221. Winter Palace (3)
221. Winter Palace (3)
"No······." 56 times.
"Help me······." 77 times.
"I can't anymore······." 32 times.
"I feel like I'm going to die······."
I stopped counting.
Every single one of those words had come out of my own mouth.
*
"Jin Yu-ha~ About that massage you promised me last time~"
"I'll be right there! Just a moment!"
"Jin Yu-ha! Over here, over here! I found a fantastic backdrop! Could you be my photo model for a moment?"
"Ah, okay! I'm coming now!"
"Jin Yu-ha! Let's play a board game!"
"Gukbap— wait, bo, board game later! A little later tonight!"
"Tch."
"Hoobaaaaaaaaae! Food! Feed me! Clean my ears! Sing me a lullaby!"
"Ga-eul sunbae, I'll be there to eat before it gets cold! And one request at a time, please!"
"Hmph."
"I've whipped up a simple snowboard to enjoy here. Made one for you as well, so come out quickly, Yellow Dog."
"All right───!! Ju-Just give me an hour! No, two hours!"
"Benefactor. Pat pat."
"Uh, uh-huh. There, there. Good girl, good girl."
I patted Ichika's head as I stared into the void with dead eyes.
'Ah, so this is why the old-timers said you shouldn't run your mouth carelessly.'
The ceiling of the Winter Palace was freaking glittering.
* * *
Trudge— trudge— trudge—
3 AM.
The time when everyone had gone to bed and every schedule was finished.
I was dragging my feet, heading to the hot spring alone.
My face reflected on the transparent ice walls of the palace had dark circles as deep as vantablack painted under my eyes.
Shin Se-hee, Lee Yu-ri, Kang Do-hee, Sofia, Im Ga-eul, even Ichika.
Those six had been taking turns voicing their demands, as if they'd picked this time on purpose.
From things I could lightly grant to things that required me to spend the whole day with them.
Yeah.
My party members had this many things they wanted to do with me. They'd been wanting to spend this kind of time with me all along.
It was a time of new realization, learning things I hadn't known.
And this feeling of satisfaction welling up in my chest was definitely happiness.
In the first place, I was Yellow Dog, the guy who had grinded this Velvet School Life! game like crazy.
Even though I couldn't whale much due to my wallet situation, I was the type who would repeat the same story for days and nights under the conviction that I wouldn't miss a single cutscene out of the hundreds for each character I pulled.
How could I possibly dislike it when the characters I liked so much, had liked, do like, were smiling and laughing this happily like this?
Yes, I was happy.
But how should I put it.
Hm.
'Doing it all at once is still way too much.'
You know how, when you go to an all-you-can-eat place on an empty stomach and fill up about four plates, you get full, sleepy, and tired.
It's like having an endless stream of food coming at you in that situation.
'How many days has it been already······?'
Originally, I had only planned to stay one day, but one day was woefully insufficient to grant the welfare requests of my party members.
Because of that, Master went out for a moment and submitted a commission request for the Utopia unit to the Academy.
And so it was already the third day.
I seriously wonder what would have happened if there hadn't been a hot spring here.
If I hadn't periodically relieved my fatigue in the hot spring, I would have collapsed long ago.
"Let's go in quickly, ease the fatigue, and rest······."
I had chosen the hot spring as a travel destination to relieve my party members' fatigue, but it felt like I was the only one getting the real benefit out of it.
Just as I was about to head toward the hot spring, I spotted someone far off in the distance.
'Huh? Master?'
With the snowy scenery as a backdrop, Master was alone, tilting a glass of liquor.
'Come to think of it, she's seemed a little strange since that day.'
Here, on the first day of arriving at the Winter Palace.
Shin Se-hee had called Master aside.
For nearly a few hours, the two of them seemed to be having a deep conversation about something.
'Well, I figured they had their own things to talk about, so I didn't eavesdrop······,'
But after that, Master hadn't even exchanged a single word with me.
She'd just, as if troubled by something for a long time, stare blankly at me while I interacted with the party members and do nothing else.
'Was it something serious?'
I'd been too busy getting along with my party members to even ask why.
Now's my chance.
"Master."
When I called her,
Master, who had been tilting her glass, glanced at me and nodded.
"Ah, my disciple."
"······Do you have some kind of worry?"
"A worry? Not particularly."
"Um, ever since you arrived here, you haven't talked to me at all. The others all ask me for this and that, but Master, you haven't said a single thing······."
At that, Baek Seol-hee chuckled.
"Even if I don't ask, aren't you already doing plenty? This time too, thanks to you, I even got to meet my mother."
"Then, why haven't you spoken to me since coming here···?"
Master took a long drink of her liquor and changed the subject.
"You were on your way to bathe in the hot spring, I see."
"······Yes."
"Hm, shall we go together then."
"······Yes. Huh?"
* * *
'Huh?'
The outdoor hot spring prepared at the back of the Winter Palace.
Pure white snow was falling from the sky, and pure white steam was billowing up from the hot spring water.
I entered the water wearing clothes.
Well, not just any clothes.
The swimsuit I'd worn at the Haeundae Festival the other day.
Splash.
A feeling as if the fatigue accumulated over the day was gently melting away.
"Aahhh······."
This place was paradise no matter when I stepped into it.
Enough that an involuntary moan just slipped out.
And then.
Ripple—
The sound of water coming from behind me.
I gulped and turned my head to look back.
"······M-Master?"
I stared blankly at her as she submerged her body in the water, then whipped my head back around.
Because.
'······Th-This is way too risqué! Master!'
Baek Seol-hee was dressed in a way that covered her body with only a single long towel!
The parts that needed covering were covered, of course, but way too much skin was showing.
And the towel covering her body wasn't even fastened anywhere;
it was held in place solely by Master's hand, which made it feel even more provocative.
"Phaaah······. This is nice."
Baek Seol-hee, her body immersed in the bath, let out a long, languid sigh and closed her eyes.
'Am I the only one feeling weird? Is it because of the gender role reversal? No, isn't this a bit much even with the role reversal?'
A feeling of, 'Is this really okay?'
Regardless of my feelings, Baek Seol-hee, with a nonchalant expression, floated the bottle and glass of liquor she'd brought onto the water.
And then Master slowly downed a glass.
"Hmm. Disciple. Will you have a drink as well?"
I still couldn't even properly turn my gaze toward her,
but I nodded my head in answer.
"······Yes, yes! Pl-Please give me a glass."
The glass and bottle floated toward me across the water.
Slowly—
The hot liquor traveled down my esophagus, warming my insides.
"Gaaah······."
'Master, you drink really strong liquor.'
"This is the first time we've had a drink together like this, too."
"······Yes, I didn't know you drank alcohol either, Master."
"Heh, that's because I can't taste it, you see."
"Ah."
Oops.
My mouth just runs.
Even though I knew Master had lost her sense of taste, I went and said something like that.
Master, who had been watching me, let out a chuckle.
"I'm joking. I do drink occasionally, all the same. Even without flavor, I can still know what it feels like to get drunk."
"······Huh?"
Master made a joke?
I wanted to turn back to look at her, but it felt like I was doing something sacrilegious, so I desperately held myself back from turning.
"I suppose I just enjoy seeing you flustered."
Baek Seol-hee said that as she smiled softly once more.
A moment of silence settled between us.
"Disciple."
Master called out to me after a brief pause.
'Is she finally going to tell me about that? Just what did she hear from Shin Se-hee to make her act like this?'
"Yes."
"May I ask you just one thing."
"Yes, ask me anything."
"······You. Hm, no. Never mind."
Ah, she's going to hesitate this much and not even say it?
With my gaze still fixed on empty space, I opened my mouth.
"Do you know there are two ways to drive a person crazy?"
"······Is that so? And what are these ways?"
"One is to start saying something and then stop."
After saying that, I shut my mouth.
As the silence continued afterward, Baek Seol-hee opened her mouth, her voice carrying a slight hint of irritation.
"So, what is the second one? Finish what you're saying."
"See. When someone stops mid-sentence like this, it drives a person crazy."
"Ah. So that's it. Understood."
Baek Seol-hee answered earnestly, as if acknowledging the point.
'Seriously, Master has a genuinely unique character, too.'
"Hm, then I don't wish to drive my disciple crazy, so I'll speak. It's really nothing. Just think of it as something I said while drunk."
"Yes."
"Jin Yu-ha. Your party members and I. If both were in a life-or-death situation, whom would you save?"
"······?"
A question I had never even imagined hit me completely out of the blue.
'If both were in danger, who would I save?'
"Uh, if the situation is dangerous enough for you, Master, to be in peril, I don't think I would be of much help······?"
"······."
"Well, uh, o-of course, if you were in that kind of situation, Master, I'd throw myself into danger to save you, no question. But still."
But as if that wasn't the answer she wanted, the silence held.
So, Master meant for me to absolutely choose one: my party members or herself.
Here, one way to handle it would be to say what she wanted to hear, to match her mood.
'Even at times like this, Master is the type to choose honest words.'
Therefore, I had no choice but to say it.
"······For me, asking me to save just one of the two is too difficult a question. Master. If a situation like that ever comes."
As I said this, I turned to look back at Baek Seol-hee.
There, she was staring at me with a serious face.
"I will, somehow, absolutely, by whatever means necessary, save both of them. No matter what."
At that.
"Pfft."
Baek Seol-hee burst out laughing.
'Master's laughing a lot today.'
A breathtaking smile, different from the one she had shown back when we were hunting monsters.
I stared at her blankly.
"I see. As I thought, you intend to give up on not a single one."
Swish—
Master suddenly stood up from her spot without even holding onto her towel.
Whip—!
I had no choice but to whip my head away again.
And I felt Master approaching me.
Baek Seol-hee grabbed my chin and turned me to face her.
'H-Huh······?'
With a premonition that I might end up seeing what must not be seen at the slightest slip, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Thwack—!
A sudden, stinging pain flared on my forehead.
Master had given me a flick on the forehead.
"You are my disciple, but truly greedy."
Clutching my forehead, I opened my eyes.
"If that's the case, then it suddenly feels unfair that I was the only one not making any requests of you all this time. From now on, I shall also occasionally ask you for things I wish to do."
With those words as the end, Master turned her body and walked outside.
And as I watched her departing back, I couldn't help but open my mouth with a dumbfounded expression.
'······She was wearing underwear?'
She had only looked naked because she covered up with a towel.
Baek Seol-hee had entered the water wearing her underwear from the very start.
For Master to have set such a trap.
I really hadn't imagined it at all.