027 – When Your Long-Left Home Has Changed # 1
Roughly a fortnight had passed since Lee Jeonghun's ambush.
It wasn't as if I'd obeyed Seo Yerim out of any particular deference, but I kept my head down and stayed out of trouble for the whole two weeks. The sum total of anything noteworthy was accepting a couple of C-rank rift commissions and clearing them without a hitch.
A group chat of C-rank awakeners had formed around me, too. These were the party members from the raid where that Nidhoggr King Lizard had shown up, and I'd teamed up with the same crew for the two rifts I'd just cleared.
The rumor that lots of dog-squirrels lived in my neighborhood was absolutely true. Whether it was the Telos employees who'd come snooping for the data on the well in my yard, or the grandchildren of the local elderly folk, someone had spread it far and wide.
Thanks to that, foot traffic had started picking up bit by bit in a neighborhood that had seen almost no young visitors. Apparently word had gone around the awakener social networks that dog-squirrels could be found in a place called Primeval Village. For a moment I worried we'd become a nuisance to the locals, but to my surprise, the old-timers welcomed the attention.
"So, kids, you want to catch a dog-squirrel, do you? I'm Professor Park, the village head. I'll give you some peanuts — they love peanuts — so go have a good look around. The important thing is to watch the brush closely, all right?"
The village head handed out peanuts and assorted nuts to the children who came with their parents hoping to glimpse a dog-squirrel. The kids roamed the rice paddies and vegetable fields in search of them, and every day a dog-squirrel or two really did leave the village in the company of a new owner!
Everyone was working so hard to raise their dog-squirrels. And of course, I occasionally dipped into the comments under an anonymous account, pretending I knew nothing.
It wasn't me they were admiring, just dog-squirrels in general… but getting this much attention on the internet still felt pretty great!
Anyway. Before I knew it, the weather had warmed into spring. Oinoi stood gazing delightedly at the golden apple tree's new sprout, which had grown all the way up to her knees.
"A warm spring day…! The flowers are blooming, and it is the season when the nymphs wake from their winter slumber — that is what spring has become…! The nymphs who were surely sleeping through the winter will come seeking this Oinoi — of that there can be no doubt…!"
Oinoi's dream, she said, was to find the other nymphs who might still be living in this world. As far as I could tell, Oinoi had been the first nymph ever to fall into this world — but she believed with unshakeable conviction that more of her sisters existed, and I had no intention of shattering that dream. I intended to respect it.
"If I raise the golden apple tree tall and strong until it bears fruit… then surely the nymphs will come flocking, drawn by the scent of its fruit — that is what must happen…. This Oinoi shall tend the tree with all her diligence…!"
The reason Oinoi poured such care into growing the golden apple — the Marmelo — was, she said, so that she could meet the other nymphs. I hoped it worked out for her.
Then a thought struck me.
"So what will you do if you do meet your nymph sisters?"
"Muhahaha — this Oinoi intends to make one of those 'group chats,' just like the master of the house! A nymph chat room for all the nymph sisters…! That is this Oinoi's dream…!"
What a magnificent dream it was. It made me renew my own resolve to climb to greater heights.
"That Lee Jeonghun bastard nearly caused a disaster in more ways than one."
Just remembering it still made my blood run cold. Without Keongkeongi and Ang-angi's help, things could have gotten dangerous in any number of ways. Oinoi had her own two cents to add.
"This Oinoi laments that she did not strike him two more times with Nymph Secret Art: Wild Beatdown…! She wishes she could go find him and pummel him even now…!"
Watching Oinoi glare with her fists curled into little balls, I opened my phone. The moment I got online, headlines the size of barn doors filled the screen.
The True Face of an S-Rank Awakener? Chaebol Heir Tests Positive on Both Counts!
Owner Risk? Ohsa Pharma and Every Affiliate See Stock Prices Plummet—
News about Lee Jeonghun had been pouring out nonstop for days. As if someone had been waiting for the chance, his misdeeds were being flung in every direction, and the result was that he now apparently had a whole docket of trials ahead of him.
"Not a single word about him fighting me, though."
The story of Lee Jeonghun brawling with me and getting hauled off in an ambulance seemed to have been buried as if it had never happened — whether Ohsa Group had swept it under the rug, I couldn't say.
Click.
Thinking back on that day, I touched the beam saber grip at my hip.
"I really should return it."
But it was such a precious item that mailing it in a parcel felt wrong too, so I'd been holding onto it. What was I supposed to do?
"Keongkeongi, Ang-angi. Keep guarding the place. Don't let anyone set foot in the yard."
━Woof-woof…!
━Zzji…!
"To think there are so many buildings this tall…. It is like the towering peaks of Olympus, where the gods themselves dwell — that is what it resembles…!"
Olympus, she said, was the mountain where the gods lived. Curious about this 'god' business Oinoi was always going on about, I asked.
"You ever seen Mount Olympus?"
"In truth, this Oinoi has never laid eyes upon Mount Olympus…! For Olympus is the mountain where the gods dwell…! It might as well be a world entirely apart from a small nymph such as this Oinoi…."
Oinoi deflated with a soft fwah…
The gods Oinoi spoke of were so mighty and so far above her that, it seemed, she couldn't help feeling small beside them. Gods atop a towering mountain, and nymphs living gathered in a tiny forest ditch — yes, they were different classes of being entirely.
"But if this Oinoi were ever to behold those peaks of Olympus, surely they would look exactly like this…! What a magnificent and splendid city it is…!"
Oinoi was utterly delighted by the scenery of Macheon City — the fifth-generation new metropolis that had sprung up near Seoul after the age of rifts began. With no building height restrictions, the city lived up to its name (the characters literally meant 'scraping the sky'), packed with skyscrapers raised by some of the world's greatest corporations.
"The average building here is a hundred stories. Pretty incredible, right? Korea's a fifth-revolution advanced nation, so all the global companies moved in and put up towers."
"A hundred floors…. This Oinoi can scarcely even imagine it…!"
Because the towers blocked out the sunlight and cast the ground into permanent dusk, the city compensated with layer upon layer of neon and signboards, and at night it looked exactly like a demon-city out of the cyberpunk age. Apparently tourists actually came looking for that exact vibe.
"Back in the day, this place had lots of empty lots and farmland, you know."
Skyscrapers this tall, shooting up over land that used to sit unsold like a worthless white elephant. For someone who'd gone to elementary school around here, the sense of a changed world was overwhelming.
Anyway. My reason for visiting this demon-city was simple: Ohsa Group's headquarters stood here.
"Honestly? Part of me wanted to just keep it."
The beam saber. At this point, it was more than fair payment for the thuggery Lee Jeonghun had put me through.
"…No. Actually, it's more than fair."
So, unable to deceive my prickling conscience, I made my way to Ohsa Group to return the weapon. The building was colossal — more floors than I'd ever seen on anything.
"I feel like a total country bumpkin."
"This Oinoi wonders — is this the master of the house's first time in the city of Macheon…?"
"Not the first. But I've barely been here."
The city had only existed for about five years, after all. Back then I'd been deep in my slump, busy digging myself a hole to crawl into.
Ziiiing—
The automatic doors slid open, and as I looked around the headquarters lobby I spotted an information desk. I approached the women working there and spoke up, fidgeting.
"Um, hi. I'm here to return some lost property. It's, ah, Lee Jeonghun's beam saber. You know Lee Jeonghun, right? Fourth son of Ohsa Group, I believe?"
They were sharp, intellectual-looking women, and for some reason that made me nervous. Maybe because of the memory of getting my wallet fleeced, I'd developed a habit of shrinking back a little whenever I faced a woman who looked like she could eat me alive.
Shifty, shifty—
I glanced around awkwardly. The building interior was vast, the people were countless. It was yet another moment of freshly realizing just how filthy rich Lee Jeonghun was. From what I'd heard, Seo Yerim's family company, Telos Group, also had its headquarters here in Macheon City. Now it hit me — these people really did live in a different world from the rest of us. I supposed I could understand how Oinoi had felt, comparing herself to the gods of Olympus and coming up small.
"If it's regarding Mr. Lee Jeonghun… um, sir, could you wait just a moment, please?"
The desk clerk placed a call somewhere. Just as I was allowing myself to hope that returning the beam saber honestly might earn me a gift set of premium hanwoo beef, a cluster of men in black suits appeared out of nowhere.
"This way, please."
They escorted me and Oinoi into an elevator. The elevator climbed endlessly upward. Standing there amid all those men in suits made me feel claustrophobic.
Did a grain of rice packed tight between the sheets of seaweed in a gimbap feel exactly like I did right now?
"We are rising higher and higher into the sky…! This Oinoi feels as though she is soaring aloft astride Zephyrus, the west wind…! It is tremendously, tremendously high…!"
Oinoi seemed delighted by the scenery visible through the elevator's transparent windows.
"No nymph anywhere could have ever ascended a building taller than this Oinoi is right now — that is certain…! This Oinoi feels as though she is riding that thing called an airplane…!"
Our destination was the 164th floor — the level directly beneath the very top of Ohsa Group's headquarters. For a moment I grew dizzy at the sheer vertiginous height—
Ding—
The elevator chimed cheerfully and the doors slid open onto an enormously spacious hall.
"There is a fountain even at this height in the sky…! And water purifiers in such abundance…!"
Oinoi went darting off with a po! While I stood there stunned that they'd actually installed an indoor fountain, someone emerged from between paintings and porcelain crafts whose price tags I couldn't even begin to guess at.
Tap, tap.
It was a woman with neatly groomed amber hair, wearing a white dress — and given the setting, she looked like nothing so much as an angel dwelling in heaven, or perhaps she genuinely was one.
"You're Mr. Ha Ildo, aren't you? My brother's… friend? Nice to meet you. I'm Lee Anna, Lee Jeonghun's younger sister. Do you like coffee? If you'd rather avoid caffeine, I can offer tea?"
The names Lee Anna, coffee, caffeine — each syllable landed with unusual vividness. Was she a foreigner? Looking at her features, she seemed to carry mixed Korean and foreign blood.
"This Oinoi requests a peppermint tea — the kind that calls Menthenoi to mind…! Cool as ditch water in midsummer — that is the kind of peppermint this Oinoi loves…!"
"I'll just have water, please."
I accepted the water. As I was wondering how much that crystal glass might cost, Lee Anna spoke.
"I've heard a great deal about you from my brother. It was ages ago, but he complained that there was a man doing better than him and it made him furious. My brother's always been a rather jealous sort."
"Ah…."
"He can't stand seeing anyone outshine him. Well, everyone in my family is like that. When Macheon's height restrictions were lifted, we were the very first to raise a building here taller than the Burj Dubai."
What exactly was she getting at? I regarded the chaebol heiress warily. My side concern was whether Oinoi would wander off on her own and smash a piece of porcelain or start tearing the paintings apart.
Before long, Lee Anna spoke again.
"My brother Lee Jeonghun was a man who would do anything to stand above other people. He went to shamans for gut rituals, he attended church—"
"I see. A shaman and a church. At once."
I'd heard that overzealous mothers did that sort of thing ahead of their kids' college entrance exams. So even a chaebol heiress steeped in the mystical arts was the same — I was just starting to find him a touch more human when Lee Anna continued, her voice thick with emotion.
"But he is absolutely not the kind of man who would take drugs. That's precisely why he was able to inherit the pharmaceutical company from my father. The things they're saying on TV right now are lies."
"Meaning what, exactly?"
"My brother turned off his GPS and came to find you, didn't he? What happened that day? I'd like you to tell me honestly. For some reason, my brother refuses to say a single word about it."
Had Lee Jeonghun clamped a total lid of silence over what happened that day? If so, then maybe there was no harm in my telling the tale.
But then tears began sliding down Lee Anna's cheeks, and the sight was so pitiful, so wretched, that my heart ached for her. In the end, I told her what I knew. Yap, yap, yap.
When I finished, Lee Anna arched an eyebrow.
"You're telling me two ambulances arrived?"
"Yes. I called to check, and the 119 dispatch center said there'd been some kind of mix-up."
"Two ambulances…."
Something seemed to click in her mind; she summoned a young man who looked like her secretary and murmured some instruction to him. Then she dabbed briskly at the tears streaking her eyes.
"Thank you for telling me. And thank you for bringing back the beam saber. It's an old legacy model with low output, but my brother was oddly attached to that toy-like thing—"
Hold on a moment—
Lee Jeonghun's beam saber was a legacy model? Which meant there was a newer model?
The moment I flinched in shock, Lee Anna looked even more startled.
The chaebol heiress, trembling. Before long, she let out a soft hehe laugh.
"A new model is actually about to launch from our arms division, but it's still in fitting trials. Ah — there is a prototype, actually. Would you like to have it? We can gather field combat data at the same time. Secretary Kim—"
The man in the black suit returned with remarkable technical efficiency, carrying an open case. The moment it opened, there came a clunk and the whir of machinery engaging, revealing a single sleek silver handle lying alone inside.
"It's a blade that charges according to the user's mana. We lowered the unit production cost but improved the performance. Explosion accidents are drastically reduced compared to the old model, and the lifespan is far longer!"
Wait, the old beam sabers had explosion accidents?
Anyway, I now possessed a prototype beam saber — the distilled fruit of Ohsa Group's technological might.
Vmmm—
When I fed it my C-rank mana, the white light it poured out was gorgeous. A weapon that grew stronger in proportion to its wielder's mana rank — how romantic was that?
"Well then. I hope we meet again sometime."
Wave, wave—
Leaving the waving heiress behind, I descended from that Olympus-tall building — hurrying out, truth be told, in case she asked for the beam saber back. Just how much was this thing worth, anyway?
Indulging in such happy imaginings, I headed next for the slum-like sprawl that had grown up beside the city of Macheon. It hadn't started out a slum, but the alleyways — gloomy even at high noon — the neon lights flickering as they blinked on, and the graffiti someone had scrawled wall to wall struck me as distinctly uncanny.
As I walked through the back alleys of this surrealist city, Oinoi asked:
"Master of the house…! This Oinoi wonders where it is we are going now…!"
"My mom and dad's place. It's around here."
How many years had it been since I last went home? Already my stomach was doing somersaults just thinking about it.