***
[At long last, His Royal Puppiness has descended. Oh, I mean our house pup, Your Honor.]
Saw the pup at a café. Yup, actually brought him there myself. Anyway, that’s what happened.
When those witness accounts from the department store first came out, I thought they were just mass hysteria and ignored them, lololol—but the moment they walked into the café, something felt off. They walked in arm-in-arm. The pup had his arm looped through The One Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken. The size difference was kind of absurd…
Even when ordering, the pup was behind That Person, arms draped over their shoulders, rambling on—“This one’s good, that one’s really good”—while That Person actually placed the order. But the card? That was the pup’s black card. I honestly have no idea what the hell this relationship is.
Anyway, That Person set down a sleeping crow on the chair beside them. Looked like the same pet bird from the department store photo. Why bring a sleeping bird to work, though? Not that it matters. If they’re close with the pup, maybe that’s just how it is. There are things people like us will never understand.
But… god… even watching it unfold live, I can’t trust my own eyes. Our pup—who bites first and doesn’t care whose hand it is—is sitting there with the corners of his mouth turned up and his eyes crinkled. Anyone here know what condition that is? It’s like someone injected him with a facial muscle relaxant that froze his expression.
└Ah yes, that would be called a smile.
└Wait, the pup… knows how to speak politely???
└It’s not that his name mustn’t be spoken—we literally just don’t know it.
└I’m at the café too… I used to wish our pup would smile more because his face was terrifying when blank, but… I was wrong. This is worse. I feel like he’d stab me in the gut and still smile like that… ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└└You think he’d even need a knife to kill you? That’s some next-level confidence.
***
[Saw the Pup coming out of the elevator.]
Yeah, the one only he uses. Came out with someone, arm-in-arm. Heard this cutesy little laugh, too. No way that voice belonged to the pup, so I think our company building might be haunted.
└Together…? In that locked-down space where even his friends barely get in…? Together…? Together……? Could it be…? No way…
└└Don’t even say “living together.” I’m scared it might actually be true.
***
[But guys, why is no one mentioning the most important part?]
That Person seemed to be a man. Not a tall, hot, muscular woman with a deep voice—an actual man. Just to be sure, I even checked for the Adam’s apple.
***
“Pup” was the way employees referred to Tae Woon on the guild’s anonymous message board. Even anonymously, no one wanted to call out the Guildmaster and CEO by name. Writing “pup” made him sound a little less terrifying than “Mad Dog.”
It was just as someone in Admin was typing a comment like: “Does the gender of ‘That Person’ really matter when the pup is clearly having a psychological break?”
“Woonie still has a baby palate.”
“PFFFT!”
The voice came from nearby, and the Admin staffer spat out the coffee they’d been sipping through a straw. It splattered all over the clothes of the colleague sitting across from them, but the colleague didn’t flinch. They just sat there, eyes blank. The fork slipped from their fingers with a dull clink.
The Admin had hoped they’d misheard—but one look at their coworker’s face confirmed the worst. And it wasn’t just them. Every table within earshot had fallen into stunned silence.
Tae Woon doesn’t even eat desserts or drink coffee. The man downs bottled espresso when he needs caffeine—not even Americano, but straight-up espresso. And now he’s drinking a caramel macchiato so sweet it could melt your tongue?
Fine. Say we let that slide. But what the hell did he just say?
No way. No fucking way. There’s no universe where a grown man says something like that.
While the Admin staffer was still trying to mentally escape, the young man with Tae Woon decided to make things even worse.
“What’s the point of being big if he’s still a baby inside?”
Grinning like it was the cutest thing ever, he pinched Tae Woon’s cheek with his thumb and forefinger and gave it a wiggle. Naturally, Tae Woon’s smile only deepened.
Lord above, have mercy.
As a devout Catholic, the Admin staffer instinctively made the sign of the cross.
And the live horror show continued.
“Still hate veggies?”
“Mmm, yeah. But if you fed them to me, I might eat it all?”
“You never left anything on your plate before.”
“That’s ‘cause I was holding back. But now I wanna be spoiled by you.”
The young man chuckled quietly. The Admin staffer’s hand trembled as they gripped their phone. What was funny about that? They felt like they were staring down a serial killer with a chainsaw.
Kim Sibaek, smiling, scooped up a big forkful of salad soaked in dressing and brought it to Tae Woon’s lips. And Tae Woon even let out a sweet little “Ahh~” before opening up and eating it. The Admin staffer squeezed their eyes shut, but it was too late. The image was burned into their brain like an afterimage.
In the dead silence, the only sound was Tae Woon crunching on the salad.
But it wasn’t over.
“Oops, got a little something here.”
The young man reached out and gently wiped the sauce from the corner of Tae Woon’s mouth with a tissue. A pink flush bloomed on Tae Woon’s ears.
No. That was enough. Any more and they’d suffer psychic damage.
“L-let’s go. We’re leaving.”
“Y-yeah…”
The Admin staffer hurriedly stacked their half-finished coffee onto a tray and, looking more haunted than human, dragged their coworker out of the café.
Did I look like that when I used to feed my girlfriend for fun…?
They found themselves introspecting—but mostly, they were worried. When people suddenly change, it usually means they’re close to death… Is our Guildmaster okay? Are we about to lose the whole damn guild…?
Meanwhile, after reading the anonymous board, Pi Minhyung and Seo Gaeun decided against going to the café and just headed out for lunch instead. A wise choice.
Feeding Tae Woon—who simply opened his mouth—wasn’t a chore at all. In fact, it was fun. He really did look like a baby bird waiting to be fed.
A baby bird… Yeah, Woonie’s just like that. Small, soft, warm to the touch, and fluffy when you pet him. It feels nice…
Especially the cuteness—that part stood out the most.
If Lord Biendeoé had been scanning his surface thoughts, she would’ve probably been horrified. Smirking to himself at the thought, Kim Sibaek lifted another bite of food on a piece of rye bread.
He’d misjudged his portion, so Tae Woon had ordered extra pasta. As he returned with the tray, he asked:
“Hyung, how’s the quest going?”
The only reason the two of them had come down to the café in the first place was because of that quest.
“Same as before.”
Kim Sibaek glanced sideways at the quest window he’d pushed to the edge of his vision.
[Starting with a tough quest would be too overwhelming for you, dear Returnee, wouldn’t it? The system always looks out for you (ʃƪ ˘ ³˘). You’ve been in bed for so long—why don’t we loosen up a little first?]
[Quest 01]
[Have a delightful time at a café.]
[Time Remaining: 216 hours 39 minutes]
He’d just fed Tae Woon—how was he supposed to have a more “delightful” time than that? For something tied to the literal fate of the world, the quest seemed absurdly easy. But once he actually started, it became clear how vague it really was. Since the requirement was a subjective feeling—“delight”—there was no concrete way to gauge success.
“What exactly does it say?”
“Hmm… Kind of awkward to say it out loud.”
The lunch rush had passed and the café was quieter now, but people were still sneaking glances at them. Being the center of attention didn’t faze him, but blurting out quest details in public seemed… unwise.
Tae Woon gave an understanding nod and handed over his phone.
“Try typing it here.”
“What is this, texts?”
“No, it’s a note app.”
“Oh…”
It was an app Kim Sibaek hadn’t noticed before. He typed slowly—so slowly it could give someone secondhand frustration. Correcting typos along the way, it took him a while to finish.
He pointed at a specific spot on the screen.
“Right here. There’s some weird little symbol after this sentence. No idea what it’s supposed to be.”
“What does it look like?”
“Kind of a face? Made of brackets and symbols? You use it sometimes. Looked cute when you used it, but seeing it in a quest just feels… off.”
“Oh, that’s probably an emoticon.”
“Emoticons are that complicated now?”
Back in the day, the ones he knew were things like ^^, -_-;, or -0-.
“Well, some people still keep it simple. But there are also drawn ones like the stickers I send you, emoji which are pictograms, and others. I think the system might be part of the MZ generation.”
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“Basically the younger generation. Broad enough that I fall into it too.”
“So the system’s new-gen, and I’m old-gen. No wonder these emoticons feel chaotic.”
Tae Woon raised an eyebrow and tapped his fingers lightly against the table.
“Anyway, so that’s all it says? The only concrete detail is the time limit. Everything else is vague… Maybe we should try visiting cafés a few more times?”
“But what even counts as ‘delight’?”
Kim Sibaek threw out the core question, and Tae Woon leaned in, as if ready to deliver something serious. Sibaek leaned closer too. Tae Woon’s breath brushed against the shell of his ear—cool, light—and Sibaek’s skin prickled with a ticklish chill. He instinctively hunched his shoulders.
Tae Woon leaned in so close it felt like he might graze his earlobe, and then whispered softly—low, close, and intimate. A voice that dripped temptation, impossible for Kim Sibaek to deny.
