While We Were Away at the Stream
Dohyeon had shipped the Skull Engine off to Cassandra and even bought beds for Assistant Manager Lim Seonwoo and his girlfriend, Song Seogyeong, to sleep in.
Chomp-chomp-chomp-chomp.
With his pressing business handled, he was now helping out with the once-a-day watermelon feeding.
"Is it really that good?"
Chomp-chomp-chomp-chomp!
Snow, who had grown mysteriously calm ever since moving to Hyung's Ranch, couldn't contain her excitement when watermelon time came around.
Dohyeon stroked her coat — flawless as the morning after a fat snowfall — as he held the watermelon where she could eat it comfortably.
"Slow down now, take it slow. It's all yours."
Having polished off an entire watermelon, Snow licked her lips.
Smiling fondly at her contentment, Dohyeon gave her rump a friendly pat and stepped out of the stable.
Why are animal rumps so unbearably cute?
Click.
"Oh, welcome back, Boss."
When he opened the door and stepped inside, he found the Hyung's Ranch employees — who had finished their watermelon rounds ahead of him — resting out of the sun.
"Is everyone all set?"
"Yes, sir. We've all packed a change of clothes."
A good deal of anticipation was written across their faces.
Today was the day of the stream outing they'd been itching for all week.
Whether it was legally possible, or how it had even come to be, he couldn't say, but there was a stream at the very corner of Hyung's Ranch.
Going by what the Management Bureau had told him when they purchased the ranch, it was apparently private property...
Isn't a stream normally national land, though?
The Hyodoncheon flowed down from Baekrokdam toward Jeju's southern coast, and if you followed it downstream, it became the tourist spot known as Soesokkak.
But setting the knotty questions aside, the ranch staff had decided to take all the swimming-capable animals off on a summer retreat.
At an ordinary ranch it would have been out of the question — it was only possible because this was the domain of the mysterious Climber Dohyeon.
The animals of Hyung's Ranch obeyed his every word, and they were remarkably people-friendly besides.
Dohyeon looked over the expectant faces of his employees and spoke.
"All right. Let's rest up for a bit and head out once the sun starts to dip."
"Yes, sir!"
Vroooom— Woof-woof-woof! Arf-arf! Whinny!
Kang Eunseo's truck, loaded to bursting with grills and food, led the way, and a long procession of animals trailed behind it.
Perhaps the animals knew they were off on an outing — they'd forgotten the heat entirely and were thoroughly beside themselves.
Three horses, a family of five alpacas, a handful of rare water-attribute cats, and several dozen dogs.
Dohyeon's three skeletons ranged along the flanks of the column, playing the part of herding dogs.
Clack-clack!
Goldie, who in life had been a people-loving, friend-loving Golden Retriever through and through, was marshaling the pack with the practiced air of a border collie.
Squeeeeeal.
The truck rolled to a stop in the open ground near the stream, and the animals that had chased it there halted as well.
Click.
Dohyeon climbed out of the passenger seat and looked over the animals who had waited so patiently.
Snort! Hah-hah-hah-hah. Mmoo... mmoo...
The animals had been baking in the sun and looked ready to plunge into the stream on the spot.
The Hyung's Ranch employees were watching in wonder as that entire menagerie sat meekly, waiting on Dohyeon's word.
Clap!
"All right — go play!"
Woof-woof! Neigh!
Dozens of animals hit the water in a burst of spray.
Snow and Volcano, clearly delighted by the cool water, had already waded out to where it ran quite deep, while Lightning paddled about in depths suited to his own height.
"Taesan, Soran — come here a moment."
Clack-clack!
The two elephant skeletons gathered close to Dohyeon.
"You two, keep a sharp eye out for anything that gets swept downstream or goes under, will you?"
The elephant couple were the tallest of the whole company and didn't need to breathe besides — which made them outstanding lifeguards.
Clack-clack!
With a nod, Taesan and Soran split off toward the upper and lower reaches of the stream and waded in.
At his feet, Goldie sat quietly.
The Goldie of old would obviously have leapt straight in and gone splashing off with his dog paddle; this one kept vigil at his master's side instead.
"Goldie. You're sure you don't want to play?"
Clack-clack!
Goldie nodded that he was fine.
Ever since they became skeletons, that instinct to act on impulse really does seem to have died down.
Maybe it was because no hormones were being produced anymore — and there were no receptors left to receive them even if they were?
The newly skeletal Goldie, Taesan, and Soran were extraordinarily composed, for animals.
After a moment's musing, Dohyeon turned to the employees.
"All right — those of you on meat duty, get grilling. Those of you going in the water, get in."
"Yes, sir!"
Dohyeon waved off the volunteers offering to grill the meat, shooed them toward the water, and lit the coals himself.
Well, since we came all this way, the kids deserve some meat too.
He set up five charcoal grills.
That day, it wasn't sunlight that seared Dohyeon's skin — it was the heat of the coals.
"Aigoooo..."
The long day finally behind him, Dohyeon sank into bed, resting one hand on the forehead of Goldie where he lay beside him, and picked up his smartphone with the other.
A whole stack of notifications was waiting on the screen.
"Community alerts, huh? Did Cassandra get the item?"
Sure enough, a pile of messages from Cassandra had stacked up.
The messages had all arrived during the long hours he'd spent tending the grill.
"Hmm... is it really that serious?"
Dohyeon took Cassandra's theatrics with more than a grain of salt and checked his other alerts.
Asst. Manager Lim Seonwoo — 3 calls
Sister-in-law — 2 calls
"Huh? Did something happen?"
The day he'd promised to host Seonwoo and his girlfriend's Jeju vacation was only a few days out.
Worrying that their plans might have changed, Dohyeon placed the call.
Riiing... riiing... Click.
"Yah, Dohyeon! Why the heck haven't you been answering your phone?!"
"Ah — Hyung. I was busy right up until a minute ago. Took the kids out to a stream. There's one at the very edge of the ranch, and it's a lovely spot. When you come visit, you should really dip your feet in."
"Yah, you rascal! That is not the point right now—!"
"Huh?"
What Assistant Manager Lim Seonwoo said next came as a genuine shock.
Apparently Cassandra, a Climber of the Jeju Tower, had received an item of unknown provenance that very morning from a Climber going by the handle BigBroGoldie, and as she investigated — socketing it into an empty staff, running appraisal skills over it — the story had snowballed.
Confronted with an object that could turn the entire world's Tower-climbing culture on its head, Cassandra had immediately begun making inquiries, and when Dohyeon failed to answer her messages, the trail led to IM Solution, the byproducts company holding his contract — and when IM Solution couldn't raise him either, word climbed all the way up to the Management Bureau.
That was why Dohyeon's smartphone held Cassandra's messages, the missed calls from Assistant Manager Lim Seonwoo, and the missed calls from his sister-in-law.
"Come on, it's not as if I'm running away. What could possibly be so urgent...?"
For Dohyeon — who had weathered this brutal midsummer, hard on man and beast alike, by splashing around with his animal friends, demolishing a watermelon, grilling up a mountain of meat, then washing off clean and collapsing into bed — the whole thing felt faintly absurd.
Ding-dong! Pound-pound-pound!
Just then, someone hammered on the front door.
"Climber Cha Dohyeon! Climber Cha Dohyeon! Are you in?!"
"One moment, Hyung. Someone's here at the house."
"Ah. Sounds like they've arrived. Go see."
Dohyeon had no idea what Assistant Manager Lim Seonwoo was talking about — but it was the sort of thing he would learn the moment he opened the door anyway.
Without pressing for an explanation, he rose from the bed.
Through the imaginary conduit that linked summoner to summons, he called for Taesan and Soran, and set Goldie on standby between his legs.
"Yes~. Coming out now."
Click.
He turned the handle and pulled the door open — and found a single middle-aged man and an entire platoon of special forces soldiers in uniform waiting outside.
"Oh! Climber Cha Dohyeon! I'm Pyo Sangpil, Director of the Jeju Tower Management Headquarters. No trouble of any sort, I trust?"
Before he knew it, one of Dohyeon's hands had been caught between both of Pyo Sangpil's and was being pumped up and down.
Bewildered, he answered.
"Uh, yes... I'm, er, perfectly fine."
Thud-thud-thud! Thud-thud-thud!
Dohyeon raised a hand and checked Taesan and Soran as they closed in at speed.
"What on earth is this about...?"
Dohyeon ushered Pyo Sangpil of the Jeju Tower Management Headquarters and his platoon of special forces — who seemed to have come out of pure, honest concern — into his home and served them watermelon.
Crunch-squish!
"Ooh. This watermelon really is sweet and delicious. To think the Hyung's Ranch animals eat this every day — they live like kings, don't they."
Dohyeon let the director's smooth patter flow in one ear and out the other while he organized his thoughts.
So... because I wasn't answering my phone, they got the army to roll out in case something had happened to me?
He studied the soldiers as they took off their helmets and ate.
Closely shorn hair, bronze skin, eyes full of guns, muscles straining the seams of their combat fatigues.
Their personal weapons — magazines detached and bolts locked back — wore an array of firearms accessories seldom seen in ordinary units.
None of it added up for Dohyeon, and he asked.
"Um, Director? Mobilizing the military for a welfare check because I was out of contact for a few hours... I don't quite follow. Is this how Climbers are normally treated?"
Pyo Sangpil wiped the juice from his hand with the back of the other and replied.
"Ooh — of course not. Ordinary Climbers have no need for cumbersome security details, and the Management Bureau's cardinal principle toward Climbers is to guarantee them the utmost freedom. Unless a quarter is drawing to a close and someone is falling short of their target score, we truly never go out of our way to bother anyone with an unprompted call."
Dohyeon pressed the hand-waving director once more.
"Then why today...?"
"Well — today really was an exceptional case."
What Pyo Sangpil said next went roughly as follows.
First, the item Cassandra had received was astonishing beyond all measure. Second, Dohyeon — who had never once been unreachable before — had gone silent, and even the ranch's phone line refused to connect. And third, Dohyeon was a necromancer-type Climber, a class wanting in personal combat strength.
On the off chance — the truly off chance — that a foreign spy had abducted him, they said, the director had brought the special forces along as insurance against the worst-case scenario.
"Climber Cha Dohyeon, I apologize for startling you with such an abrupt visit today. My staff will be in touch tomorrow with the full story. Thank you kindly for the delicious watermelon. Do have a pleasant night!"
The top man at the Jeju Tower Management Headquarters made his exit — slippery as a tongue inside the mouth, sleek as an eel slathered in olive oil.
As smooth as his entrance; he could have made off with the nose of a man staring right at him.
Swish-swish, swish-swish.
Seated on a chair and brushing out Goldie's fur, Dohyeon recalled the words Pyo Sangpil had dropped just before rising to leave.
Dohyeon — who had revived Goldie, planned to rub shoulders with overlooked animals, and, once his companions numbered enough, to sweep through the Tower's monsters like a typhoon or a tsunami — had somehow become the man holding a game changer for international society.
Have I gone and become the eye of the storm...?
After a spell of quiet brooding, Dohyeon settled comfortably into bed.
"...Might as well just sleep."
Unable to shake off the pleasant fatigue of the water fun, Dohyeon put the complicated business off until tomorrow and gave himself over to sleep.
Clack-clack!
And Goldie — steadfast Goldie, who had no need of sleep at all — kept watch at his side.