Oinoi and the Little Stationery Store # 9
It felt like a neighborhood festival.
People spread mats across the vacant lot nearby, cracking open drinks and grilling meat, and the whole scene was loud, chaotic, and gloriously alive.
"Ten years ago, that's how it was! Time has changed so much since then — all this Fifth Industry talk, whatever it means!"
"So which is better, back then or now?"
"Living's easier these days, sure, but my body was younger and livelier back then!"
Perhaps it was because neighbors reunited after so long simply had too much to say to one another. Nobody could stop talking — and the madam of the moving company, returned to her family's arms after ten whole years, was no exception.
"Seona! It really is you, Seona! You've grown so proper! My own daughter, I can hardly recognize you! When did you get this big? Did you find a job? What about marriage!"
The madam of the moving company swept her daughter into a fierce embrace. It was an overwhelmingly moving sight — moving enough that someone even filmed it on their phone.
Planning to upload it to MeTube, maybe?
"Honey, do you recognize me? Me!"
The owner of the moving company was overjoyed as well. His wife, whom he'd believed dead for ten years, had come back alive — how could he not be?
Was he as happy as I'd been when I climbed from D-Rank to C-Rank? Honestly, he might have been even happier.
Oinoi looked delighted too.
"This Oinoi always suspected there were other nymph sisters in this world…! And now another nymph sister has appeared, which makes Oinoi terribly glad…! It is all thanks to the master of this house…!"
Even though she'd never shown it, Oinoi — the only nymph in this whole world — must have been terribly lonely all this time. Meeting one of her own kind clearly lifted her spirits.
Soon, the Ice Water Nymph Coris spoke up.
"This Coris thanks you for her rescue…! Nymphs never forget the debts they owe…! One day this Coris shall repay this kindness without fail…!"
So that was that.
In the middle of it all, my eyes met the moving company owner's once again. He came over, took my hand, and bowed his head again and again.
"Thank you! I don't know what to say beyond that! If you ever need to move, just say the word — I'll do it for free, anytime! Really, thank you! You've done something enormous. It's as if you brought a dead person back to life!"
When was the last time anyone had thanked me this fervently? It felt like it used to happen now and then, long ago — but ever since I'd been stuck at D-Rank all those years, it seemed to have stopped entirely.
Maybe that was why the whole situation felt so awkward, why I couldn't help wondering — had I really done something worthy of this much gratitude?
I turned my head away, feeling sheepish.
"So, Ari — how is everyone? Some of them were trapped in that rift for ten years, and Jina pushed herself hard during all this too."
Whoosh—.
Yu Ari, who had come after getting my call, rested her fingers on Lee Jina's wrist and was taking her pulse.
Taking a pulse, in this day and age of the Fifth Industry? You might laugh — but Yu Ari possessed the Super-Sense trait, which supposedly let her read a body more precisely than any machine.
"Jina took some internal strain, but she'll recover with plenty of rest. And her mother, Ms. Gong Ju — there's nothing wrong with her health at all. If anything, she's remarkably fit."
"I see."
What a relief.
Soon the Ice Water Nymph Coris approached Yu Ari.
"This Coris asks you to check her health as well…! While trapped, this Coris evolved into an Ice Water Nymph…!"
"Evolved?"
Yu Ari looked thoroughly startled — and I was quite surprised by the situation myself. Because Coris, a nymph, was not particularly afraid of Yu Ari.
Oinoi had always been terrified of her.
Coris, though, seemed unbothered.
"There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with your health."
"Woman in white…! This Coris thanks you…!"
Nymphs really were creatures you could never quite figure out.
Whoosh—.
Then Lee Jina, sleeves rolled up to her wrists, rose from her seat. She let out a long breath, walked over to me, and spoke.
"Thanks. For saving my mom. And for saving me. If it hadn't been for you, I never would have imagined a day like this could come. Honestly? I'd given up."
As she said it, Jina kept glancing down at the ground or kicking a pebble nearby with her toe. Clearly, expressing gratitude wasn't something she was used to.
Pop—.
Then she dashed off toward her family.
Ten years' worth of catching up — she'd have plenty to say.
The next day.
A weekend morning.
"This Oinoi has been gifted a mini car…! They say it comes equipped with a Gold Motor…! Now Oinoi owns an automobile of her very own…!"
Oinoi clutched the square box and was over the moon. Having a car to call her own clearly delighted her.
"But Oinoi does not know how to assemble it…! The instructions are terribly difficult…! A terribly nymph-phobic instruction manual it is…!"
Model car assembly isn't for just anyone, you know.
Even I only had memories of trying it as a little kid and breaking it.
Besides, I'd always played with ready-made RC cars — the kind you just drive around with a controller.
Zoom—.
Soon Oinoi tossed the mini car box into a corner. That girl — the moment her interest died, she just threw it away.
As I picked the box back up, Oinoi turned her attention to the arcade machines lined up outside the stationery store. The kind you played one round for a hundred won.
The game was Mechanical Snail 3.
Hard to believe these still existed anywhere.
Just as I was sinking into nostalgia, Oinoi spoke.
"This Oinoi wishes to try this arcade machine…! And this Oinoi happens to have coins…!"
Jingle—.
Oinoi pulled out her coin purse. Inside were coins she'd collected from the yard, from under the bed, from the desk drawer.
According to Oinoi, "These sponsored coins keep appearing from somewhere…!" — which, honestly, I couldn't make heads or tails of.
Clunk—.
Oinoi inserted a hundred won and then sat bolt upright in front of the machine, perfectly still. She often did that when she didn't know something — just sat there, silent.
"That one shoots. That one jumps. That one drops bombs. And you move with this stick-looking thing."
I taught Oinoi how to play.
"Ahh—! So that is how it is…! This Oinoi shall fire this gun thing…!"
The moment the game started, she was killed by the swarming mutant crab monsters. Her hundred won vanished in an instant, and Oinoi threw an absolute fit.
"This game is worse than Minesweeper…! The hundred won Oinoi worked so hard to find and collect is simply gone…! Hieeek…!"
"That's how it works. In exchange, skilled players can stretch one hundred won a long, long way."
"Oinoi…!"
Just then, someone waved at her from far off. It was the Ice Water Nymph Coris. She'd spent the night at Jina's house with her mother, right?
Word was that the two of them, having survived the rift together for ten years, had grown into something like family.
"What were you two up to?"
Jina asked me, yawning wearily. She looked like she hadn't slept much — no doubt the family had stayed up all night trading stories.
I pointed at Oinoi.
"Teaching her how to play games."
"Really? By the way — when your nymph first came to live with you, did you have to teach her how to use a shower too? And the water purifier?"
For some reason, I could picture it all too vividly.
As I nodded, Jina's eyes landed on the mini car assembly box I was holding.
"Oh, what's that — a mini car? The fifteen-thousand-won one. You building it?"
"No."
"Mind if I do it?"
Jina borrowed a screwdriver, some glue, and a lighter from the stationery store, sat down right there — and in less than an hour had the mini car fully assembled.
And in less than an hour, Oinoi had blown five thousand won at the arcade.
"Hieeek…! This Oinoi's wallet keeps shrinking…! These nymph-phobic crabs keep killing Oinoi and Coris left and right…!"
"This arcade machine is tremendously fun…!"
One nymph could get a bit noisy at times — but with two of them together, the chatter was twice as relentless. Jina handed the assembled mini car over to Oinoi.
"Here. Take it for a spin on that track over there. This here is the switch."
"Ahh, what a magnificent automobile…!"
Zoom—.
The moment Oinoi pressed the button, the mini car rumbled to life.
She set the little vehicle down on the paint-scraped track, and it whirled around and around at astonishing speed.
Zooom, zoom-zoom—.
Oinoi was nearly out of her mind with joy.
"It is unbelievably fast…! Surely no nymph in existence owns a car faster than Oinoi's…! Truly magnificent…!"
"This Coris confesses she is jealous of Oinoi…!"
Nymphs, it turned out, were still brimming with childlike wonder — exactly as they looked.
I'd had my own era of going wild over toy cars too.
As I thought that, Jina spoke up.
"I've loved cars since I was little. Or to be precise, anything with wheels. That's why I never complained about the moving company work — but there was something else I truly wanted to do."
"Oh?"
"So starting now, I'm going to try again. People chase new dreams at older ages than mine all the time — at my age, I'm plenty young enough."
"You do realize you're saying that to someone who's still twenty-seven. Not exactly old, you know."
"This whole thing — really, thank you. Here, take this."
Whoosh—.
Jina held out a candy to me. The classic junk-store kind — a single bag holding three traffic-light-colored candies.
Red, blue, and yellow.
Now that was a nostalgic sight.
"Thanks."
"They're not just candy. I've infused them with my mana. Eat them and your emotions will shift depending on the color. Red makes you furious, blue calms you down, and yellow's a mood-lifter."
A candy that makes you feel good—.
Which, on the merits alone, sounded like a wildly illegal product.
Jina added, almost as an afterthought,
"For the record, feed someone the yellow one and their affinity toward you can tick up a little. Nothing dramatic, mind you."
"Impressive. As it happens, there's someone I'd like to get closer to."
Just imagining feeding that yellow candy to that someone already put me in a good mood. Made me want to hurry home, honestly.
Watching me, Jina said,
"So you've got someone to feed them to, huh. You got somebody you like?"
"No, not really? Never had the time, and the circumstances were never right."
"Huh. Fair enough. Then whenever you need more of those candies, just say the word. I'll cut you a special deal — ten thousand won a bag."
"Ten thousand won for a hundred-won candy?"
Wasn't that a straight-up ripoff?
When I said it half-jokingly, Jina replied,
"Hey, that candy's three hundred fifty won. And there's the generational gap again."
Jina stuck her tongue out at me, teasing — bleh.
Resting on it was a pink candy.
"What does the pink one do?"
"Not telling."
"So this is the anger candy, huh?"
On my way back to the well house, I sat down in the living room, popped the red candy into my mouth, and bit down slowly. Immediately a faint wave of anger began rising inside me, and my mind sharpened to a fine edge.
Like an adrenaline surge?
My fighting spirit came roaring up.
Right now, I felt like I could march into that cantankerous shop owner's store and demand a refund without a shred of hesitation. Like I could confront my landlord about fixing a broken door. I even felt like I could dance right out in the street.
"Very nice. Now let's see what the blue one does."
This time I bit into the blue candy.
As if the anger had never existed at all, my mood settled into perfect calm in an instant.
It felt like someone had dumped ice water over my head.
"Whoa. These could genuinely be useful in combat."
The Traffic Light Candy's effects were the real deal.
Which meant — what about yellow?
Eat yellow and your mood lifts, right?
It could even raise someone's affinity toward you?
"Then there's only one creature worth feeding this to. Heh heh heh—."
Rubbing my palms together, I opened the window.
I cocked my ears, and sure enough, a racket came drifting in.
Kwang-kwang…!
An animal's cry.
Kwang-kwangi.
A creature I'd named myself — a beast that wasn't a Dog-Squirrel, one that battled Keongkeongi, the Prime Dog-Squirrel of Primeval Village, day in and day out over territorial rights to the neighborhood.
What if I fed this yellow candy to that creature?
Then maybe — just maybe — I could tame an animal powerful enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Keongkeongi himself.
I looked out over the yard.
The arcade machine from the stationery store had been set up out there, and Oinoi was hard at work playing Mechanical Snail 2.
"Hieeek…! Nymph-phobic mummies keep appearing…! The coins sponsored to Oinoi keep vanishing thanks to these mummies…!"
"Oinoi, I told you there's a good chance Kwang-kwangi isn't a Dog-Squirrel, remember?"
"Oinoi did hear that…! But more importantly, this 2 Percent drink is tremendously nymph-friendly and delicious…! The master of the house commands you to buy more…!"
"What on earth kind of animal is Kwang-kwangi?"
The neighborhood grandmas and grandpas had only ever heard its cries — not one of them had laid eyes on it. The only being who actually knew of its existence was Keongkeongi, who fought with it every single day.
"Kwang-kwangi probably has an extraordinarily high guard against humans. Keongkeongi, what do you think?"
Keong-keong…!
"I see. Very illuminating. Too bad I have absolutely no idea what you're saying."
I set up drones along the trails, the fields, and the rice paddies Kwang-kwangi frequented most. These little scouts would catch its true form on camera for me.
Heh heh heh — I waited for time to pass, brimming over with anticipation.