048 – The Awakeners of the Megatower # 3
Over the past few days, I'd managed to figure something out about nymphs. Namely, that they possessed a powerful instinct to form flocks. Maybe it was because they all carried traits tied to water—ditch water, ice water, and so on. Just as little brooks flow together until they become the vast sea, nymphs loved gathering into one great swarm—a crew, or maybe a family, though who could say which word fit better.
"Coris!"
"Oinoi!"
Coris and Oinoi were exactly like that. I'd assumed that easy sociability was an Oinoi specialty, but now that I looked again, Coris was blending into society just as freely.
"This Coris has found information about her other nymph sisters…! It is now beyond doubt that a nymph sister named Illinoi lives in a land called America…!"
Apparently, Coris—the Ice Water Nymph who'd been under protection at Lee Jina's house these past few days—had been rummaging around the internet too. So it wasn't only Oinoi who looked at the state of Illinois and thought of nymphs. Of course, once Coris learned the truth, she was horrified.
"Hyaaack…! This Coris believed the name Illinois was proof of a nymph sister…! It is tremendously disappointing…."
Coris deflated like a punctured balloon. At the sight of her, Oinoi held out a coin in her hand.
"Coris…! Let us play Mechanical Snail 2…! It is a two-player console, so the two of us can play it well enough, as is plainly the case…! If nymphs join forces, it is certain that we can clear the third installment too…!"
"That is magnificent…!"
The two nymphs made to sit down at the game machine installed in the yard. It was a natural enough scene from every angle, and watching them, Lee Jina—who'd come along as Coris's guardian—asked me:
"Did you call us over so Oinoi could game with her?"
No. There was another reason I'd invited Coris and Lee Jina over today.
"Oinoi, you need to show her that picture from earlier."
"Aah…! That's right…! Coris…! This Oinoi has discovered traces of yet another nymph sister…! And this one is the real deal…!"
With a smooth slide, I pulled up the picture I'd saved on my phone and showed it to Coris.
Cityscape
It looked as though someone had crudely sketched the scenery of Macheon City in crayons. The stars and the moon glittering in the night sky gave it a distinctly Van Gogh sort of feel, if I had to say. Oinoi believed without a shred of doubt that this was a genuine nymph-drawn picture, but I wanted Coris's confirmation too, just to be safe.
"Aah…! A picture this nymph-friendly could only be the handiwork of a nymph…! Judging by this brushwork, I can see the aptitude to evolve into an Ink Nymph…!"
An Ink Nymph? What on earth was that?
When I voiced my curiosity, Oinoi threw both her hands up with a flourish and cried out:
"Ink Nymphs are said to be tremendously good at painting…! This Oinoi, too, longed to evolve into an Ink Nymph when she was very young…!"
So that was it. Nymphs, apparently, all evolved from Ditch Water Nymphs into some manner of "—water Nymph." Coris was an Ice Water Nymph, after all. Come to think of it, I'd heard Ice Water Nymphs carried a cold resistance that let them hold out through the depths of winter without hibernating. Impressive in all sorts of ways.
"We are going to meet yet another nymph sister…! So that our nymph sisters may stand united and never lose to those invasive elves…!"
"This Oinoi thinks so too…!"
The nymphs were in high spirits at the thought of meeting another of their kind. They grew so giddy, in fact, that they plopped right back down in front of the game machine, popped in a hundred-won coin, and started playing.
"Oinoi, throw the bomb…!"
"We're all out…!"
It was an utterly peaceful sight. Soon, Lee Jina, who'd been watching them, turned to me.
"So what's with that picture? There's another nymph? Where?"
"It's only my guess, but listen. Jina, you know Macheon City pretty well, right? Not the corporate district with its soaring towers—I mean the back alleys where the gangs gather, the slum side."
Lee Jina looked like a delinquent to anyone with eyes. The kind of person you'd expect to carry a baseball bat around and swing it at people. So I wondered if she might know something about the gangs that ruled Macheon City—and sure enough, she frowned slightly at my question.
"Do I look like someone who'd know about gangs?"
"You don't?"
"Well, honestly, a few of my acquaintances are in gangs. A couple of my friends too, and my sister's ex-boyfriends—quite a few of them, actually."
Bingo. They say the ones who know pine needles best are the pine caterpillars, after all. Of course it would be Lee Jina who knew all about gangs. Before long, she looked me in the eye and asked:
"Why do you ask? You thinking of joining one? I'd quit that idea if I were you. Macheon City may be weak on public authority, but you'd need more than two lives to survive a gang membership. You should be thinking about earning money through honest work like a normal person."
She wasn't wrong. Still, hearing it from Lee Jina—the loudest-looking acquaintance I had—struck me as oddly surprising. I'd felt it for a while now, but Lee Jina was surprisingly conservative. The girl had to have dated a dozen men by appearance alone, and yet she'd never had a single boyfriend. That kind of thing couldn't be possible without a deeply conservative streak, could it?
Macheon City was a high-crime place. The government had abandoned law enforcement in the area back when the rift damage there had grown catastrophic. Then, once humanity gradually conquered the rifts, the government, in a desperate bid to keep the world's corporations on side, lumped together the rift-ravaged new cities of Gyeonggi Province and granted them unconditional development permits. The result was a lawless forbidden zone where no public authority could reach—a city called Macheon, where anything was possible and anyone might strike it rich overnight. Word was, it was the first success story in the urban planning of the global 5th Industry, and an unprecedented model even to this day.
Lee Jina, however, hated the place.
"I really hated it when this city was built. It's right next to our neighborhood, you know. Criminals from all over the world came flooding in, and they wandered all the way up to our front door."
Flash, flash—neon signs blazed over the back alleys of Macheon City. Lee Jina wove through the crowded lane with practiced ease, past people who seemed to have hoods pulled up a little too often.
"The main streets look pretty with all their shiny buildings, but the back alleys were built shoddy and strange from the fallout of reckless development. Naturally, slums formed in the shadows."
The alleys between the buildings twisted and coiled like something out of a maze. I'd heard this place was crawling with people who'd do anything for the right price. There were plenty of suspicious foreigners too, and a few hard-eyed men drifted toward us.
"Pretty little thing, ain't ya."
"You two on a date?"
"Count me in."
"Touch me and you'll regret it. Piss off."
Lee Jina flipped the middle finger at the bearded Arab-looking men with total aplomb. The display had real force to it, and I felt as though I'd stumbled into a scene from a movie. Something like Nymph City 2077, maybe. Or Nymphrunner 2050 wouldn't be bad either.
"Hey, doesn't strolling around a place like this make you nervous? The security here looks completely shot. Get kidnapped and nobody'd ever know you died, seriously."
I asked, and Lee Jina answered:
"This is a place that eats you alive if you look scared. Anyway, see that factory over there? Before the rift opened, it was a toy factory that made dolls. That's where the person I mentioned is."
Her fingertip pointed to a fairly large building lot. A crowd was murmuring in front of it, and with men clutching clubs or knives tucked into their belts, the atmosphere was anything but reassuring. Security, maybe?
"Who are you people?"
"This isn't somewhere you can just stroll up to."
"Which outfit are you with?"
The moment we approached, a group of women squared up against us with sharp wariness. Then someone burst out from inside—a woman with her hair dyed purple, shouting:
"Jina! My friend! You really came to see me!"
She threw her arms wide and went to embrace Lee Jina, who shoved her right back.
"Jay. Get off me. You reek of cigarettes!"
"That might not be cigarette smell, for the record. Anyway, good to see you! Ah—everyone, stand down. This one's my friend. Not sure about the guy next to her, but an acquaintance, maybe? Whatever! Let's head inside! Inside! You keeping in touch with Seona? I owe that lady a lot from back in the day!"
I followed them into a factory thick with the stench of stale smoke. It was the moment I thanked my luck for leaving Oinoi and Coris in front of the game machine. The air inside was hazy like a chemical decontamination zone, and my throat itched fiercely—yet thanks to the necklace charm Oinoi had given me, no cough came out.
That really was a miraculous charm.
"So, Jina, you decided to take my offer? Those feel-good candies. The candy with no side effects. Partner up with me and we'll sell them together—you'd get rich, I'm telling you! I'll pay you properly for them!"
"Jay. I already told you. I don't make stuff like that."
"Yeah, yeah—you said one bag takes a week to make, right? And it's exhausting work, you said? So I'll pay you a proper price! Come on, how can it not work?"
Traffic Light Candy. Apparently it was an enormously precious commodity. Well, that tracked—though Lee Jina clicked her tongue and said:
"Anyway, that's not why we're here today. And the one with actual business here isn't me. It's this guy next to me."
As I settled onto a threadbare couch, the woman known as J.G—or simply Jay—studied me with a scrunched-up expression. J.G, as a name. She looked Korean, so was she secretly a foreigner?
"Are you a foreigner? Your name's J.G?"
"Nah, I'm Korean. That's just how everyone names themselves around Macheon City."
Cool. It's basically a nickname, isn't it? Maybe I should make one too—I'm Ildo, so… 1Do? I was turning the idea over when the purple-haired woman spoke up.
"Looking at you, you're not a Macheon local, and you're definitely not gang. So what business does someone like me—a lawbreaker—have with you?"
Her strange violet eyes glinted. Now that I looked properly, her pupils were artificial. Some kind of mechanical prosthetic eye?
"Jina, since you brought him, I'll take it on faith that he's not a cop or an infiltrator from another outfit. But we've got procedures here. We don't talk to anyone who isn't brother or sister."
With a smooth motion, J.G fished something out from between the generous cleavage hidden beneath her tank top. It looked like the kind of device an asthma patient might use—and she pressed it to her mouth and went sshhk, spraying.
"Cough, cough! Ha, that's the stuff. Cough."
A Mana Booster, apparently. Booster-type stimulants put the user in a temporary euphoric high, which meant ordinary people were never supposed to touch them carelessly.
The purple-haired woman, J.G, held the device out to me.
"Have a hit. It's not anything illegal."
I see. So this was the ritual that proved one's manhood, was it? I took the device and gave it a light sniff. A bitter, peppery sting shot straight up my nose. It smelled a lot like gunpowder, which dredged up some old memories.
"Made from musk mushrooms out of a rift, I'm guessing. It works for a temporary mana boost, but it can't be good for your health. Depending on the dose you could get hallucinations too."
"Oh, you can tell?"
I took the device and sprayed a hit into my mouth with a crisp tch. It felt like pouring Cheongyang chili oil straight down my throat—a truly terrible sensation—but back in my 1st-generation trainee days, I'd guzzled far worse doping agents. Those hadn't even been refined. I'd drunk them raw.
"You said Jay, right? The quality's better than I expected. Did you make this yourself?"
"Whoa, this guy's something else! He drinks that fire down his throat without so much as blinking! Guts like that—you must throw around some serious strength, huh? That's not the kind of cough you can just hold in, you know!"
A chorus of ooohs rose around me, singing my praises. It was true that the stuff was not, by any stretch, something you could soldier through—yet the effect of Oinoi's charm seemed genuinely remarkable. If a charm like this had existed ten years ago, the rift breakthroughs back then might have gone a lot more smoothly.
Soon, J.G scrunched her face and went rummaging through her cleavage yet again.
"Now my perfumer's pride is hurt. Should I give you a stronger one? Something illegal this time—"
Yeah, no. Illegal drugs were a hard pass. It'd be a real problem if word got around later that I'd been dosed with them. Fortunately, Lee Jina cut her off.
"Hey, we don't have time! Keep spouting nonsense and we're leaving?"
"Ugh, fine! You wanted info on the gang Fairytale, right? Honestly, they've been a headache for us too. Their boss, 'illeGirl,' is a seriously sharp operator!"
illeGirl. It was a name I'd seen in the files Seo Yerim had given me. Did it mean "illegal woman," then?
J.G added:
"Word is she also goes by the name Illinoi. Ever since she showed up, Fairytale grew like crazy out of nowhere. Nobody knows her true identity, but they say she's somebody really extraordinary!"
So it's Illinoi, huh—
Hold on. Illinoi?
"……"
This wasn't a nymph held captive by wicked hunters at all.
The nymph was the boss of the wicked hunters!