Chapter 155

His eyes were smiling, but it wasn’t difficult to tell his mood.

Because his gaze wasn’t smiling at all.

I held my breath and looked up at Je Hyun-oh.

Je Hyun-oh just stared at me silently without blinking once.

It seemed he would keep staring like that until I said something.

“Um… Lieutenant Colonel Je. Please calm down first…”

Je Hyun-oh’s smile deepened.

He looked particularly unwell, which made me even more worried and scared.

‘Should I put a veil over him?’

I genuinely broke out in a cold sweat.

It felt as if even the alcohol that had been circulating in my body just moments ago was vanishing completely.

I had intended to have a proper conversation with Sa Gongyeon.

I was curious about exactly when she had started watching me, and I wanted to ask for information regarding Geumcheon.

However, killing Sa Gongyeon wasn’t an option.

I never imagined that a low-level god like me could handle Black Block’s subordinates.

My only plan was to coax Black Block and use Sa Gongyeon to my advantage.

‘To think Lieutenant Colonel Je read the Day News…’

My mind went blank at this situation, which I hadn’t anticipated at all.

Moreover, he knew too much.

I couldn’t even guess how much he knew, so it was hard to hide anything.

As the silence dragged on, Je Hyun-oh placed his metal hand neatly on the rooftop door.

Screeeech…

The sound of a slow scraping downward echoed eerily right beside me.

For a brief moment, I wanted to use Prohibition and run away.

But no matter how hard I tried to escape, I would be caught within a couple of flaps of his wings.

I gave up and answered.

"You can’t kill them…"

"Why?"

I felt like that metal hand would scratch me if I said something that displeased him.

I managed to utter words that tried to downplay the truth somehow.

“I gave permission.”

It was the best answer I could come up with right now, but there was not a particularly positive reaction.

The metal hand scratched at the rooftop door once again.

Faced with that silent demand for an explanation, I stammered out the rest.

“Well… it’s necessary for the operation of Earth…”

I glanced sideways at the metal hand placed right next to my face for a moment, then added.

“I made a deal to provide the photos in exchange for a small reward.”

When I explained that the contract had already been finalized, Je Hyun-oh tilted his head slightly to the side.

I apologized earnestly inwardly.

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant Colonel Je. I need to earn some Star Fragments.’

Then, I heard him call out in a low voice.

“Goyo.”

“Yes…”

“Should I do the same?”

“Yes?”

Startled, my voice involuntarily rose.

Leaving me behind, he strode across the rooftop..

The moment I saw him about to unfold his metal wings, I had a hunch.

He was on the verge of losing his mind.

I hurriedly chased after him, grabbed Je Hyun-oh, and shouted.

“Actually, I didn’t do this because I wanted to!!”

Je Hyun-oh stopped in his tracks. The truth immediately flowed from my lips.

“Well, it really was unavoidable given the circumstances. There was a certain god who had been watching over me for a long time…”

In the end, I spilled the beans about Black Block. After a long explanation, I added a remark that sounded as pitiful as possible.

“I’m still very weak. My abilities are lacking, too… Since it was a situation where I couldn’t do anything, I just thought it would be good to earn some money to spend in space.”

“…….”

Je Hyun-oh did not answer. He turned his back to me for a moment before finally turning to look at me.

The moment our eyes met, my heart grew heavy.

It was because I had realized that I had made my subordinate anxious.

My mouth opened involuntarily, without me even realizing it.

“I’m sorry…”

And I placed a golden veil over him.

Je Hyun-oh said nothing. He simply closed and opened his eyes slowly and silently.

However, while he usually looked at the veil whenever I placed a protective veil over him, this time he looked at me.

I met his gaze and thought.

What is Je Hyun-oh?

Did he learn everything he knows from <Zero>?

But Je Hyun-oh knew too many truths and possessed abilities I was unaware of.

Everything was ambiguous, yet one thing was certain.

Je Hyun-oh was my subordinate, and I had to take responsibility for him.

I cautiously made a promise to him.

“I will grow strong quickly so that this will never happen again.”

The protective veil scattered. Even amidst the golden dust, Je Hyun-oh was looking at me unchangingly.

I felt a strange sense of satisfaction at the fact that he was no longer looking at the sky.

Just as our gaze lingered on one another, a screen appeared in mid-air.

—Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyun-oh. You must return now.

I had thought the TRA was quieter than expected, but it was thanks to Samra’s cooperation.

Je Hyun-oh put his goggles back on.

Just as I breathed a sigh of relief at having barely escaped the crisis, a rough whisper reached me.

“Where is the cake?”

I looked at Je Hyun-oh in surprise.

I had sent a message saying I would buy him a cake upon his return.

However, I hadn’t expected him to come back this quickly, so I was empty-handed.

I certainly hadn’t expected him to remember my message and ask about it.

“I don’t have any right now. Shall I go buy some? If you could wait just a moment…”

I was about to hurry and go to a nearby bakery when he reached out and blocked my path. I bumped into a sturdy forearm and looked up at Je Hyun-oh.

“…Ah.”

I belatedly remembered what he had said a while ago about hating waiting.

I hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“I’ll prepare in advance next time.”

Je Hyun-oh, with an emoticon flashing on his goggles, took a step back.

Then, turning around, he walked toward the railing and spread his wings.

I pictured him flying through the city’s nightscape.

However, instead of flying freely, Je Hyun-oh vanished as if plummeting down from the building.

I ran to the railing and looked around, but I couldn’t see anything.

I was left all alone on the rooftop.

I stayed on the rooftop for quite a while to clear my thoughts, and when I returned home, Kwak Hanmuk was awake.

He said he had just dropped Mo Haein off at home.

“Where did you go?”

I wasn’t sure if I should mention Je Hyun-oh’s unauthorized absence, so I simply replied that I had gone out for some fresh air.

Kwak Hanmuk didn’t ask any further questions and just praised me for cleaning the house thoroughly.

I drank a hangover remedy alongside him and went to bed early.

When I woke up in the morning, I felt perfectly fine.

I wasn’t entirely sure, but it seemed I had a high tolerance for alcohol.

Seeing me perfectly fine without a hangover, Kwak Hanmuk added a new pun to his list.

"It wasn’t a chestnut, it was an alcohol chestnut…"

He shook his head and took out a hangover dessert to eat.

I thought he was even more impressive for eating dessert in the morning, but I didn’t say it out loud.

Since training was starting in earnest today, I had to report to work at the TRA.

I checked my phone as I put on my uniform.

I had thought the messages would stop after last night, but there was another one waiting.

Anyway, thinking the sender had a bad personality, I replied and headed to work with Kwak Hanmuk, who had finished getting ready.

As we walked side by side toward the TRA, people glanced at us.

It seemed our uniforms stood out a bit.

Everyone knew that there was a military organization in this area. They just didn’t know exactly what it did.

I heard that since they couldn’t reveal the existence of the Trial, the TRA was pretending to be a new military organization to the outside world.

‘The TRA uniform is cool, though.’

It wasn’t because I liked the Archive game; objectively, it was a cool uniform.

Kwak Hanmuk, walking beside me, muttered in a sad voice.

“I have to work like hell starting today…”

He meant that work had piled up just because we partied and played yesterday.

He had said he was constantly busy lately, but I wondered when he would finally get a break.

After arriving at the TRA, Kwak Hanmuk patted my shoulder and said.

“Good luck at your training. If anyone bothers you, tell me.”

“Yes. I’ll be back.”

I didn’t miss the opportunity and demonstrated the military salute I had learned in a crash course yesterday.

As soon as he saw my salute, Kwak Hanmuk burst into laughter like a snack bag bursting.

I blinked, wondering if it was still clumsy, but he chuckled and saluted back.

Then, patting my back hard, he said I could be a captain now, not just a trainee.

‘That’s a compliment, right?’

I felt my whole body shaking from Kwak Hanmuk’s huge hand.

After a brief commotion, I parted ways with Kwak Hanmuk and headed to the training area.

The pudding slime on my head asked as if it were genuinely curious.

“Roasted Chestnut. How do humans train a god?”

To him, this seemed like a bizarre spectacle. I explained it to him from an alien perspective.

“I am pretending to be human to collect necessary information. It is required for planetary operations. As you know, Dominic-ssi, I was born not long ago, so there are many things I do not know.”

I launched into a long explanation, implying that one must understand humans to govern them.

Pudding Slime still seemed unable to understand, but he did not add any further comments.

In the midst of this, a system window suddenly appeared.

This was something I had been thinking about as well, and I was devising a way to enter the trials while completing my training.

‘But why hasn’t it mentioned registering lately?’

Since it had appeared anyway, I asked what I was curious about, but it remained silent once again.

Anyway, it appeared and disappeared only when it suited it. I was used to it by now, so I didn’t say much either.

I did have a hunch about what was going on.

I had consumed ■■■ and Infernum.

As the two things mixed, the rate of digestion definitely increased compared to before, and just handling this was overwhelming for me right now.

It seemed it judged that there was no immediate need for registration, given that the divine power would surge significantly once the digestion was complete.

I felt that if handling a young god was already a struggle, things might become truly unbearable once the digestion process finished.

I had to find a solution before that happened.

I arrived at the training area, pondering what the anchor might be.

“…….”

As soon as I opened the door, I was met with a barrage of stares directed at me.

In the space decorated like a classroom, about fifteen trainees were sitting in rigid postures. I arrived ten minutes early for class, but everyone else had already arrived.

The gazes directed at me were a mixture of various emotions, ranging from curiosity to disapproval.

It seemed that not many viewed me favorably.

Yesterday, Mo Haein briefly told me about the rumors circulating about me within the TRA.

The superiors, who knew exactly what the Trial was, regarded me as monster.

It was understandable, given the many strange things I had done.

However, the lower-ranking personnel, lacking that knowledge and experience, were reportedly resentful that a mere trainee was receiving special treatment.

Their consensus was that I was able to shut down the Trials thanks to the Special Mission Team.

They argued that such a result was achieved because they assembled a team consisting of the Captains, Je Hyun-oh, and even Samra; they questioned whether it could have been purely due to a trainee.

The fact that I entered the TRA as a trainee when I signed the contract seemed to lend credibility to their reasoning.

I didn’t give it much thought, knowing that if I had joined as a Captain, they would have bitten me for that too.

‘I would have stood out no matter what I did.’

What mattered to me was the Special Mission Team.

My goal was to be a moderately rough stone— a bit of a troublemaker, but one that wouldn’t be too big of a liability to the name of the Special Mission Team.

Just as I was about to sit in the empty seat at the very back…

Won Taebeom entered the classroom holding a tablet.

Our eyes met immediately.

‘Is it now?’

I saluted him, and he looked at me silently before returning the greeting with a nod.

I still hadn’t been able to apologize to Won Taebeom since the closure of Cell-X.

Samra offered to erase Won Taebeom’s memories if I wanted, but I declined because that didn’t feel quite right.

Since then, I’d been looking for an opportunity to talk to Won Taebeom, but it hadn’t been easy.

To begin with, a trainee couldn’t just go up to a Lieutenant—a superior far above him—and ask to talk. Still, it would have been ridiculous to ask the captains to arrange a meeting for me.

I was mulling it over when, fortunately, Won Taebeom was assigned to train the new recruits.

It seemed like the perfect time to strike up a conversation after this training was over, if I waited for an opportunity.

‘I’ll be coming to kneel soon.’

Thinking this to myself, I looked at Won Taebeom with a somewhat gentle gaze.

For some reason, Won Taebeom couldn’t meet my eyes for long.

He slightly lowered his gaze.

Then, he checked his watch and began the class as soon as it struck the hour.

“We will proceed with practical training today.”

Won Taebeom opened the metal bag placed on the podium.

Inside was a Trial Meteorite. It was a low-grade meteorite intended for training.

A tense atmosphere flowed through the trainees at the sight of the colorful meteorite.

Just as I was thinking how cute it looked, like a child’s toy, Won Taebeom mentioned the name of the trial.

“The trial we are entering is <Hop Drop Pop>, rated two stars.”

<Hop Drop Pop>. I was even more delighted to hear it because it was a game I had enjoyed playing.

HoDroPop was a large-scale multiplayer game with a casual atmosphere.

Players start simultaneously and proceed through various mini-games; it was a survival style game where players navigated obstacles or engaged in light duels.

It was fun because players could both cooperate and hinder each other, and it had a significant advantage.

‘There is no death penalty.’

In HoDroPop, if a player falls off the stage, a heart is consumed.

Once all six given hearts are used up, the player switches to spectator mode.

If even a single participant completes the course, the spectators also clear the trial, allowing everyone to exit safely.

It was considered one of the safer trials.

Even if all the trainees became spectators, clearing the course was guaranteed as long as the instructor completed it, making it a trial perfectly suitable for educational purposes.

However, there was a separate, decisive reason why I liked HoDroPop.

It was the ability to customize the characters in various ways.

I liked that I could customize my character by selecting different options when starting the game.

I wondered if customization would apply to Pudding Slime as well.

“I will assign evaluation scores based on the ranking of those who complete the course.”

Won Taebeom added in a stiff tone after finishing the explanation of the trial.

“Trainees must cooperate with each other to complete the course.”

Cooperation, huh…

Judging by the atmosphere, it didn’t seem like there were many people willing to cooperate with me.

Well, it didn’t matter.

I was confident I could cross the finish line even if every single trainee here swarmed in to interfere.

However, since it was for the TRA’s educational purposes, I should be careful not to clear it with the True Ending and have it shut down.

‘Let’s just make it into the top 5.’

I set a reasonable rank in my mind and resolved to myself.

Won Taebeom, having just explained the final precautions, announced the entry into the trial.

"Then I will enter."

As he placed his hand on the meteorite, the world turned fluorescent.

However, having entered HoDroPop, I couldn’t even read the main quest.

Someone had pushed me off the stage the moment I entered.

I plummeted rapidly against a backdrop that looked cute.

With my vision turning gray, one heart was consumed.

And then I…

"…Ha."

I was resurrected, slightly annoyed.

sorry for the lack of updates everyone…things haev been a bit hectic. hoping to catch back up again soon!