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You people ought to respect me.
I was the national kendo championship winner, and more recently I took the crown at Infinity Arena as well. Since the day I started Infinity Black, I have never once dropped out of the highest tier. Calling me the undisputed best assassin player alive would not be much of an exaggeration.
I am also a proper adult, a fact I can prove with the ID card in my wallet. My body may look young on the outside, but that does not change the fact that I am over twenty years old.
So… so…
Could you maybe back off just a little?
You feel way too close.
"Daeun, your hair is so nice. What shampoo do you use?"
"The cheapest one… online."
"Hiek. That's a crime. Hair like this deserves something better. It'd be a waste if it got damaged. What about conditioner?"
"I buy it with the shampoo. They usually discount them as a set…"
"I seriously need to report you. I'm getting jealous just looking at it."
This was hopeless.
I could not bring myself to ask her to let go. I was trapped in San-sae's—Kim Sin-ah's—arms.
Nothing physical had been done to me, exactly. Our bodies were simply close enough to touch. Sin-ah was even gently combing my hair into place. The reason I still felt like I had been tied up with rope was the soft, yielding flesh pressed against my back.
There was no way to put that into words. Heat flooded my face, so I just hung my head.
I had been a guy, after all. It was not that I disliked it… but enjoying it outright pricked at my conscience. Guilt drained the strength right out of me. If this went on any longer, I might just melt into a puddle on the spot.
"Can I touch your cheek?"
"…Sure."
"Heh. I knew it. Baby-soft skin. So smooth it feels amazing. You haven't even put on base makeup, have you?"
"I put on lotion, at least."
"How is the world this unfair?"
San-sae's hand rubbed over my cheek. She gathered her fingers and gave the flesh a firm squeeze, then stretched it out along her index finger. Meanwhile, Elderin had started neatly parting the hair at my temple and braiding it.
Judging by the atmosphere, nobody had any intention of rescuing me. Elderin was absorbed in her delicate work. Uncle Dolgwol was simply watching us with the eyes of a man looking at his daughters. Even if I begged for help, he would probably just laugh, huh-huh, and leave it at that.
As for Sulpang… hard to say. He seemed every bit as socially hopeless as I was. He kept stealing glances our way, wanting to look but lacking the courage to do more than that.
So my savior had to come from outside.
Just before the last of my life force got sucked dry, a restaurant staff member walked in and I could breathe again.
"The meat you ordered is ready. This cut is…"
The tray he carried was loaded with gorgeous cuts of beef. Marbling spread through the red flesh like a white net, drawing the eye. So this was how expensive restaurants did it—they grilled the meat for you. He even explained, with perfect courtesy, how each cut tasted best and which sauce to dip it in.
My appetite, stirred at the most primal level, left me practically drooling. Elderin—Se-rin—glanced at my face and smiled. I must have looked far too obviously delighted.
The host of today's gathering, looking thoroughly pleased with herself, made a suggestion.
"Shall we eat first?"
"Yes!"
My sense of taste was sharper now than it used to be. I could pick out the savory depth of fat melting on the tongue, the flavor that had soaked deep into the lean meat, in exquisite detail. So the beef was delicious—so delicious I forgot to manage my expression and my mouth curved into a full, open smile.
I finally understood why women loved hunting down good restaurants. If every meal could feel this happy, I would have been obsessed with finding new places too.
But for every sense that had grown sharper, something else had grown weaker.
"Hoo-eup, haah. Hoooo…"
Hot food. I could no longer handle it well. Unlike the days when I could eat anything without a second thought, a stew's scalding broth now needed several careful blows before I could take a sip.
I spooned up the salty doenjang jjigae. The orange-tinged broth soaked my tongue, and I sucked the spoon clean with a soft sssook so nothing would drip. After swallowing a mouthful of white rice on top of it, another silly smile broke across my face.
In the middle of all this happiness, there was one thing that could not be left out.
"Should we order a few bottles of alcohol too? Daeun, are you allowed to drink?"
"I told you, I'm an adult."
"Hmm…"
Everyone wore the same unconvinced look. It was true, though. The suspicion surrounding me only died once I pulled out my ID. Han Daeun, twenty-three years old this year.
By the time the mood had properly warmed, the drinks we ordered arrived, and a pleasant buzz settled into my head. San-sae's—Sin-ah's—arms were warm. The arm wrapped around my stomach as if holding me felt so good that I laid my own hand over it.
Warmth. The warmth I had wanted for so long. The kind of warmth you can only feel between people had finally reached me. It was warmer than any shower's hot water could ever be.
Once my body heated up, something else started to bother me. Sulpang. The women were the ones treating me more freely, and right now I was even nestled in San-sae's arms. Shy as he was, Sulpang did not seem able to get a word out easily.
That would not do. I was in an incredibly good mood right now! This hyung would give him a chance to talk too.
"Come to think of it, what are you all doing next season? Especially you, Sulpang—you were already in the sieges before."
"Ah, well, in my case I was just a subcontracted mercenary guild, right?"
"Yeah. Too hard to aim for anything alone, but not completely without strength either. Pfft. That's what happens when the guild master is weak."
"You're insane. I'm strong!"
"I don't think so. Prove it with power, then."
"…Now that I think about it, maybe I am kind of weak."
Sulpang laughed at his own words. That was funny enough that I laughed too.
"This time, our guild, Sin-ah noona's guild, and Se-rin's guild—all three of us—are going to try for one of the rural territories. Dolgwol hyung is wrapping things up soon and coming over to my side."
"Ooh. Looking to go independent this time?"
"Something like that. I think there's a real shot."
The next patch had announced a large number of small-scale siege zones, which opened room for mid-tier guilds to strike out on their own. Securing supplies had also become more important, so more people needed to be brought in. Sieges, once the exclusive playground of ultra-high-spec players, had opened up to a wider crowd.
More participants meant a bigger board. It was only natural that the grip of the existing powers would loosen. With influence on Sulpang's level, aiming for a single frontier territory was not out of the question.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Just asking you to show up felt wrong when you've gotten so huge. You've probably already gotten offers from much bigger guilds by now, right?"
"Well… you're not wrong. Heh…"
Elderin picked up a piece of meat with her chopsticks and held it out to my mouth. I was not a child, no matter how you looked at it. But I was in a good mood, so I just opened up and ate it.
Join a big board and you naturally get big rewards. But those rewards go to the guild—not the same thing as the scraps that fall to me. I did not particularly want to pick one of the two powers currently dominating the siege scene. Ideally, I would take contracts from both. The best play was to siphon honey from places that would not swing the overall balance much.
"Mmm…"
"Don't answer now. Tell us later when you're sober. If you say yes right now, we'd feel weird about it. It'd look like we got you drunk just for this."
"I wasn't thinking that, but… alright. I'll do that."
Elderin's consideration was surprisingly careful. She was right—this was not something to answer on a good mood alone. I needed to think it over a little more.
That was the end of next-season talk. Whether deliberately or not, everyone tried to change the subject. Even so, the new topic never left the game. We had gathered because I had won, so of course the conversation turned to the Arena—from the second preliminaries through the group stage of the main bracket, all the way to my match against Ripper.
"Heh. Back then, so many people were sure I was going to lose."
"True. You even put a wager on it, didn't you?"
"Yeah. I said I thought I'd win. I was genuinely confident."
"If you'd lost back then, were you actually going to show your face?"
"Dunno. I was never going to lose, so why bother thinking about it?"
Apparently this was what I had been waiting for. Winning had made me happy, of course—but having these few people celebrate beside me made me far happier still. Maybe it was the alcohol working through my body. Drunk, I seemed to have become a little more emotional. I grinned at nothing in particular, laughing so happily I wondered how long it had been since I last smiled like this.
The conversation drifted with the flow of time—the silent exchange of daggers with Ripper, the corpse-bombing Crow had put on display. There were stories only I, the one who had fought there, could tell.
Fortunately, no one at the table asked about my dual-blade form. Consideration, most likely. Anyone could see I had not been in good shape back then.
There was one thing, though, that all of us had overlooked.
"So why did you cry after you won?"
"Huh?"
"You handled the interview fine, then suddenly started crying over the salmon. You're more of a crybaby than I thought."
That alcohol had made me far more sensitive than I had imagined. And, just as Sulpang said, this body was terribly quick to tears—so quick even I could barely control it.
On any other day, the joke would have been only mildly teasing. But the mention of salmon made me think of Mom for no good reason. Being teased about it suddenly made me miserable, too.
"Why… why are you teasing me all of a sudden…? Hic. Hhk…"
"Huh? Hey, are you crying? No, I just— I didn't mean it like that. I mean…"
"What do you think you're doing!"
"Daeun, come here. Unnie's right here."
Sulpang spent more than thirty minutes getting scolded by two women.
This… might actually be pretty nice.
Was this why they said a woman's tears were a weapon?