Side Story Chapter 18. The Way These Men Play

On a weekend morning, the doorbell rang. Given how early it was, the woman sleeping sweetly had to force herself to open her eyes.

Ding-dong. When she heard the doorbell ring once more, she rose and got out of bed. “Who is it…” The woman opened the room’s door and trudged to the entrance. While walking, several children, who were playing in the living room, rushed forward and clung to her. “Uh…hey kids…wait a minute…” The woman had a little trouble escaping the children’s hands as they grabbed her calves and dragged her back. And while she was about to head to the entrance like this—

“Where’s Dad?”

She heard a familiar voice.

“He’s not home, right?”

When the woman turned around, she saw a red-haired girl with an arrogant expression sitting in the living room. Judging by the storybook in her hands, she seemed to have been reading it for the other children. Somehow, unlike her usual grumpy expression, she seemed a little nervous. The woman tilted her head and nodded.

“Yeah…probably? Mr. Soo-Hyun went out early in the morning, saying he had something to do today.”

“Yeah, that’s a relief.” The girl with red hair, Suna, sighed quietly.

The woman quickly blinked. She knew a bit about what type of existence Suna was, yet Suna just said that something was a relief; it was the first time she had heard such words from Suna.

“But be careful, just in case.”

Suna even gave her a mysterious warning. The woman felt a bit more awake after this and looked at the entrance instinctively. She stared at the door with sharp eyes for a long time.

* * *

‘Hmm. Is there no one at home? But it can’t be, I heard children’s voices? Or there are no adults…’ Chi-Woo waited in the hallway, holding a luxuriously wrapped box in his arms. What was inside was none other than rick cakes, and of course, it was a gift. His parents said that it was Korean tradition to pass around rice cakes to the neighbors and greet them when one moved in, so at his parent’s request, Chi-Woo took charge of passing around rice cakes. After waiting for a long time and wondering if he should just return, the shadow under the front door lengthened and swept the hallway. It all happened extremely quickly, but it didn’t escape Chi-Woo’s eyes.

Soon after, the tightly sealed door opened, and a woman carefully showed herself. Although she wore comfortable clothes, she couldn’t hide the curves underneath, and she painted the picture of an extremely sensual and mature woman. And for some reason, she let out a very dangerous aura; it felt like she would cut off a person’s head under the cover of night in one slice with a blade that reflected the moonlight.

“…What business do you have?” she asked with a slightly raspy but pleasant-sounding voice.

It wasn’t ‘who are you’, but what business he had. For some reason, she didn’t seem to welcome him, but Chi-Woo decided to do his part since he had come all the way here. He answered, “Hello, we just moved in next door.” After greeting politely, he held out the box in his arms. “I came to give you some of this. It’s a bribe for us to get along in the future.”

As the saying went, it was hard to spit on a smiling face. The woman’s eyes widened when Chi-Woo spoke politely and lifted the gift box. She was on full alert and was flustered for a moment by the unexpected situation.

“Ah…” Then she realized that a new neighbor had moved in not long ago. ‘I see. It’s a moving gift. What did I expect?’ Her expression became noticeably softer. “Ah, is that so? My name is Go Yeon-Ju.”

“My name is Choi Chi-Woo. You really shocked me there because I came to say hello, but a very beautiful woman suddenly came out.”

“Oh my. You flatter me. I’m a married woman with many kids.” She waved her hand, but her expression looked bright as she covered her mouth with her other hand.

Chi-Woo also returned her smile and pushed forward the box. “If it’s not too burdensome, would you accept this present?”

“Yes! Of course. We’re grateful to you instead. Ah, we have a lot of kids at home, so it can get a bit loud. May I ask for your understanding in advance?” The woman asked while receiving the box.

“Haha, of course. That’s how kids are. I will be making the same request a few years later, so I look forward to your understanding as well.” Chi-Woo also responded pleasantly.

“Aha, you must be married.”

“Not yet, but soon, I’ll also…”

After sharing a casual conversation in a warm atmosphere, Chi-Woo turned around and said his final greeting one more time. After confirming that Chi-Woo was going back home, Go Yeon-Ju closed the door and turned around. She hummed and put down the gift she received. First of all, even the wrapping paper was quite luxurious. She tried one of the rice cakes, and judging by the texture and chewiness of the rice cake, it was clear that a lot of thought had been put into this gift. Furthermore, the young man who came here was handsome, neat, well-dressed, and polite.

‘I like him,’ Go Yeon-Ju thought she should greet him every time she saw him. While she was thinking this and organizing the present, the children crowded around her again. They all looked up at her with anxious expressions.

“Mom…are you okay…?”

“Hmm? Why are you asking me that?” Since everyone looked wary, Go Yeon-Ju asked with a puzzled expression.

“Did he go back?” Then she heard Suna’s voice. “What did he say?”

“Oh, it was nothing much. Just to give a moving gift,” Go Yeon-Ju said, tapping the stacked boxes of rice cakes. “He was a really nice guy. I was a bit cold at first, but he didn’t show any signs of being upset. He looked nice too.”

Suna didn’t say anything. Judging by the slight frown on her face, she even seemed to be agonizing over something. Or in a way, she looked confused. “A gift? Why? Since he was in touch with the Golden Constellation a while ago and received his help, this is the most appropriate time—timing wise. But a gift?” She murmured incomprehensible words to herself.

Go Yeon-Ju tilted her head and turned around unconsciously seeing Suna like this. She was once the most famed assassin working in the dark; this meant that she had extremely keen senses. And who was Suna? She was a tenth celestial rank existence that was one rank higher than even the creation god, Banyeol, who was considered superior to even the eternal burning King of Hell and apocalypse god. If an existence such as Suna was reacting like this, this was not a matter to be easily overlooked. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but such thoughts naturally came to her mind.

“If you’re worried, do you want me to secretly look into it?”

“No, don’t,” Suna answered immediately, but Go Yeon-Ju smiled and puffed out her chest with pride.

“Hey, come one. Do you not know my skills? I may look like this now, but I used to be called the Shadow Queen. I’ll carefully investigate them, so I won’t get caught like back then…” Go Yeon-Ju stopped talking and trailed off because Suna suddenly turned to her and stared—with a deadpan face.

“I don’t care what you do.” A cold voice struck Yeon-Ju’s ear. “But I know Dad will be sad and angry if you die, and it’s clear what the future will hold then. That’s why I’m warning you in advance not to act rashly.”

Go Yeon-Ju doubted her ears. What did she just hear?

“Don’t ever do that. Don’t even touch the tip of his hair. The person whom you’ve just seen is not as soft and easygoing as the Golden Constellation.”

“…”

“You’ll die if you do that. Definitely.”

Go Yeon-Ju trembled at her cold voice; it felt like a bucket of cold water was suddenly poured over her.

* * *

The Celestial Realm, which boasted of an unprecedented golden age, ended up cultivating chaos due to their own fault. Eventually, the Celestial Realm collapsed from the chaos, and all the angels became fallen angels and were exiled from paradise. It was over there that Golden was born, and thanks to Golden Constellation negotiating with the Chaos Constellation, the angels were able to recover from their fallen status. Then, the Celestial Realm was able to be restored, but not all problems had disappeared. Rather, the Celestial Realm had encountered a serious crisis—an unparalleled crisis that would determine its survival. Even though the archangels had emergency meetings every day, there was no sign of them finding a solution.

“I’m seriously going crazy.” Gabriel clutched her temple with both hands and rested her head on the desk. “Come on, are you kidding me? Why is this happening to us as soon as we return? Even if we’re trying to make a splashing return debut, this is going way too overboard.”

The other angels were speechless; they all looked at the wailing Gabriel with a deeply sympathizing expression. The situation they were in could be explained quite simply: a crisis had occurred somewhere in the universe, but the problem was that the level of this crisis was unprecedented.

“Did a crisis of this level ever occur…before?” Uriel asked with a slightly sickened expression. Michael shook her head without a word. The Celestial Realm had solved countless crises before, and among them, there were several calamities like the one that occurred on planet Liber with the Sernitas’ involvement. However, they were able to solve each case somehow every time, and that was how the Celestial Realm had survived.

However, this crisis was on a completely different playing field; it was so great that it made the Sernitas’ domination seem like toddler’s play. This problem could not be solved by forcibly pushing heroes into a planet like before as it would be no different than pushing an ordinary person into Jupiter’s trajectory without giving them a spacesuit; even before they reach their destination, they would die from the intense radioactivity. In short, there was no solution to this problem.

“Have we ever faced a crisis of this level before?” Raphael asked with a fatigued voice again.

While everyone shook their heads, Gabriel murmured with her head on the desk, “…There was one time.”

Raphael narrowed her eyes. “There was one time? Are you perhaps talking about the Chaos Constellation? That—”

“Not that. Since that was out of the standard, I mean excluding that.” Gabriel lifted her body and continued, “Don’t you guys all remember that incident? The mission that the Eustitia Family was responsible for.”

Everyone slightly gaped in realization. Although it was publicly known that Emmanuel from the Eustitia family solved this crisis, that was actually not the case at all.

“Are you talking about that demon god? Frankly, it was a bit of a stretch to call him a demon god.”

“Yeah, it was like that back then. Until he intervened.” When the demon god encountered Emmanuel, he was merely someone who had accidentally acquired god status. Of course, even that made him much stronger than a regular demon lord; hence he called himself a demon god. But it was hard to consider his existence as a great crisis. The problem occurred after the Heavenly King intervened. After freezing the situation for their group meeting and taking Emmanuel, the demon god had to wait a tremendous amount of time while his body was frozen in place, and only his consciousness was alive—and millions of years passed like that.

During that time, the demon god wasn’t just staying still either; he tried his utmost best to release the restraints on him. Since he couldn’t move his body, he constantly agonized, explored, and trained his consciousness. If an average person continued to focus on one thing and trained himself for 100 years, they would become a master in that field. Then what would happen if an existence that transcended a normal human trained his mind for millions of years? As a result of continuously developing himself through self-training, the demon god truly became a great existence. He went beyond fully absorbing the god status he accidentally absorbed and became a true god.

After that, he continued to improve and became a great god, and finally, the demon god easily exceeded the seventh celestial rank and reached greater heights. In fact, at that point, the flow of time was meaningless; he could easily wait hundreds or millions of years. However, there was only one reason the demon god had chosen death—it was not because of the long wait. It was because reality hit him hard. Even though he’d reached such great heights, he still couldn’t release the restraint on him. Far from moving, he couldn’t even squirm or move a finger. Thus, after reaching that level, he finally realized—ah, the person who restrained me is a really unbelievable existence. Compared to that existence, my power is not even comparable to dust floating in space.

“It was amazing indeed. I never imagined that a demon god, who grew beyond the seventh celestial rank, would choose to extinguish himself out of shame.” Everyone smiled bitterly at Gabriel’s words. Then they realized why she had suddenly brought up this event. The energy currently detected was greater than then, but the difference was not much larger. Thus, although this problem could not be solved by the Celestial Realm, there were beings who could solve it instead.

“There are only three.” The Heavenly King, Martial God, and the Golden Constellation. Gabriel listed the names while lifting her index finger, middle finger, and ring finger in order. As long as one of them came forward, this crisis could be solved easily. However, they were not beings who would easily make their move just because the Celestial Realm wanted them to. The angels knew this fact better than anyone else. The Heavenly King had already refused their request twice, and he had also given them the same warning twice. Gabriel had felt intuitively that—ah, this is really the last time; I don’t think there would be a third time. If they went to the Heavenly King once more, they would be crossing the third line that the Heavenly King drew. Then what would happen to the Celestial Realm? Gabriel didn’t even want to imagine it.

The other two were the same. It would be a miracle if they didn’t get stabbed with a sword as soon as the Martial God saw them. The Golden Constellation would not react as violently, but he would smile and respectfully refuse. Since he wanted to remain human more than anyone else, in a way, changing his mind might be more difficult than the other two. Yeah, they knew this but—

“It can’t be helped,” Gabriel said weakly. When the Celestial Realm was at its weakest, the most formidable enemy in Celestial Realm history had risen. Since they couldn’t solve this problem even after dying a trillion times, there was only one solution.

“We have to beg with all we have.”

“To whom…”

“We don’t even have to choose anyone. Let’s try all three.” They just needed one person among the three to accept. “Is there anyone who wants to volunteer to go to a specific person?” Gabriel looked around, but no one raised their hands. She could understand them as which mouse would willingly step up to put a bell around a cat’s neck? If they sent one to each of the three, at least one, maybe two, would never come back. Perhaps none among them would ever return. However, they still had to go. If they were all going to die one way or another, it was better to die now.

With a deep sigh, Gabriel said, “Laguel, you go and visit the Heavenly King. He might spare you out of consideration for his older brother.”

“He’s not the type of person to do that, but yes, I’ll go,” Laguel replied with no confidence.

“Michael, you go to the Golden Constellation. You at least know each other.” Michael bowed in silence. The atmosphere in the room was already more reminiscent of a funeral, and Gabriel, who was forcing the others to go, wasn’t in a good mood either. However, no one blamed her as there was no other way, and—

“Then I’ll go to the Martial God.” Above all, Gabriel decided to take on the mission with the lowest survival rate.