Chapter 168
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 168
Chapter Title: Do You Think I'm Too Late?
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Amid the deafening explosion.
Tata closed her eyes and thought.
Finally, she mused.
It wasn't that she felt no anxiety.
Rimon had arrived far sooner than foreseen, and the prophecies about him after he drew his sword had kept wavering.
But those worries proved unfounded.
With the studio blown up and casualties inevitable, the Music Challenge would never air again.
Rimon wouldn't forgive her for pulling off something like this, but it didn't matter.
Since she and the others were traitors acting on their own, Rimon wouldn't hold Aynsha accountable either.
Now, only one thing remained: her own death.
That would complete the prophecy.
And the destined future would come to pass.
The ending where Rimon and Aynsha ended up together.
For that future, Tata could die gladly.
She was of the White Dragon Clan, willing to give everything for her revered princess, and Aynsha's one and only nanny—her family.
"……?"
But as she awaited her end.
Tata sensed something off and opened her eyes again.
Unwittingly, her face fell in stunned disbelief.
"Everyone, you must be shocked, right?"
"To live up to your expectations, we're kicking off with a bang this time!"
"Challenge it together!"
"Music~ Challenge!"
Clap clap clap clap clap!
The bomb had clearly detonated.
Yet the studio stood unscathed, untouched even by the flames, and the audience clapped away, blissfully unaware.
The broadcast had started as if nothing happened, the hosts carrying on nonchalantly—it left Tata speechless, mouth agape.
"Why……?"
She murmured in a daze.
Answering her was Rimon's voice, laced with cold mockery.
"You think I'm too late…… Want me to tell you something interesting?"
"……."
"When you asked how I knew you were here. You insisted on the complicated reason."
Tata recalled it.
Rimon's oddly accommodating explanation of how he'd tracked her.
And before giving that answer, the two choices he'd offered.
"But I had a simpler answer for myself."
The complicated one and the simple one.
Since she'd chosen the former, he hadn't had the chance to share the latter—now, he stated it flatly.
"I knew from the start."
"……What do you mean?"
"Even without chasing clues one by one, tracking your presence was a breeze."
"……!"
Tata's eyes widened at the unimaginable reply, and Rimon smirked.
He was a Sword Master.
A superhuman who'd hunted down even a demon god that fled to the other side of the Earth.
If he hadn't seen her before, maybe not.
But since he'd been tailing Tata from the start, three steps would've sufficed if he'd really wanted to catch her.
"So why'd you think I took so long?"
Only then did Tata realize.
She'd thought Rimon and Aynsha arrived too early compared to the prophecy.
But in truth, they'd dawdled plenty before showing up here.
"You think I played along with your ploy—dragging things out with that un-White-Dragon-like demand for a complicated answer—for no reason?"
……And that she wasn't the only one trying to buy time.
Kaboom!
[Whoa, that's some fireworks.]
At the exact moment the massive blast rocked the studio.
Yuna Kyung admired the bomb bursting into splendid fireworks against the dimming sky.
Li Chingwei calmly praised her efforts.
"You did great."
[It wasn't much. I just snuck out what the team leader distracted their eyes for.]
"Still, smuggling out that many bombs isn't easy."
[If we're counting merits, Princess Sis figuring out the bomb locations took even more work.]
"No, I just asked a few questions."
Li Chingwei smiled faintly.
Then, from a corner of the rooftop where she'd come to launch the recovered bombs skyward.
She gazed with obsidian eyes at the New Dragon Corps members slumped in a row, faces blank.
And continued evenly.
"If we're being precise, it's thanks to these folks who so kindly answered, and everyone else."
At their feet.
Even in the studio below, whispers were buzzing.
"PD-nim, wasn't that explosion effect a bit much? It's not like a real bomb went off……."
"It's what the investor wanted!"
"Ah, then we have to."
"Got it. Then quit slacking and make sure no accidents happen. If something goes wrong again, our network's done for!"
"Haha, as if. Lightning won't strike twice with broadcast mishaps."
While PD Kim Seungjun focused on the show.
Farther off, others were busy with different tasks.
[Team 1, protectee secure. No anomalies.]
[Team 2, surveillance target. No anomalies.]
[Team 3, White Dragon Clan assailant targeting the VIP neutralized preemptively.]
[Team 4…….]
The man listening silently to the comms.
Wang Lun, newly appointed Guardian security team leader and head of the Shanghai Wang Family, spoke in a stiff voice.
"Stay sharp. How cleanly we wrap this up will decide the fate of our Shanghai Wang Family."
"Best to ditch any hope that stalling longer changes anything."
"……You knew? Everything?"
"Yeah."
The bombs they'd planted.
The separate assailants they'd held back.
The schemes to kill staff or wreck the place and halt the broadcast.
Rimon stated calmly that everything he'd prepared beforehand was already handled.
"How, without prophetic sight……!"
"Don't need prophecy for this, you idiots."
Tata's lips quivered.
Even she, who'd faced death with composure, couldn't hide her shock at her plans crumbling entirely.
Rimon shot back coldly, then eyed Tata and the White Dragon Clan with icy disdain.
"You see the future too narrowly."
"……."
"Always chasing prophecies to make them real. Never pondering the processes or reasons that matter."
All White Dragon Clan were the same.
They foresaw futures, then slavishly repeated to reach their desired one.
Dressing, eating, speaking, acting exactly as prophesied.
It might not be a bad choice in the end. It got them their best future, after all.
But because that best future was set, they never questioned.
Why say these words.
Why mimic these feelings.
Why this action leads to that outcome.
They halted all thought, blindly following processes they didn't even understand.
"That's why you screw up every time you try changing the future."
When they foresaw it, they coped perfectly.
They knew what to do.
But without foresight, everything fell apart.
They had no clue.
Like a student acing tests by peeking at answers, reduced to blind guesses when caught.
"And with that moronic mindset: just nix the bad outcomes, and the rest falls into place."
Kill the villain who commits crimes in the future, and it gets better— that's all they believed.
Never mind that the villain's innocent sibling turns into a worse monster out of revenge.
Or that blocking a dangerous weapon's development dooms countless saved by its byproducts.
To them, the future was fixed.
It wouldn't shift on its own before they saw and chose it.
Believing that while trying to tweak prophecies alone was a contradiction that doomed them to folly.
"That's why I deliberately hunted you down step by step."
Rimon sneered coldly.
If he'd nabbed Tata right away, the terror would've succeeded.
She'd planned it assuming he'd kill her upon discovery.
But he'd obsessively followed her clues instead.
Like burning the bag from Mun Cheonyeop unopened, gathering causes and processes she'd ignored, fixated on results.
And this was the payoff.
With the processes blocked, even the foreseen "success" evaporated.
"So? Still think I arrived too late to stop you?"
"……."
Tata fell silent, soul drained from her face.
Rimon's razor words.
This reality upended by prophecy.
Each was enough to shatter her.
And Rimon lost interest in Tata or the New Dragon Corps.
Their plans had failed utterly; no tantrum could salvage their goal now.
That's why he swung at Tata.
Slash.
After the sword flash cleaved the air.
What fluttered down was a single thread.
Rimon had thwarted the subtle garrote aimed at Tata's neck.
He turned slowly.
Toward the culprit, standing expressionless across the ceiling.
Aynsha. He smiled coldly.
"Just you left."
"……."
"Still set on executing your nanny?"
"……Of course."
"They betrayed you for your sake, and in the end, achieved nothing but futile flailing?"
"Betrayal is betrayal, regardless."
Aynsha declared flatly.
Like a doll devoid of emotion. Rimon chuckled.
"Impressive stubbornness. You flipped on wanting to save her pretty quick, though."
"That's different."
"Eh. Doesn't look different to me."
"It is. Definitely."
"Whatever. Believe what you want."
Rimon shifted his foot off Tata and stepped forward.
Planting himself between Aynsha and Tata, he thrust his sword straight ahead, tip aimed at her, and murmured low.
"If words won't get through, I'll teach you with this body."
Rimon smirked coldly; Aynsha remained blank-faced.
In the studio drowned in blinding lights and raucous noise, the two locked eyes in heavy silence.
Thus, as Rimon drew back his sword.
And Aynsha raised one hand.
A ferocious psionic storm clashed with a chillingly sharp sword flash.