002 – The Nymph Oinoi # 2

Near Daehangno.

A room with a monthly rent of 350,000 won and a deposit of 3 million.

Opening the door, you were greeted by a cramped kitchen sink counter facing the entryway, with a sliding door dividing off the main room.

Screeeeech—.

Slide that door open and the studio apartment revealed itself: a bed, a desk, and a refrigerator packed in so tight there was barely room to stand.

Behold — my joyful home.

Whiiiine—.

As if it knew I'd arrived, the nearly empty refrigerator bellowed a deafening hum to welcome me back.

The room was freezing cold, too, like someone had left the window open on their way out. The thermometer read thirteen degrees.

"Thirteen degrees indoors? Are you kidding m—"

The boiler system had apparently broken down.

Should I tell my landlady the boiler was busted? But I didn't have the guts for it. Because if my math was right, I was now three months behind on rent.

"It is so warm…!"

Just then, the little thing that had been scampering at my heels trotted into the room and rejoiced mightily.

The boiler might be broken, but to this 'nymph' — who'd been shivering barefoot out in the cold — even an indoor temperature like this felt positively toasty.

"I couldn't just leave you out there, so I brought you in, but…."

Should I report this to the police?

Ever since the rifts opened, "Drifters" — or "Wanderers" — had been appearing on twenty-first-century Earth with some regularity. Elves, dwarves, and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like: folks who seemed to have walked straight out of a storybook, often called demi-humans.

When they first showed up, the newspapers and broadcasts couldn't stop screaming about them, but now that their existence had settled into something like everyday life, laws and policies regarding demi-humans were more or less in place. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠If you found one, you reported it to the police, and government officials handled the rest — that was the system. In Korea, somewhere like the National Intelligence Service would interview the demi-humans, run them through various investigations, set them up with a place to live… something like that, anyway.

Ten years a veteran, yet this was my first time actually picking one up, so honestly, I was pretty rattled myself.

"…I suppose I'd better call the police."

I had just murmured that to myself, feeling thoroughly conflicted, when—

Honey-haired Oinoi flinched and shuddered like a cat that had taken a bee sting to the nose, her face frozen in sheer horror.

"Neeeigh…! The police are a thing Oinoi detests…! The police tried to seize this Oinoi, that is what happened…! If the hunters seize Oinoi, terrible things will befall her…!"

What on earth was that supposed to mean?

Every time this creature opened her mouth, I felt the common sense I'd spent years carefully stacking up tremble beneath me. So this is what people meant by the room spinning around you.

"Do you even know what the police are?"

I asked, and Oinoi answered with the utmost gravity.

"This Oinoi… was strolling through the forest with her nymph sisters, when… suddenly a light flashed before her eyes, and when she came to her senses, she was in a strange place…!"

I sensed she was about to say something important.

So I quickly turned on my phone's voice recorder. Seeing Seo Yerim's newly saved number in my contacts nearly twisted my stomach inside out, but I managed to hold it together.

"This Oinoi… was by nature a nymph who hibernated when winter came, that is the truth of it…! Cast suddenly into a world of winter, she was dreadfully cold and dreadfully hungry…!"

"And then?"

"And so she ate the food displayed in abundance upon the streets…! Whereupon the people raged furiously and summoned those called the police…!"

So that was it.

Oinoi had helped herself to merchandise on display in a shop without paying. A classic Drifter story. I didn't know what kind of shop it was, but from the owner's perspective, calling the cops was probably the best move.

There had apparently been a bit of a scuffle in the process, though.

"Oinoi… wanted to return to her forest, so she ran and ran…! But no matter how far she wandered, the forest was nowhere to be seen…!"

Having fled like that, Oinoi said she'd dodged through the neon lights of the city, avoiding people and drifting toward somewhere quiet. There she'd been rummaging through the recycling bags when she ran into me — and that was the whole of it.

Hearing her story out, I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy.

"First things first — go wash up."

Unsurprisingly for someone who'd been digging through trash bags, the nymph was a grimy mess. I shoved her into the combined toilet-and-bathroom, then slumped into my chair and booted up the computer.

Vrrrooom—.

The ancient machine clattered to life with a noise like a whirring fan, and when the screen finally appeared, I opened a browser and searched for "nymph."

"Greek and Roman mythology, huh."

That much I knew. Among boys my age, hardly anyone had never read one of those educational comics about Greek myth.

But the memories were so old that the details had long since blurred, so I read the words on the monitor aloud, slowly and carefully.

"Goddess? Maiden? Bride?"

Not a single one of those words matched the nymph Oinoi I knew.

So I knocked on the bathroom door and asked her.

"Hey. Are you actually a nymph?"

I waited a good while for an answer, but the bathroom stayed silent.

Too silent.

"Did she collapse?"

A jolt of fear shot through me.

After all, I'd heard that going from bitter cold into sudden warmth could loosen constricted blood vessels all at once and knock a person out cold.

If the nymph Oinoi keeled over and her life suddenly hung by a thread, then I — the self-appointed first discoverer and temporary guardian — would obviously be on the hook for every last bit of it.

"Hey!"

Bang—.

I flung the bathroom door open.

There stood Oinoi, rooted exactly where I'd left her, staring blankly into space. What on earth? Seeing my face, she spoke.

"A small chamber, yet all the better for it…! This Oinoi was not yet sleepy, and so was not sleeping…!"

Chamber? Sleeping?

I was still puzzling over it when I realized a small misunderstanding had sprung up between us. The creature had gotten the wrong idea about how this toilet-slash-bathroom was supposed to be used.

Left with no choice, I stepped in and turned on the shower.

Shaaaaa—.

It was frigid. Absolutely glacial.

"Yeowch, damn it!"

Was the boiler's hot water line broken too?

Just as I was standing there flustered on every front, contemplating how a bath was officially off the table, Oinoi went rigid with shock. Then, staring at the showerhead, she began to rejoice enormously.

"Water, falling from the sky…! This Oinoi has never beheld such a wondrous contrivance…! Like a tiny waterfall, it is a marvel…!"

She dove straight under the freezing stream — plip! — and began splashing about with abandon, looking for all the world like a mackerel that had been drying out and finally found water.

Is that a weird image?

"Mmheheh, to provide such splendid water…! The master of this house must surely be a good and virtuous person…! Nymphs do not forget their debts of gratitude, that is the law…! This Oinoi shall repay this kindness without fail…!"

"…."

Shaaaaaaa—.

Anyway, the cold water pouring from the shower seemed to suit Oinoi like rain on a drought-stricken field. Even now, a good thirty minutes later, she was still taking her bath — fully clothed, in freezing water.

"The water bill… the government will subsidize that, right?"

I had plenty I wanted to say, but instead I just stepped back out into the main room and sat down in front of the computer again.

Click—.

I navigated to a social media site exclusive to awakeners — one you could only join after passing hunter verification, with roughly half a million registered users in South Korea these days.

Verification was required to sign up, but every post was written under thorough anonymity, which made it one of the most information-dense corners of the internet.

Post after post scrolled up the screen.

There were plenty of threads I was tempted to click, but I went for the search bar instead.

I'd just about typed "nymph" when my hand froze for a moment.

"…."

My past searches floated up one after another.

With the ease of long habit, I clicked my own name — Ha Ildo — and ran the search. My chest was pounding in every possible way and my vision was starting to swim when the results loaded almost instantly.

"…Yeah, figured."

Half relief, half disappointment.

I gathered myself and searched "nymph."

This time I searched "elf."

There was no shortage of posts mentioning elves. But no matter how many times I searched "nymph," not a single word about them ever came up.

Which meant…

"A nymph is a first?"

Wanderers drifting into this world were a reasonably common sight these days. They showed up on TV, on MeTube — they'd become familiar enough, at least to a degree.

But after searching every which way, a "nymph" was a genuine first.

Even as I thought great, I've gone and tangled myself up with trouble, I felt a faint warmth rise in my chest.

"Would there be… a reward?"

I needed money. Back when I'd been the very first D-Rank hunter, raking in cash hand over fist, I'd splurged on luxuries on the hunch that the glory would last forever.

Now D-Rank freelancers were a dime a dozen, and if you pulled in 3 million won a month you were doing well…

Creeeak—.

Just then the door opened.

Oinoi appeared, dripping cold water everywhere.

"Her vigor returns…!"

"Want a towel?"

I held out the long shower towel I'd once bought with such optimism and never once used. Oinoi, apparently fascinated by its fluffy texture, marveled — "Oooh…! Fabric this soft, such a thing exists…!" — and scrubbed herself down.

Her raggedy long T-shirt, of course, stayed soaked through.

"Here, take these."

It wasn't as if I was short on spare clothes. I handed her an old tracksuit.

"To gift even clothing to this Oinoi… how kind the master of this house is…! Nymphs never forget a kindness, that is the law of them…! This Oinoi shall not forget, and shall surely repay this debt…!"

Click—.

I muttered something noncommittal and, avoiding my eyes as she changed clothes, turned up the temperature on the heating pad laid across my bed.

Before I knew it, the freshly dressed Oinoi slipped under the warmed covers — "Aaah, th-this is…!" — gasped in astonishment, and then melted like a snowman, every last ounce of wariness dissolving from her body.

"Warmth like this… it is like… ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like the hearth-fire on Lady Hestia's hill, where this Oinoi once… the master of this house… a curse…."

And with that, Oinoi was out cold.

Snoring away — grrrrrnnnk — she must have been utterly exhausted.

"…Said she'd curse me?"

The word "curse" tumbling out of Oinoi's mouth right before she dropped off bugged me quite a bit.

I considered waking her to ask, but decided against it. Instead, I resolved to dig deeper into the internet. If I was going to be a Drifter's temporary guardian, I wanted to know what that actually entailed.

And I was curious about the reward money.

The search history scrolled up in a rush.

Once again my hand moved, and I clicked the name written at the very top. I pressed Enter, and after a moment of loading, not a single post appeared—

My heart began to pound, and my hands and feet started trembling.

Knowing full well I shouldn't — and yet, as if something had taken hold of me — I clicked the post.