Chapter 12 – Who Are You

===================

Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

As I looked back at Taejeongtaese, a message popped up in front of my eyes.

[A friend request has arrived from HomeProtector.]

[Would you like to accept?]

This bastard HomeProtector had the nerve to send a friend request.

I closed the system window without accepting the friend request right away.

‘I’ll deal with you later.’

Taejeongtaese, who approached me, was dressed in clothes that looked like what the mansion’s servants would wear, even though they were children’s clothes.

“They said you weren’t in your room, hyungnim, so I came to fetch you.”

Taejeongtaese, who said he came to ‘fetch’ me, went on to tell me that he had heard from a servant that he could continue to stay here if he wanted.

“But in exchange, they said I have to assist you by your side, hyungnim. They also mentioned that if I assist you well, I might receive an allowance every month. It seems they want to hire me as your servant.”

“Hmm.”

From the commander’s perspective, it would have been easier to silence Taejeongtaese and then kick him out of the mansion.

Perhaps because I said yesterday that I wanted to share a meal with the other children, he seemed to have left Taejeongtaese, a child of a similar age, inside the mansion.

‘It worked out well for me.’

No matter how much of an all-zone clear pro I was, my physical age was still only ten.

I needed an assistant to help me inside the mansion, and while the servants would find me, the commander’s son, difficult to approach,

Taejeongtaese, who was an orphan, would be able to get close to the servants faster than me.

Although it was unexpected that the commander went as far as assigning Taejeongtaese to attend to me…

‘If it’s that man, he must have noticed that there was something between me, Taejeongtaese, and Safety8.’

Since he saw us communicating in a language he didn’t know, he would easily recognize that the three of us knew each other.

And Taejeongtaese’s attitude toward me… rather than acting like a peer, he took a low stance, calling me ‘hyungnim’.

So even from the commander’s perspective, he would have known immediately that Taejeongtaese was not a child who would harm me.

Even so, seeing that he left him as my closest aide, the commander seemed to intend to back me up without drawing too much attention.

“But why were you in the backyard?”

“Meursault called me out.”

“Ah, he did that yesterday too…”

He must have been called out with Safety8 yesterday morning.

“You’re going to poison that creepy guy, right? You killed him in every playthrough.”

“……”

When I didn’t answer, Taejeongtaese asked in surprise.

“N-No way, are you going to keep him alive?”

“We’re short on talent. Game and reality are different. The fact that we could rule the zones in the game was only because it was a game. Understanding the zone’s situation and running the military is a completely different story.”

“That’s true, but… even so, he’s the guy targeting your stepmother, hyungnim.”

“Children shouldn’t get involved in adults’ business.”

“What a cold thing to say.”

I knew what Taejeongtaese was worried about.

But Daphne was not an easy woman either anyway.

She was, after all, the former commander’s daughter and Commander Hayden’s wife.

At least, the Daphne I saw in the game was not the type to be swayed by someone like Meursault.

If he had been poisoning Meursault and Daphne early on after reading my strategy guides, it was only natural that he didn’t know what kind of woman Daphne was.

“By the way, you need to decide on a name too.”

“Ah, just call me Tae-jung. The deceased hyungnim also just called me Tae-jung.”

I wished he would stop calling Safety8 his deceased hyungnim.

It was a bit of a shame to leave only Tae-jung and not Beyonce from the nickname Taejeongtaesebeyonce, but the name wasn’t what was important.

“Anyway… my conversation with Meursault went well. He’ll be favorable toward me for the time being. So you don’t need to be hostile to Meursault either. Of course, since you are my person as well, you don’t need to grovel to him too much either.”

“Understood.”

“Not just Meursault, but at least inside the mansion, I don’t want any NPC to feel repulsed by the fact that I’m the commander’s son. We also need to identify if any of them are Meursault’s or Daphne’s people.”

“I will look into it. Rather than you, hyungnim, it seems more convenient for me, who ended up staying in the mansion out of nowhere. Even this morning, they asked me to fetch you.”

He knew very well what position he had to maintain.

Playing multiplayer with a veteran wasn’t bad either.

“Ah, and the commander made a promise to me.”

“A promise?”

“We will have a gathering to eat together every month with children of a similar age.”

“Ah, then…”

“Yeah. From around the beginning of next month, we’ll meet other players in this zone, if there are any. Let’s also greet CornerHoney, who is cooperating with me, at that time.”

“Yes! I hope CornerHoney-hyungnim likes me.”

CornerHoney… hyungnim?

What on earth was Tae-jung’s criteria for ‘hyungnim’?

Looking at his nickname, this guy didn’t seem that young either…

* * *

That afternoon, I heard the news that the commander had decided to announce me as his son.

Since I had to appear in public tomorrow, I had to receive crash-course training on etiquette and essential knowledge from Meursault, which was a tricky task that required memorizing the history of the Goodman family spanning over a hundred years and the complex relations of the military organization.

Of course, that was not a difficult task for a veteran of this game like me.

“…You memorized it all? After seeing it once?”

It was not that I memorized it, but that I knew it from experience.

Meursault, perhaps because he had been burned a lot by the hopeless intelligence of the Cola zone NPCs, looked practically deeply moved.

Is this why everyone wants experienced rookies?

“I thought you were no ordinary person… but you are far more outstanding than I expected.”

As I seemed to be more outstanding than he expected, Meursault began to teach me other things during the remaining time.

Most of it was useless TMI about Daphne, though.

Still, one thing was useful.

It was because he gave me shooting practice at the commander’s shooting range, where he had called me out this morning.

On top of the fact that handling firearms was not that difficult for a South Korean military dischargee,

since I equipped the title ‘Der Freischütz’ while shooting to increase my accuracy, my bullets never missed the target, and Meursault could not hide his admiration.

“I cannot believe my eyes… You said you’ve never held a gun before?”

“Yeah.”

I lied with a straight face.

Technically, it wasn’t a lie since it was the first time holding one with this body.

“This… can only be explained as being born with it.”

Even after the class ended, Meursault kept muttering to himself for a long time as if shocked while looking at my target sheet, and he seemed to have delivered that news to the commander right away.

This was because the commander, who came to see me that night, abruptly brought up the shooting story first.

And for good reason, since shooting ability was a truly important capability in this world.

To kill an alien monster, you had to destroy the small gem embedded somewhere in the monster’s body.

“Did you really hit all the targets?”

“Yes…”

“Have you handled firearms before?”

“No.”

Of course, it was a blatant lie, Father.

I decided to add a bit of humblebragging to leave a deep impression on the commander.

“But is that such a big deal? Can’t everyone do that much? It was easy…”

“……”

Father looked at me and seemed to be seriously contemplating something.

‘He must be contemplating whether he can have me participate in the subjugation.’

Although the commander of the Cola zone was a dictator, he always stood at the vanguard in subjugation battles.

This was because the failure of the subjugation meant the end of the zone.

And child soldiers around my age were already participating in those subjugation battles, and for the sake of the military’s morale and solidarity, I, the commander’s son, had to participate as well.

Yet, even so, the commander must have been hesitating.

There was no ruler in the world who would want to push their biological child, whom they had barely found, onto the battlefield.

But now that he knew I had a talent for shooting, he might take me to the next subjugation battle.

How moved the soldiers would be if he took me to the subjugation battle as soon as he announced me as his son.

I was also aiming for that and intentionally pretending to have an outstanding talent for shooting.

‘I need to participate in the subjugation battle as quickly as possible.’

Because there was something to be gained through the subjugation event.

“Um, by the way, Dad.”

“Hmm?”

The moment I called him Dad, his responding tone changed completely…

“I understand that I have a stepmother. Lady Daphne.”

“It seems Meursault told you.”

“Yes, rather than her finding out about me through other people, I thought it would be polite of me to visit her first and greet her.”

When I brought up this topic first, the commander looked at me with eyes filled with pride and bitterness.

“Right… Your mother is Luna Moon, but from now on you must live with Daphne too. However, you won’t be able to meet her immediately. In fact, I asked Daphne if she would meet you, but she said she is reluctant to meet a young child because she hasn’t been in good health lately. Once she gets better, you’ll be able to meet her.”

That Daphne was in poor health?

‘There’s no way…’

Since she was a cautious woman, she probably intended to agree to meet me only after finishing a thorough investigation into what kind of child I was.

The commander probably wasn’t unaware of that, and though he seemed reluctant to talk about Daphne rather than Luna Moon in front of me, he didn’t seem to doubt her illness.

‘That’s strange…’

Commander Hayden had entered a loveless marriage with Daphne because of the former commander’s orders and his own greed for power.

At least according to what I saw while playing the game, even if the two didn’t hate each other, they were indifferent to one another, and even when I poisoned Daphne, the commander did not mourn her death.

But when the commander in front of me spoke of Daphne, how should I put it…

Even if it wasn’t marital affection, did it feel like some kind of camaraderie?

‘Starting with Luna Moon’s ring… this world doesn’t seem to be completely identical to the game. Why?’

Actually.

When the commander came to see me today, I noticed that there was some secret to Luna Moon’s ring.

As the commander appeared, the ring grew strangely warm.

I hadn’t noticed last night because I was out of my mind, but this ring was definitely reacting to the commander.

As proof of that, even now, as soon as the commander finished talking and went back, the ring was rapidly losing its warmth.

Strangely, I felt as if it was expressing regret for not being able to stay together longer.

This ring was the same one that had been influenced by the title ‘Luna Moon’s Friend’ before.

Although titles influenced various things, including items,

the title ‘Luna Moon’s Friend’ was strictly a title that influenced NPCs.

The only items influenced by those kinds of titles were items with an ego, like an Ego Sword.

If so, one hypothesis could be established.

‘This ring contains an NPC’s ego.’

Someone who knew both Luna Moon and Hayden.