No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 47

Feeling a subtle sense of unease, I just quietly looked up at Ryuseong.

In the meantime, Myohan was leisurely offering greetings like “Oh, hello. You’re that deputy, right?” but Ryuseong was strangely focused only on me.

“Hmm, Deputy, can’t you hear me? Oh no. Have I finally become invisible…”

“…What conversation did you have here?”

“Huh? I don’t know why you’re suddenly asking that. Why are you interrogating me like that? You’re scaring me.”

Huh. The atmosphere is weird. In the original work, the chemistry between Myohan and Ryuseong was amazing, but here they seem awkward. Well, it makes sense they wouldn’t have much overlap. In the original, Ryuseong became friends with the voluntarily friendless Shin Myohan while hanging out with Hae Yuna and Lee Hyang, so now that he’s not with Hae Yuna or Lee Hyang, there’s no reason for them to get close…

“Tsk.”

Then Ryuseong clicked his tongue and swiftly lifted me up. He tried to put me on his shoulder, but changed his posture to a princess carry. Good move. If he had pressed on my stomach, you could have witnessed the vomiting scene of the world’s strongest young master. Thanks to Ryuseong’s wise decision, it was postponed to the next opportunity.

Without saying anything further, Ryuseong kidnapped me just like that, and I leisurely waved goodbye to Shin Myohan as I was taken away. 

But what followed was something I didn’t expect.

“Oh right, Deputy-! Obsession is a disease too-!”

Regardless of who started the laughing challenge, Myohan shouted with glee. I think Ryuseong gritted his teeth, but that must be my imagination, right?

“Have a healthy love before reporting to the police-!”

…I feel really bad for Ryuseong, but I can’t stop laughing. I burst into an involuntary chuckle and got a terrifying glare from Ryuseong as a result, but I couldn’t help it. Still, I do feel sorry for subjecting him to defamation, so I at least send a mental explanation to Myohan. Um, well, thank you, but you don’t need to worry about Ryuseong.

Because I’m the one obsessed with him.

‘Hehe.’

I plan to cling to him today and tomorrow. If I must say, Ryuseong is the one getting obsessed over by me, so I would appreciate it if you don’t report it to the police…

I was laughing so much that all my unease and whatnot flew away. By the way, it seems like Ryuseong is gripping quite hard, what’s up with that?

‘Is he bragging about his strong grip?’

Anyway, Ryuseong dragged me to our private room, laid me on the bed, and before I could come to my senses, he forcibly pried open my narrow mouth and shoved something hard deep inside.

“Mmph!”

I protested vehemently, but he was relentless. After a few rough and wild back-and-forth motions, my jaw was ruthlessly stretched open and a sticky liquid flowed down my throat, leaving an unpleasant taste…

By the way, this is describing the process of taking medicine.

No one misunderstood, right?

‘Stop your naughty imagination-!’

After being forcibly fed the medicine like that, I coughed and tried to wipe the antidote dripping from my chin with my wrist. But Ryuseong seemed to be trying to shove the thick glass bottle into my mouth again, opening a new stopper.

“Wait, just a moment. Ngh,”

“Open up.”

“I’ve been wanting to point this out for a while, but when you cut off your sentences like that, it stimulates the imagination, ugh.”

“The one having such thoughts is the pervert. Shameless Demillang…”

It wasn’t wrong, so I obediently took the medicine. He had a businesslike gaze, as if a mother bird was feeding a baby bird, but when I pretended to have a sore throat and coughed, he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck and adjusted my posture to make it easier to swallow. Am I the only one who finds this extremely sensual? Somehow it feels more stimulating because Ryuseong seems businesslike.

‘So that’s why I’m called trash, I guess.’

“You have a fever.”

Then a low voice languidly brushed against my ear. His voice pierces my eardrum even more sensually as he comes close to me. Ryuseong’s irises, who presses his forehead against mine to check my temperature and gazes deeply into my eyes, are bright blue.

How can such a clear and opaque blue exist in the human body? That dazzlingly glowing, inhuman gaze…

Seeing that suddenly reminded me of the original work.

‘Outsider.’

Ryuseong possessed Korean citizenship, but his birthplace was not recorded in the Republic of Korea’s records.

Nothing was known about him except that he had black hair, distinct facial features, and blue eyes, and there was no way to find out. It was just that the head of the Hanra Faction found him in a field where a meteor shower was falling.

That’s because the young boy who survived alone in the field, where black fog had taken over, eating corpses like a wild animal without distinguishing between humans and monsters, was none other than Ryuseong.

‘Not like others.’

No one knew who conceived him or whose seed he received. There were even rumors that he might be a child conceived by a corpse. Perhaps it’s unscientific, but some said he might be a half-breed between a monster and a human, judging by his uncanny eyes. Or, that he might be a Pandora sent by monsters to ruin the human world…

All sorts of rumors circulated. Everyone shunned him.

However, when it became known through a shaman that he was destined to be a guardian from birth, everything changed.

No one had ever possessed an innate destiny before. Ryuseong was the only one who had been recognized by the World Tree as having the ability to interfere with the world simply by being born.

This time, everyone became desperate to have him.

It was based on the judgment that since he was a child, they could intervene when his unique name bloomed, in other words, they had the ulterior motive of taming him into a bodyguard who would be absolutely loyal to the master. It was a ploy to turn a human into a slave.

And right then, the head of the Gukhip Bureau appeared.

‘Cut the bullshit, you lowlifes! You should be ashamed of yourselves! Is it good to have such f*cking delusions about a seven-year-old kid?! Hey, Mr. Kim! Your son is seven, I heard. Would you feel good if someone did that to your son?!’

The head of the Hanra Faction had no intention of forcibly raising Ryuseong. But he couldn’t find a reason not to raise Ryuseong either. At the very least, if he could protect the young one from their greed, it didn’t matter if he got scratched up by a child who didn’t even know human language.

He didn’t care if his hands got busy and he had more to tend to, as long as he could pass on a firm will to the child to be able to overcome the hardships that would befall him, no matter what.

If he couldn’t do that, he thought he shouldn’t raise the child.

This was why Ryuseong regarded the head of the Hanra Faction as a father, but couldn’t bring himself to be entered into the family register. Because he was too good of a person. An adult who kept approaching him as a father even though it was obvious that if someone like him got involved, he would suffer a loss.

Ryuseong was strong. Although he couldn’t test it out due to the head’s overprotection, it was judged that he could even conquer dungeons alone at the mere age of eight, just one year after picking up the sword. Many adults cast greedy gazes at the unbelievably strong boy.

However, the head of the Hanra Faction never treated Ryuseong as a tool. He didn’t see him as a slave to sell off somewhere or as a magnificent trophy. Just as a person.

He treated him as a disciple, a member of the faction, a son.

‘Head of Gukhip Bureau is the best…’

That was why Ryuseong had no choice but to be upright.

The reason he lives with an upright will is because he doesn’t want to be shameful to the parents who guided him, and that’s why he abides by the unwritten rule that he must not kill people.

His body had already survived by rummaging through many corpses in his young days. If he were to be stained with more blood, he felt it would be sinful to even be part of the Hanra Faction.

‘But I was intrigued by all those emotional lines about the sense of alienation from not having a righteous nature and later becoming destitute…’

“Now I should ask why you went around without taking the antidote and getting a fever.”

Then Ryuseong, with a strangely chilling look, pressed his forehead against mine, rubbed my earlobe, and muttered in a low voice.

“I asked what you talked about with Shin Myohan, just the two of you.”

So, it’s not solely my responsibility that I ended up having these thoughts while looking at him.

‘Are you perhaps jealous?’

***

Shin Myohan is an extraordinary shaman. Not only her individual power, but also the authority of her family is extraordinary. It’s thanks to being the eldest daughter of a family of shamans who have been serving a supreme god for generations over a thousand-year history.

Just the current guardian spirit they serve is a great achievement, but the fact that no one can deny is that her future is more anticipated than her present, as she is the one who will inherit the position of a shaman in the future.

As such, the Academy cannot expel her even if she gets a failing grade.

‘As it actually happened.’

Shamanism operates on a completely different mechanism from magic, but nonetheless, there are some similarities between the two fields.

Especially those in the sorcery industry sometimes refer to the shamanism industry as a related industry. This is because the way they curse the living has some resemblance to sorcery. The fact that the origin is considered important is also similar.

However, shamanism, especially Korean shamanism, is a field that only the ‘chosen’ ones who can receive the god they serve can be a part of, so it is even more exclusive than sorcery.

Would you believe that there has never been a precedent of a Korean shaman entering the Academy before?

Interacting with them is a tricky matter and one must satisfy the eyes and ears of the god they serve. Also, once they become attached to someone, they don’t easily let go. Unless the very aspect that made them take a liking in the first place completely changes.

Cassice Demillang made contact with such a shaman.

‘Before the regression, the guardian spirit must have despised Cassice Demillang…’

Shin Myohan was once a good friend of Ryuseong, and Ryuseong still considered her a friend. Although they haven’t built a friendship since the regression, he had no intention of abandoning the unilaterally held favorable impression.

As for Cassice Demillang… he decided to put off thinking about him for a while. Because that person was so complicated that he couldn’t come to a conclusion at all.

If he had known how desperate a person had to become just to live like a human…

‘Why were you so cruel to others?’

Even while thinking that he shouldn’t have done that, there is a part of him that pities him.

But the regressor Ryuseong thought differently. Even if he didn’t know the reason for his regression, he believed he had to protect the world he had returned to. To do that, he had to prevent Shin Myohan and Cassice from building a friendship.

If Cassice Demillang lured Shin Myohan to his side… If that evil person could wield the power of a shaman as well…

He couldn’t even imagine what would happen.

‘So tell me, what are you scheming?’

And Cassice Demillang, smiling meaningfully across from him, was thinking exactly this:

‘Wow, damn. Jealousy is so fun.’

The thrill is unreal!