‘……What kind of combination is this?’
As if pulled by an unseen force, he sat at the head of the table, beside Nayeon.
He could more or less tell that everyone was looking at him with expectant eyes.
‘What on earth?’
And the one who answered that question was Geuru.
“Siljjang-nim, how are babies made?”
So this was it.
The malicious question that sent countless parents into a panic debuff.
Yun Seojun, a childcare veteran who had raised two sons, curled the corner of his lips in a slight smirk toward the unmarried ones.
“Aah, so you were curious about that.”
“Yeth!”
At a time like this, saying you don’t know or dodging the answer was the worst thing you could do.
“A stork brings them.”
“A stork?!”
Geuru’s mouth opened wide at the fascinating story.
“Storks are big enough to carry babies in their beaks, you see. Do you know what a stork looks like? Shall I show you?”
“I wanna shee!”
Seojun turned on his phone and showed her a photo of a stork.
“Wow. It’s a bird, but it’th tho big?”
“You can see lots of big birds like this at the zoo. The Guild Leader will take you there.”
“Woooow!”
And so, Yun Seojun deployed his dazzling conversation-redirecting technique.
“Then, Miss Geuru. The adults are busy, so let them work. Shall we play house?”
“Yeth!”
Seojun smiled at Geuru, then looked toward Jurim.
Jurim nodded, and Gidan gave him a thumbs-up, expressing gratitude and respect.
Finally, when Seojun peeled the tape off Nayeon, she exhaled and coughed softly.
Jurim returned to his seat and gestured to Nayeon.
“Team Leader Shin, what brings you here?”
“Ah, well.”
Only then did Nayeon seem to remember her business and stepped toward the desk.
In the meantime, Seojun asked Geuru, “Do you play house often at kindergarten too?”
“Yeth! When we play house, these days Geuru playth the puppy.”
In an instant, every S-Class hunter huddled in the Guild Leader’s office turned their gaze toward Geuru.
Seojun’s expression immediately darkened.
‘Ah, was that a landmine?’
Gulp.
Seojun asked again, extremely tense.
“……Why?”
Please don’t let it be bullying, please don’t let it be ostracization—
“Hmm, jutht because. Puppies are cute.”
“Aah……!”
Thank goodness. The Hyeonak S-Classes had nearly been a hair’s breadth away from flipping the local kindergarten upside down.
Seojun wiped away sweat as he let out a sigh of relief.
“Miss Geuru, you have to get along well with your friends.”
For the sake of the kindergarten’s peace, if nothing else…….
“Geuru ith friendth with everyone!”
“You’re such a good girl.”
Why am I a good girl? Geuru tilted her head, then continued.
“Then Geuru’th the mommy, and Thiljjang-nim’th the daddy.”
“Okay.”
“And we have a baby too.”
“We have a baby too? When did you give birth?”
“On our wedding anniversawy.”
Seojun laughed at the cheeky remark.
“Then how old is our baby?”
“He’th zero.”
Geuru took an egg out of her bag. Seojun asked with a puzzled look.
“You carry an egg around?”
“Yeth! It’th my baby.”
Seojun looked at Geuru with warm eyes.
‘If it doesn’t hatch, she’ll be disappointed.’
Just as Seojun was racking his brain over where he could get a chick about to hatch.
[30% remaining until hatching…….]
Though she had poured in her filial piety points with tears, the circular incubation gauge still lacked 30%.
‘Not enough filial piety points…….’
I have to earn them diligently.
Having renewed her vow of filial piety, Geuru scolded Seojun, who had entered the house in the role of her husband.
“Honey, why were you wate today? Was it that woman again?”
Bewildered by the high-difficulty roleplay, Seojun bit his tongue. Just what kind of kindergarten life was she living?
“N-no! Don’t get the wrong idea. You’re the only one for me.”
“Then what’th that wipstick thtain on your thirt?”
“Gasp.”
It was a checkmate. There was no way to cover up the lipstick mark (a set detail) on his shirt.
“I had a feeling.”
Geuru shook her head.
He should have made her play the puppy instead of the mom.
Seojun looked to Jurim, Gidan, and Nayeon for help, but none of them would meet his eyes.
‘You awful people…….’
Knock, knock!
“Excuse me, Guild Leader.”
Just then, the door to the Guild Leader’s office opened.
Wiping away cold sweat, Seojun turned his gaze toward the door. He desperately wanted to return to his main job, given that the difficulty of this game of house was SSS-Class.
However, upon seeing who entered with the secretary, Seojun’s face twisted into a fierce scowl.
A delivery driver was coming in carrying a large wreath.
Seojun shot to his feet and reprimanded him sharply.
“Did you not receive the notice? I believe we said all gifts are to be refused for the time being.”
“Excuse me?”
“Until November, all gifts, cards, wreaths arriving at the Guild Leader’s office, and all items and parcels arriving under the guild’s name are to be discarded.”
The new secretary bowed his head, his face bright red.
“I-I’m… I’m terribly sorry…….”
As he bowed repeatedly, Seojun let out a deep sigh.
“So does this mean we have to move it all back out?”
The delivery driver watched this and asked irritably, and the secretary who had made the grave mistake bowed his head deeply.
“Y-yes. Please take it back outside.”
When the secretary spoke with tears welling in his eyes, the delivery driver hoisted the wreath back up without another word.
It was just as he was moving it back out the door.
“Whoa—”
The top of the wreath caught on the doorframe and began to fall backward.
The delivery driver lost his grip on the tilting wreath, and flowers and petals scattered across the floor.
“Ah, geez. Sorry about that.”
As he bent over, everyone’s gazes were drawn to one spot. To the card that had fallen and rolled across the floor.
On the palm-sized cream-colored card, rough, blood-red letters were scrawled as if written in blood.
[Saljurim, you happy you survived alone?
A murderer who devoured the entire first generation, hahahahaha]
Below, a stick figure was drawn.
It was a picture of a man wearing a glove on his left hand, munching away on another person’s head.
A chilling silence once again settled over the Guild Leader’s office.
But Jurim, with an expression no different from usual, trudged over and picked up the card. In his hand, the card instantly turned to dust and vanished.
He immediately gestured to Seojun and said,
“Take Geuru and go straight home.”
Without a hint of agitation, perfectly calm.
*
Jeong Yuni, the homeroom teacher of the Chick Class at Saebom Kindergarten, had recently found herself with a worry.
Yuni, who had been seeing the children off, turned around.
At the end of her gaze, a doll-like child with platinum blonde hair braided in two pigtails down past her shoulders sat with her chin propped on the windowsill, lost in anguish.
Yuni had noticed something off about Geuru two days ago.
A child who had always been bursting with energy had been walking around with her shoulders slumped, and today she had even given up her favorite snack, strawberry yogurt, to a friend.
A gentle breeze blew, fluttering Geuru’s bangs. She sighed deeply as the wind hit her.
‘A sigh?’
The Geuru that Jeong Yuni knew was not a child like that.
Not long ago, when she had a conflict with a friend, she had overcome it bravely.
‘Could there be a problem in her new home……?’
It had already been over two months since Geuru was adopted by Jurim.
Yuni had been surprised once when an elegant sitter arrived in a Bentley to pick the child up, claiming to be the guardian’s proxy.
And she had been surprised a second time when Jurim himself came to drop the child off.
That On Jurim.
‘I shouted myself hoarse in the group chat that day, but no one believed me.’
Jeong Yuni had become a ‘madwoman driven insane by excessive workload’ among her friends, until one classmate brought a screenshot of a Geuru sighting from the Hyeonak Lounge and she was crowned ‘the friend most eager to hear company gossip.’