INV 76

A short while ago, Kwon Yihyeon had lowered his head to bring their faces close together.

He tried to counter quickly, but his wrist was seized.

He couldn’t escape. When he faced those flashing golden eyes with nothing but the childish stubbornness of not wanting to lose, Geom Biyeon felt a strange sense of dissonance expanding. A ring of light, like a halo, shimmered on the surface of the pupils like the sun. It was as if sunlight were scattering against glass beads.

Along with the illusion that a blade had grazed his skin, a weight settled into his palm.

Looking back later, it seemed as if the human named Kwon Yihyeon had no desire other than to return this sword.

⋆˙⟡

If Geom Biyeon stabs Kwon Yihyeon, Kwon Yihyeon will naturally be angry. Because he possesses a basic defense mechanism for survival. But if he doesn’t stab him, he won’t particularly become an enemy, and even if they do become enemies, he won’t commit a massacre. It’s just that I, as an individual, become enemies with you, as an individual.

Kwon Yihyeon was thinking exactly this.

“Ah, of course.”

Geom Biyeon is an annoying bastard. He could have hit him more if he wanted to.

But Kwon Yihyeon didn’t.

First of all, there was little to gain by hitting him, and much to lose. He had finally managed to be recognized by his team members as part of the Underworld and was even becoming friends with the rock friend guarding the office door lately; he didn’t want to be treated as a second Jae Angshin.

Besides, he didn’t even know how to use a sword!

“This is important.”

The self-defense techniques Kwon Yihyeon used today were all learned haphazardly from the members of the Haetae Department over the past month.

After Chacha touched them up a few times at home, they were implemented surprisingly well, so he had intended to show the team members, but the timing went awry.

Regardless, the current Kwon Yihyeon has never learned swordsmanship. Just imagine him acting out with a weapon he can’t handle properly and then getting counter-attacked.

That was no longer a matter of mere embarrassment.

Kwon Yihyeon understood instinctively. As the Jae Angshin’s contractor, he had to show that he could control the situation. That was why, instead of acting cute and asking Chacha to grill Geom Biyeon into confessing the truth, he insisted on doing it himself. It was because he wanted to prevent Chacha from being stared at as an object of heavenly punishment any further.

However, if he acted out with a weapon he didn’t know, he could actually die.

Of course, he wouldn’t die, because Chacha was there. But Geom Biyeon could really die. Everyone gathered here from the Celestial Realm and the Underworld could die.

Was it worth betting all these lives just to do something about a single Geom Biyeon?

Because of that, Kwon Yihyeon felt he was too precious. It was a somewhat cynical and weary notion to call self-love, but such things formed the foundation of Kwon Yihyeon.

Because he himself was so precious, Kwon Yihyeon found revenge bothersome. If he had the energy for revenge, he’d rather pick one more balsam flower from the backyard and bring it to his sisters, telling them to dye their fingernails beautifully. He might lose his mind if all his relatives died, but otherwise, he wouldn’t waste his life easily because the ambition to live happily was at his core. Kwon Yihyeon was that kind of person.

“If that many people died, my heart would be hurt, so I hate it.”

So please live, pervert-eyes.

Kwon Yihyeon probably thought that as he returned the sword to Geom Biyeon.

Someone who failed to understand him might disparage Kwon Yihyeon as a mindless idiot walking around with flowers in his head. It is always the easy path to discard misunderstanding as more misunderstanding.

And Geom Biyeon, unfortunately, chose the difficult path. Perhaps it was because understanding is always a difficult path.

But the aftermath seems to have been larger than expected.

Specifically, the influence a person like Geom Biyeon can wield in the Underworld, that is.

⋆˙⟡

In the world, there are things like UFOs. “Unidentified Flying Object” is shortened to UFO, and it’s famous for having an astronomical distance between its dictionary definition and its common usage.

The popular usage is exactly like this:

“Not belonging to human civilization”

“Alien”

“Mysterious flying object”

To summarize in one word: nonsense. However, Kwon Yihyeon, who ended up belonging to the Underworld due to the recommendation of his dear friend Park Seongjun, decided as of today to applaud the human imagination that created the concept of the UFO.

The higher-ups of each realm decided to sloppily deceive the public by passing off the occult as sci-fi imagination.

“But only humans are being stared at.”

Humans do not know other dimensions. Beings of other dimensions all look down upon humans, but humans cannot do the same. Kwon Yihyeon savored this interesting fact for a moment, but realized the fact that he himself lacked a UFO was much more deplorable.

The fact that the current situation, where he couldn’t escape on an unidentified flying object, was much more tragic.

“You. Do you have about eighty-eight lives?”

“…”

“What on earth were you thinking doing that… No, forget it. What’s the point of me talking to you…”

I’d rather you just curse at me. Please don’t treat me with the premise that communication is impossible, as if looking at a thoughtless brat…

But Kwon Yihyeon knew he couldn’t win. Not as long as the opponent was his cousin, Kwon Haseon.

“I’m really just sighing more and more because of you, seriously.”

Yes, when he was faced at the door by this sister who was letting out deep, familiar sighs as if her sighs really were increasing, there wasn’t much Kwon Yihyeon could do.

In the first place, Kwon Yihyeon lived a life far removed from the typical Korean sibling relationship where talking back to an older sister resulted in getting beaten up; Kwon Haseon was a sister who deserved the utmost respect. After all, she was the person who had pulled his childhood self out of a self-isolated room.

So, as much as he was fond of her, Kwon Yihyeon also found her a bit difficult. Theirs was not the kind of relationship where he could play jokes and then get hit once if things went south.

“I didn’t even go to the Great Mountain; how did it end up like this?”

Kwon Yihyeon, who suddenly faced a forced confrontation with a relative at work, squeezed his eyes shut and recalled the words Geom Biyeon had babbled earlier.

“Come to think of it, humans seem to reveal their true nature faster when they are fulfilled than when they are isolated.”

“Pardon?”

“I simply realized that other means were necessary to dig up your true nature.”

After that absurd conversation, Geom Biyeon used his own authority to divide and deploy the personnel of the Haetae Department.

Kwon Yihyeon thought Gwak Deukcheon might protest, but he accepted it with an unexpectedly calm gaze. Then, he left after leaving only an absurd remark like, “I trust you, you brat?” even though Kwon Yihyeon was just a lowly intern who didn’t even know what he was supposed to do.

“That team leader bastard, I’m going to sue him…”

Perhaps the saving grace was that Geom Biyeon attached Assistant Manager Myo Woon to Intern Kwon Yihyeon’s side.

“No. This should be seen as a motive for murder rather than a saving grace.”

However, it seemed there really was work to be done, as people from other departments began to assemble one by one. Even so, Kwon Yihyeon was still in a situation where he didn’t know what he would be doing. Furthermore, both Myo Woon and Kwon Yihyeon were on awkward terms with the others.

Kwon Yihyeon felt anew at that moment that Myo Woon, who held his chin up stiffly as if nothing were wrong, was a yokai.

He had heard plenty about how yokai were discriminated against. But at the same time, he had heard there were quite a few people of yokai origin in the Underworld. That they were treated as spiritual creatures rather than yokai if they controlled their yokai power. It was a fact he hadn’t quite felt before, but Myo Woon seemed to be like a loner in the floating island of Samra—except for the Haetae Department. Perhaps that was why he felt even more betrayed during Kwon Yihyeon’s welcome party.

While Kwon Yihyeon was having such trivial thoughts, he was forced to realize the fact that his cousin was also a shaman.

That is to say, the emergency mobilization order did not only apply to those belonging to the Underworld.

“Hey, Kwon Yihyeon.”

“Huh? Noona…?”

Anyone with a spiritual connection—in other words, any real shaman—could be mobilized.

The occult stirring up and becoming embedded in the minds of civilians would be a violation of the strict order of The Jade Emperor, who separated each realm so that superstition could remain superstition.

“Don’t think about running away. Grandma said she’s coming too.”

In short, it meant the Great Mountain had begun to move.