that guy's world, you'd be hooked on Gacha games."
"What the hell is a gacha?"
"Tch. You're no fun." Sung Shihyun cracked his neck and said, "Last to the throne room buys dinner."
"You're on."
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HappyVainGlory
HappyVainGlory tl;dr 'Rona virus strikes twice. Legal work takes a lot of time. We running this to the end for better or worse now, baby.
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