‘Director, you’re a hero. You saved countless lives. You did something no one else could do. I’ll never forget it either. I’ll never forget what you did, Director…’
But now, the only transparent and pure existence in the world that Evil knew was pouring out praise toward Evil.
Evil, who had no immunity to sincere praise, forgot even to breathe and became dazed, then unconsciously placed his palm over his heart that gradually began to beat violently.
He could have easily blocked Cheche’s small lips. He could have snapped at him to shut up, or could have stopped listening and gone into the mansion. But he didn’t do that.
Because he wanted to hear it.
Because Evil’s frozen heart wanted to hear praise from this angel-like beautiful hero.
‘You did a good thing…’
Cheche whispered to Evil gently. Like a sparrow softly landing on wildflowers in a field under the warm sun and chirping quietly, peacefully and warmly. Though in truth, where he sat wasn’t on wildflowers but on a monster’s claws. The small existence, not even a mouthful for the monster, circled and chirped on the sharp claws, saying he would praise the monster.
At that bold behavior, Evil’s heart shook helplessly.
So much so that even after falling asleep that night, he dreamed of a sparrow flying around him chirping “peep, cheep.”
Because of that, he woke up from sleep and ended up staying awake all night listening intently to Cheche’s slow breathing as he lay in the front room—Evil was shaken helplessly to that extent.
***
During Alcity’s winter, it snows twenty-four hours a day for about two weeks. This is called the snowfall period. The snowfall period usually occurs between year-end and the beginning of the year, that is, from December to March, and was a natural phenomenon that had continued for a long time. Since it was never a heavy snowfall, if you diligently cleared the snow that accumulated overnight each morning, there wasn’t much inconvenience.
Last night, this winter’s first snow fell. The mansion’s garden managers came out from dawn to clear the abundantly piled snow. The heavy snow that filled heaven and earth white announced that the snowfall period had begun.
“There again…”
“Shh, pretend not to notice and greet him.”
The garden managers whispered with lip movements. As soon as they came out of the lodging, they could see Evil running in the distance.
It was bizarre behavior that had been repeating for over a week now.
You don’t know how surprised they were on the first day. The five garden managers who came out yawning as usual and discovered Evil racing through the garden with a terrifying face worked all that day with pale faces from shock. On the second day they were less surprised than the first, but still stiffened when greeting Evil.
They’d hoped he wouldn’t be there today because of the snow, but instead he was racing through the garden with blazing eyes as if to melt all the snow away. Evil still ignored the garden managers’ greetings and passed by swiftly. The garden managers prepared for work briskly since their employer was in the same space.
Their task was to clear the abundantly piled snow, pull out all the unknown plants that had rolled in from somewhere, spray pesticides so not a single insect would crawl around, and make the space as bleak and bare as possible.
Today they also had the added task of organizing construction materials for the Luzem workshop currently under construction. Since the snowfall period had begun, workshop construction was also halted for now. Since only snow would accumulate for a while, they needed to move things inside.
While working diligently, they kept glancing toward where Evil was.
There were seventeen mansion garden managers total—five in the front garden, and twelve deployed to the back garden which was larger than the front. Everyone disliked going to the back garden because it had a small pit in the center (originally a lake but Evil had eliminated it) making it tricky to manage. However, in recent days, it had become everyone’s desired position just because they couldn’t see Evil racing with a terrifying face every morning.
The garden managers glanced once every three seconds to check how far away Evil was, and sighed once every five seconds.
“How many laps do you think he’ll run today?”
“Yesterday the mansion security personnel checked the surveillance cameras and said he runs about fifty laps.”
“I’d collapse after running just five laps.”
“Even one lap would be impressive, man.”
Even in such trivial aspects they realized that Evil was the world’s strongest Motion Aura User. The fact that he didn’t shed a single drop of sweat even after running fifty laps around this vast garden without rest. It was truly monstrous stamina.
When Evil went to the far end of the garden and was almost visible as just a dot, one person asked on everyone’s behalf.
“But why did he suddenly start jogging?”
“Can you call that jogging? It’s like some martial arts training.”
“To the young master it’s light jogging. This person who never woke up early in his life is now coming to work on time. And doing morning exercise. He’s been strange lately.”
“Like butler Hips said, he’s definitely been strange since Cheche came.”
“Maybe he’s doing this to hold back his killing intent.”
“Shh, stop that and just work.”
Mateo, the garden manager who had worked the longest, stopped the chatter. Recently three employees had resigned simultaneously—they didn’t state the reason, but it was speculated to be because they’d made Evil uncomfortable. No matter how much you joined out of respect for Evil, once you have your life threatened by an angry Evil, it becomes difficult to respect him as before. You flee by survival instinct.
Among those who quit was a garden manager who had worked quite a long time, so they were currently hiring new staff.
Evil’s mansion always employed a large staff compared to the workload. With quite high pay and a generous workload, it could actually be called a honey job as long as you didn’t go against the boss’s mood. However, you had to be careful because if two garden managers left during the snowy season, it became a normal workplace level of workload.
The garden managers exchanged glances and silently started their work. Thanks to following Mateo’s instinctive warning, they escaped Evil’s threat.
However… unlike them feeling relieved, Evil heard everything.
“Damn it, fucking noisy.”
Did they think he wouldn’t hear if they whispered while talking? Are they really not idiots?
Evil kicked the ground in annoyance. The stone embedded in the ground flew far away and the floor became deeply dented.
In truth, if he were really angry, he would have already run over and separated their tongues from their mouths. The reason Evil stayed put was because he agreed with what they said.
‘Like butler Hips said, he’s definitely been strange since Cheche came.’
Accurate.
The reason for running from dawn like this was all because of Cheche.
It was all because of that refugee.
Cheche slept late. The refugee suffering from insomnia had never once fallen asleep earlier than Evil.
‘Sleep well.’
‘Yeah.’
After greeting him in the corridor, Cheche would enter his room and head straight to the study. He’d placed a desk made of wood from the Acrargiel Republic in front of the bookshelf where Alcity’s classical books were displayed like decorations, and Cheche would sit in front of it, press the laptop’s power button, and open a computer programming book marked with bookmarks. The laptop was a different model from the one he’d used at the Center—Evil had personally prepared it for him to practice using computers.
After studying how to handle various programs for about an hour, he’d now enter a video site. Evil had been too curious about what he was searching for with his still clumsy typing skills, so he secretly entered while Cheche was away from the room and snooped through the search history to find out.
Luzem crafting
Surprisingly, Cheche was previewing Luzem crafting that he’d soon be doing. After searching and finding the videos he wanted, he’d put on headphones. Perhaps thinking of the person with excellent hearing in the room right in front… he’d awkwardly put on headphones too big for his head and concentrate on the videos.
Evil was very surprised and amused that Cheche showed such interest.
Originally he was going to roughly make a Luzem workshop in the mansion basement, but after learning Cheche showed interest, he moved it outside. Rather than opening the window wide only to see a jet-black cement wall, it seemed better to have a place where opening the window would let you feel sunshine and wind blowing, so he decided to make it in the garden close to the central mansion. It was scheduled to be completed within three weeks but was delayed because it overlapped with the snowfall period.
After watching several videos of the Luzem crafting process, Cheche would become dazed for a moment as if running a simulation. Then he always finished by firmly pressing the bones of his chest. Clenching his fist, then pressing the center of his chest firmly with the protruding bulge of his thumb. Evil felt that this was an act of punishing himself.
After using his Aura to sense presence and follow Cheche’s activities with clear visibility without blind spots, he always faced the most frustrating situation at the end.
Cheche couldn’t fall asleep for a long time.
It was very natural and completely predictable for someone who lived on a battlefield to suffer from insomnia. However, Cheche was different from other insomnia patients.
The refugee didn’t toss and turn at all. There was no turning arms and legs this way and that to find a comfortable sleeping position, no sighing full of irritation from being unable to sleep.
Cheche didn’t even lie on the bed.
He didn’t use a pillow and didn’t cover himself with a blanket.
On the wide bed where he could roll around freely, he left the blanket and pillow neatly placed, and came down to the floor with his bare body. In the bedroom excessively spacious for one person alone, the place Cheche headed was a corner. There, Cheche curled up his small body to look even smaller and just lay still. As naturally as if that were his designated spot.
During the long night, being unable to sleep was painful. Evil knew well because he’d also suffered from insomnia. For him as an SSS Motion Aura User, not sleeping for a few days wasn’t a big problem, and the reason he’d suffered from insomnia was simply noise so it was quite different in meaning from Cheche’s, but for whatever reason, even without physical fatigue, sleepless nights are irritating and painful.
