Chapter 98
Chapter 98
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The Hottest Celebrity
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It didn't take long—within just a few days, my identity was quickly revealed.
I had become the hottest celebrity in the entire world.
And somehow, reporters had pitched camp in the apartment's front parking lot.
"Uncle, are those reporters going to be okay?"
With the Jeju Island raid on temporary hold, Jae-eun had come back home.
"Well... if we just leave them alone, they'll quiet down eventually."
Waiting was its own kind of torment.
Until recently, I'd been a total shut-in, only leaving the house to meet Yu-na or Kyung-sook.
I figured if I ignored them for a few days while playing games, they'd get tired out like anyone else and give up.
But then, in the middle of getting cozy with Jae-eun, some lunatic rang the doorbell, and I finally lost it.
I stormed outside.
The reporters were staring at me with sparkling eyes full of anticipation, like baby birds waiting to be fed.
Sorry, but I was in a rotten mood.
"Hey, all of you, get lost."
"Th-the public has a right to know..."
"Freedom of the press..."
Timid but bold voices started trickling out from among the reporters.
A right to know? Freedom of the press?
That stuff was for pushing around the powerless.
This was already that kind of world.
"How about I show you my freedom and rights?"
I cracked my neck with a menacing grin while stroking my massive fist.
At that, they all went pale and scattered like prey animals fleeing a predator.
Satisfied once they dispersed, I headed back inside and called the elevator.
A woman cautiously stepped in late behind me.
She seemed to be a resident of the building.
A quick scan told me she was decent.
She glanced at me nervously before timidly holding out a pen and paper.
Scribble.
I signed it for her.
I could offer that much fan service to a pretty girl.
One of the reporters who'd fled wrote an article about it.
It featured a photo that looked like it'd been snapped when I went down.
What bullshit... They ran off scared they'd get beat, and now the article was something else.
This was modern media for you.
No news outlet could run a negative story on me.
In Korea, they had to keep me around at all costs.
So no one wanted to risk upsetting me with bad press.
Even if they wrote it, the article would quietly vanish.
They knew better than to invite scrutiny, so crap like this got published.
Thanks to that, Hanna was probably catching hell because of me right now.
Once I'd cleared out the reporters at the apartment, she was their only other option.
"Huff! Huff!"
Alice was thrilled.
A black meteor slicing through the blue sky!
Plunging down with a greatsword gleaming like jet black—it was like divine punishment from the heavens.
"Meteor Strike!!! Holy... Molly... What the... So freaking cool!!!"
Alice was buzzing over the birth of a new S-Rank Hero.
"Come forth! Great Dark Blade!!!"
Suddenly, while watching the video, she started shadowboxing out of nowhere.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
"Here it comes!!! Dark Blade! This is the pitch-black greatsword of fury!!!"
She was making up skill names on the fly, hopping around excitedly on the bed.
The hero fanatic Alice was descending into madness.
She'd already looped the video of the hero in black armor over a hundred times.
"Br-breaking news?! The Black Knight's true identity!? What?!"
She clicked the article in a flash.
There was the face of a rugged man—neither strikingly handsome nor ugly, just solidly average.
"His face is so manly, and he's this cool and sleek!!!"
It was an ordinary face, but to Alice, the fact that he was an S-Rank Hero made him the epitome of cool.
"Thick eyebrows, that killer jawline. Hehe...... Huh?"
Staring intently at the man on screen, Alice felt a strange sense of familiarity.
She tilted her head.
"He looks familiar?!"
Alice berated herself for not recognizing such a hero right away and racked her brain.
And finally, she remembered.
"Holy!! What the!! Molly!! Yu-na's..... Eek?!"
Ding-dong.
"We've come from the government."
"Government? Whatever, just go away."
Click.
Government this, government that—I was just about to have a great time.
"Uncle, what's going on?"
Jae-eun came out of the shower and hugged my waist.
Lust surged as she flaunted her perfectly moist, beautiful nude body.
"Nothing much."
I pulled her smooth waist close, and our lips met.
Smack. Smooch. Slurp.
Ding-dong.
"........."
The doorbell shattered the mood.
"We've been sent by the President himself."
The guy's voice was brimming with pride.
"Oh? Really? Guess I've done something huge wrong. Hold on, I'll come down."
"N-no need to go that far..."
"........The sender got roughed up?"
Go Seok-cheon was the president.
He couldn't help but be stunned by Chief of Staff Im Jae-won's report.
"Yes..."
"Is he villain-leaning?"
"No priors... Doesn't seem like it. From how he handled the reporters, he just hates being bothered."
"Not easy to deal with, then? Affiliated with an American Awakener company?"
"Yes. It's Hero Friends, founded by the daughter of Bluelight's CEO."
"Ah, rings a bell. Are they close?"
An S-Rank Awakener could break a contract without much backlash. But nothing so far.
"Must be, right? No reason for him to stick with a company like that otherwise."
A top-tier Awakener dropping out of nowhere.
S-Rank in under a year.
It felt like a waste for him to be tied to a foreign company.
"Can we make it work?"
"We have to tread carefully. Doesn't seem like a good personality. Unlike A-Rank Heroes, he has no ties here—no achievements, no family. And the woman close to him, Hanna, is American."
In other words, if he had no attachment to Korea, he could bail easily.
Girlfriend being American made it riskier.
He'd already proven his power.
When Go Seok-cheon heard it was a flying A-Rank monster, he felt the sky open up.
Evac planes were on standby at the airport in case things escalated.
But he took it down solo.
Evaluations pegged him as possibly the top S-Rank in combat right now.
High-grade rifts and monsters popping up lately weren't normal.
If he left Korea, impeachment would be the least of his worries.
Other A-Ranks had roots here—family, support bases. Leaving meant sacrificing a lot.
But not him.
"Headache. What's the plan for treatment?"
"Matching other countries' offers for now."
"Good. Don't piss him off with needless negotiations—accommodate him as much as possible."
The company's stock was skyrocketing like Bitcoin in its heyday.
Rookie applications poured in nonstop—even from those guilds and companies had chased before.
Used to pay premiums to snag desired rookies; now they rolled in without effort.
A-Ranks and above usually formed their own guilds or solo hero companies.
Un-ho was a rare case.
Just his name on the roster brought massive gains.
Lots of talk buzzing about it.
Prime example: the absurd rumor he was Hanna's lover.
Hanna no longer denied it—instead, cleverly leveraging it.
What started as smears was now a shield making her untouchable.
All sorts flocked to the company, desperate for a connection to him.
But the lover rumor kept them from getting bold with her. Small mercy.
"We've arrived."
The driver's words snapped Hanna from her thoughts.
"Thanks for the ride."
She thanked him, got out, and headed inside.
Then she spotted a very welcome, familiar face.
She hurried to catch him at the elevator and hopped in.
"Director Choi Woong-dong. Haven't seen you around lately."
Hanna greeted him warmly.
Choi Woong-dong's face soured the instant he saw her.
"Ah...... President Hanna..."
His shit-eating expression was pure delight to behold.
Hanna finally understood "vicissitudes of life" seeing his mug look good for once.
"Oh! Didn't you say something before? That supporting him was too much...?"
"Haha, I've always had absolute faith in you, President Hanna. I only said that against my better judgment because of pressure from others. I fully support you. Haha."
"Oh dear, what to do? I already told him."
"T-told him what?"
"That someone at the company doesn't think highly of him."
"A-are you in your right mind?!"
"Pardon? My right mind? Are you talking about what you said to me?"
Hanna peered over her horn-rimmed glasses as she shot back.
"N-no, not at all..."
"Don't worry~ It was a joke. You know, a 'joke'?"
"A j-joke..."
Choi Woong-dong's face twisted in rage.
He looked furious but could only sputter helplessly.
Hanna found it hilarious how he'd always tripped her up before—now groveling.
That piggy face puffing up.
She wanted to snap a pic with her smartphone but held back.
A refreshing start to the day.
After her cheerful morning greeting to Choi Woong-dong, she entered her office and sat down.
Then a call came from her secretary.
"President, someone from the Korean government is here. The President's Chief of Staff."