The eldest son of the Lee family, Ian, who turned 9 this year, had a certain degree of respect for his father, in his own way.
Ian was precocious and carried a strong tendency toward pessimism since birth. He didn’t have much interest in worldly affairs, aside from his sister, brother, and mother.
Even in his younger days, the story of him asking his father, who came dressed as Santa on Christmas, “Didn’t you buy a Rudolph costume for mom?” still circulated among the family, albeit as a hush-hush topic. (For reference, it was a bikini version.)
Ian always had a blank expression, and his feelings rarely surfaced. But he unexpectedly stirred up trouble, resembling his father in strange ways.
Still,
he was a proud eldest son who always cherished his sister and brother.
Anyway, there was a ‘reason’ that prompted Ian to take action today.
“I’m going out for a bit.”
Ian decided he would investigate what his father was hiding.
“……”
His not-so-proud father, Lee Siwoon, scratched his head awkwardly while trying to open the front door.
He cautiously turned around to look at Ian.
“Um, Ian…”
“……”
“…Your eyes are a little scary.”
“……”
“Ah, no. I’ll be back soon…”
“……”
For reference,
Siwoon was merely scared of the very early onset of his eldest son’s puberty.
It was a hot summer.
—
Side EP. Hidden Matters (1)
—
Ian thought there were several suspicious aspects about his father.
First of all, he didn’t have a special job.
He lounged around the house every day, just playing games. The only time he insisted on going out was when he threw a fit in the living room to go see a movie.
Ian couldn’t understand what the magnificent mothers saw in his father that led them to marry him.
“…Your dad?”
Upon hearing Ian’s reasonable doubts, his aunt Julia turned in her gaming chair.
[Do you eat Greppebap? (Warrior): Dealer?]
From Ian’s perspective, it seemed like the ‘Raid’ in the ‘Game’ was still in full swing.
He wondered if this was okay, but his curiosity about his father took precedence.
Julia gently stroked her chin with her cyberware prosthetic arm.
“Isn’t your dad cool? He’s handsome.”
If it were someone else, they might suspect illegal hacking from a hacker, but Ian, who understood how much his mothers loved him, just nodded along.
“Well, you didn’t just meet him based on his face, did you?”
Julia pondered Ian’s logical explanation.
“Hmm…”
Ian had already researched events from the past through hacking. He found that his aunt’s connection with his father wasn’t very deep.
“It was actually a fan thing at first.”
“…Huh?”
However, this answer was beyond Ian’s expectations.
His dad wasn’t a singer like the ‘Elf Mama,’ so he didn’t quite grasp the idea of ‘fan love.’
Seeing Ian’s expression shift slightly to fit his age, Julia chuckled and affectionately ruffled his hair.
“Your dad’s nickname during his mercenary days was ‘Unique Wizard.’ He was really impressive.”
“…A con artist?”
“Hoho, a wizard.”
A wizard, huh? What kind of nonsensical profession was that? It was ‘nonsense’ that couldn’t be scientifically proven.
Having all the memories since he was three, Ian thought it was a profession that couldn’t exist.
“Anyway, your dad is much cooler than you think.”
He wanted to deny it internally, but it was impossible for Ian, who genuinely loved all his mothers.
“…Okay.”
Ultimately,
Ian realized he was the only one who could unmask the mask his father was hiding.
He quickly chased after his father, who was getting into a taxi.
Things were already suspicious. There were several air vehicles parked at home.
No, it was strange for his father to go out when he could have driven a short distance.
Ian hopped into the back seat of a parked taxi, following his father’s figure.
When the little one climbed aboard, the taxi driver cocked his head and waved his hand roughly.
“Kid, this isn’t a place for children to play—”
“Follow the taxi that just left immediately. I’ll pay double in cash; this is a deposit for that part.”
“Safety first with T&M taxi service. Please buckle up, and we’ll head out swiftly.”
The taxi driver, confirming the credits that came into his account, displayed his keen professional spirit.
Like all taxi drivers, he seemed accustomed to chasing someone.
The taxi driver followed closely behind Siwoon’s taxi at a certain distance.
Ian confirmed that Siwoon entered ‘some mansion.’
“Thank you! Please use us again next time!”
Leaving behind the noisy driver’s voice, Ian looked up at the massive mansion.
“…This place…”
It was a mansion so large that even an average adult would have to look up for a while.
With its tall iron fence, unnecessarily expansive garden, and security staff wandering about, it resembled a vacation home of some megacorp executives.
Ian quickly searched for information about the location through the cyber world.
“The location is the Business Zone, Saint Hills….”
Muttering to himself because of his much solo wandering in net space.
Anyway,
this was an incredibly dubious location.
For the past ten years, there hadn’t been a single property listing here. It was strange that any company data was secured.
They were impressive findings for an ordinary nine-year-old, but Ian keenly felt his own shortcomings again.
There was no suitable way to enter the mansion. No matter how precocious he might be, he was still just a 9-year-old kid.
Ian gazed at the mansion while worrying inside.
“…What on earth is this mansion?”
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
Then, a woman’s voice he’d never heard before came from behind Ian.
It wasn’t good to be seen while tailing someone. Surprised, Ian instinctively took a step back and bumped against the iron fence.
A girl, appearing to be around her mid-teens, giggled as she witnessed the scene.
Could she be a maid from the mansion?
The girl wore the long, flowing maid outfit, which was familiar as it was often worn by Ian’s ‘mothers.’
With a kind tone, the girl asked Ian,
“Did you get lost?”
Leaning forward, she brought her face closer to Ian’s.
Ian controlled his heart rate. Naturally dusting off his back, he regained his composure.
“No, I just happened to see this place while passing by. It’s quite a rare structure in this city.”
“Oh my, you talk like an old person.”
“……”
Ian instinctively sensed he would have a hard time adapting to this girl. He was used to having many ‘sisters’ and ‘younger sisters’ and couldn’t help it.
“Come on, if you got lost, why don’t you have a delicious chocolate milk inside?”
“I’m fine—”
Just as Ian was about to refuse reflexively, an idea passed through his mind.
It was an opportunity to get into the ‘mansion.’
The interior of the mansion seemed massive just by looking at it. With the possibility of running into his father inside being incredibly low if he went in, Ian saw an advantageous condition in knowing the building’s function and the number of people inside.
Ian quickly changed his words.
“—would you mind? I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Haha, your speech is really funny!”
The girl laughed merrily, patting Ian’s shoulder joyfully, just like there’s a saying that a rolling leaf makes someone laugh.
Had she not been the sparring partner of a certain ‘younger sister’ (of Elf Mama’s bloodline), Ian would have likely been writhing in pain on the ground.
So, Ian infiltrated the mansion.
Ian walked casually, pretending not to react, and asked the girl who was leading the way.
“By the way, who owns this building?”
“Ah… ‘Mother.’”
…….
Was there really a cruel parent in the world who could brainwash their child and make them wear a maid outfit to work?
It was unimaginable to the 9-year-old Ian.
His prolonged silence seemed overt, and the girl soon turned back, waving her hands.
“I do it because I want to work. The other kids living here owe a debt of gratitude to ‘Mother.’”
The girl seemed to have been born socially outgoing since she came into this world, unlike Ian.
“Some kids even moved out to live independently, but most live here with ‘Mother.’”
“Oh, you can sometimes see poltergeist phenomena inside the mansion, but don’t mind it too much. I thought it was the work of a ‘ghost’ when I was little.”
“They’ve helped me a lot throughout the years. So when I see kids like you, lost and wandering, I just can’t leave you alone. Hehe.”
She truly had no intention of stopping her chatter.
“……”
Ian found himself experiencing ear complaints for the first time from the endless TMI.
Soon, they arrived in a massive reception room.
“Just don’t feel too burdened, and don’t cause a ruckus—just sit quietly, okay~.”
Saying this, the girl disappeared somewhere.
It seemed she went to fetch the previously mentioned chocolate milk.
Ian slowly watched her silhouette leave before accessing the mansion’s internal security network.
He wasn’t almost as skilled at hacking as his mother, but it ultimately came down to “computational power” differences.
“There are no surveillance cameras…, so let’s check the motion sensors on the furniture….”
Muttering to himself, he searched for his father’s location.
“Mmm…”
However, there was someone in the reception room watching the boy.
Just like how the maid girl was able to approach Ian silently, when Ian focused, he wouldn’t notice even if the house were on fire.
Continuing to mutter to himself while searching for information about the mansion, a woman, a ‘Dragon,’ was watching Ian’s figure with great interest.
“…Good. Now let’s compare the stored motion data of your father…”
“Are you done?”
“……!!”
Startled, Ian tried to get up from his seat, but the Dragon was faster to lift him by the armpit.
“……”
“……”
Her slit pupils stared at Ian.
Was that an extraordinarily shaped mechanical eye?
Two horns… and a reptilian tail?
He had heard from his mothers that extreme body modification advocates were high-risk individuals.
The idea of ‘kidnapping’ flickered through Ian’s mind. He tried to hack the Dragon’s cyberware to escape this crisis.
However,
there was no ‘cyberware’ on her body.
“…Huh, none?”
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to do, but first, calm down.”
And then, an unexpected scene unfolded that greatly exceeded Ian’s ‘common sense.’
Ian was lifted into the air.
There shouldn’t have been any device, and it didn’t even affect the other furniture. He hadn’t even seen such technology developed on the deep net.
What to do…!
Since he snuck in, it wouldn’t be easy to call ‘Mother,’ and if he caused a ruckus, his father inside the mansion would hear him—
“…Ian?”
He was caught.
Lee Siwoon tilted his head at the sight of his 9-year-old son in an unexpected place.
“How did you get here…, no, why did you go out alone to such a dangerous place?”
Being scolded, Ian instinctively shrank his neck.
There was no escaping it.
It was a bioreaction stored down to the cell level regarding ‘father.’ Ian realized this fact well but couldn’t resist the hormonal drive.
“…Ah, ah….”
As tears streamed down his face, it was Siwoon who was taken aback.
“…Oh dear, Ian, why are you crying? Did someone bother you? Who? Should I scold them?”
“…You did, Dad.”
“?”
Ian had no choice but to explain why he followed his father.
—
“Ha ha ha…. You followed me because you thought I was suspicious?”
“……”
Watching Ian drinking warm chocolate milk while blowing on it, Siwoon smiled like it was adorable.
“Who’s here is my master. You saw me flying earlier, right? That was magic.”
“…A con artist?”
“It’s magic, I tell you.”
Now that he thought about it, hadn’t he shown it to Ian at all except when he was a complete baby?
Muttering that under his breath, Siwoon floated the snacks laid out on the table.
They floated in a parade-like manner, making Ian’s eyes light up.
“And your mothers all know I’m here, so what’s so suspicious about it?”
“……”
Unable to accept he was wrong, Ian sniffled and showed a reaction suitable for his age.
“Don’t worry. I won’t do anything that would make your mothers worry or dislike me.”
“…Really?”
“Of course.”
While he spoke, Siwoon gently patted Ian’s head. Slowly, Ian nestled into Siwoon’s lap.
Up to this point, he never expected he’d follow him…
Siwoon deeply reflected on his actions without thinking.
“……”
Though,
it would have been better if he hadn’t had anything to feel guilty about.
