Nymphs and the Hero of the Demon King's Castle! # 4
"The nymph's aura grows stronger by the minute…!"
"This Coris feels the same way…!"
Oinoi and Coris had been roaming every corner of Geukrakdo, embarking on one little adventure after another. Their mission was to find the Trace of the Nymphs, and both of them were taking the task quite seriously.
"In Oinoi's assessment, the man called the 'Master of the Island' is an extremely nymph-phobic, nymph-hating male…! If nymph sisters are being held here, the odds are high that they are being exploited…!"
"This Coris thinks so too…! Nymphs are brimming with talents, and throughout history there have been many ages in which humans captured nymphs, exploited them, and treated them cruelly…!"
Nymphs were mysterious fairies of nature. They could reveal knowledge unknown to mankind, brew mystical potions, sing enchanted songs, dance enchanted dances, and perform all manner of other mysterious wonders. And precisely because they could do so many wondrous things, greedy humans had always had their eyes on them.
"It is entirely possible that someone is exploiting a mysterious nymph in a nymph-phobic fashion on this very island, coveting her mysteriousness…! We must rescue her at once…!"
Nymphs valued community above all else. Helping a nymph in trouble was the very first law of nymphkind.
"Rescue her quickly, so that Oinoi can show off this typhoon cloud…!"
Besides, Oinoi was a nymph who loved showing off anything and everything. The thought of presenting a typhoon cloud to the new nymph sister she was about to meet made her back tingle, as though an ant had crawled onto it.
━Zzji…!
Oinoi plucked Ang-ang-i, the honey ant who had been clinging to her back, and set him down on her palm. As it happened, the path ahead was blocked by a heavy pile of junk, and this was exactly the moment she needed the honey ant's help.
"Honey ant Ang-ang-i, please move these burdens away…! Execute the Zjeuji Slice…!"
━Zzji…!
Oinoi the nymph unleashed the very technique that Ha Ildo, master of the household, had drilled into Ang-ang-i. In one swift motion, Ang-ang-i sheared the old wooden crate clean apart with his magnificent horn.
Crack-crack-.
Coris clapped in admiration at the sight.
"What a splendid technique…! To teach a honey ant such an impressive skill…! The master of the household is a truly excellent teacher…!"
The shattered box revealed a path. Once Ang-ang-i cleared away the debris, they spotted a hole in the wall, like a mouse hole. Whether by chance or by design, it was just big enough for a nymph to slip through.
Sshh-ssh-.
Oinoi and Coris squeezed through the hole and found themselves inside some kind of building — and there, they received the shock of their lives, for a huge swimming pool sat within its walls.
"A swimming pool…!"
"But for some reason, it is filled with muddy water…!"
Indeed it was. A magnificent pool — full of mud. Because nymphs adored clean, clear water, the sight of this revolting pool made their faces scrunch up in disgust, and their anger began to boil.
And that was the exact moment it happened.
"L-let me go! I was only… I was only enjoying a lovers' escape with my girlfriend, who's as young as my own granddaughter…! You bastards…! Do you have any idea who I am?!"
"Please let us go! Just let us love each other in peace!"
Men in black suits had trussed up an elderly man and a young woman with rope and dragged them to the mud-filled pool. Coris and Oinoi instinctively huddled into a corner — but what came next was even more astonishing.
"Congressman Noh Innam of the opposition. You have nothing to fear, sir. Just as we all did, you will soon be reborn as a new man — through the magic of a nymph…!"
SPLASH-
The men dunked the elderly congressman into the muddy water. It looked for all the world like torture — but the truly shocking part came after the old man crawled out onto dry land.
"O-oppa…! Are you okay? Oppa! What do you think you're doing to him?! He's over seventy years old, how could you…!"
Drip-drip-
The young woman clung to the old man as he emerged from the muddy water, sobbing. Then his eyes snapped open, and he spoke to her.
"Why would I be your oppa? Call me sir, you insolent creature! And… what is this feeling? This feeling of my petty little conscience draining right out of me! I feel reborn — so refreshingly clean!"
The old man who had soaked in the muddy water now wore a ferocious scowl, and his speech had grown far more aggressive. While the young woman stared in horror, the black-suited men dunked her in as well.
SPLASH!
"If there's no bread, then let them eat cake? Ahahaha. And our dogs don't bite, by the way! Well, it's between the kids, so surely you understand!"
The woman who crawled out of the muddy water had transformed into someone spitting razor-sharp venom. At that sight, Oinoi froze in utter shock.
"Th… that is the Muddy Water of Disruption…! Now that I look at it, the nymph on this island is clearly not a good, nymph-friendly nymph, but a community-hating Muddy Water Nymph…!"
"The Kore sisters and the master of the household are in danger…!"
"Ildo-yah, give your noona a kiss too, right here on the cheek—. Aigoo, good boy."
"Give your auntie a kiss too!"
An old memory stirred. When I was very young, I used to kiss the cheeks of my older cousins, my aunts, my aunties — and eventually my kindergarten teachers and the kids at kindergarten, too. Then one day, my mother took my hand and said:
"Ildo-yah, you only kiss the people you really love."
I was a good kid. From then on I obeyed her words faithfully, and somewhere inside me, the rule took root: kisses on the cheek were reserved for the people I truly, genuinely loved.
Which is why what was happening right now had me reeling in every possible way.
Smoooooch-
Ari had kissed my cheek so thoroughly that a sticky print of her lipstick was left behind. That courage of hers! The scent of her lipstick, mingled with that distinctly sweet fragrance unique to a woman, was enough to make my head spin.
"There! Is that enough to prove our love…!? Not enough? Shall we go again? On the other cheek this time—!?"
Now that I looked closely, Ari's face, for all her bold bravado, was burning crimson. To sacrifice herself so shamelessly for the mission! Moved by the depth of Ari's devotion — loving her country, driving out the gangsters, seeing the job through no matter the cost — I felt a wave of genuine emotion wash over me.
Then it happened.
"You… how dare you…!? You sly little fox…!"
Lee Jina flared up like a delinquent shaking someone down for lunch money. Then she, too, pressed her lips firmly against my other cheek — and the smell of her signature bubble gum, plus the warm, soft sensation of her shoulder against mine, some feeling I'd never once experienced in my life, made everything before my eyes go hazy.
While I stood there helplessly flustered by the pressure, it was actually Yu Ari who exploded first.
"You… you…!"
Ari's face flushed even redder. Then she seized my arm and yanked.
"Get away from him!"
Pop-crack-
My shoulder screamed. At the same instant, Lee Jina grabbed my other shoulder and pulled.
"You get away!"
"AGHHH!"
I felt my dazed, dreamy haze flood instantly with pure pain. Was this what a zookeeper felt like when he slipped into the bear enclosure and got torn apart by the bears?!
"To fight over affection so openly…"
"I've never seen such a chivalrous sight in my life."
"Even watching makes my face burn…"
The organization members murmured among themselves as they watched me. A few of them even blushed and averted their eyes. Had Lee Jina, with her emotion-manipulation powers, secretly cast some kind of carnage spell on the mood? No — that's right, this was all an act!
Determined to match the women's devoted self-sacrifice, I decided I too had to shed a layer. Slide-.
I shook off the women, rose to my feet, and declared:
"How may I prove my love, then? Shall I prove it right here, by taking it all off?"
Slide-slide-.
I reached for my belt and zipper. Immediately, the male organization members began crying out in horror — "Whoa whoa WHOA!?" and "No! Don't! Keep your pants on!" — and even Ma Wangjun sprang to stop me, his foxy slit eyes flying wide open like a startled snake.
"No, no. Let's not do that here. As much as I admire the commitment, if you take it that far, we'll genuinely get our business license suspended."
A single bead of sweat rolled down Ma Wangjun's forehead. He looked, by all appearances, genuinely flustered.
"Ildo-ssi. I didn't take you for this kind of man, but you're impressive in all sorts of ways. Well, I suppose the world can't be lived in by rules alone, can it? Play it honest and all you get is the short end of the stick."
Slide-.
Ma Wangjun now drew a single photograph from his breast pocket and held it out to me. It was a picture of a boy with a bowl cut and glasses — the very picture of a goody-two-shoes. You know the type, the one or two kids in every middle school class: decent grades, quiet, obedient, always doing what the teacher says. Just as I was wondering if it was a photo of his little brother, Ma Wangjun spoke.
"That's me. Pretty hilarious, right?"
Really?
I couldn't believe this snake of a man had ever been so mild-mannered. Then Lee Jina piped up.
"That's from when he was dating our unnie."
Truly shocking news on every front. Ma Wangjun stroked his chin, then let out a low heh-heh-heh of a laugh.
"Yeah. I was seeing Seona-noona back then. She was my first love. But she dumped me and started dating my friend — the top delinquent in our school. That's when it started. That's what made me like this."
Ma Wangjun. According to him, his life's first girlfriend had dumped him in a transfer-style breakup — and that, he claimed, was his great revelation.
"Women, you see, would rather be treated like garbage by a handsome bad boy than live a boring life with a kind, decent, plain-faced man. Every woman I've ever dated turned out exactly the same way."
Really?
It made no sense to my brain, but Ma Wangjun held forth like a man possessed by absolute conviction.
"Living good gets you nothing. Life, in the end, is ruled by bad men, I'm telling you. The ones making women cry — they're guys like me. Bad men, through and through. Even the law itself is the same way."
"………"
"The bastards who did every dirty deed in the book, raking in money and seizing power — the law exists so they can slap a padlock on everything they've hoarded and kick the ladder away before anyone can take it back from them. Isn't that right?"
Heh-heh-heh-heh-
Ma Wangjun and his organization members laughed together. Watching them, my face twisted in disgust. Right now, Ma Wangjun was treating every honest, law-abiding citizen like a fool. I knew next to nothing about institutions and legislation, but one thing was crystal clear: this man was an antisocial piece of work. If people with a mindset like his roamed the world wielding the power of awakening, decent citizens and ordinary folk wouldn't be able to sleep a wink for the anxiety!
This bastard. I was just deciding that he had to be dealt with, one way or another, when Ma Wangjun spoke first.
"Ildo-ssi. How much do you know about nymphs? What do you say two bad men put our heads together and flip this world upside down, just once? Because I've got one too, you see. A nymph."
A nymph. At those words, my mind snapped wide awake. The reason I'd agreed to help Ari with this mission in the first place was the possibility that nymphs might be involved. And here he was, bringing it up himself before I'd even figured out how to broach the subject.
"Ma Wangjun. You're telling me you have a companion nymph as well?"
"………"
Instead of answering, Ma Wangjun simply grinned from ear to ear. I couldn't make sense of it. Weren't nymphs supposed to seek out kind, good-hearted people? Oinoi and Coris had looked at Ma Wangjun's photo with itching hands, muttering, "We want to beat him senseless…!" And yet a nymph was with him?
Was she being held captive? Being threatened?
"Are you coercing her? Forcing a nymph to work for you under duress?"
I asked him straight out. I, who had been named 'Master of the Household' by the nymphs and appointed guardian of nymphkind, could not possibly tolerate Ma Wangjun if he was exploiting a nymph.
"Duress? If anything, I'm the one who wants to ask the questions. Ha Ildo-ssi. A companion nymph? You keep a nymph as a partner — are you in your right mind? The nymph species—"
Slide-.
Ma Wangjun, about to say something more, hurriedly shut his mouth. And then, from behind him, someone appeared.
"Sh-she showed up in person…"
"No way…"
Even the hardened gangsters began to tremble. Ma Wangjun's expression turned grave as well.
"Muhehehe…"
The newcomer was a mud-brown-haired girl with a sinister little giggle. Thirteen years old or thereabouts, dressed in a leopard-print tracksuit, her face radiating pure confidence.
"I am Moralis, the Muddy Water Nymph…! A nymph who loves stirring up trouble of every kind, fomenting discord, and making a great big mess, that's me…!"