Hiding a Tree in the Forest
The police tore through our house, the one next to it, the one in front, and the one behind. Someone had filed a report, they said, so they had to investigate. I had no idea what they were looking for, but it was a waste of time. There was nothing suspicious around this house.
Well, there had been Seo Gaeul and Yu Yeoleum—past tense. Want to know what happened? Let’s rewind the clock just a bit.
After learning about Jin Eunbyeol’s birthday party through Jeon Som and Jang Hyunah, I didn’t wander off anywhere else. I came straight home. Now that I had obtained the Shrinking Cage, there was something I absolutely had to do.
The moment I arrived in the basement—
“Hey, why are you only showing up now? You’re late!”
Seo Gaeul snapped at me like always. Yu Yeoleum, meanwhile, had pulled the blanket all the way over her head and was trembling violently. What the hell had happened? I could tell something had gone down, but I had no clue what.
Still, that wasn’t important right now. What mattered was moving them to their new home using the Shrinking Cage.
“Hehehe, come here~!”
“Kyaaak! What are you doing?!”
I reached out, grabbed Seo Gaeul, and stuffed her into the cage. The same went for Yu Yeoleum, who had been curled up under the blanket.
“W-what is this?!”
“……!”
Both of them looked utterly bewildered. Shrunk down to one-tenth their normal size, they flailed around adorably.
“I could just pop you in my mouth and swallow you whole!”
I shoved the cage straight into my bag and headed for the Great Labyrinth.
The gatekeeper on duty recognized me immediately.
“Ha Namjin, right? You’ve been in and out all day.”
“Gotta study hard if I want good midterm scores.”
“That’s the spirit.”
I slipped into the labyrinth and made my way to the Fairy Princess’s Room. Once there, I opened the cage and let Seo Gaeul and Yu Yeoleum out.
“Hey! What the hell was that?!”
Seo Gaeul was furious. Yu Yeoleum looked like she wanted to say something scathing too, but she clamped her mouth shut. She must have been too angry to speak.
“Staying in the basement forever was starting to feel risky, so I moved you to a new room. This place is part of the Great Labyrinth. Almost no one knows about it, so it’s perfect for keeping you locked up.”
The problem had started when I approached Seo Docheol recently. Since I’d openly shown hostility toward Chairman Seo, it was only natural that his side would start digging into me. If our positions were reversed, I would have done the same. There was a chance he might suddenly send people to search our house. If that happened, they’d find the girls in the basement next door in no time.
That’s why I needed to relocate them as quickly as possible. The real question was how to move Seo Gaeul and Yu Yeoleum without anyone noticing.
That’s when I got the Shrinking Cage. Perfect timing! The goddess of luck was definitely smiling on me.
“Anyway, this is your new home for the time being.”
At my explanation, Seo Gaeul rubbed her stockinged feet against the grass. After spending so long on cold stone floors, the soft grass and blooming flowers must have felt completely new. Her expression grew visibly brighter.
“Hmph. Well… it’s spacious. That’s nice.”
Compared to the old basement, which had been smaller than a studio apartment, this room was about the size of a two-room unit. Instead of the musty smell of dogs, there was the sweet fragrance of flowers. There was even a bathroom attached. It was actually more than enough space for the two of them. Plenty of room left even after bringing in furniture.
“So, Yeoleum, why were you hiding under the blanket? Were you cold?”
“A proper maiden should not carelessly show her skin to a man.”
Oh? That was actually a reasonable statement. But hearing it from Yu Yeoleum—who usually had no problem flashing her armpits or stomach—was bizarre. Especially since we’d watched adult videos together.
It was obvious Seo Gaeul had done something while I was gone.
“Gaeul, what happened?”
“Puhahaha! I made Yeoleum into a proper lady. I gave her the Chastity concept.”
“As expected of my beloved Gaeul! You really get it! Every woman should have a modest side!”
“…Yeoleum became modest, so why are you the one getting all excited? This is disgusting! And you can’t take a concept back once it’s given! I’m so annoyed!”
After roughly finishing the move, I returned home alone, went to sleep, and that was when the police burst in.
Bang bang bang—!
The timing was so perfect it actually made me curious.
“Who filed the report, exactly?”
“It was an anonymous tip. They said strange lights and sounds were leaking from the house. Once we receive a report, we’re required to respond. Please understand.”
“We only found this cloud-like thing next door. What is it? A doll?”
━…….
The officers were busy poking and shaking the fluffy cloud that was Ing-ing. Ing-ing, pretending to be a doll, didn’t make a single sound. What a smart little guy. If it had squeaked “Kyu-ing” right then, the cops would’ve drawn their guns and turned the place into a shooting range.
“What kind of doll is this? It smells nice… Sniff sniff…”
If this kept up, they’d realize Ing-ing was a monster. No choice then.
“Officer noona, that’s my body pillow. Can I have it back?”
“What? Eeeek!”
The female officer who had been sniffing Ing-ing yelped and hurled it to the floor. In the end, the police left empty-handed.
“Anonymous, huh. Transparent. So transparent.”
It was obviously Chairman Seo Docheol or someone connected to him pulling strings against me. If I hadn’t moved Seo Gaeul and Yu Yeoleum to the Princess Room, who knows what would have happened? I would’ve had to turn the police into enemies. It would have been a huge pain.
“My luck is fucking insane!”
After moving into their new home, Seo Gaeul wandered around, inspecting everything. The grass carpet under her feet felt refreshingly soft, and the flowers blooming everywhere gave off a lovely scent. It was far better than before.
‘Still… something feels a little off.’
There was a bathroom and plenty of furniture like a vanity. Seo Gaeul guessed this must have once been a girl’s room. And quite a young one at that.
“But how can grass and flowers grow indoors like this?”
She glanced up at the ceiling and found part of the answer. A beautiful jewel was embedded in the ceiling of the spacious room, radiating warm light like a tiny sun. In her mind, Seo Gaeul named it a Sun Stone.
Then she suddenly remembered to check on Yu Yeoleum. What if that Sun Stone affected her Photosynthesis?
It was a perfectly reasonable theory. After all, Yu Yeoleum was currently repeating yoga poses with noticeably better energy than before. Her “solar battery” even looked a little bigger.
‘If Yu Yeoleum regains her strength, I won’t be able to bully her one-sidedly anymore.’
But the real problem wasn’t Yu Yeoleum. Seo Gaeul ran her hand over the flower-covered door. It didn’t budge.
‘At this rate, I can’t escape whenever I want.’
In truth, Seo Gaeul had planned to end this ridiculous kidnapping if things got too dangerous. She could have broken the chains and run away anytime. To her, being held captive by Ha Namjin had been little more than a temporary amusement.
But now?
She was trapped in this bizarre room, genuinely imprisoned. There was a massive difference between choosing not to escape when you could, and being unable to escape. The mindset was completely different from the root.
Seo Gaeul felt suffocated. A flicker of fear crept in. What if she could never leave? What if people forgot about her? What if she spent the rest of her life as a perverted kidnapper’s toy and died here?
Thump thump thump thump—
The fear she had forgotten for the past few days came rushing back.
Yu Yeoleum spoke to her.
“Seo Gaeul, your heart rate is rising too sharply. Calm down.”
“What? My heart rate?”
Startled by the unexpected words, Seo Gaeul turned around. Yu Yeoleum’s eyes were glowing with an eerie green light.
“How do you know my heart rate?”
“I think I just acquired a concept I’ve been aiming for a very long time. Thanks to the Chastity you gave me, my mind is calmer, so it helped.”
Yu Yeoleum had spent a long time in the lab conducting secret, unethical experiments in pursuit of her third concept. It had required many sacrifices. She had been stuck against a massive wall with no progress—until the moment she stepped into this Flower Room. Suddenly, she felt confident she could overcome that wall.
“Do you remember Special Class instructor Dr. Wi Seonah? According to her, the Great Labyrinth contains substances in the air that amplify and strengthen Awakened concepts. Maybe that’s why.”
Yu Yeoleum’s researchers called the substance affecting Awakened people “mana.” The kind that appears in novels and games to enable magic. And this room seemed to be overflowing with it.
Thanks to that, Yu Yeoleum had acquired the concept of Clairvoyance. She could now tell exactly how hard Seo Gaeul’s heart was pounding.
“You crazy perverted bitch! Why are you looking at my heart?!”
Blushing furiously, Seo Gaeul covered her chest with both hands. For some reason, she felt completely naked in front of Yu Yeoleum.
“So you really were scared of being kidnapped.”
“What are you talking about?! I wasn’t!”
“It’s perfectly normal to be afraid of your kidnapper. There’s no need to feel ashamed. Especially when the kidnapper is a man and the hostage is a woman—the chances of perverted things happening go way up.”
Of course, Ha Namjin hadn’t actually done anything perverted. He had simply said he would train her. In a way, that was even more perverted.
Just what was Ha Namjin thinking?
“Seo Gaeul, why were you kidnapped in the first place?”
The fact that Seo Gaeul had been kidnapped was the beginning of everything.
“How would I know? I don’t know. I really don’t know!”
“No, that sounds like a lie.”
Seo Gaeul shut her mouth after that. Yu Yeoleum, having learned her stubbornness over the past few days, hadn’t expected an honest answer anyway.
Quite a long time passed. Yu Yeoleum had repeated her yoga poses several times when—
“…I thought I was a princess. To be exact, I wanted to become one.”
“……?”
A princess? What did that have to do with being kidnapped? Yu Yeoleum felt a subtle emotion stir inside her as Seo Gaeul looked around the room.
This place, filled with flowers and grass, really did look like a princess’s room. It contained everything Seo Gaeul had dreamed of as a child.
“In movies and fairy tales, princesses usually marry wonderful princes, right? I wanted that too. That’s why I ended up getting kidnapped like this.”
She had been kidnapped because she dreamed of living like a fairy-tale princess. It still didn’t make any sense.
“My dad did all sorts of things to make my dream come true. Did you know there was talk of an engagement between me and President Nam Taegeon’s grandson? My dad arranged that too.”
“President Nam Taegeon’s grandson…”
President Nam Taegeon had many granddaughters and grandsons. Jin Eunbyeol from the Samjin Group was one. Nam Sanho was another.
“There was an engagement talk between you and Nam Sanho?”
Yu Yeoleum had met Nam Sanho a few times. Their fathers were close, so they occasionally ran into each other at gatherings and banquets. She hadn’t liked him. There were many rumors about his relationships with women.
“Didn’t Nam Sanho go missing during the N-Mart incident?”
The president’s grandson had gone missing after getting caught in an arson attack by a crazed Awakened. That had been the catalyst for the unanimously passed, anti-human rights Awakened Control Act.
“Nam Sanho didn’t go missing. He fell down the stairs, broke his neck, and died.”
At Seo Gaeul’s words, Yu Yeoleum’s eyes narrowed. There were too many parts that didn’t make sense. Yet her heartbeat didn’t suggest she was lying.
“How would you know whether his neck was broken or not?”
“Because I was at the N-Mart that day too. Two hours before the fire started.”