Chapter 55 - Now, Look at This- (7)

Cracks spread across the academy building, splitting apart as fragments floated upward.

Ka-ka-boom.

The fabricated sky had already shattered and vanished completely, revealing a pure white void.

In the world falling apart, Gremory, struck head-on by the magic, was no different.

"Aah...."

Her body cracked like a broken glass sculpture, crumbling away.

In this already settled situation, Gremory looked up at me and smiled self-deprecatingly.

"...Instead of messing around, I should have killed you the moment I first saw you."

I shrugged and corrected her.

"You shouldn't have let me into this place to begin with."

I looked down at her without averting my gaze from Gremory's eyes.

"Next time, check the weight class before you open your mouth, you pelican."

"...!"

As Gremory took in the sight of such a magnificently arrogant wizard, her form scattered completely.

Fssssh....

And within the dispersing particles, something faintly appeared, and I narrowed my eyes.

'...Thread? Hair?'

It was a single strand of long hair, a deep, beautiful red.

But it was visible for only the briefest moment.

The red hair vanished before my eyes.

Ka-ka-ka-ka-boom!

At the same time, the true collapse began, and the academy building itself started rising upward.

Engulfed in light, the false, fabricated world crumbled entirely.

All those who had been trapped were freed.

...And in the outside world, in my small studio apartment, the laptop, which had shown no response until now, rattled and shook as light poured from its screen.

Grizzly tilted its head.

"Gyah?"

<De Vermis Mysteriis> and <The Lesser Key of Solomon> moved back to the spots on the bed where I had left them.

Grizzly was recalled as well.

"Gyagyet?"

The room spread out, quiet and unchanged from when Si-on and I had entered the aberrant game.

‧

‧

‧

I blinked and came to my senses.

I looked around.

A small studio apartment, a folding table set up with a laptop on it.

The laptop screen was fine, and the game was off.

Feeling a weight, I turned my head slightly to the side.

I saw Si-on's face, asleep with her head leaning against my shoulder.

"Mmm...."

Up close, her eyelashes were long. Anyway.

".........."

I looked up at the familiar ceiling of my studio and said, as a matter of courtesy,

"A familiar ceiling."

Another case resolved.

"...Yo-han-ssi?"

Shortly after, Si-on came to her senses as well and pulled away from my shoulder.

"Um... I'm sorry."

"It's fine. If you lost consciousness, leaning on someone is only natural... Oh."

I spoke to Si-on.

"We're back outside now, is it okay if I keep speaking casually?"

"That's fine. At this point, hearing formal speech from you again would just feel awkward."

The image of my uninhibited self inside the game came to mind. Hearing formal speech now would actually feel strange.

Si-on smiled faintly.

"Please speak however you're comfortable."

"Thanks. Then I'll keep it casual."

"Okay."

Si-on gathered herself, checked her physical condition, and then immediately checked Harem Academy, the culprit behind this entire abnormal-phenomenon incident, on the laptop. It had become an empty file.

Si-on's eyes widened slightly in surprise as she stared at the screen.

"...The game has been deleted."

It might have been more accurate to say it had vanished entirely.

Buzzz!

Just then, her phone rang. When Si-on answered, the voice of Lee Hye-eun, the female agent from Special Ops Team 3, burst through in a flurry from the other end.

"Team Leader Si-on! All of Special Ops Team 6, who had gone missing, are back! And through the computers we had in custody, all the civilians have returned too! Every copy of Harem Academy circulating on the internet has disappeared! The aberration has been eliminated! You did it, Team Leader!"

"That was... I... Yes... Understood. I'll file a report shortly."

After the brief call, Si-on hung up and let out a sigh of relief.

"Whew... Yo-han-ssi, all the people who were abducted into the game, more than twenty-five of them, have safely returned."

It seemed that, just as Gremory had said, those who died inside the game hadn't truly died after all.

It wasn't intentional, but the outcome was fortunate all the same.

As expected, firing the Saturn Destruction Beam without worrying about whether those people were alive or dead had been the right call.

"Of course, they're reportedly in a state of panic from what happened inside the game... but their lives are not in danger."

Si-on bowed her head and expressed her gratitude.

"Yo-han-ssi, it's all thanks to you. Thank you."

She was polite about every little thing. Looking at her, it was clear she'd been raised well.

"Forget it. There's no reason to be thanked for work I'm getting paid to do. If anyone should be grateful, it's the civilians you saved who should be thanking you."

I wasn't just being modest. I meant it.

"You're the one who paid 250 million won out of your own pocket to commission the aberration elimination and civilian rescue."

"No, that was because at the time, you were the only one who seemed capable of solving this case...."

Si-on replied to my words in a calm voice.

"Given the danger level of the aberration, the potential for even greater risk and damage was significant.

If anything, 250 million was a bargain, a rational decision."

Then, mid-sentence, she fidgeted and added hesitantly,

"Oh, that's only cheap when you factor in the societal damage it could have caused... For me personally, it's a lot of money, and I'd like to give you more if I could... but that would be difficult."

At that, I couldn't help but laugh.

"Forget it. Just give me the ten million won the Special Operations Division originally promised as the commission fee."

"...Huh?"

"I told you at the start. If the job is dangerous, the pay goes up, but since the job turned out less dangerous than I expected, the price should come down too."

Honestly, of course I wanted to take the 250 million.

But I'd recently come into Kim Mi-ryeo's emergency fund of 100 million won, so I was financially comfortable.

Rather, it seemed worthwhile to make Si-on feel like she owed me this time.

Like the story of the North Wind and the Sun.

If I couldn't dissolve her suspicions by running away, I'd make her not want to suspect me through goodwill.

Si-on seemed like the type who'd take something like this to heart.

Honestly, even just creating a moment's hesitation the next time she might point a gun at me would be a win.

"You protected and helped me well, so the magic was prepared quickly too. Let's call it even."

Caught completely off guard, Si-on's eyes went wide.

"That's very kind of you to say, but... that's... um...."

"If it bothers you, you can buy me a meal sometime."

"Understood. Then...."

Si-on stood up and walked over to the refrigerator, reaching out her hand before stopping herself.

"Oh, cooking for you had become such a habit."

...Well, it made sense. Inside the Dating Sim game, Si-on had always cooked for me.

"Go ahead and cook if you want. I'm a bit hungry, and it's a little early, but shall we eat now?"

"Understood. Then please wait a moment."

Si-on noticed there was pasta at home, went outside to buy shrimp and other ingredients from the mart, and made gambas pasta.

Sizzle...

Watching the Special Operations Division agent I'd been most wary of lovingly preparing pasta in my apartment was... a complicated feeling, to say the least.

In any case, the pasta was done.

Si-on set a plate of pasta and a salad bowl, heavy on cherry tomatoes and light on cabbage, on the folding table in front of me.

"Here you go. I hope it's to your liking."

Pasta was inherently good anyway, and the shrimp sauteed in oil was savory and bouncy, making for a reliably delicious taste.

"It's good. Thanks for the food."

"I'm glad."

Normally I wouldn't talk much while eating.

But I thought this would be a good chance to gather information about Si-on, so I spoke up.

"Come to think of it. When the Special Operations Division brought me on as a civilian collaborator, you must have done a background check on me, right?"

After all, inside the game, I'd been focused solely on gathering magic materials.

"Since we're cooperating and all. Let me do a little digging on you too. What's your family situation?"

At my blunt words, Si-on coughed in slight surprise and said,

"Ahem. That... the investigation on you was just the basics, confirming you grew up in an orphanage and have no criminal record. But you're right, it hasn't been fair."

Si-on briefly considered sugarcoating things.

"My family consists of my father, my mother, and a younger sister. And...."

But she decided to be honest.

"...My father is the Director of the Bureau for Abnormal Phenomena Countermeasures, the organization the Special Operations Division belongs to."

".........."

That unexpectedly massive piece of information shut my mouth for a moment.

Good thing I hadn't been hasty about killing Si-on. I'd nearly kicked a hornet's nest.

"...He sounds like an impressive and good man."

When I gave a safe answer, Si-on smiled bitterly and said,

"Yes, I do think he's impressive. Whether he's a good person, though, I'm not so sure."

Memories of the past surfaced as she spoke.

"The truth is, my birth mother passed away when I was young, so my current mother is my stepmother. My sister is a half-sister, too."

That was the story of Si-on's fifth birthday.

"My father asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I was young... maybe it was because I was just a child.

I said I wanted a kind mother and a cute little sister."

I gave a faint smile at that.

"A sister, huh. That's the kind of present that puts parents in a tight spot."

"Haha... Right? But on my birthday, he actually brought them. A mother and a sister."

Si-on couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of the memory.

"Turns out he'd been seeing another woman on the side. He'd already had a child with her, too."

At that ridiculous birthday episode, I smiled faintly and said,

"He's an impressive man in a different sense, I'll give him that."

I understood what Si-on meant. He was a great father, but he wasn't a decent person.