The Nymphs' Training Method #3
“……”
The man they called the 21st-century Achilles.
Legion walked along the beach of his homeland, Greece, letting the cool sea breeze wash over him. The briny, salt-tinged scent of the ocean felt endlessly nostalgic.
Whenever he walked this shore, he always thought of his father. His father had been a lighthouse keeper, and he would often gaze out at the water and say, "Your mother was a goddess of the sea."
The locals would point fingers at him and sneer. "Madman!""Don Quixote!""Freak!" After all, no one in the twenty-first century could look kindly on a man who dreamed of Heracles and claimed he'd married a goddess.
But to Legion, his father had been a greater hero than anyone else in the world.
On the day a terrible typhoon tore through the coast, his father had thrown himself into the sea to save a drowning drunkard. He saved the man in the end — but never came back himself. Not even his body was ever found, and so the people said he had "returned to the goddess."
“A man proves himself not with words, but with action. Action and proof — that is what makes a man honorable. Everything else is mere byproduct, gleaned from the results.”
Pat, pat, pat-pat-pat—
Legion's steps quickened, until he was sprinting down the beach. His speed was so extreme that the moment a wave crashed against the shore seemed to freeze in place.
And there, in that frozen world, Achilles Legion reached into his pocket.
"My son. One day, when I am gone, open that box. The truth lies within."
The coin in Achilles's pocket was one of the relics his father would ramble on about whenever he got tipsy on cheap wine. What his father had treasured in that box was a single weathered tome titled The Hero's Way — and a small mountain of coins.
When he pressed one of those coins to his ear, a faint voice could be heard.
“Achilles! Achilles! Crush Troy for us!”
“Patronage for Achilles!”
Truly a mystical coin. And listening to that cheering and support filled him with strength.
It was nothing short of magical. A miracle, even.
Perhaps his father really had married a goddess—
But there was no time to prove it. One day, the world transformed overnight with the miracle called rifts.
Legion called himself Achilles, born of a sea goddess and a fine man — and as time passed, so did everyone else. He became the protagonist of glory. A life attended by beautiful women, money, and fame!
“Achilles! Achilles! Crush the rift for us!”
“I love you! Sign my poster!”
“Idiot, don't you know how haughty and arrogant Achilles is? He'd never sign anything!”
Yet even as he soared to arrogant heights, Achilles had carried a hollow ache in his heart ever since his father's death. And while he was wandering through that emptiness, he met that man.
A field of white snow falling in silence. The largest T-rank rift ever to open in Greece. The day that nearly went down in history as the Chios Island Catastrophe—
“That day, I was defeated. I was the pride of Greece itself, which is why I could never tell a soul about my defeat—”
Whoosh—
Achilles clenched his fists and sank down onto the wave-lapped shore. In his meditating mind, the swirling snow of that snowfield and the killing glints that had flashed beyond it began to replay once more.
Oinoi's golden apple tree, basking in the warm blessing of the Sun Stone I'd tracked down long ago, had grown lush and tall, spreading a generous patch of shade.
━Zzji…!
━Keong-keong…!
Between the honey ant Ang-ang-i and the dog-squirrel Keongkeongi diligently chasing off bugs, and Oinoi hauling well water and tending it with all her heart, the tree had flourished and was now heavy with fruit. The golden apples tasted pretty mediocre, but the scent was genuinely lovely and refreshing. Good for the body, too.
As I sat beneath that tree, Oinoi scurried in circles around me.
“Ladybugs, mosquito larvae, chafer beetles—. Bugs, bugs, bugs—.”
━Ing-ing-ya-ing.
Oinoi cradled the strange typhoon cloud in her arms and sang a very strange song. I opened my closed eyes and couldn't help asking.
“What on earth is that song?”
“This is the bug-repelling song handed down among nymphs, as it were…! Its effects are superb, for it keeps harmful insects from approaching the tree, as it were…!”
Well, what do you know.
Just as I was marveling, Oinoi wrinkled her brow.
“The master of the house must continue his meditation, as it were…! Meditation and concentration are essential to walking The Hero's Way, as it were…!”
The Hero's Way.
Ever since my departure date for Greece had been set, I'd been training in meditation under Oinoi for the past several days. According to her, "The Hero's Way is a training codex said to have been written by Chiron, the ancient teacher of heroes…! Even this Oinoi knows a little of its contents, as it were…!"
I couldn't say for sure, but from what Oinoi told me, it seemed the training could raise my level of mastery even higher.
“Nymphs were the friends of Kores, but at times they also served as the teachers and friends of young heroes, as it were…!”
Shff—
Oinoi squared her shoulders proudly, planted a hand on her hip, and declared with all the pomp she could muster:
“Nymphs who raised and trained great heroes are truly worthy of being called Chief Nymphs, as it were…!”
I didn't fully get it, but apparently a nymph who supported and shaped a great hero earned tremendous glory and honor among her kind. The loftier my mastery and my glory rose, the higher the standing of my companion nymph Oinoi climbed as well — was that the idea?
“So what's all this, then?”
I looked at the photos of supermodels Oinoi had printed out and scattered around me. They were all slender beauties, each with something that pulled at the eye.
Soon Oinoi spoke.
“The greatest danger, the greatest obstacle on The Hero's Way… is women, as it were…! Heracles, Theseus, Odysseus — so many great heroes were sunk and brought to despair by women, as it were…!”
“Is that so?”
Among male awakeners, three things to watch out for had long been passed around as a joke over drinks: women, booze, and gambling. Supposedly, those three were enough to ruin a male awakener and his entire family.
“Many women may soon come to shake and beguile the master of this house, as it were…! It is important to hold the right state of mind and remain unmoved, as it were…! Even Oinoi's own teacher always emphasized that one who would become a hero must overcome the temptations of women, as it were…!”
It made sense.
Turning my eyes away from the supermodel photos, I sank back into meditation.
“To properly master Apatheia, one of the trials of the Hero's Way, it is important not to think about women at all, as it were…!”
Following Oinoi's instructions, I tried to empty my mind and meditate without thinking about women as much as possible.
But as the saying goes — tell someone not to think of an elephant, and an elephant is exactly what fills their head. The very act of trying not to think about women made them crowd into my mind all the more.
Take Lee Jina, for instance, who'd sent me a message this morning.
Jina was someone who rarely went out of her way to suggest things first. Her personality matched her intimidating face — a little cold, not exactly approachable.
And yet for some reason, she was inviting me out for meat and drinks, and there was an unusual eagerness behind it. I had no idea what had lit a fire under her, but it was oddly hard not to think about.
Ari had been weighing on my mind too. She used to message me every single day, but there'd been nothing for the past few days. I was starting to wonder if something had happened — even the "You doing okay?" I sent her last night still had no reply.
That had never happened before, so I was a little worried.
Should I ask Seo Yerim what was going on?
Thinking of Seo Yerim reminded me of Reiko and Tsubaki in Japan. I wondered what everyone was up to. Tsubaki especially — she'd confessed to me, and I couldn't help wondering if that confession still stood.
And once I started wondering how everyone was doing, my thoughts drifted to Cassie, who'd toyed with my heart and then run off to America. Cassie was just a nickname — her real name was Casey, wasn't it?
Real names made me think of So So-hee, the woman once called Xiaoxiao. Word was she'd reached the third stage of some mysterious martial art called Nymph-fu Dual Strike and her skills had improved by leaps and bounds.
She wasn't the only one making strides. Dang So-hae, whom I'd beaten in the martial tournament, had seen her abilities explode out of nowhere and was now undergoing the S-rank evaluation. Was her declaration that she wanted to make me the Tang family's live-in son-in-law just a figure of speech after all?
I'd been scrambling up to A-rank so frantically lately that I hadn't even noticed. Over the past few months, I'd gotten tangled up with women far more often than in the past several years combined. I'd even lived through the dreamlike experience of receiving confessions from S-rankers like Tsubaki and So So-hee — and looking back, it still didn't feel real.
I turned down confessions from S-rankers!
Did I actually do something that idiotic?
“Nymph Secret Art: Wild Beatdown…!”
Bam-bam-bam-bam-bam—
At that moment, Oinoi started wailing on me. She must have noticed that my head was chock-full of distractions. I scratched the back of my head sheepishly.
“Guess meditation just isn't for me.”
“Even this Oinoi suspects that may indeed be the case, as it were…!”
Flooff—
Then the typhoon cloud Ing-ing-i, which Oinoi had been cradling, floated up into the sky.
“Aaah, you mustn't get lost again, as it were…!”
Not long ago, Ing-ing-i had drifted off on its own and stayed away for a whole night before Kalinoi fetched it back, so Oinoi looked fairly flustered—
But Ing-ing-i didn't fly far. It simply drifted over the fence and nestled itself into somebody's arms.
“Oh my, what is this thing? Some kind of cotton candy that flies around?”
Beyond the fence stood a woman. She was wearing red heels — shoes my eyes found distinctly familiar.
Of course they were. They were the very heels I'd strained myself polishing, wiping up queen bee venom to boot.
“Seo Yerim? What brings you here?”
What business could a busy woman have, showing up without even a text? Just as I was puzzling over it, Seo Yerim looked at me.
Her makeup, with its heavier emphasis on her eyes than usual, was somehow unfamiliar. I knew Seo Yerim was beautiful, but had she always sparkled like this? Because she'd told me not to be conscious of women, I was probably that much more conscious of her now than ever.
Maybe that was why cold sweat broke out and my stomach started to tingle, entirely without permission.
Me, getting nervous in front of Seo Yerim? My pride could never allow such a thing!
This was prickly, impossible Kim Kang-ye-rim we were talking about — of all people!
And right as that thought crossed my mind, Seo Yerim stole a glance at me — and smiled.
“Ha—☆”