The Loots' Shadow
Weed finished the MT and re-entered Royal Road.
But he didn’t feel very good. It was entirely due to Seoyoon.
‘I was too careless.’
Weed had face several people.
The malicious humans.
At the core, all humans are parasites leeching off on others.
The weak align themselves with the strong, while being subservient to those who are stronger than them.
Those who fail to be careful and aren’t hesitant to hold back their trust are only susceptible to being exploited in the world.
The usual seeds of discord are sown once the family members can not receive much from the given salary.
The first salary he was going to receive for working was 600,000 Won; of course, that doesn’t even come close to the minimum cost of living.
But at that time, he greatly thrilled.
It was the first time he could be paid in full for cost of labor.
And with the money, he planned on going on a shopping spree to buy his sister and grandmother clothing.
He was purely delighted.
But even at that low wage, the president did not give the full amount to him.
Using the terms of condition, the ‘unemployment insurance’ or whatever, to take from him.
Saying ‘few fellow colleagues left the factory last month so being their unemployed self, each will reap 30,000 Won from you.’
At the end of all the ‘difficult calculations’ in order to pull few a few bucks back into the factory, he received a total of 450,000 Won.
They removed a whopping 150,000 Won.
The month after, the same thing happened.
By claiming it was for the ridiculous ‘the employment insurance of employing illegal minors;’ of course he did not know, so all that was left was to believe.
Only to find out later through other colleagues that he shivered from the feeling of betrayal!
The anger wasn’t just placed on the president.
It was also toward his fellow colleagues, whom kept on spitting speeches about him being the youngest and through cumbersome and hard work that he could make something of himself.
Knowing he had suffered the injustice from the president was one thing, but finding out that the people he worked with used these spiel to tease him was another thing entirely.
Weed well knew he was at the bottom.
Just like those gamblers, drunkards, and debtors, not a single hope to living life!
Then having fallen down the pit a second time, it was difficult having to climb up once again.
So he did not believe in anyone easily.
Lee Hyun was confident that through his own suffering, he had already seen the many sides of people. But contrastively, Seoyoon was the first being unique from those he saw.
The completed sculpture was in fact, not pretty.
Its level could be counted as a souvenir; although there was a bit of resemblance, it was difficult to capture the feel of Seoyoon in the real.
The lack of time, tools, materials, and the many thing weighted in his mind weren’t at all encouraging.
Filled with his sincerest intention, he placed it secretly in her pocket.
‘I’m repaying some of the debt I owe to you.’
As in the many sculptures he made of her candidly.
No secret could be kept forever; this was simply a gesture of concession on his part to show he conceded first if it someday will be discovered.
He wanted to make sure that at least in real life he wasn’t going to get beaten to death!
For dark gamers, a death within Royal Road directly correlated to the financial loss; but comparatively, it was comforting to the mind if it was just simply that out in the real world too.
By the way, the awoken Seoyoon wasn’t angry.
She remained silent just like from the events to the meals preparations. Sometimes while watching Lee Hyun her face blushed as well!
‘She’s still drunk huh? Nah, those look as if she’s angry.’
Lee Hyun was making speculation, but the reason was actually a simple one as for the why of Seoyoon's face.
‘I let him see me sleeping.’
Seoyoon was just a girl.
She was embarrassed to let him see her sleeping face. And the coloring of his knee meant that she had done that for quite a long time too.
‘Was my head heavy?’
She had all sorts of imagination running. Even her nose corrugated from the concerns.
So every time she turned to see Lee Hyun’s face, it lit up a pinkish dye of embarrassment.
But an incident occurred when they returned to the MT group.
The chicken Lee Hyun brought. Half Sauce Half Fried.
They still had a lot of foods left over before returning safely to the mainland. It seemed as if they didn’t eat as much during the MT as he thought they would.
Lee Hyun often made food for the Dojang practitioners whenever they went on training, so he bought the ingredients this time based loosely on their input.
However, the usual students’ appetite weren’t like them, plus this second day was just a lap around the island via boats, so the hunger built up wasn’t as much as before.
So, there was a considerable amount of food ingredients still remained.
It happened during the distribution of leftover food ingredients, when Min Sura suddenly asked.
“What are we going to do about the chicken?”
“I brought him from home to eat. You want to take him?”
Lee Hyun calmly replied. It was too much of an obvious question.
If Min Sura was to get Half Sauce Half Fried, it would be more beneficial than dividing for him portions of different meat or other food ingredients.
But, the fact was that Min Sura would have difficulties carrying Half Sauce Half Fried home.
Lee Hyun added a side note.
“If you want, I can twist the neck now to make it…”
He was offering a favor.
But suddenly, Seoyoon revealed a shocked expression.
With face seemingly about to tear up, she grabbed hold of Half Sauce Half Fried with no intention of letting go.
Lee Hyun, at this impass, did not know the seriousness of the situation.
“Give me that.”
“……”
“Don’t mess around when it comes to food.”
“……”
Yet she was still stubbornly holding onto Half Sauce Half Fried.
Lee Hyun thought perhaps Seoyoon wanted Half Sauce Half Fried to eat.
“If you insist on it, then take it. So instead, you won’t get the other food materials, okay? Then please give it to me for a minute. I’ll just quickly twist its neck.”
Lee Hyun thoughtlessly stretched his hand out. But suddenly, tears flowed from Seoyoon's eyes.
“……”
In matter of seconds, criticism and looks of resentment gravitated toward Lee Hyun!
The Seoyoon with Half Sauce Half Fried was too cute.
No one could imagine how many hours she put into feeding grains of rice to it during the MT, and thus she developed feelings of affection towards it. She caught him with the intention to protect.
“What’s going on?”
“Why’s she crying?”
“Who was it!”
“Look like it was because of that chicken…”
“Seems like he forcefully tried to take the chicken and made senior Seoyoon cried?”
“How could he do something like that…”
The demonstrative power of a beauty’s tears was unspeakably powerful.
The image he built during that MT trip collapsed all at once.
It was as if he was driven to an execution without a single reason given.
‘Damnit!’
Lee Hyun wanted to punch himself.
Why was it he didn’t have his defenses up against Seoyoon at this point.
He had anticipated her hiding her evilness all this while, and it was reprimended for lowering his guard.
This was due to him obtaining finer details about Seoyoon.
She had the presence and can imprint in people’s mind of a good woman who loves life.
On the other hand, Lee Hyun received glares as if he was a savage and cruel being.
Lee Hyun was naturally victimized.
‘I was diligently diving up the meat here and all of the sudden the subject switched to animal protection.’
At this point, Lee Hyun sharply observed Seoyoon.
She was weeping without a sound while gazing at Half Sauce Half Fried affectionately.
‘You want to eat him as well.’
Lee Hyun was offering his service of wringing its neck, but to him it didn’t seem like that was something required in her case.
‘So you want to feel it while using your hands, aint it. I bet as soon as you come home you’ll twist his neck on your own.’
It was hazardous for him to continue down this way, so he took a step back.
He wanted to win against the Seoyoon at least once.
“Wait of a minute. There seems to be some kind of misunderstanding, it was just a little joke…you thought I actually wanted to eat that chicken?”
Firstly, Lee Hyun decided to take an ethical attitude. Its purpose was to deceive the public.
“Please return Half Sauce Half Fried to me. I brought him up from when he was just a chick. And in fact, his entire family is living at home. So if he does not come back, Mother Hen will be very sad.”
Justification and legitimacy!
It was just a short while, but Seoyoon could not rebuke against that logic.
Even if Seoyoon could open her mouth to express her intentions, she could not win against Lee Hyun in this situation.
“Give me him.”
Lee Hyun confidently reached his hand toward Half Sauce Half Fried again.
It was then.
Kkokkodek!
The Half Sauce Half Fried who was on standby pecked at him!
The chicken once belongs to Lee Hyun refused to go back to him.
***
Weed along with the Geomchis and together with other colleagues were retargeting the Todeum castles.
32 castles remaining!
“From now on, we’ll be targeting castles with maybe 40 Unicorns and Pegasus minimum, so don’t be too lax.”
At the moment, they were already too used to battle within the Todeum castles, that Weed didn’t want to lose too much tension.
But the resulting effect was very little.
“Encircle him!”
“Get him!”
Since the beginning, the Geomchis were already used to risking their lives fighting while wounded.
Despite not having experiences, weapon, and armor necessary to go forward, they already surrounded many enemies and were busy attacking their limbs.
As for Weed, as the battle raged on, did not keep an eye out for them.
“Pale nim, Maylon nim! The Pegasus is attempting to use magic! Romuna nim, try to intercept the Unicorns’ elemental summonings!”
“Yes!”
W