Holy Idol [EN]: Chapter 573

◈ 573. Hunting Shin Jo-woon

“What?”

Noir looked at Warrier with a dumbfounded expression.

“Why would I do such a bothersome thing?”

“Humans are preparing the program. They said they’d help with money.”

“Why would I do such a wasteful thing?”

Oh, okay. You’re definitely not it. Warrier sighed and waved his hand.

“Never mind. Just go back to sleep.”

* * *

[Got time?]

[Text me……]

[Ignoring me?]

[Got time?]

[Are you mad?]

[Contact me……]

[Hey hey hey hey, are you really ignoring me?]

[Oh, fine, ignore me. Cheapskate, cheapskate. I still pretended not to know when Kim Mu-rok talked about you, but you’re just wiping the slate clean. Fine, do as you please. I’m really disappointed, Rembrary]

[Are you mad……?]

[Oh, I don’t care anymore. I won’t contact you either]

[Are you really mad?]

Rembrary, who hadn’t bothered to look at his phone even after getting it back from Shin Jo-woon, leisurely opened his message box while taking a bath the next day and was shocked.

“What in the world is this?”

A barrage of texts had been sent from Woo Yeon-woo.

It was too much of a hassle to reply to each one, so Rembrary just called him instead.

Woo Yeon-woo answered the phone as soon as it rang and protested.

―Hey, why did you ignore all my texts! And my calls too!

“I lost my phone and just found it yesterday.”

―But why didn’t you contact me yesterday!

“I checked slowly. But I called as soon as I checked.”

―Really?

“Of course!”

―……So what. Never mind. But why does your voice sound so echoey?

“I’m in the bathroom.”

―Are you taking a dump?

Rembrary stared at his phone with wide eyes. What kind of language is this child using?

―Sorry. I won’t ask.

“I’m taking a bath.”

―Okay. I’ll take it as that.

Less than two seconds after Rembrary hung up, the phone rang again.

When he answered, Woo Yeon-woo’s huffing and puffing could be heard through the receiver.

―Hey, you hung up right away just because I teased you?

“My aching finger. Be careful before you become a strand of hair.”

―What’s the difference?

“You don’t feel pain when you cut off a strand of hair.”

Woo Yeon-woo’s huffing and puffing became more intense.

Rembrary added more bath salts to create more bubbles in the tub, waiting for Woo Yeon-woo to calm down.

After a while, Woo Yeon-woo, whose breathing had become more even, got to the point.

―Hey, I have something to ask you.

“Ask away.”

―Um, about Nin-ring.

“Ah, yes. Should I get her for you?”

Rembrary had only shouted ‘Nin’ when Woo Yeon-woo screamed.

―No, no, don’t call her, don’t call her!

Rembrary frowned and held the phone away from his ear. Why is this kid being like this from the morning?

“Why are you doing this?”

―Geez, you scared me. I thought my heart was going to drop.

“Are you sick?”

―You almost made me sick!

“?”

―Well, I’m just asking something, so don’t call anyone. Got it?

“I got it.”

This kid sure has a lot of demands. Rembrary thought, kicking the bubbles with his feet.

Woo Yeon-woo said he had a question, but he hesitated for a long time before asking.

―How’s Nin-ring doing these days?

“She’s doing fine.”

―What do you mean by fine? Does she just smile and walk around? Doesn’t she have any worries or anything she’s concerned about?

“Of course. She takes good care of the children and is fine.”

―Ah…….

“Her swordsmanship training time has increased a bit, though.”

―Ugh.

“Yeon-woo?”

It sounded like a short scream. Rembrary called out in bewilderment, and Woo Yeon-woo this time let out a desperate groan.

What’s really wrong with this kid? Rembrary stared blankly at his phone.

Woo Yeon-woo mumbled something so fast it was hard to understand, then asked again.

―Does she ever talk about me?

Then, before Rembrary could answer,

―Don’t tell her I said this. I’m hanging up.

And then he hung up. Rembrary, who had been preparing to answer, thinking Woo Yeon-woo would ask about him, widened his eyes.

In the end, just as Rembrary was about to call back.

“High Priest.”

Nin-ring, whom Woo Yeon-woo had been asking about, knocked from outside the door.

“What is it?”

“There’s a meeting at ten o’clock this morning with executives from Nakru, Worldboom, Redrine, and Aegis.”

Rembrary looked at the clock on his phone. Nine o’clock in the morning. If he calculated the time to eat breakfast and go…….

“I understand. I’ll be out soon.”

* * *

After finishing his meal, he got ready and went out to get in the car, only to find Ardor and Kim Jae-woo waiting next to the driver’s seat in front of the car.

“Why are you both here?”

“We’re here to give you a ride.”

“One of you would be enough.”

“In case one of us goes to the bathroom, we don’t want the benefactor to arrive in the meantime.”

While Rembrary was thinking, ‘What does that mean?’ Kim Jae-woo quickly opened the back door, and Ardor went to sit in the driver’s seat.

Rembrary was suspicious of their intentions, but he got in the car anyway.

But even though he tried to get ready as quickly as possible, it was past ten o’clock when he arrived.

However, Rembrary knew that the meeting would proceed without any problems even if he wasn’t there, so he leisurely got on the elevator.

And when he arrived at the conference room, it was as expected. The meeting had already started.

Moreover, even when Rembrary opened the door and entered, everyone just glanced at him. No one scolded him.

Rembrary leisurely walked to his designated seat, opened the juice can that had been prepared in advance, and also opened a bag of chips.

As he was eating the chips with a crunch, Jang Tae-ri, whom he hadn’t seen in the conference room for a long time, waved his hand slightly.

Rembrary waved back with a smile, but when he saw Shin Jo-woon standing with his arms crossed among the Worldboom members, squinting his eyes, he quietly lowered his hand.

‘The anchovy is sulking again. He must be acting like that because I didn’t tell him stories from when I was young yesterday. As if that’s something to get angry about.’

Could it be? Have I turned him into an anchovy by calling him anchovy? From now on, should I call him a whale to help him grow his courage?

Rembrary seriously pondered this while eating a bag of chips, and then started eating frozen Shine Muscat grapes one by one that Dae-ju’s secretary had brought.

Then he started paying some attention to the content of the meeting…….

“Can we really trust the words of a traitor?”

When he listened closely, the atmosphere was very tense.

Rembrary, with a Muscat grape in his mouth, looked at the person who had just spoken. It was a hunter from Worldboom. He didn’t know his name, though.

Anyway, Worldboom Hunter 1’s expression was as rough as his voice. The one who responded to that was Hunter 1 from Nakru.

“Are you calling Woo Sung-woo a traitor right now!”

“Then should we call him a betrayer?”

“Is this bastard crazy!”

Rembrary stared with wide eyes, alternating between Worldboom Hunter 1 and Nakru Hunter 1, who were exchanging harsh words.

Then he looked at Shin Jo-woon, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping them.

He glanced at Dae-ju, who was holding out his hand, asking for a Shine Muscat grape for himself. He didn’t seem to have any intention of stopping them either.

Rembrary gave him about five Muscat grapes, and Dae-ju took them and secretly ate them one by one like acorns.

Rembrary looked back at the people fighting.

‘Are they fighting about Woo Sung-woo?’

Around that time, Gu Se-ji stepped forward.

“Whatever the reason, he went over to the demons’ side, so it’s understandable that you can’t trust Woo Sung-woo.”

“Team Leader!”

Hunter 1 protested with a frustrated voice at Gu Se-ji’s statement, which seemed to acknowledge Worldboom Hunter 1’s words.

Gu Se-ji shook his head at him, then looked at Shin Jo-woon and said.

“But in my opinion, whether Woo Sung-woo’s words are trustworthy or not, what’s more suspicious is why Woo Sung-woo ‘bothered’ to tell Shin Jo-woon that…… I think.”

Nakru Hunter 1’s frustrated expression instantly relaxed.

“Besides, if it’s just about the possibility of the ‘Third Cataclysm,’ why would Woo Sung-woo have had to secretly defect? That part is still questionable.”

Gu Se-ji stared intently at Shin Jo-woon before asking sharply.

“Is that really all Woo Sung-woo said? Isn’t there anything you filtered out and didn’t tell us?”

Rembrary looked at Shin Jo-woon. Shin Jo-woon was faintly raising the corners of his lips and listening to Gu Se-ji’s words.

Judging by his relaxed attitude, he didn’t seem to be affected at all by Gu Se-ji’s remarks.

Taking Gu Se-ji’s words, Nakru’s Hunter 2 stepped forward this time.

“Woo Sung-woo is suspicious? We’re more suspicious of you!”

At those words, Shin Jo-woon smiled and suggested.

“Then why don’t you leave here?”

“What?”

“Isn’t that right? It was Nakru who was caught doing suspicious things inside Redrine, not Worldboom. So Nakru should leave.”

“Woo Sung-woo is not Nakru now.”

“He seems like Nakru. Before, after, and even now, after betraying.”

“Are you suspecting us of joining hands with demons right now!”

It was hard to tell whether they were having a meeting or an argument.

It was the kind of atmosphere where a fistfight could break out immediately if even one person acted out of line.

Rembrary saw Shin Jo-woon smiling and constantly provoking the Nakru hunters, then suddenly frowning as he looked somewhere.

Wondering what he was looking at, he looked in the same direction and saw Jang Tae-ri shaking his head repeatedly.

‘Is Tae-ri trying to stop him?’

At that moment. Dae-ju, who had been leaving the situation alone while only eating Shine Muscat grapes, finally intervened.

“Come to think of it, I have a story I heard from our High Priest.”

‘My story?’

The gazes of the hunters, who had been engaged in a war of nerves, turned to Rembrary, who had been treated as an outsider.

Rembrary slowly lowered the Muscat grape and straightened his back.

“Our High Priest said that, surprisingly, the demons weren’t really trying that hard to stop the pillars from collapsing.”

“The demons?”

Nakru Hunter 3 frowned and asked back.

Starting with those words, the conference room became noisy again, but unlike before, it wasn’t an atmosphere like ‘Nakru versus Worldboom.’

As everyone started giving their individual opinions, saying things like ‘The demons are using psychological warfare’ and ‘There’s really something going on,’ Dae-ju held out his palm to Rembrary again.

He seemed to be asking for more Shine Muscat grapes, but Rembrary pretended not to know and clapped his hands together, praising him.

“Good job.”

“?”

* * *

At that time. A hunter wearing all black and a meerkat mask was observing the Redrine internal conference room through binoculars from the opposite building.

‘What a mess.’

The meerkat clicked his tongue as he watched the hunters in the conference room constantly fighting among themselves, but he realized that this wasn’t the time for that, so he carefully examined the hunters’ faces.

‘Shin Jo-woon…… is there. Jang Tae-ri…… is there. Rembrary…… is there.’

After confirming the three people who would be the targets, the meerkat hunter checked who else was famous before taking his eyes off the binoculars and crouching down.

He sat down like seaweed [referring to how seaweed sways and lies low in the water, making it difficult to spot] so that he wouldn’t be seen from across the street, took out his phone, and sent a text message to the vice president.

[Target locations confirmed]

The phone rang immediately with a reply.

[Do well]

[Okay okay, stay put]

The meerkat put his phone away, stood up quietly, and put his eyes back to the binoculars.

Today, they will hunt the famous Shin Jo-woon.