How the Golden Sun Stalks
I let out a low groan. Time had passed, and we were now ten days before the third episode began. I was waiting at the prearranged spot for Raul.
The reason was obvious. We needed to discuss the Magic-Engineering Floating Core, the relic he had to steal in order to extend his own life. With that in mind, I had simply thrown on whatever clothes were lying around the dorm. Nothing special.
“...What the hell is this?”
This bastard had dressed to the nines. Anyone who saw him would think he was going on a blind date. I was seriously tempted to smack him upside the head.
“I don’t want to walk around town with some overdressed pretty boy…”
When I muttered that, Raul let out a dry laugh and waved his hand dismissively.
“You think I dressed up for you? There’s a reason for it…”
“No, I get that. But honestly, this isn’t an outfit you’d wear to hang out with another guy, is it?”
Unlike my plain, unassuming look, everything about him screamed effort. Crisp denim pants, a thin shirt that showed off his frame, and a beige coat that added just the right highlight. Even his sneakers were deliberately white, and the watch looked carefully chosen.
“...Who did you meet before coming here?”
Seeing him like this made me uneasy. After all, Raul was a reclusive spiritual beast who rarely ventured into the city. That was precisely why he had avoided detection by people and naturally escaped the Empire’s ‘hunts.’
So if someone had managed to make Raul dress up like this, it meant something significant. ‘Obviously he wouldn’t dress like this to meet another man…’
Moreover, his reaction made it clear he had done something else first before showing up here. That was the problem. Honestly, with no friends or family, what else would he have to do outside?
He was a spiritual beast, so he didn’t need to eat, and he didn’t have many desires. The guy who should have been holed up in the dormitory sleeping until right before our meeting… why had he come out?
“There’s a girl I’m interested in. That’s why I dressed up.”
“...What did you just say?”
My head spun the moment I heard those words. At this point in the story, there was only one girl he could possibly be getting close to.
Why? I had been constantly keeping him in check, staying as close to Heidi as possible to prevent exactly this.
“Oh, and don’t worry. It’s not your girlfriend.”
As if reading my mind, Raul smiled quietly and continued.
“You know her too. Apparently you two are really close.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
At this point, suspicion turned into certainty. The person he had met was Heidi. For some reason, he had met her, made plans, gone out into the city with her, and even developed feelings.
‘This is going to drive me insane.’
I couldn’t figure out where things had gone wrong. When? Why? How? The situation had completely abandoned common sense, and my brain simply froze.
I was sure I had blocked all contact between Raul, the Saint, and anyone else like them.
“Her name is Heidi…”
“More importantly, why the hell did you meet Heidi? No—how did you even meet her?”
My malfunctioning brain somehow managed to produce what I thought was the best possible response. But just like my trembling hands, Raul annoyingly continued in a light, fluttering voice as if the mere thought brought him joy.
“...I just saw her with you and thought she seemed like a good person.”
Looking at him now, it finally hit me. What hit me? ‘I’m screwed.’
What else? The overwhelming realization that I was completely and utterly screwed. The so-called flag had been firmly planted. I had tried to prevent even the slightest approach because Raul fell for Heidi so easily.
From the looks of it, he must have approached her during lunch when I couldn’t interfere, or during the brief moments I wasn’t watching her.
‘So the first stage is already ruined.’
Since they were both in A-class and were, after all, the protagonists of this story, I had expected they would eventually make contact no matter how much I tried to stop it. But I had deliberately delayed that moment as long as possible, trying to block every variable I could and prevent him from developing any romantic feelings toward her.
Yet not a single thing in this novel was going the way I planned.
‘Just look at his face right now, blushing like a boy in love. That says it all.’
It was already annoying enough having to watch a grown man blush. The fact that it was because of Heidi made my head throb even worse.
Since he had openly said he was ‘interested,’ there was no taking it back now.
“What, are you worried about your childhood friend? Don’t be. I’m not planning to do anything bad…”
“No, that’s not what I…”
How was I supposed to explain this? I couldn’t exactly tell him that because of Heidi, his mind would eventually snap and he’d try to kill everyone around her.
“...Sigh. Fine. You can like her.”
It would be best to do what I had done before—slowly intervene and gradually drive a wedge between them. Rushing in and messing things up would only create its own set of problems.
Once a flag was planted, pulling it out was difficult, but if I took my time and worked on it gradually, it should be manageable.
“It’s just that my friend has had her boyfriends stolen by the same awful woman four times already.”
So, I would have to cleverly mix lies and truth to suppress their growing closeness. That was what I had intended to do slowly with Raul and Heidi, but now that things had come to this.
“If a guy suddenly approaches her, she’ll probably think he’s taking her lightly, you know?”
The so-called ‘political maneuvering.’ I had no choice but to start doing it constantly from now on. I didn’t like scheming behind people’s backs, but if it was for survival, I would do whatever it took.
“...Stolen four times? By the same person?”
“Yeah. She’s a really terrible woman.”
Sorry, Lucia, but what could I do? If we were being honest, she really was a terrible woman.
“...Hng.”
“...?”
Then, as if in response to my words, I heard a small, slightly disappointed sigh from somewhere. It was a busy street, so there were many people around and I couldn’t tell where it came from, but the voice sounded strangely familiar.
While I was searching my memory for that oddly familiar voice, Raul asked in a worried tone.
“Is something wrong? You don’t look too good.”
It was probably nothing. There were plenty of people with similar voices, right? I smiled at Raul as if to say it was no big deal, pulled my gaze away from our surroundings, and continued.
“Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Heidi that you know about this.”
After that, I started walking toward the café to continue our conversation inside. As if in passing, but with deliberate emphasis on every single word so Raul would never forget, I added,
“That’s something of a reverse scale for Heidi.”
So that even without me saying anything, he would keep his distance on his own.
…But why did it feel like someone was watching us? Must be my imagination.
The identity of the gaze I had felt earlier became clear the moment we entered the café and the crowd thinned out.
“Hey, over there…”
“I know. Just ignore it…”
Lucia, wearing a ridiculous pair of sunglasses and a mask, was sitting across from us. She was staring holes through us while aggressively sipping her coffee with an extremely irritated expression.
Did she really think that with her distinctive golden-blonde hair and tanned skin completely exposed, just wearing sunglasses would keep her from being recognized?
It was kind of cute how clumsy she was, but the way the people around us kept giving her suspicious looks made me feel more embarrassed than anything.
‘But why is she even here?’
She couldn’t have secretly followed us… right? No way. Lucia wasn’t the type to do something so shady. She must have just run into us while out for a walk…
“You’re saying that’s not your girlfriend?”
…Yeah, I know. There was no way someone would go out looking that suspicious under normal circumstances. I just didn’t want to believe it.
Why would she follow me all the way out here in such a sloppy disguise?
“It’s not like that…”
“...Trash.”
When I quietly looked away, I was met with a cold insult and a look of utter contempt. No, she seemed to be misunderstanding something. This wasn’t some kind of harem situation. She was just being weird.
And even if I had been building a harem like Raul thought, this was straight-up stalking…
“Cough! Cough, cough!”
She choked on her coffee and started rolling around on the table. How could someone be this clumsy from head to toe?
“Haah…”
In truth, stealing the Magic-Engineering Floating Core properly wasn’t something the two of us could pull off alone. In the original story, it had taken four people—Heidi, Eden, Raul, and Nihil.
Since I needed to keep Heidi and Raul apart, I couldn’t bring her into the operation. Calling in anyone else would be equally awkward.
I had considered asking Grayson for help, but the general consensus was that he couldn’t be used in direct combat.
‘Using memories that have only been accumulated for a week would be too risky…’
And since I couldn’t use his trump card here either, I planned to give him a more supportive role instead.
‘In that case, the only person left who can help me is…’
Someone skilled enough to enter A-class. Someone with no other friends at the academy to blab to. And someone I had grown close enough with to consider a comfortable relationship.
“Eck! Cough!”
The only one left was that suspicious-looking Geumtaeyang in a terrible disguise, coughing pathetically in the distance.
Normally that kind of disguise was meant to turn you into an unidentifiable person, but in her case it was literally just making her unidentifiable.
“Excuse me, Lucia.”
“I’m not Lucia… cough!”
I approached her, thinking that if it was Lucia, it would be fine to ask her to join us. But seeing her act like her awkward disguise was somehow perfect was simply astounding.
“Y-you must have the wrong person…”
“Are you really going to keep this up?”
When I looked at her in disbelief, she kept coughing and turning her head away. She had even taken off her mask to drink coffee, so she was just Lucia through and through. Did she really think she was hiding?
“See? It is Lucia.”
I lifted her sunglasses and waved them around. If she was going to get caught anyway, there was no point in lying.
“G-give that back…!”
Lucia jumped up and down trying to snatch back her sunglasses, but thanks to our natural height difference, she couldn’t reach them. She looked like a little rabbit hopping around, so I gently placed my hand on top of her head and said,
“Lucia is much prettier when she doesn’t wear stuff like this.”
“...!”
The moment she heard those words, she stopped jumping for the sunglasses and froze. Then, as if something inside her had short-circuited, she buried her face directly into my chest.
…What did I do wrong this time?
