NOVPUBAs I pondered what words I should say or what questions I should ask when Unsa wakes up, I arrived at my destination.
When I arrived in front of the annex where Eunho was staying, Baekho-gun was waiting.
As soon as he arrived, Baekho-gun stepped forward and spoke.
"I will guide you."
I thought there was no need for guidance since I was already familiar with the structure of the annex, but since it had been a while since Baekho-gun offered, I couldn't refuse outright and simply followed him.
My expectation was that we would head to the living room or reception room, but that wasn’t the case.
Baekho-gun headed towards the guest room where I often stayed.
Why did he bother offering guidance?
"You can rest now."
Rest?
Now that I thought about it, I didn’t see the other tigers around.
Had Hwang Jiho and Eunho gone to rest?
There was still one more thing I wanted to confirm, but it was getting difficult.
It wouldn’t be right to leave Baekho-gun, who kindly guided me, and go looking for the other tigers.
"You can talk after resting."
It seemed like the tigers, including Hwang Jiho and Eunho, were good at reading my thoughts.
I wanted to think it over more, but the suggestion to rest made me feel exhausted.
As I prepared to rest in a somewhat dazed state, Baekho-gun was still standing by the door.
"......."
He seemed like he had something to say.
Could he be planning to apologize like the other tigers?
I wished there had been a way to find Unsa without injury, but unfortunately, that was not the case, and this trouble ensued.
I had already heard many apologies from the tigers today, and I hoped it would end here.
"......Thank you for saving Unsa."
Thankfully, it wasn’t an apology.
While expressing thanks felt a bit awkward, it was much better than an apology.
Hearing those words put my mind at ease.
Baekho-gun had been unable to leave the silver light barrier when his close friend was in danger. I could only imagine how frustrating that must have been.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how he must have felt while waiting for Unsa, and if he had apologized, I would have felt even worse.
"......."
Just before I fell asleep, I sensed a faint presence outside the door.
I could hear the sound of small footsteps, which suggested that Baekho-gun and Olmu were nearby.
I wanted to tell Olmu it was fine to come in and ask if she wanted to rest with me, but I soon fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next day.
When I woke up, my body still felt heavy.
‘Did I wake up a little early?’
It felt like quite a bit of time had passed, but since my fatigue hadn't fully disappeared, it seemed like I had woken up early.
I checked my left eye first.
Even though I had fallen asleep with the lenses on, it didn’t feel strange at all.
In fact, I felt like the area around my eyes was refreshed compared to before I went to bed.
‘Tigers don’t need much sleep, so someone must be up by now. What time is it? Hmm...?’
The clock showed a time quite different from what I had expected.
I wondered if I had woken up in the early morning, but it was definitely past lunch and already afternoon.
When I saw the time, I felt a surge of relief as the fatigue left my body.
‘How could I have slept for so long when things must be in chaos right now!’
After getting out of bed, I checked the news from major media outlets through my device.
The headlines and video thumbnails were all filled with Seong Guk-eon’s face.
Seong Guk-eon looked different from usual.
Instead of his usual refreshing and relaxed smile, he wore a serious expression, with one eye covered by a medical patch.
Seeing that eye covered, guilt surged within me.
‘Would it have been better if I hadn’t worn Seong Guk-eon’s face when I got injured? No, that would have messed up the plan. I should’ve thought of another way from the beginning.’
For the future of our country, Seong Guk-eon’s eye should not be covered like that!
With a clear mind from a good rest, I thought hard, but no matter how I tried to persuade him, I didn’t think Seong Guk-eon would go back on his word.
The only thing I could do now was to recover quickly.
I checked the most viewed video, which showed the assassination attempt on Seong Guk-eon and the explosion at the Youth Pre-Player Support Center.
The footage that appeared to be from a low-quality recording device near Silver Light District, as well as a 3D reconstruction based on that footage, and videos of the garden ruins near the area where Seong Guk-eon had been transported, followed one after another.
‘There’s no sign of Maeng Hyo-don or anyone else in the news. The whole story is focused on Seong Guk-eon. Rather than intentionally erasing Maeng Hyo-don’s presence, it feels like unnecessary details were deemed irrelevant and not mentioned. Very clever.’
The more I watched the news, the more impressed I became.
Even if it comes out later that someone else was brought into the garden where Seong Guk-eon had been, there would be no way to catch them.
During the interview, Seong Guk-eon even hinted that he had worked with someone.
But judging from the comments and reactions, everyone seemed to think that the person was Jeon Mu-young, his secretary and bodyguard.
‘And last year, the scandal about the school near Tan Rae-jung, which hadn’t received much attention, was brought up again, and it naturally tied everything together.’
Last year, Seong Guk-eon had investigated and exposed a school that had committed fraud based on a complaint I had made.
It had become news, but at the time, it hadn’t garnered much attention.
Since fraud-related news was pouring out every day, it quickly got buried.
But this time, it was different.
Although there had been no casualties, the center where the students had attended exploded, and Seong Guk-eon was injured to the point of needing an eye patch.
With this dramatic turn of events, last year’s fraud story became a major topic once again.
‘Seong Guk-eon doesn’t usually show when he’s badly injured. When he had the plaster cast on, he deliberately avoided the media. So when he shows up with an eye patch, everyone will think it’s a major incident.’
During the interview, Seong Guk-eon mentioned that there was still no information about the culprit.
Instead, he referred to what he had witnessed in the garden where he was kidnapped and its location, implying that it was connected to the fraud case he had investigated last year.
Seong Guk-eon ended the interview with the following statement:
[......Currently, the Player Association’s Korean branch is conducting a full inspection of each center. Both domestically and at the headquarters, we must move quickly to address this.]
The impact of Seong Guk-eon’s statement was greater than expected.
It seemed as though, just as if on cue, several countries experienced incidents of spontaneous superpower releases and explosions.
These events occurred in places with similar roles to the Youth Pre-Player Support Centers, though their names were different.
As a result, the assassination attempt on Seong Guk-eon became a huge topic both domestically and internationally.
‘Hong Gyu-bin must be struggling too. I wonder if he’s been crying over the device messages?’
Just in case, I checked the device messages, but there were no such contents.
Instead, it seemed like Hong Gyu-bin was worried about me.
[Hong Gyu-bin] I spoke directly with Seong Guk-eon. You don’t have to worry about him.
[Hong Gyu-bin] Rest well, and let me know if there’s anything I can do.
Hong Gyu-bin really figured out that it was me in Seong Guk-eon’s appearance.
Since it was inevitable that it was exposed, I decided I should have him work hard while I didn’t have to instruct him.
Now that he was working without me telling him, I couldn’t think of anything to say.
I quickly sent a reply saying that I was fine and to keep up the good work.
There were also many other messages stacked up.
[Ju Su-hyeok] Are you alright?
[Maeng Hyo-don] Is the vice-captain okay?
[Ju Su-hyeok] I heard from Jiho that you received proper treatment. That’s a relief.
[Ju Su-hyeok] Rest well. I’ll see you at school.
Seeing the group message with Ju Su-hyeok and Maeng Hyo-don made me feel guilty.
Looking at the message times, it seemed to have taken a while before they got a reply from Hwang Jiho.
I wished Hwang Jiho had replied a bit faster or that I had checked and reassured them first. Yesterday, I had been so out of it that I neglected the others.
I quickly sent a reply thanking them for their concern.
That was when I heard a knock on the door.
Knock knock.
It was a bit softer and lower than usual.
Imagining who could have knocked like that, I quickly became alert.
The only creature in this tiger mansion that could make such a cute and precious sound was none other than Olmu.
"Olmu?"
Thuk.
It seemed I was right.
But then, I heard small footsteps moving away.
It looked like Olmu had come to wake me up and then just left!
Panicking, I hurried to follow the footsteps and opened the door.
‘The angel just left...’
I saw Olmu’s white tail briefly at the end of the corridor before it disappeared.
The afterimage of the white tail lingered in my eyes.
Why did Olmu just leave?
Had someone asked Olmu to wake me up, but Olmu left because I was unpleasant to look at?
Bad thoughts started flooding my mind.
As I was lost in those thoughts, Baekho-gun, who had been standing by the door, spoke.
"Olmu was worried about you all night."
The angel had been worrying all night!
And I didn’t even know. Had I just been sleeping like that?
How could I be so shameless?
"I will wait outside."
Baekho-gun’s words snapped me out of my daze, and I weakly nodded.
I didn’t want to disappoint Olmu, so I staggered back to the guest room to freshen up.
I changed into the clothes provided in the guest room and headed to the living room.
There was no sign of Olmu in the living room.
It was as if the tail I had just seen was a mirage.
‘I have a bad feeling.’
Was it because the angel wasn’t there, or was there another reason?
I felt like I had to run away quickly, but I couldn’t just leave without seeing the angel.
"Did you wake up? You look much better."
"It seems like you had a good rest. Please sit down and have some tea."
Eunho and Hwang Jiho, who were sitting and drinking tea on the living room sofa, invited me to sit.
They looked much calmer compared to how they appeared yesterday.
Seeing that made my bad feeling grow even more.
But since I had no chance to escape, I sat down and drank the tea as they suggested.
Today’s tea was persimmon leaf tea, which was good for recovering from fatigue and improving skin and eyes.
"You look fine, but I’ll check your lenses. Also, I’ll quickly check your pulse and temperature."
"I’m fine, why..."
"It’s necessary for an important transaction."
Before drinking the tea, Eunho reached out to check my pulse.
What was this important transaction that required knowing my pulse and temperature?
Suddenly, I recalled the conversation between Hwang Jiho and Jeokho about some major transaction, and my mind wasn’t at ease.
The consequences of that transaction filled me with dread.
Pretending not to know, I sat still while Hwang Jiho, who had set his cup down and was looking at me, spoke.
"Next week is the problem. We need to heal your eyes quickly, but it seems it will be difficult before then."
"Why next week?"
I tried to recall what was happening next week, but I couldn’t think of anything specific.
It was enough that they were fixing my eyes, so I didn’t think it was necessary to rush the dragon and shaman.
I thought so, but it seemed Hwang Jiho had a different idea.
"Starting next week, they will select the students for the Korea-China-Japan Youth Exchange Tournament. As the representative of Eungwang High, you can’t miss it, so it’s a big deal."
During the summer vacation, the Korea-China-Japan Youth Exchange Tournament would be held, and the representatives would be selected before that.
The selection for the representatives was fast approaching.
