006 – The Nymph Oinoi # 6
"……."
Seo Yerim sat cross-legged in the meditation room attached to her private office, eyes closed. Among the daily routines of an S-rank hunter, this meditation time was an indispensable ritual she could never skip.
The specially commissioned black suit hugged her body like a second skin, and she didn't much care for the feeling, but there was nothing to be done about it.
Empty the head and the heart. Enter the world of nothingness and emptiness.
This was how Yerim cleared her mind each time she sat down to meditate.
As one of only three S-rank hunters in all of Korea, her days were busier than anyone else's, and this was the one sliver of leisure she allowed herself.
Of course, truly emptying one's mind through meditation was a feat reserved for high monks with decades of practice behind them, so stray thoughts kept bubbling up no matter how hard she tried.
Most of those stray thoughts were memories of the past.
Yerim recalled the article she'd read on the internet just that morning.
Body: The strongest on Earth — something every human dreams of! A famous netizen's post ranking the S-rank hunters said to stand closest to that peak has been making the rounds for days! Let's count them down from #30 all the way to #1!
There were only about thirty S-rank hunters in the entire world.
Debating their rankings and relative strength was a reliable source of gossip for the general public. And the ranking the public had assigned to Seo Yerim was…
Korea's pride, Seo Yerim, who wields flames exceeding 1,300 degrees like a serpent! Her devastating firepower would hold its own against even the higher-ranked hunters! However, due to recent sluggish work performance and her entertainment career, she sits at #29—
To be an S-rank awakener was to exist beyond the threshold of the superhuman. Yerim was the same. She could take center stage in any room she walked into.
And yet, among those S-rank awakeners, Yerim's position was #29.
Considering that the #30 spot belonged to "the MeTuber Kira," a rising rookie who had only just breached the S-rank realm, Yerim was effectively the lowest of the low — #30 in all but name.
"I'm…!?"
Yerim felt an unbearable fury rising in her chest.
The devices attached to her body sensed the anomaly and began shrieking — bee-beebeebit — an earsplitting alarm.
Pyrokinetics, whose flames burned hotter the more their emotions flared, always had to place the highest priority on maintaining their inner peace, so Yerim forced out a long, slow breath. Whooo—
Soon, a pre-recorded voice played from the speaker installed in the meditation room.
Session One. Focus on the voice from the speaker and repeat after it.
First: Anger cannot control me.
"…Anger cannot control me."
Second: Anger cannot control me.
"Anger cannot control… me… you've got to be kidding me, that's the exact same line, damn it!"
Fwoooosh—!
The fury she could no longer contain erupted around her body as actual flame. The meditation room's temperature spiked, and the fire-suppression system kicked in instantly, drenching the room like a sudden downpour.
Shhhhaaaaaaa—
In the end, Yerim was left looking like a drowned rat.
She had unleashed heat exceeding 1,300 degrees, but thanks to the suppression system's swift response, nothing had burned — the crisis ended without a single casualty.
The newly commissioned special suit, too, had held its shape without so much as a scorch mark.
Vmmm—
Just then, the phone she'd left outside the meditation room buzzed.
Stepping out to check the screen, she saw a call coming in from her secretary and partner, the C-rank awakener Ahn Yeongeun.
"Yeongeun, what is it."
━The suit activated — did something happen? Did you get angry during meditation again?
"What, that gets reported to you too? Is this inner suit of mine some kind of surveillance device?"
━No, it's not like that. Pyrokinetics lose control in civilian areas every now and then, so the goal is to dispatch and suppress as fast as possible… ahem. Anyway, how is it? The suit held up fine, right? They say it's rated to withstand up to 1,500 degrees?
"……."
Yerim had plenty she wanted to say, but instead she looked down at the suit clinging to her body like a second skin. It had taken her flames dead-on and refused to burn.
"It's… solid, I'll give it that. Sorry for snapping at you."
Pyrokinetics had a long, storied history of burning their own clothes off mid-flare-up and exposing themselves in public.
Yerim had been through it herself more than once, which was why a rather sizable crowd of paparazzi had once tailed her everywhere she went.
But with this suit, she could use her ability without worrying about burning her clothes away — a good thing on many fronts.
Click—
Yerim hung up and sat down at her computer.
She opened the browser, navigated to the awakener social media site, and — as always — searched for her own name: "Seo Yerim."
Posts came flooding up, one after another.
Body: Shouldn't we start thinking of her as a celebrity first and a hunter second? How does someone go this many years without improving lol
Body: Been coasting since she hit S-rank, no? Back when she was grinding up from D to C and was actually hungry for it, she worked hard. These days I hear she won't even enter a dangerous rift anymore?
"What would you people even know…!"
Prickle—
It felt as if the hair on her head was standing on end.
Even now, Yerim was working harder than anyone.
It just didn't show.
She typed out rebuttal after rebuttal, deleting each one the moment it was written, until finally she bit down hard on her lip against the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.
Ring—
Just then, her phone chimed.
A text message.
Wondering if some agency had sent another ad inquiry, Yerim glanced absently at the screen.
"Your office is in a pretty odd spot."
Seo Yerim's office sat in a quiet warehouse district by the sea.
An S-rank hunter's office should, by all rights, be located in prime real estate with excellent infrastructure and accessibility — but it wasn't.
Probably because of Yerim's particular nature as a pyrokinetic.
Back in the day, it had been quite common for pyrokinetics to lose control of their flames and have firefighters scrambling to the scene.
And so pyrokinetics weren't permitted to live in or keep offices in densely populated areas like apartment complexes. It wasn't legally banned — the neighbors simply hated the idea of living next door.
"I can't believe you actually invited me to your office."
I'd expected to talk somewhere like a café. But Yerim had invited me — the person who wanted to discuss the "shoes" — to her own office.
If I had to guess, this too was probably because of her nature as a pyrokinetic.
Yerim disliked me, so a conversation with me might send her emotions flaring, might set her flames blazing. Her private office would have thorough countermeasures in place for exactly the kind of unexpected fire hazard a visit from me posed — which was presumably why she'd summoned me to a safe location.
With ten years of hunter experience under my belt, I could read between the lines without even trying.
Truthfully, I'd been nursing a little hope about the office visit myself.
Because the odds were high that a strand of Seo Yerim's hair would be lying around somewhere in there.
My brain really is top-tier— I was just chuckling to myself at my own genius when—
"The sea is beautiful, it is…! The sea was once home to teeming shoals of seawater nymphs…. There were even plenty of nymphs with fins, it is said…!"
Oinoi was gazing out at the ocean, absolutely delighted.
I already knew the girl had a fundamental love of water, but apparently the sea was no exception. Nymphs with fins — did that make them something like mermaids?
I was still mulling that over when, before I knew it, we'd arrived at the office.
For a converted warehouse, the exterior was clean and looked remarkably spacious. At this point it was practically a mansion, wasn't it?
For an instant, I felt a flicker of jealousy — must be nice being bourgeoisie — before squashing it down.
"So this is the Witch's castle, it is…! It glitters and gleams like the citadel of Athens where the witch Medea once dwelt, it does…!"
Oinoi let out a grand gasp of admiration. I addressed her thusly:
"Careful what you say around here or you might get roasted. She's the twenty-ninth strongest person in the world. Peons like us could end up as a pile of ash with a single snap of her fingers."
"Twenty-ninth…! This Oinoi may not know what that means, but it sounds terribly impressive, it does…!"
As Oinoi said, S-rank #29 was genuinely, monumentally impressive.
Though knowing the Yerim I knew… she certainly wouldn't see it that way herself.
"Oinoi. Erase the words 'twenty-ninth' from your brain, effective immediately."
At last, the entrance.
The automatic door slid open, and a spotless interior came into view.
While I stood gawping in the lobby, I heard the sound of heels clicking down the second-floor staircase — tak, tak. I turned my head to find Seo Yerim descending, a coat draped over her shoulders.
Just as the atmosphere began to close in on me, Yerim swept her gaze up and down my body and asked:
"Where are the flowers?"
Flowers? Out of nowhere?
Did she mean I should have brought flowers or fruit as a housewarming gift, seeing as I was her guest?
While I stood there flustered, Oinoi — who had been wandering around the first-floor lobby poking at this and that — thrust her hand up in the air with a snap.
"Aahh…! It is the mistress of this magnificent castle, it is…!"
"…What is that. What even is it? Your cousin?"
"That's a bit of a long story. Her name is Oinoi."
"Oinoi it is…!"
Tremble, tremble—
Oinoi was shaking all over.
I briefly wondered if she was frightened in the presence of the cold, fastidious Seo Yerim, but I was wrong.
Oinoi cried out, utterly awestruck.
"I thought you would be some wicked witch, but you're as beautiful as a princess, you are…! Aside from Princess Psyche, whom this Oinoi beheld long ago, this is the first time I have ever seen someone so beautiful, it is…!"
So even through the eyes of the nymph Oinoi, Seo Yerim's face registered as beautiful.
Naturally so.
This was an era where the elves of Alfheim were appearing on TV and MeTube — to land an advertisement contract, anything short of a stunning face wouldn't even make the shortlist.
Anyway.
That wasn't the important part.
"I have something to discuss. About the shoes."
"……."
Yerim looked expressionlessly back and forth between me and Oinoi.
Then she said, "Come up," and headed upstairs.
As I followed behind her, I kept stealing glances at the floor.
Just in case a stray strand of hair happened to be lying around, you understand.
There was none, though.
The second floor — where, I'd figured, any fallen hair would surely be waiting — was an open-plan space furnished with sofas and enormous glass windows.
The floor was polished ivory that gleamed without a single speck of dust on it. Practically obsessive-compulsive levels of clean.
My plan of plucking one fallen strand of hair off the floor was growing fainter by the second. At this rate, would the right move simply be to come out and say, "Just give me one strand of your hair"?
…No. What if I got sued for something like sexual harassment out of nowhere?
"So. What is it you have to say?"
Yerim asked, taking her seat on the sofa with studied calm.
I debated whether sitting down was wise, then decided against it — instead I stood where I was, opened the backpack slung over my shoulder, and pulled out the shoes to show her.
The red shoes.
Polished to a pristine shine.
"I cleaned them up for you. Restored them to nearly original condition. What do you think?"
There had been, admittedly, an option on the table: clean the shoes, slap a "Seo Yerim Premium" sticker on them, and resell. I might have fetched even more than the original ten million won they'd cost her.
But that was precisely the kind of thing that could land me in hot water — "Why are you selling my shoes without permission?" — and leave Ha Ildo hanging ten thousand feet above a pit of lava.
So I'd simply gone with: "I cleaned them up nice and spotless, so let's call the whole thing even, shall we?"
"You cleaned off Queen Bee's Nectar? That stuff would take days of serious scrubbing to get out."
Yerim looked genuinely astonished.
Did she think I'd poured days of time and devotion into scrubbing away that nectar? The reality was that I'd sucked it right up, honey-style.
Of course, Oinoi was busy gazing at the sea beyond the great glass window, marveling, "What a magnificently picturesque view, it is…!" — so as long as I kept my mouth shut, no one would ever know the truth.
I decided to double down on the "I worked so very hard" narrative.
"I really, really scrubbed them."
Yerim inspected the shoes from every angle.
She even pressed her nose to the spot where the nectar had stained them and gave a sniff. Sniff.
"…It smells like flowers… hmph. Well. Fine. You got them cleaner than I expected. These were my favorite pair — at this condition there's no need to buy a new one after all. What a relief."
Yerim allowed herself a faint smile, as if it truly were a relief.
Even knowing this girl was the kind of woman who might badmouth people behind their backs and lay curses on them to boot, I found my gaze snagging on that smile and refusing to leave.
S-rank or not, talent or not — isn't being beautiful just the greatest advantage of all?
The world is truly unfair.
"So. Is that everything you came to say?"
Yerim asked.
Her expression was fairly composed now.
But something told me that if I answered, "Yep, that's everything!" I'd be tossed right out the front door.
I needed to come up with some excuse, any excuse, to linger.
And ideally an excuse that might just net me that strand of hair!
Flash—
Just then, something sparked across my mind.
"Yerim, you're ranked twenty-ninth, you know. Your power hasn't budged in ages. That's got to be eating at you, right?"
"……."
It was the moment those composed eyes scrunched up — creak — into a scowl truly befitting a witch.
The dice had already been cast.
I committed, body and soul, to the greatest bluff of my life!
"I've just figured out a way for an awakener to raise their power. It's — well, it's thanks to the nymph right here. Oinoi! She's a nymph from an unfamiliar world, and she knows the method for breaking through a stalled power level."