‘Why is Nayeon here?’
It was puzzling, but—
Still, it was nice to see her!
Should they put Nayeon in this operation too?
Gru was just about to skip over to Nayeon and greet her when Gidan stopped her.
‘Huh?’
‘Wait a moment.’
Signaling with his eyes, he tucked Gru under his arm and hurried out into the garden. Then he took her to a bench and sat her down.
‘What’s wrong? I wanted to say hi to Nayeon.’
Gidan, who had been pacing back and forth in front of Gru, suddenly stopped and muttered under his breath.
“……Could it be Nayeon?”
“Hm? What?”
“You know…… Your daughter.”
“Gasp!”
Gru clapped both hands over her mouth.
As Gru sat there speechless, Gidan spoke gravely.
“Nayeon’s family is pretty well-off too.”
Nayeon was the only daughter of a prominent business family.
“She’s pretty, young, the only daughter of a wealthy family……”
As Gidan pointed out several suspicious details, Gru swallowed hard and said,
“S-so the young lady could be Nayeon unnie too?!”
Gidan nodded in confirmation, his eyes trembling.
Gyaaaah! Gru clapped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming at the top of her lungs.
But Gidan was in just as much of a panic.
“W-w-w-what do we do?”
“B-be calm! Ahem, stay calm.”
Gidan, his face gone deathly pale, tried to collect himself.
“Y-yeah!”
But Gidan was the least calm of them all.
“Nayeon? With hyung? But they’re…… family, aren’t they? They’re related, aren’t they?”
Gru’s cheeks eventually turned bright red too.
Nayeon unnie might become her mommy!
‘My heart feels like it’s going to burst!’
Gru clutched her chest and staggered.
‘I have to go to Oppa Serhi!’
Before she could even reach Serhi, she had run into a colossal obstacle!
The two of them were flapping about like freshly caught fish, unable to contain their excitement, when Gru, staggering around, bumped into someone.
“S-sowwy!”
The expressionless woman stared intently at Gru.
Her eyes were so pitch-black that there was no distinction between iris and pupil, and Gru found herself staring blankly into them.
So black. Amazing.
After a moment, the woman replied in a flat voice.
“It’s all right.”
Gru gave her a bashful smile. A nice person!
At the sight of that smile, a faint blush seemed to bloom across the woman’s pale face, only to sink back into gloom almost at once.
“……”
For some reason, she hesitated for a moment before poking Gru’s plump cheek.
“……!”
Cold!
An icy chill that sent shivers down her spine.
When Gru’s shoulders trembled, the woman hurriedly withdrew her hand in surprise.
By then, Gidan had already stepped in front of Gru and said sharply,
“You shouldn’t touch a child without permission, noona.”
“Ah…… ah.”
The woman lowered her eyes.
There was no particular emotion in her expression, but Gru could sense the faintest trace of embarrassment.
“I’m sorry…….”
Contrary to her cold expression, the woman seemed unsure what to do. Then she bowed deeply at the waist in apology.
Her Korean was fluent, but her pronunciation carried the distinctive intonation of a foreigner.
‘A foreigner?’
Judging by her appearance, she seemed to be from a country near Korea.
“Gru, let me take a look at your face.”
“Hm? I’m otay…….”
When Gidan checked the cheek Gru had tried to wave him off from examining, the woman clenched the hand that had touched Gru’s cheek and spun around.
Gru clasped her hands together and stared fixedly at the woman’s back as she quickly walked away.
Her face was cold and stiff, and her hand had been terribly cold.
But she wasn’t a dangerous person.
‘Because…….’
Ding!
[Potential caregiver detected. Increasing the attachment index will allow caregiver registration.]
That message had appeared!
‘Hm, I haven’t seen this in a while…….’
Gru stroked her chin as she looked at the pop-up window. She hadn’t seen a caregiver registration message at all lately.
Which was only natural, since there weren’t many S-ranks……
‘Ah!’
Wait, then—
‘That unnie is S-rank……?!’
“Are you really all right?”
Gidan asked again anxiously as he watched Gru’s expression shift from concern to surprise.
“Yeah, yeah! Gru otay.”
This was no time to get distracted.
She had almost lost her train of thought again.
“But, Oppa, Gru’s hungry.”
“Oh, what do you want to eat?”
Gidan opened the guide map and checked the facilities available at the base.
It was an enormous luxury resort, so a wide variety of shops had moved in.
Gru pointed to one place on the guide map, hiding a sly smile as she said,
“Gru thinks this place wook good!”
*
Inside the spacious lounge.
Serhi, dressed as a waiter and carrying a tray, lightly tugged at the bow tie choking his neck.
A mascot costume, a waiter’s uniform…… He had even put in contact lenses to hide his unusual eye color.
‘They really went all out.’
Serhi forced down his irritation.
Deep down, he knew the problem wasn’t the mascot costume or the bow tie.
The truth was, these tangled human relationships were far more exhausting.
Jin Siwon, Gidan, and now……
Come to think of it, Serhi had spent his whole life creating problems. He had never learned how to solve them.
Since he didn’t know any amicable solutions, he tended to become even more defensive or aggressive.
In the end, Serhi bristled with thorns once again and asked even more curtly,
-Why are you answering? Where did Yoon Arin go?
-She took over for a moment. What about the target?
-Still haven’t seen him.
Based on testimony from the New Corps and with the cooperation of Allen Cravis, CEO of Infinity Wave, it had already been three days since the Special Investigations Division of the Management Bureau arrived on Jeju Island.
Nothing had happened yet. Apparently, the actual transaction had not begun.
This was the information they had obtained through the New Corps and Allen:
The monster smuggling transaction would take place in conjunction with Infinity Wave’s new product presentation.
The participants would use tablets handed to them to inspect the merchandise and make a deposit, after which the goods would be delivered later.
This time, however, there was one particularly large item, and it was supposedly being brought into Jeju Island in person.
The Special Investigations Division’s objective was to locate the monster brought onto Jeju Island or identify the moment when contact was made through the tablets.
They had to get hold of the trail this time, no matter what.
Serhi suddenly recalled the photograph Allen had shown the investigation team.
‘Irina.’
It showed Irina together with Infinity Wave’s co-CEO, Zachary McLaren.
There was no doubt this smuggling operation was connected to Gnosis.
Serhi clenched his fist, forcing down the mana that threatened to surge forth.
“Hey, you with the brown hair. Come over here.”
A drunk?
A middle-aged man was arrogantly beckoning Serhi with his index finger.
-Serhi…… Should I go over there?
Jin Siwon, who had overheard the situation, asked worriedly.
-No need.
Serhi answered coldly, then approached the man.
“Yes.”
Jang Hyeonmin, the head of a distribution company responsible for most of the domestic distribution of Eungwangcho, repeatedly knocked back his drink as he looked Serhi up and down.
He had planned to make a tidy profit from the Eungwangcho crisis, but perhaps he had been too greedy.
Everything had gone to ruin because of one strange fellow called Jjapso—or whatever his name was.
On top of that, reports emerged claiming that the distributors had intentionally withheld Eungwangcho. Public sentiment had boiled over, and every political party had even brought forward regulatory bills in an attempt to win votes.
No matter how much he lobbied, at this rate he was headed straight downhill.
In the end, desperate to find a way out, he had deliberately shown his face at an event to which he had not even been invited.
Yet the moment they saw him, everyone had looked uncomfortable and avoided him.
Infuriated, he had been angrily knocking back drinks ever since.
‘Damn it!’
He gripped his glass so tightly that the veins stood out on the back of his hand, then glared at the waiter.
The sight of the handsome boy’s delicate face, his dark-brown hair neatly swept back, made Jang Hyeonmin’s anger rise for no reason.
‘This one and that one—every last one of them has a face polished smooth.’
Jang Hyeonmin ground his teeth.
Everywhere he went, people were busy praising the Hyeonak family. Thanks to their striking looks, photos and videos of them were constantly appearing in all sorts of media, to the point that even deliberately trying to avoid them was impossible.
Jang Hyeonmin roughly snatched a champagne glass from the tray Serhi held and took a sip.
Then he poured the rest of the drink over Serhi’s head.
“Hey, you call this a drink?”