Kore VS Kore & Nymph VS Nymph # 6
All said and done, it was supposed to be a family festival.
People were placing bets on the matches, chatting away in the lounge—a friendly little get-together. Then a crowd of yakuza in black suits and horned goblin masks came pouring in all at once, and the whole place turned into a funeral parlor in the space of a heartbeat.
For my part, I couldn't help being surprised in more ways than one.
The Kangekiren.
The only child of "Dark Dragon—Yagami," the man who ruled Japan's underworld, was a woman!
When I heard he was planning to betroth me to Yerim or Reiko, I'd naturally assumed the child was a son. I'd pictured some sharp-featured man with a dragon and a mermaid inked down his arm, swinging a katana and slicing people to ribbons without a second thought.
But Yagami Tsubaki was a woman. She was a bit tall and broad for one, sure, but a woman all the same—generous in the chest, with a long mane of silver hair grown out and tied back neatly, gleaming under the lights.
Soon, Oinoi spoke up.
"Having heard that a betrothal with Kore Yerim or Koreiko was to take place, it was only natural to assume a man, and so it is…! But looking now, she is a beautiful woman, and so it is…!"
Tap, tap—
Was she around 175 centimeters? Yagami Tsubaki, quite tall for a woman, wandered around the room craning her head this way and that.
"So. Where are my prospective fiancés? Ah! Reiko!"
Whoop—
The next moment, Tsubaki wrapped her arms around Reiko's waist and hoisted her up. Then she started spinning her around and around.
"Uwaah! Yamete! Put me down!"
Reiko, gripped in that crushing strength and whirled in circles, looked genuinely miserable. She was probably getting motion sickness.
Whoop—
Soon Tsubaki set Reiko back down on the floor and said, "It's been a while, Reiko."
"Tsubaki! Why are you here! I told you not to come! This place is invitation-only! You can't just barge in like this!"
I see—
So Reiko and Tsubaki of the Kangekiren clearly knew each other well.
Just then Yu Ari, diligently working through a roll of gimbap beside me, went "Hoooh—" through her nose.
"So it really is true that Reiko and Tsubaki are childhood friends who grew up together."
Ari was a public servant. Public servants naturally knew all sorts of information. She'd probably already known about Tsubaki's existence, too.
"You knew Tsubaki was a woman?"
"Ah— did I never mention it to you, Senior? Director Yagami's only child, Tsubaki, is a daughter. Biologically, at least."
Biologically?
From the way she put it, I had a strong premonition there was some complicated story behind it that I knew nothing about.
Swish—
Tsubaki spoke up.
"It's not like I wanted to crash your family gathering either. But I got a report about suspicious movements here on Telos Land. So I came to patrol, more or less."
Suspicious movements.
At those words, I couldn't stay quiet.
"Would that be talk of an evil woman in a plague doctor mask going around?"
"A woman in a plague doctor mask? Tell me more. Description, clothing, anything. It might match the report I heard."
"She wears a plague doctor mask and a white gown. Fairly large in the chest. And she has extremely long, firm legs—she's clearly keeping up with her diet. A health-conscious woman. Handles drugs, too. Definitely a medical professional."
"Hmmm… That's fairly detailed profiling."
Tsubaki crossed her arms.
I spoke to her with complete sincerity.
"The important thing is that this woman is deeply wicked and terrifying. She must be caught. She'll definitely cause an incident. A terrible incident. She might even do something perverted. I mean, no normal person wears a skin-tight leather suit and then puts a doctor's gown over it."
"I see—. So she's a degenerate beast, is that it—."
Flinch!
The moment Tsubaki nodded, Ari, still busy with her gimbap beside me, gave a full-body shudder.
She must have been anxious knowing such a terrifying criminal was roaming the world.
Soon Ari swallowed what was in her mouth and said, "To think a person that bad is out there. How scary. Truly. I had no idea someone like that even existed. None at all."
Right.
Ari was an innocent, upstanding public servant, after all.
I'll have to protect Ari well—that's what I was thinking, when Tsubaki shook her head.
"But I don't think it quite matches the report I got. The suspect I heard about was a man to begin with. A slim man. Men don't have breasts."
Fair point.
But something about hearing it in this situation felt strange. There was so much I wanted to ask.
Biologically a woman, was it?
Swish—
Then Tsubaki held out a hand to me.
"You're Ha Ildo of the dog-squirrels, yes? I've heard plenty about the dog-squirrel business. I hope tomorrow's match is an entertaining one. Our S. Ninja is no pushover, so don't let your guard down."
The Rooftop.
I was on the roof of the absolutely ridiculous hotel.
━Hoo, hoo…!
I had to take Kalinoi for her walk, you see—she loved looking down at everything from high places.
Stroke, stroke—
I also had to pet her fur and preen her feathers. Living alongside animals took a great deal of time, effort, and devotion in any number of ways.
"Kalinoi. When exactly are you planning to turn back into a nymph?"
━Hoo, hoo…!
How many people in the world knew that this enormous owl was actually a nymph?
Thinking back on it now, even I could hardly believe it.
━Keong-keong…!
I couldn't forget to rub Keong-keong-i's back, either. Being a squirrel, Keong-keong-i loved anything warm. Apparently he even hated the winter cold so much that he hibernated.
Stroke, stroke—
When I rubbed his back, Keong-keong-i perked his whole body up luxuriously, as if he were in a wonderful mood.
━Krrrung…!
Fwoosh—
And then he spat a jet of flame from his mouth.
At the utterly astonishing sight, Oinoi remarked, "A fire-breathing dog-squirrel is an extremely rare thing, and so it is…! Such dog-squirrels can evolve into fire-dog-squirrels, and are said to be revered by all dog-squirrels everywhere under the name of the Sole King, and so it is…!"
Fire-dog-squirrel sounded a bit odd, but Sole King was a genuinely cool name, I thought.
Soon Oinoi added, "However, its combat power is low, so it would be of little help in battle, and so it is…!"
What?
Keong-keong-i was one of my important combat personnel.
I'd have to give up on evolving him into the Sole King, then.
Bzzzzz—
Just then Ang-ang-i flew in and landed on my shoulder. He handed me vitamins and a men's supplement from my palm.
━Zzji…!
"I almost forgot."
Plop—
I was in the middle of tipping the vitamins into my mouth when someone came up onto the roof. It was Seo Yerim.
"What are you doing awake at this hour? You've got a match tomorrow, don't you? Can't sleep? Well, I suppose—if you screw up, I might get sold off to a Japanese syndicate as a fiancée, so honestly, you probably can't sleep either."
"………."
No—
I was just out walking the animals.
And honestly? I was sleepy. I wanted to sleep, but the animals needed their petting and brushing, didn't they? If I put off the work because it was a bother, I'd have no right to tame them and live alongside them.
But before I could say any of that, Seo Yerim came to stand beside me.
I asked her, "Tsubaki's a woman. So how does a betrothal even work?"
"She probably doesn't think of herself as a woman. She's been that way since she was little. When Reiko and I used to fight over dolls, she'd be off assembling robot kits by herself. Playing soccer with the boys."
Gender identity disorder—
Was that what it was?
Then Seo Yerim said, "Still, her skill is the real deal. She's an S-rank awakener. So don't do anything to get on her bad side. And especially—especially—avoid anything about how pretty she is, or about her being a woman, or whatever."
Apparently, there'd once been a yakuza who winked at Tsubaki and said something like my, what a pretty woman—and an enraged, red-faced Tsubaki had sent him flying fifty meters with her bare hands.
An S-rank physical enhancer.
She didn't appear on the official S-rank rankings, since no report had ever been filed with the government—but if Seo Yerim was warning me about her, she had to be top ten. No—
She might even be single-digit.
"If you want to keep living, treat Tsubaki as a man. Got it? Never look at her with any funny ideas. Never think of her as a woman. Got it?"
Understood.
I decided to file Seo Yerim's warning away carefully in my brain.
Anyway.
━Hio-ong, mio-ong—. Hio-ong, hio-ong—.
The hotel rooftop rang with the beautiful song of Kwang-kwangi, the RGB spider.
Kwang-kwangi sang wonderfully well. What was the song's title, I wondered. Surely something magnificent and beautiful.
"So. Have you thought about tomorrow's match? S. Ninja is competing in person tomorrow. He's a man full of secrets in every way, so you'd better think carefully."
At Seo Yerim's words, I thought about the things I could do better than anyone else. At the same time, I had to consider what would be fun to watch for everyone else, too—because this wasn't a simple contest. It was a party for the relatives.
"Honestly, I do have something in mind."
Midnight, with the nymphs snoring away.
Only after every last animal had drifted off did my free time finally begin.
For tomorrow's match, I did some light prep, then went looking for the baths for one last stretch and loosening-up. This Telos Land hotel had an open-air hot spring, after all.
Bath hours ended at ten in the evening, but I was something of a VIP, so I'd been given a keycard. Unlimited access—that's what I'm talking about.
At this hour, I'd have the whole place to myself, wouldn't I?
Having the animals swarming around and the nymphs bustling everywhere was fun and delightful, but every now and then a man wanted some time alone. And this was exactly the moment.
"Heheh. Total jackpot."
With that thought, I headed for the changing room—and there was already someone there.
And I was deeply, profoundly shocked.
"Tsubaki... ma'am?"
"Ah."
Yagami Tsubaki.
She was apparently about to take a bath too. Had she planned to wash up with the place reserved while nobody else was around?
For a split second, the fact that a man and a woman were sharing the same bath and changing room made me lightheaded in several ways—
—and then I remembered what Seo Yerim had told me. Treat Tsubaki as a man, she'd said.
What if my flustered reaction just now wounded Tsubaki's heart? What if it made relations between Korea and Japan go sour? What if it triggered World War III—?! Unthinkable!
"Busy day, Tsubaki, in all sorts of ways?"
Off it all comes—
I figured that hesitating here would only wound Tsubaki's pride and make her angry, so I stripped down as casually as if nothing had happened. Thinking of it as men bathing together did make it feel a little less awkward.
Though even between men, bathing together at first meeting was a bit of an odd situation.
"Hmm… I…"
In truth, Tsubaki was also fidgeting awkwardly. She'd wanted the bath to herself, and I was standing in the way of that, presumably.
Trying to break the awkward mood, I said, "I was expecting to soak here all alone and bored. It's a relief you're here, Tsubaki. Let's go in together. Shall I scrub your back?"
"Together—?"
"Well, why not? We're both men, after all."
