Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 320

320. Why Are You Both Acting Like This?

Meng Wu-shin had already heard from the Archpriest that he would be ‘inviting someone,’ so he had been constantly curious about who the Archpriest would bring.

He was worried that the Archpriest might bring someone arrogant and obnoxious as a superior. He didn’t like arrogant superiors, especially those who were also tattletales. So, he needed to figure out who he was dealing with in advance.

No matter what kind of superior came, as the Archpriest’s closest aide, he couldn’t avoid seeing their face. But…

“Rembrary?”

Meng Wu-shin muttered in a small voice. The person the Archpriest brought was that unexpected.

Rembrary. The most talked-about person on the internet these days. Not only did he defeat a terrifying monster with a ‘nunchuck’ [a traditional Okinawan martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks connected by a chain or rope], but he also ‘nunchucked’ even the national hero, Woo Yeon-woo, on a public broadcast. A bizarre eccentric.

He handled criminal Awakened Ones without even touching them, and every action he took was a topic of conversation. A crazy hunter. No, a hunter trainee.

The Archpriest brought such a person, unexpectedly.

News that Rembrary was coming to Redrine had already been circulating on the internet for hours, but Meng Wu-shin had been busy with other things and hadn’t seen it. Thanks to that, he was only now surprised.

In any case, since this newbie was still a newbie, Meng Wu-shin quickly asked as the Archpriest approached.

“Archpriest, what exactly is this trainee’s position?”

“Position?”

“His rank.”

“?”

“You went out saying you were going to invite someone.”

Meng Wu-shin pointed at Rembrary with his eyes and turned to the Archpriest. He had gone out to invite someone and then brought Rembrary, so he meant, ‘Isn’t Rembrary the person you invited?’

“….”

That was true from the Archpriest’s perspective when he first got in the car.

But less than five minutes later, Rembrary had informed the Archpriest that he would not reveal his identity. But now that Meng Wu-shin was openly asking who Rembrary was, the Archpriest was in a difficult position to answer.

“A newbie with a high potential to rise to a very high position in the future.”

Even so, when he managed to answer somehow, Meng Wu-shin’s eyes narrowed. Why is he talking so strangely?

‘Anyway, my position is higher than his right now, right?’

Meng Wu-shin had watched Rembrary’s interviews twice. The interview when he started , and the interview when he appeared on another broadcast with Woo Yeon-woo. Both times, he was extremely arrogant.

Meng Wu-shin thought Rembrary was a difficult person to control. Difficult people were uncomfortable as superiors, but as subordinates, they tended to anger their superiors.

Let’s put him down a bit now before he gets too cocky. Meng Wu-shin quickly made a decision after finishing his recollection and gave Rembrary some advice with the demeanor of a senior.

“You’ve been on TV a lot, newbie. Are you thinking of becoming a broadcast hunter?”

“?”

“Well, whether you go as a broadcast hunter or just a hunter, I’m your senior, so treat me with respect. Got it?”

Rembrary was smiling because he was glad to see Meng Wu-shin again in his own way, but when Meng Wu-shin spoke to him, he was even more pleased and answered gently.

“It seems like you don’t appear on TV at all, senior. What’s the matter?”

Meng Wu-shin, whose activities as an actor had already decreased due to the reduced frequency of drama and movie shoots these days, immediately frowned.

“What? Are you picking a fight with me right now?”

But when Rembrary smiled even more happily at that response and said, “You’re still the same, senior,” Meng Wu-shin flinched. What? Why is he happy at this timing?

Besides, ‘still the same.’ It’s like he’s known me from before. Meng Wu-shin asked with a sullen expression.

“Do you know me?”

“I used to be a fan of yours.”

“A fan? You were my fan?”

Meng Wu-shin felt a little better when Rembrary said he was his fan. What? He’s more affable than I thought.

His words are a bit rude, but still, amidst the rudeness, there seemed to be some affable green sprouts showing.

Meng Wu-shin coughed unnecessarily and asked.

“What about me is still the same?”

“Your attention-seeking tendencies.”

“!”

As Meng Wu-shin glared, the Archpriest quickly and politely covered Rembrary’s mouth and turned his body to the side.

“Archpriest, what is this bastard?”

Meng Wu-shin was dumbfounded and pointed at Rembrary with his finger as he asked the Archpriest, but the Archpriest couldn’t answer easily.

The Archpriest remained silent, looking back and forth between Meng Wu-shin and Rembrary. If he sided with Rembrary in this situation, the discipline would be disrupted, and if he scolded Rembrary, it was something he couldn’t dare do to the High Priest.

But if he scolded Meng Wu-shin, Meng Wu-shin hadn’t really done anything wrong. He had acted a bit arrogant when he first introduced himself to Rembrary, but it wasn’t in a quarrelsome tone.

In the end, the Archpriest hesitated and told Meng Wu-shin a bit of the truth.

“Wu-shin, Rembrary came from a distant foreign country, so his values are a bit different from ours.”

“What kind of values are those that make him start a fight from the first meeting?”

* * *

‘I have to seize the initiative.’

After the Archpriest took care of Rembrary and left the place as if running away, Meng Wu-shin, left alone, firmly resolved.

‘The Archpriest likes that guy. If I don’t get a hold of him in advance…….’

If he was amiable, or even if he wasn’t amiable but had a normal personality, there would be no need to suppress him.

But that Rembrary guy was cocky even though he was a newbie, and he started a fight with the other person right away. If that type wasn’t suppressed now, he would later climb on top of his head and order him around, telling him to ‘do this, do that.’

And probably, with a high probability, the target would be…….

‘Damn it. No way. It can’t be me. I’m the Archpriest’s closest aide. Why would I listen to that guy’s orders?’

But his instincts kept telling him. Prepare for the worst in advance.

Yes. There’s no harm in being careful about this. Meng Wu-shin, having made a decision, quickly got into his car and, while looking at the navigation, headed to the Redrine headquarters in a different direction from the usual route the Archpriest took.

But instead of going inside the headquarters, Meng Wu-shin called a hunter affiliated with Redrine from a place about 10 minutes away.

[Hyung-nim [Korean honorific for older brother or respected male], are you coming? What’s going on?]

“Lee Bum-ah. A newbie named Rembrary is going to enter there later, with broadcasting people.”

[I’m already cleaning because of that right now. They told me to make the floor shine so the image would sparkle when it’s broadcast. But what about that?]

“Listen carefully. That newbie Rembrary. He might not be a real believer.”

After 3 seconds of silence, a shriek was heard from the other side of the phone.

[Yes? Really?]

The person on the phone was Lee Ho-ribum, a hunter affiliated with Redrine whose real name was Ho Yi-bum, and one of the few who knew that Meng Wu-shin was the Archpriest’s closest aide.

Moreover, he was a fanatic who even Meng Wu-shin, who had been in the Honghwa Brigade for quite a long time, thought was a bit extreme. That’s why Meng Wu-shin called Ho Yi-bum. Because Ho Yi-bum was a fanatic.

[No, why is he coming here if he’s not a real believer?]

“He might be coming to Redrine to stir up aggro because of the broadcast.”

[That son of a bitch!]

“He might not be.”

[Should I leave out the ‘son of’?]

“Anyway, so you should check his ideology well. If he’s coming into Redrine to stir up aggro, you have to stop him. People already look at us strangely, and we might be treated as an even weirder cult group. Right?”

[That’s right. Then what should we do? Should I grab him by the collar and shake him?]

“That would make Redrine’s image look bad.”

[Then what should I do?]

“So. Without using force, you should carefully examine his ideology. And if you think he’s not a true believer, tell me right away.”

After the call ended, Meng Wu-shin smiled as he hung up.

“The Archpriest brought him, so of course, he’s a real believer.”

Meng Wu-shin just hoped that the arrogant newbie who started a fight from the first meeting would be chased around by an uncontrollable fanatic for the time being. Wouldn’t that soften his arrogant personality a bit?

* * *

At that time, Kim Mu-rok, who had taken on the impromptu pilot program to fill the vacancy of the missing PD Gu Ju-ho [PD stands for Production Director, a key role in broadcasting], was just parking his car in the parking lot in the basement of the Redrine headquarters.

“PD-nim!”

Several staff members who had been waiting in the parking lot after hearing that he had almost arrived were very happy to see Kim Mu-rok. Kim Mu-rok wasn’t a good person, but in this situation, he was a reliable veteran.

After the main PD, who was the center of gravity, suddenly disappeared, everyone was very anxious inside, although they didn’t express it. Kim Mu-rok, who appeared at that time, was a great help to the production team just by his presence.

However, as soon as he got out of the car, Kim Mu-rok scolded PD Shim, who was in charge of AD [Assistant Director].

“How many times did you have the camera taken away? Are you even saying that?”

PD Gu had talked to PD Shim several times while driving this way, and at that time, Kim Mu-rok asked if there was any usable footage taken at Worldboom.

In response, PD Shim tattled, “We took a lot of provocative videos, but Shin Jo-woon appeared every time and cut them all off on his own. What was broadcast was actually mostly B-cuts [unused or secondary footage].”

That was the part that Kim Mu-rok was angry about now.

“Why did you just give it to him when Shin Jo-woon asked to see the camera?”

PD Shim, who hadn’t told this story to get scolded, made excuses in frustration.

“How can I not give it to him when a high-end hunter asks me to hand it over?”

And decisively, it wasn’t him who had the camera taken away by Shin Jo-woon. It was the cameraman and the missing PD Gu Ju-ho.

But after saying these words in detail, it seemed like he was just becoming petty, so PD Shim didn’t bother to tell the story of the two.

Kim Mu-rok snorted and pressed the car key lock button, urging.

“From now on, just broadcast anything that seems like it in real-time. Then there’s no way to erase the video even if they delete it.”

“Yes? But that’s against broadcasting ethics…….”

“The world has changed twice, and you’re still sticking to the old ways?”

“!”

“That’s why you can’t keep up, you guys. It’s a world where you can see people dying just by opening the window, and strange pillars are pouring down from the sky, and there are casualties because they can’t avoid it. At least the broadcast has to be more provocative than that, right?”

* * *

Unaware that he was being targeted simultaneously from both inside and outside, Rembrary was feeling good for the time being.

“Wow, the view here is great, Archpriest!”

It was thanks to the Archpriest giving him the room with the best view in the Redrine headquarters. Rembrary looked out the open window and sincerely admired it several times.

There were no such tall buildings where Rembrary lived. Rembrary didn’t know if it was because of a lack of technology or simply because he didn’t like such buildings, but there weren’t any anyway. So, he couldn’t help but feel excited and like it when he got a room in such a high place.

But Rembrary was looking out the window for a while when it happened.