Chapter 151

I would completely transform all of my subordinates.

If I gouge out their eyes and make them look only at their master, they would no longer hide anything from me.

In truth, I had been constantly anxious.

It was because, despite them being my subordinates, I didn’t feel like I fully possessed them.

Kwak Hanmuk had another god inside his body, and Mo Haein had a Trial Meteorite embedded in her stomach.

Je Hyun-oh was even already in a state of physical transformation.

Yet, I didn’t even know why they had become that way.

The fact that I knew nothing always made me anxious and uneasy.

But now, it’s okay.

Because I had realized the method.

I just need to make them completely mine, even now.

I was acting based on my own thoughts and decisions, not the mindset of a social misfit.

It was a ridiculous remark.

On the contrary, I was regretting having neglected my subordinates until now.

I needed to take care of my subordinates immediately.

I ignored the system window that kept popping up.

‘I’ll deal with Captain Kwak first, and then summon Captain Mo and Lieutenant Colonel Je via message.’

Since Je Hyun-oh has entered the trial, I’ll have him come as soon as he returns, and then Mo Haein…

Click.

My thoughts were cut short by the sound of the door opening.

“What? You said you were going to bed, Chestnut-ie, but you’re already bored….”

Kwak Hanmuk, who had appeared with a playful smile, stopped mid-sentence and his face hardened.

“It’s not that I’m bored; I have something urgent to tell you.”

I quickly reported my purpose, but for some reason, Kwak Hanmuk did not reply.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and crossed his arms. Then, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, he looked at me.

Normally, he would have responded by asking what was wrong, but he just stared at me in silence.

Since I was the one feeling impatient, I asked him again.

"May I come into the room?"

Kwak Hanmuk stared at me intently for a while before answering.

"Come in."

He took a step back, and I finally entered the room.

As soon as we entered, I pointed to the bed.

"Please sit here."

I thought it would be best to extract his eyes while he was in a place that was comfortable and familiar to him.

Kwak Hanmuk obediently followed my instructions and sat on the bed.

He placed both hands on the mattress and looked up at me.

Standing before my seated subordinate, I examined his eyes with a serious gaze.

As expected, I didn’t like the gray pupils. I wanted to gouge them out and replace them with gold.

I was staring at them for a while when Kwak Hanmuk spoke.

"Goyo. What do you intend to do?"

Only then did I realize that I hadn’t offered any explanation.

I spoke to him in a serious tone.

"I am going to gouge out Captain Kwak’s eyes right now."

Kwak Hanmuk let out a scoff and hollow laugh, then asked back.

"My eyes?"

"Yes."

"So, are you going to gouge out both of them?"

"Taking just one out just one wouldn’t look very good aesthetically, would it? Your vision shouldn’t be affected."

"Why are you going to gouge them out?"

I hesitated for a moment, wondering how to explain it.

I was worried that if I told the truth, I might look too petty.

But since I didn’t really have an excuse, I just spoke honestly.

"It seems like you are hiding too much from me."

“So, because I have too many secrets, you’re going to pluck out my eyes?”

“Yes. So, from now on, I intend to look after you as your master.”

“As my master…”

Kwak Hanmuk muttered, repeating my words, and raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Sounds like it would hurt a lot. I’d have to trust the master’s skills for that.”

It seemed like it would be fine if I just looked into him a little.

If I gently manipulated his mind so he wouldn’t feel the pain before extracting it, it wouldn’t hurt much.

I tried my best to soothe my apprehensive subordinate.

“I will make it as painless as possible.”

“But you know, there’s no benefit for me if you gouge out my eyes.”

“What? That’s not true.”

Of course, there was a tremendous benefit.

I smiled slightly and said to him.

“You will become completely mine.”

That was a joyful thing for subordinates as well.

Because a life looking only at their master was the happiness they desired most.

Pleasant thoughts followed.

I imagined changing my subordinates to only look at me.

‘Come to think of it, how do I alter their bodies? Should I just buy an item?’

I had seen several body alteration items in the subordinate section of the Galactic Trading Post.

I hadn’t put them in my cart thinking I wouldn’t need to buy them, but since I remembered all the names, I would be able to find them quickly.

As for the financial issues, I could simply resolve them through a sponsorship contract.

Even though my account was frozen, I wasn’t particularly worried since I could receive the payment in goods rather than currency.

Dominic would do everything I wanted.

And if Dominic refused, there was Black Block-ssi.

Black Block-ssi might make somewhat unreasonable demands in exchange for the sponsorship, but…

Still, it was for the sake of my subordinates.

It was truly a perfect plan.

I smiled and reached out my hand. Just as my fingertips were about to touch the corners of Kwak Hanmuk’s eyes…

“…!”

I caught the prayer beads he had thrust toward me.

Why is he trying to bind me?

As I looked at him with a questioning gaze, Kwak Hanmuk smirked.

“Looks like you don’t want to be tied up.”

Then he slammed into me immediately. In the blink of an eye, I tumbled to the floor.

I engaged in a brief hand-to-hand struggle with him on the ground, but I was quickly subdued.

Lying face down on the floor, my back was crushed against his knees.

Kwak Hanmuk immediately twisted both my arms behind my back and grabbed them.

He tried to bind me with the prayer beads, but because I resisted, they wouldn’t easily wrap around me.

Kwak Hanmuk spat out a curse, then forcibly yanked the struggling beads, binding my arms tight like a rope.

Lying face down on the floor, I struggled to turn my head back.

“Captain Kwak…”

I asked, my eyes softening into a gentle, drooping expression.

“Are you scared? Just bear with it a little longer, and I’ll pull them out right away. It will be over in no time.”

I had even intended to praise him once it was all over.

It was pitiful to see him so frightened by pain that would last only an instant.

Kwak Hanmuk swept his disheveled hair back with one hand.

“Wow… Crazy Chestnut-ie is driving me crazy.”

In the darkened room, the only light was coming in from outside the window.

But now, it wasn’t dark at all; it was brilliantly bright. It was because of the light flowing from my eyes.

Kwak Hanmuk muttered with eyes steeped in complex thoughts.

“So this is what a god is…”

His words were tinged with bewilderment. It was as if the reality differed from what he had known.

A creeping sense of unpleasantness rose up.

‘Surely he isn’t comparing me to the god inside Captain Kwak?’

I don’t like that.

At that moment, a blue spark flew from the prayer beads.

Kwak Hanmuk frowned slightly and pressed his hand over his heart.

I flinched, too.

“Captain Kwak, this hurts a little. It’s hard to breathe right now, too…”

Actually, it didn’t hurt that much. It was just a stinging sensation, but I spoke up hoping he might untie the prayer beads.

However, Kwak Hanmuk didn’t budge at all.

“Suck it up even if it hurts. You’re the one who tried to gouge out someone’s eyeballs.”

“…….”

Having nothing to say, I quietly shut my mouth.

Still, I could feel the weight of his knee pressing against my back adjusting to make it easier for me to breathe.

Kwak Hanmuk sighed, then called out to me.

“Goyo.”

“Yes.”

“Even if you gouge out my eyeballs, it won’t go your way.”

“Why won’t it?”

“Because I won’t tell you anything, I’ll keep hiding, concealing, and keeping secrets.”

"That shouldn’t be possible."

Kwak Hanmuk seemed to be under the delusion that he could maintain his sense of self even after having his eyes gouged out.

After all, he was being reconstructed into a being meant only for me.

However, I did not tell him the truth.

It just felt like… I shouldn’t.

"But if you still want to gouge out my eyeballs…"

Crackle, crackle, a blue light flashed continuously from the prayer beads.

As sparks flew, a faint convulsion traveled through our touching bodies.

I felt puzzled by the trembling; it seemed like a reaction to pain.

But this wasn’t pain I had inflicted on him.

Kwak Hanmuk spoke in a voice tinged with amusement.

"Gotta rebel against my master a little, right?"

Against me…?

Just as I felt a strong sense of revulsion, a golden light burst forth.

The prayer beads that had been binding me finally came loose, and a blue light flashed.

As the golden and blue lights mingled, the pressure pressing down on my back weakened for a moment.

I pushed Kwak Hanmuk away and slipped out from beneath him.

He and I found ourselves facing each other.

The room wasn’t very spacious, so we were positioned so close that we could touch if we reached out.

I glared at Kwak Hanmuk with cold eyes.

Light swirled beneath his sleeveless shirt. His fractal lightning tattoo emitted a blue glow.

That wasn’t all. A deep blue light seeped into his gray pupils as well.

Sparks were constantly flying up around him.

I wanted to sweep away every single one of those blue lights without exception.

“Damn it, Lieutenant Colonel Je… You said he was young and weak…”

Kwak Hanmuk looked at me, gasping for breath. He smiled with trembling lips and said, “This is quite violent, isn’t it?”

Dominic, who had been watching from above my head, chimed in.

“Roasted Chestnut. There is no need to listen to every single word a subordinate says.”

He admonished me, saying that since subordinates don’t truly know what they want, I, as their master, must lead and teach them.

I agreed with him to some extent.

He was so rebellious that it seemed I would have to crush his mind first.

Originally, I intended to only look into him enough so that he wouldn’t feel pain during the eye removal.

But if I looked deeper than that…

“…….”

I was about to look into Kwak Hanmuk when I froze, as if someone had pressed a stop button.

The paranoid researcher came to mind.

The one whose mind I had crushed…

At the same time, my wrist was grabbed.

The moment a tingling sensation seeped in, the prayer beads wrapped around me with all their might, and Kwak Hanmuk spat out blood, bursting with a blue light.

The sound of thunder striking the cloudless night sky was heard.

A deep blue light was seared into my vision.

I realized…

“…Captain Kwak!”

What I had been about to do.

The rosary beads slid out, and Kwak Hanmuk’s body staggered.

I hurriedly supported him and sat him on the bed.

Kwak Hanmuk began to laugh as he watched me trembling. Wiping the blood trickling down his chin with the back of his hand, he said:

“Being in charge of Crazy Chestnut-ie is f***ing difficult…”

For a fleeting moment, I had looked into him.

That is why I clearly understood what state Kwak Hanmuk was in right now.

To subdue me, Kwak Hanmuk had partially released the seal that had imprisoned the spirit.

In that situation, I tried to look in him, and I collided with the spirit within his body.

If I hadn’t stopped, Kwak Hanmuk would have lost his mind just like the paranoid researcher.

‘Why did I do that?’

I considered the young god and myself to be separate beings.

Yet, a moment ago, the two had been intermingled.

I thought like the young god while simultaneously making judgements as ‘me.’

I hadn’t realized at all that this was strange.

‘Since when has it been like this?’

Upon realizing this sense of dissonance, I retraced the actions I had taken since consuming ■■■.

The more I replayed my memories, the more I felt that I had been mistaken.

I resolved to protect myself while eating the ■■■, diving into the gamble despite knowing the odds of success were slim.

And I thought I had been fighting well in my own way until now.

That was purely my mistake, and I might have already been defeated.

“Goyo.”

“…….”

With trembling eyes, I fixed my gaze on him, who was covered in blood.

Kwak Hanmuk looked up at me and spoke.

“It’s okay.”

It was not okay at all.

When he asked me to be his teammate, and when he released me from the quarantine room as the person in charge…

Kwak Hanmuk could never have imagined that something like this would happen.

I had nearly ruined him.

Come to think of it, ever since I registered him as a subordinate, he had done nothing but get hurt.

The fact that I was his god was of no advantage to Kwak Hanmuk.

On the contrary, it was nothing but a massive disaster.

“…I’m sorry, Captain Kwak. I… don’t know how to unregister… because of me…”

When I opened my lips, the only words that came out were pathetic excuses.

I was frozen in shock over an irreversible mistake.

Kwak Hanmuk called out to me again.

“Chestnut-ie.”

“Yes…”

“I’m sorry.”

I stared blankly, not knowing why he was apologizing.

Kwak Hanmuk met my gaze and continued speaking.

“You must be feeling very frustrated given the situation, and I’ve made things even harder for you by bringing up something I can’t properly explain. But, humanely speaking, okay? Let’s not gouge out my eyes. Just give me some time…”

He paused for a moment. He hesitated for quite a while, as if he needed to judge for himself whether what he was about to say was right.

And finally, he spoke to me.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

Then he reached out and grabbed my forearm.

I felt a slight weight pulling me down.

He spoke to a trainee as a captain belonging to the same team.

“I can’t speak right now because there are many things I don’t know myself.”

“…….”

“Well, probably… Captain Mo is similar. If you wait, she’ll tell you everything. Ah, I don’t know about Lieutenant Colonel Je. That guy is just too far gone in his own brand of madness.”

I just quietly stared at Kwak Hanmuk, who was speaking in a playful tone.

As I stood there lost in thought, he lightly shook the arm he was holding to get my attention.

“About the registration. Does that mean I belong to you?”

“…Yes.”

“Since I’ve agreed to take charge, it’s only natural that I’d be registered.”

Then, as a subordinate speaking to his god, he added:

“Don’t even think about kicking me out.”

I felt a throbbing pain in my heart.

A strange sensation I had never experienced before enveloped me.

I… wanted to answer firmly.

That as a team member, and as a god, I would not be a calamity to him.

Just then, a system window popped up before my eyes.