Chapter 65 Sister vs. Brother
“Lee Hee-jeong?”
“Yes~! This is Lee Hee-jeong!”
“?!?!??!”
Who are you.
I almost blurted that out in the moment.
It was because I couldn’t believe that this person was the same Lee Hee-jeong I saw in the game.
Lee Hee-jeong was fundamentally a heroine with a characteristic dislike for Koreans, often referred to as an anti-Korean trait.
So I thought she would frown when a Korean like me talked to her.
But she was smiling brightly.
‘…Could she be on drugs or something?’
Her smile was so wide that it seemed like her lips would tear.
Her radiant smile made me almost speechless.
At that moment, as if to speak for my inner thoughts.
“You seem to be in a good mood today, Hee-jeong.”
Jin-ah Lee, the branch manager, asked about the unusually cheerful Lee Hee-jeong instead of me.
“Did something ‘good’ happen?”
“?!”
At that moment, the smiling face of Lee Hee-jeong momentarily hardened.
But she soon returned to her original smiling expression.
“Haha… It’s nothing, Director.”
Lee Hee-jeong avoided the question with a blatantly obvious lie.
‘What is this? From where did it start to diverge from the original…?’
I had no connection with Lee Hee-jeong.
There was no way to know why she had changed like this.
The only fortunate thing was that at least in this state, she didn’t seem likely to kill the Japanese researcher in a fit of rage as she did in the original.
‘…Wait a minute?!’
Come to think of it, around this time, the reason Lee Hee-jeong was filled with anger was because she failed to transfer to the American headquarters.
Which meant that the reason for her good mood now was just one.
‘She succeeded in transferring to the American headquarters…?’
A new scenario that wasn’t in the original.
It seemed Lee Hee-jeong had been promoted to a researcher at the American headquarters.
‘But how?’
There were still about two days left until the announcement day.
Why did she already know that she succeeded in the transfer?
There was no way to know where the original had gone wrong.
What was certain was that I had to watch for now.
“…I’ve finished touring the research building, so I will head up now.”
“Already? We just reached the entrance.”
“Haha. It’s work time right now, and I want to sweat a little after a long time.”
If I intervened rashly, it could cause a bigger butterfly effect.
I decided to leave this ‘time bomb’ alone until I figured out why Lee Hee-jeong got to go to the Hunter headquarters in America, which was known as the sacred place of hunters.
***
With no significant gains, Shin-woo took the elevator out of the research building and went up to the workshop located in the middle floors of the association building.
‘How should I find out…?’
The genre of the original <Hunter’s Blood> was action, fantasy, and dating sim.
The system took care of the characters’ mysteries, and there weren’t any particular detective elements.
From here, even Shin-woo, the veteran, became a newbie.
‘I’ll ask Jin-ah again later. Since she’s the director, she must have a lot of information.’
Should I ask the Monstrous Group?
For a moment, I thought about it, but I gave up because I felt like they would immediately threaten me to join their ranks if I contacted them.
So for now, I planned to use the card named Jin-ah Lee to break through the current situation.
Tatadadadada.
“?!”
Shin-woo saw it.
In the workshop, called the modern-day forge, where hunters’ equipment was repaired and crafted.
“Ooh…! So humans fight with this!”
Among the burly Meister uncles, a bold child with sparkling red eyes was running around.
It was the baby monster Eve, whom I had been searching for so long.
“You, you…!”
“Huh?”
Shin-woo, startled, urgently pointed at Eve, who was in the middle of touring the workshop.
But since it was the first time they met in his human form, Ria naturally didn’t know that he was the monster from Jamsil who saved her.
“Who are you?”
“Ah, that is…”
I am the jet-black monster who saved you before!
…I couldn’t exactly reveal my monster identity.
“Mo, monster…! Monster…”
“……”
Pretending to be shocked that there was a monster in this place, Shin-woo tried to naturally play along.
At that moment.
“Shin-woo, you’re here.”
“Team Leader!”
“Haha. You don’t need to worry about this child. This is the pet monster raised by Director Jin-ah Lee, and she asked us to take care of it in the workshop for a while.”
“Di, Director Jin-ah Lee?!”
The manager of the workshop, with his white beard proving the passage of time, left Shin-woo speechless with his words.
Ria’s sibling was in the hands of none other than Jin-ah Lee!
Moreover, Ria even called Jin-ah ‘Mom!’
What on earth was going on here?
Already confused because of Lee Hee-jeong, Shin-woo’s mind now felt like it was about to explode.
Moreover, there was nothing he could do about either problem at this point in time.
“The request to take care of it in the workshop means…”
“It means just what it says. Like taking care of a child, just play with it until the parents come to pick it up.”
“Oh, okay…”
Shin-woo had no choice but to accept it for now.
Meanwhile, Eve, who had stopped going down to the research building after bringing back the lower half of the monster’s mother, had chosen this place as the next playground because she no longer wanted to stay there due to Lee Hee-jeong.
The Meister’s workshop, which gave off a uniquely distinct presence even within the association building.
Of course, this place was fun too.
There were many things she had never seen before, and thanks to her mom, the humans were all kind.
However, the problem was that everyone was too burly…
Clang clang clang!
Rrrrrr.
Ziiing.
The Hunter Meisters working in the workshop, fittingly nicknamed the modern forge, were mostly muscular men with well-developed physiques.
They all had a macho style, covered in muscles all over their bodies.
If Eve were a fully grown adult monster who had completed her secondary sexual characteristics, she might have enjoyed looking at such men depending on her taste.
But the current Eve was still just a child.
In human terms, she was at the level of a lower elementary school student, and to her, these workshop humans felt overwhelmingly burdensome.
‘This is disgusting…’
Even while playing, she constantly felt nauseous.
But what was this unexpected turn of events?
“Hey, you.”
“Huh?”
“You, you’re my mom’s subordinate, right?”
“Uh… I guess?”
“Then play with me. I’m bored playing alone.”
A plain human A, who could be used without any burden, appeared among the burly muscles.
Moreover, Shin-woo had a likable appearance even to kids, so Eve immediately chose Shin-woo.
“Come on, let’s go! Follow me!”
Being the pet monster of the branch director.
Even as a monster, such a status was much higher than that of a low-level Meister.
“Te, Team Leader?”
“Haha. Play carefully.”
Shin-woo found himself suddenly given the role of ‘Eve’s’ playmate.
***
“Let’s play hide-and-seek!”
“Hide-and-seek?”
“Yes. I’ll hide first. Find me. Got it?”
“Uh, okay…”
Shin-woo ended up playing hide-and-seek with the baby monster alone in the workshop storage room.
At first, he wondered if this was right, tilting his head in confusion.
‘…Let’s just go along with it for now.’
Coincidentally, he was also interested in Eve, so he decided to use this opportunity to get closer.
“Wait a minute.”
“…?”
“Come to think of it, what’s your name? I can’t play hide-and-seek with someone whose name I don’t know.”
“Really?”
Shin-woo naturally asked for Eve’s name first.
“My name is Eve. And you, human?”
“I’m Han Shin-woo. Nice to meet you.”
“…? What’s this?”
After exchanging names, Shin-woo naturally knelt on one knee in front of Eve and extended one hand.
It was a gesture to shake hands.
But since Eve had never experienced shaking hands as an equal with a human, she didn’t understand the gesture.
“…Are you threatening me?”
Eek!
Having been taught that someone extending a hand towards her always meant hostility, she quickly frowned.
“This is called a handshake.”
“…!”
Shin-woo gently took Eve’s clenched hand with his own and shook their clasped hands up and down.
Eve’s hostility quickly faded away with her first handshake.
“It’s a gesture to show we want to become friends.”
“Oh… This is a handshake…?”
“How is it? Do you not like it?”
Shake, shake.
“I… I like it! I like handshakes! Ehehe…”
The act of holding hands.
Eve had always been taught that hands existed only to destroy something, so she didn’t know about things like this.
As a result, she felt an unexpected thrill from an action other than destruction.
“That’s a relief.”
“…!”
As Shin-woo smiled at her satisfaction, Eve looked up at him and, not knowing why, turned her head in embarrassment.
“Alright. Then shall we play hide-and-seek?”
“Yes! Let’s do it!”
With the handshake finished, the two, now energized and laughing together, tried to continue the game they originally intended to play.
But at that moment.
Shin-woo laid the groundwork too hastily.
“Oh, Eve. By the way.”
“Yeah?”
“I saw a baby monster who looked like you before. Do you know anything about it?”
“…!!”
Shin-woo subtly brought up information about Ria to Eve.
He intended to observe how the younger sister would react to the mention of her older sister.
Yesterday, Ria had expressed a strong desire to meet her younger sibling.
Shin-woo thought Eve would show a similar innocent reaction, wanting to see her sister as well.
But.
Grab!
In the next moment, Shin-woo was forcibly brought to his knees, with his neck being held tightly.
And in his barely breathable view, he locked eyes with the red-bloodshot Eve in front of him, unable to even scream like a weak human.
“Where is that creature now?”
The child who had been smiling brightly moments ago was gone.
All that remained was a monster, thoroughly trained to fulfill its mission of devouring her sister.
“Hurry up and tell me.”
“Ugh… Ack…!”
Eve’s grip tightened even more.
As a result, Shin-woo couldn’t even swallow his saliva properly, and his painful gasps showed he was on the verge of death, with oxygen supply cut off.
However, even then, he didn’t mention Ria.
Because he didn’t want Ria to meet such a younger sister.
The idea that the first family member she meets would try to kill her.
He couldn’t let Ria face that reality…
“Hey.”
“…?!”
“Let go of him right now.”
Smack!
She didn’t want to show it.
“…Ria?”
When had she appeared?
Ria, who had been hiding in Shin-woo’s shadow, finally revealed herself just as his neck was about to snap.
Then, she immediately punched her naughty younger sister in the face, sending her flying away.
“Onii-chan.”
“Ria…”
“Leave this to me.”
Without looking back at Shin-woo, Ria faced her opponent, who was starting to get up again.
Staring into the eyes of Eve, who had a nosebleed and looked ready to kill her, Ria felt anger for the first time in her life.
“Hah?! Sister?”
Just because you managed to make me bleed with a surprise attack!
“You fool! I’ll devour you right now!”
“…Yes. A spanking of 100 slaps on the butt is confirmed.”
Eve, as if she had caught her prey, charged straight at her sister.