Chapter 165: The Shape of Family (1)
TL: SHW
"There are all kinds of families in the world."
Hong Seok-young suddenly started spouting platitudes. This was after Alex Hope, having dropped bombshell after bombshell, vanished with the excuse that he needed to get back before the Australian Hunters noticed he was gone.
"Bye! I'll come again later!"
Unfazed by Kim Chae-min's magic clinging to his torso, Hope disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived. Kim Chae-min thrashed around in frustration for a good while. In fact, even now, a teeth-grinding sound was coming from her direction.
Hope had left before anyone could grab him, so there was nothing to be done about that, but Gamble, who served as Hope's humanity, couldn't just hang up the phone on her own. Fitting for someone called a humanity, I suppose. It was only after hearing the truth about Hope that I understood what "External Humanity" really meant.
"Uh, um, so...?"
Gamble, who had spent the whole time rambling about their own affairs without yielding much useful information, opened and closed her mouth with a flustered expression. The owner of Pharos could rob someone blind in broad daylight, but right now....
What would I have done if I were Gamble? At the very least, I wouldn't have shown my hand first.
Well, of course, it wasn't as if Gamble had no plan.
I remembered the exact moment Gamble's plan went up in smoke. When Hope started going on about what would happen if he died.
What was there to say about what came after?
Gamble got angry and told him not to say things like that, and Hope didn't so much as pretend to listen, just kept running his mouth however he pleased.
"If you just promise me that, I'll take care of Noah myself. It's a hassle, but, you know, what's it called. Dying together is something I can manage, at least...."
Needless to say, Gamble only got louder after that.
Hope had used the excuse that he couldn't afford to be caught missing, but the way I saw it, he'd simply fled from Gamble's nagging. After all, Gamble had been so furious she'd hurled the wrench she was holding.
Anyway, one of the two parties involved had run off, and the remaining one was too busy fuming. It wasn't as though I couldn't talk to the fuming one, but....
Hong Seok-young chose a different approach.
"Gamble, was it?"
"Huh? Yes!"
"Miss, let's leave things here for now...."
"Oh...."
Gamble fumbled at Hong Seok-young's words. Did she think he wasn't taking her seriously? Given that Hope was wandering around unconstrained by the Archmage's magic, there was no way our side would ignore them.
Hong Seok-young corrected Gamble's misunderstanding in a rather gentle tone.
"Important conversations should always be had face to face."
Gamble, who hadn't understood Hong Seok-young's meaning and was tilting her head, flinched in surprise and looked off-screen. With her eyes wide, she shifted her gaze back to the camera.
"Wha...?"
"We'll see each other soon."
People in black suits entered the frame. They looked suspicious, but appearances aside, they were Hunters working for the Association.
I knew Lee Mi-seon was fast at getting things done.
The screen went dark.
And now, back to the present.
"Sure, family doesn't have to be connected by blood to be family."
To Hong Seok-young, who had begun spouting nonsense.
"She did it to protect her family. Contrary to appearances, that girl's got quite a backbone."
"Have you lost your mind?"
Harsh words came out naturally.
It still wasn't even certain the children were truly safe. Hope had completely forgotten about them until Gamble brought it up, and blindly trusting Gamble's word felt uneasy.
Museion? Museion, of all things! And for something supposedly thrown together in a hurry, the connection between Museion and Sandra Gamble had gone undetected for the next twenty years. Was a genius simply a genius in every field? Enough to make ordinary people weep.
"No, I'm still in my right mind."
"How do you know those two aren't lying?"
Hong Seok-young shrugged.
"What would they gain from lying at this point?"
"......"
"If anything, they showed too much. Maybe because they're young."
"So you're saying you trust Alex Hope?"
"Trust isn't quite the word...."
Hong Seok-young stroked his chin.
"The kid gathered up every weakness he has and handed them to us on a platter. It'd be rude not to make use of them."
Handed us his weaknesses?
When I narrowed my eyes, Hong Seok-young smiled gently.
"Watch carefully...."
The voice that began speaking softly overlapped with the voice I'd heard before losing consciousness.
That... that word.
"...leave everything to and just rest."
Fuck.
Every time our eyes met, the smirk on Hong Seok-young's face made it clear he was looking for the right moment to bring it up with me. Thank god Kim Chae-min was right there. At least that man had enough sense not to blather on about our future-whatever in front of her.
...Should I pretend I don't remember?
If I just stonewalled him, insisting I never said any such thing, wouldn't he give up? What could he do if I said I didn't remember?
"Try to recall what Hope said."
"Mom, Dad, he said he wanted to protect that woman from earlier, right?"
Kim Chae-min, having stopped grinding her teeth, tilted her head.
"There's something we should pay more attention to than that."
"What is it?"
"We'll need to hear more details, but from what we've heard so far, a few things are clear. First, Noah Michel and Hope have a way to track each other's existence."
"Hmm...."
"A guy who loves his mommy that much would never have been the one to initiate contact with a woman who wants to crack open every Dungeon Gate in the world."
"Oh... that's true."
I forced down the urge to tear my hair out and turned my gaze inward.
Was the man in front of me my father?
The answer was....
"Second, Gamble complained that Hope does whatever Michel tells him to, but in reality, Michel can't control Hope either."
"Really?"
"If she could, she wouldn't have ordered him to get caught on CCTV."
No.
That man was not my father.
"Wait, isn't it the opposite? Since Hope follows Michel's orders, he did what she told him to."
"No. She was trying to put a leash on Hope, any way she could."
"A leash?"
But was that man a different person from the Hong Seok-young I knew?
"If we hadn't gone to the Orphanage because of student Tae-woo, we would've never known any of this happened, right?"
No one had asked him to, and yet he ran himself ragged trying to save as many lives as possible. His lack of delicacy had led to plenty of trial and error, but hadn't he been the one who built a school for the children?
"But on the off chance someone did see. We guessed it was Ark and tracked them quietly, but what if others had seen? What if the police had found out?"
"...It would've been chaos."
"It would take time, but they'd have figured out who it was. And then what do you think would happen to Alex Hope?"
There must have been far more moments he wanted to give up, yet he kept dragging himself forward to save people. Never expecting anything in return, even refusing when offered compensation, wasn't that the kind of person he was?
"He'd get... caught, right?"
"And when that happened, where do you think he'd turn to?"
"......"
"Right. That's how it is."
No.
Even if he wasn't my father, he was the same person.
Easygoing, sometimes annoyingly perceptive, and other times infuriatingly dense.
"So there must be someone above them."
Yes. The same person.
"Above?"
"If Michel were in charge, Hope couldn't have gone off the rails like that. He was given a grace period, but didn't Michel talk as if she wanted to destroy the Gates right this second? Someone above Michel gave Hope permission, and Michel doesn't like it."
"So that's why she ordered him to get caught on CCTV?"
"Most likely. But at the same time, whoever's above must have also ordered Hope to assist Michel. That's why Gamble was angry but couldn't actually stop what Hope was doing."
"Then what's the weakness you mentioned earlier?"
"......"
Hong Seok-young looked at Kim Chae-min with a somehow pitying expression.
"I've explained all of this and you still don't see it?"
"I'm a Mage!"
"I thought Mages were supposed to be logical."
"Ask me about magical theory instead!!"
"Given that you let two of them slip through your fingers, I'm not so sure about that front either...."
"Aaargh!"
"I'm joking."
At the very least, Kim Chae-min didn't seem to take that as a joke.
In any case, Hong Seok-young continued his explanation.
"Hope said he doesn't want to do what Michel tells him to because Gamble hates it."
"Yes. If Hope really is a monster, he must care about her a lot."
"Right. And since Gamble calls herself his humanity, her sense of morality and such must be at an ordinary human level."
If it weren't, she wouldn't have introduced herself as a monster's humanity. Though Gamble had gotten angry multiple times throughout the conversation, Hope had at least made a show of listening to her. That must have been why he'd asked us to call Gamble.
"Hope's parents are the same. As far as I know, both of them are upstanding Hunters who've never committed any crimes."
"...So?"
Kim Chae-min still looked bewildered, but I had realized what Hong Seok-young was getting at.
That man, his mind worked sharp in the strangest places. Annoyingly so.
"What Teacher Hong is saying is, Gamble hated it so much that Hope smuggled the children out instead of killing them, so would Hope really help with something else that's guaranteed to cause massive casualties?"
"Oh!"
Kim Chae-min's eyes went wide, catching on belatedly.
"Hope kindly informed us that his hostages aren't just his three family members, but humanity as a whole."
On top of that, he'd also let slip that he had the means to die alongside someone hailed as the genius of the century, an Archmage.
In other words, if he was prepared to throw away his life, he could kill someone of that caliber.
An attack like that could easily take down Hong Seok-young too.... I glanced at the area around Hong Seok-young's neck. He had his Dog Tag, so he'd survive. But that only applied to Hong Seok-young, so there would still be casualties.
Handing over his own weaknesses while delivering a clean threat at the same time. Shrewd behavior, quite unlike his unhinged exterior.
"Ughh...."
Kim Chae-min clutched her head and collapsed onto the table.
"But, is it really Noah Michel?"
...Had I not told Kim Chae-min?
"That one from France?"
"Yes."
"Why is she suddenly in the picture?! Should I have caught on when you asked about Sem Bloom? Do you know how hard I had to force my eyeballs back into their sockets?"
"As expected of an Archmage. You tucked them back in nicely."
"......"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Thud.
Kim Chae-min slammed her head on the table. A long groan seeped out.
"I just wanted to catch the ones who destroyed my Domain! Why has this... how did this get so big?! Since when?!"
I looked at Kim Chae-min.
So that was why she'd been chasing Ark... that was the reason?
A very Mage-like reason, I had to admit.
"If it's too much, you can bow out now. I'd be grateful enough if you just handled the school."
"...After hearing all this, how could I back out now! At the very least, I need to find out what Ark's goal is and how Noah Michel got dragged into this!"
If Kim Chae-min pulled out at this point, it would be trouble for our side too.
Unable to hide my exhaustion, I dragged a dry hand down my face.
I could feel Hong Seok-young's gaze on me.
Whether that Hong Seok-young was the same person as my father or not, that wasn't the issue right now. What was done was done. There was no use crying over spilled milk.
"Well, we can save the details for when Gamble gets here...."
So I needed to think about what came next. Finding out he knew I was his son, not his apprentice, didn't really change much. Hadn't I already made up my mind to help that man? Looked at differently, that man was helping me prevent the end of the world.
If only I hadn't let that word slip out, I'd feel a lot better right now.
"Student Hwijae? Don't we have something to talk about?"
Fuck.
***
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