A Day with the Companion Nymphs

"A scent of boring past recollections has been detected from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠somewhere, dot…! This Illinoi finds disgusting past recollections to be a Dislike, dot…!"

Illinoi scrunched up her face all at once. Then she flung open the window and flapped her clothes about dramatically.

"Mhehehe, no Puroblem now, dot…! This Illinoi has Deleted the scent of boring past recollections out the window, dot…!"

"Hey, hey! You're a mess! Sit still for once! Why are you flinging the window open and yelling?! Close it! The fine dust is rated bad today!"

Seo ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Yerim couldn't make heads or tails of what Illinoi was babbling about after springing to her feet like that.

The nymph Illinoi did occasionally carry on like this, spasming through some bizarre one-woman performance, and Yerim could never tell whether it was a trait of nymphs in general or simply Illinoi's own peculiar brand of madness.

"I'm already busy enough to die! Ugh! Honestly!"

Seo Yerim had been buried in her days of work on Argonaut, the joint operation of the S-rank alliance, to the point where she didn't even have time to send Ha Ildo a message. Now, at last, she had a sliver of breathing room.

Streeeetch. Yerim stretched out her arms with a long yawn, picked up her phone, and found it flooded with messages piled up from every direction.

But not a single one had come from Ha Ildo.

"That jerk going so quiet is somehow making me anxious. Anyway — Illinoi, did you keep proper watch on whether other women have been approaching Ildo or not? They say a Kore's companion nymph becomes the Kore's Cupid, don't they?"

"Of Course…! Nymphs can, indeed, become messengers of Love, dot…! This Illinoi carefully did the Look-ing and the Watch-ing of the Housemaster's movements, dot…!"

Illinoi reported to Seo Yerim the fact that Ha Ildo had entered a T-rank dungeon together with Yu Ari and Lee Jina.

Hearing this, Seo Yerim felt her hair stand straight on end.

"Hey! Illinoi! You were supposed to keep watch so other girls couldn't pull any funny business! Why did you just stand there and observe?! You were supposed to stop them! I even bought you that giant TV because you promised you'd keep watch for me…!"

Illinoi turned to gaze at the enormous television installed in her room — a TV so stupendously nymph-friendly that surely no nymph in all the world possessed a larger one.

Then, satisfied, she went mhehehe with a chuckle.

"Mhehehe, this Illinoi did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perform the surveillance that was promised, dot…!"

"You literally only watched!"

"If you desire additional Movement, you must purchase the Illinoi Season Pass, dot…! Season Passes are the trend of the times, dot…! Even nymphs must ride the Flow of the era, dot…!"

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Seo Yerim's face scrunched into a deep scowl.

She let herself imagine bringing Coris home instead of Illinoi. What if she handed Illinoi over to Jina and took back the sweet, innocent-looking Coris instead?

If Coris were her companion nymph, Yerim was confident she could brush her hair every day, chatter away with her for hours, and go on fun little picnics together.

"Are you not having a very Disgusting Thinking right now, dot? Such Thinking is a Money Do-It, dot…! Still, this Illinoi performed the promised surveillance Very Well, dot…!"

Illinoi told Seo Yerim about the Chinese awakener, Xiaoxiao, whom she had met.

Yerim couldn't help but fall deep into thought.

"Xiaoxiao — so that's So Sohee, China's S-ranker. And you're saying she and Ildo have known each other since way back?"

China's S-ranker. And Ha Ildo.

What possible connection could there be between the two? Yerim couldn't even begin to imagine it.

"How does this Ildo guy have so many women in his past? Besides Jina, there were more women from back then?! How many more are waiting to pop up?!"

"Kore Yerim is doing an Awakening, dot…! If things stay like this, Kore Yerim too may become yet another woman of the past, dot…! Of course, this Illinoi happens to possess a Secret Strategy, dot—"

Swoosh.

Illinoi held out to her companion Kore Seo Yerim a lotion housed inside a glass milk bottle.

"This is a potion taught to me long ago by the Illinoi tribe…! Apply it to your face before bed, and you shall gain honey skin that will make any man fall for you, dot…!"

Seo Yerim accepted the milk bottle.

Love her or grouse about her, Illinoi genuinely made excellent potions.

"My mom's chronic back pain got completely cured after she drank your potion, and my dad's receded M-shaped hairline supposedly started growing back in. How on earth do you make this stuff?"

"Mhehehe, that is a trade secret…! Truly an Industry Secret, dot…!"

Swoosh, swoosh.

Before falling asleep, Yerim sent a message to Ha Ildo and diligently applied the lotion Illinoi had given her.

She couldn't quite tell whether her skin was getting better, but what she could feel, unmistakably, was that her skin's fire resistance was going up.

"Good stuff."

"Mhehehe, are you at last beginning to Do-You-Know a little of this Illinoi's Greatness, dot…? You are welcome to praise me even more intensely, dot…!"

Seo Yerim's flames were so powerful that it was both her greatest strength and her greatest weakness.

Flames that burned too fiercely would sometimes wound even herself, which meant Yerim's fatal flaw was that she instinctively held her firepower in check at all times.

"If my skin's mana resistance increases this much… then I could afford to pour out far more firepower — single-number-ranker levels of it, even?"

It hadn't been made public yet, but Seo Yerim's true firepower, grown through feasting on golden apple pie and the like, already surpassed that of single-number S-rankers.

This time, she would let that strength loose in full and make her standing known far and wide.

"And then Ildo will look up to me even more, won't he? Ildo's like a puppy chasing a mosquito swatter. He loves having some goal to chase after."

It pleased Seo Yerim immensely to think that she herself could become that goal.

An idol — in the most literal sense of the word.

"Good job, Illinoi! Come here! I'll praise you properly! And from now on, quit playing games all day and make potions like this — lots and lots of them! Got it?"

Swoosh, swoosh.

Seo Yerim ruffled Illinoi's head with wild abandon.

"A Kore Secret Technique — Mass Nymph Petting…!"

Swoosh, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.

Illinoi's mood soared to the skies.

"Feeling Very Good, dot…! Now has come the time to inform you of the Kore Secret Technique: Mass Nymph Allowance-Giving, dot…! This is a powerful secret art usable only by Kores of mid-tier and above, dot…!"

"…Is that seriously a technique that actually exists?"

"This Coris has lost the flower necklace she worked so hard to make as a gift for Kore-candidate Jina…! The flowers snapped clean in half, so it's no longer a flower necklace but flower crumbs, it is…!"

It had been several days since the return from exploring the T-rank rift.

Coris, the Ice Water Nymph, had fallen into a deep gloom because the flower necklace and flower crown she'd poured her heart into had crumbled to pieces like so much debris.

"I tried so hard to repair them, but in the end it was no use, it is…! These useless flowers are clearly mocking Coris, it is…!"

Coris stuffed the flowers into her mouth and chomp-chomp, devoured them whole.

Her mood had shifted from melancholy to outright combative.

"Aaaarrrgh, aaarrrgh…!"

"Coris, why are you eating the flow—huh?"

It was only after staring at Coris for a good while that Lee Jina finally noticed the air conditioner was off.

The indoor temperature read 29 degrees.

Sweat was trickling down Jina's back and between her breasts, too.

"Mom, did you turn off the AC? I'm telling you, Coris completely loses her mind when the air conditioner's off…!"

Coris, who had evolved from a Ditch Water Nymph into an Ice Water Nymph, became a Boiling Water Nymph whenever the weather grew hot.

Nobody knew whether nymphs commonly harboring two elemental attributes on their own was normal, or something unique to Coris — but the Boiling Water version of Coris turned thoroughly delinquent.

"Anyone in that yard who owns flowers, surrender every last one to me, Coris, it is…! If I have to dig them out of the ground myself, this Coris will not leave a single petal standing, it is…!"

Coris made a lunge for the yard, bent on yanking the flowers up by the roots.

Then — ding-dong-dong — the air conditioner whirred to life.

Shortly after, Jina's mother came in and scratched the back of her head sheepishly.

"Sorry about that. Mom turned off the breaker for a bit to do some work. How is it? Is Coris feeling better now? Coris, are you okay now, sweetie?"

"I don't know what any of that means, but Coris feels wonderful in this cool breeze, it is…! Surely no other Ice Water Nymph in existence gets to enjoy this thing called air conditioning as thoroughly as this, it is…!"

Wham!

Coris threw both hands high into the air, as though her mood had instantly cleared.

Lee Jina gave Coris's hair a good, gentle stroking.

"This Coris feels happy, but is still sad that the flower necklace she wished to gift Kore-candidate Jina was ruined, it is…."

Coris had wanted to present Jina with a flower necklace and a flower crown.

After all, to become a Kore, a girl must by law be wealthy in many respects and adorn herself with pretty ornaments.

"Kore-candidate Jina is a girl perfectly suited to becoming a Kore, but she owns nothing, and so she falls short of Kore-hood, it is…!"

Kore (Κόρη).

It was a magnificent rank that all women dreamed of attaining.

Nymphs appointed their Kores only after the most careful deliberation, and in Coris's judgment, Jina wearing a beautiful flower crown upon her head would be more than qualified to be recognized as a full Kore.

Swoosh.

But only a single one of the beautiful, special flowers remained.

Jina took that last flower from Coris's hand and skillfully tied the delicate stem around her own finger.

"Huh. I can make it into a ring."

"Ahh…! A very fine idea, it is…! At this level, if she cannot be called a lower-tier Kore, she can surely be hailed as a semi-Kore, it is…! Whoooo…!"

Coris breathed out a icy-cold breath.

At once, the petals and stem wound around Jina's finger hardened — and then, truly, a magnificent ring had formed.

"Whoa — okay, this is actually pretty cool?"

Things crafted by nymphs carried a mysterious power within them.

They were, after all, fairies of nature itself.

The Kore Flower Ring Coris had made was bound to have a special ability of its own.

"I wonder what kind of power it has."

Delighted at the prospect of testing it every which way, Jina stroked Coris's head — swoosh, swoosh — with an easy grin.

Coris felt wonderful.

"Coris hopes the owner of this house and Jina will hurry up and get married and live happily ever after, it is…! If Jina becomes happy, then this Coris will surely become happy too, it is…!"

"So, as it turns out, Xiaoxiao is So Sohee. Apparently the 'So-So' in So Sohee reads as Xiaoxiao. So Sohee transferred in when I was in my third year, and—"

Doze… doze…

Only now did I notice that Oinoi had been nodding off in front of the glass bottle by the window.

The moment I stopped talking, she snapped awake.

"Ahh…! Oinoi dozed off, is what it is…! Certain nymphs have a habit of growing drowsy when listening to past recollections, is what it is…! It is because nymphs are future-oriented fairies, is what it is…!"

So that's how it is.

My store of nymph knowledge had grown yet again.

Anyway, I had something I absolutely needed to say the next time I saw So Sohee.

I'd have to apologize.

Because with So Sohee, I had committed the first — and greatest — mistake of my life.

Frankly, even thinking about what happened back then was a massive humiliation, a shame so raw that my mind's own defense mechanisms had reflexively buried it in some far, forgotten corner of my memory.

"I figured she'd hate me. But she remembered me. And I had no idea she'd gone on to work as a ranker in China."

"Ahh-! Master, you must look at this, is what it is…! The typhoon has begun to slowly take shape inside the glass bottle, is what it is…!"

Oinoi declared this with tremendous delight.

The typhoon Oinoi had captured was growing fluffily away inside the glass bottle — at times it looked like a sky-blue cloud, and at other times like cotton candy.

"It is growing very well indeed, but something is still lacking, is what it is…! If we pour in water boiled with medicinal herbs, it seems it will sprout up lush and strong, is what it is…! From this moment on, this Oinoi shall name the herbs you must find, is what it is…!"

For the first time in a while, Oinoi had placed a request with me.

She'd filled a sketchbook with drawings of all kinds of herbs. The trouble was, my pharmaceutical knowledge wasn't nearly good enough to identify this many different plants — and then it suddenly came back to me that So Sohee's mother had run a health food store in the old neighborhood where I used to live.

"I wonder if it's still there?"

Crumple.

I stared ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠down at the little note that had dredged up everything from long, long ago.

On its back, a crooked hand-drawn map of the neighborhood had been scribbled down.