The Goddess's Warning
"There are tons of empty apartments in this building anyway. You can just move into the floor right below us. Suyeon and I decided to move in here too, you know?" Akemi chimed in, as if there was no need to look any further.
"Huh? You already signed the contract?" Mari asked.
"Yep! Yunjae told me to be careful because the real estate agent would try to scam us, so I brought Anton along! Anton is pretty savvy with that kind of stuff!"
No matter how bold a scammer might be, it would be near impossible to pull a fast one while staring into the grim, imposing face of a burly Russian man.
"Ah! Mr. Anton helped you?" Yunjae asked, his eyes wide.
"Yep! Though I did drag him there by force using teleportation."
"Ah... but dragging him by force is a bit...!"
"Anyway, we're moving all the furniture in today. If you want, should I help the dummy goddess sign her contract too? I've got plenty of time anyway."
Lupinus, who was already being referred to by nicknames like "dummy goddess" or "pervert goddess," merely nodded, not seeming to mind in the slightest.
"Sure!"
"But you need money to sign a lease. Goddess, do you even have money?" Mari asked skeptically.
"Of course I do!"
How else could she have turned Yunjae's parents into incredibly wealthy tycoons in the illusion world? Naturally, Lupinus possessed at least that much wealth. She laughed proudly, puffing out her chest.
"I'm a tazza! The God of Gamblers, you know!"
True to her title as the Goddess of Greed, she seemed to go wherever desire pooled.
"...That lady seriously has some moral issues." Mari muttered. Lupinus seemed to have plenty of survival skills, but something about her was just deeply unsettling. Akemi, Rosamy, and even Yunjae nodded in silent agreement.
"Do you think I should write a letter of explanation? I did leave work without permission yesterday!"
The epitome of introverted anxiety. Even after saving the world, Yunjae was still worrying about procedural corporate paperwork.
"You dummy, there's no need for that. The whole world knows what happened, so why would you write an explanation?" Mari sighed.
"Ah, but it might still be required for procedural reasons."
Mari chuckled at his overly meticulous worrying.
"You got permission from the Guild Leader before you left, didn't you?"
"Ah, now that I think about it, you're right!"
Perhaps because it was his first time experiencing office life, Yunjae finally nodded, realizing a letter of explanation wasn't necessary.
"Well, putting that aside, could you watch our little cutie for a bit so Yunjae and I can talk in private?" Lupinus, who had tagged along all the way to the Blast Guild headquarters, asked as she handed Rosamy over to Mari and Akemi.
"Do you two have something to talk about?" Mari asked, narrowing her eyes.
"Of course! We're going to have a secret conversation between a Hero and his Goddess!"
She was wearing office attire again today. Possessing a figure that easily rivaled Mari's, the goddess had three buttons undone, looking delightfully disheveled. Mari and Akemi flinched in unison.
"Hey, you're not even an employee! Why do you keep dressing like that?!" Mari barked.
"Exactly! You're targeting Yunjae's tastes on purpose!" Akemi agreed, pointing a finger.
"Well, I have to reward my Hero for saving the world. Personally giving him what this Goddess desires!" The Goddess of Greed leaned forward, deliberately emphasizing her chest.
"Ah, a-aah! Lady Lupinus! I-I'm not mentally prepared yet!" Yunjae stammered, his face flushing red.
"You're rushing things too, you jerk! You're skipping way too many steps!" Mari yelled, half-surprised and half-outraged at Yunjae's reaction.
"Ah! I just got a bit carried away!" Yunjae squeaked.
Lupinus chuckled. "Anyway, let us talk in private! Go show Rosamy around!"
"...P-Promise me you won't do anything weird, Lady Lupinus." Even Rosamy chimed in with a worried look. Mari wasn't worried about Yunjae; she was worried about Lupinus.
Lupinus shrugged her shoulders dramatically. "My, even Rosamy? How cruel!"
She might be a goddess, but she was the Goddess of Greed, not to mention a voyeur, a kleptomaniac, a pro gambler, and someone who proudly claimed to be the core of Yunjae's future harem. It was only natural to worry.
"How can you not trust a goddess who came to save the world?"
"Because you do way too many weird things, lady!" Mari retorted.
"Yeah! Yunjae is pure! You're totally planning to do something weird!" Akemi added.
In the first place, the fact that the only hope to save the universe was the Goddess of Greed was a massive irony.
"True! Honestly, I can't deny that!" Lupinus nodded very coolly, admitting to their worries.
"See?!"
"But seriously, we have important things to discuss! Stop hovering and off you go!"
As the goddess whined, Mari, Akemi, and even Rosamy looked at Yunjae with deeply concerned eyes.
"It'll be fine! We're right in front of the company! It's morning rush hour, so there's nowhere we could possibly do... that kind of thing..." Yunjae paused, seemingly imagining something. "U-Uh, probably."
Seeing his face turn completely red, Mari flared up again.
"Why do you look weirdly excited?!"
"Ah, a-aah! I thought a tiny bit of anticipation wouldn't hurt!"
"When I look at you, you're honestly no different from that pervert goddess!" Mari groaned. For someone who was the literal definition of introverted and timid, why was he so proactive when it came to this?
"Well, of course! Yunjae spent fifty-seven years under my direct influence! It's only because it's Yunjae that his naughtiness stopped at a cute level!" Lupinus boasted.
"I knew this pervert goddess was the root of all evil!" Mari cried. To think the blemish on his otherwise pure soul was caused by the goddess herself!
While everyone let out heavy sighs, Lupinus linked her arm with Yunjae's and waved the others away with an annoyed expression.
"I won't eat him up! At least, not right now!"
"Ah! What do you mean 'not right now', Lady Lupinus?!"
"Because I definitely will eventually!"
"A-Aaaah!"
The goddess's cool, shameless response left everyone utterly speechless.
"Anyway, let me have some alone time with him too. You guys have already had plenty!" At Lupinus's slightly serious tone, Mari finally relented.
"Fine. I'll give you ten minutes. If you take any longer, I'm sending Akemi in immediately!"
You are the most dangerous entity to Yunjae! Mari thought.
To be fair, her personality aside, Lupinus's beauty was beyond imagination. She was a platinum-blonde beauty so stunning that any man, not just Yunjae, would lose his mind at a single glance. And paradoxically, because of her personality, she was someone who could actively fulfill a man's every fantasy. In a way, she was the only one capable of corrupting Yunjae.
...She's too pretty.
Honestly, if Lupinus set her mind to seducing someone, Mari wasn't sure if even she could resist, let alone a man.
"Yeah, we need to keep a tight leash on her!" At Mari's anxious shout, Akemi and Rosamy nodded in absolute agreement.
"This is why I hate girls. Always eager to tear me apart. And I can't believe even Rosamy is joining in!"
"...That's because I already know your track record, Lady Lupinus!" Rosamy muttered.
At those words, Mari and Akemi flinched.
"T-Track record?"
"Eeeh?! Did she need an ankle monitor?!"
"I only peeked at the well-built priests! I never touched them!" The goddess protested her innocence, but it didn't sound convincing at all.
"What on earth did you do, you pervert goddess?!" Mari yelled.
"Looking isn't a crime!"
The goddess's shameless shouting left everyone speechless once again.
"Anyway, off to work with you all~ Shoo, shoo~" But the Goddess of Greed quickly regained her composure and went right back to her usual pace.
"Scream if anything happens, Yunjae."
"Yeah! For sexual assault prevention!"
"Ah! Yes!"
Leaving behind Yunjae, who was nodding seriously at everyone's warnings, Mari, Akemi, and Rosamy finally walked into the Blast Guild building with lingering anxiety on their faces.
"How can they trust me so little?" Left alone, Lupinus let out a heavy sigh.
Leaning her face against Yunjae's shoulder, she looked entirely different from her usual shameless self.
"It's so cruel of them not to even give us some time alone."
Looking up at him as if begging him to agree, Yunjae couldn't help but chuckle.
"Ah, I think they were just a bit worried."
"Yeah, I suppose. But like I said, I'm not going to pounce on you right now."
"Ah! But eventually?!"
"Just keep an open mind and wait for it!" With a soft laugh, Lupinus spun around and hugged him tightly from the front.
"Ah..."
She had said she had something important to talk about, but she didn't seem to be in a rush to say it. Did she just want to be alone with him?
"Mmm. This is nice..."
"...Lady Lupinus."
Watching her take a deep breath, savoring his scent, it seemed she had developed a different kind of "greed." To be precise, a deep, profound greed for affection.
"...Dummies. They don't know anything, just babbling whatever they want."
It seemed this was what she had truly wanted all along.
"I was always an outcast, you know. I wasn't a demon god, but I wasn't like the other gods either. I never imagined I'd end up doing something like this..."
She was indeed a highly anomalous existence. Even among the gods, she was on the younger side, and because her domain was greed, she didn't get along well with the others. Yet, she wasn't classified as a demon god either.
"It was so lonely and exhausting..."
A voluntary outsider, perhaps? No, even if she hadn't chosen it, she certainly wasn't an entity that could easily fit in. For someone like her to become the sole survivor of the divine realm and stand against Mamon, the burden she had been carrying must have been immense.
"I don't want to be alone anymore. All I want to do is rest."
As she poured her heart out, Yunjae smiled softly and patted her back.
"It's okay now, Lady Lupinus."
At his words, Lupinus looked up at Yunjae with a shy expression, completely different from her usual demeanor.
"Yeah, because I have you now!"
After three failures, she had finally created a proper Hero. And he had become an overwhelmingly powerful existence, capable of protecting her and the world. Moreover, he was the only one she could lean on now that she was left all alone.
"But the real challenge starts now." Putting her happiness and fulfillment aside, Lupinus's face turned serious.
"Pardon?"
Yunjae tilted his head at her sudden gravity, and she spoke with trembling eyes.
"It was the same for Domian, starting from this point."
"Ah, that frustrating guy!" Yunjae nodded as he recalled the name he had already forgotten, having vaporized him along with Mamon's sub-space at the very end.
"Yes! From now on, humans with power will try to possess you by any means necessary. Temptations will come at you from all directions, trying to use you to rule over the world." She was warning him more seriously than ever before.
"And everyone else will watch your every move. Some will worship and follow you like a god, but others will hate and despise you for absolutely no reason. They might even criticize your genuine smiles as fake or hypocritical. No matter what your true intentions are, they will only interpret things however they want."
As the Goddess of Greed, Lupinus knew all too well how vulnerable humans were to greed. And she knew the twisted nature of the onlookers who watched them! It was perhaps natural that Domian and the others had eventually broken down.
"There are things that human strength simply cannot prevent, yet there are endless people who will blame, criticize, and point fingers at you for them. Even after you save their lives, they will point fingers and say you didn't do a good enough job. Even if you risk your life to stop monsters and save them, they might resent you, saying it's your fault their family died, their house was destroyed, and they lost their livelihood."
In the end, that was the biggest reason their minds had shattered. They were already in a fragile state, the future was bleak, and the constant noise around them never stopped. In the midst of that, when a sweet temptation reached out, it was only natural for them to lean toward it.
So, no matter how upright Yunjae's character was, he too might eventually crumble before the twisted attitudes of countless people.
"Yes, I'm already well aware of that."
But it seemed she didn't know everything about Yunjae. He nodded calmly.
"Don't worry about that. I know the ways of the world all too well!"
He seemed to already have experience with that side of humanity. Though he smiled brightly, his eyes looked somewhat hollow, a stark contrast to his usual cheerful and gentle self.
Come to think of it, it was only natural. Even if he was chronologically seventy-seven years old, excluding his fifty-seven years of game life, his real-world experience only went up to age twenty. Yet, he had shown an incredibly meticulous side when dealing with Kim Myeonggu's real estate contract. And even after receiving massive media attention during the random portal incident, he had reacted calmly, viewing it as a fleeting wave of popularity.
"Yunjae..."
"I didn't develop a grudge for no reason, after all."
If there was one thing people overlooked, it was that because he looked so gentle and mild, they mistook him for an easy target. They judged him solely by his appearance, knowing absolutely nothing about the life he had lived. Aside from being trapped in Mamon Saga, he had never once let himself be taken advantage of in his life since he was fifteen.
Of course, looking at his bright, smiling face, which made it impossible to imagine such things, it was easy to see why they made that mistake.
"So there's more to your past that even I don't know."
"...Yes."
I want to know! She wanted to be the one who knew the most about him, more than anyone else! Lupinus looked at him, feeling a surge of intense desire.
But now was not the time.
"Well, anyway, Mamon won't just sit still once he realizes you destroyed his sub-space. Not only did he lose Domian, who had reached the Great Demon King class, but his dimensional travel hub was destroyed, so he might move personally."
The sub-space Yunjae had vaporized was a sort of hub Mamon used to travel to different worlds. He had set up portals leading to his location there and granted portal abilities to Rosamy—who could travel dimensions without resistance—to scatter his subordinates across parallel worlds.
Now that the hub was gone and Rosamy was missing, Mamon's conquest would be forced to a halt for the time being. Of course, having suffered such a massive blow, he would definitely be aware of how dangerous Yunjae was. He might change his tactics entirely.
"I have no way of knowing how he will attack us now."
That was what she feared. The division of humanity over conflicting interests, and the inevitable conflict that would arise for Yunjae because of it. If Mamon moved personally in the midst of that, it would undoubtedly be a massive threat.
"But I can vaporize Mamon in an instant!"
"Reality will be different. There's no guarantee Mamon will fight head-on like he did in Mamon Saga."
"Ah, I suppose you're right. Normally, if I launched a preemptive strike like that, he should have spawned right away!"
Seeing him look disappointed that he hadn't meant to vaporize the portal itself, Lupinus nodded with a serious face.
"If I know Mamon, he will never face you head-on. He's definitely planning some other trick. And even if you did fight head-on, this world wouldn't be able to withstand a clash between the two of you."
"Ah..."
At her words, Yunjae's expression grew serious. Unlike a game, reality had far too many variables to consider.
"Perhaps the best way would be to make him submit through something other than raw power."