Newlyweds And Everyday Life (8)

It’s the third day since I arrived here.

I ended up with unexpected plans today. It’s unfortunate that my meddling tendencies activated even during my honeymoon, but I get antsy if I don’t help—so what can I do?

If they’ve wished for each other that long, it’s only right that they end up together. If Rurin and I are happy, then so should other couples who miss each other like that.

So I went to the house next door first thing in the morning. Rurin was still sleeping, of course. So I went alone.

Fortunately, Lee Jin-ha remembered everything he said while drunk last night.

Of course, he waved it off asking me to forget it—but I couldn’t do that.

I wondered how to insert myself into the situation and ended up picking the classic route.

I claimed I worked at an errand agency that specializes in things like cheating investigations, missing persons—stuff like that.

Jin-ha looked bewildered, but he said when you’re drowning, you even grab at straws. I think it worked.

He figured leaving it to a pro might change something. I told him he could pay the investigation fee later, and in the end, he nodded.

“So first, all we need is to meet her?”

“Yes. If she agrees to come with me, we’ll run away together—no matter what!”

“Good plan. No matter the relationship, confinement is illegal.”

So we began the investigation. But really, there wasn’t much to investigate. Methods are the same here as they are back in the other world.

It was obvious where they’d be holding his fiancée. Of course it’d be the house. There’s no better place to prevent escape.

So Rurin and I headed out. Honestly, getting her out of the blankets last night was hellishly hard.

It was like she had absorbed all the embarrassment in the world and wouldn’t move an inch from the blanket. I had to work hard to drag her out.

In the end, I just yanked the blanket off and went in for a kiss, like I’d eaten something sour, while Rurin scrunched her face and puffed out her cheeks.

Her lips were warmer than usual—maybe from embarrassment. It was like pressing your lips to a slightly cooled heat pack.

That kind of warmth.

Still, Rurin kept her eyes shut and let out a muffled “Uuuugh!” as if to resist. But when I hugged her tighter and said, “Even if it’s embarrassing, it’s fine because I love you,” she finally responded with a “Hueh” and clung to me with strength.

“Mmmph…mgh…huh…?”

With a cute little moan, Rurin wrapped her arms around my waist tighter—like she’d never let go no matter what.

Then I said:

“Feeling better now?”

“Ugh… I’m too weak to kisses. Why does my head go blank every time? It goes white and then nothing else matters…”

She mumbled that while looking at me with these glistening, emotional eyes.

So yeah—problem solved with a kiss.

But after that night passed, and we woke up today—

She was still in a low mood. Strangely quiet. Not refusing anything or causing trouble, just obedient… But definitely gloomy.

“Rurin, this is the place. Let’s teleport inside.”

“Understood!”

This was the house Jin-ha said belonged to her adoptive family.

Her adoptive father—apparently some company CEO—owned a pretty big mansion.

Still, mansions like this are actually easier to investigate.

“Sunhye’s not moving, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

A man transitioning from middle age to old, with hair halfway turned white, asked his subordinate.

“How dare she try to ruin everything after all I’ve done for her? That little brat! She should be bowing a hundred times just for being adopted from an orphanage. Don’t you think? Huh? Don’t you?”

The man swung the golf club he was holding in a wide arc. As if on purpose, he smashed the vase on the desk into pieces, shards scattering everywhere.

“Y-yes, sir! She’s locked in her room—no way she’s getting out. I told her if she doesn’t go through with the wedding, that guy might end up stuck on a deep-sea fishing boat or become road asphalt. She stopped talking back. Looked resigned.”

“Of course. If she cares so much about that guy like she says, she’d have no choice. Learned some messed-up ideas about love somewhere. Do you know how hard I worked to find a pretty little thing like her? And how much I went through to buy her? Don’t you think?”

“Of course, sir. That’s unacceptable.”

“With their family backing, we’ll have the upper hand in the upcoming major bids. So this marriage must happen. Anything that gets in the way—stab it all.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Alright. Get out.”

The man continued swinging the same golf club he’d used to smash the vase as he spoke.

This was the scene Rurin and I watched from the next room.

From the looks of it, the company this guy built wasn’t created through clean means.

A corrupt corporation—or one built by a gangster.

These types will do anything for money. He even described adopting her as “buying” her. That just screams dirty business. What is this, a modern slave market?

I liked him less by the second.

“Still, this place sure has a lot of rooms. Makes it easier to eavesdrop, though.”

“It’s hard for me. Mana’s already scarce in this world.”

“Good job. I think we’ve seen enough.”

“Really?”

We infiltrated just to see if the other side had any justification, but as expected—it was textbook villain behavior.

We teleported room to room to map out the place. When we ran into a maid, I cast a 10th-class Forgetting Spell to erase her memory of seeing us, then teleported us out.

“You. I’m almost out of mana. There’s not much left.”

“Yeah? How many more teleports can you manage?”

“Umm, about this much?”

Rurin raised five fingers. Five times?

More than I thought. That’s enough.

“That’s plenty.”

I shrugged and replied casually. We’d time our break-in for when the CEO was out. I also wanted to find some incriminating evidence.

So we began our stakeout nearby, waiting for the boss to leave.

“You, what are these people doing?”

“These people?”

Rurin was pointing at the idol group performing in a music video on my phone.

She looked bored, so I played a bunch of things during our stakeout. Movies got no reaction, the internet confused her, but when I played this music video, she actually showed interest and asked questions.

“Hmm…looks like an idol group. They’re singing.”

“Singing? Idol group? What is that? Unlike Regana, it mixes lots of rhythms. It sounds exciting.”

After giving her thoughts, Rurin suddenly started humming along.

“Just like~ Didi?”

As expected, Rurin loves music. She practices Regana daily in Rare. The fact that lazy Rurin plays the Regana every day says it all!

In that world, “songs” didn’t really exist, but here, when people think music, they think songs. So it’s actually good she’s taking interest.

“There’s a lot more. Want to hear another?”

“Really? This phone thing is incredibly useful. I can even store you in it.”

“Not me—my photo. Let’s be accurate.”

“To me, even the photo is you! Heehee.”

Heehee?

She’d been moody all morning, but this was the first time she smiled. Seems like the music lifted her spirits.

So I queued up more songs quickly to keep that mood going.

“I can’t say I love you~ huuuu~”

Then she actually started singing along.

“So this ‘song’ thing—there are different kinds, like Regana, right?”

“Yup.”

“So instead of playing it like Regana, you use your throat? Fascinating. They all have nice voices.”

“Yeah? Well, your voice is nice too.”

“R-really? Well, I am excellent at everything!”

She lit up after that. Her mood improved even more—she was even twirling her feet a little.

But playing music out loud isn’t great for a stakeout. I searched my pockets for earbuds. I knew I had them somewhere.

They came free with my phone. Figured they’d be handy for calls and such, so I stuffed them into my pocket.

I approached Rurin, intending to put them in her ears.

Listening through earbuds is a hundred times better in a place like this.

“Okay, in your ear…”

“My ear? Kyaa! That spot’s sensitive!”

As I brought the earbud toward her ear, she flinched and backed away in shock.

Her face was already turning red.

“You! It’s still broad daylight. If you must do it, fine, but still!”

“No, no! It’s not that! Don’t get the wrong idea. This is nothing like touching your ears in bed. I wasn’t even trying to touch your ear!”

I flailed around trying to clear the misunderstanding—sweating, trying to prove I wasn’t some midday perv.

“Huh? Then what is it?”

“This. This thing.”

“That?”

Rurin finally noticed the earphones and furrowed her brow. It was clearly something unfamiliar to her.

“It’s too noisy around here to hear music through the phone. But if you wear these, you’ll hear it just fine.”

I said that and gently slipped one into Rurin’s ear.

“How’s that?”

“Huh? Whoa, the song suddenly got really loud!”

Rurin shouted loudly. That’s the one downside of earbuds—people shout because they can’t hear themselves.

Anyway, she seemed to like it a lot and focused on the music. A few minutes later, the CEO’s car pulled out of the gate.

So I immediately called Jin-ha. He came running full speed.

He was such a mess from head to toe, he must’ve sprinted. I guess that makes him look more like a desperate prince. Good for his fiancée, huh?

“Mr. Jin-ha, listen carefully.”

“Yes. D-did you find out anything?”

“Yes. That CEO’s an even bigger piece of trash than we thought.”

I summarized the conversation we overheard for Jin-ha—framing it as an “investigation”, not eavesdropping, of course.

Jin-ha collapsed to the ground, fuming with rage.

“I… I could die right now. I was ready to throw away my whole life like an idiot…”

His face, his posture, his whole world looked like it had collapsed. I just shrugged.

“Just get her out of there. Don’t worry. That guy’s hiding a ton of skeletons, and there are plenty of ways to play this. Hand him some severance money if you want and walk away with her.”

“But…how do I even get inside that house…”

“We’ve got ways. And lucky for you, that so-called ‘father’ just left for an errand. It’s the perfect time.”

“Really? If there’s a way, I’ll do anything. Even if it costs me everything—I’ll work my whole life to repay it…”

“No need for that. Just a minor corporate secret—you’ll need to faint for a moment. We’ll wake you up inside the house.”

“Wait, what?”

Jin-ha looked puzzled—and I struck him with a precise blow.

It was a technique I learned during the Monster Wars. I’ve been through some vicious battlefields. I know a few tricks beyond magic. And this one works just fine on humans.

…Not so much against monsters or dragons, though.