Underground Base
Underground Base
"Ugh... Aaaah."
"Bro, stop making weird noises."
"You little brat. Your big bro's suffering over here, and instead of comforting me..."
"...Don't call yourself my big bro. Anyway, you'd feel better if you just lay there. Why all the drama."
Seo-eun looked at me like I was pathetic. I almost teared up. No, seriously, I'm actually in pain here!
This place was deep underground somewhere in Seoul.
It was the underground base of Han Seo-eun, a genius hacker and scientist who could build just about anything—even though she was only a third-year middle schooler.
The moment I'd foiled the terrorist attack carried out by followers claiming to act in my name, I'd teleported straight here—and collapsed again. Consecutive teleports were killing me. And this place was absurdly deep underground too...
Still, I had to admit it hurt less this time, probably because I was inside the fatigue recovery capsule Seo-eun had made. If this thing existed, she could've told me yesterday. I was out cold the entire day yesterday.
Worse, I hadn't just moved myself this time—I'd dragged another person along with me. Double the strain.
Thank goodness for the fatigue recovery capsule Seo-eun had built. Without it, I would've been completely done for.
"Ugh. So. Why exactly did you tell me to bring her?"
I pointed at the woman sitting in the chair.
She flinched as the attention landed on her.
With her long, straight black hair hanging down, she sat there as timid and nervous as a mouse. Honestly, it was a little pitiful.
And since she was beautiful too, she looked like some tragic heroine.
Out of the eight followers, she was the only one I'd kept alive.
Seo-eun had said she could be a huge help as an ally, so I'd brought her along.
"Ah."
Seo-eun, who'd been busy typing at her computer screen, spun her chair around to face us.
She looked at the woman and asked,
"Big sis—no, wait. You're Lee Soo-bin, right?"
"Uh, yeah. H-how did you know?"
"I know everything."
Seo-eun said it with an air of cool confidence. But if you looked closely, she seemed just a little smug.
It was adorable hearing such a tiny kid say that. I couldn't help smiling like a proud dad.
Anyway, that aside, I decided to ask what I'd been curious about.
"Alright, Seo-eun. Mind explaining why we had to bring along Lee Soo-bin here, the self-proclaimed follower of yours truly?"
The moment I spoke, she flinched again.
Seriously, you're this timid and you were pulling off terrorist attacks?
Her eyes were already welling up with tears. It was extremely awkward.
"Oh, I wanted to ask her to help me."
That was all Seo-eun said to me.
Right. Help you. Makes sense... Wait, help? You?
Seo-eun's words had thrown not just me but Lee Soo-bin too. She looked thoroughly bewildered. What was this about, all of a sudden?
"Uh... Seo-eun. I'm not sure I follow. You're saying you kidnapped a terrorist you just met today and now you want her to help you? Um... honestly, wouldn't she be more likely to stab you in your sleep?"
Behind me, I thought I heard her mumble something like, 'I wouldn't... stab anyone...' but I ignored it thoroughly. That was the cold, ruthless Ego-Base. Those who spoke softly didn't survive here.
"Haah. That's not what I meant."
"What else could it be? Seo-eun, maybe you're still too young for the real world, being in your third year of middle school and all. Kidnapping someone and telling them to work for you doesn't usually result in quiet cooperation. They'll either steal all your intel and run, or plot revenge. One of the two. And I don't even know what kind of help you're expecting from her."
I had the distinct feeling someone behind me was shaking her head frantically, going "I won't betray you..." Actually, it wasn't a feeling. She was literally saying it.
At my lengthy speech, Seo-eun merely let out a sigh. Excuse me? Alright then, time for some stern fatherly discipline.
Just as I was about to launch into my lecture, Seo-eun spoke.
"Big sis. Lee Soo-bin."
"Y-yeah?"
"Big sis, both your parents were researchers at Han-eun Group, weren't they?"
In that instant, the blood drained from Lee Soo-bin's face.
Her face went pale in a heartbeat.
She started stammering denials—"N-no, that's not..."—but Seo-eun just smiled bitterly at the sight.
"Big sis, don't you want revenge too? Against Han-eun Group. Against those bastards."
"Huh?"
"Big sis, your parents died in that disaster too, didn't they?"
At Seo-eun's words, Lee Soo-bin's expression hardened slightly.
I'd been about to tease Seo-eun for dropping her boyish act and calling Soo-bin 'sis,' but once Han-eun Group and the disaster came up, I started listening seriously.
"I read the posts you wrote on the deep web, big sis. You hate Han-eun Group too. You said you wanted to kill them all."
"Wh-what... how..."
"How do I know? Your security program had a lot of holes, big sis. I'll have to build you a new one."
Seo-eun had risen from her chair and walked over to Lee Soo-bin, taking her hand tightly.
It was a little funny that Lee Soo-bin sitting in the chair was taller than Seo-eun standing up, but this seemed like a genuinely serious moment, so I kept it to myself.
"I'm looking for the leadership of Han-eun Group. Those bastards ruined my life. I'm going to find them and kill every last one. That's the only way I think my grudge will ever be settled."
"Big sis, will you help me?"
As Seo-eun finished speaking, Lee Soo-bin burst into tears and clutched Seo-eun's hands in return.
"Okay. I'll—I'll help you!"
"Thank you, big sis."
And then the two of them hugged each other.
Uh...
With Seo-eun's white hair and Lee Soo-bin's black hair, the two of them embracing really did look like some kind of beautiful monochrome painting.
But am I... am I the only one who can't follow this emotional arc?
What the hell were they suddenly doing...? They exchanged a few words, got choked up, and now they were hugging...?
So there I was, the lone guy, just lying there super awkwardly while the two girls embraced.
What even is this...
***
Lee Soo-bin.
She was a computer science major at Seoul National University.
She was about my age.
Both parents died when she was young, so she'd been living alone on government aid.
She'd been holed up at home like a shut-in since middle school, doing nothing but studying computers, so her skills were top-tier.
Top-tier enough that she could understand everything Seo-eun said.
I couldn't understand a single thing.
She mostly made a living doing cyberterrorism-for-hire on the deep web.
The reason she showed up for this terrorist attack, claiming to be my follower, was...
"What? You just got swept up in it?"
"Yeah... The chat room was originally somewhere I went to look for work, but they said they just needed bodies to fill out the numbers... and they started suspecting I was a mole, so I couldn't really..."
"..."
What the hell. So basically she wasn't even my follower? Seo-eun, you told me she was a fan. Were you lying to me?
I looked at the woman fidgeting in her seat.
Lee Soo-bin. Despite the name that sounded kind of sweet, she was actually a little intimidating in person.
With her long black hair and tall frame, she looked like an intimidating school bully whenever her face went blank.
...But despite how she looked, somehow...
"You don't have a single friend?"
"No... I never left the house, and I only went to school just enough to graduate..."
"..."
Why did I feel like I was about to burst into tears just listening to this?
Well, overall she seemed harmless enough.
Of course, there were still some suspicious points.
For starters, she'd never appeared in the world I'd transmigrated into—the manhwa Stardust!—not even once.
Never appearing meant, well, she didn't exactly make a huge impact on the story.
She was just some extra. Like me.
"Understood. Lee Soo-bin, welcome to the crew."
"Y-yes!"
I shook her hand.
She bit her tongue mid-sentence and her face went red. I decided to pretend I hadn't noticed.
"...Since when did we have a crew?"
I decided to ignore Seo-eun's muttering from behind me, too.
There were three of us by then. That was basically a crew.
***
Lee Soo-bin moved her things into the underground base and decided to live here.
Something about living alongside Seo-eun, learning and cooperating together, whatever.
Seo-eun's explanation was that going back and forth too often could draw attention, so this was the better option.
...Honestly though, I was uneasy.
If she were a character from the Original Work, someone I actually knew, that'd be one thing.
But keeping someone whose real personality and intentions were a complete mystery right next to our Seo-eun? What if something happened?
So I went ahead and moved into the underground base myself.
I gave Seo-eun a different reason, but honestly, she seemed to get the general vibe of what I was worried about.
Which made me wonder.
Did she already know Soo-bin somehow?
And so, deep underground, the three of us—me, Han Seo-eun, and Lee Soo-bin—began living together.
One guy and two girls. The optics were a little weird.
But Seo-eun was a middle schooler, and Soo-bin was... well, definitely beautiful, but there was nothing to worry about.
Besides, my heart always belonged to Stardus—to Shin Ha-ru. The vow I'd made when I arrived in this world was to live this life for her.
Not that there'd ever be a day she and I ended up together. Haha.
And just like that, I started living here.
Living with other people was definitely more chaotic and fun than living alone.
"Bro, you know you left the fridge door open? The ice cream's all gonna melt!"
"Me? Hey, I never opened the fridge!"
"S-Seo-eun... I think I left it open. S-sorry..."
"Oh! Ah... it's okay, big sis! People make mistakes. Hehe."
"...Wow. When you thought it was me, you had plenty to say."
"..."
So unfair. Just so unfair.