Chapter Game Changer
Veilark’s leash and harness confiscated, Geuru sat at the table clutching a spoon and fork in both hands and pouted.
“Geuru’s gonna confiscate ‘no’ and ‘forbidden’ from Daddy too.”
“Even so, the leash is a no.”
“Tch!”
He only ever says no.
She had even bought a leash so she could go on walks with Veilark, but it looked like she wouldn’t be able to keep her New Year’s plan after all.
The reason was more or less guessable.
Daddy hated human-form Veilark too much.
It was unclear if it was due to some deep-rooted hatred of humans, but for whatever reason, he would furrow his brows heavily or sigh deeply at the mere sight of Veilark in human form.
As if he wanted to kick him out right this instant!
‘So I have to level up quickly, quickly.’
The plan was to upgrade the Skill ‘Knead-Knead’ and turn Veilark into a complete hamster.
‘If he stays as a hamster all the time, it’ll be easier to take him on walks too….’
A spoon piled with fluffy rice and savory bulgogi approached her mouth.
Geuru opened wide and chomped down on the food.
‘Then it’ll be easy to take him to kindergarten too, right?’
A week had passed since enrolling in the Chick Class of Justicia’s affiliated kindergarten.
Geuru had insisted on bringing Mephi and Bei along, so they were attending together, but Jurim couldn’t hide his daily worry that Veilark might turn into a human.
Geuru understood her daddy’s worries, but….
‘But if Bei stays home, he’ll just watch zombies all day.’
Veilark was completely engrossed in a bloody, 19-rated TV program where zombies devoured people.
Seeing him watch zombie mukbang with a blank stare and even regain his appetite, if they neglected him, he might cause an accident and get dragged off to the Management Bureau.
Trip to the Management Bureau = Meeting Mr. Heungsam = Kyaang!(☠)
‘Ung, as expected, the owner Geuru has to get stronger.’
Just as Geuru made a firm resolution, chopsticks holding red kimchi approached.
‘Spicy!’
Geuru quickly turned her head and rummaged through her bag. She had to divert his attention before Daddy shoved the spicy kimchi in.
“Daddy, wook! Geuru made it during free time!”
Jurim let out a deep sigh, put the side dish in his own mouth, and asked with a puzzled look.
“Free time?”
“Making time?”
“Craft time?”
“Yeah, that.”
Geuru proudly pulled out a yellow clump of fur about the size of an adult’s fist from her bag.
The plump, chick-shaped bird doll had a propeller like a helicopter attached to its head.
“A drone?”
“Yesh! We did drone making during free time!”
Calling it “drone making” was just assembling pre-made parts onto a doll, though.
She had been quite pleased to have made a chick drone modeled after Mephisto.
Everything from the doll flying around to being able to remote-control it!
She had been wondering if she could make equipment using a new toy, so an idea for how to put this to more substantial use suddenly popped into her head.
“Geuru made it even cooler.”
Geuru placed the chick on her palm.
“Watch this.”
Then the chick doll briefly took flight, landed on the table, and soon crackle, crackle! generated static electricity.
As the static electricity caused the chick’s fur to stand on end like a hedgehog, Jurim asked with a slightly surprised look.
“You attached a magic stone too?”
“Yesh!”
A drone doll that generates electricity using a magic stone as its power source!
Geuru struck her most boastful pose, as if asking what he thought.
“It’s the Mephisto Series Prototype Mk. 1.”
“That’s an incredible name….”
Jurim looked down at the chick drone doll with its incredible name.
The five-year-old, in the height of her poseur phase, didn’t know what an americano was, yet memorized and bandied about cool-sounding words like ‘Supreme,’ ‘Miracle Change,’ and ‘Prototype’ (experimental product).
“But the ‘letricity is too weak. How come? Geuru wanted a million volts.”
“Where are you planning to shoot a million volts?”
“At raiding supreme monsters!”
Geuru snorted hot air with a huff-huff as she announced her grand plan, twirling the chick this way and that, fiddling with it.
“Eat your meal first.”
While Jurim fed the constantly distracted Geuru, the TV channel in the living room kept changing.
A zombie was rising up, trying to grab the protagonist’s arm—
The screen switched back to the newsroom.
It was Veilark and Mephisto’s channel battle.
Veilark, trying to watch the zombie mukbang, pushed Mephisto’s body away, while Mephisto, trying to watch the children’s animation that would air immediately after the news, kicked at Veilark with swift swish-swish-swish kicks.
Their relationship had never been good to begin with, and their tastes were so different that their channel battles every morning were no longer anything special.
‘Hyeonak?’
Geuru turned to look at the TV while munching on her food.
On the screen, footage was playing of a woman wearing a mask and a pulled-down cap leaving the country.
The hottest potato of late, A-rank Producer and Director of the National Defense Industry Research Institute, I Soyeon.
As the outstanding Producer who had led the nation’s sole S-rank weapon production project was naturalizing into China, the news had been covering the issue of her naturalization day after day.
Just as an expert finished speaking about how technical information sharing at the national level was taking place abroad, the next shot showed the Hyeonak headquarters building.
“Haht!”
Seeing footage of Seolyeojin and the management team going to work, Geuru organized the news in her head.
1. An A-rank Producer with tremendous fame in the country had left for a foreign nation.
2. But it seemed that person had spoken badly about Hyeonak?!
What did Hyeonak do!
‘Unfair…! …Is it?’
Actually, it wouldn’t be strange if Hyeonak had done something wrong.
Hrmm. Geuru, furrowing her brow, asked timidly.
“Di-did we do someshing wrong?”
“No.”
Jurim shrugged his shoulders briefly as if it were something he knew nothing about.
Geuru looked like she didn’t believe a word of it, but it wasn’t something he said to reassure the child; it was truly the case.
Other guilds might be a different story, but they had never had any reason to clash with the research institute.
Director I Soyeon, however, didn’t seem to think so.
Ever since Jjapsso’s presence in Hyeonak was revealed, Director I Soyeon had contacted them incessantly.
Saying things like, ‘Please make a position for me to contribute to national development.’
She was probably curious about who Jjapsso was, wanted to know the recipe for the Syrup Potion, and above all, must have felt like her position was being threatened.
But even if they were to reveal Geuru’s recipe, ordinary Producers wouldn’t be able to replicate it, and they had no intention of revealing it in the first place.
‘It would only become a hassle.’
This was the reason he had been dissuading Geuru from her Hunter life.
‘A good deed that saves many people? The intention is good.’
However, there are various conflicting interests in the world, and good deeds aren’t always received with good intentions.
Moreover, there was no way everyone didn’t know that the decisive reason I Soyeon left was the enormous sum of money proposed by China.
She had merely found a suitable excuse to cover it up.
“Then why are they doing that?”
“Jealousy.”
Jurim said only that and then urged her to eat quickly, bringing the spoon to her mouth.
‘Jealousy?’
Geuru put the kimchi in her mouth, chewed a couple of times, and gulped it down.