“What’s with this one? Is this little pipsqueak your boyfriend?”
Geuru took a deep breath, then cried out as she exhaled.
“Move it, turd!”
“What?!”
“Let’s go!”
“Hey! Stop right there?!”
Geuru grabbed Uju and ran out, dodging the Bully Toad as his face flushed red and purple with rage.
“Let’s go to the teacher!”
The Bully Toad began chasing after the two.
She had only planned to stay under an adult’s protection for just a moment—just until they retrieved the evidence.
‘The entrance!’
Where the children were gathered in line, Geuru and Uju slowly reduced their speed.
Beyond the murmuring children, two adults stood tall and came into view.
‘Huh?’
Geuru and Uju opened their mouths at the unexpected situation.
The pickpocket, Princess Saurus, was talking with the chaperone teacher. She seemed to be explaining something while pointing at the children gathered up ahead, along with the restroom.
‘They were in on it together?!’
This was bad. Uju and Geuru stepped backward.
“Little friend! It’s time to gather now! You need to line up back here.”
Gulp.
Geuru swallowed dryly.
‘Adults… maybe they really can’t be trusted……’
A swamp of distrust began to creep up slowly.
‘I need to buy some time to get the evidence, but what should I do?’
The plan explained to Uju was as follows.
Since the pickpocket’s plan had been discovered, once she came out of her panic, she would chase after them.
In the meantime, they would ask the adults for protection and explain the situation.
But there was a problem.
According to Uju, adults wouldn’t believe them.
In fact, Uju’s opinion had merit.
Geuru had also keenly felt this in her not-so-short life. There were almost no adults who would fully believe the words of mere four- or five-year-old children.
They would probably think the children were just playing some kind of role-play to catch a pickpocket.
However, there was no time to spare to make the adults understand that it wasn’t a game.
Because if, while they were pleading for the adults to believe them, the pickpocket hid the stolen goods elsewhere, they would lose both the items and the pickpocket.
Then what?
‘We just have to show them the evidence!’
If they showed the stolen goods right in front of their eyes? The adults would have no choice but to believe, even if they didn’t want to.
Geuru and Uju had run to the chaperone teacher for this purpose. They would explain the situation, and in the meantime, use an item to retrieve the evidence!
But…….
‘They were on the same side?!’
It’s over.
‘We need to find a different, different adult.’
Geuru looked around and locked eyes with an elderly woman.
‘Should I ask that grandma for help?’
The chaperone teacher and Princess Saurus had their eyes on Geuru and Uju. She was stomping her feet, at a loss for what to say.
“Our friend, who is the friend next to you?”
It was the chaperone teacher’s question.
The woman with a wound at the corner of her mouth slowly turned to look beside her.
‘Eek!’
Dodge first! The moment Geuru tried to move toward the old woman to somehow escape the situation.
Uju took off his hat and smiled broadly.
“Teacher! It’s the two of us. We found an amazing treasure in the bathroom!”
As Uju made the first move, confusion rose on the pickpocket’s and the teacher’s faces.
When the teacher cast a sidelong glance, the pickpocket nodded with her eyes opened wide and fierce.
It was confirmation that he was indeed the child who had been listening to the plan in the bathroom.
The teacher strode up to Uju.
“Did you? What kind of treasure could it be?”
“As for what kind of treasure it is.”
Uju opened his mouth loudly and clearly.
The sound spread wide, as if deliberately drawing people’s attention.
At this, children who recognized Uju began making a commotion.
“Huh, it’s Seo Uju!”
“Is it really him?”
“The Seo Uju?”
As the commotion arose, the spectators also craned their necks to look toward Uju.
“That’s me, all right.”
Uju smiled brightly, drawing the children’s gazes.
The pickpocket and the teacher looked flustered by the unexpected situation.
‘The King and the Shooting Star?’
Geuru’s mind briefly wandered to the title of the drama that had been a nationwide hit, but Uju gave her a look with a pretty smile.
In his expression, with one eye squinted, there was a question of ‘Not yet?’
“Now, now, my friends! You need to line up properly! Line!”
The chaperone teacher calmed the children down first to escape the commotion.
Because if attention was focused like this, there was no way to silence the eyewitnesses.
In the meantime, Geuru stared anxiously at the bathroom.
‘Quickly, quickly!’
The claw and the cart were still in the bathroom.
The area designation had been finished earlier, so following instructions, it would open the water tank and transfer the stolen goods into the cart.
The cart would come to where Geuru was on its own.
The only problem was that they couldn’t monitor it.
“Friends, just a moment. Uju says he has something to tell the teacher. Uju, it’s too noisy here, shall we move somewhere else with the teacher?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere. You have something to say to the teacher, don’t you?”
The chaperone teacher gripped Uju’s wrist painfully tight.
Uju bit his lip with icy-cold eyes.
‘Uju is being dragged away!’
Then, Geuru, who had been keeping her eyes fixed on the bathroom, stepped forward.
“Ah! Uju’s trea.sure. is co.ming. out. ear.ly!”
Geuru pointed to one spot, reading stiffly as if from a Korean textbook.
Uju turned around in shock at the unheard-of acting skills, and Geuru smirked as though she had pulled off a perfect method performance.
From the bathroom, a children’s cart was wobbling its way out on its own.
The chaperone teacher and the pickpocket surrounding Uju looked at the cart.
Inside the cart was a zippered bag containing valuables.
“That!”
The Bully Toad’s group also reacted to the word “treasure” and jerked their heads up.
“Treasure?”
That cart was definitely the one Chickpea had been pulling around earlier.
The Bully Toad ran with a sneering smile.
The pickpocket and the teacher also began running toward the cart.
The hands of the pickpocket, the teacher, and the Bully Toad reached for the cart to seize the treasure.
Uju and Geuru merely watched them like spectators.
It was the moment when the three’s hands touched the cart.
[‘The Mugunghwa Flower Has Bloomed’ activates.]
[Inflicts the abnormal state ‘Paralysis’ for 30 minutes on organisms that touched it without the user’s permission.]
The Bouncy Dino and Bully Toad who had touched the cart stood stiffly frozen like stone statues.
“So it really worked?!”
Geuru looked at the surprised Uju and put her hands on her hips triumphantly.
‘This is how an S-Rank Crafting Hunter catches a thief.’
Who would have thought that something made to keep the cart from getting lost would turn out to be so useful.
As people saw them standing like stone statues, unable to move from the paralysis, murmurs began to spread.
“Why are those people like that?”
“Teacher, look over there. The dinosaur is acting weird.”
The Bully Toad’s friends surrounded him not knowing what to do, letting out stupid sighs.
Feeling that something was wrong, even the security guards began approaching while speaking into their radios.
As the disturbance broke out, people crowded in densely.
Geuru held Uju’s hand and tried to squeeze through the crowd, toddling toward the cart.
She planned to take out all the items stolen by the pickpocket and show them as evidence, revealing that this dinosaur was the pickpocket.
That was when.
Just as her two feet seemed to float up, she was lightly lifted by someone.
“Eh?”
*
‘Mana, twice…….’
Jurim looked up at the ceiling and tapped the armrest.
The first mana she had felt was Geuru’s.
It wasn’t strange, seeing as she had packed her backpack full of all sorts of items as if her life depended on the treasure hunt.
But it was unusual that she felt another mana right after Geuru’s.
Naturally, the security guards, who were all Hunters, came to mind.
Jurim checked her watch. No particular danger signals had come in.
Then, nearby, a child’s father answered a phone call, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“What do you mean our Gyuhan suddenly can’t move?! What the hell is that supposed to mean! No, cut the excuses and explain properly!”
The call hadn’t come to her, but her judgment was quick. Jurim put her book away and removed all her sensory-blocking patches.