Chapter 18
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Protagonist of a Romance Comedy
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"...Huh?"
The suffocating silence that had settled inside the cave was shattered by the dumb, dazed sound leaking from Han Jaewoo's mouth.
His gaze was fixed on the tattered remnants of the old Mithril Frock Coat, torn to shreds and scattered pitifully across the floor.
It was the absolute armor that had saved his life hundreds of times since the Rosenstein dimension, his sole lifeline through the brutal grind of life on Earth.
The shock of seeing it ripped apart like a sheet of paper right before his eyes hadn't even faded, yet the catastrophe that had just unfolded on his lips moments ago felt even more unreal.
It wasn't his first kiss.
He was Han Jaewoo, a veteran of romance who'd rolled through ten years in the Rosenstein dimension, surviving every hardship imaginable. To stay alive amid the imperial palace's poisonings and power struggles, he'd flung hundreds of survival-flirting maneuvers at noble ladies. Losing one kiss wouldn't make his world crumble.
No, it was just that the utterly random, context-free lip theft had caused the Grand Duke's brain to blue-screen for a moment.
As Han Jaewoo blankly fiddled with his lips...
"...!"
Baek Seorin, who'd gone mad with her insane possessiveness and jealousy and caused a massive blunder, yanked her lips away and jolted violently as reason belatedly returned.
The murderous fiend, the merciless ruler of the martial world who shed neither blood nor tears.
The Heavenly Demon who had arrogantly lorded over hundreds of thousands of warriors was now flushed red up to her neck, squeezing her eyes shut tight.
She realized what monstrous thing she'd just done and trembled from head to toe with shame.
Fine, ripping up the old clothes left by some woman from his past with her own hands—that was justified. Erasing unnecessary traces from her man's body was her rightful claim.
But getting swept up in the moment and savagely grabbing his collar like a beast to devour his lips? Her lofty dignity as the Heavenly Demon felt not just shattered but drilled straight through the mantle.
"A-hem!"
Baek Seorin hastily cleared her throat and took a step back.
Her eyes darted wildly through the air before settling innocently on the cave ceiling.
"W-We shall end things here for today! Hmph, using my energy so suddenly has aggravated my internal injuries!"
As if expending energy in a slime dungeon could cause real internal injuries.
It was a lame excuse no one would buy, but logic didn't matter to her right now. Escaping this mortifying situation even a second sooner was the priority.
Without even meeting Han Jaewoo's eyes, Baek Seorin whipped around.
And instead of heading for the exit, she stomped straight toward the cave's solid rock wall.
KABOOM-!
With a deafening boom, the dungeon wall shattered like tofu under a blade, punching a massive hole through it.
Baek Seorin shot through the crudely blasted opening like a streak of lightning and fled.
In the middle of the dust-choked dungeon.
Only Han Jaewoo, his soul departed with his chest torn open and coat flapping, and Kang Taesan, who had both eyes covered with his giant palm while peeking through his fingers as if searching for popcorn, remained.
Kang Taesan broke the silence.
He cleared his throat a couple times, then hunched his massive frame as much as possible and cautiously approached Han Jaewoo.
"Heh heh... Brother."
Kang Taesan's voice was laced with deep awe and intense curiosity.
"Just what exactly is your relationship with that terrifying Heavenly Demon lady?"
In his eyes, Han Jaewoo was already the ultimate beast tamer who held the world under his feet.
A merciless Heavenly Demon blinded by jealousy, ripping clothes and forcing a kiss, then fleeing in shame after smashing a wall—what kind of man could make that happen?
But at Kang Taesan's simple question, a vast silence swept through Han Jaewoo's mind.
What kind of relationship?
Han Jaewoo pondered blankly.
The media buzzed daily about them as the couple of the century, and people whispered he was the Heavenly Demon's pillar husband.
But looking back calmly, they'd never confessed or officially agreed to date even once.
Ten years in the Rosenstein dimension.
To survive, he'd flashed fatal smiles and left openings for hundreds of noble ladies, but that was just desperate writhing to stay alive.
His actual relationships? Just one political engagement forced by the tyrant Emperor Edelgart. The price of survival-flirting, yet paradoxically, a tragic man with zero proper dating experience.
Suddenly, he felt like the dense male lead in a sugary romance comedy, plunged into an identity crisis.
'Wait, so what are we? Day one today? No, shoving lips in without even saying we're dating—isn't that assault? And calling it a fling when my only lifeline armor just got shredded?'
How was he supposed to interpret this sudden turbo romance from this crazy martial arts woman?
Han Jaewoo's inner world was a tangled mess like knotted threads, but his exterior was different.
Still wearing the coat with its chest ripped open, he stared into the void with unshakable blue eyes.
A solitude so profound and chilling, the silence of an absolute being deep in thought—anyone could see it.
Seeing that, Kang Taesan nodded to himself.
Ah, there must be some profound, weighty pact between them that ordinary folk couldn't comprehend.
Kang Taesan glanced carefully and tossed out another probing question.
"By the way, Brother, that Emperor who flipped out looking for you."
Kang Taesan's voice trembled faintly.
"If that one finds out about this, won't a storm of blood really blow up?"
The moment he heard that, a chill like icy water poured down Han Jaewoo's spine.
Edelgart.
Just imagining her made breathing hard.
If she learned the Heavenly Demon had stolen his lips? He'd be chained atop the palace's tallest tower immediately, and Baek Seorin would face off against 100,000 imperial troops in a brutal beheading match.
The tyrant Emperor's obsessive jealousy transcended imagination.
But Han Jaewoo soon let out a soft chuckle.
No need to fear.
Edelgart was a dimension native.
Ruler of Rosenstein, but without the system's authority to cross to Earth.
Earth was his exclusive sanctuary, a peaceful haven.
Deep down, he reveled in perfect liberation—She can never come here, jackpot!—but he couldn't dance outright in front of Kang Taesan.
Tightening the Grand Duke mask, Han Jaewoo gazed upward with an expression heavy with lingering emotion, as if on the verge of tears.
The harsh Earth life, assassination attempts, now even his armor gone—it made that mad Emperor's overwhelming power flash briefly in his mind.
"...It doesn't matter."
Han Jaewoo's voice echoed poignantly through the cave's chill air.
"Still... I do miss her..."
'Good thing I never have to see her again, but in dangerous times like today, that brute's insane strength is kinda missed.'
That was it.
That poignant, bittersweet response from Han Jaewoo, as if welling from the depths of his heart.
Hearing it, Kang Taesan's pupils shook wildly, like an earthquake.
Miss her? That mad Emperor?
No, something even more crucial.
Kang Taesan clearly remembered the thick rose scent from Han Jaewoo's body when they first met in the association lobby.
At first, trampled by the Emperor in the southern jungles, he'd thought it was just heavy perfume. But after meeting Han Jaewoo, he realized it was dimensional resonance, felt only among returnees who'd shared a dimension.
In other words, Kang Taesan knew.
That mad Empire's Emperor wasn't a mere native—she was a returnee like them, fulfilling quests as an outsider.
Yet why was this brother speaking of her with such poignant longing, like mourning an eternally lost soul?
A horrifying hypothesis flashed through Kang Taesan's mind like lightning.
'Ah...!'
The place Brother ruled. The world where the Emperor reigned.
Its difficulty: none other than EX-rank.
A dimension even the system had given up on and sealed, eternally unclimbable despair.
Chills crawled over Kang Taesan's entire body.
'No way... even that mad Emperor couldn't clear that EX-rank hell and is trapped forever?!'
The off-the-charts absolute being who'd casually crushed him. Even such a monster eternally confined, unable to escape—that dimension's horrific difficulty.
And knowing all that.
Abandoning the Emperor in hell, returning alone to Earth, casually romancing the Heavenly Demon while feigning such deceptive grief—this man before him.
Kang Taesan gasped.
What depths of cruel abyss did the lord he served carry, living as such a monster?
A man who discarded the Emperor and tamed the Heavenly Demon.
Trembling with terror in his legs, Kang Taesan vowed never to irk this fearsome brother's temper.
Oblivious to this colossal misunderstanding and swirling terror...
Han Jaewoo clutched his torn coat with an indifferent expression and exited the dungeon.
The two headed straight to the Seoul Hunter Association headquarters.
To settle the slime mana stones they'd gleefully sliced up before the blood beast appeared in the F-rank slime dungeon.
Though 3 billion won from Taesung Guild sat intact in his account, to Han Jaewoo, slave to capitalism, today's labor earnings were a separate matter.
This was the righteous, sacred reward of his blood, sweat, and tireless cheap steel sword swings.
Quietly proud of his modest pocket money grind, Han Jaewoo strode confidently to the settlement counter, suppressing a whistle.
"Good work. Here's today's mana stone haul."
Han Jaewoo placed the heavy pouch on the counter.
The clerk deftly graded the slime mana stones and tapped the calculator.
Moments later, with a beep, the receipt printed.
"Please check your settlement details."
The clerk handed over the receipt in a flat tone.
Han Jaewoo took it with a graceful gesture, scanning the numbers languidly.
And the next instant.
The perfect Northern Grand Duke's icy mask cracked apart with a snap.
[Slime Mana Stone (F-rank) Purchase Price: +25,500 won]
[Association Loaned Equipment (Beginner Steel Sword) Loss Penalty: -400,000 won]
[Today's Final Settlement Earnings: -374,500 won]
"...?"
Han Jaewoo doubted his eyes and peered at the receipt again.
Minus 374,500 won.
Oh no.
When the blood beast popped out, he'd been so startled he'd dropped that 30,000-won cheap steel sword on the floor.
Lips stolen and soul departed, he'd forgotten to retrieve the damned association-loaned sword on the way out.
And the Hunter Association's equipment loss penalty was a brutal rip-off, over ten times the rental price.
Han Jaewoo's fingertips trembled.
3 billion.
Sure, his account had more than enough to live off forever.
Strictly speaking, this 370k wasn't debt—just today's earnings in the red.
But.
His sole lifeline, the S-rank Mithril armor, was shredded to rags by the Heavenly Demon.
He'd nearly died to some unknown black curtain's assassination threat.
And suffered the humiliation of his first kiss—no, his lips—stolen by force.
After all that ordeal, the payoff was a miraculous collab of 25,500 won from slime stones and a 400,000-won loss penalty.
A ding chimed from his smartphone: the loaned equipment loss fee auto-debited ruthlessly from his association-registered account.
"Brother, all settled?"
Kang Taesan watched from behind with eyes of utmost reverence.
The great Grand Duke who kept all absolutes underfoot and crushed even past phantoms with cold reason.
Receiving that admiring gaze on his back.
Han Jaewoo stared blankly at the minus-marked receipt with hollow eyes.
From the depths of his petty, small-citizen soul, a beastly wail mixed with blood and tears erupted despairingly.
'Fuck!'