Welcoming Autumn with the Nymphs # 1
“Muheheh, this Barbarbar has decided she shall live with Princess Irae…! To see her so faithfully followed by such a rare ghostly raccoon as the Nightmare Raccoon is proof that Princess Irae has a gift for black magic and necromancy…!”
Barbarbar wanted to follow Ha Irae. Apparently she'd glimpsed some spark of talent in my newly awakened sister, and wished to nurture and polish it with her own hands.
As someone temporarily sheltering the imp Barbarbar, I figured this was a pretty good arrangement.
Barbarbar described herself as a little demon, but from several days of observation, she was every bit as kind-hearted as the nymphs. She had a few odd quirks, sure, but at her core she was a good-natured friend. With someone like her around, Irae and my parents would take good care of her.
“I too shall reach the very pinnacle of trainers alongside Leaf the raccoon…! All of you had better watch out…! Before you know it, I might shoot straight up to S-Rank and be hailed as the Raccoon's Irae!”
━Keong-keong…!
Ha Irae snatched up the Nightmare Raccoon nestled in her arms and hurled it into the air like a yut stick from a board game, shouting all the while.
“Leaf! Aim for that tree and use Raccoon Flames…!”
Fwoosh—
Several violet flames spun into being around the raccoon's body. They drifted lazily through the air, struck the tree, and left a scorch mark behind.
Adorable little power there.
Ang-ang-i's Zjeuji Slice would have chopped that tree clean down to its roots.
━Zjeuji…!
Yet Ha Irae trembled all over at the sight of that modest display of force.
“Hiiiii…! It's AMAZING…!”
━Keong-keong…!
Leaf and Irae had evidently grown fond of each other already. For the record, “Leaf” was the name Irae herself had given the raccoon. And here I'd thought I was clever, naming Keongkeongi after its own bark—keong-keong.
“Princess Irae shall henceforth hone her black magic and necromancy to carve out a niche market of princess power…! This Barbarbar vows to assist…!”
“I don't really get it, but sounds fun! Now I've got a cute animal and a nymph with a tail!”
“This Barbarbar is not a nymph but a comrade, the Top Imp and Bonfire Imp known as Barbarbar…! You must clearly recognize the difference between the two…!”
Anyway.
And so Ha Irae acquired one imp and one Nightmare Raccoon. For a beginner party of an F-Rank awakener, it felt a touch extravagant and formidable.
Barbarbar's mysterious knowledge. And the peculiar, unsettling power of a Nightmare Raccoon. If she could put those two assets to good use, then just as I'd shot up from eternal D-Rank to A-Rank the moment I met Oinoi, Irae too would be able to level up with ease.
“Hey, Ha Ildo. You sure about this? Something about that looks shaky to me.”
Still, Lee Jina narrowed her slender eyes and murmured quietly to me. She meant, of course, that my little sister making all that racket looked like a disaster waiting to happen.
“Like she's bound to cause some kind of accident sooner or later?”
“Exactly that.”
“Let her be. Irae's been the type to lose interest in everything since she was little—she'd be lucky to last a few weeks. She doesn't much care for hard work. Trust me, I'd know.”
The life of an awakener was, in truth, a continuous grind. Even the S-Rank awakeners blessed with talent—which is to say, chosen by it—were surely sweating and bleeding in places no one could see, honing themselves relentlessly.
But my little sister Irae wasn't fond of that kind of effort, and I fully expected her to grow bored of awakener life and lose interest within a few weeks.
Then again, whatever. As an F-Rank awakener, the rank would at least pad out the résumé she'd need for ordinary employment. She wouldn't starve even if she never really pursued the hunter life. With physical abilities well beyond an average person's, she could even make a name for herself as an ace at a logistics company or a construction site.
“Ha Ildo, thanks for helping me move. Tch, would've been rough doing that alone. Weird raccoon popping out of nowhere and everything. Anyway, let's hit a rift soon and rake in some serious money.”
Crack-crack—
Lee Jina clenched her fists, brimming with drive. Buying the house had drained her bank account to the bottom, so no wonder she was eager to build her savings back up.
“Sounds good.”
I was happy to enter rifts with Jina too. Maybe it was because the established A-Rankers guarded their turf, but for some reason I'd had a strangely hard time getting into A-Rank rift parties. They just wouldn't take me.
It felt exactly like being turned down for party invites in an old online RPG because of your "weak" class. Which meant Jina and I would just have to party up as a duo, push through the gatekeeping, and prove ourselves. Once we racked up results, the A-Rankers would surely quit their petty little shunning. After all, no one's fool enough not to realize that it pays far better to shake hands with the strong than to hold a grudge against them.
That was precisely why, back in my eternal D-Rank days, I'd kept getting work from Seo Yerim's Telos Group despite all the abuse. In any case, Jina's move went off without a hitch.
The crisp cool of autumn.
Sssssss—
There was a hint of winter in the wind that blew in, earlier than I'd expected.
“Looks like this winter's going to be a brutal one.”
Autumn was the season of grain and harvest.
They said it was when delicious fruits came into season in abundance, and when dog-squirrels and nymphs alike grew plump and happy.
“Mureungchyu…!”
Oinoi, who had been harvesting the marmelo fruit from the golden apple tree in the yard, made a very strange sound. For a moment I thought she was chanting some kind of spell—until I saw her sniffling, a trickle of snot running down.
“A sneeze has occurred…! This Oinoi knows not why autumn grows cold so swiftly…! It feels as though a cold shall befall her…! Mureungchyu…!”
What a peculiar sneeze.
I couldn't tell whether all nymphs sneezed strangely or if it was just Oinoi. My guess would be the former, but who knows.
“This Oinoi is a nymph of magnificent honey-colored hair, radiant as the blazing midday sun…! Summer nymphs are usually at their most lively in summer, but they grow terribly weak in the cold of winter…!”
I see.
Apparently nymphs grew stronger or weaker depending on the season of their birth. Oinoi was a summer nymph, born in summer—and as such, her affinity with winter was poor.
Chomp-chomp—
Perhaps that was why Oinoi spent her days tearing open bags of chocolate, scarfing down snacks, and polishing off ice cream, as if trying to stockpile calories on her body. She looked exactly like a bear or a squirrel fattening up for hibernation.
In fact, they said cold-sensitive nymphs like Oinoi really did hibernate through the winter!
“Oinoi, planning to hibernate this year?”
“Muheheh, there shall be no need…! For in this capitalistic society overflowing with the latest marvels of the twenty-first century, there exist magical implements known as the heater and the boiler…!”
Hard to argue with that.
And what about Keongkeongi, a dog-squirrel that would hibernate just like the wild ones? Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch— Keongkeongi was busy punching holes all over the yard with her front paws. I'd often watched squirrel MeTube videos, and they said squirrels burrow into the ground to sleep through the winter.
“You hibernating too, Keongkeongi?”
I felt a flicker of worry. For squirrels, hibernation was a survival strategy—and at the same time, an incredibly dangerous gamble. A fair number of squirrels closed their eyes for the winter and simply never woke up again.
As I watched Keongkeongi with faint concern, Oinoi puffed out her chest with great pride and went muheheh.
“Keongkeongi digs not for hibernation but simply because she loves digging…! With a cozy boiler at hand, Keongkeongi has no need to sleep the winter away…!”
“Is that so?”
Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch—
Now that I looked closer, Keongkeongi really did just seem to love digging with her front paws. She went at it with the joy of someone for whom digging the earth was one of life's great pleasures.
━Keong-keong…!
Flap-flap-flap!
Just then came a loud beating of wings. The moment a shadow fell abruptly over my head, something swooped down and pounced at Keongkeongi.
━Hoo, hoo…!
It was Calinoi.
She'd been flying free for the past several days, rarely seen around the house, but apparently today she'd come home. And her first order of business was pouncing at Keongkeongi. She sometimes did flight practice, after all, spreading her wings and swooping down to grab Keongkeongi.
━Kreureung…!
Of course, every time she did, Keongkeongi made a furious, teeth-baring noise and dove into hiding somewhere new. Today's escape route was one of the tunnels she'd dug so diligently, into which she vanished with a whoosh. A very nimble performance—and Calinoi, having lost her quarry, went waddling back and forth across the yard, looking for all the world like one of Antarctica's gentlemanly penguins.
A penguin, honestly.
“Calinoi, haven't you put on a bit of weight?”
The Tiger Owl Calinoi was sometimes called the phoenix of all phoenixes—hence Bonbon Calinoi. Her frame had always been on the large side, but after a few days out of sight she seemed to have grown even rounder. Had she gained weight?
Soon Oinoi explained.
“Tiger owls sometimes fluff up their feathers for the winter hunt…! They adapt to their environment in order to survive the cold…! It is called down plumage…!”
I see. So this was Calinoi's winter mode.
“Her agility and sleekness seem to have dropped considerably, but the added weight means her raw strength and durability look like they've gone up in exchange.”
Was my assessment on the mark? Calinoi hopped onto a nearby box, spread her wings wide, and let out a proud, piercing pi-reureureu cry, as if to say she was magnificent beyond measure.
Oinoi approached her and began brushing the owl's body with a large owl-specific comb. Soon fluffy white down, like goose or duck feathers, began to catch in the bristles, and Oinoi carefully gathered it all up and packed it into a sack.
“The down of a tiger owl can be woven into a warm winter coat…! This Oinoi must strive toward a winter spent not sleeping, but awake and warm…!”
━Hioong…!
━Mioong…!
Oinoi set to work spinning thread with the spiders and sewing it all together. She looked surprisingly practiced at it, so steady and serene that watching her was almost meditative.
Anyway—it was autumn. A season of preparing for winter, and I did my part too: splitting firewood, and delivering hand warmers to Director Bang Saenghyeon, now a hermit of the apple orchard.
“Eat up, all of you.”
For the wild dog-squirrels, honey ants, wolf spiders, and tiger owls living in Taecho Village, I lit a bonfire in an abandoned field and heaped it high with almonds and acorns.
For all its ups and downs, it was a smooth, untroubled autumn. Far richer than last year's, when I'd suffered as an eternal D-Rank—I was lounging in the abundance of it all, yawning as I stared at my phone, when I saw it.
Signs of major upheaval in the long-settled S-Rank rankings!? Media fixates on a looming battle for rank among S-Rankers—
“A battle for rank, you say?”