Chapter 988

I thought I would be nagged until we were done, but after a brief explanation of the situation, I suggested that we rest and come back.

The tigers had a sensitive sense of smell, so the scent that Kozuka Yashiro used seemed very irritating.

It seemed that just washing up wasn’t enough, and he was about to throw away his clothes.

“Instead of throwing away the clothes, I’ll prepare new ones.”

“Hmm, since my benefactor has been in danger and his clothes are useless, I guess I’ll have to prepare a lot of good clothes. These days, all the things that annoying rats make are suitable for the god of mourning… … .”

Hwang Ji-ho still hated Seo-dol, but he kept talking nonsense about how good his clothes were.

Now that I think about it, didn’t the couple prepare clothes for Neuru when they first met Andain?

Hwang Ji-ho and Seo-dol seemed to have very similar aesthetic tastes.

I thought it was half a joke, but while I was washing up and changing into the clothes prepared in the guest room, he really disposed of my clothes.

“Do you care where Baekho is? He’s burning the clothes you were wearing.”

Hwang Ji-ho, who was choosing clothes from a hologram catalog, said that.

Was the fox’s scent that strong that it burned perfectly good clothes?

I couldn’t detect it at all because my sense of smell was dulled by the proximity to the scent.

At that moment, there was a noise in the hallway, as if Baekho had returned.

“Let go!”

Baekho had Sanryeong’s neck grabbed by the hand.

Sanryeong struggled and tried to escape from Baekho, but he wouldn’t let go.

It seemed like Sanryeong was trying to play again and was caught by Baekho, but I felt sorry for Sanryeong because his silhouette looked like a child.

As if he had read that thought, Baekho-kun let go of Sanryeong, and Sanryeong quickly ran up and hid behind me.

Hwang Ji-ho asked with a short sigh.

“Sanryeong did something again. Baekho, what happened?”

“He tried to play with fire.”

“I asked him to join because I thought we were playing with fire… … I hate fire… … .”

“It wasn’t a game.”

Sanryeong, who had been scolded by the tigers, shut his mouth in fear.

Sanryeong seemed to be very bored recently.

Originally, Sanryeong used to play alone at Cheoniksan, but after he was almost caught by Kang Han-dam and Woo Gi-hwan’s gang, he had been refraining from hiking.

Eunho’s descendants, who were his playmates, had often left the mansion since they started going to school, and now that it was vacation time, the kids were busy exchanging messages or playing games with friends they made at school.

Also, the adult tigers are originally busy and haven’t been able to spend time with them lately, so Sanryeong must be very bored.

‘Baekho was bored alone, so he played a prank on them by asking them to play with him since he was burning something.’

I felt very sorry for them as I remembered them playing with the block toys I had bought them in a corner of the living room with their small hands.

I had a hard time teaching Eunseoho and Eunhoho to play the flute, so I bought them new block toys, but they had worn out quickly because they had been played with so often.

I wanted to play with the bored Sanryeong like a chimney, but I had a lot of work to do.

“Playing with fire is dangerous, so let’s do something else. Should I buy you a new block toy?”

“Really? Yes, buy it!”

Sanryeong brightly answered and was happy, as if she had never been so angry.

The tigers were tired of seeing Sanryeong change her attitude so quickly, but I felt a little relieved.

My younger siblings refused or were openly disappointed when I offered to buy them something instead of playing with them.

They showed that they wanted to play with me that much, so how great would it have been if they had reduced their sleep time to play with me?

I thought a lot about my younger sibling because Kozuka Yashiro was talking about his family.

“You didn’t get to train during the training camp at the Ginryenkan. I’ll train Sanryong.”

“What? No, I don’t want to!”

Baekho-kun showed Sanryong an unwanted kindness, perhaps because he had read his heart that he wanted Sanryong to take care of him.

Sanryong grumbled that he didn’t want to train, but he decided to leave him alone, thinking that it would be better for him to be trained by Baekho-kun than to be left alone.

Hwang Ji-ho said while watching this scene.

“Well said, Baekho. Sanryong, stop pestering the god of mourning… … No, I guess I should repay Sanryong’s favor by buying him something. Pester him a lot.”

It was useless talk.

It seemed like I was going to have to carry Neuru’s clothes, but it seemed like the burden would increase.

“It’s a good sign that the mountain spirit is gaining strength and regaining its identity. However, for a mountain spirit, it seems to have a strong ego. I’ve never seen a mountain spirit or heavenly spirit with such a distinct personality.”

“Hmm, the mountain spirit and heavenly spirit I saw a long time ago weren’t like that. Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen any other spirits besides the mountain spirit of Cheoniksan since the other-world conflict.”

“A lot of things changed because of the other-world conflict. It could be an aftereffect of that.”

Eunho said that, but it didn’t seem like he thought it was just because of the other-world conflict.

After that, Baekho-gun ordered the genius warrior to warm up in preparation for training.

The mountain spirit, surprised by Olmu’s genius, tried to run away, but couldn’t escape the genius pursuit and was dragged into the garden.

‘I also want to train with a genius warrior someday.’

I thought blankly and then met Baekho-kun’s eyes.

Baekho-kun didn’t laugh openly, but his eyebrows were furrowed.

Baekho-kun, who spends time with a genius warrior in the corner of the house every day, would never understand my feelings.

“Joeui-shin, come to your senses. Drink some tea and let’s talk again.”

“I think Eui-shin-hyung has a lot to say, so I prepared some good tea for your throat.”

Eunho, who was sitting next to me, offered Gilgyeongcha.

It was tea with bellflower and licorice, and since it was a tea that was good for your throat and was usually drunk during the transitional season, it seemed like he was really going to talk at length since he brought it out in the middle of summer.

I explained in detail why I had to meet Kozuka Yashiro.

“In the game, the mastermind manipulated public opinion to attack Joo Soo-hyuk. But now Kozuka Yashiro is attacking Andain.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“The difference was on Christmas Eve. There was no reason for Joo Soo-hyuk to kill Bang Yoon-seop, and soon after, Andain met her real parents and became connected with the clan. That must have been the reason why Andain was targeted.”

If my guess is correct, the person who attacked Joo Soo-hyuk in Plumago and the person who is currently targeting Andain are the same.

It seems that that person already had a history of instigating an attack on Min-green, and there was a high possibility that there was a mastermind behind it.

The mastermind made a new move to match the situation that was distorted by my move, and the result is what we have now.

“The way you are inducing public opinion and attacking is similar to when you were in Plumago. I felt like you were wielding the same weapon against a different opponent. It seems like someone gave the Japanese team that weapon.”

If that’s the case, Japan must have gotten their hands on the weapon early this year, and since it hasn’t even been a year, they probably don’t have much trust in it.

Since it’s useful, they might have used it, but they might have prepared to throw it away so that they can cut it off at any time?

If the mastermind had taken control of the Japanese national team and was already beyond their reach, it would be a different story, but judging from the way Arihara Tomoaki ran wild and Hirano Seiji resisted passively, it didn’t seem like that.

“It’s just as you explained last time. You wanted to use that fox to make direct contact with that weapon.”

“Yeah, if you don’t do that, it’ll be hard to check the board.”

“That’s why you did something so dangerous. When I heard that you went to the fox den, I prepared to surround that hotel.”

Did the clan do something like that?

At that time, Hwang Ji-ho was in the middle of facing the Chinese national team, but since he could use his clones, he could prepare for something like that.

Even if Kozuka Yashiro had prepared to start a war using that hotel as a starting point, he knew that since this was a silver mine, he could be attacked by the clan at any time.

Hwang Ji-ho asked quietly.

“Why did you go there alone?”

Fortunately, he was able to answer that question confidently.

“I didn’t go alone.”

“I went too.”

“… … Yes, the two of them did go. Only Jo Ui-shin directly contacted the fox.”

Hwang Ji-ho tried to nag, but fortunately Baekho-gun intervened a few times, so the conversation didn’t get too long.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell him, but it seemed that the white tiger wasn’t without a conscience.

In fact, I was more worried about Eun-ho saying something than Hwang Ji-ho.

However, Eun-ho held back and occasionally poured tea again, but didn’t say much.

Eun-ho opened his mouth after Hwang Ji-ho’s short nagging.

“There was a big problem, but it ended safely. Above all, it was fortunate that Eun-ho acted together with Baekho-hyung.”

“It was surprising that Jo-ui-shin called Baek-ho. Well, he must have spoken to Baek-ho because he didn’t want to bother me. Baek-ho had let Jo-ui-shin go to the underworld because he asked him to. It seems he chose the tiger who would listen to his request.”

He must still be thinking about Baek-ho-gun letting him go when he went to the underworld.

Hwang Ji-ho accepted it and moved on, but Eun-ho didn’t.

“Did Ui-shin really talk to Baek-ho-hyung?”

He didn’t say anything.

Baek-ho-gun read my mind and barged in.

It was a sharp question, but Baek-ho-gun just escaped.@@novelbin@@

“If Jo-ui-shin didn’t want it, he wouldn’t have gone with me.”

“Of course. That doesn’t answer my question.”

… … Did Eun-ho notice something?

As a younger brother, I couldn’t help but find it strange when I saw Baekho-kun laughing so much these days.

That was Baekho-kun’s karma, so I decided not to care.

Hwang Ji-ho looked at the two and then started picking a fight with me for no reason.

“Hahaha! Jo Ui-shin, if you want to prevent brotherly fights from now on, you should tell me and Eun-ho in advance.”

“We didn’t fight.”

The two firmly denied the word fight.

Hwang Ji-ho laughed a little longer without caring at all about being denied and said,

“I want to laugh more, but I have to stop because I have something important to talk about.”

I wondered why he was laughing so much when there was such an important topic, but Hwang Ji-ho brought up something that really needed to be talked about right away.

“The Knight of the Earth Tremor, one of the three knights’ oaths and the Grand Cross, has contacted us. Bringing up the plague issue was effective.

“There it is.”

* * *

‘Neuru’s’ Korean headquarters.

In the office, Seodol received a report and beamed.

“The secretary of Hwangmyeong Group visited the store? He asked for a custom-made suit instead of a ready-made one? I’ll adjust it myself, so give me the size.”

As Seodol began to speak politely, the subordinates who had been waiting left one by one.

Unlike the subordinates who left, Seodol was even happier after checking the size.

In the end, only the rat that had reported, the rat in charge of security, who didn’t have much significance, and Seodol were left.

“This is Jo Ui-shin’s size. I checked it with my eyes when I saw him before. I guess Hwangho is going to give him a gift. I should give him my gift as well.”

“… … Is that so?”

The two subordinates reacted soullessly to Seodol’s monologue.

It was when they were timing their exit from the office and thinking of excuses.

Suddenly, Seodol checked the device and opened his eyes even wider.

It was an ominous sign for his subordinates.

“Oh my god, do you know who the message is from right now?”

“… … I have no idea.”

“… … I don’t know either.”

The two subordinates sighed.

It was because it would be even harder to get out if they spoke like that.

Seodol said what he wanted to say without caring at all about his subordinates’ attitudes.

“It’s a message from Hwangho. It’s been a long time since Hwangho contacted me first.”