058 – The Nymphs Eat Apple Pie! # 2
A box.
It was a wooden chest, the kind that looked like something a pirate might have stashed away, locked with a bronze padlock that gave off a distinctly antique air.
"I think I can get this open."
Swish—
Ari plucked a paperclip from the bundle of documents she was holding. She straightened it out, bent it this way and that, slid it into the lock, and gave it a few delicate rattles—until click, the padlock popped open.
"That's impressive."
So Ari had that kind of skill up her sleeve too. Good instincts really did let a person do just about anything.
"Che, you could stand to be a little more amazed, you know."
"Ooooh! Genuinely amazing!"
When I obliged with praise, Ari let out a hehe—laugh that seemed half embarrassed.
Creeeak—
The box finally opened. I couldn't help wondering what could possibly be inside that the tree monsters called Stumps had guarded it so fiercely. My curiosity was answered soon enough.
The chest held an assortment of odds and ends: a black comb, a pin made of white flowers, and a doll that appeared to have been carved from wood. The doll depicted two figures—a man and a woman holding hands.
It was Oinoi who took the greatest interest in the wooden doll.
"This is a most excellent charm…! A talisman that grants good fortune to those setting out on a long journey, it is…! If one possesses this… the probability of encountering a cool breeze rises considerably, it does…!"
A charm that raises your odds of meeting a cool breeze. Well, if Oinoi says so, it must be true. All things considered, a fine item to carry around in summer.
"Behold this comb, it is…! A very nymph-fabulous article, it is…! It appears to be a comb carved and lacquered from a palm tree of great, great age, it does…."
Swish—
Illinoi picked up the comb. A few strands of hair were tangled in its teeth—probably belonging to the chest's original owner. The hair caught the light and shimmered a beautiful gold.
Fwoosh—
But only for a moment. Then the breeze sweeping through swept the strands away, and they were gone.
"As for this comb, it is…! A comb steeped in nymph blessing, it is…! Its effect is to help one… fry eggs well… a thoroughly useless thing, it is…! And yet I like it, I do…! I, Illinoi, hereby self-cook and dismiss my egg-fry grudge…!"
Swish—
This time it was Coris who picked up the flower pin.
"Such a pretty flower pin, it is…! I have decided it suits this Coris wonderfully…!"
Swish—
Coris was already wearing the pin in her hair, as if it had become hers the moment she laid eyes on it. It did suit her—but I found myself in a slightly awkward position. The nymphs had each claimed something and seemed delighted with their prizes, but the matter of who actually owned this box's contents was complicated in any number of ways. After all, there were a lot of us here. The F-rank recruits had put in a fair share of the work too.
But Bae Huseong, the recruits' squad leader, spoke up calmly.
"Please, take them. If it weren't for the nymphs, this treasure would never have been found—and it was you seniors who felled the trees, wasn't it?"
Was it really okay, though? It felt almost too generous a deal for the nymphs, and I felt a twinge of guilt. I'm the adult here, and the recruits are just kids. And yet, they weren't just kids, were they?
"You all fought well."
I'd half expected them to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but these kids had stepped up to protect the nymphs. That fact reminded me of myself ten years ago, and it genuinely moved me. These kids were going to go far. Maybe one of them would even catch up to me someday—
Which meant I'd better keep working hard myself.
Swish—
Just then, Oinoi pulled something else from the box. It was a round bread—or perhaps "pie" was the better word for it.
"Aaah—! This is, without a doubt, a pie made of golden apple, it is…! If we all share it together, it is certain to be tremendously delicious…!"
A pie made of golden apple? A name that certainly piqued my curiosity. But was it actually safe to eat something that had been sitting in that ancient chest? Who knew how old the food was.
"Hmm, it seems fine? It hasn't gone bad at all."
Ari said something remarkable just then. A pie fished out of a suspicious box, apparently fit for consumption with no issues whatsoever. Was that even possible?
I looked at the chest. "That box has a special shape about it. The box itself might be a bigger treasure than anything inside it—it could extend the preservation time of its contents by an absurd amount, or something like that—"
"This Oinoi will slice the pie so that everyone may eat an equal share, she will…!"
Snip snip—
Oinoi cut the golden apple pie into as many pieces as there were people present. The crust was crisp, the inside soft and fluffy, and the apple chunks within were satisfyingly large. As for the taste—
It was wonderfully tart and sweet. Of all the apple desserts I'd ever eaten, it had the strongest, richest flavor. Absolutely delicious.
"This is a very nymph-friendly tasty, it is…! That the flavor of that treacherous golden apple becomes this delicious merely by being baked into a pie is truly astonishing, it is…!"
Tell me about it. I'd eaten a golden apple myself, so I knew—it had been a genuinely terrible taste. And yet, through some mystical process of cooking, it had turned into this?
"I suppose that means anyone, with enough effort, holds the potential to transform into something amazing."
After that, once all the various procedures were wrapped up, the nymphs' training came to an end. Thinking back on it now, I'd come to Nonsan with a light heart, but so much had happened along the way.
"It was tremendously fun, it was…! I had no idea this thing called the military was such an entertaining place, I did not…! Oinoi wishes to come play again, she does…!"
"This Ice Water Coris has taken a great liking to that frozen food from the PX, she has…! Frozen… such a wonderfully Coris-friendly word, it is…!"
"As for me, Illinoi, I have not yet forgotten my egg-fry grudge, I have not…! I wrote furiously in my letter home, demanding they bake fried eggs instead of boiled ones, I did…! Also, the training was far too easy, it was…! Therefore I wrote furiously in my letter demanding that future training be harder, better, faster, stronger, I did…!"
I confiscated the letters Illinoi had written. Though no one would ever realize it, by doing so I had saved countless people from untold suffering. It was, in its own way, the completion of a world where no one gets hurt. God bless.
And with that, the nymphs' training was officially over. As proof of their completed service, the nymphs each received an army cap, and every one of them tried it on and was utterly delighted.
━Woof-woof…!
Keongkeongi, too, seemed in high spirits at the thought of going home.
Instructor Jo Gyohee looked wistful. "Keongkeongi, see you next time!"
━Woof-woof…!
Keongkeongi really is popular everywhere he goes. It must be the stripes. Maybe I should consider adding stripes to my own suit?
"Sunbae, it's been busy and chaotic in all sorts of ways, hasn't it? So how was it? Did teaching the kids bring back old memories?"
Ari asked me about my time at the training camp. I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head.
"Honestly, I don't think being an instructor is for me. Teaching the kids made it clear. Unlike back when I trained all of you, they've already got infrastructure and everything else in place—turns out they don't really need me."
On top of that, she told me being an instructor meant waking at six in the morning and running the daily schedule until ten at night. And on nights with evening training, you didn't sleep at all. That's a knife-edge lifestyle. I can't do that anymore. Of course, to keep up appearances, I swallowed all of that and kept it to myself.
"That's a shame. So you'll be raising the money for your engraving procedure yourself, then?"
"I'll have to think it over, one way or another."
Three hundred million won. That was serious money. But if someone asked whether it was truly impossible for the current me to gather that sum—well, no, it wasn't. The me from before I met Oinoi couldn't have managed it. But the me of today is a different animal.
And so, with that feeling in the air, we boarded the train. The road home. I was exhausted, but my heart was light.
A hot shower, sprawled out in bed, an ice-cold cola—perfect. But first, maybe I'd search my own name on the internet.
No, seriously? The internet is all nymphs and Keongkeongi, not a word about me. Was my impact on the recruits a little lacking? Just as that thought crossed my mind, Oinoi smirked smugly.
"This box is a most magnificent thing, it is…! If we place golden apples inside this box, their storage life will surely extend for a very long time, it will…!"
Right. The nymphs had acquired a box this time—along with the treasures that had been inside it. Suddenly I found myself wondering: what would become of the tree monsters, the Stumps, who had been guarding it?
"This Oinoi hears that the Stumps have signed employment contracts and will be working alongside the soldiers, she does…!"
"Is that so?"
"It was I, Illinoi, who drafted the contracts, it was…!"
Figures. Humans and monsters signing contracts and working together. The world had changed so much in the ten years since then. Compared to twenty years ago, it had changed beyond all recognition.
"Weren't you going down there to be an instructor? Why'd you just come back up?"
Seo Yerim had arrived home before us. Explaining would have taken forever, so I just said, "Because."
Seo Yerim didn't press for a reason.
"Then I'm taking the nymphs with me?"
"Master of the house…! Let us visit again sometime, we shall…!"
"It was a very funny time, it was…!"
With that, Seo Yerim led the nymphs off to their respective homes. The past few days had been a riot of noise and commotion, and with the nymphs gone, the place quieted down considerably.
"Hehehe, this Oinoi…! I shall bake a mountain of apple pies…! Then all the nymph sisters of the world will surely come to meet Oinoi in order to eat apple pie, they will…!"
Of course, Oinoi still seemed to be bursting with energy. A fruit of the training, perhaps?
"If this Oinoi becomes famous in this wide, wide world… then perhaps Oinoi's teacher will hear the name and come looking for Oinoi, she might…!"
Oinoi's dream was to become famous and find her teacher. I decided I'd cheer her on.
"Oinoi, you'd better work hard from now on."
"That is so, it is…! In that spirit, I shall give this doll to the master of the house…! May the master of the house also strive in the days ahead, he shall…! The master of the house must save up a great deal of money too, he must…!"
"True enough. Now, how do I go about it? I wonder if a pile of money might just drop into my lap from somewhere."
I took the wooden doll from Oinoi. The moment I held it in my hand, I felt a cool breeze—swooosh—sweep across the back of my neck. Tingly. And then I felt something crawling up my back.
"This better be a feeling and not an actual ant. Angangi, is that you?"
━Zuji—.
Zuji? That's not the sound I remember.
Swish—
I reached back over my shoulder and grabbed hold of something strange. It was a magnificently built ant, gleaming silver. It looked exactly like Angangi—except it was silver, as if clad in armor!
"Who are you? What are you? Just who are you?"
Where had Angangi gone off to, and where did this guy come from? Soon enough, Oinoi let out a cry of astonishment.
"Aaah—! That is a species of honey ant, it is…! Seeing that magnificent horn rising from its head, it is most certainly a soldier ant, it is…! And at that size, it is no mere soldier—it is a Knight Ant, it is…!"
A knight among honey ants, you say? What a marvelously curious creature.
━Zzji—.
Before long, Angangi pushed open the door of my room and appeared. He'd apparently been cleaning my room, because a wet towel was clamped in his horn.
━Zuji—!
At Angangi's entrance, the Knight Ant in my hand began to squirm. I set it down on the floor, and it immediately prostrated itself before Angangi. Had the hierarchy already been settled? The posture looked for all the world like a soldier declaring, "Your Majesty! I humbly pay my respects!"
━Zzji, jizuzu, zjizuzi—.
I was enjoying the strange little spectacle when Angangi said something to me, waving his forelegs and horn this way and that in what looked like an elaborate explanation.
"I see, I see. So that's what happened. What an ordeal."
"This Oinoi is terribly curious as to what was said, she is…!"
"To be honest, I have no idea what he said either."
"Truly, that is so, it is…!"
My best guess was that while we'd been away, the Knight Ant had appeared and somehow become friends with Angangi, the Emperor Honey Ant. Oinoi, Keongkeongi, Angangi, Kwangkwangi, and now this odd Knight Ant—something new kept popping up out of nowhere around here.
━Zuji, zujizuji—.
The Knight Ant said something to me as well. Then it clamped its mandibles onto my ankle and tried to drag me off somewhere. I couldn't understand a word of it, but it seemed to be saying something like, "Human! Follow me!"
Wondering what on earth this could be about, I followed the Knight Ant—even though it was late enough that I should have been in bed already. And there, behind our house, in the backyard of that abandoned rice paddy, I found a hole dug deep into the ground like a sinkhole!
"What is this? Angangi, you dug this hole? You dug a hole like this in a spot where no CCTV can even reach! Seo Yerim is definitely going to have something to say about this!"
"Zzji—."
Angangi shook his head with a fwap fwap. Then, from within the pit, an astonishing sound rose up.
━Gyuji—.
━Gyujijik—.
━Gyijikgyijik—.
Clatter, clack—
The strange sounds grew louder, and then something began surging up out of the dark hole. The creatures were pitch black, and every last one of them was an ant shaped just like Angangi!
"Good grief—what on earth is going on here?!"