Instead, Geuru clung tightly to Jurim and pointed at Gidan.
“Daddy, Daddy.”
“Yes?”
“Gidan oppa’s blood.”
Gidan was streaming blood from his nose.
Serhi shrieked in horror.
“Aaagh! Crazy Gidan! Your nose is bleeding!”
“Huh?”
“You lunatic! Get treated first!”
Gidan casually wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
Jurim frowned at the sight.
“Where did you get hit?”
“Ah, I did get hit, but when you put it that way, it kind of hurts my pride… No, hyung! But that’s not important. Geuru was waving the hoe around!”
“Oh, right! Geuru was waving the hoe like this! Like this!”
“Uh-huh, sure.”
What on earth had happened with the hoe? Why were all three of them carrying hoes?
Bewildered, Jurim took Serhi and Gidan to the infirmary, but the panic continued the entire way.
*
“So, let me get this straight—Geuru opened the snowy field, turned an SSS-rank monster into a quail and fed it to Mephisto, and the bosses submitted?”
“Why are you taking this so calmly, hyung?!”
“Well…”
Jurim thought of all the countless bizarre things Geuru had done and trailed off.
He had half expected something like this ever since Geuru had said he could open the snowy field.
Thinking of it that way—
“She might be able to do it. She’s Geuru, after all.”
“Yep, because Geuru!”
Geuru smiled brightly and added,
“Then you wouldn’t be surprised even if I said I was dating Uju?”
At that, Jurim slammed his hand down on the desk.
“You’re going to date Uju?!”
“No!”
Geuru answered at once, and Jurim’s face went blank and listless again.
Gidan gave a bitter smile, thinking that Uju would be hurt.
‘Sorry, Uju.’
Meanwhile, Serhi fiddled with Geuru with a serious expression, muttering things like, “This kind of loser is the monster king?”
At that, Geuru covered her eyes with her left hand and chuckled, “Heh-heh-heh.”
Watching her, Serhi found himself seriously wondering whether the stronger one’s loser aura was, the more likely one was to become the Lord of Monsters.
“Anyway.”
Geuru might have opened the snowy field and resolved the incident, but—
“You’re saying the dungeon mutated? An SSS-rank monster appeared too…”
“Yes. It seemed like the dungeons were merging. I could even hear the hunters in the other dungeons.”
“Are they all cleared now?”
“Yes. Geuru…”
Gidan glanced at Geuru once and trailed off.
Jurim nodded.
If the bosses had submitted, destroying the cores would have been easy.
That was when Serhi cut in.
“It must be Gnosis.”
He looked upward sulkily, speaking as though he were pulling the memory from inside his head.
“Irina experimented with merging dungeons once before, too.”
Gnosis again.
Jurim looked down at his left hand. Had Gnosis also been the ones trying to take Sheier away from him?
As he pondered, he shifted his gaze to Geuru.
Those coral-colored eyes, exactly the same as the eyes of the man who had greeted him, smiled brightly.
When he met that smile, one of his own naturally slipped past his lips.
Just then, Geuru took a folded sheet of paper from her bag and spread it out like an accordion.
Forgetting even the serious thoughts that had occupied him moments ago, Jurim burst out laughing as he looked at the coupons she handed him.
Massage coupon, wish coupon, TV restriction coupon, Do Not Disturb My Nap coupon…
Jurim pulled the child, still wearing the enormous carnation headband, tightly into his arms.
The warm scent of a baby enveloped him.
The child was unbearably adorable.
Whatever Gnosis’s purpose might be, he would never let them lay a finger on the child.
With his nose buried in Geuru’s neck, he swore it.
Chapter The Small Ball Iromi Shot Up
Ever since he began raising a child, Jurim occasionally found himself at a loss.
Before going to bed, Geuru always went into painstaking detail about everything that had happened that day, chattering away about all the things she had felt.
Today, after having fun at the folk village experience at kindergarten, she seemed to have found herself a new dream.
The child’s dreams changed fifty times a month, so this was hardly unusual. Still, he found this particular dream rather difficult to support.
“Daddy. Geuru wanna be a yeot seller.”
Jurim had no idea what sort of inspiration she had gotten from the folk village.
“Why?”
He decided to leave out the word “of all things?”
“’Cause it’s charming.”
Hadn’t her very first dream been to become an egg?
Apparently, the child found food and peddlers charming.
“I see. That can happen…”
Raising a child meant becoming more accepting.
“Do you like being a yeot seller, Geuru?”
“It’s not bad. Daddy will buy you lots of yeot.”
Whether that was the right answer or not, Geuru burst into giggles.
“Daddy, did you wanna be a yeot seller when you were little too?”
“Ha. Of course not.”
“Then what did you wanna be?”
“There was nothing.”
“Eeeh. Liar.”
“There really wasn’t anything.”
“Dat makes no sense! Why?”
“How should I put it? When you’re too confident, you end up not wanting to do anything.”
When he was young, he had felt as though he could do anything, and because of that, there was nothing in particular he wanted to do.
As he wondered how to explain that in a way a child could understand, Geuru slapped her palm.
“Aha!”
“You know what it is?”
“Geuru knows. It’s… pride!”
“…You really hit the nail on the head, didn’t you?”
Is our child a genius?
“So if you have too much pride, you grow up like Daddy.”
“You’re going to talk to your father like that?”
“Why? Did Geuru say a bad thing?”
When Geuru asked with innocent eyes, Jurim shook his head.
“No… I guess I just felt called out for no reason.”
“Then what about now? What do you wanna be now?”
“Now?”
Jurim lay on his side and looked at Geuru.
“A good daddy.”
The corners of Geuru’s mouth twitched as though she were trying not to laugh.
“What if you’re already a good daddy?”
“Then I’ll be an even better daddy.”
In the end, Geuru giggled and burrowed into Jurim’s arms.
“Then Geuru won’t be a yeot seller.”
“Then what will you be?”
“A good daughter.”
“That sounds good.”
A moment later, after hesitating with a “And…,” Geuru continued.
“A good daughter to Big Daddy too.”
“Big Daddy?”
She nodded vigorously.
“You mean hyung?”
“Yeees. He’s Daddy’s older brother, and Daddy’s the younger one.”
“Ah…”
Jurim let out a laugh.
It must have been confusing, but it was adorable how she replaced it with a childlike idea she could understand.
“He’ll like it if you call him Daddy.”
Geuru blinked, then asked cautiously,
“What about Daddy?”
“Daddy likes it too.”
Jurim brushed back Geuru’s bangs and stroked her small face, which fit snugly in his palm.
“Even if Geuru doesn’t worry about it, Daddy will still be Geuru’s daddy. I’ll be your good daddy for the rest of my life.”
Geuru’s face flushed red. Then she gave a tiny nod.
“Go to sleep. You said you’re going camping with the girls tomorrow.”
“Yeees. I’m excited.”
“Close your eyes.”
Geuru squeezed her eyes shut.
Jurim kissed Geuru on the forehead and patted her back. Soon, he heard her breathing grow soft and even as she drifted into sleep.