My Brother Will Be King
Night fell over an unnamed beach in Malaysia.
The emerald sea of daylight now shimmered silver in the moonlight, and around a blazing campfire, Woojin sat together with three women.
Then Woojin suddenly thought of the artificial satellite passing overhead and looked at Eileen.
“Wait, hold on! Didn’t you say our subjugation scene was being broadcast live from a satellite? Doesn’t that mean the whole world can see us right now?”
Eileen lazily dragged a bronzed shoulder as she lifted her glass of chilled champagne.
“Don’t worry, Woojin oppa. I said the subjugation was being broadcast live, not the rest period. Now that our advance has stopped, I’ve cut the relay signal. More importantly, the filming satellite itself is under the Benedict family’s influence. Without my permission, not even an ant can peek at this beach.”
“I, is that so...? You’ve got satellites at home...?”
At Woojin’s question, Eileen let out a little snort and tipped her chin.
“Of course. Doesn’t every respectable household have at least one? We need communications, and weather checks too.”
Then Yu Jihyun, sitting nearby, pouted as if she refused to be outdone.
“D, DH Group has a communications satellite too!!”
Jo Ayoung, who had been listening to the ‘satellite battle’ between the two chaebol women, just shrank in baffled silence.
She brushed the crumbs off the corner of her mouth and sighed.
“Sigh... I’ve heard of my stomach raging because I’m hungry, but satellites...? You sisters are seriously too much.”
Woojin looked at her and nodded.
“Ayoung, it’s normal not to have one. I don’t have one either.”
Comforted by that, Ayoung nodded with a teary face.
“Right! Right!? The sisters are the weird ones. That’s nonsense for commoners like Oppa and me!! What satellites? What satellites!!”
At that moment, Eileen drew one knee up and stared straight at Woojin. Moonlight touched her eyes, and they shone with an intensity more serious than ever.
“Jo Ayoung. Do you really think Woojin oppa will still be a commoner after this subjugation is over?”
“...Huh?”
“Just the estimated value of the distribution rights and enhancement-byproduct processing rights our family transferred to Korea is an industry worth at least five hundred billion dollars. If we keep heading north like this, Woojin oppa and the young master together will end up monopolizing more than sixty percent of the total volume the Asian subjugation force is supposed to handle. What do you think happens then?”
Ayoung’s jaw dropped. She tried to calculate the number in her head, then gave up.
“Five hundred billion...? Dollars, not won?”
“Exactly. That’s only the economic value of the distribution structure alone. I didn’t even count the added value derived from the actual assets and enhancements. Woojin oppa is, at this point, a moving nation in himself.”
Ayoung’s expression changed in an instant. She grabbed Woojin’s hand where he sat beside her and hauled it straight against her chest.
Through the thin bikini, the steady beat of her heart, the elastic firmness of a woman in her early twenties, and the soft warmth beneath it all came vividly through to the back of Woojin’s hand.
“W-what are you doing?!”
Woojin tried to pull away in embarrassment, but Ayoung pressed closer and looked at him with pitiful eyes.
“...Oppa... you can’t abandon me, right? If I don’t have you, I’ll starve to death now. I don’t even have a job.”
Woojin let out a dry laugh at her sudden change in attitude and teased her a little.
“I’d want to abandon you if I could, but I can’t because of that damn slave contract. You know that already, so what’s with the act?”
At that, Ayoung burst out laughing as if she’d never been sad at all.
“Puhahahahaha!! That’s right, Oppa and I are lifelong partners bound by chains!! Yes!! A five-hundred-billion-dollar partner, my heart feels so damn vast!!”
Eileen snickered.
“Do you even have a chest big enough to feel vast?”
“I-I’m plenty firm too, you know!!? Right, Oppa? Who’s calling me a cow like you are!!”
“What? A cow?”
Woojin cocked his head at Ayoung.
“But... Ayoung, you seem a lot different than before. Weren’t you more careful and introverted back then?”
Ayoung looked into the campfire and answered quietly.
“Well, I actually met Lord Hercules a little while ago.”
“What!!??”
Eileen and Yu Jihyun’s expressions turned serious in an instant.
“W-where? How did you meet him?”
“When I fell asleep. Some huge old man showed up and patted my head.”
Eileen folded her arms and murmured.
“That probably wasn’t just a dream. If it was Hercules, he’d be closely connected to your soul.”
“Right. Maybe Ayoung’s awakening level hit a critical point and the divinity resonated,” Yu Jihyun said.
At that, Ayoung’s eyes sparkled as she nodded eagerly.
“Anyway, he said a lot of encouraging things. He told me, ‘You have the heart of a lion, so don’t worry about what the world thinks and swing that club however you want.’ And then I thought, why have I lived my whole life worrying and holding back? Honestly, even if you live honestly, life leaves plenty of regrets!”
Woojin gently patted her head.
“Yeah. You shook it off. That looks good on you, Ayoung.”
“Yes! I’m sure my parents would rather see me standing proudly at Oppa’s side like this than curled up in some corner.”
Eileen and Yu Jihyun smiled too, clearly proud of the youngest one.
“You’ve got two sisters who are the strongest in the world. What’s there to worry about? Right, little one?”
“Of course!! Having two dependable sisters is the best!!”
Then, as if pouring cold water over the warm mood, Eileen added carelessly, “In that sense, you’re the concubine.”
“...Excuse me?”
Ayoung’s eyes went round. Eileen snapped her fingers as if it were obvious.
“What, were you going to push ahead of the sisters and claim the main wife’s spot? There’s a proper order to these things.”
“W-where is there such a thing!! We agreed to leave it to Woojin oppa!! Oppa, answer me!! Is this fair?!”
Ayoung looked to Woojin as if begging for rescue, but Woojin only stared off into the distance and pretended not to hear.
“...I-I don’t know anything about this. You girls sort it out yourselves.”
Jo Ayoung exploded.
“You bastard!! Kim Woojin!!”
Eileen and Yu Jihyun exchanged glances and smiled with the triumph of victory.
“Jihyun and I already had a long, serious talk. We’ve decided to acknowledge each other.”
“What!? I never talked about this!! This is abuse of power!! You privileged chaebol thugs!!”
Yu Jihyun, looking apologetic, turned her face away, but she showed no sign of reversing the decision.
“S-sorry, Ayoung. But you wouldn’t give up even if Woojin oppa said he’d choose only one of us, would you? Right?”
“W-well... that’s true, isn’t it!? Of course I wouldn’t let go!!”
“Then what can we do? It must be hard and painful for oppa to pick only one. Isn’t it better if we’re all happy together?”
Woojin found the flow of this conversation nothing short of absurd.
“Uh...? What...?”
“So. Me and Eileen already talked it through. The one oppa chooses will be the main wife, the queen, and the rest will be concubines.”
Woojin could not believe what he was hearing. What was this, the Joseon dynasty? Queen consorts and concubines in the twenty-first century?
“Uh... well... I...”
Then Eileen gripped his shoulder and yanked him hard toward her.
“Oppa. Would it bother you if you chose only one of us and never saw the others for the rest of your life? Could you bear seeing us by another man’s side?”
“...No, absolutely not. Just imagining it makes my blood run cold.”
“Then this is the right way. None of us can give you up. And... Woojin oppa is going to be a king now.”
“A king?”
“Yes. The one and only being who commands an Origin-grade goblin and strengthens the world itself. Your personal martial strength used to be your weak point, but now you’ve got an entire army in the form of Gabi. The world revolves around Kim Woojin now. We should be the ones clinging to your pant legs and begging you to take us.”
Eileen smiled, bittersweet and happy at once.
“Damn it. I lose.”
“What?”
“Don’t you remember? Back then you bragged that I’d be the one clinging to your skirt and begging... and now it looks like I’m the one about to grab your pants leg.”
“......”
Woojin made up his mind.
He would no longer push away these women who loved him sincerely and were even willing to give up their own privileges for his sake.
“No way. I can’t do this without you girls. Eileen, if you ever said you were leaving me, I might really grab your skirt and cry.”
At that, Eileen’s eyes widened, and then she burst into childlike laughter.
“One win!! That’s my one win!! I can’t believe those words came out of your mouth, Oppa!!”
“W-wait!! Oppa, me too!! Say that to me too!!”
“Me too!!!!”
Yu Jihyun and Jo Ayoung rushed Woojin and clung to him in a complete mess.
“You girls are all the same. All of you are precious.”
Yu Jihyun pinched Woojin’s cheek and shouted.
“Don’t lump us together like that!!! Say it properly, one by one!!!”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Before long, it was deep night. On one side of the beach lay the custom bed Eroa, Sangjin’s maid summon, had made.
It was huge enough for four people to lie on comfortably, and because it had been made by mixing bones and magical power, it was softer and more comfortable than an actual bed.
Gabi had already fallen asleep in the corner, breathing in tiny, even puffs.
“Mmnyaa~ Ma, mangooo!!”
Across from the sleeping Gabi, Woojin lay in the center with Eileen on his left, Yu Jihyun on his right, and Jo Ayoung settled against his thighs.
“It’s always me on leg duty!!”
“The youngest gets that role.”
They were still dressed in the daring bikinis Eroa had made for them.
Every time skin brushed against skin, Woojin’s lower stomach went tight.
Eileen leaned over Woojin’s ear, breathed hotly against him, and ran her hand over his chest muscles.
“...Oppa, isn’t your heartbeat a little too loud?”
“Trying to stay calm in this situation is what’d be weird...”
Yu Jihyun, on the other side, wrapped both arms around Woojin’s waist and rubbed her generous chest against his arm.
“A luxury like this during a subjugation... I’m way too happy.”
The atmosphere began edging dangerously close to not-safe-for-work territory.
Just when Woojin’s wandering hands had nowhere to go and were aimlessly drifting through the air, Ayoung—who had been at the leg side—suddenly lifted her head.
“Right!! I’m the lower-body specialist, that’s it!! Let’s do dirty things!!! Right now!!!”
She was about to yank down Woojin’s swim trunks when—
“Hey! Hey!!!”
Woojin cried out and tried to sit up, but Eileen and Yu Jihyun were faster.
Eileen struck Ayoung’s forehead hard with her knuckles.
Smack.
“You little beast... do you want to get kicked out of the leg position too?”
“Why not!! If I’m assigned to the legs, then this is exactly right! There are three damn legs on a man! The atmosphere is at its peak right now!! Why not do it!!”
Ayoung protested bitterly. Eileen shot back coldly, “Are you an animal? This is all of our first time with oppa, and you want to make a complete mess of it outdoors like this? Isn’t it a woman’s instinct to want to feel every single touch of oppa’s hands properly, one by one?”
“I don’t care! I’m a beast! Besides, I’m just the concubine, remember? If it’s obvious I won’t be first or second, then we should all just do it now!! Ooooppaaa!!”
As Ayoung tried to use her monstrous strength to climb on top of Woojin, Yu Jihyun swiftly struck the side of her neck with her hand blade.
Thwack—!
It was meant to be a knockout blow, but Ayoung only bobbed her head once and remained perfectly fine.
“...You hit me? Jihyun unnie, you hit me just now!?”
“......Wow. Look at you. You leveled up and still took that? Eileen!!”
Yu Jihyun moved fast and grabbed Ayoung from behind while Eileen rose up, clenching her fist.
“You brought this on yourself, little sister!!”
“Hey, you gangsters!!! I have rights too!!!”
Thud—!
“Guhhk!!”
In the end, Eileen’s heavy punch landed squarely on Ayoung’s jaw.
Even if she was Hercules’s successor, the full-force punch of a “tyrannical saint” was too much; Ayoung’s eyes rolled back and she collapsed onto the bed.
Woojin asked anxiously, sweating coldly.
“I-is she okay??”
“She’s fine. That body is ridiculously sturdy. She’ll wake up feeling fresh in the morning.”
Once things settled down, Eileen and Yu Jihyun crept back into Woojin’s arms.
Thanks to Ayoung’s rampage, it seemed they’d actually developed a strange sense of solidarity.
Yu Jihyun rubbed her cheek against Woojin’s shoulder and whispered softly, “If we really cause trouble tonight... I don’t think it would end with just one round. Not for you, and not for us.”
“Pff, khh!! Cough, cough!”
Woojin choked on his breath and coughed, and Eileen lightly scratched his thigh with her nails as she laughed.
“Exactly. It would be a waste to drain all the stamina meant for the Asian subjugation here. Our real first night will be the day all this hellish war is finally over, and then we’ll celebrate it properly.”
Yu Jihyun’s eyes gleamed at that as she answered.
“Good. Then how are we deciding the order?”
“Hmm. You got the first kiss, so it only makes sense that I take oppa’s real first this time.”
“W-what are you saying!! That was an accident!! It wasn’t even a proper kiss!!”
“What are you talking about? If it wasn’t done properly, does that make it disappear? In any case, you were the one who first stole oppa’s lips. So this time, it’s my turn.”
“T-that’s different!! No!! I absolutely won’t give in!! Decide it fairly!!”
“Tch. Greedy girl. This is going to be tough.”
Woojin was going out of his mind listening to the two women’s firestorm of rank disputes.
They were practically plastered against his body, wearing only bikinis that barely covered their important bits.
Every time their smooth skin touched him, his patience was shaved down to the brink.
“Uh... guys. Could you at least... put on some clothes before sleeping? I really feel like I’m going to die.”
“Why wear clothes when it’s hot? Your body temperature is just right, Oppa.”
“Right. If you’re going to be a king with three women under you, you need to endure this much. Think of it as training, oppa.”
In the end, Woojin closed his eyes and started singing the national anthem in his head.
But the scent of the women pressing close to him, and the soft pressure against his arms, kept warping the anthem into something else entirely.
...Maybe tomorrow I should seriously ask Brother Cheolsu to teach me some scripture.
The blue night of Malaysia.
The heroes who would save humanity could not sleep, lost as they were in torment.
Whooosh—
Only the sound of the waves in the distance slowly cooled Woojin’s burning heart.
I’m... a king, huh...
It was a childish, ridiculous thing to call himself, but if that was what it took to protect these women, then Woojin would become anything.