NOVEL NEXT Chapter 318
Side Story: Another World – 7
“……What did you just say?”
“Nothing. Just keep watching what you were watching. It’s not like you’ll understand anyway, so what’s the point of saying more?”
“Hey! Have you said everything?”
After a round of sibling bickering following an additional attack that left my younger sister gasping for air, Lize and I spent some leisurely time in the empty living room.
Eventually, my sister, unable to come up with a counterargument, fumed for a while before disappearing somewhere. It’s either her room or outside, but honestly, I didn’t really care. What was I supposed to do with the knowledge of where she went?
Lize cautiously worried that I might have been too harsh on my only sister, but when I turned on my smartphone to show her the colorful exchanges of insults we had shared, she became instantly silent.
Even though Lize and Erica bicker all the time, to her, who saw it all as mere teasing, it must have been quite an extraordinary conversation.
How much time had passed? My smartphone rang.
“Can you come out and help me carry some things?”
“Yes. Understood. Should I tell Yujin to come too?”
“With her strength, she won’t be able to carry much… Just handle it yourself.”
At first, I was going to go alone, but Lize insisted on following me because she couldn’t just sit by herself.
“Hey! Mom said to come out and help with the stuff!”
As I shouted from the bottom of the staircase going to the second floor, the door swung open wide. My sister still seemed flustered and huffed as she stepped outside.
Our eyes met. I briefly shifted my gaze to Lize’s chest then back to her eyes and chuckled, making her expression twist even more. My sister shivered as she fled outside.
“Mom! Do you know what my brother said to me?!”
Both of us were pretending to act like siblings at least while Mom or Dad could hear.
We had once fought in front of our parents, resulting in a month of insincere affectionate words and actions under the pretense that siblings should get along, so it was a pact we didn’t want to repeat. If either of us messed up, we both would suffer.
I opened the entrance door. Our parents were unloading a cardboard box from the car. My sister stuck close to them, babbling about what I did, but neither of them seemed to actually listen.
It was all their own doing. They should have just informed them of the major issues and avoided mentioning every little detail. If they kept going over each small thing, it was bound to become monotonous.
“Son, you’re back early…? Oh my, oh my goodness.”
Mom, who was planning to greet me like usual, opened her eyes wide and approached, showering me with exclamations.
My sister, who had been pushed to the back, glared at me with burning eyes; now she was whining to Dad. But Dad was too startled to notice her.
“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness.”
“……?”
Mom, who had intended to greet me, ignored me and grabbed Lize’s hand instead. She looked over at me, bewildered, prioritizing a woman over her own son.
“Wait, you’re not even going to greet your son after a month?”
“If I have a son I’m seeing after a month and a girlfriend I’m seeing for the first time in 21 years, who do you think I’d be more shocked to see?”
“……I’m 21 years old, you know?”
If she said 21 years since she last saw my girlfriend, it sure felt like it made me sound older than that. Mom lightly disregarded my complaint and turned back to Lize.
“I’m Kang Soyoung. What’s your name, young lady?”
“L-Lize. Ma’am.”
“She called me ‘ma’am’! Honey, did you hear that? This pretty young lady just called me ‘ma’am’! Oh dear, I’m losing my mind. This isn’t the time for this. Come in now! We can’t leave our guest outside.”
My mom’s grin stretched from ear to ear at being called “ma’am” as she dragged Lize inside. My sister sulked behind, grumbling that no one was listening to her.
I snapped out of my daze and approached Dad, who was just finishing unloading the final box. There were three cardboard boxes stacked next to him.
He had been holding the third box when I left, so it seemed like he was finally coming to his senses after my mom’s over-the-top reaction.
“What did you buy so much of?”
“Your mom wanted to get a bunch of things since you were coming back after so long. I stopped her from picking up one more box; the kid isn’t going to die from overeating, right?”
A picture formed in my mind. I forced a smile and stacked the three boxes on top of each other, lifting them altogether. Only then did I notice Dad looking a bit surprised.
“Have you been exercising lately?”
Luckily, he didn’t press for answers. If I had tried lifting one with one hand, I would have been in real trouble. That excuse wouldn’t have worked.
“Uh… well. Something like that.”
“I see. You look good. Keep it up.”
If what I had done counted as exercise, then it was exercise in multiple ways.
I awkwardly carried the boxes back inside. As soon as I opened the entrance, the chatter became lively. Most of it was my mom’s voice.
“Are you sure about this, Goddess?”
I paused at the doorway as her words caught my attention. A round golden light mass appeared around her face.
— Yes. I’ll take care of fixing the unease, so you just need to trust me and wait.
“Now that you say to trust you, it makes me more uneasy. The mistakes you’ve made are far too numerous to count.”
It hadn’t been a week since I had scolded the Goddess for the overwhelming cause of my vitality.
Feeling my words directly refuted led to a flood of melancholy.
— You can really trust me this time though… sigh…
“I will wait and see. Let’s just say you’ve done a wonderful job so far.”
The fact that ‘Lize’ had just been mentioned openly without anyone questioning it was all thanks to Eclipse. I planned to gradually remove the unease in that fashion.
I reached the living room with the cardboard boxes. Mom had caught Lize and was bombarding her with questions.
“How did you two meet?”
“Um, as soon as I saw him, I thought he was the one, so I asked him out first. And when we actually dated, we found our interests aligned well….”
“You met for the first time and you thought he was the one?”
“Yeah.”
“Omigosh! Yujin, did you hear that? She thought he was the one as soon as she met him, and they matched in interests too! If this isn’t destiny, what is?!”
“……Did that punk get something on you?”
My sister muttered under her breath. Mom seemed too wrapped up in her excitement to hear, but I caught it. Lize probably heard it too since she was much closer.
Suppressing the urge to give my sister a smack, I put the boxes down on the kitchen table. I casually opened one to check the contents. The box was filled entirely with meat, not a single green leaf in sight.
I hadn’t expected the request for “any kind of meat” to return like this.
I organized the contents accordingly and returned to the living room. My overly excited mother turned sharply to me.
“Son! If you had such a pretty girlfriend, you should have told me first! If you said you couldn’t come home because you were with your girlfriend, I would have happily waited!”
I had never seen my mother in such a lively mood without drinking. Lize’s face turned bright red at the mention of “girlfriend,” but Mom seemed oblivious.
Even my sister, standing next to her, gasped at that. It was obvious to anyone that Lize looked like a girl in love.
She definitely wouldn’t appear to have been blackmailed.
“Miss. So you’re saying you’ve only been dating a short time yet you’re already here? You didn’t come because my son dragged you here, did you?”
“N-No. I wanted to come. I really wanted to meet you, ma’am.”
With her slightly flushed face and charming words, my mother’s fondness for her skyrocketed after just a few exchanges.
Perhaps over-excitement got the best of her, as she then stood up, her expression determined.
“Son. How about taking your girlfriend to your room for a moment?”
“I-I’ll help too.”
“Miss is a guest, so just relax with my son. I’ll call for you when it’s done.”
Lize tried to stand up to help, but Mom firmly pushed her back. Instead, she caught my younger sister, who was trying to sneak away toward the room.
“Yujin! You need to help your mom, where do you think you’re going?!”
“W-Why is it always me?! My brother can do it! Such a convenient excuse! He needs to cook for his girlfriend!”
“Is this kid out of her mind? If Juwon helps me, then what about his girlfriend? If you feel wronged, bring along your boyfriend! What kind of girl doesn’t even have one by twenty?!”
I waved cheerfully at my sister, who was being dragged and pulled by Mom. Her death glare at me quickly vanished into the kitchen.
“Let’s go upstairs. We have things to do, right?”
“……Are we really allowed to go up? Shouldn’t we help out?”
“Mom doesn’t lie about that kind of stuff. She won’t deduct points just because we didn’t help, so don’t worry.”
“Indirect talk” was never in Mom’s vocabulary. Except when we were too young, the words she spoke were her true feelings.
It was no different just now. Since Mom said to rest, we could just go up, relax, and come down once dinner was ready. There was no need to speculate about her hidden intentions.
“Uh… Delta, your real name is ‘Juwon,’ right?”
While going up the stairs, Lize kept glancing at me and finally asked the question. She must have heard Mom earlier.
“Yeah. My last name is Baek. So it’s Baek Juwon. I’m more accustomed to being called Delta by you guys, so I don’t mind it sticking.”
It was a newly arrived realization, but thinking about it, the name fit pretty well. The term Delta in the language of the Eclipse world meant ‘change,’ and ultimately, it had brought about changes.
Though not every change was good, like the fanatic group that had formed in the Holy Kingdom.
“Juwon… Juwon… I see…”
She shut the door behind her after ushering me into the room.
Immediately, she locked the doorknob. There could be misunderstandings about what a man and a woman were doing while locking doors, but it was much better than revealing what was about to be shown.
In an instant, a circle of blue mana appeared beside us. Through the center of the circle, the scenery of the studio apartment became visible. Heads popped out along the perimeter, poking their heads in to look at my room.
Except for Minerva, who stood proudly in the center.
“Are you ready to move onto the next stage?”
“Yes. We can proceed. You did well, Lize.”
Lize nodded and smiled before stepping into the center of the circle. In trade, Luna stepped over. Floretta stood behind her.
“Let’s begin, Evangelina.”
“Yes. Sister Seraphica.”
The Pope sisters closed their eyes at the same time. Swish, Floretta’s body toppled back. Stella and Selene gently caught her and laid her down on the bed.
Luna’s hair turned golden. Her eyes opened slowly. Before I knew it, her right eye had turned green. It was an appearance I had seen before, an incarnation.
Minerva lightly waved her staff. The golden-haired hair changed back to black, and her pupils turned into a pitch-black color.
She was now wearing a white polartec and skinny jeans, identical to what Lize had on. The Pope, now with two identities coexisting, softly smiled.
“Shall we, Juwon?”