A Neighborhood Outing
The summer sunlight of my first August on Earth was truly scorching.
Lately, as part of preparing for social reintegration, I had started walking the area around the facility with agents in plain clothes. If we were going to do this kind of thing, I would have preferred autumn…
Today’s companions were two agents.
The fairly tall female agent wore a white blouse and a wrap skirt that reached her shins; she was clearly struggling with the heat, sweat streaming down her face. The male agent, a little shorter than me and hovering around the 170-centimeter mark, was dressed casually in a short-sleeved shirt and knee-length denim. He looked ready to die from the heat as well.
“Hoo…!”
I was wearing a light-blue blouse that breathed reasonably well and long pants, but with the stab-proof vest underneath I felt like I was being steamed alive. I had tried dozens of times to convince them I didn’t need the vest, only to get the same rigid lecture about not being able to break protocol…
I should have just dug my heels in and pulled out some enchanted clothes from the other world—the kind that blew cool breezes with a whoosh. This was South Korea, after all. You couldn’t take the anomalous phenomenon known as summer lightly.
In the other world there had only been two seasons: winter and summer. Winter was bitterly cold, while summer was warm and dry. Even in summer, once the sun went down it was cool enough to throw on a coat.
“Temperature drop. Diffuse.”
I spread mana around me to lower the temperature, yet the ultraviolet heat and the sauna-like interior of the vest remained unchanged…
“Whoa, it’s practically a portable air conditioner.”
The agents, already adapted to this insane heat, brightened at even the lukewarm chill.
“Is it cool?”
“Extremely.”
The two agents whose names I still didn’t know nodded with radiant faces. To my eyes they looked like guard dogs stationed at the gates of hell—not in the scary sense, but in terms of heat resistance and cold detection.
“Ah. This must be the place.”
I followed the tall female agent’s pointing finger and spotted a café. Being downtown Seoul, there were plenty of charming independent cafés.
The café occupied what looked like an entire old grayish-white three-story building, its front façade from the first to third floors made entirely of glass.
Ding-a-ling~
“Welcome, welcome.”
The owner caught sight of us as we entered, froze for a beat, then smoothly resumed his greeting. Now that was professionalism.
“Huh, that person.”
“Oh, is it really her?”
The customers seated at the counter reacted much the same way. The interior was pretty, though—charcoal-toned modern colors that felt calm, with plants placed here and there to keep the space from looking dull.
“What would you like?”
At the agent’s question I ordered my usual.
“An iced caramel macchiato.”
Sugar was righteous. The blood vessels of an archmage freed from hypertension and diabetes could handle it!
“Then two iced Americanos and one iced caramel macchiato, please.”
“Certainly. I’ll take care of the payment.”
We settled into seats on the third floor with a clear view of the road below. A few people had laptops and tablets plugged into chargers, all of them absorbed in their screens.
Payment? Handled with the corporate card the agents had brought. Silent thanks to the citizens of the nation for the free coffee.
Getting to breathe outside air and sightsee around the city like this… I was waiting with idle thoughts about how far I’d come in life when the owner himself brought our drinks.
“Could I get an autograph and a photo, just once?”
“Of course.”
In a certain sense I had become more of a celebrity than actual celebrities, so photo requests while out and about were no longer rare. At first people had hesitated because of the agents standing nearby, but once they realized no one stopped them from taking pictures, they started approaching freely.
Instead of the ballpoint pen the owner offered, I infused magic into my fingertip and signed with a writing spell that glowed blue.
“Shall we take it with me holding it like this?”
I smiled at the owner while holding up the paper trailing blue light.
“Thank you! Ready?”
Click-click-click!
“Got it. Thank you so much!”
I watched the owner’s back as he dashed toward the stairs, beaming with the signed paper in hand, and chuckled.
“This feels a bit like being a National Assembly member during election season.”
“...Pardon?”
People gasping in admiration every time we crossed paths, visiting small business owners’ shops for drinks, posing for photos… Wasn’t that exactly like campaigning?
“It’s nothing.”
Not that it changed anything. When would I finally end this life of isolation and surveillance and become a free citizen?
I gulped down the sweet caramel macchiato. The sticky caramel sugar and soft milky aroma densely filled my throat. This place made good coffee.
“You agents always just drink Americanos.”
At my remark the male agent, straw still in his mouth, nodded.
“Iced Americano is always right.”
“So you’re one of those.”
I turned my gaze to the female agent, who quietly averted her eyes.
“Ahem… I’m on a diet, so…”
“You’re slim, though?”
By my visual assessment she was a normal weight. And with her height, her proportions were excellent.
But the answer that came from her lips was unexpected.
“Well, I’ve put on a little weight lately…”
“Ah.”
We fell silent and stared down at our respective cups. One person’s ears turned red, but we pretended not to notice and quietly finished our drinks. Aside from the male agent glancing a few times at the belly he owned, it was fair to say nothing had happened. Had he just realized the sheer scale of the real estate he possessed? His expression grew a bit more gloomy.
It was summer.
…Though that didn’t feel like the right phrase for the moment.
Slurp-slurp, gulp-gulp
In the end we simply drained our coffee in silence and rose quickly from our seats.
Ding-a-ling
“Thanks for the drinks.”
“Thank you!”
The moment we stepped out of the café, the fierce ultraviolet rays made a deep breath burst from my lips. My body, cooled by the air conditioning, heated up again as if I had become a loaf of bread shoved into an oven.
“Temperature drop temperature drop temperature drop temperature drop…”
I finally burned a heap of mana and turned myself into an air conditioner. The temperature around me fell, and the rise in entropy was casually fixed by the power of mana and magic—a miracle.
All those internet posts that appeared the moment summer hit, praising the great Willis Carrier, could step aside for a moment. How dare the culprit of global warming try to usurp a god’s throne?
“Miss Yuria? Us too…”
“Diffuse, diffuse, temperature drop, diffuse!”
“Hwaaah… thank you…!”
The next destination for walking air-conditioner Yuria and her helpers was the commissary.
“Armed Forces Welfare Agency…?”
I had no idea why there was a PX tucked into a downtown alley, but I decided not to ask.
“There are more military facilities in the city than I expected.”
The tall female agent responded to my mutter.
“This neighborhood has a fair number of them. Right nearby…”
Whisper-whisper… Oh, I see… Aha, that building too? Oh my, no wonder there were guys in suits on the first floor… Ah, those are just office workers? Aha aha…
For reasons unknown I received a whole pile of information that felt like it should stay with me alone.
Chatting like that, we soon arrived at the store. I had thought it was a PX, but it was a BX. I didn’t know the difference, but it was still an Armed Forces Welfare Agency mart either way. Didn’t matter.
Ding-a-ling
The tall female agent handed a few papers along with her government ID to the counter, then passed me a shopping basket.
“One basket per person. Corporate card use has been authorized.”
“Hell yeah! I’m going first!”
The male agent shot toward the liquor section at incredible speed, then immediately started shouting, “There’s nothing but some stinking domestic liquor!” I decided to ignore him.
“But I don’t really need anything except snacks.”
The supplies at the facility where I’d been living for weeks weren’t lavish, but they weren’t lacking either. Clothes, meals, toiletries, towels, all sorts of daily necessities—everything was restocked promptly.
“It’s an order from above, so we don’t really have a choi—”
“Whoa! Johnny Walker Blue Label!!”
“...”
Maybe the female agent was the only one who had been forced to come. Watching the male agent’s back as he looked ready to dive into the display if left alone, the two of us slapped our foreheads.
“Haa.”
“Just leave him. You’ve both suffered enough dragging him around in this heat.”
The female agent shook her head firmly and rolled up her sleeves.
“If you keep letting him get away with everything, he’ll form bad habits.”
Her momentum was no joke; it seemed better to just let her handle it. The aura practically pouring from her back reminded me of a berserker or paladin from the other world.
“Um. Yes ma’am.”
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Clomp-clomp
Anticipating a scene from the two agents that I really shouldn’t witness, I drew the attention of the staff member minding the counter a little.
“Want to see this?”
“Whoa, is that—a holographic glowing Spinosaurus?!”
Crash-bang!
“Somebody help meee!”
After that, shopping resumed smoothly.
“But there’s really nothing I want to buy…”
In the end I walked out with one of those expensive Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars in my mouth. It was a brand I would never even glance at if I stopped by a convenience store after drinking, but once you hit a PX there was no better value for the money.
The two agents each came out carrying a paper bag, so maybe this whole outing had been prepared more for them than for me?
Or not. Whatever.
“You should have at least bought some cosmetics. You can’t get them at these prices outside.”
Makeup…
Impossible. Absolutely impossible. For this body that had lived over three thousand-plus years as a man, makeup meant nothing more than getting thoroughly cremated after death.
“I’m not really into makeup…”
“...Not even sunscreen, base, or moisturizer?”
“I’ve never really done any of that…”
“...”
That conversation was the last one until we returned to the facility. From time to time I heard muttering like “Is it just natural? Is it magic? Should I learn magic?” but I deliberately pretended not to hear.