Your Commander-in-Chief – Chapter 63

Fortunately, the restaurant I had made a reservation at was located not too far from the meeting spot.

After about five minutes of running, I arrived at a Korean cuisine specialty restaurant.

It was the place I had found after much deliberation on where to make the reservation.

“Ha…”

Standing in front of the restaurant, I took a deep breath and looked back.

I needed to check if the guild members had followed me without getting lost.

“Is everyone here okay? No one lost their way, right?”

The guild members glanced at each other in response to my question.

They seemed to be checking if any member following them had vanished.

Looking over the group, I realized that not a single one had lost their way.

Thank goodness for that.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was starting to feel like a kindergarten teacher guiding children.

As I felt a sense of pride, I noticed the intense gazes of the guild members.

It was the same kind of gaze I felt right before entering a Raid Dungeon.

I swallowed hard. Although no one voiced it, they clearly seemed eager to see something.

“Ha—”

A light sigh escaped my lips.

As the guild leader, I had set this up. To create a naturally comfortable atmosphere, I could endure a little embarrassment.

The automatic doors opened, revealing a spacious and tidy interior.

Immediately, I jumped slightly and rushed into the restaurant.

Just like when entering a dungeon. Although I couldn’t jump as high as in the game, I made an effort to leap.

At that moment, as if they had been waiting for it, the guild members broke into exclamations of admiration.

“Wow… Our guild leader really is something!”

“You jumped…”

“Should we jump too…?”

“If we, the heavy adults, jump, people are going to stare at us weirdly…? The place might even collapse.”

Just then, Sohee hopped over to my side.

“So, Sohee…”

Sohee just smiled without a word.

Indeed, there was no one but Sohee for me.

I glared at Harang with wide eyes.

He avoided my gaze and quietly entered the building.

The other guild members did the same. They averted their eyes from me and quietly stepped inside.

As we entered the restaurant, I noticed something unusual.

There were no guests. Of course, there was still quite some time left until lunchtime, but it was just too quiet inside the restaurant.

I tilted my head and approached the counter.

The staff member, who had been bent over writing something, blinked in surprise upon seeing me.

I met his gaze and stood on my tiptoes.

I was short, so I had no choice but to lean over the counter.

“I made a reservation under Seohayeon.”

“Se, Seohayeon…? Ah! Just a moment!”

The staff member, startled by my words, quickly made a phone call.

In a soft voice, he whispered, “They just arrived.”

How long did it take? A panicked staff member rushed down from the second floor with a worried expression.

He spoke to me with a tense look on his face.

“We’ll take you upstairs!”

“Upstairs? But I reserved a table for 20 on the first floor…?”

“Ah, well…”

Could there have been an error with the reservation? I tilted my head, looking up at him.

Since I was short, I had to look up at everyone, which was straining my neck.

“Uh, uh… There was a sudden issue on the first floor—construction is in progress.”

“Construction?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right. It’s construction. This is our fault, so we’ll show you to a better room.”

A better room, huh?

I narrowed my eyes skeptically at the staff member.

He was sweating bullets and bowing profusely.

He didn’t look like he was lying, though.

I sneaked a glance at the guild members standing behind me and nodded.

After all, we all came here to eat, and I couldn’t keep them waiting for long.

“Let’s all go upstairs.”

As we ascended to the second floor together, I looked around the interior of the restaurant.

It was quiet. No other guests. Not a single one.

Perhaps noticing the oddity, the guild members who followed started murmuring among themselves.

“It looks like there aren’t any other guests here?”

“Maybe the guild leader rented the whole place for us?”

“The whole place, this big?”

Me? I slowly scanned the surroundings again as I listened to the guild members chatter.

There was no problem with the reservation. The deposit had also been processed normally. So, there should be no issue.

“This is it.”

“Oh…”

The room we reserved was quite, no, extremely nice.

An elegant dining table stretched out, lined with cushioned chairs.

I shot the staff a suspicious look.

Was it really okay to guide us to such a room?

He seemed startled by my gaze and hurriedly stepped back.

What a strange employee he was.

“Let’s go in.”

We entered the room together.

Everyone took their seats. I sat at the head table, with Harang and Sohee settling naturally beside me.

Harang seemed to be frowning again.

He already looked fierce, and now he was scowling too, making him appear even scarier.

“Are you going to keep sulking?”

“Hmm…”

Why was he acting like this?

I kicked his thigh lightly with my foot and sighed.

Was it because the setting had changed? The guild members couldn’t chat as casually as before.

Everyone was anxiously sipping water and stealing glances at each other.

That wasn’t a pretty sight.

I placed my hands on the table and spoke.

“Everyone seems a bit awkward, right? It’s the first time seeing each other in real life, after all. I know it’s unfamiliar to all of you.”

As I, the guild leader, broke the ice, everyone gradually began to force smiles.

I rested my chin on my hands and smiled.

“But you should be familiar with me. After all, I look just like I do in the game.”

So, I hoped they’d treat me the same way.

I didn’t voice my lingering thoughts.

The tense atmosphere that had been stiffening began to loosen up, and conversations started to flow more freely.

I leaned back in my chair and let out a relaxed sigh.

It was good that conversations had started, but nobody was talking to Sohee, Harang, or me.

I was sure it was all because of Harang’s intimidating expression.

He looked like he was uncomfortable with the situation, making anyone who saw hesitate to talk.

That meant I had to take the initiative to start conversing.

“Um, Snow?”

The Snow Mage, known as Snow, jumped at the sound of my voice and looked up.

Every so often, she’d light up with excitement to speak to me, but she would always turn her head away as if Harang was putting pressure on her.

“Y-Yes! Blood Demon!”

No kidding, she looked excessively nervous, unlike her character in the game.

I shook my head, rubbing my lips together.

“Not Blood Demon. Just call me Yeo comfortably.”

“Ye, Yeo…”

“Do you regularly enjoy the Arena, Snow?”

“Ah, yes. That’s right. I mostly just do the Arena.”

“I didn’t see you last season. Looks like you’ve recently taken a liking to it.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I saw the skills of the newly released high-tier classes and thought I could create an interesting combo.”

“The teleport combo using spell engineering mines was quite the challenge.”

“R-Really?”

“Of course. If it weren’t for me, you would have gotten hit by all of them.”

Although I ended my statement sounding a bit like bragging, it was a pretty good start.

As I began to converse like I would in the game, one by one, the guild members began to engage with me.

Sohee and Harang received a few questions here and there, but the conversations didn’t last long.

At that moment, the food we had reserved began to arrive.

I snuck a glance at the dishes. They did seem to follow the course I had reserved, but something felt off about the variety of side dishes.

Was this really the right reservation? Did something go wrong?

“Everyone, please eat comfortably.”

And so, the meal progressed.

As delicious food began to enter our mouths, people started to converse more naturally.

*

The meal went on, and alcohol was served.

The members, who had been cautious, finally started reaching for their glasses when a small girl laughed heartily while offering them drinks.

Everyone present at the gathering thought of one thing.

There was something strangely off about it.

It felt as if this wasn’t the first time for them in such a setting, their actions were just too natural.

The words they used also didn’t sound like those of a little girl. Asking if they weren’t hungry and naturally offering drinks, too.

It was as if a middle-aged man was residing inside the body of a 15-year-old girl.

A guy who used the nickname Chloe in Deron swallowed hard and escaped the room.

He had made an excuse to go to the restroom, but really, he just wanted to step out for a breath of fresh air.

As lunch dragged on and quite some time passed, there were still no other guests in the restaurant aside from them.

Though no one said it, it was clear their little guild leader had rented the entirety of this restaurant.

Chloe silently gazed outside the building.

She started to notice a peculiar presence that had previously gone unnoticed.

People seemed to avoid coming near the building, and it was all thanks to the men in black suits standing around.

Where on earth did those guys come from?

Chloe suddenly recalled the jokes the guild members had tossed around.

They said the real guild leader was watching from the shadows, and the one present was his daughter.

– No way.

Chloe chuckled at her own thoughts.

It seemed her mind was getting a little muddled with the series of bizarre events.

What kind of father would send his daughter in place of him to a guild gathering?

It would be more believable if a father were worrying about his daughter attending a gathering and sent people to keep an eye on her instead.

Chloe sighed. She could only believe it now.

That the person casually chatting with the older guild members in the room was indeed their guild leader, and it was a fact that their guild leader was a 15-year-old middle school girl.

The shutdown rule mandated that games be terminated at 10 PM wasn’t a concept either.

Chloe extracted a cigarette and checked her phone.

The talk about the little guild leader was gradually spreading in the chat room.

Once this gathering ended, the rumors about Yeo would certainly begin to spread.

Not just as a middle school girl concept, but as an actual active middle school girl.

At that moment, the previously closed door creaked open and people poured out.

“Ah, Chloe!”

“Uh, Guild Leader…”

“We’re planning to move to the capsule room. How about it?”

Chloe tucked the cigarette into her pocket, staring blankly with her mouth ajar.

Most of the guild members were radiating a subtle scent of alcohol from their bodies.

The scent of alcohol, something one could never smell in the game, confirmed that this was real life, yet the sight of that little girl standing in front of her blurred the lines between reality and the game.

That alone made the presence of this small girl feel overwhelmingly out of place.

“Sure, let’s go.”

Chloe vacantly nodded, getting mixed in among the guild members.

Yeo descended the stairs with her guild members.

One or two people were stumbling due to being drunk, so she kept an eye on them as she walked.

Perhaps she thought this was a considerate action as the guild leader, but to the guild members watching, it only looked cute.

Once the little girl arrived at the front desk on the first floor, she pulled out her wallet from her pocket.

A cute animal wallet with a pink pig nose attached.

Then she produced her debit card.

Despite showing a behavior akin to that of an adult during the meal, she unexpectedly revealed a childlike aspect in this moment.

The guild members couldn’t hide their puzzled expressions.

Could it really be that this little girl was going to pay for their meal?

“To the cashier!”

The little girl on tiptoes raised her card high at the counter.

In that instant, Iyap jumped up in shock and dashed forward.

“Y-Yeon!”

“Yes?”

“I-I will pay for it.”

It was the signal from the Thief Guild Leader, Iyap.

Most of the attendees at this gathering had a decent amount of money to spare.

Just looking at the money they used in Deron backed that up. They hurriedly took out their wallets.

How could a bunch of adults treat a 15-year-old girl to a meal?

They were not shameless people. No, if this continued, they would genuinely be acting shamelessly.

But the little girl, Hayun, only shook her head with a firm expression.

“I will pay.”

Hayun was stubborn.

She glared at the guild members as if to ensure that none of them would act shamelessly.

Beep—!

But at that moment, the payment was completed.

As Hayun placed her hands on her hips, glaring at the guild members, the thief, Iyap, had quietly swiped the card.

“Ah!”

Hayun, who had lost her turn, looked bewildered.

But what could she do? The payment was done.

Iyap chuckled and turned away.

Left behind, Hayun fiddled with her pig-nosed wallet.

Her expression was full of disappointment.