Nymphs and Hard Work Never Betray #3
I'd always wondered about something.
How do hairstylists cut their own hair?
Do they just sit down in front of a mirror and snip away at their own heads? Or do they call up a colleague or a stylist friend and ask for help? Or maybe they simply walk into some other salon like an ordinary customer and get a perfectly normal haircut?
It reminded me of the old saying that a barber can't shave himself.
Even an expert in a given field can find it difficult to perform that craft on their own body — that's what it meant.
Which made me wonder: what about doctors?
I'd always assumed doctors constantly diagnosed themselves and managed their own health, but watching Ari lying there on the bed, it seemed that wasn't necessarily the case.
"Then this time, Senior, you'll be diagnosing me."
Swish—
Ari, sprawled on the bed, held a stethoscope out toward me.
"Me?"
"Yes. All you have to do is listen and make sure my heartbeat sounds normal. I'll lie face down, so just place the stethoscope against my back. My senses are too sharp — I can't actually hear my own heartbeat properly."
Ah, I see how it is.
While Ari shrugged off her white coat, I took the stethoscope and draped it around my neck.
Swish—
Ari lay face down on the bed, and I rolled up my sleeves a little before gently pressing the stethoscope against her back.
"This feels just like playing hospital."
"Ah, it's cold—"
Had the stethoscope been cold against her skin?
Ari shivered and spoke up almost immediately.
"How does it sound?"
"Hard to say. Seems normal, I guess."
Her breathing and her heartbeat both sounded perfectly healthy.
Thump! Thump!
If anything, they had a robust, booming quality to them.
Who would have thought that Ari — once that frail little fawn of a girl — had grown this healthy!
Her spine stretched straight, the muscles along her shoulders and arms were reasonably firm, her skin was smooth, and even her back felt tougher than I'd expected.
Her waist, on the other hand, was impossibly slender.
Was she even eating properly?
It was almost worrying enough to make me fret over her health — though the curve running from her hips down through her legs was packed tight and firm beneath thirty-denier black stockings.
"You're healthy."
"…S-Senior, don't just give me a once-over. Put some heart into the examination. You can palpate me too. My legs and feet have been feeling unusually sore and heavy lately, so I wonder if something might be wrong…."
Apparently, while I'd been treating this like a game of hospital, for Ari this was a serious matter of checking and measuring her own health.
Out of gratitude for all she did for me, I steadied myself and took it seriously.
Her legs felt heavy, did they?
Beneath the stockings and that silky skin, I could feel without even touching just how much tension was knotted into her muscles.
They were vibrantly alive legs.
Swish—
I gripped Ari's thigh in both hands.
"Ahh—"
Then I squeezed — hard — and the resilience of the flesh and muscle pushing back against my palms matched the pressure I was applying, strong and springy.
"Your thighs seem fine. If anything, they're remarkably healthy. Are you still training?"
I'd never really paid attention before, but these thighs were practically athlete-grade, weren't they?
Come to think of it, I remembered that when I'd visited Ari's house long ago, there'd been a framed photo of her as an elementary schooler in a taekwondo uniform, posing with her parents.
Ari used to be a taekwondo girl.
Her dream had been to compete at the Olympics and win a medal, supposedly.
But after the accident, the family fortunes collapsed, she gave up that dream, and decided she wanted to become a doctor instead.
And she really did become one.
"You've worked so hard all this time."
Pat pat—
Something like pride swelled in me, and I stroked Ari's head.
Of course, Ari jolted upright with a startled "Senior, I'm not a little kid anymore, you know…!" — her face blazing red.
Her heartbeat had gone th-th-th-th-th— loud and frantic, like a pack of nymphs hammering away at something.
I decided to admit my mistake.
There were still moments when, in my eyes, Ari looked like that fawn of a girl she'd once been.
Maybe it was because I had a younger sister.
"You really are an adult now."
She'd always acted bright and cheerful, yet somewhere along the way she'd been watching others, hesitating, holding back — that high school girl was now a fully fledged member of society, putting her medical license to good use. It truly impressed me.
I felt proud of her, honestly.
"Senior, do this properly. You need to remember that you are, right now, a licensed temporary physician with a day-pass medical permit. Now — back to the examination, please."
Swish—
Ari lay down straight in front of me.
This time I pressed and prodded along her calves and around her ankles with my fingers, working through the palpation.
"Aaack~"
And I discovered that she flinched in pain at certain specific spots.
Before long, Ari asked:
"Senior, what did you just do?! That hurt!"
"Ari, your Samyungak pressure point is running weak. According to Auntie Dang Yeong-yeong, the spot just above the inner ankle governs your yin energy. I barely pressed it with my thumb and you already yelped."
I'd been visiting Auntie Dang Yeong-yeong fairly often lately to learn about the human body.
She'd told me that the Tang Clan's secret arts included pressure points and vital spots for taking down an opponent more effectively.
"I don't think you pressed lightly at all…?! It felt like being skewered by something thick and solid…!"
"Nope. I really did press gently. If even that made the Samyungak point hurt, it means your yin energy has weakened. And weakened yin energy means… well, things can get impure, here and there."
At my diagnosis, Ari went red in the face and rattled off a protest.
"Me, impure…? I am completely pure! I am clear ditch water itself!"
Then she let out a small sigh.
"Senior, I'm a doctor. I don't believe in anything that isn't medically or scientifically proven. Eastern medicine is mostly superstition — it all comes down to the placebo effect."
Ari's stance on acupressure and pressure points was fairly firm.
She doesn't believe in superstition, huh.
"Then how about this?"
Swish—
I moved my hands down to the soles of her feet.
Feet wrapped in black stockings — smaller than my palm.
It was almost miraculous that a human body was supported by something this small.
Besides, Ari spent every single day walking around in high heels, wearing her feet down everywhere she went, so there was no doubt her lower body was fatigued and her muscles wound tight.
"When the feet are comfortable, the whole body is comfortable."
Press—
This time I pressed down on the Yongcheon point in the center of her right sole.
Ari shot upright like a rat struck by lightning.
"Hyaaaaah~!"
It must have hurt.
Well, of course — the Yongcheon point sits near the middle of the sole, and it's such a crucial spot that they say you can jolt a dead man back to his feet with it.
Auntie Dang Yeong-yeong had emphasized its importance more than any other spot: "Even if you never learn another pressure point, if you just press this Yongcheon point well, your life will grow healthy."
"Hiii…! It hurts…! Senior, that hurts…!"
But Ari squirmed and thrashed like mad.
Her strength was ferocious — like a bull gone berserk — and pinning her down left sweat pouring off my whole body.
Ari was sweating too, droplets running down her skin.
Was her metabolism just that active?
"How is it? Doesn't your body feel lighter?"
I asked once the massage was over.
Ari sat fully upright on the bed, ran her hands up and down her legs, and sulked.
"Can't tell. Hmph."
But her walk and her posture were unmistakably better than before.
"You've built up a lot of fatigue. Ari, I think you need a little rest yourself."
Ari had been a young girl living alone with her grandmother, the head of her own household.
I'd heard that from high school onward, she'd done milk deliveries, newspaper rounds — a different job every day.
Even when she awakened as a hunter while still in high school and entered her first rift, she'd said, "I like it because it seems like I could make a lot of money."
And that was work full of life-threatening danger.
Of course, Ari had now retired from active hunting and become a public health physician dedicated to caring for awakened hunters.
It was safe work — and work she took enormous pride in.
"Ari, your grandmother must have been so proud when you became a doctor. How is she doing? It's been a while since I've seen her, hasn't it?"
I thought of Ari's grandmother.
How should I put it — she was an elderly lady who left a powerful impression in every possible way.
But Ari didn't answer. She simply closed her mouth.
In that brief hesitation, I could tell she didn't want to talk about her grandmother.
I was about to change the subject when Ari rose from her seat first.
"Senior, I should get going. There are some places I need to contact by this afternoon…."
The Muddy Water Nymph Moralis was a fiercely independent nymph.
Joining a pack meant being weak—
—and being weak meant joining a pack. That was her unshakable creed.
"I shall show these pack-loving nymph sisters how great I, Moralis, truly am…! I shall show them that this world is not the gentle fairy-tale forest their storybooks promised…!"
Moralis had resolved to take Yu Ari on as her bonded Kore — to educate her, mentor her, and look after her.
And if that same Yu Ari outmaneuvered all the other Kores and claimed Ha Ildo's bridal chamber as her own? Then the moment would arrive when Moralis would be proven the greatest companion nymph of them all!
That was why Moralis had taught Yu Ari no fewer than three of the Kore Secret Techniques.
One of them was the Kore Secret Art: Wild Flirting (Tail Wagging) — a technique that only the lie-fluent Muddy Water Nymphs could pass on.
"You're doing wonderfully…!"
Watching Yu Ari lying face down, receiving her massage before Ha Ildo, Moralis was certain of her victory.
No one could withstand the Wild Flirting art.
It was a three-in-one combination of perfect lies, charm, and affection — so flawless that even Moralis herself could be fooled by it — and Ha Ildo seemed entirely unaware that he was walking into a snare.
"Now bring this game to its conclusion…!"
Moralis imagined it: Yu Ari winning the Kore games, and herself, as that Yu Ari's companion nymph, standing beside her.
When that day came, the other nymphs would say — We were wrong about her all along…! Moralis, it turns out, was magnificent material for a Chief Nymph…!
Perhaps they'd even come begging — Please, let us be your friends…! Even I, Coris, have come to realize that friendship with Moralis is the wise choice…!
—Of course…! Moralis is, without question, ze best…!
"Heh heh heh…. And when that day comes, even if the nymph sisters beg me, Moralis, to be their friend, I shall refuse to accept…! Though if they beg and beg and beg, I might consider it…!"
Just as Moralis was lost in that fantasy —
Yu Ari, who had been laughing and chattering while the man kneaded her legs, suddenly pop— got up and left the room.
Moralis followed after her.
"Hurry back…! The final summit is within reach…! The Wild Flirting art is immensely powerful, but use it too often and the risk of it being seen through rises…!"
Among the nymphs there was a saying: once you've grabbed the tail, pull it clean off.
It meant that whatever you set your mind to, you should see through while the will was hot. But Ari didn't listen to Moralis — she just stared at her phone.
There were several new messages on the screen.
"……."