Chapter 30

Kim Sehee was about to kneel right in front, but thanks to Kim Bora’s intervention, she didn’t have to.

Since Hana was under Kim Bora’s care, Kim Sehee moved to talk with Bora. It wasn’t something to discuss in the hallway.

Bora hugged Hana, patted her head, and headed to the meeting room. Of course, she didn’t take Hana inside.

On the way, Bora handed Hana over to Haru and went into the room. Kim Sehee also awkwardly followed, sensing the atmosphere.

Feeling thirsty, Kim Sehee sat down. She had no idea how the negotiation would go.

The only relief was that Hana’s favorability hadn’t dropped much. Even now, Hana was pressing her face against the glass wall, watching.

Kim Bora slowly opened her mouth while looking at Kim Sehee. What would she ask for?

“Please help me.”

“Huh…?”

Kim Sehee thought she misheard. She thought she’d be the one asking for help, but Bora beat her to it. Fortunately, Bora explained.

“Please help Hana enroll in elementary school. With your help, it might be possible.”

Bora said something unexpected. Kim Sehee came prepared to negotiate profit shares, but Bora brought up something completely unrelated. Elementary school enrollment? Out of nowhere?

“Elementary school…?”

“Yes, I think it would be great if Hana could be accepted into society. She can earn enough money on her own.”

“Well…”

Kim Sehee racked her brain. As Bora said, there had never been a case where a being like Hana gained an identity. Maybe abroad, but not in Korea.

“If you came about Hana’s hair, it’s probably because we’ve cut too much of it. It’s a reaction to that.”

“Then when will it grow back!?”

Kim Sehee asked desperately. But for Bora, whether it grew back or not didn’t matter. However, to get Hana into school, she needed to build some goodwill, so Bora said, “If we don’t cut her hair for about a week, it should grow back, right?”

Kim Sehee roughly counted the remaining hair in her head and calculated how long she could hold out.

“That would be a relief…”

“By the way, if you answer my first question, I can try my best to make her hair grow…”

Kim Sehee didn’t even need to hear it.

“I’ll do my best to help within my means.”

“Don’t worry too much about the hair. It seems like a temporary issue.”

“I hope so.”

Kim Sehee thought they’d part ways with a laugh, but contrary to her expectations, Bora demanded a revised contract. Her attitude was completely different from before.

After a long tug-of-war, Kim Sehee managed to adjust the contract reasonably.

“Phew…”

After Kim Sehee left, Bora sighed in relief. Things had gone as expected. Hana was still pressing her face against the glass, watching.

“What are you looking at, Hana?”

Bora came out of the room and asked Hana, who was staring at her.

“Just curious.”

From Hana’s perspective, she didn’t get many chances to see other people, so she said that.

—

Bora brought a large rubber tub into the room. Hana was smiling and watching from the side.

Soon, she mixed hot water with plant nutrients and poured it into the tub. Once the water was ready, she placed a duck toy on the water.

“Hana, let’s get clean today.”

At first, Hana refused to be washed by Bora, but over time, she seemed to get used to it and entrusted herself to Bora’s hands.

Hana splashed into the water and played excitedly with the duck toy. Bora massaged Hana’s body, helping her get enough sunlight. Washing her like this, Bora could see Hana’s hair growing.

Hana looked like she owned the world, enjoying the massage.

The only worry was how to keep Hana’s attention during baths without the duck toy.

Thanks to Bora’s efforts, Hana’s hair grew back just like before.

Kim Sehee received a report from the research institute that Hana’s hair was growing again and sighed in relief.

Originally, humans are beings of uncontrollable freedom. This is somewhat proven by the existence of product manuals.

Even if you write warnings like “Don’t eat this, it’s harmful,” people will still go ahead and eat it. No matter how big the font or how flashy the red color, they’ll ignore it and do the forbidden anyway.

But such actions, while generally leading to bad outcomes, can sometimes result in unexpected discoveries.

Take Kim Kihoon, for example, who mainly drinks Starlight Green Tea. He was a fanatic. Despite his tight budget—thanks to loans—he was a heavy green tea drinker, consuming 3 to 4 cups a day.

Today, overwhelmed by excessive work, he resorted to what you could call a forbidden technique in martial arts terms—a taboo move.

The method was simple. Normally, one tea bag makes one cup, but on days like today when he was drained from work, one wasn’t enough. So, he added 2 to 3 more tea bags.

Of course, the green tea instructions clearly stated to use only one tea bag per cup, but Kim Kihoon didn’t bow down to a mere piece of paper.

And so, in the now tea-less break room, Kim Kihoon completed his forbidden brew by putting 4 tea bags into one paper cup.

The color was as dark as if he had poured green ink, and the aroma filled the entire break room. Drinking it felt like downing a stimulant, instantly energizing him. The downside? He couldn’t sleep well later.

Humming to himself, he was about to head back to his desk with the paper cup when he bumped into a coworker at the hallway corner.

“Ouch!”

The collision happened to be at his hand, and the green tea spilled all over his forearm. The hot tea made him scream.

“Are you okay?”

The other person apologized. Since it was mutual fault, Kim Kihoon couldn’t argue and had to return to his desk, silently mourning the 20,000 won that just went down the drain. At least there was a little tea left in the cup as a consolation.

After another day as a cog in the modern societal machine, Kim Kihoon showered and unconsciously checked the arm where he had spilled the tea earlier.

He wondered if he had gotten a burn. But when he looked at his forearm, he saw an unexpected effect of the green tea.

“Huh? Where did my eczema go?”

Kim Kihoon had suffered from severe eczema on his right forearm since childhood, but now it had subsided to the point of being barely noticeable.

There had been wild rumors online that applying Starlight Green Tea to skin conditions could help alleviate them. Kim Kihoon had just discovered that those rumors were true.

—————————–

The Starlight Guild was a sprawling conglomerate. Naturally, they also had a cosmetics company under their umbrella.

“Hmm…”

Kim Seyoung, the fifth daughter of the Starlight Guild and older sister of Kim Sehee, was reading a report brought by an executive.

Starlight Cosmetics wasn’t exactly thriving, much like Starlight Food. Though compared to Starlight Food, it was like a fairy, but there wasn’t really any standout product.

The byproducts of the monsters the Starlight Guild mainly dealt with were all too aggressive, leaving no suitable materials for cosmetics. It was a miracle if they didn’t ruin your skin.

As a result, Starlight Cosmetics was barely breaking even, keeping the factory running.

But the report this executive brought suggested a reason to visit Starlight Food.

If the ingredients handled by Starlight Green Tea had such effects, they couldn’t afford to delay.

Kim Seyoung got up from her office and headed to Starlight Food. However, the parking lot in front of the Starlight Food office was already full.

“Who’s that?”

She even spotted executives from a top 3 domestic cosmetics company. Being competitors, Kim Seyoung could easily recognize them.

With a nervous heart, Kim Seyoung had no choice but to get out of her car and head up to the office. Fortunately, she wasn’t on bad terms with her younger sister, so she could rely on family ties to get through.

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