‘Wait. Don’t tell me I accepted the wrong request.’
Rowoon felt unease come rushing over him.
After accepting it, he had thought it was nothing much, but the nightmare of the second request, the one that had gotten him cut off right at the entrance, came to mind.
If Kang Chaheon had not happened to pass by there that day, Rowoon might already have departed from this world.
Come to think of it, why had that man even been there?
[Tsk, tsk. That is why you should have accepted a request carefully selected by this body. Never forget that direct transactions that do not go through a brokerage platform always carry these kinds of risks.]
It felt like something strange had been slipped into that statement.
But in any case, once he had already accepted it, it was too late for regrets.
Now that he had accepted the request, whether it turned out well or badly, he was in a situation where he had to do his best.
“Surely you, a sacred divine beast and all, wouldn’t actually give me some trashy request to stalk a human, right? I understand that you’re desperate enough to cough up blood, but if that desperation is stalking, that would be pretty seriously troubling…”
[Your inner thoughts are coming out of your mouth right now.]
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
Iho looked at the two of them with a dumbfounded expression.
“No, there’s no way I’d do anything strange to that child, is there? Even making sure she only walks on flower roads wouldn’t be enough. What? A crime?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“You don’t believe a single thing I’m saying right now, do you?”
He had been caught?
“Haa. Since you have no intention of listening even when I explain, making you understand is impossible from the start. To begin with, there’s no way I’d leave only you to watch over that child. I’m going with you. And I’m the kind of person who can live without laws, I said!”
Iho let out a sigh and continued.
“There’s no helping it. You’ll have to try this yourself to understand. Just do it first. Do it, then decide. If I’m really making you do something strange, I’ll cancel the request.”
Seeing him go this far, he really did seem confident.
[Good. You cannot take those words back. Once the card is down, there are no takebacks!]
“Call.”
In an instant, a deal was struck between everyone except the person directly involved.
After, they decided to watch for now and a few hours passed.
“So… this is kind of like an escort duty?”
Fortunately, it was not the worst-case scenario he had imagined.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? I told you I’m someone who can live without laws.”
What Iho had done over the past few hours was nothing special.
He used his spiritual power to slightly move branches so that sunlight fell better on the place where the elderly woman was sitting.
Or he made a gentle breeze blow.
Only little things like that, doing his best for the elderly woman’s comfort, continued every now and then.
[You… really waste your spiritual power on useless things, don’t you? And you’ve become quite skilled at using power on the surroundings just subtly enough not to get caught.]
Even Cheonghwa, whose eyes had been burning with determination to cancel the request, clicked their tongue at those small and trivial uses of power.
“But Iho-nim.”
“Hold on. If possible, could we do something about that ‘sir’ title?”
Instead of answering, Iho went off on a tangent.
“It sounds like other people would think it was strange if they heard it.”
This entire situation was already strange enough, so Rowoon had no idea what he was worried about.
“Well, you can call me hyung if you want.”
“That’s a bit…”
The soul of the K-Confucian boy sleeping inside him twitched.
Calling someone who was not just a few years older, but centuries, even millennia older, hyung?
His soul could not possibly accept that kind of twisted genealogy.
“I’ll just call you Iho.”
“…You’re a strangely firm kid, aren’t you?”
“Anyway, Iho. Now that I’ve seen it, I know this isn’t anything weird.”
“Right? I told you.”
“But why exactly do you need me? From what I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ll be any help at all. It’s not like I have amazing power like you do.”
He was relieved that it was not something illegal.
But like this, he could not shake the feeling that he was somehow freeloading.
‘The time restriction is a bit harsh, but isn’t this basically free?’
Rowoon’s conscience prickled.
Because of the influence of his previous life, Rowoon loathed free riders, so he could not become one himself.
“What are you talking about?”
“Um, it just seems like this much is something you could handle perfectly well on your own, Iho.”
“If I could handle it alone, do you think I would have searched all over the place for you like that? You absolutely have to be there. If I call you only when you’re needed, it’ll be too late.”
“Pardon?”
Cheonghwa was like this too, but mysterious beings were sometimes so mysterious that the things they said were difficult to understand.
While Rowoon was looking puzzled, Iho tapped him lightly.
“Now.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s now. Go quickly.”
“Pardon?”
It was a low, urgent prompting.
“I’m telling you to go now. Over there. Hurry!”
Before Rowoon could ask anything more, he was pushed forward from behind.
The moment he took a step in confusion.
Rowoon felt the density of the air surrounding him change.
It seemed he had left the special barrier Iho had created.
‘I have no idea what’s going on.’
Rowoon straightened his awkwardly positioned body.
Then he began walking slowly, as if he were someone who had come out to the park for a breath of fresh air from the start.
It was a relief that, after acting a few times, this did not seem too awkward.
‘At this rate, I’m going to run into that person.’
At first, Iho had used some special ability to hide them from people’s eyes, saying it would be troublesome if they were discovered.
But now he was making Rowoon run into the person they were guarding.
‘I have no idea what he’s thinking.’
As Rowoon walked slowly, the elderly woman across from him rose to her feet.
She closed the book she had been reading in the sunlight, as if she now intended to return.
‘Is he saying this person is leaving now? Even so, I don’t know why he sent me.’
Though puzzled, Rowoon kept his expression composed and pretended nothing was wrong as he was just about to pass beside the elderly woman.
Tok!
A very small, unpleasant sound tickled Rowoon’s ear.
There was a tiny gap between the neatly laid paving blocks.
It was the sound made when the tip of the elderly woman’s cane struck that gap.
It might have been nothing to someone else, but it was different for someone whose body was uncomfortable enough that she had to use a cane.
A balance thrown off for even an instant soon led to a major accident and injury.
No, it almost did.
‘Oh no!’
If not for the hand Rowoon reflexively reached out with.
Since she had nearly fallen face-first, it was a situation where something truly serious could have happened.
“Are you all right?”
Startled, Rowoon immediately supported the elderly woman and checked her condition.
Fortunately, he had caught her properly, so it did not seem like she had fallen or hit anything.
Rowoon, who had been letting out a breath of relief, suddenly froze.
‘Don’t tell me he predicted this?’
There was no way Iho, who cherished this elderly woman so terribly, would have sent him over for no reason.
‘…Now that I think about it, every target of Iho’s power was not this person herself, but the area around her.’
Even the fact that the elderly woman’s outerwear looked a little loosely fastened and cold was like that.
Just as he had moved the tree branches, he had not moved the hem of her clothing directly. Instead, he had used an indirect method, making the sunlight fall more warmly on her.
‘So that’s why he sent me? Because he predicted this situation?’
“Oh my. I’ve troubled you. Thanks to you, I’m fine. Thank you.”
The elderly woman straightened the cane that had caught in the gap and thanked Rowoon.
Just then, a woman came running from far away.
“Grandma! Seriously! I told you not to go out alone! Why couldn’t I reach you? I told you to keep your phone on!”
The woman quickly approached and supported the elderly woman, scolding her in a tone that did not sound unkind.
“I told you, when you go anywhere, go with me! You almost got into big trouble just now. What would you have done if not for this person?”
“I know our Yunseo is busy. How could this old lady do that?”
“If you get hurt, I’m the one who’ll have a harder time, okay?”
It sounded like she was scolding her, but her voice was overflowing with concern and affection for the other person.
No matter how one looked at them, they were a close grandmother and granddaughter.
Only after carefully finishing her check of the elderly woman’s condition did the woman turn toward Rowoon.
“Anyway, thank you so much. Thanks to your help, my grandmother was able to avoid getting hurt… huh?”
The person who had been bowing widened her eyes.
“Uh, uhhh?”
Then her words trailed off, and a strange exclamation popped out instead.
It was obvious that she recognized Rowoon.
“Do you know him, Yunseo?”
“No, um, that’s not it. Grandma! Don’t you know this person?”
“Hm?”
“He’s the person we talked about! The person I said would suit the role of Haemuk!”
“Hm? This is that person?”
The elderly woman blinked as she looked at Rowoon.
A pair of nearly identical faces stared intently at Rowoon.
‘Haemuk? What is that supposed to be?’
He could not understand at all what they were talking about.
“Right? He looks like him, doesn’t he? He’s perfect, right?”
“You’re right. You were right, Yunseo.”
“See? Then if it gets dramatized, you have to do what I said.”
“I told you, that’s still unknown. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to finish it properly… I’d be too embarrassed to put it out into the world like that.”
“Why wouldn’t you finish it? Grandma, you’re going to live until a hundred and twenty.”
The rapid, whispered conversation ended with the granddaughter called Yunseo brightly getting angry.
‘…Getting angry while saying something like that. Should I say she’s deeply filial?’
In any case, it was certain that they seemed close.
Rowoon watched the sight with a slightly envious feeling.
“Um, if it’s all right, I’d like to treat you to a meal… Ah! I absolutely don’t have any ulterior motives!”
The granddaughter hurriedly waved her hands, insisting that she had no ulterior motives.
“I’m the type who just watches from afar, so there’s absolutely no other meaning! It’s only out of gratitude for saving my grandmother…!”
“It’s all right. It’s not as if I did anything remarkable.”
Strictly speaking, the one who had helped this elderly woman was not Rowoon, but Iho.
‘I only did what he told me to do.’
He did not want to do something shameless, like stealing credit for someone else’s goodwill.
But whether they interpreted that differently, the pair of identical faces wore strange expressions that looked both pleased and proud of him.
Fortunately, the two did not hold Rowoon back any longer.
“Still, I feel too sorry sending you off like this.”
Beside the elderly woman, who sounded regretful,
“Grandma. At times like this, it’s right to let him go. They say you shouldn’t carelessly get close to a natural monument.”
The granddaughter sent Rowoon away with words that were hard to interpret.
Seen off with thanks from the two of them, Rowoon walked out of the park naturally, just as he had at first.
And then.
“Well done.”
Before he knew it, Iho was smiling in front of him.
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