The Tenant Ⅰ
There has been a long-standing question that has plagued for ages.
‘How should I build a hideout to receive praise for it?’
A hideout. My personal secret base.
As everyone knows, I have one major trauma.
It happened in the 89th cycle when a pink-haired alien nad Go Yuri raided my base in one fell swoop.
Since that incident, a corner of my brain has been perpetually haunted by the ASMR full voice of Go Yuri saying, ‘A pathetic ♡ infinite regressor raided with just one hypnotic beam ♡ pathetic hideout ♡.’
Of course, there’s no way Go Yuri actually spoke like that. If she knew about my trauma, she’d probably tilt her head in confusion. It showed how severe my ntal scars were, to be tornted by such fantasies.
I needed a solution desperately.
Hence, today's story revolves around an episode about my sweet ho.
Though I hadn’t ntioned it directly to everyone until now, the truth is that I had explored my own El Dorado across many cycles.
There were various kinds of utopias.
I tried setting up a luxury yacht as a mobile sea fortress and even started a life on an uninhabited island.
Skyscrapers, underground bunkers, subway tracks, railguns—if people could imagine a form of a hideout, I had tried it.
Yet, none of these hideouts ever completely satisfied my aesthetic sense.
2%. It was always missing 2%.
“Oppa’s standards are too high.”
Puppeteer Lee Ha-yul grumbled.
Of course, her lips were tightly closed. She spoke through the maid marionette she always carried.
Lee Ha-yul, the daughter of a notorious traitor (forr mayor of Busan), had a talent for pulling puppet strings from under her fingernails.
Her puppet strings were almost superconductors in the realm of aura, capable of transmitting aura with almost no loss to the tip of the string. This miraculous superconductor was very useful for hideout security.
In constructing an impregnable hideout, her cooperation was not optional but essential.
Not just , but Noh Do-hwa and Cheon Yo-hwa also always hired her when renovating their base buildings.
Even such an expert showed difficulty with my requests as the building owner.
“Tell honestly. Without lying. What is your ideal guild building?”
“First and foremost, it should be able to withstand prolonged physical attacks from the outside.”
“Like an underground bunker?”
Lee Ha-yul nodded.
“Possible. That’s what all guild leaders want. What else?”
“I’d also like it to be able to adequately deal with intruders who use non-physical ans.”
“Possible. We can make it difficult to enter, like a maze.”
“But guild mbers should also be able to deploy quickly. There need to be many secret passages.”
“……?”
“And I don’t want to force harsh living conditions on my guild mbers. They should be able to lead a more affluent life than mbers of other guilds. For example, if they want to take a walk along the Han River, they should be able to do so imdiately, and the view should be nice if possible.”
“…….”
Lee Ha-yul closed her notebook and looked up at with her golden eyes.
“Oppa. Where is your conscience?”
Surely, it was a shaless demand.
To completely block the invasion of the alien Go Yuri, perfect security was needed.
But security and convenience, once they surpassed a certain level, were difficult to coexist. It’s like expecting five-star hotel room service on a nuclear submarine.
If I just treated Go Yuri as a non-existent entity—ah! In my head! The pink voice in my head! Iä! Iä! Beco one with , guild leader!
In the end, the days of suffering from the echo of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s chorus continued.
Then, one day in the 196th cycle.
I was brooding, sitting at a table by the Han River, staring blankly at the water.
At that mont, a man I had never seen before approached on a mountain bike. He had two pistols at his waist, a backpack, and a rifle slung over his back. It was the latest fashion in the apocalypse.
“Huh…? Is this not the place?”
The biker stopped about 600 ters away and looked around.
“That’s strange. SG Net definitely said it was here…”
The ntion of SG Net piqued my interest.
At this ti, I had given up on security entirely and built my hideout under the Han River. It was near the convenience store where I first t the Saintess.
And in the vicinity, there were no buildings except my hideout. The so-called ‘Sumr of Seoul’ incident had devoured most of Gangnam south of the Han River along with Old Man Scho’s wife.
In other words, the place the biker was looking for was most likely my guild hideout. As the owner, I had to inquire about his intentions.
“What’s the matter?”
“Eek!”
The biker flinched. I had approached and spoken to him while masking my presence.
The man reflexively reached for his rifle but soon decided against it, realizing it would only provoke .
“Ah, well, I heard there’s a café around here that serves fantastic coffee…”
“A rumor?”
“Yes. Um, do you know SG Net? I’m an awakener. SG Net said there’s a famous café along the Han River. This is the only building that looks like a café.”
“A café?”
I tilted my head.
…It was only later that I learned by searching SG Net that the culprits behind this rumor were none other than Dang Seo-rin and Cheon Yo-hwa.
They had posted about it competitively on the forums.
-[Baekhwa] FourthGrader: Hwee (>__
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