Chick 169

169

Next, the boy muttered in clear annoyance.

“Master, should I stab him?”

“Idiot. Not yet.”

Taemin, eyes wavering, tried to reason with the children.

“Hey, guys, you shouldn’t do this. This is bad.”

“But…”

At that moment, the kids were easily swept up and set aside by Serhi.

“Are you crazy? Do you realize you’re acting like bandits?”

Gru rolled her eyes dramatically.

“We… We’re maybe justice bandits…”

“What does justice have to do with being a bandit? This is exactly why On Jurim gives you such hell!”

“…Ssshh!”

Gru squirmed in protest just as—

“What the… You speak Korean just fine.”

“…”

“Liar Serhi.”

Taemin scoffed as if he couldn’t believe it, turned away, and walked off.

“Sigh…”

As Serhi let out a sigh, Gru attempted to console him.

“You’re not a liar. Serhi oppa really can’t speak Korean. Even writing to Gru on the sea is hard for him.”

“Are you going to be quiet?!”

“Heee…”

“So, what was that? Why did you suddenly want the earring?”

“It’s not that! That—It actually belongs to Bayi…”

A star-shaped glint flickered in Bailak’s eyes.

“What humans possess is originally mine.”

For a moment, the very air turned icy cold.

Even sealed, that SSS-class aura was overwhelming.

How did he just pick up something like that… Seriously, he’s something else.

Still amazed, Serhi glanced around and spoke.

“Knock it off. There are people everywhere… Wait, you’re saying it’s yours?”

“Yes. That object is harmful to humans. It’s better not to keep it.”

“So why the stickup?”

“So Bayi is actually an SSS-class monster, so can we tell him it’s his?”

“Absolutely not. That’d get us in big trouble.”

“Therefore, we’re justice bandits.”

A stickup—but a warm, caring kind!

Gru raised her fork with solemn dignity, as if a true knight of justice.

Serhi let out a deep sigh, brushing the back of his neck as he spoke.

“Alright, I get it. The means aren’t great, but…”

“…!”

He understands!

As expected, Gnosis alumni are different.

A former villain and a current villain, their hearts aligned for a moment.

Gru eagerly extended her fist.

“Then, Oppa, let’s be—”

Before she could even finish “one team!”

“No way.”

“…!”

So you didn’t really understand…!

“Once it’s in someone else’s hands, it belongs to that person. Quit messing around and go home.”

So was our shared moment just a lie?!

Gru puffed out her cheeks in protest.

“You villain.”

“Pipe down.”

Serhi slung Gru over his shoulder like a sack and strode off.

“If you’ve bought everything, let’s get going.”

Mephisto flew into the air, Bailak trailed behind, lost in thought.

As she crawled into place in Serhi’s arms, Gru spotted the dazed Bailak and mumbled into Serhi’s ear.

“Serhi’s an idiot. Villain.”

“Stop it, it tickles.”

Serhi pushed Gru’s face away and looked aside.

There, peeking from behind a pillar with his hood drawn tight like an egg ghost, Ham Hong-gi kept a wary eye on Gru.

‘…? Is he hiding, too?’

Beside him, Kang Je-i, sunglasses off, was gazing at Serhi as if spellbound.

‘Ugh!’

Interest from the opposite sex was always a chore. Serhi frowned deeply and jerked his head away.

Kang Je-i, staring at the side of Serhi’s face as if licking him with her eyes, abruptly slapped Ham Hong-gi’s back.

“Hang-hang-gi, who’s that?”

Ham Hong-gi scanned Serhi, as if he already knew exactly who she meant.

“Well, Hyun-ak’s new recruit.”

He’d caused a little stir after appearing in the “new year’s Hyun-ak guild member introduction” video.

It only fanned rumors that the guildmaster recruited for looks.

A first-year, same grade as Kang Je-i, who’d been held back two years.

Worried that she’d get involved with Gru again if she started something with Serhi, Ham Hong-gi drew a line in advance.

“Don’t even think about it, you couldn’t even measure up. Just look at that face.”

“…I think I just became a fan.”

But Kang Je-i already had the look of infatuation.

Utterly hopeless. Ham Hong-gi grumbled and cinched his hood tighter.

Chapter: Variety Show Debut?!

Chickling Class classroom.

The children clustered around the round table, focused on the teacher.

‘Is this the latest tech?!’

Gru scanned the battery of her new watch with her phone.

She eagerly spun the assembly diagram, lips puckered and head tilted.

‘It’s not as good as I thought…’

Disappointing!

It was clear Gru’s manufacturing methods were dramatically different from other makers and of little use in reference.

Where other manufacturers needed complex devices to achieve the same effect, Gru could do it with just a few starlight candies—her process was fundamentally unlike theirs.

Still, the efficiency gap was shocking.

Gru’s magic stone battery achieved about 40% energy efficiency; the newest watch achieved only about 5%.

The stone inside was first-rate—it’d be more useful just to extract it and use that instead.

‘Hmm, should I try “Pick and Pull All Out”?’

Come to think of it, she’d never tried.

If “Pick and Pull All Out” actually worked for magic stone energy extraction, that’d be huge.

‘Magic stone’ plus ‘starlight candy extracted from magic stone’ equals buying one magic stone gives you two!

She dubbed it the “Double Supreme Gru!”

Images of magic stones and starlight candies floated in her mind, and Gru grinned, lost in dreams of a happy future.

Since class was still going on, she decided to try her skill later. Only now did she realize why the chickling railgun had caused such a stir.

If cutting-edge tech could only extract 5% of a magic stone’s energy, then for anyone but her, a magic-stone-powered railgun was a wildly inefficient project.

Anyway.

Gru was just about to tell Wooju about her Double Supreme Gru scheme.

‘Hmm?’

Gru stared at Wooju, who seemed listless today.

Wooju was acting strange!

Meanwhile, Wooju blinked blurry eyes at their teacher.

“Eco-friendly %$&(&($(%……”

The teacher was waving hands, using props, but nothing registered in Wooju’s ears.

She still hadn’t gotten over the fever that had begun that morning.

Finally, when break came, Wooju let her head slump down.

Huff, huff. Her fevered breath came shallow, and then—a small hand gently stroked her hair.

“Wooju, are you sick? Want to go to the nurse’s office with Gru?”

“…No, I have to go shoot now.”

“When you’re this sick?”

“It’s fine. I’m not sick at all.”

A lie. Her head felt like it was bubbling hot.

“You have a high fever… Can’t you just rest?”

“Today it’s for Dad’s shoot, so I can’t…”

There was absolutely no way she could miss her father’s TV taping.

Absolutely.

As Wooju steeled herself, Gru tilted her head and asked,

“You mean it’s your dad’s show?”

Wooju nodded.

Producer Seo Un-mo—the man who had created the smash-hit variety show ten years ago.

That intro always followed any mention of Wooju’s father.

Yes, ten years ago.

Her father had chased the glory of that era, working day and night.

But the old fame never made its return.

Her father came home less and less.

Eventually, her mom, fed up, left him. His new girlfriend wilted as she waited, grew sharp and bitter, and lost all warmth.

Wooju, raised in such a precarious household, learned to balance work and school from an early age.

‘If only I rose higher.’

If she expanded her network, became a real celebrity with star power in ratings…

Then maybe she could ease her father’s worries.

“But you know what, Wooju? Because you’re really sick, I think your dad would worry.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Actually…”

Hesitating, Wooju finally said in a small voice:

“He’ll just be disappointed in me.”