Chapter 161. The Preciousness of Everyday Life
Someone who agonized and became embarrassed over every tiny mistake.
Someone so incapable of shamelessness that a single word they heard or spoke would send so much blood rushing to their face that they looked like they had swallowed a lethal dose of poison and were about to suffer tissue death.
“...Aaaaaah... Ahhh....”
Normally, I was pretty far removed from that type of person.
Just look at me.
As far as I knew, the only person more shameless than me was the Chairman.
But human relationships were different.
When it came to relationships between people, I was weak.
Calling it weak might not even be enough.
I was fragile enough to stand with my feet in the Sanzu River and splash around.
Maybe I was like one withered, dying leaf barely hanging from a branch, ready to fall at any moment.
“Dad, are you awake?”
Early in the morning, I woke to Modak, who had stolen nearly half of my bed and was radiating warm heat, nudging my back with his head.
Was he telling me to get down because it was cramped now that I was awake?
When he was the one who climbed up here on his own?
...
Last night, after that happened, I parked Flying Fish in the sky above the Demonic Realm, logged out, and immediately fell asleep because I was exhausted.
Apparently, I hadn’t even noticed Modak climbing onto the bed.
“Uuughhh....”
“What’s wrong?”
And now...
Everything I had said under the influence of last night’s emotions was finally catching up with me.
What the hell did I say yesterday?
Still...
Alongside the embarrassment came happiness.
Because Pie had finally said the words I needed to hear clearly too.
I did it...!
I finally did it!
I actually managed to clearly define the relationship between Pie and me, something we had never once put into words!
Scary....
Am I...
Am I really Kim Ingwang?
Am I actually that pitiful, pathetic Kim Ingwang?
Creeeak.
I staggered out of bed.
Modak kept insistently nudging me, so I weakly opened the door and walked into the living room.
“Oh.”
“Ah.”
Pie was already awake.
Maybe she had adjusted her schedule to match mine, because despite the early hour, she was leisurely drinking coffee.
Our eyes met.
“....”
“....”
Neither of us said anything.
We simply stared at each other.
Just like always.
As though the first one to look away would lose.
Silently.
Without showing any particular emotion.
“Mom’s awake too?”
“Who are you calling Mom?!”
“M-Modak! Where did you learn to say something like that?!”
We couldn’t keep staring at each other anymore!
Holy shit!
My heart started pounding!
My body temperature shot upward like I was about to catch fire!
Ugh!
Uuugh!
My face was so red it felt like it was about to explode!
“Wouldn’t it be a problem if I didn’t even know the word ‘mom’?”
“S-Shut up!”
Pie pointed at me.
“Y-You! How exactly have you been educating him?!”
Even after forty years of life, Pie apparently had no experience with anything like this either.
Her face was just as red as mine as she stammered and shouted.
Why?
Why are you blaming me?!
“...We shouldn’t have done that inside the game...!”
A horrifying realization struck me.
“Now that I think about it, if we did it inside the game, doesn’t that mean the Chairman saw everything too?!”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Pie took another sip of coffee.
“Do you really think that man isn’t watching us in reality too?”
“Ah....”
I covered my face.
“Still, thinking that he actually watched it is really embarrassing....”
“...Loser....”
Damn it!
Wait!
That meant he heard everything I said to Dorfin too!
Damn it!
Damn it all!
I’m going to kill him....
I’m definitely going to kill that Chairman bastard!
Please just disappear from my life already!
“Uuuugh... Isn’t this supposed to be one of those moments?”
I flailed helplessly.
“Like, we look into each other’s eyes, smile sweetly, and think, ‘Ah, we really have that kind of relationship now!’”
“You’re not that kind of person in the first place, so what are you expecting?!”
Pie snapped.
“You joke around about everything, yet somehow you still expect so much...!”
“Y-You spent twenty years...!”
I stopped.
“...Never mind.”
Pie’s eyes narrowed.
“At least you have some tact.”
“If you’d kept talking, I would’ve stripped you naked and thrown you outside.”
Creeeak....
While the two of us were bickering, Aien carefully opened her bedroom door and peeked her head out.
From the complicated expression on her face, she seemed both shocked by what she had overheard...
And also like she had expected it all along.
“W-Why...?”
“...Congratulations.”
“Urgh!”
I-Is everyone like this?
Does everyone go through this?!
Please tell me I’m not the only one!
T-This happens to everyone, right?
When you confess to the person beside you and start dating, your friends gather around and tease you about it, right?
Huh?
Maybe people stop doing that once they’re in their mid-twenties?
B-But people have started living to a hundred, even a hundred and twenty lately!
So I think it’s perfectly reasonable for me to live a little younger!
People say being twenty-five now is different from being twenty-five in the past!
And by international age, I’m not even half of fifty yet!
“Two fully grown adults confessed their love and now you’re blushing like that....”
Aien stared at us.
“At this rate, are you two even going to manage to have children?”
“That little...! I told you we should erase her memories...!”
“...How could you say something like that?!”
Aien protested.
“She’s already pitiful enough! At least I should remember her!”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You know... it feels like you act especially like this only when you’re talking to me.”
“You’re deliberately teasing me, aren’t you?”
“...Not deliberately, exactly.”
“...You little....”
The composure of a woman in her forties...!
She changed the subject so naturally!
At some point, those two had become so close that I had been pushed into the background.
Leaving them behind, I headed outside.
Putting aside all this chaos...
I still had my daily routine to do.
Even if the world ended tomorrow, I would plant one apple tree today.
“...Haa....”
My body had become capable of running for hours without getting tired.
Even so...
Jogging like this still felt surprisingly good.
More importantly...
Even with my heightened senses, I could no longer feel anyone secretly watching me.
I finally felt relatively free.
Dorfin herself had certified me as an overpowered monster in reality.
If someone could still escape my senses...
Then Dorfin’s certification would start losing credibility.
‘There are still three people in reality...’
‘No, two now.’
‘Two people whose Flow I still can’t grasp....’
Jin and Dorfin.
Originally, the Chairman had been included among them.
But during the recent incident, he deliberately lowered his own level.
Now he had fallen to roughly the same class as me.
Seriously.
I had to meet a summoned old man who felt like the protagonist of a fantasy novel...
Then meet Ruin himself...
And only after all that could I finally reach a point where I could so much as touch the Chairman.
Meanwhile, all the Chairman had to do was enter the powerless body of Secretary Lee to lower himself to my level....
‘It would’ve been nice if only his strength had weakened....’
‘But because his level fell, I can’t even touch him....’
It was disappointing.
And frightening.
A man willing to become as ugly as necessary to achieve what he wanted.
A man capable of overturning everything I did with ridiculous ease.
What if he had already seen through the fact that I was now trying to ruin the World Gate world...
And was simply allowing me to continue anyway?
Was this...
What people called being in the Buddha’s palm?
‘Still, he lowered his level so much that I can’t interfere with him.’
‘Doesn’t that mean I finally escaped from his palm?’
‘Does the Chairman even realize that?’
If so...
Maybe the Chairman had watched everything involving Dorfin and Pie recently and interpreted it not as a threat...
But as excellent role-playing.
Maybe he thought I was acting that way to immerse myself more deeply in the World Gate world.
A man who was disgustingly preparing to call me his son might really misunderstand things that way.
After all...
Until very recently, that had actually been true.
He had been someone who could make nearly everything happen exactly according to plan.
So how well had someone who stepped down from a nearly omnipotent position adapted to his current inconvenient body?
Aien’s father had merely been stripped of his position as a Count...
And even he had failed to properly face reality afterward.
“...From now on!”
I clenched my fist.
“I hope you’re miserable forever...!”
“Hyung!”
Tap tap tap!
Rapid footsteps approached.
Chang, dressed in a tracksuit, ran toward me.
I could see a few others farther behind him.
Apparently they had been jogging together, and once Chang spotted me, he increased his speed and rushed over.
“Haa... Hyung... Where... are you right now...?”
“Above the Demonic Realm.”
