197 – Who is the Enemy – 4

Gi-jun, along with Tilla, used Rula… no, the Flight of Evil, to head to Cor.

Although it would trigger a two-day cooldown, doing so was the fastest route because there was no teleportation gate near Uralta.

It was also advantageous for moving while hiding his identity.

“Oppa!”

The guild house of Terra, the representative guild of Earth’s civilization located in Cor.

Gi-jun, who had entered the guild master’s office through a secret passage as Ye-min had informed him in advance, was helplessly forced to receive her embrace as she pounced on him after waiting for him in the room.

“Oppa, Oppa… I was worried.”

“I contacted you to let you know I was safe, didn’t I?”

“I couldn’t know just by looking at messages. You were too far, and it was too long…”

For some reason, instead of maturing as time passed, she seemed to be growing younger.

While Gi-jun only wore an awkward expression, unable to keep up with her energy, the party members who stepped out of the gate opened by Tilla blinked at the sight.

“—How long are you going to keep hugging, Contractor?”

“Ah, right.”

Nodding at Lucy’s sharp words, Gi-jun barely managed to pull away Ye-min, who was reluctant to leave his embrace.

It would absolutely never be the case, but if someone else saw this, wouldn’t they mistake Ye-min for harboring special feelings for Gi-jun?

“Min-i, why do you act more and more like a child? You should show a side worthy of a guild master.”

“I put on a lot of airs in public. If I don’t even do this in private…”

Indeed, did her acting cute toward Gi-jun, which did not suit her, mean that acting as a guild master was that difficult?

Gi-jun, who had almost made a ridiculous misunderstanding for a moment, shook his head as he realized the reality.

There was no way Ye-min would harbor feelings for him.

As he repeated those words to convince himself, a welcoming voice suddenly came from behind.

“It would have been nice if she had been like that in the tutorial too.”

“Ji-hye.”

“Jun-i Oppa, long time no see!”

Had she heard the news that the Lumen party had arrived? Ji-hye entered the room.

If Ye-min had come to act somewhat like a child toward Gi-jun, Ji-hye had now become close enough to be called his real younger sister.

As proof of that, no matter how long it had been since they last met, he felt no desire to do something as cringeworthy as hugging.

For some reason, Ye-min was glaring at Ji-hye, but she lightly ignored it and turned her gaze to the other members of the party…

“S-Shin-i is linking arms with a girl?!”

Yes, he knew she would be surprised by that.

In fact, it would be troublesome if she wasn’t surprised.

Because that would mean Ji-hye thought nothing of Eun-shin.

“What, and she’s extremely pretty, too. What is this? What is this!”

“Thank you. I am Renka. With Shin-kun… ehe.”

“Ehe?! What does ‘ehe’ mean! I don’t know Japanese!”

“Hye Nuna, this is, well… First of all, it’s not Japanese. Ah, seriously!”

For the record, Ye-min was not surprised at all by Renka’s existence.

Honestly, she had not cared in the slightest, and only when the gazes of others turned to Renka did she finally glance over as well.

Such an attitude of hers was immediately caught by Ji-hye.

“Min-i, why are you so calm? I said Shin-i is linking arms with a girl!”

“I already knew. Shin-i asked me for advice.”

“Skipping me for you?!”

Ji-hye was deeply shocked by the fact that Eun-shin had skipped her and consulted only Ye-min.

And for good reason, since she was convinced that she was much closer to Eun-shin than Ye-min was.

She was clearly unable to imagine in the slightest that the advice he sought was related to herself.

“Uh, Hye Nuna, that is… The fact that I couldn’t tell you in advance… Ah, Renka! Please step away for now!”

“Shin-kun, if you want to push me away, please just kill me instead. If it means dying by Shin-kun’s hand, I don’t mind at all…”

“Ahhhh!”

“What, she’s scary! Shin-i, aren’t you getting scammed? Her eyes are completely out of it!”

“Nuna, please don’t say such harsh things to Renka either…”

Eun-shin flustered upon seeing Ji-hye’s reaction, glaring at Ye-min and struggling to unlock his arm from Renka’s grip, but despite his cute antics, the situation only sank deeper and deeper into a quagmire.

—It would have been fine if he had just unlinked his arm from the start.

“Of course he tried, but Renka wouldn’t let go.”

Lora, who had watched the two from within the sub-space, shook her head and explained in response to Lucy’s casual remark.

Meanwhile, since Gi-jun had thought that showing Renka clinging to Eun-shin might bring about a change in Ji-hye’s heart, he could only applaud inwardly.

Ji-hye, who was shocked to see a younger brother she thought nothing of get a woman; Eun-shin, who flustered because he hated being misunderstood by Ji-hye but still could not push away the woman who liked him; and Renka, who clung to Eun-shin regardless of the consequences.

Wasn’t this a perfect romantic comedy setup!

“She… isn’t honestly showing her jealousy. It’s quite amusing how she is trying to separate the two while citing all kinds of excuses.”

“This is where it begins. It’s been a long journey, honestly.”

Was Ye-min thinking the same thing as Gi-jun? She wore a satisfied expression as she watched Ji-hye, who was flustered by the sight of Eun-shin and Renka.

A relationship that had been at a standstill for over twenty years was showing signs of change, so how could it not be interesting?

If Eun-shin had not been the party involved, he too would have been applauding and marveling along with them.

“Oppa… by any chance.”

Ye-min, who was watching the three filming a sitcom, suddenly asked in a cautious tone.

“What do you think it would be like if a man who liked me came along?”

“Hm? Well.”

For Ye-min, who had never directly conveyed her feelings for Gi-jun, it was a fairly aggressive question, but surprisingly, it did not work on Gi-jun at all.

“There are already plenty of men who like you anyway. Rather, you should ask what it would be like if you found a man you liked.”

“…”

Of course, Ye-min knew that much as well.

The reason she did not ask that was because she did not want to speak of such a thing, even as a hypothetical.

Because Ye-min was harboring an extremely troublesome, extremely heavy, and extremely distorted love.

“Then, what do you think it would be like?”

As she parted her lips heavily to ask, Gi-jun pondered for a moment before answering.

“I would probably be jealous.”

“Oh.”

Ye-min’s eyes widened.

She was currently agonizing between her instinct, which claimed this was a green light and urged her to leap into his arms right this second, and her reason, which argued that it would be embarrassing in front of others and thus better to secretly visit his room tonight.

However, both reason and instinct soon collapsed miserably.

“I don’t mean anything weird. It’s just that if he’s a man you’ve come to like, he’ll probably be someone incredibly perfect and outstanding. From another man’s perspective, I think I’d feel a bit intimidated.”

“…Is that all?”

“No, otherwise it would be unseemly. Once I assess his character, I’ll have to bless you. I hope a wonderful person who can properly support you appears, Min-i.”

Ye-min was aware that the relationship she had built with Gi-jun in the past was not very healthy.

She knew very well that she had placed a heavy burden on him because she had been inadequate and weak.

But even so, she purely thought that hitting Gi-jun once right now would be deemed innocent.

She decided to endure.

To set this twisted relationship right, she had no choice but to put in the effort herself.

“By the way, Oppa, it’s just us, so please take off your mask.”

“Ah— I forgot about that.”

As Gi-jun removed the mask from his face without much hesitation at Ye-min’s words,

“Oppa.”

Ye-min, who was swallowing hard while watching him as if a monster was about to pop out, suddenly looked at him with a serious expression and spoke.

“Don’t you think you can walk around without the mask now? I’ve completely taken control of the guild… and since you’re human, Oppa, I thought it might be time for you to join the guild and start active service officially.”

“That… well, actually, there is no real reason for me to keep wearing the mask.”

Gi-jun replied with a bitter smile.

He also knew that Ye-min wanted to place him as the guild master, or at least in an important position within the guild.

There was nothing particularly scary about his identity as a human being exposed at this point…

Rather, there were so many people targeting him regardless of whether he was human or Flame Human, so there was no point in hiding his identity.

Despite that, although there were various reasons for wearing the mask, the primary reason was simply because the Persona was a powerful piece of equipment.

‘A piece of equipment that adds a stat is truly rare.’

Gi-jun had also realized this only after obtaining the ‘Halo’ this time, but when he deployed the Halo and created light, the effect was incomparably superior to before.

No, rather, it could be said that the way he had manipulated light until now was excessively crude.

“Still, let’s think a bit more about the guild matter. Since there are so many enemies right now, I’m worried that the guild might become a target if I join it. Not all the members are elites, after all.”

“That’s… true. I guess I’ll have to work them a bit harder.”

Perhaps his single remark just now had plunged countless other people into the depths of misfortune.

Gi-jun deliberately ignored that fact and changed the subject.

“Where is Brother Su?”

“He went to a dungeon with a party of guild members. He’ll be back by tomorrow.”

“I see…”

It was not very surprising that Mok-su was acting separately from Ye-min and Ji-hye.

Since Ye-min was the guild master, and Ji-hye was the vice-master who usually assisted her.

While it might have been different when the guild was first established and things were chaotic, or when Ye-min and Ji-hye were being targeted, they couldn’t stay together all the time, so it was only natural for him to form a separate party to level up.

However…

“By any chance, what are the levels of the three of you?”

“…Ji-hye and I are on the verge of reaching the Unique grade. We pride ourselves on having skills that exceed our grade. Wherever we go, we won’t hold you back.”

Although she did not mention Mok-su, hearing that much was enough.

Even when active in a party together, experience points were not divided completely equally.

The distribution of experience points varied depending on one’s performance, and if nothing else, the quest rewards and acquired titles would also differ.

Since Gratia was wholeheartedly supporting the Terra Guild, their opportunities for growth would not have been small, but…

“Yeah, I get the gist of it.”

Gi-jun let out a low sigh and furrowed his brow.

He had been thinking all along that this issue would hold them back someday.

But to think it was already happening.

There was no problem with acting in Gratia for now, but the place Gi-jun was currently planning to head to with Ye-min’s party was the jaws of death.

“Perhaps we should go to the Magic Kingdom by ourselves after all. Since you guys have the guild…”

“No, Oppa! I am definitely going too! No matter what!”

Gi-jun had tried to make a clumsy excuse because he felt bad about leaving only Mok-su behind, but Ye-min grabbed him in a panic.

“The guild has been completely sorted out. We also have capable people to manage the guild in place of Ji-hye and me. There is no problem at all, really.”

“But it’s dangerous. It will be truly dangerous.”

“I don’t care how dangerous it is. …If you’re worried about Uncle Su, I’ll talk to him separately.”

“Even so, to Brother Su… *Sigh*.”

Should he have ignored Yul-yeong’s words to bring Ji-hye in the first place?

No, but even so, it was not as if he could keep everything a secret from Ye-min’s party and move on his own.

It was not that he had been particularly complacent.

It was just that, as always, reality was cruel.

“You know we aren’t children anymore, right, Oppa?”

“I know. That’s why it’s even more of a problem.”

“We can’t just operate in safe places. I’ll try to convince Uncle Su to stay behind… but moving together will probably be helpful for his growth as well.”

It was true.

Gi-jun let out a sigh and nodded.

“It’s only been two months since you met?! But why are you clinging to him so stickily! No, Nuna cannot tolerate such a loose relationship!”

—Aren’t you just too slow to develop? Once a man and a woman click…

“Lucy, stay out of this! I said this is absolutely not allowed!”

“I think if there is love, even two seconds instead of two months is not a problem at all. More importantly, who are you to interfere between Shin-kun and me like this?”

“Two seconds?! Two secondsssss!!”

“No, Renka! I told you not to say weird things to Hye Nuna!”

Whether Gi-jun and Ye-min were having heavy thoughts or not, Eun-shin and Ji-hye were enthusiastically filming a romantic comedy with Renka behind them.

Although it was a relief that the atmosphere was becoming lighter, he thought it would be nice if they stopped shrieking like pterodactyls in front of so many people.