Nymph Oinoi #10 — The Pulse of a Hunter
I attached one contraption after another to my body and climbed into a machine shaped like a giant capsule.
Vuuuuum—.
For a brief moment, all I felt was a gentle warmth.
"All done with the exam!"
The machine shut down along with Yu Ari's cheerful voice. That the whole thing had taken less than ten seconds was genuinely staggering.
"What kind of physical exam ends that fast?"
As far as I remembered, a body mana-capacity measurement took at least two or three hours of repetitive, tedious testing. And I was pretty sure they said the results would come out a week later.
Yu Ari, who had been typing away at her keyboard, furrowed her brow at my remark.
"Wow— sunbae, what century are your stories from? Do you have any idea what era it is these days? If a checkup takes five minutes, that's considered slow now."
"Seriously?"
Look, I knew the world was changing at a breakneck pace, but this much?
I felt exactly like a soldier coming back from service, trying to re-adapt to society all over again.
Granted, I'd never actually been in the military or gone to college — I'd done my mandatory service through rift-clearing duty, and there'd never been time for school anyway.
"Here, your results are out. Let's see… your mana readings have reached C-Rank. Just barely — but still! You've got low body fat and high muscle density. Your skeletal structure is solid too! And also…."
I'd already known the fact, but hearing it confirmed by a government official made it feel real all at once. When it came to raw mana volume, I could legitimately call myself a C-Rank Awakener now.
"Congratulations on reaching C-Rank, sunbae! I always knew you'd get there! You worked so hard for it, didn't you? I heard you went up into the mountains and brewed talismans to drink and everything!"
When was the last time anyone had congratulated me for something? A pleasant warmth stirred in my chest, tangled up with all kinds of complicated feelings.
The talisman-brewing was a rather embarrassing memory, though. Afterwards I'd gotten food poisoning from the stuff and spent over a week running in and out of the bathroom.
"How do you even know about that…?"
As I stammered over the embarrassing topic, Yu Ari said,
"Ah… well, sunbae, you were kind of famous back then? There wasn't a single high-ranked Awakener who didn't know your name. I heard stories about you all the time. We'd talk about it at our 3rd Generation reunions."
"3rd Generation reunions?"
Did she mean the squad from the third wave of rift closures? I'd been leading a squad of F-Rank hunters as squad leader back then.
I was 1st Generation myself, but I'd practically been a mentor to the 3rd Generation kids. So how come I never got invited to their get-togethers? Well, to be fair, that generation was full of people who'd really made it — Seo Yerim and the like.
Though even if they had invited me, I probably would've been too embarrassed to show up.
"Ahem, well. Anyway, famous people always attract rumors — that's just how it works."
She said this while awkwardly fixing her gaze on the printout of my test results.
It was true that rumors followed fame around.
But was I really entitled to be called "famous" in front of this Yu Ari?
Truthfully, she was far more of a celebrity than I was.
I mean, at one point the entire Korean internet had been split down the middle into Seo Yerim fans and Yu Ari fans.
"I've seen plenty of rumors about you too. News articles kept popping up about you. You hit B-Rank around the same time as Yerim, right?"
An F-Rank Awakener was, in practice, no different from an ordinary civilian.
The only thing they had was enough mana to endure the pressure of entering or exiting a rift.
D-Rank Awakeners could sense that mana and use it to reinforce their bodies.
From C-Rank onward, you could project the leftover mana out of your body — coating weapons with it and the like. That was the point where you could seriously start calling someone a "superhuman."
And as I understood it, B-Rank was a realm only a chosen few of the already elite C-Rank Awakeners ever reached — the ones you'd call the "vanguard."
That was supposedly when Awakeners gained command of a special ability unique to themselves — a Trait.
Seo Yerim's fire was exactly that.
"Ari, what was your Awakener ability again? It really felt like an actual superpower."
Just as I was digging through my memories of years past, Yu Ari clapped her hands — cha-ak!
"Forget that, sunbae — first you need to tell me who that kid is! She's so tiny and adorable! Is she your daughter by any chance?"
"A daughter? Please."
I was only in my late twenties. Maybe in the Joseon era that would've been plausible, but in this day and age, did I really look like I had a daughter that size?
Then Yu Ari narrowed her eyes and let out a sly little chuckle. Pu-hehe—
"You were pretty popular back in the day, even if you might not be now. I was wondering if she was a daughter you'd had after getting married then."
"Popular? Come on."
I waved my hand awkwardly, but the truth was, I had been popular back then. Nobody ever confessed to me directly, but I did hear things like "Ha Ildo's not bad, right?" pretty often.
Of course, that popularity was never about me as a person — it all rested on the achievement of being the first hunter to ever reach D-Rank.
During those years I spent floundering at D-Rank, I didn't have fans — I had hecklers.
"And looking at her, she doesn't resemble you at all, sunbae. Her hair's honey-colored, and she doesn't look Korean in the first place. Foreigner?"
When Yu Ari reached out a hand toward Oinoi, the little nymph let out a cry of "Hieeek…!" and hid behind my back.
For the record, "Hieeek…!" was Oinoi's signature scream — I heard it fairly often whenever a downpour of enemies swarmed us during Hangul practice games.
Brrrr, brrrr—.
Oinoi shivered behind me like a dog caught out in the rain.
What was going on with her?
Did Yu Ari's white lab coat just look scary? I didn't think Oinoi was the type to be shy around strangers.
"She's a nymph," I said. "You know elves? She's part of a newly discovered species, something like that. I found her first, so I'm temporarily looking after her. Her name is Oinoi."
"Really? Oinoi? What an unusual name. Oy-oy, Oinoi."
Yu Ari cracked a terrible joke and then laughed at it all by herself. Pu-hehe—. It was an unfunny joke, but because a gorgeous woman was telling it, somehow it came across as hilarious.
Back in the day, if a handsome guy took a bite of braised pork, said "Mmm, delicious—," and nothing else, women would swoon, giggle, and cause a whole scene over it.
Was this what that felt like from the other side?
Anyway, a brief silence followed Yu Ari's bizarre comedy routine.
A prickling sensation crawled up the back of my neck. Something felt off.
She was supposedly an old junior of mine, but we hadn't seen each other in years — this conversation was basically its natural end. To break the awkward atmosphere, I opened my mouth with some light small talk.
"Anyway, it's really nice running into you like this. I saw Yerim recently, actually. You two were close, right? Are you still friendly? You used to eat together and train together all the time."
All those years of dragging myself along as a D-Rank hunter had only strengthened one skill: my social graces. Scoring work wasn't about combat skills — I'd had to grind up my "friendliness stat" schmoozing with government officials.
Bonding with an awkward acquaintance over a third party you both know — that was Socializing 101.
At my words, Yu Ari tilted her head.
"I was close to Yerim?"
"…No? We weren't? My memory's so fuzzy from back then, it's hard to…."
"Pu-hehe, just kidding. Yerim and I are friendly enough. The 3rd Generation keeps in touch with everyone loosely. Me, well — I don't work out in the field anymore."
"I see."
"Anyway, seeing a familiar face after so long really brings back memories. It was nice."
"Yeah, well, now that we know we're both alive and kicking, let's grab a meal sometime."
I said that and made to leave the examination room.
That was when Yu Ari asked,
"How about tomorrow evening? I happen to be free tomorrow night."
Tomorrow evening?
I'd said "sometime" as a polite formality — I never expected her to actually pin down a specific date. When I showed my surprise, Yu Ari raised her index finger and said,
"Now that you're C-Rank, sunbae, you'll need to learn new combat techniques, right? I can offer you a few pointers, in my own way. Wait — does that mean I'm the sunbae now?"
Combat technique pointers, huh.
There was nothing in it for me to lose.
Honestly, I did want to learn from someone. I'd watched myself sick with videos on the internet and MeTube, but getting hands-on instruction from an actual person was a whole different story.
"Alright, then. Deal."
"Th-that was terrifying, it was…!"
On the way home.
Oinoi, who had been shivering like a rain-soaked dog, finally let out the breath she'd been holding. She was the type who normally wandered everywhere touching the water purifier, fiddling with the sink, poking at everything — but today, in that examination room, she'd been unusually quiet the whole time.
"What was scary? The doctor?"
Truthfully, white lab coats spooked me a little sometimes too. When I first became a D-Rank Awakener, they'd stuck every needle in existence into me and ran every test imaginable.
I never knew a needle that thick could go into your spine until that day!
Then Oinoi shook her head.
"The nymph sisters like this Oinoi… are oftentimes hunted by hunters, it is…! Because the hair and the finger-bones of nymphs like Oinoi… are used as materials for talismans, they are…."
Oinoi had mentioned the existence of "hunters" before, from time to time.
From what I'd gathered, nymphs were innocent, harmless herbivore-like creatures who got hunted one-sidedly, and so they gathered to live in deep forests and remote mountains.
Poor things.
"The woman in the white coat just now… she gave off an aura that is very similar to the hunters this Oinoi met long ago, it is…! This Oinoi is frightened, it is…!"
Oinoi trembled and trembled.
Now, to my ears, this was an absurd story.
Did she know how clumsy and soft-hearted Yu Ari had been back in the day? Awakened and drafted while she was still in high school, the girl would shake like a leaf at the slightest loud noise in a rift. Her nicknames were "Baby" and "Chick."
And yet Oinoi remained afraid.
"Nymphs such as this Oinoi… can sense such things instinctively, it is…! In other words, we distinguish between that which is nymph-friendly and that which is nymph-phobic, we do…!"
"Really, now."
It reminded me of something I'd watched on MeTube once about herbivores. Apparently they can instinctively tell what's harmful to them from what's harmless.
It seemed that nymphs, after long ages of being hunted and persecuted, had developed the same instinct.
Come to think of it, Awakeners developed a sort of "sixth sense" too, after fighting in rifts long enough. A sense that told you whether the enemy was stronger than you, weaker, dangerous.
Suddenly, I was curious.
"What am I, then? In your eyes?"
"The master of this house is nymph-friendly to the degree of Ébiang's purest ditch-water, it is…! So nymph-friendly a person has surely not existed since Cadmus, the founding king of Thebes, this Oinoi declares…!"
Who on earth was Cadmus now?
Would he show up if I searched the internet?
While I was pondering that, Oinoi went on.
"If one stays beside a nymph-friendly house-master… then just as nymphs gather to clear, clean ditch-water, the sisters will surely gather to you as well, it is a fact…! The nymph sisters of this land… they will come swarming, it is…!"
I see.
So Oinoi believed that other nymphs would gather around me.
Could there really be another nymph in this world besides Oinoi?
Just as that thought crossed my mind, Oinoi declared,
"Muheheh, this Oinoi…! Has already found traces of the nymph sisters on the internet, it has…! The day of meeting the nymph sisters is drawing near, and thus… this Oinoi shall show you the evidence, it shall…!"
Dash—!
The moment we stepped through the front door, Oinoi made a beeline for the computer and booted it up.