147 – Aftermath of the China Trip
“Mwahaha, how wonderful—truly the good that comes from meeting my nymph sisters…! Let us meet often from now on…!”
Tyrenol waved her hand energetically at the airport to see us off. She seemed terribly reluctant to part, and Oinoi looked much the same.
“Let us go together with our nymph sisters, that is the truth of it…! The Master of the House is a tremendously nymph-friendly person, and he provides an environment truly beyond compare for us nymphs to live in…!”
“A most excellent arrangement…! But I, Tyrenol, have much to settle in the Rimbu Forest, and Kores I must look after as well, so I must remain on the continent for the time being…!”
Tyrenol had decided to stay in China. There was simply so much to do, it seemed.
From what I knew, nymphs loved to fuss over their Kores with declarations like, “One must take care of one’s Kores…!” Since So Sohee and Dang Sohae were both in China, she was presumably planning to stay close to them.
And so—
Where was So Sohee, the very reason I had come to China? When I craned my head around looking for her, Dang Sohae, who had come to meet me at the airport, let out a scornful little snort.
“That woman So Sohee has gone to conquer the T-Rank rift that opened at the Sanxingdui Ruins. Ha Ildo, you’ve been cast aside.”
Hadn’t they said a T-Rank rift opened in China on average once a year? I’d heard one had already opened this spring, and now another? Well, So Sohee was a top-ranked hunter, S-Rank #12. Without our worrying or interfering, she’d handle things just fine on her own.
“Take this!”
Shunk—
At that moment, Dang Sohae thrust something out toward me. It was a glass jar shaped like a jam container, filled to the brim with a thick, viscous liquid that glittered gold.
Oinoi’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.
“Aaah—! That is the famous Bashkir honey, that is the truth of it…! Among the honeys nymphs love to taste, it always ranks at the very top—an exceedingly premium honey…!”
Bashkir honeybees were gatherers of honey second only to Honey Ants. If you had to name the difference between the honeys the two creatures produced, it was simply that the honey gathered by Bashkir honeybees was a touch rarer.
“If I, Oinoi, eat this often, I might even evolve into a honey-water nymph, that is the truth of it…! It is honey that magnificent…! And if the dog-squirrels eat it, they evolve into Honey Dog-Squirrels…!”
A Honey Dog-Squirrel? What on earth was that supposed to be?
I tried picturing Keongkeongi evolving into one, but having absolutely no information about Honey Dog-Squirrels, nothing came to mind.
“A Honey Dog-Squirrel is a dog-squirrel that adores slurping honey. It moves around so little that it grows big and slow, but in exchange its strength increases, that is the truth of it…!”
━Krrrgh…!
Keongkeongi the dog-squirrel bristled his fur. Apparently he had no desire to become a Honey Dog-Squirrel.
Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be better for Keongkeongi to evolve into a Dog-Bear-Squirrel and be hailed as the “One and Only King”?
“Keongkeongi, do you want to become the One and Only King?”
━Keong-keong…!
Keongkeongi seemed to like the idea of being a Dog-Bear-Squirrel.
Though from what I’d heard, evolving into a Dog-Bear-Squirrel required a special pebble called the Stone of Fire. Where in the world could I get my hands on one of those?
Anyway.
With all that, we boarded the plane and returned to Korea.
“It was a most enjoyable journey, that is the truth of it…! I, Oinoi, roamed the Rimbu Forest with my nymph sisters and gathered mountains of mushrooms and herbs, and in the end I even obtained the Typhoon Flower…!”
In Oinoi’s hands was a single flowerpot. Atop it bloomed a flower shaped like a swirling typhoon, and it was quite fascinating the way it swirled a refreshingly cool breeze around itself with a soft whoooosh.
# # #
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I failed to bring Sohee back with me. Instead, she asked me to pass along this letter and this medicine. She said if you take it, your illness will be completely cured.”
It was a round pill-dose that the nymphs had made by pooling their talents together. It gave off a violently bitter smell, but Auntie Dang Yeongyeong chewed it up thoroughly without batting an eye, swished some water around her mouth with a cheerful ga-ga-ga gargle, and swallowed it down.
“Oh! I feel lighter already!”
Auntie Dang Yeongyeong was absolutely delighted. Was this what traditional medicine was supposed to be—effective this instantaneously?
“Mwahaha, I, Illinoi, am the Potion Nymph…! I make nearly every medicine there is, that is the truth, madam…! Organic medicine guaranteed by me, Illinoi…! The effects are berry good…!”
So that was it, then. The nymphs’ talents really did prove useful even to twenty-first-century humans.
“A shame you couldn’t bring Sohee back. But if it’s the life she chose for herself, then there’s nothing I can do about it. Sneaking away from home without a word—that’s exactly like me and Mr. Kang-ho. She really is our daughter.”
Auntie Dang Yeongyeong seemed content to simply wish So Sohee well on her path ahead, but I still felt a lingering disappointment over having failed my mission.
“Ildo, I asked something difficult of you, and I thank you for seeing it through this much. You really are kind. Still, this auntie gets bored and lonely all by herself, so you’ll come visit now and then, won’t you?”
From what I’d heard, Mr. So Kangho was an explorer who roamed every corner of the world. With her daughter in China and all her cousins in the Sichuan Tang Clan, it was only natural that Auntie Dang Yeongyeong would be lonely here.
“I’ll come by often with the nymphs.”
“Mwahaha, I, Illinoi, find the herbs kept in this health center to be absolutely full of interest, that is the truth…!”
“I, Oinoi, also think the goods Auntie Dang Yeongyeong deals in are very fine indeed…!”
I exchanged farewells with the nymphs and stepped outside. Waiting for me at a distance, Seo Yerim started the electric car’s engine and said,
“That woman is really So Sohee’s mother? She doesn’t look a day over thirty, no matter how I look at her. And it’s not like she’s dropping a billion won a year on anti-aging like my mom does─.”
So Seo Yerim’s mother looked young because she’d dumped a fortune into it. The rich really were something else.
Just as I was thinking that, Seo Yerim spoke up.
“Ha Ildo, don’t you dare go messing with married women just because they look young and pretty. You know what a downfall is? You’ll go straight to rock bottom. Celebrities are always surrounded by swarms of people dying to catch them slipping up!”
I was flabbergasted by Seo Yerim’s train of thought. Did she honestly think something—something—might happen between me and So Sohee’s mother, Auntie Dang Yeongyeong?
It was true that Auntie Dang Yeongyeong was young and pretty enough that I could have called her “big sister,” but she was So Sohee’s mother! And she thought of me like a son, surely!
That said, her warning about falling into ruin did resonate with me in more ways than one.
Byo-byo-beep—
When I searched my own name—Ha Ildo—on the internet with my smartphone, the search volume was unusually high.
Body: If you set aside all of Korea’s A-Ranks, the fact that Ha Ildo got invited to the Bimuje—isn’t that, viewed globally, basically saying “Korea’s A-Ranks < Ha Ildo”?
There were plenty of posts mentioning my name. Some praised me, but for some reason there was also a definite sprinkling of sharp-edged ones, and that was when I truly realized I’d started becoming famous.
“They say a superstar has to drive both the stans and the haters absolutely insane. The higher I climb, the more people there’ll be who hate me.”
That was a fact I already knew well. Back when I became the very first D-Rank, every article about me that went up online drew its fair share of venomous comments.
People sneered about “luck,” or called me an “Awakener Spoon” that outclassed even the Gold Spoons.
“Ha Ildo. There’s going to be a lot of unfair things coming your way, and plenty of people are going to hate you for no other reason than that you’re famous and doing well.”
Seo Yerim gripped the steering wheel and spoke as if giving me a warning. From what I’d heard, she had tons of fans but just as many antis. Nobody understood better than she did the weight a celebrity has to carry.
Shunk—
I clenched my fist tight.
“Still, if I keep working my hardest, I’ll prove myself. Because for some people, even a seat where you get cursed at like that is something they’d envy.”
I thought of all the countless D-Rank Ha Ildos out there. To the ones who could never climb no matter how hard they tried, saying something like “It’s hard being famous” would be nothing but the bellyaching of a well-fed man.
Tap-tap—
I searched my name again.
Body: They’re all begging to rent ONE Tiger Owl in exchange for a hundred pandas
“Very good, indeed.”
There weren’t as many critical posts about me as I’d expected. Koreans have a habit of loving it when their own shine on the world stage, so maybe everyone was in a good mood precisely because I’d made a name for myself in China.
“Ha Ildo, you’re one step away from S-Rank now.”
Seo Yerim said it as Taecho Village began to come into view. Oinoi, Illinoi, the Honey Ant, the ghost spider, and the dog-squirrels were all fast asleep, snoring away, so in the quiet of the car her voice carried with unusual softness.
“That obsession of yours with becoming an S-Rank awakener. Honestly, part of it’s because of me, isn’t it?”
I was startled. Because she was right, at least to a degree.
I had watched Seo Yerim—my junior by a training cohort—be hailed as an S-Rank awakener and enjoy all the privileges and advantages that came with it, and I had dreamed: Ah, I want to become like that too.
“You’re right.”
The moment I admitted it honestly, Seo Yerim gave a little snort—“Hmph. Knew it.”—then pulled the car to a stop, dropped me off at my yard, and said,
“Go on then, try to make me your target! But it won’t be easy. I’m not exactly a goal you can reach that easily, and that last step to S-Rank can be harder than every step you’ve taken so far!”
And with that, Seo Yerim zoomed off. For some reason her face had been bright red—probably just her condition being off, judging by how quickly she hurried home. Cumulative fatigue from China, no doubt.
“Aaah—! The Master of the House has returned, that is the truth…! The nymph sisters have been waiting too…! You left me, Coris, behind in China yet again, but Coris says it doesn’t mind one bit…!”
Around dinnertime. When I got home, Coris was waiting for us. And where there was Coris, there was Lee Jina.
“I heard you were coming today, so I was waiting—you showed up right on schedule. Ha Ildo, made quite the splash in China, huh? Well, the way I see it, the animals did all the work.”
Stroke-stroke—
Lee Jina petted the heads of the animal friends. She was talking about the Bimuje, presumably. The Hydra’s appearance and how its poison had nearly spread had, at the Murim Alliance’s level, been sealed away as a secret from every angle.
It was a shame that my ultra-spectacular exploits wouldn’t be spreading among the public, but I understood.
“So many things happened in China, that is the truth of it…! Nymph Secret Art: Rapid Chattering…!”
Chatter-chatter-jellyfish—
Oinoi the nymph fired off her rapid chatter at Coris. To my ears it came through as nothing but “chatter-chatter-jellyfish,” but Coris was utterly amazed and astonished by the tale.
“A Hydra appeared, and you met the Poison Nymph—most impressive, that is the truth…! You obtained this Typhoon Flower as well, splendidly done…! The cloud, Coris has been looking after it very well…!”
While we were in China, Coris had been caring for the typhoon cloud. Oinoi and Coris went inside cooing “Wooow—” in delight, and Lee Jina, watching them go, added something to me.
“Like I said in my message, there’s someone who wants to meet you. You’ll be shocked when you find out who. You know Kira, right? Kira. The MeTuber.”
“The Kira? With ten million subscribers?”
I was a fan of Kira, the British MeTuber. I’d been watching her since she had roughly a hundred thousand subscribers!
“Yep. Apparently she watched the Animal Ranch episode 1004 and the Bimuje video, and she reached out to me saying she wants to appear on a broadcast with you. Figured you’d like it, Ha Ildo, seeing as you love stirring up aggro.”
Me, loving to stir up aggro. That was, admittedly, true.
“Has the stature of living legend Ha Ildo already grown this big? But wait—that MeTuber Kira contacted you, Lee Jina? How do you two know each other? For real?”
I was startled by just how wide Lee Jina’s network was. She scratched her cheek with a swish-swish and said, “Well, there were circumstances,” but the reason didn’t really matter right now. What mattered was that I was going to appear in a video with a ten-million-subscriber MeTuber!
“Aaah—! I, Oinoi, also wish to appear on that MeTube, that is the truth…! I, Oinoi, have always wished that Oinoi would appear on this thing called MeTube…!”
Shunk—
Oinoi stepped out into the yard, holding the typhoon cloud high in its transparent glass bottle, and shouted.
“It is beyond doubt that no other nymph could ever possess a typhoon cloud…! I, Oinoi, wish to show off to that MeTube both the coins I, Oinoi, have collected, and this typhoon cloud…!”