Black Badger - Chapter 362



Only Noblemtl

362. Absolute Loyalty (1)

I didn’t want to hear it.

But you have to listen.

He nodded, his mouth shut and his gaze averted.

Yoon laughed with a cigarette in his mouth, as if his true feelings were clearly revealed.

I asked a question as I heard the clicking sound of a Zippo lighter.

“That, that’s not the kind of story that minors shouldn’t hear, is it?”

Yoon looked at me with an expression that seemed to indicate that he was seeing something funny.

He blurted out, a smoking cigarette between his fingers.

“then?”

ah!

I covered my face with my left hand, which was not holding the cigar.

He muttered without raising his head.

“Then honestly, I don’t want to hear it… No, I have to hear it. Ah… If it’s true, please filter it out and tell me, please…”

“You’ve been an adult for over a century, so why are you doing this?”

I shot him a resentful look.

He must be quite the talent to make me want to go into that damn shack.

I didn’t even want to explain, so I just gave him a blank look.

The shooter stared at me through a cigarette in his mouth.

“Not that kind.”

Thank you, World Watchdog.

“I’m so glad….”

“Are you so relieved?”

“So how did you know?”

He changed the subject right away.

Luckily, Yoon noticed me. He pretended not to notice my deliberate change of subject and exhaled smoke from his cigarette.

Cigarette smoke disappears into the bluish air.

“This happened when I was Ohara.”

“… That was back then.”

So, back when Yoon and Jae-yeon were engaged… .

Yoon ignored my withered eyes and continued speaking.

“As you may have heard before, Jae-yeon, who had transformed into Ohara at the time, really liked me. It happened one day when I was trying to ignore that attitude.”

“That fact itself is quite interesting, but I won’t ask any more questions.”

“I don’t want to bother explaining it. Anyway, I don’t know why he did it, but one day he said something unusual. Maybe Ohara’s feelings for me were getting stronger?”

I smoked my cigar vigorously.

As I inhaled the toxic smoke deep into my lungs, I felt like I could hear the story a little better.

Be that as it may, the sociopath shooter has said what he has to say.

“He suddenly told me his Korean name.”

“yes?”

Suddenly a Korean name?

“If you think about it, Jae-yeon is a Korean name.”

“Ah. So you were trying to tell me that your real name is Jae-yeon.”

Isn’t it great?

Did you really love me?

But, this is a method that I cannot apply.

I looked at the shooter with a blank expression, and the shooter blew out smoke.

“Yes. And he actually told me his name. I didn’t think much of it until then. Neither Ye-hyeon nor I knew who Jae-yeon was or what he did.”

“Ah. Yes. Now that I think about it, that’s what it must have been.”

“I didn’t think much of it until he wrote his name in Chinese characters.”

chinese character?

When I was puzzled, Yoon gave me a rough explanation of the Chinese characters and the name.

I nodded, having roughly understood it. I thought it would be easier to think of it as the meaning contained in the name.

“That Chinese character was the problem.”

hmm?

“To be exact, the meaning contained in the Chinese characters.”

“Did the meaning seem strange?”

“It is a Chinese character that means to try again to do something or do something that was done once.”

“yes?”

“It wasn’t a name, it was a word. The Korean noun form of ‘재연하다’ is ‘재연再演’.”

It was only then that I realized the situation and my jaw dropped.

“Re-enactment” means performing again.

“…Jaeyeon didn’t know that fact?”

“I don’t know about that. Anyway, when I pointed that out, it got really crazy.”

After saying that, Yoon looked into the air and chuckled.

It’s funny when you recall past memories.

What an amazing person you are, you can still laugh while recalling the story of the money being thrown at you.

The man spoke without even looking at me, who was standing there in admiration.

“Have you ever seen his personality change?”

“no.”

“It’s a sight worth seeing at least once in your life. The exterior hasn’t changed at all, but it feels like someone hiding inside has burst out, tearing through Ohara’s skin.”

Throughout the explanation, Yoon had eyes that seemed to recall the past and was snickering.

“I heard that after seeing that, you became interested in psychiatry. It was so interesting to see someone going crazy right in front of you.”

“Don’t you think the flow of thought is a bit strange?”

“Don’t you know what the point of this story is?”

I inhaled a cigar.

After exhaling a heavy puff of smoke, he spoke slowly.

“Jaeyeon’s name wasn’t even his own.”

“Yes. And that is the biggest complex of that being.”

Yoon lowered his head and laughed heartily.

It was a strangely eerie laugh.

If I were an ordinary person, I wouldn’t have laughed when talking about this topic.

“To the extent of breaking out of your own persona. Do you understand now? Poke at his complex. If you shake the emotions of the pretended being while simultaneously provoking Jae-yeon’s complex, something might come out. If that’s the real Jae-yeon.”

“What happened after that?”

At that time, Yoon probably hadn’t even received a transplanted body.

How did you handle Jae-yeon, who was so excited that he broke out of method acting?

“They shot the anesthetic gas.”

You weren’t even a soldier, so why did you have anesthetic gas?

“And then he disappeared the next day. The next day, the war broke out.”

ah.

So Jae-yeon, who was ‘Ohara’, tried to tell Yoon that she was Jae-yeon.

Because I knew that war would break out the next day.

I impulsively decided to give you my name because I don’t know when we’ll meet again.

Suddenly, Jae-yeon’s words that she, Ohara, had been sincere came to mind. It seems that there was not a single lie in those words.

Yoon might have been indifferent.

I’m glad I was indifferent.

“Thank you for the advice.”

He flicked the shortened cigar with his fingers.

“I should probably go in now. I asked Jack to take care of the protocol, and he’s been out for quite some time.”

“Ask me about dimension travel too.”

Yoon said, ashen smoke flowing out from between his lips.

“Whether it’s Jaeyeon or the Emperor, it doesn’t change the fact that he came through the portal in some strange way. Although there was a time difference, he came out of the portal like you, but unlike you, his memories are intact.”

That’s a reasonable point.

I looked for an opportunity to ask a question, said I would definitely ask, and went into the cabin.

The emperor sitting on the bed raises his head.

Kairos, who had been kneeling before the emperor and saying something, turned his head.

The servant on the second floor got up after receiving the emperor’s permission and came down to the entrance.

It was heartbreaking to hear that my father had died in a war with the Empire, and yet I had no choice but to ask him to take care of the ceremony.

As if he knew that, Kairos squeezed my shoulder before leaving the cabin.

Milk, who was sitting on his shoulder, cried and waggled his tail.

Bye!

“good night.”

I gave Milk a light kiss.

“Listen to your father carefully.”

Beep! The reckless reply comes back.

I smiled broadly and went up to the second floor.

***

I made breakfast and served it, and then I heard a word from the emperor.

“The knights ate a diet that placed the highest priority on nutrition.”

I wasn’t stupid enough not to understand that he was just saying it tasted bad.

While I was feeling sad, I received a message from Ami saying, ‘Contact me if you’re running low on food!’

So I discussed the lunch menu with Ami. Today, TF was off duty, and as far as I know, Ricardo woke up late in the morning on his off duty day.

I was worried that she might still be asleep, so I asked Ami for help with the lunch menu.

[The hamburger I bought for Hilde before!]

The hamburger was passable in terms of taste.

But he seemed to think that the hamburger itself was uncomfortable to eat.

The protocol is too difficult.

I would rather have been an escort. The Emperor was a sensitive person no matter what, and I had always been a very indifferent person, so I was not good at this kind of etiquette.

But if you ask You, who is as sensitive as the Emperor, to perform a ceremony, You will go crazy.

This time, it might turn back irreversibly.

Igor is less talented at protocol than I am….

So, as soon as 2 o’clock passed, I sent an SOS to my careful senior.

I asked if he was awake and soon after, I got a phone call.

Messiah….

[How are your knees?]

That’s what the senior in the green light said as soon as he got the call.

I laughed bitterly.

“It’s still okay.”

[You called because of food?]

“How did you know?”

Ricardo just chuckled.

Are my cooking skills that hopeless?

Before I could even think about asking, Ricardo started asking what the food in the empire was like.

I rolled my eyes and sat lost in thought.

“First of all, something like Lexic Noodles….”

[Are you serious?]

He asked me back so coldly that I was momentarily frightened.

It was true.

I couldn’t answer honestly, so I answered in a dazed state.

“I’m joking.”

[Thank goodness…]

too bad.

But I didn’t have the courage to answer that question, so I just described other dishes.

There was bread, noodles, and rice… What kind of spices did they use? The taste was similar to what we have here. There was also salami… What? How did they make the salami? I don’t know about that…

I started to sweat profusely as questions like, “Do I really need to ask this?” came flying at me.

My senior got frustrated whenever I gave vague answers.

“I’m sorry. But does the taste differ a lot depending on the type of cheese…? I just know that it has cheese in it….”

[You probably won’t be able to cook…]

After that, either giving up on me or asking as many questions as I wanted, Ricardo sighed deeply and started rattling off restaurant names.

That list was really helpful. The Emperor didn’t say much about the food he had packed for dinner.

Actually, I couldn’t really taste the food.

I need to make a decision quickly and go see Bingryong.

Will things be sorted out in two weeks? I had a lot of questions to ask the Emperor. I decided to just take a quick look around and ask one question a day.

But on the second day, I couldn’t ask anything specific.

“You used to talk in your sleep.”

“sorry.”

“Who is Adam?”

I hated my mouth for mumbling my name in my sleep.

“Is there anyone among your knights with that name?”

He vaguely said that he was the son of a subordinate he cared about and changed the subject.

I was grateful that he didn’t ask any more questions.

Let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t call Kyle’s name.

I brought him some water, thinking I should look up how to stop snoring.

Four days passed like that.

***

Nothing much happened for four days.

The cramped cabin must have been stuffy, but the Emperor never once said anything about leaving and got along well. He continued to wonder about the toilet and the shower, and Tig still insisted that it was like a bug.

Sometimes he would send me out and call in You and Deltey.

There is no need to report to me what was said at that time. When the Emperor gave permission for You and Deltey to step aside, they would come out of the hut and approach me with uncomfortable expressions on their faces.

And despite my protests, he told me that there was nothing in particular I needed to know.

It was truly a blessing. They must know that saying such things is considered disobedience.

In Deltay’s case, he bit his lips and apologized for not being able to convey in detail what he had said inside.

“I told you, it’s really okay.”

“No… I’ll keep trying.”

Deltey said, chewing his lips.

“If something important comes up, I will definitely… I will definitely tell you.”

The pivotal turning point came on the night of the fourth day.

The emperor, who was not in better health than I, usually went to bed before ten o’clock.

That day too, I was preparing for bed. I brought water to the bedside table, adjusted the cabin temperature, and closed the curtains.

I also spread out a blanket on the first floor for myself.

And as I was about to say that I was turning off the lights, the Emperor called me.

He came over and told me to raise my head as I knelt down.

“Tell me about the one who gave you orders.”

I kept a calm expression.

“As I said, I am the leader of a group that has formed a temporary alliance. I am cautious when making decisions, and prefer to move step by step rather than making big moves. Other than that, there is nothing special about me.”

“Is it his intention to block information and keep me from leaving this place?”

ah.

“Are you feeling suffocated? I’m sorry I didn’t notice you. I’ll show you outside tomorrow.”

“Commander of the Knights.”

The emperor bowed.

He grabbed my chin with his ring-marked hand.

“Did you know that being in this position gives you the ability to notice unpleasant things?”

There is no emotion in the mumbling voice.

But it was so cold that it made my neck stand on end.

“When you see people kneeling before you for decades, you develop a special ability to discern.”

“your majesty?”

“For example, the difference in the look in the eyes of those who entrust their decisions to others and those who do not.”

Her vivid blue eyes stare at me as if piercing through me.

Eyes that cannot be read.

My old master looked down at me, unable to open his mouth.

“There is no burden of decision in absolute loyalty.”

The hand holding my chin became stronger.

ah.

“You are no longer my sword.”

Making excuses won’t help.