Ch.563Chapter 21. Blood Pack (23)

Everyone has secrets that are difficult to share freely, and sometimes these secrets cannot be told to anyone.

However, no matter how much of a secret it is, one cannot suffer in silence forever.

If revealing the secret to an appropriate extent wouldn’t cause harm, rather than shouting “the king has donkey ears” in a bamboo forest, one would likely confide in someone.

If there were such a person, who would it be?

Family.

“So you’re saying that all this time, appearing as Armored Taejo was just an act, and he’s been pretending to be childish while handling the country’s dirty work?”

“That’s right.”

President Tae Chae-jin revealed the truth(?) to Tae Yi-rin, whose face had turned pale.

“I’m sorry for telling you so late. But Taejo himself didn’t want to talk about it.”

“……”

“There’s a saying: to deceive your enemy, you must first deceive your allies.”

“Ah, I think I understand now.”

Tae Yi-rin calmly nodded.

“If you’re asking if I’m shocked… I don’t really feel shocked or anything like that. Rather, I feel relieved?”

“Huh?”

“You’re saying that everything my only twin brother showed at the press conference was all an act for ‘justice.'”

Tae Yi-rin placed her hand on her chest with a warm smile.

“He acted so thoroughly that he even deceived himself, even fooled his twin sister. He must have suffered so much emotionally. I feel so sorry for criticizing him.”

“Yi-rin, that—”

“I’ll apologize to him in person later. For being so mean to him. I criticized him for not being heroic, but he’s been living more heroically than anyone else in the world.”

“…You’re taking this, ahem, much more calmly than I expected.”

Tae Chae-jin leaned back in his chair with a relieved expression.

“I thought you would be greatly shocked. After all, Taejo has built up a certain image.”

“It’s fine. I recently experienced something even more shocking.”

“What?”

Tae Chae-jin jumped to his feet.

“Who? What kind of person?”

“……”

“Can you tell me? Is someone else hiding their identity, or turns out to be a hero, or something like that?”

“……”

Tae Yi-rin tilted her head with her arms crossed.

She seemed to be considering whether to speak plainly, but soon shook her head firmly.

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.”

“Not even to your brother, if not to me?”

“Yes. Especially if he’s Dark Taejo cooperating with the Syndicate. Rather…”

That’s why she needed to keep it secret from her grandfather.

“…I don’t want any information I know to accidentally reach the Syndicate.”

Tae Yi-rin barely swallowed those words and reassured her grandfather with something else.

“So you’re not involved in this matter, Grandfather?”

“…Taejo told me that the Syndicate requested his cooperation. He said if the Syndicate made a mistake and he became inextricably linked to them, I should boldly abandon him.”

“That’s…”

“Fortunately, that didn’t happen. And it won’t in the future. But even if it did…”

Tae Chae-jin tapped the mother-of-pearl nameplate on his desk.

“I would resign as president.”

“Grandfather.”

“It’s fine. Even in the worst case, I’d just spend a few years in prison.”

“Don’t say such nonsense. Why would you go to prison?”

“In politics, if someone wants to find fault, they can always find something. Especially in a situation like now, when we have an implicit alliance with the Syndicate.”

Tae Chae-jin pointed to documents on the desk with a serious face.

“Starting with the Red Cross, we’re planning to conduct a full investigation of private organizations and even people in the Ministry of Health and Welfare. We’re going to send everyone who took bribes from Haeguneul and participated in blood trafficking to prison.”

“…It’s a death list.”

“Yes.”

The documents contained detailed personal information about certain individuals.

“Anyone who took bribes or kickbacks from Haeguneul will be swept away on international blood trafficking charges.”

The materials showed suspicious money flows, and most cases involved people with assets far exceeding their reported income.

“As long as we have justification, we just need to wield the sword. Even if the execution ground is prepared by the Syndicate.”

“……”

“If we don’t do this, the Syndicate won’t act this way next time either. If a citizen police catches a thief and brings him to the police station, but the station chief removes the handcuffs and gives him taxi fare to go home, would the citizen police trust the station?”

“The scale suddenly narrowed. But citizen police? Grandfather, perhaps—”

“…Well, I’m speaking as the human Tae Chae-jin. Don’t worry too much. Are you going to report this old man?”

Tae Chae-jin shrugged and joked.

“Then let me prepare mentally. Resignation would be better than impeachment.”

“Don’t say that. Even if everyone else says such things…”

Tae Yi-rin clenched her fist and continued.

“We’re family. If family doesn’t take our side, who will? And don’t worry, Grandfather. I…”

Tae Yi-rin fidgeted with her hands and carefully opened her mouth.

“Even if I have to sacrifice myself, I will definitely protect you and my brother.”

“…Are you perhaps.”

Tae Chae-jin approached Tae Yi-rin with a serious face.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“……”

“Right?”

“…No, I don’t.”

No matter what.

“And even if I did, could I casually tell you about it, Grandfather? You’d try to match me up with that person somehow.”

“…So you don’t?”

“That’s right. If I ever come to like someone, I’ll tell you first, Grandfather.”

Sometimes.

Even with family, there are secrets one wants to keep.

* * *

“It’s been a while, unnie. I never thought we’d meet like this—me as the adulteress and you as the concubine.”

“……”

In the living room.

A freshly baked castella cake is steaming on the table, but its warmth is gradually fading.

“The first thing you say when we meet is calling me an adulteress?”

“It’s not wrong, is it?”

“Hey, you… Hyun Se-rin.”

Baek Seol-hee pointed her index finger at Hyun Se-rin and gritted her teeth.

“Are you acting like this because I didn’t lend you my dining table?”

“Unnie. Do I look like Ymir? Do you think I’m upset because you stopped me from being patriotic?”

“Why am I getting caught in the crossfire?”

Ymir, who had been quiet, took some stray bullets, but I ignored the pleading look she sent me and placed coffee in front of the three of them.

“Thanks. But it seems you matched my taste before even setting it down?”

“Of course I have to match my superior’s taste.”

“I’m not your superior.”

“In terms of rank, you technically are my superior, so it’s not exactly wrong.”

Hyun Se-rin gave me a thumbs up and held her coffee with both hands.

“Wow, look at her acting cute. At the scene, she chugs a 500mL water bottle in one go and then crushes and throws the bottle.”

“Unnie. Can I talk about when we fought in Gyeongju?”

“Even if you talk about that, it doesn’t particularly make me look bad, so I don’t mind? And Ji-hwan probably knows everything anyway?”

“……”

I silently drank my share of coffee.

“What? Why? Why are you making me nervous?”

“Actually, my memories of the past aren’t complete.”

“…What kind of weird joke are you trying to make now?”

“My brain might have melted from using too many abilities, and there are holes in my memory. This isn’t a joke.”

It might seem like a forced setup to add plausibility to my possession situation, but considering that this world’s original work is a nationalist light novel, it’s not a big problem.

“So I don’t recall past stories well. Especially things from a year ago, or even further back.”

More precisely, even if I investigate, I barely know anything unless it’s trivial or something I need to research like an academic paper.

‘It felt like studying modern history.’

After 2000, this world’s history is just the last chapter of a history textbook to me.

All the history I personally experienced and felt has been erased, replaced by supernatural abilities and Haeguneul. How could I study and remember all that history?

I would remember it.

But retrieving it appropriately for the situation and context involves some buffering.

Or I might not find it at all.

“It’s okay. Whether you two fought by pulling each other’s hair or not, you’ll all become ‘family’ now.”

“Are we the mafia?”

“I mean becoming one in the sense of being a real family.”

That’s the story for when the Syndicate uproots Haeguneul from this Korean peninsula.

“If things go wrong, you might have to give birth for us, Se-rin.”

“Ugh.”

“What’s with that ‘ugh’? …And Se-rin, why are you looking at Seol-hee with that expression?”

“Excuse me, Section Chief Do Ji-hwan.”

Hyun Se-rin raised her hand, addressing me with my full name, title, and formal speech.

“I’d be fine being born as Ymir’s daughter and becoming a patriotic parrot, but please avoid making me this unnie’s daughter.”

“Hey. What’s wrong with my daughter? I don’t want to raise a girl like you either.”

“I also plan to tell my niece not to grow up like unnie, but—”

“……”

I don’t particularly care how they fought, but they’ll probably make up after having a meal together anyway.

Surely.

“Teacher.”

Ymir calls me cautiously from across the table, sitting between the two.

“We’re not going to be patriotic, right?”

“If you want to be, you can, but at least not right now.”

I took out an object.

“If we’re going to do it, wouldn’t it be better to do it with new batteries? Both Se-rin and I.”

Faded gold accessories.

“Let’s give Taejo the used Managold and get new Managold.”

“…Is Managold that’s depleted of mana still called Managold?”

“If you plant it in the ground, the mana will recharge over time, so until then, we use new ones.”

Instead of artifacts depleted of mana, we receive “new items” from Taejo.

“Is Taejo a toad?”

“Yes.”

He’s a money toad.

“I taught him how to use external cores, so he should at least do this much for us.”