Chapter 528
Chapter 528
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 528
Chapter Title: Chapter 528 - #111_친밀도작(2)
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Akula was equipped with a variety of leisure facilities.
A theater where you could watch black-and-white foreign films without subtitles.
An arcade stocked with game machines that looked two or three times older than Siwoo at a glance.
Even a bathroom with an attached sauna—one Leryue had bragged about, but he'd never set foot in otherwise.
Of them all, the spot Leryue and Siwoo made for was the arcade.
"How about it? The might of the Nukelavi Kingdom, which boasts the cutting-edge science and technology to squander on mere games."
"It's amazing!"
"Hum hahaha!"
The game Leryue—ever brimming with confidence—picked was pinball.
Surprisingly, it wasn't a video game format but a hybrid of analog and digital, like pachinko.
Press the left and right buttons to maneuver the flippers and block the balls from falling, earning bonus points each time a launched ball collided with the various bumpers.
Occasionally, entering an event zone would randomly reposition and relaunch the ball... but if it slipped through the gap, game over.
It was your standard pinball.
Truth be told, calling it cutting-edge tech felt a bit of a stretch in places...
But Leryue's common sense was rooted around the Cold War era, so Siwoo let it slide.
Probably because she'd spent her apprenticeship wandering the outside world back then.
"You try first."
"Yes, ma'am."
-Pling pling
The game kicked off with crude sound effects and flashing lights.
As he clicked away at the falling balls, a question popped into his head.
"Your Majesty."
"What is it?"
"Come to think of it, doesn't it strike you as odd that I'm a man?"
"What do you mean by that?"
Now that he thought about it, Leryue hadn't once reacted to the existence of a male witch with demands for experiments or even a request to see some magic.
Even back in Gehenna, there'd been a huge fuss.
"I'm a man, yet I bear a Stigma, and you seem utterly unbothered, so I had to ask."
"......"
For some reason, Leryue hesitated deeply.
But as if realizing such dithering ill suited her dignity, she answered quietly.
"Aren't you yourself a witch's guinea pig?"
"...Pardon?"
"As a subject of human experimentation, you must carry your own scars. I'm no fool of a monarch to pry into them."
She seemed to have misunderstood him as some kind of modified human, like a crewman's augmentee.
Strictly speaking, he supposed he was the Kether Duke's test subject, but the process of becoming a witch held no real trauma for him.
"Besides, I'm swamped just claiming my master's legacy. I have no bandwidth for anything else."
Leryue brushed it off uncomfortably, changing the subject.
This actually touched him a little.
Self-centered and willful as she was, she had these unexpected moments of consideration for others.
Maybe she shared that trait with the twins.
"Focus on the game. Forgot already? You're in a wager with me."
"Understood."
Siwoo possessed superhuman reflexes to begin with.
Even mid-conversation, he never missed a single ball, keeping the game going effortlessly.
"Ah."
The problem was, no matter one's superhuman prowess, pinball's nature meant balls inevitably slipped into unavoidable spots.
Still, this score had to be pretty high for a first try, right?
"Not bad for a beginner. Step aside."
But seeing Leryue stride up to the machine without a care, his confidence deflated a bit.
"Behold my skill."
-Pwing!
The game launched with a ball fired from the lower right.
Leryue intently tracked the steel ball's frenetic path.
With exquisitely precise control, she flipped it at just the right moment.
"My victory."
Leryue crossed her arms, utterly convinced of her triumph.
Pinball machines have bumpers.
Gimmicks that bounce the ball back upon impact.
They award high scores but send the ball ricocheting randomly—the pinball's biggest wildcard for game overs.
Yet before Leryue, it was different.
"Send the ball to a fixed zone at precise intervals, and you can rack up points indefinitely without ending the game."
-Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!
As Leryue said, the steel ball just kept bouncing between the three flippers without a hint of falling.
Of course, the score climbed at a ferocious pace, swiftly surpassing Siwoo's in no time.
"I've named this technique the 'Devil's Triangle.' What do you think?"
"In...credible, Your Majesty..."
It was a glitchy exploit, sure, but stuffing the ball into that spot with perfect timing was acrobatic mastery.
There were also video games like Pac-Man and submarine shooters, but Leryue cleared them all with near-miraculous skill.
Not surprising, given she'd played each thousands of times in this submarine with nothing else to do.
"A skill honed over long years. Impressive, eh?"
"Truly astounding!"
About two hours into Leryue's gala show.
She'd thrown herself into it so fiercely that a rosy flush colored her cheeks. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with relish, flashing pearly whites.
Siwoo could totally relate.
For the first time, someone was marveling at games he'd grinded solo all these years.
With her constant gasps of admiration, Leryue's dimples were deeper than he'd ever seen.
"Even I fear my own genius at times."
2.
After stopping by the cafeteria to dispense ice cream from the machine, their next stop was a malt bar equipped with a pool table and dartboard.
"Wait here. I'll change into something more suitable for fun."
Leryue tossed out the line and vanished somewhere.
Siwoo leaned on the bar counter, sipping Titanic whiskey.
No matter how vast the submarine, spend a week aboard and every spot starts blending together.
He couldn't help but admire how she'd endured a decade alone in such confined quarters.
"Hup...!"
When Leryue returned, Siwoo nearly spat out half the whiskey in his mouth.
Her Supreme Majesty had donned a brain-meltingly tight outfit.
A black skirt and stockings that accentuated her slender waist and curvaceous hips, sky-high heels that looked ankle-sprainingly perilous.
The shirt cinching her torso like a corset over a white blouse evoked a women's hunting outfit—or maybe a casino dealer prowling the floor.
Either way, perfection.
His gaze involuntarily lingered on the lace of her black bra peeking from the shirt and the alluring cleavage.
Come to think of it, Leryue's usual attire had been flowing dresses or slightly loose uniforms.
He'd focused more on her personality and antics than her figure, vaguely pegging her bust around the twins' size.
But this was unexpectedly voluptuous—practically rivaling his master's.
While Siwoo scrambled to avert his eyes, Leryue gripped the cue, chalked it expertly, and sauntered to the table.
"My pocket billiards skills are unrivaled in the world. Do you know how to play?"
"Yes, I played a bit in college."
In Korea, 3-cushion or 4-ball dominated, but globally—especially North America—pool was king.
He wasn't a pro, but he knew the rules.
"Good. I'll break."
Leryue draped her lithe form over the table and smoothly stroked the cue ball.
The neatly racked triangle of balls scattered in all directions, naturally opening the conversation too.
"You mentioned college. So you know the modern world well?"
"That's right."
"Hmm... Tell me about it."
This was the first time Leryue had peppered him with questions about the outside.
"Where should I start?"
"Spill on the mightiest nations first. They'll serve as the foundation when I conquer the world later."
He wished he could dismiss such talk as her pie-in-the-sky delusions...
But he couldn't.
Even Bianca, one Hierarchy below her, could have conquered the world solo without other witches in the picture.
How do you counter witches firing unblockable strikes from hundreds or thousands of kilometers away—outrunning hypersonic missiles on raw flight?
The gap between Hierarchies steepens exponentially with rank.
A 23rd Hierarchy witch fully inheriting all autonomic magics loose in the modern world? Unimaginable chaos.
With the Kether Duke vanished, what if Leryue sparked a "war"?
Right now she seemed innocently harmless, but she could become a child tyrant wielding uncontrollable power.
"Just to be sure... may I ask something?"
"Permission granted."
"If you clear this trial, do you really plan to start a war?"
"Naturally. The blood of a ruler boils in my bones."
"Did your master think the same?"
Her tone suddenly grave, Leryue paused mid-shot.
"My master feared the Kether Duke. She wanted to abandon her ambitions but couldn't. What's so strange about me fulfilling our forebears' unfinished dreams?"
"...Many witches would rebel."
"Just drown the rabble."
Strictly speaking, the deep-sea witch was an exile, not a Public Enemy.
The line between exiles and enemies blurred, but Leryue's words veered squarely into enemy territory.
If she acted on it, the fallout was predictable.
She'd wreak havoc on the modern world, and the witches at Location Points wouldn't sit idle.
She could handle run-of-the-mill grand witches, but if things escalated, his master would intervene.
Short as his time with Leryue had been, he didn't want to see her dead or hurt—so he couldn't stay silent.
"Even Your Majesty couldn't fend off a horde coming to subjugate you. And you'd be branded a Public Enemy on the spot."
"Insolent!"
Leryue slammed her cue down, thundering in fury.
"How dare you doubt my divine authority and grand designs!"
"War kills innocents. And I don't want to see Your Majesty hurt or killed."
"You impudent..."
As Leryue bristled with outrage.
This time, not red but green lamps began flashing.
Something had happened.
Snorting in anger, Leryue spat sharply.
"I'll table your punishment for that insolence. Confine yourself to quarters."
Leryue stormed out of the malt bar, stomping her heels.
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: