A Dark Game with the Nymphs # 1
“Mr. Ha Ildo, I hope our paths cross in the field someday.”
Achilles had come all the way to the airport to see me off.
My trip to Greece had been a short one, but looking back on it now, an astonishing amount had happened in so little time.
“Farewell to everyone, and may you all fare well…! This Oinoi now departs from Greece to return to Korea, that land of advanced science and technology…!”
“This Coris says Korea suits her better than Greece…!”
“Of course…! Korea is the very world of ruthless capitalism…! And we nymphs love capitalism dearly, we do…! Long live the free market, I say…!”
The nymphs didn't seem to feel the slightest pang of regret about leaving Greece, a land so similar to their old home. If anything, they were practically sprinting toward the airplane in their eagerness to get back.
I boarded the plane along with them.
Vroooooooom—.
The plane began its ascent.
“Ahhh…! The airplane is rising…! Surely no nymph in history has ever soared this high into the sky before…!”
Oinoi made her usual fuss—then immediately pulled a sleep mask out of her pocket, slipped it over her eyes, and started snoring away.
She'd been on so many flights lately that flying had apparently stopped feeling special to the nymphs altogether.
The ancient fairies had fully adapted to the 21st century, hadn't they.
Rustle.
I opened the book I'd acquired in Greece, The Hero's Way.
▸ Pat a Kore's head — 0/1
▸ Massage a Kore's legs — 0/1
“Still not complete, huh.”
I'd patted Ari's head and massaged her legs a little while ago, so I'd briefly hoped that might count toward finishing the training list.
But Ari apparently didn't qualify as a Kore, and the list hadn't updated.
“What the heck is a Kore, anyway?”
Kore.
It was a term the nymphs used to hold certain young ladies in high regard.
Women like Seo Yerim, for instance.
“Pat Seo Yerim's head and massage her legs? Seriously?”
I tried picturing myself patting Seo Yerim's head.
What possible business did I have stroking the head of the Witch of Fire, an S-rank ranked among the five most destructive hunters alive?
It might honestly be easier to reach out and pat the head of the mean pit bull that lived next door.
“And massage her legs, no less.”
My face scrunched up on its own.
A treacherous quest in every sense of the word.
Truly a “training” worthy of the road to heroism.
Vroooooom—.
And with that, the plane touched down on Korean soil.
“Senior, I'll drive you home.”
“You sure? Thanks a bunch.”
Ari, who'd been oddly curt and cynical with me these past few days, started up the engine of her car parked in the airport lot.
Vroom—.
That was when the trouble started.
“This stone tablet is far too heavy to load, so it is…!”
“If only we had a vehicle as spacious as Jina's truck, this would have been easy…!”
“We shall simply stuff it in by force, we do…! Let's do it…!”
The nymphs had come home with one souvenir from Greece.
It was a stone tablet about the size of a compact mini-fridge—flat and broad, with a relief of a woman carved into it: a pointed-eared figure that looked remarkably like a nymph.
The odd part? A long, arrowhead-tipped tail like something out of a demon's—or an anthropomorphized germ's—worst nightmare.
“A nymph with a tail.”
A deeply mysterious stone tablet.
Before long the nymphs managed to wedge the tablet into the trunk of Ari's car, and then piled into the back seat themselves.
I got in the passenger side and buckled my seatbelt.
Vroom—.
Ari barely said a word the entire drive, which made for an incredibly awkward atmosphere.
Back when I'd examined her body recently, she'd said she needed to make a phone call and stepped away. Ever since she'd come back from that call, she'd been like this—staring off at some distant mountain, lapsing into long silences.
Something must have happened.
“Ari, thanks for the ride. And hey, if anything's weighing on you, or you ever need help, just give me a call.”
“Got it. See you next time, Senior.”
Vroom—.
Ari's car pulled out of Taecho Village.
The nymphs waved after it.
“Moralis…! Let's play together again next time…!”
“Next time, let's play hide-and-seek together…!”
“Let's have a talk about making money together, we do…!”
All things considered, had the nymphs actually gotten along well with Moralis, the Muddy Water Nymph?
Anyway.
I breathed in the air of Taecho Village after my long absence and stretched until my joints cracked.
“Home sweet home. Nothing beats it.”
“This Oinoi is also glad to be back home…! Greece was full of old, run-down buildings, and the air conditioning barely worked half the time. Very much not nymph-friendly…!”
“This Coris nearly became a Boiling Water Nymph every time we went somewhere without air conditioning…!”
“Of course…! This Illinoi agrees…! Korea, blessed by the 5th Industry and luckily ranked second in world GDP, is the truly nymph-friendly nation, we do…!”
Apparently the nymphs had come to think of Korea as their home now, too.
There'd been a moment I actually worried about what I'd do if they said, “This Oinoi is a native nymph of Greece…! She wishes to remain here…!”
But no such thing. They seemed entirely free of attachment to the place.
“Let's hurry and display the tailed nymph's stone tablet in the yard…!”
“Good idea, we do…!”
“Let's go home already…!”
And so we arrived back at the Well House.
“Please tell me nothing happened to the house while we were gone.”
When I opened the gate and stepped into the yard, I discovered something spelled out with pebbles and twigs on the ground: my name, Ha Ildo.
It looked like a message—or a distress signal. And I had a pretty good idea who'd written it.
I crossed the apple orchard and headed for the wide rice paddy.
This abandoned field was a place that had witnessed a rather wondrous encounter before.
Just as I remembered, there were the little ants.
━Kyeejee…!
“You called for me?”
I was told these were called wandering ants—or sage ants.
Unlike most ants, which live in settled colonies, these were a breed that preferred to roam from place to place.
And because they traded the things they picked up on their travels for sugar and the like, they were apparently also known as merchant ants.
Once, I'd given these friends a handful of sugar cubes in exchange for the Ant Amber.
It was a mystical gem said to let its bearer understand the speech of insects, though its power only worked at full strength after special processing.
Naturally, not just anyone could perform that processing—even nymphs like Oinoi and Coris couldn't—so I was simply carrying the gem in its raw, uncut state.
“Wasn't there something about just carrying this raising my favorability with insects?”
Slide.
I pulled out the Ant Amber and showed it to the merchant ants.
━Kyeejee…!
At that, the merchant ants let out cries that sounded thoroughly satisfied.
It was the feeling of them saying, “Identity verified…!”
Skitter-skitter.
The merchant ants then began arranging what could only be described as merchandise on an old cloth.
Shards of broken glass.
Perfectly ordinary-looking pebbles.
Plastic beverage caps, and other assorted junk.
The feeling of a huge hoard of things that were wondrous and precious from an ant's point of view?
━Kyeejee…!
The ants seemed to be saying, “If there's anything you'd like to buy, take your pick…!”
But from where I stood it was all just junk, and there wasn't a thing I wanted.
“Got anything else? Is this it?”
━Syoojee…!
━Nyoojee…!
The ants chattered among themselves like they were holding some kind of meeting.
Soon one of them vanished into a nearby burrow, reappeared about a minute later, and held something out to me.
Slide.
It was a card.
You could even call it a card pack for a card game.
“Wait, these are Duelstone cards!”
Duelstone was a two-player card game where monsters with attack and defense points, along with spell cards with special effects, fought until one player knocked the other out first.
Incidentally, it was apparently a joint production between Egypt and Japan.
It had been pretty popular, back when I was in elementary school.
“Whoa, it's been forever. I played the heck out of this as a kid. The Attack of the Ancient Gods pack? They still sell this? Talk about a blast from the past.”
━Kyeejee…!
With my childhood memories rekindled, I decided to buy a card pack from the ants.
Then one of them pointed at a small sign.
On it was a circle, and the number 30.
Maybe it was because I was carrying the Ant Amber, but I felt like I understood the meaning perfectly.
“You want thirty Whispering Coins for it?”
━Kyeejee…!
Ants with a rock-solid grasp of commerce, huh.
Completely capitalist ants.
“Alright, sure. It's not like I have anything to spend these on for a while anyway.”
I handed over thirty Whispering Coins—the ones Keong-keong-i kept fetching back for me—and bought the Attack of the Ancient Gods pack.
I ripped it open on the spot, and what did I find? Five—five—copies in a row of a common card called Death Squirrel, Level 1, with 300/300 attack and defense.
Incidentally, Death Squirrel looked like a dog-squirrel wrapped head to toe in bandages, mummy-style.
“You're kidding. Five copies of the exact same card?”
Something about this smelled like a scam.
Well, that's what card packs were, mostly. You had to buy a bunch of them if you wanted any rares inside.
“Should I buy a few more…?”
As I mulled it over, my eyes finally took in the field where the merchant ants were actually living.
No roof to keep off the rain. Not a patch of shade anywhere.
“Hold on a sec.”
I found a plastic PP crate nearby, lined it snugly with cloth, and handed it over to the ants.
The merchant ants, suddenly in possession of a makeshift campsite, were over the moon.
━Kyeejee…!
“You like it? Then next time, bring me stuff that's a little more useful. I'll give you a fair price in Whispering Coins for it.”
━Kyeejee…!
And so, on my way back after parting with the merchant ants—
“Ahhh…! Is that not a Duelstone card pack I see…!?”
The moment I returned to the Well House, Illinoi—who'd been waiting in the yard for Seo Yerim—fixed her interest on the card pack clutched in my hand. I was more amazed that a nymph even knew what Duelstone was.
“You know what this is?”
“Muhuhu, this Illinoi was once called the sharpest cardsharp of Springfield, she was…! There is no card game she has not mastered, she does…! Did you know that it was this Illinoi who invented Indian Poker, do-you-know…!?”
And thus began the nymphs' dalliance with the world of card games.
A golden desert shimmering under the Egyptian sun.
Standing there, a woman in a white outer robe gazed out over the vast sands and spoke.
“Behold the glory of our works. And you, mighty ones—despair.”
Soft, measured words.
It was a line of verse praising Pharaoh Ozymandias, who was once called the Sun of Egypt and said to have brought prosperity to the desert.
In the age of the gods, when the Pharaoh still walked the earth, temples of gold and oases had glowed beautifully across the desert, and all people sang of hope.
Of course, that brilliant legacy had been buried beneath the sand and the desert wind, leaving nothing behind—a fact that made the whole thing feel almost too hollow for words.
The woman—S-Rank #5, the High Priestess Teto—still held hope in her golden eyes as she looked out over the boundless desert.
Teto asked:
“A pyramid has been discovered in the seas of Greece, has it not?”
At that, a male attendant who'd been standing as motionless as her own shadow bowed his head and answered.
“Yes. The Greeks appear to be trying to monopolize the information, but our people have already finished their own investigation. Apparently one of the stone tablets has surfaced as well. What are your orders? Shall we depart for Greece?”
“No. The tablets found in the Greek pyramids are nothing but stones whose spirits have already fled. That's precisely why they can't be made into cards. All but one. We must go to Korea.”
Teto tapped her phone screen.
Reflected in her golden eyes was a stone tablet carved with the figure of a girl bearing a pointed tail.
A photograph posted to social media by the nymph Illinoi.
“This little tailed spirit shall lead us once more to the prosperity and glory of the age of gods—.”