Creating Hidden Endings - Chapter 42

I lost, I lost. -10 is like this, but -19? Ha, he’s not even a real human. 

Thinking like that, I quietly held out the orb. Anyone who sees it would know that I was proposing.

“I want to live with Hunter Lee Jehee! Please accept it!”

“….”

“This is because I want to live with you?” 

“…I have to go all the way to the end to make you obedient. How troublesome.”

This bastard. So did you have to go through it all the way?

I swallowed the words I couldn’t say and was forced to smile. Did you say that after hard work, joy comes? Finally, the long-awaited window appeared.

[The Master’s mood improves, giving you +1 to ‘Be Loved.’] 

[Warning: Since the skill to ‘Be Loved’ is -9, the “Sexuality” effect disappears, and the “Melancholy” effect is given] 

[Warning: Since the state of the Be Loved skill is -5 or lower, the effect of ‘Melancholy’ continues, and skill use is limited.] 

—What’s this? Is it just plus 1? 1?

I looked up at him with a bewildered look on my face. Lee Jehee was still giving an amusing smile with that beautiful face. I stood up, realizing that the person with the beautiful smile was someone I couldn’t communicate with.

It is because I had to think about the rising numbers later and put out the urgent first. So, I crawled to the bathroom with my heavily drooping shoulders and drooping body.

“Seonwoo? Where are you going?”

Ddari’s voice came from behind, full of curiosity. But I didn’t have time to answer it, so I went into the gloomy bathroom, and there was a small laugh outside.

He’s a real bastard. 

People who came to the house that day cleaned up the trash spread around the house, even though it was late in the afternoon. In addition, they replaced the shabby guest room’s door with a new one and repaired other broken parts. 

After that, the bed that had split in two was removed, and a new bed came in and took its place. It took less than four hours to get it all sorted out. 

In the meantime, I was just stunned and couldn’t say anything when I saw the people who had taken out the necessary luggage from my house and even arranged it for me. This was almost like moving out of the packaging. 

I didn’t know he was so good at acting like this. I thought of negotiating again in the middle, but I lost all my motivation and raised my hands. 

It seems that this life is ruined. I’ve been thinking about this ever since I met Lee Jehee.

The guild hall of the Yeolmu Guild was located in Daehak-ro.

The game’s setting, Seoul, was quite different from the real Seoul in memory because high-rise buildings had disappeared, and only similar-height single-floor buildings had been lined up to avoid outbreaks that might explode at any moment, anyplace. 

The government also distributed the population fairly across cities, so the population actually decreased a lot. 

So the basic infrastructure is the same, but the landscape is entirely different except for the appearance of the Han River flowing through Seoul. 

Anyway, seeing such a landscape, the guild hall of the Yeolmu Guild stood out even more. It was the only high-rise building in Daehak-ro. That was the guild hall of the Yeolmu Guild.

Buildings piled up layer by layer without fear of Outbreak are the pride and status of the guild. And in such a guild hall, the one on the top floor was Lee Jehee’s office.

But, why am I here? In the heart of the guild? Why the hell am I in the executive meeting between the core members of the Yeolmu Guild?

“Then you and Hyung will take care of that punk Keymaster?”

Baek Taera, who was sitting across from me, glanced at Ddari in my arms with his thin, sharp eyes. While digging into my arms, Ddari, who was frightened by the bloody momentum, made its protest.

“I’m Ddari. Call me Ddari, pink human.” 

“Pink human? Are you talking about me now?”

“Y, yeah!” 

“Ha— Yeah, I guess that’s it. But Ddari? What else is that?” 

Ah, maybe I should have closed Ddari’s mouth even in the middle?

Baek Taera’s voice was so sharp that I thought so. At first glance, his eyes seemed to pass by me, but I hurriedly turned my eyes to the ceiling for fear of encountering them by mistake. Instead, Lee Jehee answered about the name.

“It’s the name Yeon Seonwoo gave to him. If you don’t call him by his name, he’ll bother you all the time, so call him that.” 

“Gave him a name? Are you crazy?” 

Baek Taera asked back to Lee Jehee with a serious face as if he was serious. Then Han Chorok, who sat beside him and listened with no expression, stopped Baek Taera. It wasn’t to stop the fight but to point out that the fault of this incident was mine, not Lee Jehee.

“He’s the one who gave him the name. Why would you do that to the Master? Yeon Seonwoo is the one who’s out of his mind.”

“I heard that? What’s with him?”

What do you mean? I’m a human being.

I turned my gaze from the ceiling to Chorok and complained of injustice. 

“What did I say? In the first place, the one who said that you would bring him and take care of it was your Master, right? I was just giving him a name to call comfortably while we were together!”

“So why would you name a monster?”

Chorok looked at me with eyes looking at the idiot.

“Can’t monsters have names?”

“You feel friendly for nothing. What are you going to do when you feel close to monsters? When it’s time to go and get rid of it, will you get rid of it?” 

At that moment, Ddari, who was in my arms, flinched and gave strength to the hand that was holding my collar. Then he looked up at me with sad eyes, as if asking if I wanted to get rid of him.

“….”

As for that gaze, there was nothing to respond to Chorok’s question, so I kept my mouth shut and the meeting room became quiet for a while.

Whenever Lee Jehee secretly warned me, I wondered why it was like that, but it had that meaning. After all, they are human too, and when there comes a situation where they have to kill someone they lived with by giving them a name— it will be hard.

I’m afraid I’ll never be able to—.

As I lowered my head in sorrow at Ddari’s sad expression, Chorok, who saw it, clicked his tongue and turned around. It seemed to be considerate not to be discouraged. Even though he’s never that kind of person.

“Why is your name like that again? What is Ddari?” 

“Because he’s carrying a strange bundle—” 

Han Chorok frowned at my weak answer. For a moment, the dissatisfied gaze touched Ddari, but then it disappeared indifferently. 

At that time, Baek Taera, who was only listening to the conversation between me and Chorok without saying a word, looked at us alternately with his eyes.

“When did you two start speaking informally?”

“….”

“….Huh?” 

Come to think of it… Why am I speaking informally to Chorok?

After hearing what Baek Taera pointed out, I realized the strange thing, and I looked at the Chorok with a bewildered face. But he replied casually as if he already knew.

“After we wake up from Nightmare’s nightmare. I think since then, he’s been calling me this bastard and that bastard comfortably?” 

“When did I say this bastard, that bastard—” 

Since I get pricked a lot, I ended up saying the last word. At that time, I just thought it was a dream and treated him like that. To make an excuse, I was half out of my mind in an emergency situation, so I didn’t have time to think about it deeply. 

But actually, after entering and leaving his dream, my inner intimacy increased a bit. The only problem is that it was only the intimacy that I felt.

“Ehem, n, no I mean, if you had known, you should have told me sooner.”

“That’s enough, do as you always do. You looked much more comfortable there.”

I spoke formally again, but Chorok seemed disgusted with me. I felt that he really hated it from his expression, so I wondered if it was to that extent, but I nodded because I thought there was something to hide when I could see the bottom anyway.

Even while Chorok was trying to reach an agreement with me, Lee Jehee and Baek Taera’s eyes persistently followed me. As I slowly turned away from the burden, Hana, who had been quietly listening, opened her mouth.

“By the way, I only knew the name, but I didn’t know Yeon Seonwoo-ssi’s age. How old are you?”

“Ah, I’m 29 this year.”

“…29? I didn’t know because you didn’t look like that.”

As far as I know, Hana is three years younger than me. Meanwhile, there were Lee Jehee and Sora, who are 27 years old. And Baek Taera is 23 this year, and Chorok is 21 years old.

In other words, I was the oldest of them all. But unfortunately, my level is the lowest.

“What does age have to do with it? It’s the level.”

Baek Taera, the second youngest among them, mumbled and simply laughed in vain. I didn’t even expect it in the first place. Because they weren’t the kind of guys who would treat me better just because I was older.  

Only Hana, who has the most common sense among us, seemed to have different thoughts.

“Don’t do that. Yeon Seonwoo is now a guild member. You have to be polite. Don’t call like ‘Taera’ or ‘Chorok,’ but use proper titles.”

Well done, our Hana!

At least, cheering for Hana in the joy of not being called ‘you’, Baek Taera and Chorok looked back at me once. I looked proudly at the people who avoided their gaze without saying no to Hana at all and then took a peek at Lee Jehee, who was sitting at the top of the table.