Explosion Is Art
About twenty minutes before the explosion struck, Kim Gichan was letting his boredom run loose with a yawn.
His junior had shown up this morning with some strange girl in tow, and roughly an hour ago they’d shipped Maria back to the Dimensional Control Bureau. If everything went smoothly, she should have been back by now.
The door opening pulled Kim Gichan’s head around.
“Welcome~”
“Huh.”
The newcomer wasn’t anyone Kim Gichan had expected. It was the little girl his junior had picked up.
“Why isn’t the kid bringing you? Did you try to register as a drifter under her name by mistake?”
Kim Gichan asked, unease prickling at the cheerful grin Maria wore like nothing was wrong.
His junior might be rough, but he was sharp. He wouldn’t have done something like that. Still, the odd string of bad luck lately around Yu Jinho made him uneasy.
Sanctum City was full of things you never saw coming.
Maria shook her head vigorously and explained the situation.
“I was eating this super fluffy thing my Jinho-ssi gave me when suddenly the red-haired friend appeared. I wanted to keep eating it, so Jinho-ssi bought more to go with me!”
Kim Gichan corrected her, voice flat. It wasn’t a story. It was a list.
“Oh, I see. If that’s what you call an explanation, it’s pretty sad.”
Kim Gichan flashed a grin. Maria followed with one of her own.
“Hehe…”
“You know I’m not complimenting you, right?”
“I’m not!”
Hmm.
It looked like his junior had a knack for attracting the weirdest odds and ends. The Demon King, of course, and now this little girl beaming at him like she’d won the lottery.
Still, after a few rounds of Twenty Questions, Kim Gichan had pieced together the truth: Yu Jinho was with Maria, the Demon King showed up, and they’d gone out for cotton candy to calm the anger.
Figuring out that “Mongsil Mongsil” was cotton candy took one last glance at the stick she still clutched.
“So he told you to wait here first?”
“Yes!”
Kim Gichan had read between the lines that Yu Jinho was taking responsibility for Maria for the time being. From his viewpoint, it was a high-risk proposition, but if the guy wanted to take it on, there was no stopping him.
“Sure. Sit right here for a sec. Don’t touch anything, got it, little miss?”
“Yes~”
Maria trotted into the counter area and slid onto the stool beside Kim Gichan.
Leaving the counter unsupervised was one thing. Letting the little girl watch him flip it back around was another.
Yu Jinho really was an impressive junior.
“Jinho-ssi has a lot of friends, huh?”
“Friends? Ah, the Demon King? Hahaha. Yeah, pretty much that.”
Kim Gichan laughed loud, and he meant it. Back when he worked here, the Demon King Hilde Bryant had never shown that kind of reaction to humans.
“You’re friends with the clerk too, right?”
“Of course. We’re very close~”
Kim Gichan didn’t care that a scornful look would probably have been the proper answer.
After all, “hate” and “love” often traveled the same road.
“If he went back near the Dimensional Control Bureau, it should take about twenty minutes.”
“Does Jinho-ssi do the same job as the clerk?”
Maria’s eyes sparkled as she asked.
“Yeah. And I’m quitting soon, so he’ll probably take over for a while. Mind if I watch from the side?”
“Yes! I’m curious!”
The store job itself was boring, but the fact that it was something Maria had never seen from her own world made her positively buzzing with energy.
Kim Gichan found her stare a little heavy, especially since she kept looking at him like she expected great things. Just then the bell over the door chimed. He turned back to the customer.
“Welcome~”
“Sss… one World Tree Reel and a Magma Storm.”
The customer was a tauren, but he cut off Kim Gichan’s greeting and slammed a card onto the counter.
Horses always come when you call them. Bad luck, because this first customer was a jerk from the start.
Generally, tauren in Sanctum City stuck together. They rarely lived apart unless they had a good reason.
Showing up alone at the store meant he’d been exiled from his herd. Plenty of reasons, but the usual one was bad attitude—losing face with his own kind.
Kim Gichan had forgotten this detail because he hadn’t seen tauren around here recently.
“Yes~ May I see your ID?”
Of course. Kim Gichan had dealt with enough weirdos to make it routine. Yu Jinho probably wouldn’t even blink. His junior had once glared at the Demon King himself over paperwork.
The tauren’s eyebrows slammed together.
“No ID, and you can tell who I am by looking at my face.”
When he leaned in, a sweet-but-sour scent drifted over—weak liquor, probably. Kim Gichan kept his business smile ready.
“I’m human, so I have trouble telling different races apart. Haha.”
Half true, half lie. Three years in Sanctum City was more than enough to memorize every face. For tauren, it was a piece of cake. Elves were the ones who gave him trouble.
And this guy in front of him was almost certainly underage. His behavior screamed it. If he were legal, he’d know better than to act like this.
“Maybe a city residence permit, or a drifter verification document—”
BOOM!
Kim Gichan’s sentence cut off. The counter shook under a fist.
“Siiiiii! Do you think I’m a drifter right now?!”
“No, sir. It’s not that. If you have another proof of identity—”
“Sit down and sell stuff, will you?”
The guy was practically leaning on the stool. Kim Gichan thought it over. If that was how customers acted, fine. But this one was drunk. He wasn’t a customer.
“You think you can call me a drifter like it’s nothing?!”
“I didn’t mean it that way, sir—”
“Still a creep. Tauren.” LT__div style="background:linear-gradient(135deg,#1a1a1a 0%,#0f0f0f 100%)border-left:4px solid #ff4444padding:15px 20pxmargin-bottom:15px">
A second, stunningly beautiful voice cut through from behind the tauren. The drunkard froze mid-rant and turned.
Long black hair, emerald robes, and two antler-like horns curling gracefully from her head. A nyxan.
“…You know the old saying that dragons come when called?”
Kim Gichan muttered under his breath. Bad memories flashed across his mind.
Let the clerk handle the weirdo. Report him if he keeps it up. That was cleaner.
But when customers fought each other, there was nothing he could do. Kim Gichan hadn’t done anything wrong.
And yet, the tauren actually listened to the blunt taunt. He turned back toward the nyxan.
“Sss… what did you just say?”
“The tauren average keeps falling. It’s your kind that’s dragging everyone down.”
Every word dripped with lethal precision.
“You gonna try to bully me like last time? No brain cells, huh?”
“That’s all the weaklings hang out with anyway. You’re no different, snake girl.”
“Snake girl?”
The nyxan’s eyes flashed coldly.
Kim Gichan kept his business smile plastered on and slipped his hand under the counter. His fingertip brushed a red button. Ready to press if things escalated.
Memories from months ago flooded back. Tauren and nyxan brawling again. These two species could never stop poking at each other.
The situation was about to explode. Kim Gichan was reaching for the button—
“Clerk!”
A clear voice from the side made Kim Gichan glance over.
“Ah, little miss. Sorry for the scare. Normal day at the store, you know.”
“It’s okay! More importantly, are those two really about to fight?”
“Fight.”
If she could soften it with such a cute word, even better.
“That’s right.”
“But fighting is wrong.”
Maria tilted her head.
“True, but I don’t have the power to stop them.”
Kim Gichan gave a bitter smile. He was human. He’d survived death more times than he could count. But in Sanctum City, far too many things were simply beyond a human’s strength.
Maria, however, looked calm and determined.
“Then I’ll help.”
“What?”
Before Kim Gichan could even ask what she meant, Maria shouted again.
“It’s not a blessing, so it’s fine!”
Kim Gichan blinked. He hadn’t had time to react properly.
Maria clasped her hands together and closed her eyes.
Wise Outer God, grant your discernment to this vessel that seeks your power.
Her lips moved. Kim Gichan felt a terrible premonition.
“Wait—”
Kim Gichan tried to stop her, but Maria’s mouth wouldn’t stop.
Grant your power to oppose those who oppose you—
She finished the final line while staring straight at the two tauren.
— METEOR!
The words hung in the air.
The nyxan’s eyes widened. The tauren froze.
Kim Gichan’s hand shot toward the button under the counter.
Too late.
A searing light exploded from Maria’s outstretched palm. The air tore open like paper.
A fist-sized meteor screamed toward the tauren, trailing white fire.
The drunkard barely had time to blink before the impact turned him into red mist and scattered bones.
The nyxan’s face twisted in pure fury as she realized her attacker.
“You—!”
Maria’s eyes snapped open. She was still smiling, but the joy had vanished.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to end like this.”
Kim Gichan’s mouth hung open. His heart hammered. He’d seen a lot in his life, but this… this was something else.
The explosion wasn’t just noise. It was art.