Lie
Lie
"Phew."
With that, we arrived at the underground base in a single teleport.
Ah, fuck... teleporting that far with two people made me feel like I was about to collapse.
While I clutched my dizzy head and staggered, Lee Ha-yul and her little brother looked around in every direction.
They were staring at the pure-white walls lit by LEDs.
I saw them every day, so they didn't impress me, but apparently the two of them felt differently.
As for the younger brother—was his name Lee Cha-yun? Cha-yun was looking around with sparkling eyes, while Lee Ha-yul kept an arm around him and surveyed the place warily.
For now, I clutched my spinning head and said to them:
"Ugh... I'm dying here. Kids, stop looking around and follow me. Ugh..."
I staggered forward, and the kids came pattering after me.
They still followed me with guarded, cautious expressions, but at least they were following.
As I groaned my way down the white corridor, Seo-eun and Soo-bin came rushing out from the other end.
"Big bro! Ah..."
Seo-eun was heading toward me when she spotted the kids behind me and hesitated for a second.
Seeing two unfamiliar children appear behind me, she tensed a little.
"Yeah. These two are in a difficult situation, so I brought them here for now. But forget everything else—they need to wash up. Take them to the shower room and bring out some spare clothes."
My abrupt order seemed to fluster Seo-eun.
Fortunately, Soo-bin stepped forward from behind her.
"I'll guide them. Kids, want to come with me?"
Soo-bin stepped forward with a good-natured smile. Of all of us, she certainly looked the kindest. Was she our group's friendly face after all...?
When Soo-bin gently asked them to follow, the siblings shuffled after her despite their hesitation. Well, once they'd come here, it was obvious they'd have to follow our lead.
Still, Lee Ha-yul looked much more at ease following Soo-bin than staying with me. From her perspective, I was a lunatic dressed head to toe in black who had just shot five people dead, while Soo-bin was another woman.
Her little brother didn't seem to feel the same way. Even as he left, he kept sneaking glances back at me. Why did that kid like me so much? Were elementary-school kids these days all fans of me?
Anyway, once the kids were out of the way, I trudged toward the fatigue recovery machine.
Using telekinesis had been easy enough, but that last teleport was a bit too much. Teleporting the three of us together might've been pushing it...
"Big bro... so you really did wear that hat after all?"
As I was stumbling along, Seo-eun, who'd been behind me, came trotting up to talk as she walked beside me.
"Ah... yeah, this thing."
I fiddled with the black wizard hat sitting on my head.
"What do you think? It has style, right? I'm planning to keep wearing it from now on."
"Uh... haah. Well, as long as big bro likes it."
What's that sigh supposed to mean?
Anyway, I somehow managed to stagger my way to the fatigue recovery machine.
I lay my aching body down and turned it on. It seemed to help a little.
As I was lying there letting my body recover, Seo-eun plopped down in the chair next to me and asked:
"So, what are you planning to do about those siblings?"
"Ugh... them?"
I should've built up trust over time before recruiting them, but things had gotten tangled up and become a little awkward. Still...
"Her little brother really likes me. So I think I'll manage somehow."
"Really? That's surprising. Is he part of that... Mangostic Fandom thing, or whatever?"
"Looks like it. Hey, I never expected that all the goodwill I've been building up would pay off like this."
"Haha... Maybe big bro is the Kids' President."
"Could be. Oh, right—did you finish installing the teleportation device?"
"I finished it yesterday. But are we really moving?"
"Yeah. After spending three months trapped in this basement, I realized this place won't work. People need sunlight."
"Aw... but I like it here."
"Now that we've installed a teleportation device here, it'll practically be next door. Don't worry."
We were idly chatting like that for a while, and after some time had passed, the door to this room opened.
Soo-bin came in first, and behind her, the siblings shuffled closer.
They had both showered and changed into clean clothes.
Oh, they cleaned up nicely—suddenly they looked like completely different people.
Back in that dusty wreck of a shack, they had looked terribly grimy. Once they washed and changed into clean clothes, though, they looked like different people. Lee Ha-yul in particular was every bit as beautiful as she had been drawn in the Original Work. Did this world give villains an appearance boost too?
Anyway, the two of them came in.
I signaled with my eyes for Seo-eun and Soo-bin to leave. They read my look and quietly left the room.
And so, in that spacious room, only the siblings and I remained.
"Kids... for now, pull up those chairs over there and sit."
When I said that, still lying on the fatigue recovery machine, they shuffled awkwardly but took their seats.
Hmm, where was I supposed to begin?
While I was busy picking my words, Lee Ha-yul spoke first.
"Why did you help us?"
She had blurted it out. When I met her eyes, I saw deeply rooted distrust. Just as the Original Work described, she looked like she trusted no one but her little brother.
I watched her for a moment, then spoke.
"I once had a younger sibling around your age."
She frowned at the sudden, out-of-the-blue statement.
Whether she frowned or not, I kept going.
Long ago, I had a younger sibling, but because of my carelessness, they were killed by assailants.
This time, I was tracking down whoever had stolen my wallet, and that was when I saw you two.
Seeing those men attack you reminded me of my sibling, who had died the same way, so I stepped in.
Having said that much, I took a breath.
For the record, it was all bullshit. I'd never had a younger sibling.
But if I wanted to lower her guard, I needed to sell a lie this big. Yeah...
"Lee Ha-yul, Lee Cha-yun... while you two were washing up, I looked into you. Lee Ha-yul, you're the one who killed the orphanage director and ran, aren't you?"
When I said that, her eyes went wide with shock.
Yeah, she'd probably never imagined that I'd know that.
"Well, I'm not trying to blame you. I looked into that orphanage director too, and she was a seriously twisted woman. I don't know why she treated you like that, though."
Here, I needed to plant the idea that I had no clue she possessed a top-tier healing ability.
If she realized I'd helped her because of that, someone with her personality would never stand for it.
After saying that much, I composed myself again, looked at them, and spoke.
"I can help you."
"With what I can do, I can make it look like you didn't kill her—that someone else murdered the director and you simply took the opportunity to escape. I can manage that much."
"And I can provide you a home and money. Do you two go to school? I'll send you to school too."
"You two can just live like kids—run around and play."
"I'll support you."
That was my sudden, full-on Giving Tree declaration.
Of course, her little brother was already going, 'Long live Mangostic!'
But his opinion wasn't what mattered. Lee Ha-yul's did.
Sure enough, at my abrupt words, she looked at me with suspicious eyes.
"...Why are you going so far for us? We only met today. It doesn't make sense."
Still openly suspicious, she snapped at me.
Even as she spoke so boldly, her body trembled slightly. It couldn't have been easy to talk to me like that when she knew I could kill her with a flick of my hand.
I gave her a bitter smile and said,
"Didn't I tell you earlier? Seeing you two reminded me of my sibling."
"Just think of it as finding a first-prize lottery ticket lying on the street."
She still hadn't completely let go of her suspicions, but I dismissed them and told them to get some sleep, so they left for the moment.
Soo-bin came, took the two of them, and laid out bedding in an empty room.
Soo-bin was better at looking after children than I'd expected. She cooked well, cleaned well, and apparently handled children well too... No matter how I looked at it, she was a professional homemaker.
After finally getting them to bed,
Morning came.
***
"This is the house you'll be living in."
The next day, the siblings who'd followed me since morning had their mouths hanging open.
After we all shared an awkward breakfast, I told them to follow me. We took the elevator up from the basement and emerged into an ordinary house.
Then we stepped onto the suspiciously advanced teleportation device installed there and arrived at this place.
It was a three-story mansion as large as a palace, nestled in a deep mountain valley beyond anyone's reach.
"N-No. This is a little..."
At the overwhelming grandeur, even Lee Ha-yul, who had been watching me with suspicious eyes until just moments before, went wide-eyed.
"Of course, this doesn't mean you two will be living here alone. We'll be living here too. I'll take the third floor... you two can live on the second floor. I'll give you two rooms there."
To the pair who still had their mouths hanging open, I grinned and added one more line:
"Didn't I tell you? I've got an obscene amount of money."
Now this was what it meant to throw money around.
Anyway, we went inside. I showed them to their rooms. Basically two rooms with all the essentials already in them—fridge, two beds, everything. Since I'd prepped them all in advance, they were fully stocked.
I basically shoved the overwhelmed kids in, and true to humans being creatures of adaptation, it looked like they adjusted fast. When I told them that everything was taken care of so they could start school next week, the pair went wide-eyed all over again.
After spending some time together, we became incredibly close. Lee Ha-yul was clearly less tense around me than before. With her little brother, I answered a few of his questions and we bonded at breakneck speed. The kid really liked me. I couldn't believe he was actually in the Mangostic Fandom...
Anyway, at this point, could I say I'd somehow recruited Lee Ha-yul? Maybe? She still hadn't revealed her ability to me, but whatever. If I collapsed on the verge of death, she'd probably use her healing ability to save me, right?
Phew. When those thugs barged in early, I thought the whole plan was ruined, but somehow I seemed to have made it through. What a relief.
Man, all the tension drained right out of me.
But I felt as though I was forgetting something...
What was it?
***
[Title] Isn't Egostic legit dead??
No, this seriously makes no sense.
It's been almost four whole months—where did he go!!!
Come back, come back, come back, come back
=[Comments]=
[It's been four months without Egostic. I'm living through the coldest four months in the world.]
[So he hasn't shown up in 120 days? That actually makes no sense lol]
[Did Egostic seriously fucking retire or something?]
↳ [Gasp]
↳ [Fuck no]
↳ [I mean, isn't it a good thing if a villain retires...? A villain's not carrying out terror attacks, so why are you upset?]
↳ [?]
↳ [?]
↳ [Stardus spy caught]
↳ [You're in the Stardus Fandom, aren't you?]
↳ [Say, 'Stardus is a bitch.']
*
"Ha-ru, why do you keep tapping your cup like that? You seem so on edge lately..."
"Ah, sorry."
Inside the café.
Stardus—Shin Ha-ru—stopped the hand that had been unconsciously tapping the glass.
It had been almost four months since that bastard Egostic disappeared without a trace.
Stardus, who had burned with determination to uncover his secrets, his schemes, and whatever he was planning, was gradually growing anxious.
No. The bastard had to do something before I could uncover anything at all.
'By now... it's about time he showed up...'
Today, too, all she could do was wait in vain.