At the same time the contribution appeared, Gu Huiyeon, who had somehow wriggled her way outside, stared blankly at Geuru.
“Right. Huiyeon, are you okay?”
Gu Huiyeon nodded with her mouth hanging open.
Tilting her head, Geuru looked Gu Huiyeon over from every angle.
She seemed a little dazed, so she didn’t exactly look normal, but she didn’t seem hurt anywhere……
Maybe she was just a little startled?
Geuru grinned and held out her hand.
“Let’s go back now.”
Even if the core wasn’t destroyed, an instance dungeon couldn’t maintain its form without a boss.
Because of that, the tiny toy factory behind Geuru was collapsing.
Calming her wildly pounding heart, Huiyeon took her hand.
Huiyeon’s face was bright red as she left the dungeon holding Geuru’s hand.
“Th-thank you for today!”
“Huh? Yeah.”
Geuru was just about to ask, “Will you say hi back if I greet you from tomorrow on?”
“B-b-b-bye! I’ll go first!”
After hurriedly saying goodbye, Gu Huiyeon dashed away like the wind.
“Huh?”
Left alone, Geuru blinked.
The next day, two pieces of Hyeonak merch—a fox doll and even a chick doll—were hanging from Huiyeon’s bag.
Geuru never noticed, but that was also the day Uju began to keep Huiyeon in check, quietly and subtly.
*
Amakusa Reiji strode around the small apartment with his shoes on, as though rummaging through it.
The owner of the apartment had left clothes and documents scattered everywhere, as if they’d had to leave in a hurry.
Reiji skimmed through a few papers on the mahjong table, then tossed them aside. The documents fluttered down to the floor.
[“Did she run?”]
If it was her, there was a high chance she knew he was looking for her.
But why?
She shouldn’t have any particular reason to avoid him.
Unless he’d taken on a commission, he didn’t unnecessarily lay hands on unrelated people.
In truth, Reiji had no intention of harming her. He merely wanted to know the whereabouts of one person.
[“Hmm.”]
Reiji tapped the table, then picked up a few mahjong tiles and rolled them in his hand.
[“Does that mean she had some other reason to run……”]
After a brief moment of thought, Reiji hummed to himself and sprawled on the sofa as if it were his own home, then turned on the TV.
He had been taking off his brown leather gloves when a familiar face appeared in close-up on the TV screen, making him pause and fix his gaze on it.
The corners of his mouth rose in surprise.
[“Kazuki?”]
On the screen, they were making a huge report on the sudden visit to Korea of the world’s only S-rank production-type master, Amakusa Kazuki.
The man, who had turned twenty-seven this year, looked as though he embodied a massive wolf.
A muscular athlete’s body. Hair bleached gray and cut in an undercut. Earrings filling the rims of his ears. Sharp fangs. Tattoos covering his entire body, even engraved on the tongue that flashed into view whenever he opened his mouth.
“He grew up well.”
He wasn’t just saying it because Kazuki was his son; the Kazuki he’d seen after so long truly had grown tall and striking.
‘But……’
Reiji, who had been staring closely as though observing his son’s face, tilted his head.
‘Kazuki has no reason to come to Korea.’
All the more so, considering the current relationship between Japan and Korea.
It was even stranger that, instead of the Korean side—who should be anxiously pacing—it was a Japanese big shot holding the regulation card who had come.
As if to answer his question with perfect timing, the reporters’ questions came pouring in.
Someone beside Kazuki, perhaps an interpreter, murmured a few words into his ear.
Then Amakusa Kazuki lowered his sunglasses and spoke with a bright smile.
Contrary to his awkward way of speaking, which was even cute, his gray sanpaku eyes made him look all the more threatening.
[]
He continued speaking in Japanese, then, with an oops expression, switched languages.
Saying, in an adorable tone, that he would kill his own father, he flashed his sanpaku eyes.
Click! Click!
The shutter sounds came even faster.
At that, Kazuki stopped for a moment and stared straight into the camera.
Soon, his large hands, tattooed across every knuckle, made a cute cheek heart.
At this, Amakusa Reiji burst into cheerful laughter.
[“You’ve gotten cute, haven’t you? Kazuki-chan.”]
*
[“I’ll kill my dad.” Amakusa’s Bombshell Declaration! Is It Because He Isn’t Used to Korean?]
[Amakusa’s Agent: It Wasn’t “Papa” but “Pakpak,” and Not “Should I Kill Him” but “Should I Enjoy It.”]
[Could Amakusa’s Visit to Korea Become the Starting Point for Changes in Korea-Japan Relations?]
With an unprecedented celebrity making a declaration of patricide, it was only natural that public attention would be focused on him.
‘He’s insane as always.’
After scanning the news headlines, Jurim folded his arms and turned his chair to the side.
“My ears are itching.”
The man at the center of the topic, Amakusa Kazuki, sat on the sofa in the guildmaster’s office, picking at his ear.
“On-chan. I think someone is badmouthing me.”
“It’s me.”
Kazuki grinned.
“On-chan, you joke so well too.”
“You actually think I’d joke with you?”
“I told you, I like even that side of you, On-chan.”
Kazuki laughed it off heartily, draping both arms over the backrest and crossing his legs.
‘Why did something like that have to come here?’
There had been a time when Jurim himself had considered seeking Kazuki out because of the matter of repairing the gauntlets, but he could say with certainty that this was not how he’d wanted it to happen.
“……”
Jurim clicked his tongue briefly.
Already, at the news that Amakusa Kazuki had arrived, the area outside the guildmaster’s office door was crawling with employees stuck to it like barnacles, peeking inside.
With his delinquent-like appearance and handsome looks to boot.
It was because a guy who stood out even when doing nothing had swaggered into Hyeonak after making a bombshell declaration.
“But On-chan. Where’s Geuru? I want to see Geuru. Where Geuru?”
Jurim pressed a hand to his forehead.
So it was because of Geuru.
“She’s not here.”
“She’s at home? I came to see Geuru, me.”
To think she was the daughter that On Jurim had adopted. Kazuki’s face looked like he was dying to see her, and he wagged an invisible tail back and forth.
Jurim looked utterly disgusted as he openly scanned Kazuki from head to toe.
Dressed like some back-alley thug, and saying he wanted to see Geuru? Absolutely not.
He hadn’t been that bad the last time they’d met. He had more tattoos and earrings now, and his clothes showed even more skin.
“Ah—too stimulating for a baby?”
Kazuki lowered his gaze. Through his ripped jeans, the tattoo on his thigh was visible.
“Wait just a bit. I’ll change into a suit.”
Kazuki immediately began taking off his top.
When his muscle-packed upper body, densely covered in tattoos, was revealed, Jurim barely managed to hold back the curse that almost burst out.
Adding “crazy bastard” to the description “lunatic,” Jurim rubbed his face dry.
He was sick and tired of that shameless hide, tough as ox tendon, that could act like this even while knowing full well that more than one pair of eyes was on him.
Whether he did or not, Kazuki put on the dress shirt he had prepared and said,
“On-chan, am I pretty now?”
Resting his chin on his hand, Jurim crooked up one corner of his mouth.
“So pretty I want to kill you.”
“Ahaha!”
Even at the expression that meant Jurim wanted to kill him right this instant, Kazuki hummed as he undid the buckle of his pants.
So you’re really doing a strip show in my office after all.
Jurim had been watching the employees swallow their screams without much emotion when, for a moment, he sensed a small presence and immediately rose to his feet.
At the same time.
“Urgh!”
Bzzzzzt!
Kazuki, who had been slipping his legs into suit pants, was pushed into the corner by an invisible force. Then the curtain wrapped around his body.
“……!”
As Kazuki struggled, after a brief murmur, the door to the guildmaster’s office flew open.
“Da-d!”
It was Geuru.
After confirming that Geuru had not seen anything filthy and vile like Kazuki’s underwear, Jurim smiled in relief.