Ending Maker Episode 448
SS #37 Kang Yu-jin (1)
Kang Yu-jin.
12 years old.
One day, when the moon was extremely bright, the boy woke up and looked out the window, and thought to himself.
Maybe my house is not ordinary.
Isn’t this a very unique house?
Boy – There were more than one or two reasons why Eugene had such thoughts.
So Eugene got up from bed, sat down at his desk, and opened the diary he had been keeping since he was little.
“hmm.”
Since it was a diary I wrote when I was very young, it wasn’t a proper diary, but rather a picture diary filled with drawings and writings of strange creatures.
If he had seen it when he was much older, he would have felt warm and thought, ‘How cute,’ but Eugene was a stormy boy on the verge of puberty, so he felt more embarrassed than warm, and even though no one was watching, he blushed and coughed.
‘Should I make some modifications?’
Just take a quick look at your hands.
Eugene thought as if he were an author who had just opened up his old work, but like most authors, he soon gave up and closed his eyes tightly as he turned the page of his diary.
Then, from the first chapter, one memory that was good at the time but now that I look back, one suspicious memory immediately caught my eye.
A child and a woman with yellow hair cheering on a crooked square.
It was a memory with Aunt Natasha.
* * *
Young Eugene, who was playing with bubbles in a large bathtub that looked like it would be good for swimming, even though it was for a child, smiled again and said.
-Aunt Natasha! You’re like an angel!
-An angel? Aunt? Why?
Natasha, who was drinking wine while taking a bubble bath, tilted her shoulders and asked, and young Eugene laughed and answered brightly.
-My aunt is pretty. Like an angel.
To be exact, it was a story about an angel from an animation I saw yesterday, but anyway, it was a childlike, honest impression, and Natasha smiled happily, put down her wine glass, and stroked young Eugene’s head.
-Our Eugene has a keen eye for things? That’s right, your aunt is an angel. So it’s only natural that she’s pretty like an angel.
-Wow, Auntie is an angel? Then Auntie evolves too? And becomes the ultimate?
-I don’t know which neighborhood angel story you’re talking about, but it doesn’t evolve. Instead, it transforms.
-Transformation?
-Yeah, transformation. By the way, isn’t our Eugene really handsome? When he grows up, will he marry your aunt?
To Natasha’s question, young Eugene nodded immediately.
Aunt Natasha is really pretty and has been very kind to Eugene.
Mom secretly gave me an extra piece of chocolate even though I was only supposed to eat one a day, and last time she secretly bought me a transforming robot.
That’s why young Eugene really liked his Aunt Natasha, and he nodded while hugging her tightly.
-Yeah! I want to marry your aunt!
– Really? Then should we make a contract? And stamp it too. I don’t want anyone like Mr. So-and-so to get away with it.
Thinking back now, the way he laughed at the end seemed a bit unusual, but anyway, it’s a memory from my childhood.
The reason I felt uneasy about this memory was none other than this.
‘Why is Aunt Natasha so pretty?’
I couldn’t ask her because she would have pinched my cheek painfully if I had asked, but from what I heard from people around me, Aunt Natasha was definitely over forty. She wasn’t just over forty, she was most likely close to fifty.
But it was pretty.
She wasn’t just pretty, she was an incredibly youthful beauty who, no matter how much you looked at her, you’d only think she was in her mid to late twenties.
What happened?
Are we born with good genes?
Or is Aunt Natasha the epitome of self-care?
Or the power of modern medicine?
‘Mom is weird too.’
My mother is a self-proclaimed ‘eternal beauty’.
The reason it’s called that is because the nickname of my mom’s full-dive virtual YouTuber character is ‘Eternal Pretty Girl’, but anyway, my mom thought it was weird too.
It was less strange than Aunt Natasha, who was in her forties, approaching fifty, but Mom, who was in her mid-thirties, looked to anyone like a girl in her late teens.
‘It’s strange, very strange.’
My aunt is like that, my mom is like that, and my dad is like that too.
‘That’s right, Dad is weird too.’
My father wasn’t just young-looking.
Eugene flipped through the diary and found a page.
On a green background, a child with a stick drawn around a circle that was presumed to be Eugene himself was gasping for breath with his eyes crossed out, while a man wearing sunglasses stood next to him.
‘Hmm… … For your age, you’re quite expressive.’
Eugene, who was amazed alone, coughed in vain and recalled the memories from that time.
* * *
-Alexey said that early education is important.
Kang Jin-ho, wearing sunglasses, spoke softly, looking away, while at his feet, young Yu-jin, with her face covered in camouflage cream, was sitting on the grass, making a trap.
-Dad! I finished it!
-Okay, then where should we go?
Kang Jin-ho, who was examining the trap made of woven branches, nodded once and patted young Yu-jin on the head.
-Well done. It’s quite sturdy. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but considering your age, it’s a decent result.
-huh!
I don’t really know what he meant, but it sounded like a compliment.
Young Eugene often went camping with Kang Jin-ho.
In fact, it wasn’t that rare for a father to go camping with his young son, but the problem was the location and the content.
The place where Eugene and Kang Jin-ho are standing now is the Guyana Highlands, and what Eugene was learning before making the rabbit trap was knife fighting.
Kang Jin-ho and Eugene’s camping was always like this.
Last month, the camping site was the Amazon jungle, and the month before that, the camping site was the Sahara Desert.
A father who travels the world with his son – no, to remote areas – to teach him survival skills.
‘It’s really strange when I think about it now.’
Before I went to school, I thought that other kids were like this too, but that wasn’t the case.
‘I was treated like a liar… … .’
I remember that day when I ran home crying and told my mom what to do, and my mom hit my dad on the back and yelled, “Where are you taking the kid? Guiana? The Sahara Desert? The Amazon Rainforest? Are you crazy?!”
‘That was the day I first realized that my mother was stronger.’
Of course, if we were only considering fighting power, my father’s side would have been dozens of times stronger, but it was meaningless.
For Dad, hitting Mom was something that split the world in two.
In any case, there was no father in Korea who traveled around the world with his son to teach him survival skills, and Eugene himself was something of an oddity.
‘And so is Aunt Natasha.’
Because it wasn’t just my dad who taught me fighting skills.
There were many techniques I learned from my Aunt Natasha.
I mainly learned firearms techniques and bare-handed ground techniques, but these days I’m only learning firearms.
‘Because ground skills are embarrassing.’
When I was very young it didn’t matter, but now it does.
Besides, I was also very concerned about Aunt Natasha shaking the contract from my childhood whenever I forgot.
I knew it was a joke, but as Aunt Natasha’s first love, I had mixed feelings.
“Hmm.”
Eugene cleared his mind by coughing and turned his head to look at the wall.
A red-haired woman and a black-haired man stood side by side on a large poster.
Poster for the Heroes Chronicle 2 Remake.
Although it was a game that Eugene himself really liked, thinking about it, that game was also a bit strange.
Rather than saying that the game itself is strange, should I say that it is the family’s attitude toward the game that is peculiar?
‘Yeah, that’s unusual.’
The relationship between heroes and their families.
Eugene crossed his arms and recalled memories from his childhood.
* * *
-Yuhee! You succeeded!
-Really? Really, really?!
-Yes, really! The Heroes Chronicles are now ours!
-You’re the best, oppa!
Dad and mom hugging each other and jumping for joy.
That’s right.
The Heroes series was owned by the Kang family.
This is because my dad and mom, who are huge fans of the Heroes Chronicles series, bought everything related to the Heroes Chronicles series, including the copyright.
The Heroes Chronicle series itself is a classic, with the first game in the series, Heroes Chronicle, being nearly 30 years old by today’s standards, but it was still a game that took the world by storm at one point.
But the copyright of that game was purchased by a single individual.
At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but thinking back now, it was truly surprising.
But the surprise didn’t end there.
My dad and mom, who bought the copyright to the Heroes Chronicles, bought a game company and started working on a remake of the Heroes Chronicles series.
Thus, the Heroes Chronicles remake series was born.
The Heroes Chronicles series, reborn as a full-dive virtual reality game to suit the modern era, was a life-changing experience for young Eugene.
That’s understandable, since he started writing biographies of heroes when he was just learning to walk.
‘Mom and Dad’s fandom is a bit… excessive.’
Although I couldn’t say anything, at home there was even a Bible that worshipped Cordelia, the pearl character from Heroes Chronicle 2, as a god.
It was a Bible that looked incredibly expensive at first glance, but no matter how strong the fandom was, it was so hard to create a virtual religion that worshipped the character as a god and to become obsessed with it.
When Eugene found out later that the baptism he had received under his mother’s hand was a Cordelia baptism, he was truly shocked.
‘Come to think of it, the person who baptized me back then… was she cosplaying as Cordelia?’
An incredibly pretty woman with pink hair.
I was too young to remember her very well, but I remember her being much prettier than my Aunt Natasha.
‘Euuum… … This is still strange.’
You created a religion with game characters and are devoutly believing in it.
‘Still… …most everything else is normal.’
No, I should say that it is a house that is beyond the norm and is something to be envied.
Her father and mother were a wealthy, lovey-dovey couple that anyone would envy, and her aunt Natasha was the real Tanya Nunna, the world’s most famous nerd character.
‘Aunt Hye-eun, Aunt Ga-young, and Uncle Kowabunga are relatively close to normal people.’
Yeah, it’s a little unusual, but I guess it’s okay if it’s not a big deal.
Eugene, having come to his own conclusion, closed his drawing diary and lay back down on the bed.
And the next morning.
Eugene, who was sitting on the living room sofa led by her mother’s hand, heard an absurd sound.
“I have a fiance?!”
“Yes, a partner who was engaged in the womb. Like Uder and Cordelia.”
Eugene was startled by his mother’s words and looked at his father, then saw his Aunt Natasha behind his father’s back muttering, “Tch, am I going to get robbed again?”
Both of them had sincere faces.
“Who, who are you?”
When Eugene asked reflexively, her mother, Hong Yu-hee, laughed and folded her arms.
“Before that, Eugene, there are a few more things you need to know.”
“Here again?”
“Yeah, there again.”
Although she was a mother who compared her unborn child’s fiancee to a game character, she was otherwise such a normal and good mother that Eugene furrowed his brows and waited for her next words, and Hong Yu-hee brought up an even more absurd story.
“Mom and Aunt Natasha are angels. Dad is an apostle.”
“what?”
“My mom and Aunt Natasha are angels, and my dad is an apostle.”
“That, the Cordelia Church?”
“Yes, of the Cordelia Church.”
After hearing Hong Yu-hee’s answer, Eugene seriously considered whether he should go to a mental hospital, but it only lasted a moment.
Because Hong Yu-hee and Natasha immediately brought the evidence forward.
“Transformation.”
“uh?”
Wings of light spread behind Natasha and Hong Yu-hee.
A glowing, rotating halo appeared above their heads, and a soft glow hovered around the two people’s bodies like a moon.
“T, special effects? Holograms?”
Or maybe this wasn’t full-dive virtual reality right now?
“Not all of them. They’re just angels.”
Hong Yu-hee, who said that, floated slightly into the air, and Natasha did the same.
“Now, wait. Wait. Your mom and aunt are angels?”
“Yeah, a real angel.”
“Then, is that why you don’t age?”
“Yeah, Mom, how many times have you said you’re an eternal beauty? That’s because you’re an angel.”
There aren’t many sons who would easily accept the fact that their mother, who says with her own mouth that she is an eternal beauty, is actually true.
“Then what about dad? Didn’t you say he was an apostle?”
“Yeah, Dad is one of the apostles of Lord Uder who protects Lady Cordelia. You can think of him as something like an angel. Uh… … No, a saint? Yeah, a saint would be fine, right? Saint?”
What does this mean?
Eugene looked at her father, Kang Jin-ho, with confused eyes, and Kang Jin-ho nodded heavily.
“So Eugene, you are a child born between an angel and an apostle.”
Although he had been educated at home as a fantasy of a heroic story, it was a truth that even Eugene could not easily accept.
If you had said that they were descendants of the demon lord or warrior of another world, I would have thought so, but the characters that appear in the game are angels and apostles.
“Eugene, it seems like the accident has stopped because of the overload… … Shouldn’t we first tell them that Cordelia and Uther are real people?”
Kang Jin-ho nodded at Natasha’s words, and Eugene blinked.
What are you talking about now?
Are Uther and Cordelia real people?
“Both of them are real. They are the guardian deities who protect the Pleiades. The Heroic Lives are a kind of historical book that records their deeds.”
Hong Yu-hee was very serious, Kang Jin-ho next to her was also serious, and Natasha was also serious.
Of course, Natasha was laughing in a complicated way, as if she was embarrassed and yet found the situation funny, but it was true that all three of them were serious.
“Oh, okay. Okay. Uh, let’s say that’s true… … Tae, Taejung engagement? Uh, so my fiancée… … has a woman?”
“Yes, that’s right. She is Cordelia and Uder’s daughter.”
“uh?”
“The daughter of Uder and Cordelia. The most noble child in the Pleiades, born of the guardian deities of the Pleiades.”
Eugene blinked again at Natasha’s further explanation.
Are these people talking about ‘Yuria’ from the Heroes Chronicles 3 Remake DLC?
“Hey, Yuria? Yuria is my fiancée?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Yuria is Eugene’s fiancée.”
In the midst of this series of events, Eugene closed his eyes for a moment and shouted loudly in his head, ‘Alexey, help me!’
It was a calming technique I learned from my father when I was young, and it was quite helpful in a situation like this.
Yuria.
fiancee.
A girl with black hair who appears in the DLC that can only be played when linking the save file that saw the true happy ending in Heroes Chronicle 2.
Eugene’s face turned red for a moment as he thought of Yuria’s face.
That’s because if Natasha was his first love, Yuria was the girl who erased his first love.
‘Hey, wasn’t that a game character?’
No matter what, I wondered if liking game characters wasn’t too much of a virtue.
“Okay, wait a minute. No, anyway, wait a minute. Uh, can you explain what happened? Like the general flow of things.”
Yoo Jin was Hong Yu Hee’s son, but at the same time he was also Kang Jin Ho’s son.
Kang Jin-ho’s blood was telling him to find reason and logic even in a situation like this.
“That… they will explain it to you.”
“Them?”
“Yeah, them.”
As Hong Yu-hee smiled and waved her hand, the bedroom door opened and Yu-jin was able to face her.
Future father-in-law and mother-in-law-
The guardian deities of the Pleiades.