Nymphs and Effort Never Betray # 2
"The demigod Chiron was called the Educator of Heroes, you see…! To teach every hero individually and effectively, he magically authored a book, and that book is The Hero's Way, he did…!"
Moralis, who rarely showed interest in anything, was suddenly fussing up a storm. She seemed utterly incapable of calming down, like someone with a mosquito bite on the sole of her foot, waving both hands back and forth in the air.
"That book, The Hero's Way, must surely contain customized training suited to each individual, it must…! Because the demigod Chiron is the foremost expert in hero training, he is…!"
Chiron.
The name referred to the half-man, half-horse centaur sage. He was the instructor who had personally raised just about every famous hero there was—Heracles, Theseus, and the whole lot of them.
Instructor.
At that word, the face of someone I'd met long ago seemed to surface in my mind. The instructor who taught the first generation of hunters had been strict enough to earn the nickname "the Tiger," after all.
His skills were excellent too—he'd once toyed with both me and Kang Cheolmin at the same time while barely breaking a swea─
"Hyaaagh…! I smell a flashback coming on, I do…! Nymph Secret Art: Wild Beatdown!"
Thud-thud-thud-thud—
Moralis wailed on me, and I snapped wide awake. That was a close one—I'd nearly wasted precious time lost in a flashback!
"So what you're trying to say, Moralis, is that this Chiron guy was an incredibly impressive person, and the book he wrote is an incredibly impressive book too."
"Exactly so, it is…! Even the daughter of the goddess I once served left to receive her education from Chiron, she did…!"
Figures. At any rate, I had a decent sense now that Chiron was a genuinely remarkable figure.
Flap—
I spread open The Hero's Way—the very book said to have been written by that great man—and the contents read as follows.
TRAINING LIST — Complete all to receive the expected reward
『Reward: Endurance +1 NP』
『Have your head patted by your Kore — 0/1』
『Have your legs massaged by your Kore — 0/1』
What on earth kind of training regimen was this supposed to be? Was there any chance the book was defective? That it was a fake?
But judging by Moralis's attitude, the odds of it being a counterfeit seemed nil. Above all, the proof was that S-Rank hunter Achilles had devoured this book page by page and put it into practice to become known as the strongest.
"Mr. Ildo, what training is written in it? I remember mine said things like collecting ten C-Rank mana stones at a time, and meditating for two hours a day."
Achilles, the book's original owner, spoke to me with what looked like genuine curiosity. I'd shown him the open pages, but apparently the training content was invisible to anyone but its rightful holder. Now that ownership had passed to me, the book was nothing but old blank paper as far as Achilles was concerned.
So I decided to explain part of what was written for the curious Achilles.
"Apparently if I reveal the training details, I have to perform a penalty. I'd like to ask about what's written here, but what exactly is this penalty?"
"Ah, right, there was that. The penalty is… quite demanding. Just like the training, the penalty is adjusted to each individual. It's best to avoid triggering one if you can."
A penalty tailored to each person, huh? What kind of penalty would be waiting to torment me?
Scary. If it turned out to be something like "Write 10 recommendation posts praising Seo Yerim," that would be genuinely brutal.
I resolved to keep the training details to myself.
"By the way, it says here that completing the listed training increases your endurance by 1 NP. What does 1 NP mean?"
I asked. That part was a reward, not training content, so I figured it was safe to bring up. Achilles nodded and answered.
"1 NP means one nymph's worth. It means the training increases your endurance by the equivalent of one nymph. That's a rather generous allotment, actually. I only ever gained 0.1 NP at a time."
I understood even less than before. Still, having a chance to climb upward was a good thing in its own right. For a lifetime D-Ranker like me, having this book land in my lap with a thunk—training details and rewards aside, I'd have clutched it like a lifeline all the same!
I decided to simply be happy about it.
"Muahaha!"
"The nymphs say they'll be back by evening."
The nymphs had set off on their journey to the coastal waters off Chios Island. Judging by the message on my phone, they seemed to have discovered something or other—a sealed stone tablet, apparently. They'd found a giant pyramid too.
A pyramid, of all things? Wasn't that Egyptian architecture rather than Greek?
I wondered for a moment why a pyramid would be sitting in the deep sea off the coast of Greece, but then it occurred to me—in a world where elves and nymphs really did roam about, a pyramid in Greek waters was hardly worth raising an eyebrow over.
People should always be ready to think flexibly.
"Anyway, we've got free time until evening."
Achilles had abruptly departed to clear rifts and handle a guild commission. I suddenly found myself with an abundance of time in Greece, and Ari was absolutely delighted about it.
"Senior, then could you spare me a little of your time? There's something I've been wanting to do!"
Ari asked me for some time. I owed her both gratitude and an apology—the doctor who had flown all the way from Korea to Greece out of concern for me—and I figured this was my chance to make up for those feelings and repay her.
"So this is what you've been wanting to do?"
Stroke, stroke—
I watched as Ari petted Keongkeongi's fur. Keongkeongi seemed to be nodding off under her touch—and seizing her moment, Ari whipped out a small syringe and jabbed it into the little guy's body.
"There, it'll sting a little."
━Grrrung…!
Startled by the sudden needle, Keongkeongi puffed up his tail fur as if absolutely furious and bolted off into the distance. Moralis scrambled after him in hot pursuit.
"Aaah—! You mustn't run away, you mustn't…! You need a bath too, you do…! All that dust and dirt on your body must be washed away, it must…!"
Moralis, it turned out, had dreamed of becoming a Soapy Water Nymph back before she became a Muddy Water Nymph. Apparently that was why she was remarkably good at bathing, scrubbing, and laundering things of all kinds.
"Gotcha, I did…!"
Moralis caught Keongkeongi and scrubbed him down in the hotel bathroom, working up a lively layer of bubbles. On top of having been jabbed with a needle, Keongkeongi now looked like a water-soaked baby mouse, which seemed to enrage him all the more.
━Grrrung…!
Pada-da-da-dash—!
The moment the bath was over, Keongkeongi flung the water off his body in every direction. He looked exactly like one of those spinning drying blowers at a car wash.
As Keongkeongi zipped off into the distance, Ari turned to me.
"Keongkeongi's vaccinations are all finished now. Since he's an animal that spends a lot of time outdoors, I thought it'd be good to get him caught up on his preventive shots. Rodents can be infected with mana Black Plague, you know…"
Mana Black Plague.
A deadly otherworldly disease carried by the C-Rank giant rat monster known as the Black Death Mouse. Harmless to humans, but lethal to hamsters, rodents, and their kin.
After that, Ari gave all my animals a meticulous health examination—measuring the length of Angangi's horns, plucking a strand of Kwangkwangi's webbing to examine its condition under a microscope, and so on.
How was everyone's health, really? Honestly, I'd just been letting them roam free. I figured complete freedom was the best policy. And since they were animals from another world, there were no real guidelines to follow—no reference points for managing their care at all.
"So, what do you think?"
I asked, feeling a little tense. Ari, who'd been studying the chart while working her tablet, replied.
"Everyone's healthy, aside from the fact that Kalinoi seems to have gained a bit of weight!"
━Hoo, hoo…!
The slightly plumpened Kalinoi spread both wings and let out a cry in a high register. Then she waddled around the hotel room on foot—Kalinoi was a Tiger Owl who preferred walking to flying.
She'd badly injured her wing once, so long flights were hard on her; she spent most of her time on the ground, and the weight gain came with the territory, I suppose.
"Kalinoi's wing has almost fully healed, too. Her feathers are glossy and full of sheen, and her grip strength in her legs is excellent. She's put on a little weight, but she seems absolutely full of energy."
"Well, sure—that's because I feed her garlic and mugwort every day."
I felt a small flicker of pride at how vigorous Kalinoi was. Ari frowned at me like she simply couldn't comprehend what she was hearing—the look of a homeroom teacher staring at a student who had written "Emiya Kiritsugu" under the heading of a person they admire.
"The reason I fed her garlic is─"
Chatter-chatter, blab-blab.
I explained all over again that Kalinoi was in fact a nymph, and that there was a chance she might return to her nymph form if she kept eating garlic and mugwort.
"Ah…"
Ari's pupils swayed wildly side to side, dilating and contracting with visible anxiety.
Clap—
Then Ari clapped her hands together.
"Now then, Senior, you should lie down here too. I'll be running a simple examination."
Shove—
Ari laid me down on the bed. I lay there feeling a bit awkward while she peered into my mouth, shone a flashlight into my eyes, and the like. Suddenly, a laugh bubbled out of me.
"Pfft, haha."
"Why are you laughing?"
"No, it's just—you can really tell how hard you've worked to get where you are."
I thought back a long, long way. When I'd first met Ari, she'd been dressed in a hand-me-down school uniform that looked like it had been chewed on more than once, her hair crooked and choppy as if she'd hacked at it herself, her bare wrists and ankles pitifully bony.
She'd given the impression that one good shove would knock her down and she'd never get back up. Like a newborn fawn that had tumbled straight into a mud puddle—wasn't that exactly the picture?
And that Ari had grown into someone like this. Truly, effort and time never betray you.
As I marveled at how well she'd grown and quietly resolved to work even harder myself from here on out, Ari clapped her hands once more.
"Senior, I drew blood and ran a whole battery of tests, and everything looks completely fine! You don't seem to have suffered any serious damage from the overloaded rift, either!"
"That so?"
I sat up from the bed and pulled my outer coat back on. Watching me, Ari slipped off her white coat and lay down on the bed in its place.
"Then this time, Senior—it's your turn to examine me."