097 – Nymphs Love Summer Vacation! # 4
The CCTV footage had captured everything in crisp detail: me walking into the sashimi restaurant with the dog-squirrel, taking down everyone inside, and tearing the vice-boss's mechanical arm clean off.
It was the kind of situation that made my head swim from every possible angle.
And that wasn't even the worst of it. I had also grabbed the hand of Reiko in her autumn-maple kimono and hauled her off somewhere at a dead sprint.
"......"
How on earth had this happened?
I dredged through my memory until my brain ached, but nothing surfaced. No matter how many times I replayed the CCTV footage, it felt like watching a movie or a drama—someone else's story, not mine.
"House Master rented out Kore Reiko and must return her, that is what it is...! Kore Reiko is the Princess of Japan Telos...! Should anything go wrong, it could spiral into a political problem of the gravest kind, that is what it is...!"
According to Illinoi, Reiko was an extremely important woman even within Megacorp Telos.
And I had kidnapped her!
While I was still reeling, Illinoi kept piling on.
"Kidnapping is a very illegal act, that is what it is...! Everyone knows how many human people died and how nations vanished because of the kidnapping of Best Kore Helen and the Trojan War that followed, that is what it is...!"
I knew that too.
But the memory simply wouldn't come back.
That was when it happened.
A yakuza in a black suit burst into the room in a panic and blurted out, "Vice-boss! Elder! We found the dog-squirrel! It's the same one from yesterday, without a doubt!"
The dog-squirrel.
At those words, my mind snapped wide awake. The yakuza quickly held out his phone, and it seemed posts with photos of the dog-squirrel were blowing up all over social media.
#Kawaii. #K-SquirrelDog. #AmusementParkMascot.
A Telos Land specialty—
It was Keongkeongi, no doubt about it!
And Keongkeongi was apparently at the amusement park on this very Telos island right now!
I didn't fully understand the situation, but going to check seemed like the right move.
Zip—!
We hurried over to the amusement park, where a crowd had already gathered, snapping photos of Keongkeongi. The moment my familiar spotted me, it zipped straight up my leg and perched on my shoulder.
"Keongkeongi! There you are! What were you doing here?"
I asked. And soon enough, Keongkeongi answered.
━Keong-keong...!
As expected, I couldn't understand a word of it.
But a staff member who looked like a park manager approached me and said abruptly, "You're here about the person in the lost-and-found shelter, right?"
The what shelter, now?
When we got there, I could see someone lying on a spread-out blanket, snoring away in a deep sleep.
It was Lee Jina.
Lee Jina was here?
Soon the manager explained, "She and that little dog-squirrel were riding the carousel, fast asleep. I couldn't just leave them there, so I brought them over and laid her down. She's with you, I take it?"
She was.
Swish, swish—.
Keongkeongi rubbed its tail back and forth across Lee Jina's face. Soon she stirred with a long groan and came to.
"What now? I was sleeping so well."
Lee Jina blinked at all of us in surprise, then glanced around.
"Where am I?"
"Anything coming back? What happened yesterday?"
"Memory..."
Lee Jina frowned. Probably the hangover—her head looked ready to split open. And yet she remembered considerably more than I did.
"We were drinking at the beach, and we got into it with some yakuza. So we followed them back to wherever they were going."
Seriously?
That did have a vague ring of truth to it.
"And then... we saw Seo Yerim getting stuffed into a black car by the yakuza, so we chased them all the way to the sashimi restaurant and rescued her. And then Illinoi said we had to save the fish being held captive in the restaurant too, and while she was busy with that... she got caught."
So that's why Illinoi had been at the restaurant.
She'd been arrested in the middle of liberating the fish.
She must have been pretty drunk too.
And somehow, overnight, I had become the yakuza's honored elder.
Then Ari asked, "And after that? What happened after that?"
"We went to the amusement park and had a blast, I think. And after that, we were riding on the back of some strange unicorn..."
At Lee Jina's words, I finally pieced it together.
I'd been drunk and mistaken Reiko for Seo Yerim!
They looked so much alike!
Reiko had been about to leave in a car with the yakuza, and I'd assumed Seo Yerim was being kidnapped—so I'd charged in and wreaked havoc left and right!
The broken pieces of my memory began to trickle back, drop by drop.
At the same time, I remembered where I'd left Kalinoi.
"Oh, no—."
I headed for the zoo attached to the amusement park. Inside was an enormous aviary where all kinds of birds were kept together in one place. Peering in, I spotted the massive tiger owl Kalinoi sitting meekly on a perch.
"Kalinoi!"
I called out. The drowsy, nodding-off owl spotted me and came waddling over at a clumsy gallop—then started furiously beating me with both of her enormous wings!
Flap, fl-fl-fl-flap—!
Her plush, feather-rich wings were so soft that no matter how hard she hit me, it didn't hurt. But it felt exactly like she was saying, "Why did you leave me behind!" And I felt terribly, tremendously sorry.
Soon a keeper who seemed to run the aviary said, "Korean owl! So kawaii desu! And this big—so very big! She has been wonderful fun since last night!"
Apparently Kalinoi had been soaking up the attention of every zoo visitor since that morning.
I turned to the Japanese woman who looked like the head keeper. "Do you know why I left this owl here yesterday?"
"Well, you see, you and some young lady said you were taking a taxi together, but this owl kept trying to climb in after you, so you left her with me. You said something about needing to escape from some yakuza."
Something—.
Something was coming back to me.
Oversized Kalinoi had kept trying to pile into the taxi after us, so I'd parked her in the aviary as a stopgap! Of course—she was practically the size of the taxi itself. There was no way she would have fit inside!
The place that taxi had been heading—.
That was Yoko's tattoo parlor.
"So that means... the person who got matching couple mana rings tattooed with you, Senior, was Reiko! Which means the person who shared your room last night was also—."
Ari had, by every measure, arrived at the truth.
And now I knew exactly where I needed to go.
The truth.
It had been sitting in my hand from the very beginning!
"Taxi!"
We took the taxi back to the hotel where I'd woken up, and I opened the door of the room I'd left that morning—to find a woman sitting on the bed with her arms crossed.
"Matte! Where on earth have you been wandering?! You! I step out for a quick meal and you leave me behind in this room! After we got engaged last night, no less!"
It was Reiko—the woman who looked just like Seo Yerim.
Seeing Reiko safe and sound in the hotel room brought me relief, but at the same time, cold sweat seemed to be trickling down my spine from a dozen different directions.
"Um, Reiko? What exactly happened between us yesterday? Did I really... get engaged to you?"
"Ha? You mean to tell me you remember nothing? How truly unacceptable. You even have a ring on your finger! This is the proof of our engagement!"
Shing—.
Reiko held up her left ring finger. On it was a mana engraving in the shape of a ring—identical to the one on my own hand.
Her words made my head pound from every direction.
What had I done?
Then Reiko declared, "We have already crossed the great mountain, we are husband and wife desu...! We crossed it again and again...!!! These torn wrappers are the evidence...!"
Engaged?
Married? I couldn't remember a single thing!
But Ari spoke up with a deadly serious expression. "Do you have proof? Proof that my senior actually did such a thing? There's a white spot on my senior's chest. Can you tell me whether it's on the left side or the right?"
"Th-that would be... left...?"
"Wrong! There is no white spot of any kind on my senior's chest!"
"...I wasn't in any state to notice! I was being dragged around this way and that! And dragged into this room by force, too! I said yamete— so many times! You stripped my clothes off—!"
"That's a lie as well! I asked around everywhere today, and nobody saw you being dragged anywhere against your will. If you'd wanted to run, you had every chance to!"
Point—.
Ari jabbed her finger straight at Reiko. Under Ari's detective-grade deductions, Reiko began to tremble.
Then Ari pressed on. "And why was Kwangkwangi chained up?"
━Hio-ong...!
"...What is that sound supposed to mean?"
"Senior. Kwangkwangi was chained up, wasn't it? To the ceiling."
It was true.
When I'd opened my eyes, Kwangkwangi had been bound to the ceiling with heavy chains.
Like a prisoner!
Ari continued, "Reiko hasn't registered with the Japanese government, but she's an awakener! Telekinesis-type! Specialized in the precise manipulation of metal! It was Reiko who bound Kwangkwangi! Why? Could it be because he was in the way? Because he kept trying to protect my senior?"
"......"
"Dropping Angangi and Kalinoi off along the way—that was your scheme too, wasn't it? You wanted to wield my drunk senior however you pleased, and they were getting in the way! That's why you left Illinoi and Lee Jina behind as well!"
"S-sonna..."
Reiko shook where she stood. And at her, Ari drove the final nail.
"And above all, the lipstick mark on my senior's cheek was your doing, wasn't it! Reiko! Your beloved Scarlet Red! Was that forced on him too? Confess right now! What are you hiding?"
"I-I don't, speak, Korean, desu ne... Watashi. Nippon-jin desu."
Slide—.
Reiko's eyes darted sideways, avoiding ours.
Then Ari's face twisted furiously and she shouted, "Don't lie to me! Seo Youngja! Your father is Korean! This could escalate beyond a simple matter of Telos corporate shares into an international incident! Be honest!"
I had always thought of Ari as something of an innocent young girl. But the Ari standing before me now carried herself with the commanding presence of a judge or prosecutor—and I even started feeling like I was the one who needed to apologize and pay damages.
Then, at last, Reiko broke.
"...I wanted to beat Yerimu.... So I used the fact that this man mistook me for Yerimu, used the fact that I was finally free—and I went to the amusement park I'd always wanted to visit, and got couple tattoos done..."
The whole story spilled out of her in one breath.
"It was tremendously omoshiroi. I am sorry.... Please, keep this between us. Our Japan branch absolutely must win this time, there is a reason that arimasu...!"
Reiko had been raised like a true princess, under crushing surveillance every single day of her life—and it turned out she'd used me to savor a taste of freedom and do everything she'd ever wanted.
"And if I stole Yerimu's man out from under her, I thought I could land one blow on that insufferable Yerimu...! But this man—he didn't lay so much as a fingertip on me...! What a eunuch desu ne...!"
A wave of relief washed over me from head to toe.
None of the things I'd dreaded had actually happened, and no one had been hurt.
Well, aside from the yakuza vice-boss's mechanical arm getting ripped off.
Anyway.
In the end, all of it had been Reiko's one-woman production, staged around a drunk and clueless me.
Shing—.
Then Reiko suddenly seized my hand.
"Ildo-sama. Onegaishimasu...! Please, won't you become my fiancé...! If it's you, I feel I could trust you...! Even after I tempted you in every way imaginable yesterday, you never touched so much as my fingertip...! If not you, then my life is shimai desu...!"
Squeeeeze—.
Reiko's eyes began to sparkle and glisten.
Because tears were welling up in them.
She looked heartbreaking—desperate, even.
"Um, is there some reason I absolutely have to get engaged to you, Reiko? And why would your life be over, exactly?"