Chapter 376

Chapter 376

Eat The World Tree.

Episode 376: Cornus Subjugation (4)

[Resignation Letter]

Hair as yellow as a chick, eyes holding spring inside it.

A girl who was gentle but already famous in the family for her clear-cut personality.

She, sitting in the office, tilted her head.

“…This kind of matter is out of my jurisdiction.”

Sansuyu’s two embarrassed eyes swept across the face of the bowing man.

“Out of jurisdiction, you say?”

“I’m saying it’s not something I decide, Secretary Seong Jiho.”

Clearly and distinctly.

She didn’t stutter like other children her age, and she handled tasks that she didn’t have to.

A precocious genius of a type never seen before.

It was foolish to hand in a resignation letter to the person being escorted, even though ther wass a separate department in charge.

Seong Jiho blushed and hurriedly reached for the resignation letter.

“I, I’m sorry.”

“Just a moment?”

As Seong Jiho reached for the resignation letter, it slipped out from under his hand on the table.

Sansuyu, taking out the well-wrapped paper and reading it, blinked again and looked at Seong Jiho.

Sansuyu scanned Seong Jiho’s face beyond the letter.

“Personal health reasons… doesn’t seem to be the case?”

Of course, it was natural since he just brought the basic form as it was.

Seong Jiho frowned. His condition wasn’t good enough to write a resignation letter one by one.

“Was it a problem with the salary?”

“……”

When there was no answer, Sansuyu nodded and put her chin on her hand, ‘Hmm…’ and pondered.

She spread her thumb and index finger to make a V and put it on her chin, causing her cheek fat to curl up.

Her golden eyes looked here and there.

“Did you sleep well today? You have dark circles.”

“Yes, no…. Yes, I slept a lot. I’m fine.”

“Really? Hmm…”

Why was the person who used to be so benevolent being so picky today?

He needed money. He was in a position where he had to go through S-class dungeons or anywhere else to get life allowances.

Loans had already been maxed out.

Sansuyu’s questioning was very unpleasant to Seong Jiho, who was mentally cornered.

“I… miss, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this job anymore.”

His face was covered in beard.

The person who was standing upright just last week had turned into a dying face.

He hadn’t washed, so his complexion was pale, and his hair was matted.

You could mistake him for being sick, but it was the face of someone exhausted from too much worry. She knew that.

Sansuyu spoke to Seong Jiho, who was frowning.

“…Can I hear your story?”

“Yes?”

In Seong Jiho’s eyes, who raised his head, Sansuyu’s face was visible.

It was a strange face.

Not just a face that sympathized, but an attitude that clearly observed and tried to solve this situation.

It wasn’t a look you could see on a young child’s face.

He knew that the miss was unusual.

There was no way anything would change even if he talked about his own situation.

Seong Jiho clenched his fist.

He was so tired he was dying, and she was telling him to put it into words.

He thought Sansuyu’s bright smile was annoying, which was a shameful thing he would carry for the rest of his life.

“That’s…”

After a long silence, he finally told his story.

The fact that his mother and father were suffering from a rare disease with an unknown location, and they could die if they didn’t undergo surgery.

And that it took an unimaginable amount of money to treat it.

Sansuyu, who heard that far, gave Seong Jiho a small smile.

“I see. So you’re quitting your secretary job.”

“Yes…”

“Then I’ll talk to my father.”

“……Yes?”

A cheerful word.

Seong Jiho’s eyes trembled at the thoughtless gesture of kindness to himself, who was still lacking in skills.

“I’ll recommend that you receive treatment from the Cornus family’s direct medical staff. Don’t worry about surgery or hospitalization costs. Isn’t this all employee welfare? Ahem!”

“No, yes?”

At this unusual attitude, Seong Jiho’s face turned pale.

He shook his head.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but… I don’t know why you’re going so far for me.”

“It’s okay, Secretary Jiho?”

“I don’t know if I’m that capable… that’s…”

“It’s okay.”

Seong Jiho’s arm stiffened at the word that came out of that young age.

“If just this small help adds one big strength to our family, what can’t I do?”

Words he would never forget until the moment he died.

“Miss…?”

“Secretary Seong Jiho, you’re sincere, so I don’t think you’re the type to forget favors.”

Then she smiled brightly like a child.

“I’ve been praised by my mother for having accurate eyes, you know?”

“……”

Whether the action is calculated or emotional, he didn’t know.

The miss didn’t spare anything to help others.

Even though he knew that, it was different when he experienced it himself.

Why help him?

Did she really think he was helpful to the family?

He still made mistakes often because he hadn’t been here long.

He had even caused trouble a few times.

He was just a high-ranking hunter who could use a sword or a fist.

What was the point of doing him a favor?

“Now, cheer up and lift your shoulders! Okay? Everything will be fine. Aja aja.”

“Excuse me…”

“If it’s a salary issue, let’s work together to figure it out. Hehe.”

Sansuyu, who followed with a childlike face and her hands behind her back, grabbed Seong Jiho’s elbow.

“It’ll be fine without any big problems, I’m sure. Don’t worry too much.”

Ah.

This was why people liked her.

Looking up at him with her head tilted, that young face gave the illusion that a small light was seeping out like a woman from an old classic.

Shortly after the conversation with the miss.

Seong Jiho, who was working as usual, saw Sansuyu sitting on a swing and wiping away tears.

Sansuyu and her mother.

A gentle voice soothing Sansuyu, who was sitting side by side on the swing and crying, could be heard behind the window.

“Are you okay?”

“……”

He didn’t know what she was thinking, but Seong Jiho hid himself.

Maybe the reason she was crying was related to him, and he had no reason to see her.

She wasn’t crying loudly, but she was wiping away tears one after another.

“Mom. I got scolded again.”

“Again? Hehe. Why this time? Did Dad bully you again?”

“Yes. He told me not to make unnecessary trouble….”

Sansuyu got off the swing with a sullen face.

“My secretary… you know. His family members are sick….”

“Ah, I see what’s going on.”

Her mother, who hugged Sansuyu with a bright face, spreading her arms.

Sansuyu, hugged in the bright yellow fabric, smiled in comfort.

“Our Sansuyu did a good thing.”

“But I get scolded all the time. I made a lot of mistakes last time too.”

As she kept stroking the bright yellow hair, the miss, who closed her eyes, smiled pleasantly.

What kind of image did the madam see in the miss?

A genius who did everything well without being told?

A daughter born from an unwanted marriage?

What Seong Jiho could confirm from watching her was a docile woman with sufficient maternal instinct.

“Mom thinks our Sansuyu is doing well.”

“…Mom always thinks differently from Dad.”

“Your dad is just incompetent, hehe.”

“Am I doing well?”

“Then~ Suyu is much better than Dad. That’s the world Mom lived in. You have to treat people as people. People who see people as tools always have a bad end.”

-Blink, blink.

Sansuyu, not understanding the meaning, tilted her head.

“Someday it will all come back.”

“Really?”

“Of course~ If our Suyu lives like this, she can do anything.”

Watching the woman holding her daughter even as she rots from disease, Seong Jiho turned his back and hid himself from view.

“Why did Suyu try to help the secretary?”

“It’s not helping. It’s natural…. We’re the employers.”

“Oh. The labor union would love to hear that? Hehehe.”

He had nothing to say.

Seong Jiho leaned his back against the wall and slowly sat down on the floor.

“……”

He slowly exhaled the breath he was holding.

The sigh of breath that finally came out felt unusually weak and hot.

His throat hurt.

A distant consciousness. Above his vision, a rotten rope slowly descended.

Locked tightly inside the bark of an old tree, even if he tried to pry open the gap, it still didn’t reach.

Wet mud smeared his hands, and he was suffocated by the lack of oxygen.

The blurring horizon was a vertical line drawn with red thread.

On the blood that spread more and more on the wet floor, the miss’s eyes were trembling.

“There’s a limit to repaying kindness with enmity. I picked up and raised a lowly guy, and you’re sharpening your knife?”

The voice that was heard burned his mind.

“The wish is right in front of us, Sansuyu.”

“…Jiho? Why… why?”

“If you’ve come to your senses, don’t just sit there blankly and follow me.”

-Twitch.

Did his body think he’s already dead? His muscles trembled like rigor mortis.

His vision blurred.

-Secretary Seong Jiho, you’re sincere, so I don’t think you’re the type to forget favors.

“Keuheub, kahak!”

Blood burst out of his mouth.

As the miss, who was being dragged, reached out her hand, he turned her head with all her might.

It was the miss’s face, who still didn’t understand the situation.

All the senses in her body were so dull that she couldn’t feel emotions well. He knew that.

He had been watching the miss change little by little from the side.

She was stunned in situations where she should be angry, she didn’t cry, and she didn’t know how to make a friend, so she got sulky.

She didn’t know how unfortunate she was now, and she didn’t understand why they were worried.

Without knowing what she was doing, she whipped herself for no reason, asking why she was doing this to herself, and endured a journey of unmotivated suffering.

“Keuheuh, hehehe.”

The miss’s had been broken for years.

“You fucking bastard.”

At his squeezed word, San Hyukwon turns to look at him.

Eyes that looked at him like lowly trash. He always looked at him like that until he could do his job properly.

He turned his creaking head. His body cried out that he couldn’t take it anymore, but he managed to do it.

The miss’s expression looking at him was different from usual.

If it weren’t for that painful face, he might have been happy that her expression had changed in years.

Memories flashed by like a panorama.

The two facts that suddenly came to mind were that he had spent half of his life with the miss.

“……”

And that he couldn’t do that anymore.

[This is a rough map of the inside of the bunker.]

[If intruders come in, they’ll gather around this area… The problem is blocking them at this gate.]

[Shiheon.]

[Please.]

-Bang!

At the same time as the explosion, the electricity stopped.

Not only electricity, but also the mana that was enveloping the bunker stopped.

‘Did Seong Jiho do it?’

If so, now was the chance.

Watching the hunters who started to gather to chase the intruder, Taeyang stopped his running legs.

Taeyang, who slowed down at the first gate, held his breath in his lungs.

“Go.”

Three forks in the road. Taeyang gestured to me, gathering mana with a dagger from his pocket.

From now on, I ran along the path of the rough map that I had received and memorized in advance, with my strength fully reserved.

[Master… do you really have to reward them?]

Eleonore and Lucy blocked the way at the second gate, and

Finally, Aori closed the door at the last gate.

Aori, who opened the door wide, saluted and smiled, and I went inside the door.

The innermost part.

As soon as he crossed the gate, he stopped his legs and looked back.

Aori, who closed the door with a grunt, gave him a thumbs up through the door gap.

“King. Go do it as planned.”

There was nothing I had to worry about now.

Taeyang, Aori, White Ant, Lucy, and Eleonore.

They would find a breakthrough and escape on their own, and I just had to bring Sansuyu out.

-Kung!

-Squeak.

The ceiling returned as the lights came back on.

In the brightened place, white smoke rises.

“Who are you?”

A man narrowing his eyes and reaching for his sword hilt.

He knew the names and appearances of those identified as dangerous people.

S-class hunter.

78th among hunters excluding those in the highest realm.

Swordmaster·Cadriel

“San Hyukwon.”

“What?”

“Where is the head of Cornus?”

He transformed mistletoe into leather gloves.

He briefly felt the texture of the leather wrapped around both hands and clenched his fists.

Cadriel’s eyebrows narrowed and sword energy poured out of his hand.

“You’re an intruder. I don’t want to kill a fellow hunter, but I’ll make sure you go as comfortably as possible.”

I walked forward.

-Flash!

At the same time as a flash of light occurred, the long, white sword body that stretched out was torn to pieces.

“…What.”

At the same time as the single cry, the man’s neck was bent and he fell down with the shattered fragments.

Blood spurted from the entire body of the man who opened his eyes.

“What, happened….”

I lightly dusted off my blood-stained hands.

-Crack.

A stimulating sound rang out from the bones of my whole body, which were not yet adapted to the speed and strength.