Chapter 43
The wine was delicious. Even though I didn’t have much expertise in wine, it smelled fragrant, clung pleasantly to the tongue, and had an extremely sweet finish. The only problem was that the person I should be sharing it with couldn’t fully enjoy the taste.
“This is impossible… I… I really… Did I really… really commit a masked robbery?”
Sylvia Dubeck looked at Oliver with a pitying expression.
“Sometimes, life just happens that way.”
“Huh-huh-huh… What do you mean by that? Sometimes people just… commit masked robberies?”
“Oh… anyone can become anything, right? And should we even call it a robbery? Isn’t it more like a masked kidnapping?”
“Uh… huh… I… I kidnapped someone?”
Oliver buried his face in his hands again, ready to cry. Sylvia looked at me, as if to say there was no reasoning with him, and asked:
“By the way, where’s the dog?”
“I left him in that room with all the cushions.”
“Wh-what about food?”
“I don’t know. I brought one pack from the hospital.”
“…I want to see him.”
“Do you like dogs?”
“Much more than humans.”
While Sylvia answered me, Oliver prepared to cry again, gently covering his face with both hands.
Oh, my life. I sighed while sipping my wine. Honestly, I didn’t understand why he was so sad when he had done his part well. Of course, I never expected Oliver to step in like that… It was a very helpful intervention. But if he was going to act so wounded because of it… To be honest, this seemed to be the limit of Oliver. I thought it might be better to find another secretary instead of relying on him.
“Oliver.”
“…Huh… yes?”
“Can’t do it?”
“Eh?”
“I mean, the secretary work. Can’t handle it?”
“…Eh?”
I asked Oliver in a flat, emotionless tone.
Oliver, sensing something off about my expression, sniffled and asked:
“Can’t… do it? Why are you asking… wait, are you saying that then…?”
“If you truly can’t handle it, then there’s nothing to be done. We’ll just pay a proper severance, add a non-disclosure clause, and let you go.”
“What?”
Oliver’s eyes went wide. Tears still glimmered in them. His expression was one of total shock, and I scratched my cheek while looking at him. How should I explain this?
“Let me go? Quit?”
“Yes.”
Oliver gasped audibly. His face showed immense shock. I waved my free hand and quickly continued.
“No, don’t misunderstand. Even at this very moment, I think of you as an excellent, highly suitable person to work with me. I can feel how much you care for me, too. Honestly, I understand how painful this must be for someone who’s lived an ordinary life and suddenly faces something like this. I’ve been there myself. But…”
I noticed the wine glasses were empty. I quickly took out another chilled bottle and began opening it.
“But, Oliver, you might face even worse things than this in the future. I plan to pursue both legal and illegal matters without distinction.”
“Wait, wait a minute.”
I put it bluntly.
“You’re saying you’ll do both legal and illegal things?”
“Yes.”
“Kidnapping too?”
“Yes.”
“Threats?”
“Even threats—Oliver, you’d be fine with that, right?”
“…Then, what about murder?”
The moment the word murder was spoken, I shut my mouth. Sylvia Dubeck did the same. How could I phrase it… if I said we had committed murder, he’d probably faint. Oliver, quick as he was, seemed to realize our answer just from that look.
“…Really?”
Oliver stared at me with an expression of extreme shock. Like a retriever who lost its owner on a rainy day. But I wasn’t the kind of person who would feel guilty for such a face.
“Well… the ones who need to die, should die, don’t you think?”
“Do you mean Kyle should do it?”
“Not saying I definitely will… it’s just an example.”
A lie. But I couldn’t tell him everything truthfully. I looked at him with a serious gaze and continued.
“If you feel like you can’t handle it… for your own mental health, maybe it’s best to leave.”
“….”
Oliver’s eyes went wide, and tears fell. Sylvia also looked at him, her eyes wide. As if she sensed it was the last moment with Oliver, she quickly removed her hands from his back, where she had been patting him. I watched him and spoke my last words.
“Thank you for all your help, but if you can’t cooperate with the path I intend to follow, then we should part ways for our own growth.”
“….”
Oliver suddenly closed his mouth tight. I ignored it and continued.
“Of course, I will remember that you worked for me to the point of crying out of shock. You will always be remembered as an excellent secretary…”
“That’s not allowed!”
He suddenly shouted, interrupting me.
“Huh?”
“You mean it’s not allowed?”
“Of course. I went so far as to… kidnap that dog, and you think it ends here without praise? Well, technically, yes, you did help!”
“Ah… yes, technically I did.”
“It was surprising since it was the first time, but… saying something like that while calmly drinking wine…!”
Oliver shouted, his nose red. His words were slightly different from before. I tilted my head and asked again.
“Hm? You want to keep working for me?”
“….”
Oliver choked back a sob.
“You said we should go together, didn’t you?”
“…I’m a bit confused. You’re not crying because of what I did, are you?”
Sylvia looked at me with a ‘you don’t even know?’ expression. I just shrugged slightly. It wasn’t that I didn’t know, it was that I didn’t need to. He wasn’t a child; I had no intention of comforting him step by step. I patted Oliver’s shoulder.
“Oliver. Listen. If we don’t feel guilty and aren’t planning to quit, there’s a simple solution.”
“Solution?”
“Just blame me.”
“Blame Kyle?”
Oliver’s eyes went wide. I smiled faintly and nodded.
“Yes. I ordered you to do it, didn’t I? If reality is hard to accept and you want to protect yourself, the best thing is to blame someone else. Trust whatever seems easiest… but.”
“But?”
“You will never hear any more regretful whining from me. You cannot leave, cannot betray me. From now on, just adapt.”
I suddenly wanted to tell him that I wasn’t the Kyle he believed in, that the Kyle he remembered was already dead, that I was a criminal, and that he was helping me take revenge—but I couldn’t. Instead, I tried to smile as kindly as possible at them. The kind of smile my sibling always gave me in my memories.
“And what you wanted, you will achieve it. I told you from the start—you’ll rise higher than any pharmaceutical company you were planning to move to.”
<System: Kyle Yun Yeongseo Olpale’s Skill Tab Opens>
<System: Kyle Yun Yeongseo Olpale acquires skill <Temptation of Evil>.>
Skill: <Temptation of Evil> (Passive)
Effect: The more people swayed to your side by evil, the longer Kyle Yeongseo Yun Olpale’s lifespan increases by 0.5%.
At that moment, text appeared in front of my eyes. Along with the notification that the skill tab opened, a skill tab appeared above the stat window.
And I even received a skill. Usually, such rewards appear only after completing a quest, but this skill had suddenly appeared. It wasn’t listed in the quest rewards either.
“….”
I frowned.
The name… not very appealing.
Temptation of Evil. It sounded as if I was the evil one, coaxing others to my side.
The effect said that if the other person meets a certain condition, my lifespan increases. Since I knew my lifespan was negative years, I had been constantly looking for chances to extend it. So the skill seemed good… on the surface.
But if it added 0.5% of total lifespan, for someone with little time left, the actual increase would be negligible. After coughing up blood from losing 8 years… how much would it really help?
I wasn’t sure…
“Kyle?”
“Ah, yes.”
Ah, right. I was in the middle of persuading Oliver.
“….”
Oliver and Sylvia’s eyes were on me. I waited until they had fully scanned me, then spoke slowly again.
“I don’t have much time.”
“….”
“I mean, the time I have left. Literally very little. You don’t need a hospital test to know that.”
“So until then, I will do whatever it takes to achieve what I want. Whatever it is. It’s desperate. You’ve already seen how far I’ll go.”
“….”
I poured the remaining wine in the bucket into my glass. It was gone surprisingly quickly. I drained it in one go, then wiped my mouth.
“Honestly, I don’t think this is a time to drink so calmly, Oliver. So let’s decide.”
I grabbed a new bottle and poured it generously into his glass. Oliver received it blankly, and I poured one for Sylvia too, then filled my empty glass again and raised it, as if proposing a toast.
“Let’s be stained together, and revel together. Isn’t that the taste of power?”
“….”
“Understand? Then clink.”
As soon as I finished, Oliver and Sylvia immediately raised their glasses. Quick, decisive movements, with no hesitation.
Clink.
The three wine glasses collided simultaneously.
The sound resonated through the room, just as I was about to drink.
<System: Skill <Temptation of Evil> Activated>
<System: Kyle Yeongseo Yun Olpale’s lifespan increases by +12.775 days.>
<System: Skill <Temptation of Evil> Activated>
<System: Kyle Yeongseo Yun Olpale’s lifespan increases by +12.838 days.>
