CHAPTER 349: ROSE (2)

When he didn’t need to hide his power, Kang-hoo always released a steady amount of Dark Energy and holy power outside his body.

It was to be prepared—just in case.

In a world of survival of the fittest where everyone must fend for themselves, you had to be vigilant every moment.

So even now, he naturally detected the suspicious currents of Dark Energy and holy power.

“It feels like there’s something underground around here. If it’s beneath this spot… it’s likely connected to the mansion as well.”

“You sensed that?”

“Sensed what?”

“You stopped here and said it, so you must have sensed there was something underground, right?”

“That’s right.”

“I mean, I know all the locations, but I haven’t told you anything.”

Emilia’s eyes went wide. Unlike usual, her pupils dilated noticeably.

It wasn’t so much a test as it was Emilia being genuinely startled—eyes you show when faced with the unexpected.

“There’s nothing special to it. I felt something, so I said I felt it. That’s all.”

“Mm… that’s a little scary, you know?”

“What is?”

“There’s a dungeon underground. It’s a variable-type dungeon that irregularly siphons surrounding energies.”

“As I thought.”

“The mana flow stays steady, but sometimes the flows of holy power and Dark Energy flutter minutely. Even so, at this level I can barely detect it.”

Kang-hoo answered with a smile instead.

Saying “I can” would sound like bragging; saying nothing at all felt obnoxious.

Either way would look odd, so he let a smile carry the answer.

Emilia added:

“I already heard from Cheonghwa that you can use holy power and Dark Energy in parallel. But I never imagined your senses were this sharp.”

“It’s just a habit of caution. You never know what could happen, or where.”

“I’m really impressed. I didn’t expect you to have such a sensitive, delicate detection ability…”

Clicking her tongue in amazement, Emilia—still wearing a surprised face—guided Kang-hoo into the mansion.

Dark Energy and holy power were hard stats to acquire—and even harder to hone the senses for.

But Kang-hoo already seemed to be on the main track, as if they had always been his.

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Alone with Emilia, Kang-hoo received, as promised, a gift of a twelve-dish full table.

It beat a Korean specialty restaurant in taste and depth, and the composition was impressively complete.

The laden spread looked fit to snap the table legs—something to put a king’s royal table to shame.

It amazed him that Emilia—who wasn’t even Korean—had prepared it.

At the same time, he felt her sincerity in cooking, which made the meal taste even better.

Above all, every dish carried Dark Energy, which helped recover his own.

His Dark Energy had already been full, but this felt like it was filling beyond that.

As Kang-hoo ate vigorously, without picking at side dishes, Emilia’s face bloomed with smiles.

Sitting across from him, she propped her chin with a proud look and watched.

By the picture alone, eye contact with a cute girl should have made for a warm scene.

But in a goth outfit, and with eyes that sometimes shifted red then faded, it felt eerie.

Like watching a vampire before a feast of blood—a “last supper” before death.

Sensing the long silence as she stared at him, Emilia spoke up.

“I’m happy.”

“You look it. And it really is delicious. I think I’ll crave it even after I’m back in Korea.”

Kang-hoo gave a thumbs-up.

Ju Haemi’s home cooking was good, but Emilia’s skills exceeded even that.

Her cooking and sense of presentation were such that opening a restaurant wouldn’t feel out of place.

Buoyed by his near-rave review, Emilia stroked her reddening cheeks and said:

“My friends’ reactions are usually meh. They’re grateful at first, but later they don’t say much.”

“That’s not right. Nothing in the world is ‘a given’—not even food that looks ordinary.”

Gratitude is always gratitude.

He wasn’t saying it just to please Emilia’s ears; it was one of Kang-hoo’s own principles.

He tried not to forget familiar preciousness—gratitude dulls easily.

“Want to try some other dishes? I prepped more side dishes—all Korean banchan.”

“I won’t say no.”

He nodded on the spot.

Lately his appetite had been wide open—just watching mukbang clips spiked it to infinity.

While Emilia brought out new side dishes, Kang-hoo checked his face with his phone.

He wondered if food or sauce had splattered while eating, but that worry was unfounded.

If anything bothered him, it was his bloodless complexion, stark even through the screen.

He’d been stuffing food in—shoveling it in, really.

But no matter how much he ate, his pallor stayed the same. He didn’t gain weight.

Was his body that overworked?

Even so, it was as if the gene for weight gain had been deleted—his frame stayed slender.

‘Not gaining weight is a problem too.’

Muttering a complaint that would make some people furious, he watched Emilia bring the new dishes.

Seeing the heaping side plates, he figured he could down another bowl of rice. His mouth watered already.

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After the meal—

Up on the mansion’s third floor, Kang-hoo enjoyed tea time with Emilia at a terrace table.

Perhaps because the elevation was higher, the Eiffel Tower and its surroundings came into view, albeit at a slight distance.

Fweee—BOOM!

Shweee—BOOM!

An ongoing fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower punctuated the sky with constant bursts.

“…”

Emilia’s gaze, quiet as she sipped tea with Kang-hoo, stayed on the fireworks for a long time.

Her eyes were clearly steeped in a deep melancholy unlike usual.

A look that words could never quite explain—feelings crossing in waves. Kang-hoo knew what that meant.

It was a gaze you couldn’t produce without deep loneliness—no acting or falsehood could mask it.

“Is something worrying you?”

Kang-hoo broached it lightly—

A question gentle enough not to pry, yet sufficient to draw out her heart.

Emilia let out a long sigh, downed the half-full teacup in one go, and continued:

“It’s just… I’m lonely.”

“Even with friends by your side, it’s a loneliness that doesn’t get filled, is that it?”

He struck the core.

Emilia already had a sturdy fence called “Justice.”

Whatever they thought within it, they were bound within the frame of comrades and friends.

And yet she felt lonely—much like Takashi had.

“You know that feeling—when I want to mingle with people purely, but the other party draws a line first because of preconceptions about me.”

“Distance.”

“Exactly! The kind of distance that appears when someone says they trust me, but their head and heart don’t.”

At Kang-hoo’s precise choice of word, Emilia slapped her knee with a spirited “Yes!”

A reaction full of sincerity.

Kang-hoo recalled how the character Emilia Rose had been in the original.

‘She smiled a lot—and especially bright in front of Jang Si-hwan. She was inseparable with Takashi and Yu Cheonghwa.’

She’d been designed for that position. She hadn’t been close to Jang Si-hwan from the start, though.

In fact, they only truly grew close in the late stages near the conclusion.

Before that, the representatives of carefully built relationships were Chae Gwanhyeong and Casey Rex.

After that, he invested much of the remaining “relationship budget” in later-arriving allies—most notably Ranbir Kumar.

And that led to Emilia fading into the background—her screen time nearly vanished.

Their later closeness had been a sort of “reuse” case—reviving a character the author had neglected. A byproduct of indifference.

‘For that reason… this now is when Emilia has the most blank space in the original. You could call it her wandering period.’

She had no firm trust or faith in Jang Si-hwan, yet within the fence of Justice, she was gaining certain benefits.

That was likely her current stance toward Justice and Jang Si-hwan.

On the benefit side, she gathered steadily; on the emotional side, she received no care.

Yu Cheonghwa and Takashi couldn’t always be with her, so in the empty hours she sank into loneliness.

Kang-hoo wanted to empathize with Emilia’s feelings—and also to use that gap.

Some might say he was exploiting another’s psychological weakness.

He often used a line in his novels:

To confront a monster, you must become something worse than the monster.

That was Kang-hoo’s thinking now.

Jang Si-hwan could subtly manipulate and agitate not only people’s emotions but even their convictions.

With a thousand faces, he played exactly the figure the public wanted, their hero on demand.

Vowing to face someone like that with a straight, honorable approach? Madness.

He had to be relentless.

If he couldn’t strike Jang Si-hwan directly—

He would pry at even the smallest gaps around him, no matter what, and open a crack.

Hadn’t he already created such a crack in the heart of a comrade named Takashi? Emilia would be next.

And Kang-hoo didn’t aim to drive them into psychological ruin. In the bigger frame, it was “salvation.”

“Emilia, what does ‘mingling purely’ mean for you? I’d like to hear it.”

“You’re curious?”

“The word ‘pure’ doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.”

“It’s simple. You don’t prioritize the other person’s power, backing, or the support you can get from them. You mingle with them as a person.”

“Would that be hard between us? Everyday chatter, meals—anything works.”

“Can you look at me with a pure gaze?”

“That’s what I should ask back. Even if I approach with a pure heart, would you believe it?”

Startled by the redirected question, Emilia flinched.

Right—she’d never thought of it that way.

She always wondered whether others could treat her purely, but never considered that she might be the one wearing tinted glasses first.

Perhaps—

The problem was that she preemptively closed her heart and tried to judge others with narrow thoughts.

The simple question Kang-hoo tossed back suddenly resonated loudly in Emilia’s heart.

What was obvious to others had never been obvious to her.