Divorce (6)
“I believe you now.”
The player from the Love Zone, having witnessed my special ability, declared that she would no longer doubt me.
The fact that I had gained that power by consuming the Eye Giant’s core was known only to Luna. It was a setting that had never even appeared in the game itself, so no player—no matter how experienced—would ever have guessed the ability had come from anything other than a privilege. She had no choice but to believe me.
Fine… getting her to trust me is good, but…
An unexpected problem had cropped up.
“You’re… not going back to your own zone?”
“I just arrived today. There’s no way I can turn around and leave right away.”
With that, she announced she would be staying in my zone for a few more days.
Of course, even a player would have accumulated fatigue after traveling all the way from the Love Zone. The Commander and Meursault already regarded her as my guest, so even if she had offered to leave, I would have been the first to insist she rest a few days before departing.
What still made her remaining here feel unsettling was this: she still feared me, yet that fear felt subtly different from before.
For instance, when I called her “Shin,” she shook her head and told me not to call her that anymore.
“Then what am I supposed to call you? Shaman?”
“Shin Eun-jo.”
“What’s Shin Eun-jo?”
“My real name.”
“You want me to use your real name?”
“Calling me ‘Shin’ gets confusing.”
She wanted me to use her real name because her player name, Shin, got mixed up with the word for God?
[Well, it is confusing.]
True enough.
She had never cared about it before. I couldn’t begin to guess what kind of change of heart had come over her.
“Stop overthinking and just go back to your zone.”
“When I leave, I’ll entrust one of the earrings to you. That should more than cover a few nights’ lodging, don’t you think?”
As payment for room and board, it was far too generous to refuse.
[Let her stay and take both of them!]
Luna was getting shameless these days.
Instead of lodging Shin Eun-jo at the Commander’s residence myself, I decided to put Taejeong in charge of watching her. Taejeong had grown far more taciturn than before and barely made a sound; she already blended in with the other servants of the residence.
The moment she met Taejeong, Shin Eun-jo must have opened a character appraisal window, because she muttered Taejeong’s nickname under her breath.
“TaejeongTaeSeBeyonce?”
A girl she had never met before had just spoken her username, yet Taejeong showed no particular surprise. She had probably already heard from others that a girl her age had arrived from another zone, and had assumed she was a system-access player.
Shin Eun-jo took an unexpected interest in her.
“I know you. You’re one of Dopamine Addict’s followers, aren’t you?”
“You know of me. I have no idea who you are, though, noona.”
She didn’t even know who the other girl was, and she was already calling her noona?
“I’m Shin Eun-jo. So why are you here? Isn’t your home zone Chicken?”
Taejeong’s home zone was Chicken?
Come to think of it, the other players mostly knew about me—while I knew almost nothing about them. T-balnom had stuck in my mind because he used to snipe my guides, which was why I had once pretended to be him in front of BedroomGirlfriend.
I wonder if Taejeong knows anything about the Salvation Project.
The thought reminded me that there was still one question I had never gotten an answer to from Shin Eun-jo.
When I sent Dimple Eyes back to the Love Zone, I had asked her one thing.
—Do you know anything about the Salvation Project?
Dimple Eyes had looked clueless, and I hadn’t bothered to tell her to ask Shin Eun-jo. Still, if Dimple Eyes had to report to her, the question should have reached Shin Eun-jo’s ears naturally enough.
But when I suggested we talk about “something more important,” Shin Eun-jo had brought up the All-Zone Clearer privilege instead of the Salvation Project. In other words, the odds were high that she knew nothing about it either.
Still…
[That girl seems careful. We can’t rule out the chance she’s hiding that she knows something.]
Luna was right. At the very least, while Shin Eun-jo stayed here, I could casually sound her out and see whether she knew anything about the Salvation Project.
Having decided that, I looked at Taejeong.
“Keep an eye on her while she’s here. I’ll send her back before the entrance exam, so don’t worry.”
“Leave it to me, hyungnim.”
“Entrance exam?”
Shin Eun-jo looked at me, clearly curious about what that meant. Instead of explaining, I deliberately answered in a warning tone.
“If you want to stay here, you’d better not stick your nose into my zone’s affairs.”
“Even with power like that, you’re wary of a mere player like me?”
I hadn’t expected her to put herself down as a “mere player” just because I’d shown her one special ability.
[Whether she means it or not…]
You don’t have some kind of lie-detecting power, do you?
[As if.]
I was about to caution her once more when Shin Eun-jo spoke first.
“Caution is a good thing. Unless you call for me, I won’t set foot outside my room.”
Which meant—
“The fact that you’re suddenly so obedient is what makes me suspicious.”
“But I mean it. What good would it do to make an enemy of a player with power that absurd? I don’t think it would.”
My instincts insisted every word of that was sincere. So why did it still leave such a bad taste in my mouth?
“I’ll stay shut up in my room, then. If there’s ever something I can help you with, feel free to call on me anytime.”
After that, Shin Eun-jo truly followed Taejeong’s guidance to the room assigned to her and did not come out again.
Call on her anytime if I needed help—an amusing thing to say. What possible reason would I ever have to need help from a Love Zone player?
“Lady Daphne refused to meet with Meursault?”
“That’s right.”
The Commander, who had delivered the news, looked at me as if he found my reaction odd.
“Why are you so surprised? Daphne is my wife. Of course she would refuse a private meeting with Meursault.”
“……”
“But she didn’t refuse a meeting with you. She said you may come as long as you don’t bring Meursault along.”
She would see me if I didn’t bring Meursault?
What on earth changed her mind while we were off on that subjugation campaign?
I had promised Meursault I would take him to tea with Daphne, and now he had been barred at the door. How was I supposed to break that to him?
If my memory isn’t wrong, Daphne had clearly said back then that she was going to confess her feelings to Meursault.
It had sounded like a death flag, but it had never been a casual remark. And now she was refusing even to meet him?
As I stood there frowning in deep thought, the Commander asked with a look of genuine incomprehension,
“Haydam. Why are you so determined to bring Meursault and Daphne together? Is this something related to the future?”
If I say it’s necessary for the future, the Commander will throw himself into helping me.
But if I lied and claimed those two absolutely had to marry… he would see through it eventually. Better not to tell a lie that would be exposed so quickly.
“I just feel sorry for them.”
“For Daphne?”
“No. For all of them.”
It was half a deflection and half the truth.
Daphne, married to a man she did not love. The Commander, who had married Daphne because the woman he loved had wanted it. And Meursault, forced to serve as subordinate to the man who had married the woman he loved. Their fates were tangled enough that I wanted to set everything back where it belonged. Clearing a debt while I was at it wouldn’t hurt either.
Whatever the Commander made of my words, he only gave a short huff of laughter.
“This isn’t something for you to worry over alone. Go see Daphne. She said she wants to meet you if you come by yourself—so she must have something to say.”
“Right. I have things I need to confirm as well.”
As our conversation seemed to wind down, Luna, who had been receiving pets on the Commander’s lap, rose with a fluid stretch and began to arch her back. I watched her for a moment, then asked the Commander,
“Ah—but she only refused Meursault, correct?”
“That’s right… why?”
“I have another companion.”
“Another companion?”
The Commander tilted his head slightly, as if he had no idea whom I meant—then a knowing smile curved his mouth.
“Come to think of it, you put that girl from the Love Zone up in my residence.”
“I can hardly throw a guest out after a single day.”
“So you still won’t tell me what your relationship is, that she would come all this way looking for you?”
“There is no relationship.”
“No relationship, yet she specifically sought you out? A child from another zone?”
“I take it Meursault hasn’t reported to you yet.”
At the mention of a report, the Commander raised one eyebrow.
“During the last subjugation, I rescued a lost child.”
“Ah… I believe I did hear something about that. That you sent her back unharmed, unusually gently for you.”
“The guest who came looking for me is that child’s older sister.”
“Older sister?”
“She only came to thank me. I would prefer you not jump to any strange conclusions. Please pass that along to Meursault as well.”
Only then did the Commander nod, as if he finally understood.
“As I have told you time and again, I too was once saved by Luna Moon’s hand in another zone—”
I fled the office without even remembering to collect Luna.
And so I found myself going to Shin Eun-jo for help.
The first words out of my mouth were as follows:
“But are you actually a girl? You’re not catfishing, right?”
“…Do men always ask such pathetic questions?”
She looked like someone who had already heard the same question from someone else. Home Protector, maybe?
“Why does it matter whether I’m really a girl?”
“Because I figure a woman like you would get through to Daphne better than I would.”
“Daphne?”
Shin Eun-jo regarded me with interest.
“So it wasn’t just the Commander and Meursault you decided to spare. You’re keeping Daphne alive too? Going for a no-kill route?”
“I’m going to make them divorce.”
“……”
Shin Eun-jo stared at me for a moment as if I had lost my mind, then asked,
“You’re settling for divorce instead of killing them?”
“You’ll understand once you ‘see’ Daphne yourself. The divorce is what she wants.”
“I still don’t quite follow… but what exactly am I supposed to find out from meeting Daphne?”
Sharp as ever. She had caught on to what I wanted right away.
What I wanted was for Daphne to confide her true feelings to Shin Eun-jo. Daphne was clearly hiding something she had not told me—whether because I was Luna Moon’s child, because I was close to Meursault, or simply because I was a boy.
So what Shin Eun-jo needed to uncover was—
“Her feelings for Meursault.”
“……Ha?”
Shin Eun-jo’s brow furrowed deeply.
In the Safety Zone game, Meursault appeared as a one-sided would-be adulterer pining after Daphne, so asking Daphne about her feelings for him must have sounded absurd.
…Or so I thought, until the next words out of Shin Eun-jo’s mouth wiped that assumption clean away.
“Meursault isn’t even a romanceable character, is he?”
“I know that too—wait, what?”
She knew that Meursault wasn’t a romanceable character?
I might have to take back the idea that Shin Eun-jo knew nothing about the Salvation Project.