S-Rank is My Side Character - Chapter 50

Meanwhile, as Kang Ihyeon, Jung Suho, and the Lord of Chaos were busily searching for her and wreaking havoc in her subconscious…

Our Shin Binnari, who had unintentionally performed some serious trolling……

“……Huh?”

She opened her eyes to the sound of trees gently swaying in the wind.

The sunlight filtering through the fluttering leaves in the wind dazzled her eyes.

As she staggered up from her seat, a blue sky and an equally blue meadow came into view.

“Where in the world is this?”

Nari, unable to make sense of the situation, glanced around her surroundings and soon looked straight ahead.

Only then did Nari realize there was a status message written in front of her.

[You have entered the Deep World :: Layer %$#!.]

“What?! No no no, what layer is this, no hey! Wait! Lord of Chaos!!”

It remained quiet with no response even when she called out. Beads of cold sweat began to form on Shin Binnari’s spine.

It was because she recalled the Lord of Chaos’s words that even he couldn’t save her if she was trapped deep in the Deep World.

“Hey…… This is ridiculous, hey. Who gets trapped and dies in their own subconscious, hey.”

Shin Binnari, on the verge of pulling a ‘that person is me’ stunt, covered her face with both hands.

As she hesitated for a long time, wondering what to do, she heard the sound of someone running towards her.

“What?! Who is it?!”

She reflexively tried to pull out her half-scissors, but the inventory wouldn’t open.

Shin Binnari abruptly lifted her head and blinked at the familiar face she encountered.

“……Nari?”

“Kang Ihyeon?! Oh, oh great. Get me out of here…… Wait, what’s with your outfit?!”

“Huh? What about me?”

There stood Kang Ihyeon, wearing a hat with rabbit ears, a dapper suit, and a monocle, looking at her.

He took out a pocket watch and opened his mouth wide with a gasp.

“Oh no, we’re going to be late at this rate! Nari, why did you only arrive now?! Let’s get going quickly!”

“Wait, what is this… Hey hey! Hold on!”

Kang Ihyeon scooped her up and started running straight ahead.

Shin Binnari, still unable to understand the situation, finally looked down at her own outfit.

……A black apron dress with a ribbon headband. Only then did she realize what kind of situation this was.

A message popped up in front of Nari with a ding! It was similar to the indirect messages from her constellation.

[A quest has occurred!

−To escape the Deep World Layer %$#!, see the end of the fairy tale.]

“……You never listen to what I say, not even once.”

It seemed that her damn subconscious had moved in a jumbled mess, creating a situation like ‘Shin Binnari in Wonderland’.

“But isn’t this situation too much? How did Alice get out again…”

“Pardon?”

“No, it’s nothing. Just keep running for now.”

“Okay!”

If they followed the story of Alice in Wonderland like this, they might be able to get out of here.

With that thought, Shin Binnari wrapped her arms around Kang Ihyeon’s neck.

After running for a while, Kang Ihyeon suddenly screeched to a halt.

It was a rabbit hole. A black tunnel stretching endlessly downward gaped at them.

“That, that’s the rabbit hole……”

Even if it was a dream, the fear felt real, and Nari reflexively tightened her arms around Kang Ihyeon.

When she lifted her head, feeling a gaze on her, their eyes met and Kang Ihyeon smiled kindly as usual.

“It’s okay, Nari.”

“……I’m scared to jump in.”

“It’s always been okay when you’re with me, right?”

Nari looked at Kang Ihyeon again. Perhaps because he was a product of her subconscious, he seemed even more trustworthy than usual.

Was she relying on Kang Ihyeon much more than she had thought?

The thought made her blush with embarrassment and she nodded her head a few times.

“……I’ll trust you.”

“I won’t betray you.”

With those words, Kang Ihyeon leaped into the rabbit hole.

Nari tightly closed her eyes, as the fear of falling never became familiar no matter how many times she experienced it.

But this time, she felt a hand holding her tightly and a warm presence, so it wasn’t that scary.

Just as she thought they were about to reach the bottom and squinted her eyes open,

“Aaah!!”

She was tossed aside. On a marble floor, no less.

Nari, who had hit her knees directly, crouched in pain for a long time, enduring the agony.

“Ow, dammit. Hey Kang Ihyeon……!!”

He said he wouldn’t betray her! As she abruptly lifted her head to voice her complaint, Nari blinked. There was no one around.

She was trapped alone in a very, very small room. A narrow room where the walls would touch if she moved even slightly.

The only things visible were a cake and a letter placed on the table.

“Ah…… Ah, my knees. Getting frozen shoulder at this age……”

Tapping her back and knees, Nari approached the table and took a peek at the letter.

Sighing at the letter that read ‘Eat me!’, Nari glanced at the cake.

It was a cake with a lumpy, generously frosted appearance, traces of clumsily drawn pictures with a chocolate pen, and a single strawberry on top. Nari frowned deeply.

“……This is annoying.”

It looked the same as the cakes she often made with her father in her childhood.

As was always the case with a hunter’s job, whenever her mother’s return was delayed, Nari would always feel anxious.

Her father would go shopping with Nari and Suho to console them, and they would make strawberry cakes.

At that time, Nari thought it was her mother’s favorite food, so she would make a large, ugly cake and keep it in the fridge.

Strangely, her mother would always arrive a day or two later.

As soon as her mother returned, she would take the cake out of the fridge and eat it with Nari right then and there with a spoon.

Her mother would always smile with a face covered in wounds, saying, ‘The day-old frosting tastes even better.’

Without dedicated tools, the frosting spread with a spatula couldn’t be shaped prettily, and a child’s strength control couldn’t draw clean pictures with a chocolate pen.

But if you tasted it, it would be delicious. As it always was. Because the day-old frosting tasted better.

“Why would you bring up something like this……”

Usually, she consciously avoided such thoughts. Even in dreams, the Lord of Chaos was with her, so old memories didn’t surface.

Nari let out a deep sigh. The remnants of the past never disappeared and troubled her quite a bit.

Those memories always made her chase nostalgia, even though she could no longer go back.

Clinking the plate she had eaten the cake clean on the table, Nari placed it down.

“Alright, I’ve finished eating, now slowly…… Wow, this feels weird.”

As her body shrank with a whoosh, Nari grabbed her shoulders. It felt as if she had turned into flour dough.

Nari, who was about the size of the room, gradually shrank down to the size of the table, the chair, and eventually as tiny as a mouse.

“At least the clothes shrank with me, thank goodness.”

Looking up at the table and chair that were now much larger than her, Nari noticed a small mouse hole she hadn’t seen before.

It was just the right size for her to enter.

“It seems familiar somehow.”

She thought it was a door she had seen many times somewhere. It felt like a door she saw every day, but she couldn’t figure out where she had seen it.

But that wasn’t important right now. She had shrunk, and there was a small door, so she had no choice but to go through it.

Tapping the dust off her skirt, Nari opened the door to the mouse hole. A white, antique-style corridor stretched ahead.

A rustling sound was heard at regular intervals.

As soon as she realized it sounded like pages being turned, the corridor transformed into a wide room.

“……Ah!”

Looking around the room, Nari finally realized what kind of door this was.

The guild leader’s office in Seongjeon. Kang Sujin, wearing a caterpillar antennae headband on a mushroom, was flipping through several documents and puffing on a pipe.

“Guild Leader!”

Even if it was within her subconscious, Nari never imagined she would meet her boss and shouted in surprise.

“Guild Leader?”

Kang Sujin merely rolled her eyes to confirm Nari’s face, then turned her gaze back to the documents and exhaled smoke from her pipe in the shape of a donut.

“I’ve never hired someone like you.”

“Oh.”

Nari finally touched her own face. That’s right, she hadn’t shown Kang Sujin her true appearance.

She thought she could gloss over it roughly since it was the subconscious, but it was unexpectedly meticulous in such places.

“And judging by your attire, it seems unlikely I’ll be hiring you in the future as well. So don’t call me Guild Leader.”

“Wh-what? Why?! I’m incredibly strong, you know?! I even passed the Grade 2 mock battle you gave me!”

Nari, whose pride had been wounded by her own subconscious, pointed a finger at Kang Sujin. The woman, smoking a pipe on the mushroom, chuckled.

“I told you Seongjeon values ‘growth potential’ the most, right? Your limits to growth are too clearly visible.”

With a rustle, Kang Sujin flipped through the documents again. However, Nari, who had self-respect as the World Ranking #1, became furious.

“Limits! How can there be a hunter with limits to growth in this world! Wasn’t that the topic of your thesis, Guild Leader?!”

“That’s about the real ‘Kang Sujin’.”

Kang Sujin finally lifted her face buried in the pile of documents. Come to think of it, this was Nari’s subconscious. Then what was the Kang Sujin in front of her?

“I’m playing the role of the ‘adult’ who can give you some tough love in your subconscious. In reality, it seems Kang Sujin is the most suitable for that role.”

Nari nodded in understanding and pouted her lips. Since this was Nari’s ‘Deep World’, Kang Ihyeon and Kang Sujin were products of her subconscious.

Then, all the words spoken through their mouths were no different from Nari talking to herself.

Nari, who had been mumbling her dissatisfaction, dropped the formalities and spoke casually.

“……Then what should I do to overcome my limits?”

“Over there.”

Phew, Kang Sujin exhaled another donut-shaped smoke from her pipe.

The smoke floated in the air and drifted towards the back of Nari. At some point, the door through which Nari had entered this place had disappeared, and a new door had appeared instead.

“……Why is this layer so troublesome?”

“Well, this can’t be discovered right now. That’s why we chose the fairy tale method. From the outside, it will just look like a very strange and bizarre dream, so it will buy us time.”

“Discovered? By whom?”

Nari blinked at the meaningful words. Kang Sujin stared down at her for a while, then buried her head back in the pile of documents.

“……Ah, by the copyright. This fairy tale’s copyright expired long ago, you know? What are you doing? Hurry up and go.”

“What are you even talking about, really……”

Nari grumbled at Kang Sujin’s words and turned around. Beyond the red door with a black cat-shaped handle, the sound of rushing water could be heard.

A cat, somehow it gave her a slightly ominous feeling as she turned the doorknob, and at that moment, Kang Sujin’s small voice came from behind.

“Miss Shin Binnari.”

“What, what is it now?!”

Nari turned around with a jerk. Where the mushroom had grown just a moment ago, there was nothing.

Only Seongjeon’s empty guild leader’s office remained.

As Nari stood there blankly, Kang Sujin’s words reached her ears.

“It’s solid this time. There are more diverse characters as well. It means you’ve formed that many healthy social relationships.”

So please, don’t forget it this time. With those final words, the lights in Seongjeon’s guild leader’s office went out with a click.

Nari, who had been staring at the dark guild leader’s office for a moment, turned around again.

And with a creak, she opened the door.