Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 305

305. Now I Can Talk

If someone else had asked that question, Rembrary might have pretended not to know. The people here are very wary of monsters, and it was better to avoid anything that could lead to misunderstandings.

‘I guess she missed me a lot.’

But Jung Seo’s eyes, as she asked the question, were so full of longing that Rembrary couldn’t flatly deny it.

Besides, even when Rembrary was living as ‘Woo Yeon-woo’ before the separation, hiding his powers, Jung Seo was trustworthy and taciturn enough to keep her mouth shut without asking any questions, even though she must have been curious. So, wouldn’t it be alright to tell Jung Seo?

“Don’t you think I’m strange?”

Still cautious, Rembrary asked again, and Jung Seo smiled faintly, as if she had heard something absurd.

“You were always strange.”

“……”

“What happened? Why did you suddenly… split?”

The hidden cameraman’s eyes grew even wider.

‘Split!’

What was that supposed to mean?

Having only come along to film a fight scene, the cameraman couldn’t understand the conversation between Rembrary and Jung Seo at all.

The only thing he was sure of was that the conversation they were having was very important.

‘Wild Animal fans would be interested in this too.’

But just as it seemed like more important conversations were about to unfold.

“Let’s go inside and talk.”

Rembrary abruptly broke the mood. He raised his hand, patted Jung Seo’s arm, and started walking ahead, suggesting they go into his room.

‘No! Talk here!’

The cameraman shouted inwardly, but Jung Seo obediently followed Rembrary.

As soon as the two of them were completely out of sight, the cameraman quickly took the camera off his shoulder and checked what he had filmed so far.

‘Damn it, I should have heard the rest!’

The conversation and the people having it were well-recorded. Seeing this, the cameraman regretted not hearing the rest even more, and he punched the air with his fist for no reason.

But what’s done is done. Instead of just regretting it, he grabbed his camera and quickly got up.

‘I need to show it to the PD [Production Director] and ask what to do.’

* * *

“Jung Seo knows Rembrary? No, how did that happen?”

PD Gu took the camera from the cameraman and excitedly asked, checking the recorded video through the viewfinder.

“I don’t know. I was trying to listen, but he avoided the spot.”

“No, you should have followed him and listened instead of just coming back?”

“I would have been caught. Rembrary, that trainee, is unbelievably strong.”

“Strong, yeah right. All he knows how to do is eye-gouging.”

“Exactly. He even eye-gouged the great Woo Yeon-woo on live broadcast. That’s what makes him scary. Isn’t it scarier to have someone who can eye-gouge you right in front of you than someone who secretly catches monsters?”

“True. He’s crazy enough to do that.”

PD Gu half-listened and half-replied to the cameraman’s grumbling, focusing only on the recorded video.

“Wow.”

Then, as the video reached the point of the problematic conversation, he widened his eyes and brought his face closer to the viewfinder, muttering.

“What is this? What were these two?”

PD Gu was also curious about the conversation, so the cameraman excitedly began to recite his pre-prepared hypothesis.

“Like how a woodcutter’s hidden fairy becomes a human. Rembrary was originally a sloth, but Jung Seo gave him a lot of tomatoes, so he became a human……”

“Would he have changed?”

But PD Gu didn’t like the cameraman’s hypothesis at all, looking at him like he was crazy and scolding him.

“Is he a bear? A bear who ate garlic?”

The cameraman mumbled embarrassedly.

“Monsters are born from frog eggs too. A sloth who ate tomatoes could become a human……”

It was actually true, but still, a monster coming out of a frog egg and a sloth turning into a human after eating tomatoes seemed like different realms, so PD Gu decided to ignore the cameraman’s hypothesis.

But his expression was still bright. He kept flipping through the screen, chuckling and muttering.

“Anyway, it’s a complicated relationship. This is enough to create an amazing narrative.”

Then, belatedly, he gave the cameraman a thumbs up, saying, “Good job,” and the cameraman, who had been sulking ever since his hypothesis was ignored, finally looked a little relieved.

But suddenly, PD Gu jumped up, and the cameraman straightened up and asked.

“Why?”

“Why do you ask? Let’s hide this quickly before CEO Shin comes. Why, that guy, before he suddenly appeared from behind…….”

But before he could finish speaking.

“Speak of the devil.”

Shin Jo-woon really appeared.

“C, CEO Shin!”

PD Gu shouted in genuine surprise. He wasn’t exaggerating at all; his heart almost dropped. The man appeared so suddenly without a sound.

Even so, PD Gu quickly hid the camera behind his back. Unfortunately, the action looked too unnatural.

“Will you show me?”

In fact, even if PD Gu had naturally hidden the camera, Shin Jo-woon wouldn’t have been fooled. He had already seen everything from afar.

But PD Gu, unaware of this, felt like it was all the cameraman’s fault and that it was his awkward arm movement that caused this, so he felt depressed as Shin Jo-woon smiled and held out his hand.

“Um, CEO Shin…….”

Just as he was about to try to persuade him, frost began to form on Shin Jo-woon’s politely extended hand, so PD Gu had no choice but to laugh awkwardly again and hand over the camera.

“It’s nothing. It was really nothing.”

“Then I can watch it quickly.”

But PD Gu had a history of trying to broadcast content that wasn’t helpful to Rembrary, and Shin Jo-woon had a history of catching it.

Not forgetting what happened then, Shin Jo-woon said he would ‘watch it quickly’ but carefully checked each video one by one.

Then, when he checked the problematic sloth remark that both the cameraman and PD Gu thought ‘there was something there!’

‘Sloth?’

Shin Jo-woon’s expression hardened coldly.

* * *

At that moment, Jung Seo, who had entered the room where Rembrary was staying, looked around for no reason, repeatedly wrapping and unwrapping her arms around her knees.

“Is it because it’s unfamiliar?”

Rembrary asked with a smile, seeing her like that, and Jung Seo answered, “Yeah, a little,” scratching the bridge of her nose before quickly adding.

“But it’s less unfamiliar than before.”

“Before?”

“When you lost your memory.”

“Ah.”

Rembrary remembered when he first woke up in Woo Yeon-woo’s body—the tremendous confusion at that time. But now that he thought about it, it all felt like a memory, and Rembrary burst into laughter.

However, Jung Seo continued in a somewhat lonely voice.

“And when you regained your memory.”

It was an unexpected remark. That meant that when Woo Yeon-woo returned to being Woo Yeon-woo, Jung Seo felt even more unfamiliar. In terms of years known, Woo Yeon-woo and Jung Seo had known each other longer, but it was strange that she said she felt unfamiliar.

“You felt unfamiliar then too?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“You weren’t really close to ‘Woo Yeon-woo,’ were you?”

Jung Seo, for her part, was surprised again when Rembrary referred to Woo Yeon-woo as if he were a complete stranger, even though she had asked first.

Seeing that, Rembrary was about to regret ‘Did I reveal the truth unnecessarily?’ when Jung Seo erased her surprised expression and carefully asked.

“But really, how did you guys split? Was Yeon-woo’s personality divided into two? Is one of them you? Where did you get the body?”

Jung Seo seemed to have imagined something like science fiction after hearing Rembrary’s situation.

Rembrary, realizing that Jung Seo recognized him but was still slightly misunderstanding, frowned and muttered.

“What should I say about this?”

“Tell me. No matter what you say, I’m on your side.”

“Really?”

When Jung Seo nodded carefully, Rembrary thought it was pointless to deny it now that things had come to this, so he just told her honestly.

“Originally, I am a person named ‘Rembrary.’ I didn’t get another body after being Yeon-woo’s personality. This is originally my body.”

“Originally…… your current form?”

“Yes. But I switched bodies with Woo Yeon-woo. I was in Woo Yeon-woo’s body, and Woo Yeon-woo was in my body. Of course, at the time, I didn’t even know that Woo Yeon-woo had entered my body.”

Jung Seo’s eyes widened in two stages.

“Bodies…… switched? Is that possible?”

“I didn’t know either, but it’s possible.”

“Brain?”

“Bwain.”

“?”

“Is that a trend?”

“No, I was asking if you switched brains.”

“No, what switched was the soul.”

“Soul……? Souls exist?”

“There are evil spirits and ghosts, so wouldn’t there be souls?”

“Is that so? I guess so. It seems like it.”

She seemed a little more surprised by the soul part, but still, Jung Seo accepted it faster than expected, so Rembrary felt relieved but also strange.

‘That kid doesn’t seem to care that I was inside Woo Yeon-woo’s body.’

“Yeon-woo knows too? That you…… switched bodies with him?”

“He knows. He doesn’t like it very much.”

“Yeah. It seemed like it.”

Jung Seo recalled Woo Yeon-woo shuddering and hating the story that he resembled Rembrary—the video she watched in real-time. Even in that video with Woo Yeon-woo, a strange atmosphere kept passing between the two.

Jung Seo hated Woo Yeon-woo, but now she could understand why Woo Yeon-woo reacted that way back then.

“You?”

As she was thinking that, Rembrary asked this time.

“Huh?”

“Are you okay now? That I once lived in his body, pretending to be him?”

In fact, this was the reason why Rembrary couldn’t tell Jung Seo, who was the closest to him among the members when he was living as Woo Yeon-woo.

Rembrary thought that if Jung Seo knew he was a stranger who had entered Woo Yeon-woo’s body, she would hate him very much.

“You said you switched.”

“?”

“It’s not like you switched it willingly. I saw you being confused the whole time. What could you have done in that situation?”

However, Jung Seo was more indifferent to Woo Yeon-woo and more grateful to Rembrary than Rembrary thought.

“Jung Seo…….”

“No matter what body you were in at the time, you were the one who helped me, and I’m your believer. You know that, right?”

Rembrary felt choked up when Jung Seo said that.

“Are you serious?”

Jung Seo was the first to understand after hearing all the circumstances. In fact, apart from understanding or anything, there weren’t even any ‘people’ who properly knew about this situation other than the parties involved, Woo Yeon-woo and Rembrary.

“Of course.”

But Jung Seo, who was originally a calm person, felt embarrassed by Rembrary’s sparkling eyes, so she changed the subject, looking around the room with a straight face.

“Then what were you originally?”

‘She can accept everything about me.’ Rembrary was just thinking that, so he was moved and revealed his complete identity to Jung Seo.

“I was a High Priest.”

“A High Priest?”

“I was the head of the clergy.”

“You said you were going to become a monk. You were really a clergyman?”

This time too, Jung Seo took Rembrary’s story seriously.

“Jung Seo.”

Rembrary, who was looking at all of that, suddenly lowered his voice solemnly.

Jung Seo thought, ‘Why is he being like this?’ but answered seriously.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to become my believer?”