A Name for the Fairy
I decided to think about the fairy’s name on the way home.
“Minsoo’s going to give me a pretty name~”
“I’m so jealous that the Lord is the one naming her.”
“I can’t wait to see what kind of name Lord Kim comes up with!”
“Lord, I look forward to a name that suits such an adorable fairy.”
For some reason, everyone’s expectations were sky high.
The pressure was enormous.
“Hyung-nim’s naming sense…! You’ll have to name the snow leopard children who’ll be born in the future too!”
“Hehe… That’s right. We’ll be counting on you, Orabeoni.”
I hadn’t given it much thought, but once everyone started acting like this, I couldn’t help but take it seriously.
That’s how we arrived back home.
However, the only names I’d ever given in my life were for a few pets I’d raised, so my naming sense was exactly that level.
Since her wings sparkled, Sparkles. Since she flew around, Flybaby. Since she was white all over, Whitey.
‘As if I could actually say any of those out loud.’
If I pulled out names like that, they’d probably look at me with ice-cold eyes, so I thought about it a little more seriously.
But no matter how much I pondered, nothing brilliant came to mind, and everyone simply waited patiently.
“You don’t have to think too deeply about it. If it’s really difficult, you could also take a name from something you like.”
Asne, noticing how burdened I felt, gently offered some advice to help me relax.
That’s when something suddenly flashed in my mind.
“Ah! In that case, I just thought of the perfect one…”
All eyes turned to me at once.
Their sparkling gazes, full of anticipation, pressed down on me.
But if I couldn’t overcome even this much pressure, I didn’t deserve to be a Lord.
I kept my composure and spoke the name that had come to me.
“Lily. I’m not sure if it exists in your world, but here we have a flower called the lily. Looking at her reminded me of that flower. In English, it’s called lily. What do you think?”
Lilies were commonly associated with pure white.
But lilies actually came in many different colors.
The tiger lilies planted at my childhood home had been yellow with black spots.
My mother loved tending the garden, so she had taught me about them.
She said there were over a hundred different kinds of lilies.
Still, the representative image seemed to fit her quite well.
So I said it and waited for their reactions.
The fairy who had been riding on my shoulder began circling around my head.
The sparkling powder falling from her wings was incredibly beautiful.
“A flower name~ So pretty! It suits the fairy perfectly! I love it so much!”
Miya laughed brightly, clearly delighted.
“Fairies tend to like flowers, so a name like a flower would probably make this fairy happy too. And personally, I think it’s quite romantic. I like it, my Lord.”
Asne smiled warmly as she expressed her approval.
Lei, Ruin, Mino, and Diya all praised it as well.
Feeling a little smug, I held out my hand. The fairy landed on my palm and looked up at me.
“Do you like the name Lily?”
I asked while meeting her eyes.
The fairy couldn’t speak, but she smiled brightly and nodded.
That smile that made even me feel happy must have meant yes.
“Lily, you can go anywhere on the islands of my territory, but you mustn’t go to the mainland.”
Lily nodded at my words.
“My Lord, a fairy’s wings are delicate, so crossing the sea is difficult for her. To visit other islands, she’ll need help from the other inhabitants.”
“Is that so? Then that’s a relief. I only warned her because I was worried something might happen if humans spotted her.”
“I understand your concern, my Lord. From observing the sea groks, it seems the humans are being cautious.”
“That’s good news.”
The Ttangkkeut Guild was currently keeping an eye on the sea.
Suddenly, sea groks had appeared.
They would need to figure out whether it was because humans like themselves had come, or for some other reason.
In truth, it was because humans had arrived.
That was exactly why I had done it.
But from the Ttangkkeut Guild’s perspective, they would feel differently.
When people lived in Ttangkkeut Village, the sea groks had attacked.
Once the people disappeared, things had gone quiet. Now that people had shown up again, the monsters had reappeared.
Therefore, they would likely conclude that sea groks reacted to people.
Even if that wasn’t the case, they had no way of knowing any connection to me.
From their point of view, I was at best a mere 1st-grade hunter.
Even if they suspected something, they’d probably think, Does that even make sense?
‘What kind of 1st-grade could command beings of higher grades?’
‘I could, but normally that’s impossible.’
With that, we wrapped things up for the day and each returned to our homes to sleep.
The problem was Lily.
She didn’t have a house, and being such a tiny fairy, when I asked her through Asne, it turned out that fairies didn’t need sleep.
When I asked what she wanted to do, she said she wanted to explore the island, so I told her to go ahead.
“Two o’clock… Hmm… There’s no cooldown or anything, and it resets at midnight, so maybe I should sleep and then do the summoning…?”
My recent sleep schedule had been a mess.
No matter what time of day I used the inhabitant summoning, it reset at midnight.
So there was no real need to stubbornly wait until then.
I had only been holding out because I was so curious about who would be summoned.
Deciding to be more restrained starting tomorrow, I fell asleep.
I opened my eyes to warm sunlight.
I felt incredibly energetic.
When I checked the time, it was still only eight o’clock.
‘What’s going on?’
Normally, if I slept only six hours while working, I’d feel like I was dying the next day.
My whole body would be stiff, exhausted, and miserable.
But my current life wasn’t work.
I was simply doing what I wanted to do.
Even so, six hours was still on the short side.
The amount of sleep I felt truly refreshed by was ten hours.
Sometimes I’d take a short nap and feel fine, but I’d usually get tired again soon after.
Right now, though, I didn’t feel that way at all.
“If I get tired while moving around, I can just sleep again.”
Honestly, if I had been working, I would have been tossing and turning in bed.
But now I was overflowing with motivation.
Since I wanted to do something, I washed up quickly and left the house.
It looked like more snow had fallen overnight; everything was softly blanketed in white.
As I took in the beautiful sight, something sparkling flew toward me.
When it got closer, I realized it was Lily.
I cupped both hands and held them out. She landed gently in my palms.
“Lily. Did you explore the island properly?”
At my question, she gave me a bright smile so pure it almost hurt my heart and nodded.
“Really? Good job.”
I carefully stroked Lily’s head.
She seemed to like it and accepted my touch with a joyful expression.
She really was too cute.
Due to the fairy Lily's trait, a gentle blessing has settled upon the territory of Nohwado.
The Lord, Kim Minsoo's fatigue has vanished. Vigor surges within him.
Just looking at her made me feel good, but after confirming the message, I felt even better.
The reason I felt fine despite sleeping so little had been revealed.
It was all thanks to Lily’s trait.
It was described as minor, but fatigue was something you were always better off without.
And it even gave me a surge of vitality?
I couldn’t possibly hold back.
“Lily~ You’re so pretty~”
I stroked her more enthusiastically, though still carefully.
Lily smiled even more brightly.
Seeing her like that made me happy all over again.
An infinite engine of happiness.
“Oh! I was supposed to teach you how to read! Lily, do you want to learn now?”
Remembering what we had talked about yesterday, I asked.
Lily nodded immediately without any hesitation.
“Alright, then let’s start right away.”
I went inside the house with Lily, sat on the living room sofa, and bought a book.
It was a colorful, cute Korean learning book designed to make it easy for children to learn letters.
I opened it and sat Lily on top of it.
‘Hmm… How should I teach this?’
Now that I was actually trying to teach her, I felt a bit lost.
So I simply pointed at the letters as they were written in the book and taught her how to read them.
While reading, I traced the large consonants with my finger as if writing them.
“Giyeok, Nieun, Digeut…”
Every time I read one from ㄱ to ㅎ, Lily would nod.
“Um… Lily, is it hard?”
Worried that memorizing them all at once might be difficult, I asked. Lily shook her head from side to side.
The book also had spaces to practice writing, and crayons were included, so I gave Lily a black crayon.
She held it tightly with both hands and wrote each consonant one by one.
Although she couldn’t speak with her mouth, Lily could communicate through telepathy.
Her intelligence clearly wasn’t that of a child.
Beyond that, she was incredibly smart.
Even an adult would find it hard to see and hear a foreign language once and then write it immediately, yet Lily managed it in one go.
“Lily, you’re really smart, aren’t you? Then shall we do a simple test?”
There were empty boxes next to the consonants in the book.
For an adult, copying them would be easy.
So I took out a blank sheet of paper and called out the consonants one by one.
First slowly and in order, then in reverse, and finally all mixed up.
Lily wrote every consonant I called without the slightest hesitation.
“Amazing! Lily, you’re a genius~!”
Her eyes sparkled as if asking, Did I do well? Did I do well? so I stroked her head and praised her.
If she did well, praise was only natural.
Lily accepted my touch with a happy expression.
“Then let’s learn the vowels next.”
Lily really was incredibly smart.
Once I taught her something, she remembered it perfectly.
That’s how Lily learned to write Hangul.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
“Now I guess I need to teach you words.”
At the word “words,” she pointed her tiny finger at me.
“Me? Lord? Or my name?”
I pondered what she meant and asked.
She nodded at “Lord,” then nodded even more vigorously at “name.”
Then she wrote on the blank paper.
“Lord… name… Whoa… You can combine consonants and vowels just from hearing the pronunciation? Lily, you’re seriously incredibly smart!!! Oh, my name is Kim Minsoo. Got it?”
I had only taught her the consonants and vowels, yet Lily was writing the words after hearing the pronunciation.
I was genuinely shocked, but since she was asking questions, I calmly explained.
Then Lily wrote “Kim Minsoo” on the paper.
Afterward, she looked up at me as if asking for praise.
“Yes, Kim Minsoo. Lily, you’re amazing!”
After stroking her for a while, Lily wrote again.
This time it was the letters for “Lily.”
Her intelligence was truly astonishing.
If Asne, who could use telepathy, were here now, I could tell Lily the words I was curious about and have her write them.
But since it was still morning, we decided to continue studying with books for now.
I bought an encyclopedia with pictures and words to increase the difficulty and had Lily read it.
“If it’s too hard, you don’t have to read it. Asne will wake up soon, and then you can talk through telepathy. You can learn whatever you want to learn then.”
At my words, Lily shook her head slightly.
She soon settled in front of the book and began reading.
She looked so serious that I felt I shouldn’t disturb her.
Whenever Lily pointed at something she was curious about, I explained it to her while watching. Before I knew it, a lot of time had passed.
It took Lily three hours to finish reading the rather thick encyclopedia. It was now ten in the morning.
“Are there any more words you’re curious about?”
Lily shook her head at my question.
“Really? Then let’s go meet Asne and talk.”
This time Lily nodded.
When I started getting ready to go out, she wrote something on the paper.
When I tried to look, she hid it, so I finished preparing to leave.
Once I was done and opened the door, Lily handed me the paper.
“Lord Kim Minsoo. Called Lily. Thank you.”
That was what was written on the paper.
When I looked up, Lily, who had gone out first, was holding the hem of her skirt with both hands. She smiled brightly, bowed politely, and greeted me.
It was a sight so happy it almost hurt my heart.
