Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 364

Rembrary and Shin Joong-woon hurried over, drawn by the commotion, only to find a chaotic scene unfolding.

Joo-kyung was in tears, while Si-young was red-faced and panting.

“Why are you two already fighting?” Rembrary asked, surprised. “You seemed to be getting along just fine a moment ago.”

Joo-kyung, with trembling lips, pointed an accusing finger at Si-young.

“She’s cheating!”

Si-young’s eyes flashed defensively.

“No, *she’s* the one cheating!”

Cheating? Rembrary was completely bewildered.

“Cheating, you say?” he repeated, trying to understand.

They both seemed deadly serious. Joo-kyung, her voice thick with tears, explained, her small shoulders shaking.

“When I asked her how old she was, she said she’s seven, but born in July!”

“So? What’s wrong with that?” Si-young retorted.

“I said I was a bit older because I was born in May, but then she got all confused and *lied* that she was born in March!”

“I really *was* confused!” Si-young insisted.

Joo-kyung puffed out her cheeks. “Well, *I* was born in January!”

“I was born in January too! January first!” Si-young declared triumphantly.

“You liar!” Joo-kyung shrieked.

“You’re a fibber!” Si-young shot back.

Rembrary was momentarily speechless, struggling to decipher the logic of seven-year-olds.

He couldn’t exactly step in and arbitrate who was telling the truth, mainly because Rembrary himself had no idea. He couldn’t tell which of them was actually lying.

But the two children, realizing they had reached an impasse, immediately rushed to Rembrary, each grabbing a hand and whining.

“Who’s right?”

“Who’s older in the eyes of the angel?”

“I’m taller, so I’m older, right?” Si-young pleaded.

“What does that have to do with anything!” Joo-kyung countered. “My dad is younger than my mom but taller!”

Shin Joong-woon, who had been leisurely pouring water and arrived at the scene a bit later than Rembrary, found the situation highly amusing. He leaned against the doorframe, sipping his barley tea and watching Rembrary navigate the children’s quarrel with undisguised interest.

The Rembrary he knew was remarkably self-centered. He was curious to see how such a person would handle the stubbornness of children.

But Rembrary, surprisingly, answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“Just be friends. Wouldn’t that solve everything?”

However, both children rejected this suggestion almost simultaneously, their faces screwed up in distaste.

“We’re not just becoming friends, we’re becoming family,” Joo-kyung stated firmly.

“Even twins decide who’s the younger sibling,” Si-young added, as if that settled the matter.

*These kids are sharp.* It seemed a bit forced, but it made a certain kind of sense. Shin Joong-woon admired their tenacity inwardly and looked back at Rembrary, wondering what he would say next.

But Rembrary, again, answered immediately, without any sign of deliberation.

“When you’re confused, the stronger one is the older one.”

*I knew it,* Shin Joong-woon thought with a chuckle, taking another sip of water. *Of course, he’d resort to that.*

Si-young, a fairly strong Awakened [a person with supernatural abilities], puffed out her chest and boasted, “Then *I’m* the older one!” and strutted around with an air of superiority.

On the other hand, Joo-kyung was sulky and pouting, feeling that Rembrary hadn’t taken her side, especially since he had known her longer. She grumbled under her breath that it was unfair.

But the real issue was yet to come.

“So, I’m the older one,” Si-young declared again, emphasizing each word.

“!”

Shin Joong-woon choked on his water, coughing violently. He managed to keep from spewing it out in an unsightly manner, but his neck turned bright red from the force of his coughing fit.

*What is that now…?* He was dumbfounded and wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, staring at Rembrary with wide eyes.

However, Rembrary, having apparently solved the problem to his own satisfaction, had already moved on. He was now patting the two children on their backs, his expression one of forced cheerfulness.

“Alright? Stop fighting now. If you fight too much, you’ll end up like Ardor.”

Unfortunately, the example Rembrary chose to appease the children was a spectacularly bad one.

Si-young, completely unfazed, shouted without a care, “I don’t mind being like Ardor *oppa* [an honorific term used to address an older brother or male friend]! Ardor *oppa* is super strong!”

On the other hand, Joo-kyung, who had heard many unflattering stories about Ardor while living in the training center dormitory, immediately recoiled in disgust.

“What’s the point of being strong if you have a terrible temper?”

And with that, as soon as Rembrary had managed to (temporarily) calm them down, the second round of their argument began.

“Have you even *seen* Ardor *oppa’s* temper?”

“Do I need to see it to know? Everyone says he’s awful.”

“You don’t know anything if you haven’t seen it! You’re full of… full of… prejudice?”

“He’s famous for having a bad temper. He shoots people with guns and stuff. Shooting people makes you a bad person.”

“That’s what happens when you talk back! You get screwed over!”

Shin Joong-woon, who had been laughing at the children’s bickering, choked on his water *again*. He really needed to be more careful.

Rembrary also frowned this time, his expression darkening.

People tend to use a lot of swear words when they’re in crisis. Even so, most people would at least try to filter their language when there are young children present. It seemed that Joo-kyung, having grown up in a dangerous environment where people died frequently and her own existence was nearly erased, had absorbed the swear words used by adults without any such filter.

On the other hand, Joo-kyung, who had grown up hearing relatively proper and refined language, was flustered and just moved her mouth without saying anything.

Rembrary was deep in thought, wondering what to do when a child uses rough language, while Mulu and Ardor were looking at Rembrary with eyes full of trust. Three-oh-five, unable to recognize or remember Si-young, was fearing, ‘Is that Joo-kyung girl crazy? Why is she muttering to herself?’ Shin Joong-woon looked back and forth at these awkward family members and became a little worried.

*Will they be able to get along with this group?*

* * *

Shin Joong-woon had insisted on including his own room in the new house, but he didn’t actually live in it.

The house in a good school district that Rembrary wanted was a bit far from WorldBoom, making it difficult to commute from Rembrary’s house to WorldBoom every day.

Because of this, Rembrary was constantly eyeing Shin Joong-woon’s room, wanting to take it for himself, but Shin Joong-woon would remind Rembrary that he was the owner of that room and that house whenever Rembrary let his guard down.

“Why doesn’t the boldness of taking back the envelope you gave ever change?”

“People should be consistent.”

“There’s no need for it in situations like this.”

Jang Tae-ri, of course, made a fuss when she heard about Rembrary’s new house and brought her luggage to Shin Joong-woon’s room.

However, Jang Tae-ri only did that in action. She was busy with her own company work, so she only left her luggage and didn’t actually stay there.

“To leave a perfectly good room like this.”

Thanks to that, Rembrary’s dissatisfaction doubled. Still, except for that point, the new family members gathered around Rembrary were getting along relatively well.

The two children still fought often, but they made up as quickly as they fought, and they became so close that they were always together when they weren’t fighting.

Although they had grown up in different environments, the two children were actually in similar situations. One had to find her mom, dad, and sister, and the other had to find her two younger siblings.

The two kind and smart children quickly became as close as real sisters.

There were a few incidents where Ardor tried to steal Mulu’s position as the commander of the Holy Knights and tried to turn Rembrary against her, only to be chased away by Chang-dae. Mulu, who had less knowledge of this world than Rembrary, caused minor accidents. Also, Three-oh-five, who always forgot about Si-young no matter how many times he was told, only gave snacks to Joo-kyung, which made Si-young angry and caused him to be hung from the ceiling. But otherwise, they were generally harmonious.

As the new family members were getting used to each other, Dae-ju’s secretary finally contacted Rembrary.

[I found it! There’s a non-city [a rural area outside of urban centers] where giant pterosaurs are taking people away!]

“Why did it take you so long to find it?”

“…There’s a lot of misinformation and exaggerated rumors because there’s so much information. We can’t go to every place where there are rumors, so it took this long to narrow down the ones that seemed trustworthy.”

“Your excuse was quick to find.”

“……”

“So. Where is the location?”

* * *

Rembrary initially intended to leave right away. However, after learning that the distance was much farther than the non-city where Maengwoo-shin was found before, he decided to take the Lion Lord with him this time, no matter what.

“I’ll take the Lion Lord and go straight there, so you should go there first with Maengwoo-shin.”

However, since too much time had already passed, Rembrary ordered Ardor to go there with Maengwoo-shin.

“I will go with High Priest.”

Even though she didn’t know who Dae-ju was, Mulu said she would go with him, but Rembrary asked Mulu to stay at home.

“Three-oh-five can’t see Si-young. He doesn’t even know she exists. So, I need you to stay and mediate well in the middle.”

“But I……”

“And you’re also learning about this world from Three-oh-five.”

“I will.”

After that, Rembrary went straight to the non-city where the Lion Lord lived, and then urged the Lion Lord, who wasn’t ready yet and wanted to stay holed up, to go to the non-city where the giant pterosaur was said to appear.

The place was called a non-city, but it was actually like a rather large rural village.

While the Lion Lord was sitting on a platform and buying Korean melon [a type of sweet melon popular in Korea] from an unmanned gazebo, Rembrary called Maengwoo-shin to ask where he was.

“Why isn’t he answering?”

However, Maengwoo-shin didn’t answer the phone. Thinking he might be driving, he called Ardor, but it was the same. Just in case, he called Dae-ju, but Dae-ju also didn’t answer the phone.

Rembrary stared at the phone, which kept ringing emptily, and urged the Lion Lord.

“Lion. We need to find that pterosaur quickly.”

*Is this a similar situation to when Dae-ju was in danger?*

But while he was in a hurry, the Lion Lord didn’t seem to want to move, so Rembrary, feeling a little impatient, climbed up the gazebo ladder and called the Lion Lord.

“Lion. Ardor isn’t answering the phone. Something must have happened, so we need to go there quickly.”

“Where is ‘there’?”

“It must be that mountain over there. There are no big buildings here, so the only place where a giant pterosaur could nest is there.”

However, just as the two people came down from the gazebo and were about to move, a person presumed to be the owner of the gazebo came hobbling over. After hearing Rembrary’s situation, he was startled and warned him.

“That mountain? You’re going to look for a pterosaur? Don’t do that. It’s better not to go.”

“That pterosaur took three of our party. We’re not going to fight the pterosaur, we’re just going to bring those three back, so it’s okay.”

Rembrary didn’t take the gazebo owner’s warning very seriously, but the gazebo owner waved his hand with an expression that said, ‘This guy doesn’t know anything.’

“Almost all the hunters who came looking for a dinosaur-like monster disappeared. There’s a strange smoke that comes out there, and that smoke is a problem.”

“Smoke?”

“It seems like there’s a strange smoke that comes out near the pterosaur’s nest. And if you breathe in that smoke, your memories get mixed up with the other people there.”

“Memories? Are you saying souls are switched?”

“No, I mean memories get mixed up. I don’t know the details. I just heard it from someone else.”

“…Still, I have to go. If you’ve heard about the exact location, please tell me.”

The villager clicked his tongue but told Rembrary several places where the pterosaur’s nest was presumed to be, as he wanted.

While moving, the Lion Lord and Rembrary talked to each other about whether what the gazebo owner said seemed true.

The Lion Lord answered firmly, “No.”

However, as soon as they arrived at the place the gazebo owner had told them about, Rembrary immediately felt that something was wrong.