Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 471

471. A Secret of Birth

Definitely a sardine.

Convinced, Rembrary began to move forward stealthily.

“Rembrary? Where are you going?”

Duran, who had been watching, widened his eyes and asked.

Instead of answering, Rembrary gestured for Duran to be quiet.

Duran involuntarily shut his mouth.

In the meantime, Rembrary continued to move forward.

“Hey, come on. Don’t push!”

“Hey, watch it!”

“I said, don’t push!”

“Who keeps pushing?”

Duran frowned as he watched Rembrary’s progress, which was not quiet at all, but still steadily moving forward.

‘What’s wrong with him all of a sudden? Is he trying to get a good spot?’

* * *

Shin Jo-woon, unaware of what was happening behind him, watched the performers on stage with shining eyes.

‘One of them must be the ‘Grand Master’ who kidnapped Rembrary.’

It was impossible to tell who the Grand Master was just by looking at them.

But he would find out after the performance during a private interview.

Shin Jo-woon sat like a sculpture, only blinking occasionally as he watched everyone who came on stage.

“Hey, don’t push.”

“Seriously, watch it!”

Although it was a bit noisy behind him, he didn’t even turn around.

Then.

“Let’s dance together!”

Several performers on stage shouted at the same time and jumped down to the stage.

Not just saying it, the performers started grabbing some of the audience and pulling them up onto the stage.

People were embarrassed and made excuses, saying, “Oh, I can’t,” “Oh, I can’t dance,” but the performers kept pulling them.

The people who were dragged up kept saying they couldn’t, but in fact, the performers were taking people who would respond appropriately, so they didn’t run away.

Even in the midst of all this, Shin Jo-woon didn’t move.

Some performers noticed Shin Jo-woon, who stood out, and briefly considered ‘Should we take him?’, but sensing a stern atmosphere even in the dark, they immediately turned around to find another target.

The performers also refused to take people who didn’t dance and just stood there bleakly.

Because it would break the atmosphere and flow of the stage.

In fact, Shin Jo-woon knew this psychology, so he maintained a blank expression.

So everyone except Shin Jo-woon laughed and chatted.

The companions of the people who were dragged onto the stage were even more delighted to see their companions embarrassed.

Only Shin Jo-woon didn’t laugh and maintained a blank expression. Until he found red-eyed blonde on stage.

“?”

Shin Jo-woon, who had been sitting coldly, thought he was seeing things.

He quickly rubbed his eyes, lowered his hand, and looked at the stage again.

No matter how he looked at it, it was Rembrary.

Rembrary, held by two performers, was smiling with a face that seemed to say, ‘Oh dear, oh dear.’

When Rembrary came on stage, people were surprised and cheered.

“Wow, he’s handsome!”

“He’s really cool!”

In response to the cheers, Rembrary smiled gently and waved his hand.

It was Rembrary, no matter how he looked at it.

Shin Jo-woon rubbed his eyes again and stared, and when he was sure it was Rembrary, he dropped his hand in bewilderment.

Even if he suddenly appeared on stage. He couldn’t understand what Rembrary was doing here.

Didn’t he say he was kidnapped by the Grand Master?

Is kidnapping done on stage these days?

No, he was dragged up onto the stage, but…

Before the confusion could subside. A person who had been monologuing throughout the performance said in a solemn voice from one side of the stage.

“They were all strangers, but to get out of here, we had to cheer up the giant. We made the giant drunk with alcohol and danced with strangers in front of him.”

Shin Jo-woon pressed his temples. He hadn’t been listening carefully.

Come to think of it, he vaguely remembered that at the beginning, this performance was about an adventure of a troupe that had lost confidence in their skills.

He didn’t know why they were building that confidence by dancing in front of a giant.

While Shin Jo-woon was bewildered, the stage was noisy.

The performers led the people they had brought out to dance.

People were even more excited to see that and shouted.

Shin Jo-woon didn’t know why Rembrary was there, but he suppressed his surprised heart and focused on Rembrary.

That way, he could take him with him after the performance.

In fact, it was easy to focus on Rembrary without having to try hard.

Rembrary, who couldn’t dance even when a dance teacher was attached to him, was even worse without a dance teacher.

Shin Jo-woon wasn’t the only one focusing on Rembrary here.

“That person is handsome, but his dance is weird.”

“But he dances hard, so he’s cute.”

“Yeah. Working hard is important. That person isn’t a performer.”

Perhaps because he wasn’t an idol here, people seemed to be lenient with his dancing skills.

Even so…

‘Let’s not pretend to know him here.’ Shin Jo-woon, determined, subtly moved back.

But when the time to dance with the audience was over.

All the other audience members were returning to their seats, but only Rembrary was being dragged to the waiting room by the performers.

‘Is it kidnapping after all?’

Shin Jo-woon, thinking it was a sight he couldn’t bear to see, waited for time to pass, but when he discovered the scene, he got up.

* * *

After dancing, he was about to go to Shin Jo-woon, but the performers rushed into the waiting room, grabbing and pulling Rembrary.

As he followed them down, he saw Gasora standing there.

‘Is this guy calling me in a strange way?’

Rembrary was dumbfounded when he saw Gasora, and he put his hands on his hips and scolded him.

“If you have something to say, say you have something to say. I don’t avoid conversations even if you don’t do this.”

Gasora was checking the performance schedule when he opened his mouth and looked at Rembrary.

Then, he asked innocently as if he had never called Rembrary.

“Why are you coming out here?”

“Didn’t you call me?”

Rembrary asked, wondering whether he should pretend to be fooled or not, and Gasora opened his mouth wide and asked the performers who had brought Rembrary.

“Why did you bring this guy, no, this person here?”

The performers giggled among themselves and answered.

“We didn’t know he knew the leader.”

“He’s handsome. When we put him on stage, the reaction was good, so we brought him here to ask if he was interested in joining our troupe.”

“But as soon as he came, he started talking to the leader.”

The performers laughed again as if they thought it was funny again.

Seeing that, Rembrary cleared up his misunderstanding about Gasora and smiled kindly.

“So you really didn’t call me.”

“I wouldn’t call you during the performance!”

“I thought so too. That’s why I followed you even more. I thought it was an urgent matter because you were calling me even though you had no reason to.”

“Don’t twist things in strange ways.”

“I’m not going to join your troupe.”

“I’m not asking you to come!”

“Your colleague was asking earlier.”

“I’m the leader! I have the authority!”

‘I shouldn’t have given him the invitation.’ Gasora regretted it, but it was already done.

At that time, a commotion was heard near the entrance of the waiting room.

“You can’t come in here.”

“Get out!”

“This isn’t the way to come!”

“Get out if you’re not involved!”

Someone was trying to enter without permission, and the guards were blocking the intruder.

Because it was such a famous troupe, this kind of person appeared periodically, if not every performance, so Gasora? He just flipped his hair back and didn’t pay much attention to the commotion.

What was important now was to get rid of this successor’s colleague, who was hard to tell whether he was scary or gentle.

But as soon as he thought this, the crazy doctor suddenly looked somewhere and shouted “Sardine” and laughed.

‘What is he saying?’ Gasora grumbled inwardly and looked in that direction.

A man with jet-black hair, very tall, and a face that looked just like an emperor…

Gasora opened his mouth.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

It wasn’t that he looked like an emperor, it was the real emperor.

As the leader, he had more opportunities to see the emperor than the other members.

Gasora, who had seen the emperor dozens of times, couldn’t mistake his face.

“Your Majesty, what brings you here!”

Gasora knelt down in a hurry, and the people who had been stopping the intruder, saying, ‘You can’t come in here,’ also knelt down in shock.

Rembrary, who knew the situation, only laughed, but Shin Jo-woon, who didn’t know the situation, frowned, wondering, ‘What is this again?’ among the people who suddenly called him Your Majesty.

Then, when he made eye contact with Rembrary, Rembrary smiled and explained.

“Actually, I wasn’t kidnapped.”

* * *

Gasora must have misunderstood Shin Jo-woon as a hidden child of the late emperor.

Rembrary was convinced as he watched Gasora keep glancing at Shin Jo-woon.

The other performers were the same. Every time they looked at Shin Jo-woon, they were restless as if they had something scary nearby.

“Why didn’t you recognize his face right away?”

“It was dark and I couldn’t see well! I only saw that his features were distinct!”

“I’ve never seen him up close. The leader talks about it, why would we talk about it.”

“Then you should have caught him when he came this way.”

“His hairstyle was completely different and he didn’t have any guards.”

“Still!”

“Why are you only blaming me when you didn’t recognize him either?”

The whispering could be heard in the room, and Shin Jo-woon took a sip of tea and glanced over the door.

Rembrary had moved to Daru and had just told Shin Jo-woon that ‘the emperor here looks just like you.’

If Gasora wasn’t nearby, he would have told him that there were people with the same face in this world and that world, but he couldn’t tell him because Gasora was trembling in front of him.

When Rembrary’s explanation was over, Shin Jo-woon nodded calmly and said clearly to Gasora.

“I’m a different person. I’m not a bastard. I’m not related by blood. Don’t treat me like an emperor.”

Gasora put his hands together and answered politely, “Yes.”

It didn’t seem to make any sense, but Rembrary didn’t care and asked Shin Jo-woon brightly.

“Still, I’m glad you came, Sardine.”

“I didn’t expect to meet you like this.”

“I didn’t expect you to arrive last either.”

“!”

Shin Jo-woon, surprised by something he didn’t know, asked.

“The others. Are they all here?”

“Yes. Everyone except you is here. Mullu and Sagamjae are coming from somewhere else now.”

“How did everyone gather first?”

“Of course, you, who came last, wouldn’t understand.”

Shin Jo-woon looked at Gasora this time, as Rembrary only smiled and boasted.

“Are you the first of Lumeina’s disciples?”

Gasora, still sitting with an uneasy face, forced a firm expression and answered when Shin Jo-woon spoke to him.

“Yes.”

“You kidnapped Rembrary to see me?”

“I didn’t kidnap him, but… yes.”

“Okay, our group found each other because of circumstances. Why did your group want to see me so much?”

“I wanted to ask about my teacher.”

“If it’s about Yumeina, ask that Four Apostles person.”

“Four Apostles?”

“I met him recently.”

Gasora wanted to hear more about it, but when Shin Jo-woon, who looked just like the emperor and was suspected of having a secret of birth, gestured for him to leave, he readily went outside.

As soon as the two were left alone, Shin Jo-woon’s atmosphere changed to a calmer one than before.

As glad as he was to see him, now that he faced him, he remembered the difficult request Lumeina had made.