After seeing Suho off first and remaining late at the officetel, Narae decided to just sleep there that day.
It was too late to go back, and anyway, it was a place equipped with everything needed for daily life.
The officetel Suho had bought to observe the TDM interior remodeling site up close was merely shabby in the eyes of Thomas the chaebol; by no means was it a crude place for temporary accommodation.
It was 52 pyeong in size, with as many as four rooms.
The living room was spacious as well, and there were three bathrooms in total.
The rooms were divided as follows: Suho and Jiho in one, Seongsik in one, and Danbi and Narae each in their own rooms.
Even so, actually sleeping in this house was extremely rare. Everyone had their own separate homes anyway.
It was simply a place used to wash up briefly, rest for a while, or gather for meetings among the core members.
"Phew... refreshing."
After washing up and changing into pajamas in her room, Narae came out to the living room.
She took a cold drink from the refrigerator, held it in her hand, and sat on the sofa.
- [I have work so I'm sleeping at the company. Don't wait up and go to bed first.]
When she sent a message to her younger siblings, a reply came immediately.
- What, noona, you're staying out?
- Wow, unni, your company is too much. Making you work overnight? It's an evil corporation.
- [It's not like that. They don't make me work that hard. Anyway, sleep first. Lock up well, and turn off the lights properly.]
- Wow, but noona, is it okay for a grown woman to stay out?
- Excuse me? Oppa, what kind of talk is that? Women can't stay out?
- I'll tell Mom everything.
- That's hilarious. Unni, don't worry about it. I'll educate this Joseon-era oppa.
The bickering messages from her siblings soon filled the screen.
"Kuk kuk... you cute little things."
A smile spread across Narae's face.
Leaving her phone on the sofa, she got up and slightly drew back the terrace curtains. Even at this late hour, as darkness embraced the city, the roads were still filled with the lights of cars.
It was quite a nice night view.
Come to think of it, the silence of the officetel felt unfamiliar.
Everyone had always gathered here, making it bustling.
Resting her head blankly against the window, as she watched the streams of car lights flowing along their respective paths, something suddenly flashed through Narae's mind.
"Right, that's it."
Remembering what Suho had said about depositing her bonus, she opened her bank account and was startled.
"Ar... are you crazy... what kind of bonus is this..."
An account with 2.5 billion won deposited.
A bonus exceeding two years' worth of salary.
She counted it over and over, but it was indeed 2.5 billion.
For a moment, dizziness washed over her.
She had witnessed Suho's extravagance many times, but it was a scale she could never get used to.
Over the past few months with Suho, Narae's circumstances had completely changed.
She had already paid off her apartment loan,
and moved to a house where each of her siblings could have their own room.
Above all, she no longer had to suffocate under the costs of life-sustaining treatment for both her parents.
This was truly a huge change. Her parents' condition remained the same, but she was grateful that it wasn't getting worse.
Suho had already given her more than enough, but what he had given her today was an unprecedented gift that surpassed everything.
"Phew..."
Click.
Narae opened the box Suho had left on the table.
Made of some unknown wood, the intricately and neatly crafted wooden box was a work of art in itself.
When she opened the box, inside were two [Highest-grade Disease Cure Potions] and two [Highest-grade Healing Potions] resting gracefully.
Seeing their radiant forms, her heart pounded violently.
Just these four potions were worth over a trillion won. There were medicines worth well over 1 trillion won sitting before her very eyes.
Afraid she might take them out and drop them, her hands trembled just from touching them.
Her parents had been unconscious for several years already.
Modern medicine had said there was no cure.
It wasn't that Narae hadn't wanted to try Disease Cure Potions and Healing Potions. It had been impossible.
Even mid-grade Healing Potions had been impossible to obtain, and she couldn't even get her hands on low-grade Disease Cure Potions.
That was how rare they were, and even if they appeared on the market, they were prohibitively expensive.
But these were, incredibly, the highest grade.
For Narae, these were items she could never obtain even if she died and came back to life ten times.
It was probably an amount that her descendants for three or four generations couldn't pay off even if they worked at it generation after generation.
But Suho had given them to her without asking for anything in return.
"You just have to feed them or inject them. As long as they get inside the body somehow, the effect will show. Actually, Healing Potions work even if you just sprinkle them on the skin. Still, it's best to administer them into the body for certainty."
She recalled his voice explaining each detail as he handed over the potions.
Trickle-
Before she knew it, tears pooling in her eyes rolled down Narae's cheeks. She had cried so much in front of Suho earlier, yet there were still tears left.
Emotions of excitement, gratitude, and relief surged up from deep within her heart once again.
Years of pain and fear now seemed to wash away along with her tears.
She must have had so much pent-up anxiety without even realizing it. Still, after crying for a long while, her heart cleared along with the tears that had passed.
And as her heart brightened, Suho, who had bestowed all of this upon her, settled even more clearly in her mind.
* * *
After going through other scheduled matters in Korea in a half-hearted manner, Thomas returned to Canada earlier than planned.
Perhaps because the impact of meeting Suho had been so strong, his other schedules felt merely bothersome and mundane.
Having returned home, Thomas refrained from all external activities and social media for a while.
And then, like someone who had come down with depression, he locked himself in his room, never stepping out.
He thought of that old officetel.
And the S-rank Admities gathered there.
During that short time staying in that house, there had been no reason to strain himself or tense up to appear stronger or to show off what he possessed.
It had been an atmosphere where there was no need for such competition or power struggles.
Wherever he went, he was met with jealousy and envy in terms of ability and wealth, but there, none of that existed.
Rather, there were gazes that looked at him pityingly.
It was unfamiliar, yet not unpleasant.
'What could be the reason...'
On the flight back, he had thought of nothing else.
The conclusion he had reached was that it felt like everyone had become equals before the immense influence of the figure named Jeong Suho, huddling together comfortably.
Crack-
Screech-
Crunch.
Thomas tore down the gilded walls of his house and all the expensive items, stuffing them into one room. He took everything out of the display cases and gathered them in the room as well.
And sitting blankly in the empty living room, he mulled over Suho's words.
"When you try to find meaning in possession, in the end, you can't find anything."
A faint smile hung on his lips.
Exactly what he had been feeling was contained in those words.
He had once spoken of the emptiness that suddenly came from desperately chasing after more possessions, but after being cursed at for uttering such pretentious nonsense, he had never spoken of it again.
But Suho had spoken it freely without hesitation.
"Just being able to spend abundantly—be satisfied right at that line, and find the real thing elsewhere. In what makes my heart race, in what I truly want."
Thomas had always thirsted for recognition.
Accumulating and flaunting wealth was ultimately nothing more than a means to gain social recognition and a sense of belonging.
Through money and success, he tried to prove his worth, to receive respect and recognition, and to secure superiority through endless comparison and competition.
More than anything, he wanted attention from others.
To draw the world's gaze and prove through it that he was an important existence.
It had ultimately been an attempt to compensate for internal deficiencies with material and external things, but the result was... a complete failure.
It hadn't been filled.
It was only a temporary effect; fundamentally, nothing had changed.
He only became emptier, lonelier.
"What do I truly want... what is it, Thomas?"
He asked, looking at his reflection in the mirror.
"It's living comfortably and happily with precious people. You idiot."
It seemed his reflection in the mirror answered without hesitation.
"Who is that?"
To the question asked again, even his reflection in the mirror could give no answer.
Because there was no one like that.
Parents, siblings—they were merely people trying to extract something from him.
Fans? They were just spectators who enjoyed watching him splash his money around.
Even the clan members who should have been the closest were merely people entangled in business.
Looking back, they were people who used him to raise the clan's brand value and sought to profit from it.
Something had been off from the very beginning.
"World's number one salary Admity, my ass..."
Stripping away the gold-plated shell, in its place seemed to be the world's loneliest number one Admity.
On the day he made some kind of decision after being holed up for several days, he called the vice clan leader.
"It's me, Thomas. Gather all the executives. I have a major announcement."
* * *
Suho, lounging around and resting in the subspace warehouse, was reading densely packed information on a tablet.
Data organized and categorized by the online order reception team for TDM's next sale.
What kind of Admities the customers were, how trustworthy they were,
what items or materials they wanted,
and for what reasons they sought them—such details were meticulously recorded.
However, the amount was staggering.
Each Admity and each clan needed and sought so many different items.
Since Suho was the only one who could procure the items anyway, it was essential that he review the orders received by TDM.
Since it was a task that would take a lot of time, Suho always did this in the subspace warehouse where time was infinite.
When he went back after organizing everything here, the people at TDM would gape with their mouths hanging open.
In their eyes, Suho's work speed was beyond imagination.
While staring at the screen, Suho noticed one unusual item.
"Huh...? Core Stone? What is this?"
Suho immediately called Ravi and showed him the image of the item named 'Core Stone.'
"Ravi, do you know about Core Stones?"
"Hoo? Has a core stone ever been discovered on Earth?"
"Seems like it? Someone apparently got it from the Tower and used it. What is this?"
"Hmm... simply put, it could be called a 'magic stone with an ego.' More simply, it could be called a 'golem's core.' Do you happen to know what golems are?"
"I know, I know. Rock giants, something like that?"
When Suho shoved the image he found on his phone at him, Ravi frowned.
"It's too beautified. Golems don't look this sleek. They're much rougher than this. They're practically like piles of trash."
"Hmm... so anyway, if I have this, can I make a golem?"
"You can make one, but its utility value is low. Also, Core Stones have various attributes, and each Core Stone attracts substances of its corresponding attribute to form its body. And they function as living beings that move on their own. Their intelligence is extremely low, and they are difficult to tame."
"Really? So can you give them commands or anything?"
"It will practically be difficult. You can consider them to have almost no intelligence."
"What. Then what do you use it for?"
"It's just a moving piece of trash. If you compare it to humans, it's like making a virus or cancer cell very large."
"Hmm... does this stone form its body quickly? Or does it take a long time?"
"That happens in an instant."
"Hoo... then if it's an earth attribute Core Stone, it would pull in all the surrounding stones to form its body?"
"It's not stone attribute, it's earth attribute Core Stone. Earth attribute Core Stones have a high probability of attracting not just natural stones but also concrete, limestone, and even dirt. At an incredible speed."
"Aha......?"
The moment he heard that from Ravi, a realization came like a flash of lightning about where to use this item.