Chapter 55: Mental Care, At Your Service (1)
Even though it was time to delve into why this woman came at this hour, I had run into a major problem.
“Isn’t this sexual harassment?”
“What do you mean?”
“I am naked in an open-air bath right now, and across from me, Miss Baek Seol-hee is sitting in her long padded coat.”
I was currently naked.
Even though it was an open-air bath, I naturally went in naked because I reserved it for myself.
What if someone saw me?
Did you think there would be a CCTV in the open-air bath that came with a place that costs 5 million won per night?
Absolutely not.
There might have been in the past, but not now.
To protect the privacy of the visitors.
Thanks to this, the fact that Baek Seol-hee was here now and I entered the bath naked would not be recorded anywhere like CCTV.
However…
“Miss Baek Seol-hee. Why aren’t you averting your eyes?”
“Why does it matter when you can’t even see anything because of the hot spring steam and water?”
“If the genders were reversed, it would have caused a huge scandal.”
“Really? I saw a woman entering the men’s bath in clothes and dragging a man out by the hair in a public broadcast drama.”
“…….”
I wanted to argue about what would happen if the genders were reversed, but Baek Seol-hee looked too depressed right now.
“You really can’t see anything, right?”
“Yes, I can’t see anything. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Just like how Mr. Do Ji-hwan can’t see inside my long padded coat.”
Baek Seol-hee was still wearing her long black padded coat that reached her ankles.
The one comforting fact was that there was nothing on her wrists.
“You came leaving your Taeguk Watch behind. Good for you. If it were known that you were tracked by your Taeguk Watch and were with a man on Ulleung Island, Miss Baek Seol-hee, you would probably have been caught in a scandal of the century.”
“Yes, so I took off the Taeguk Watch to avoid a scandal. By now, those people up there probably think I am drinking beer and enjoying myself in the dormitory.”
“Did you have a fight?”
“Yes, a big one, a very serious fight. In that sense… Could you give me some counseling?”
“Hmm.”
I was unsure why Baek Seol-hee saw me as a garbage can for dumping her resentment of higher-ups.
This was a negative view. On the brighter side, it meant that she found me comfortable.
She hadn’t yet figured out that I was the Goblin.
If she had, her eyes wouldn’t be like this, and she would be more wary of me, but it was not like that at all.
“Alright, what exactly did those higher-ups do to provoke Miss Baek Seol-hee?”
“Human decency.”
“Hmm… Considering what happened today, there can only be one answer.”
Just like with Red Scarf, the answer was already there.
“Did they try to cover up the information about the dead villain from above and disguise it as a ‘simple rampage’?”
“… It’s similar.”
“Similar?”
“The government is trying to manipulate this incident as a rampage caused by an unidentified Goblin follower. No, they have already manipulated it.”
What was she talking about?
“That’s different from what I heard at the scene.”
“Were you at the scene?”
“Yes. I was watching from a distance, moving according to the staff manual, so I roughly knew everything. I also heard the Doppelganger, the student, talking about the patent at the scene.”
“…Yes. But what was said at the scene has become unimportant. What matters is how the government will make an official statement. Do you have a Taeguk Watch? An official statement probably came out by now.”
“Hmm….”
I quickly skimmed through a summary of the official statement that Baek Seol-hee mentioned that I found through my Taeguk Watch.
“The villain Doppelganger, an ardent Goblin follower, wanted to become a Goblin by modifying his suit to replicate the Goblin’s new look. The Goblin appeared at the scene and denied this, leading to the Doppelganger’s rampage.”
“Yes, that’s not what actually happened.”
“Hmm….”
Those who were at the scene definitely heard the ‘patent’ talk, but when looking at the related news, there was no mention of it.
[Why isn’t there any talk about the patent?]
This comment changed to ‘This comment has been deleted by the author’ upon refreshing the page.
“They are controlling the information. The talk about the patent seems to be a sensitive issue.”
“Do you often use Haegneul?”
“No, I am participating in a boycott against Haegneul. Ever since they started charging more for fried chicken, arguing that it’s Western food while seasoned chicken is Korean food, I have despised Haegneul.”
“Do you like fried chicken?”
“Yes.”
Patriotic marketing had its limits. How could they justify lowering the price of seasoned chicken by saying it’s Korean cuisine?
“So, Haegneul was behind the patent. And they discreetly backed out so they wouldn’t take the blame.”
“That’s right. And there was a gag order for the heroes. The people on Sejong Island get a lot of sponsorship from Haegneul, so they would let it slide, but as a newbie on this island…”
Baek Seol-hee’s voice became more and more depressed.
“Seems like they wanted to tame me and use the fact that I have a karmic relationship with the Goblin. They threatened me, saying that if I didn’t want to be seen as an incompetent, who let the Goblin go and made the villain a devil, I should quietly participate in the ‘demonization of the Goblin’.”
“There are two things that I don’t understand. What are they? Would the government dare to threaten you, Ms. Baek Seol-hee, an S-rank? They would dare to?”
“…… That’s the thing.”
Baek Seol-hee let out a deep sigh with a depressed look on her face.
“That’s an ironic problem. No matter how unfavorable the conditions the country proposes to me, I have no choice but to accept them.”
“Why is that?”
“Because they know I can’t leave this country.”
Baek Seol-hee was being threatened.
She was held hostage by emotional issues, such as patriotism.
“Sometimes, I see anonymous posts on internet communities saying if you have money, there’s no reason to stay in this country. You can just go abroad and live there. If you’re at S-rank, you don’t need to be attached to the mana of this land; you can rule as a single hero and a god abroad.”
In fact, that was true.
Already among Koreans, quite a few ability users had moved to places like the Middle East, Europe, and Africa and became the sole god of that region.
“Why don’t you just leave?”
“I could leave. If I immigrate, they’ll give me enough money to last a lifetime and support me with housing and cars. But….”
“You mean you can’t give up your nationality?”
“That’s right.”
Baek Seol-hee let out a hollow laugh.
“Nationality is something that can drive people crazy more than once. Villains often say that. Heroes, from a young age, are brainwashed with patriotic education, so they can’t think of resisting the government. If only they could let go of that little bit of patriotism, they would overflow with freedom, but they can’t let go of it, and they keep suffering creative loss.”
“It’s all because the country uses patriotism to threaten and enforce passion pay.”
“Passion… pay?”
“They say that because it’s an experience that becomes your blood and flesh, you gained more valuable life experience than money, so you should consider it as earning money.”
“…….”
Baek Seol-hee gave a faint smile.
“I knew it. It was a good idea to have a conversation with you, Ji-hwan.”
“Because I curse a lot, right?”
“Yes. I thought you were the only person around me who could talk so harshly about the government. I was right.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Ji-hwan, you live in Seoul, don’t you?”
Oops.
Was this a local joke?
“Not everyone in Seoul is cursing the government.”
“But isn’t it true that most people living in Seoul have a negative stance towards the government? They don’t even send out heroes.”
“I just said it’s not 100%.”
Baek Seol-hee must have felt a bit of affection for me, partly because we got along as we shared hobbies and partly because I was a Seoul citizen.
“So, in order to protect their interests, they turned a man into a devil, covered up and manipulated that fact, and even blamed all the sins on the Goblin, and even that wasn’t enough; they threatened you with your patriotism. You’ve come to express your disgust towards such a nation and to vent.”
“That’s accurate. I finally feel like some of my resentment has been vented.”
Gradually, there was a sense of relief in Baek Seol-hee’s smile.
The dilemma Baek Seol-hee faced was something that I, a librarian named Do Ji-hwan, could not solve.
But sometimes, just listening to someone counts as consultation.
Women were not always seeking solutions to their problems.
They wanted someone to listen to their concerns, empathize with them, and vent with them.
“Listening to your story, Baek Seol-hee, makes me think this is terribly unfair. I’m convinced that it would be okay to continue boycotting Haegnul.”
“Hehehe. Well said. Haegnul, the country, the association, all of them…sigh.”
After looking at the sky for a while, Baek Seol-hee turned her gaze back to me.
“What I can’t understand the most is the response towards that ‘Duoexini’.”
“Duoexini?”
“Yes. Instead of putting a bounty on someone who uses strange magic that turns people into demons, they’re causing a fuss about catching an innocent Goblin.”
“A magic that turns people into demons…?”
“Yes. Did you see the video? Something like a tentacle going into the body of the Doppelganger.”
“I wasn’t there at the time… I tried to watch the video again, but it was taken down, so I couldn’t.”
“Right, the video was taken down. There’s nothing to be done since you didn’t see it in person, but I just don’t understand why they’re causing a fuss about catching a goblin when they should be catching that person.”
Baek Seol-hee sighed and reached for her long padded jacket’s zipper.
“Can I go into the hot spring?”
“……Yes?”
“It’s okay. There’s no problem.”
Rustle.
“I just want to curse at the scumbags in this country that everyone praises.”
Baek Seol-hee quickly threw off her long padded jacket and softly sat on the railing.
“Will you be my anonymous confession platform today?”
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m