Volunteer Lee Yuna
“⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼~ ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼~” (Yume naraba dore hodo~ yokatta deshou~)
I was humming away cheerfully as I got the shop ready to open. Why so happy? Because today was Friday, obviously! Work just this one day and I got two whole days off. Hamburgers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — here I come.
And "getting ready," in this case, meant a bit of cleaning and checking whether any mail had come in. Though honestly, most of the mail that arrived was either spam or scam bait anyway.
Scrrroll. Scrrrrroll.
The sound of my mouse wheel churning through the inbox filled the quiet naming shop.
“⎼⎼.” (Oh.)
One message had caught my eye amid the flood of spam.
Not once in my life had I seen a genuinely legal method behind a title bragging about making gold legally.
Stop trying to make gold already!
When you got right down to it, the only legal way to acquire gold was to pay full price and buy it yourself. Gold prices had been climbing lately, though — maybe I should stock up a few dozen grams while I could.
Except I didn't have the money for that.
...
Ugh. Back to singing, then.
“⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼~ ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼~” (Ima datte anata no koto o yume ni miru~)
Ding-a-ling!
“⎼⎼?” (Hm?)
The bell hanging on the front door swayed with a clear, crystalline chime.
Anyone who celebrates at this moment is a rookie. Anyone who gets pissed off is a veteran. And of course—
The! Door! Was! Not! Open!
I'd written "CLOSED" in six different languages, including the word itself, so why on earth was someone walking in? If he turned out to be from another world, I'd let it slide. If not, I really would cut him in half. Really.
"Hello. Are you open?"
Crystal-clear Korean left his mouth. Sadly, he was not an otherworlder.
Then could he perhaps not see? The Korean "CLOSED" had been written in the largest letters of all.
Anyway.
The man who'd barged in uninvited flopped down onto the sofa.
I haven't even said hello yet. What is this guy's deal.
I let out a sigh too quiet for him to hear, then sat down across from him. Going full Gendo Ikari — elbows propped on my knees, one hand covering my mouth — I greeted him.
The man slowly read down the text box that had appeared before his eyes. Then he furrowed his brow, letting his displeasure show.
"So you can't speak?"
A completely different attitude from the one he'd greeted me with. Arrogance and contempt, top to bottom.
That, honestly, was how society looked at mutes: beings beneath human. Existences with no value as mages. The general consensus was that accepting anything from one was a disgrace. The only reason I'd never really felt it was that everyone I'd met so far was Upper Realm, or close enough to it.
Most mages out there were probably living their entire lives believing exactly that.
Sometimes the Upper Realm actually sounds better. Damn it. Is there really no world where nobody gets hurt?
To be fair, the only reason I treated the Upper Realm like a pack of lunatics was that, for all their madness, their achievements in magic were genuinely superb. These were people who threw themselves at magic like it was an obsession, whose bodies moved before their reason ever could whenever something wondrous appeared. And to such people, a mute who conversed without a care in the world via text box?
I was fascinating. Charming enough that it was a mercy I hadn't been kidnapped yet.
Thunk.
Still seated, the man propped his legs up onto the table.
"Well? Can you actually name things properly?"
Nod.
I flared up for a second, but just barely managed to curve my lips upward and respond. I mean—
Yumin, he's the one paying. If he takes the name and doesn't pay, we just call the police.
And what if the police don't take our side? Come on, what kind of question is that? We'd each take one bonk on the head and get named fairly. Isn't that what magic is for? Otherwise, what exactly would I do with a reality-manipulation spell?
For the record: as long as the money's good, I could not care less about insults. Pay me enough, and I'll roll belly-up and do tricks.
Hey, you moron! That's YOUR body! I'm so sorry! My head throbbed watching Yumin sexually harass herself.
I decided to ignore the headache that was Yumin and focus on the work instead. There's an old saying: give the person you dislike an extra rice cake.
I had no rice cakes to give, so I brewed two cups of tea instead — one corn silk tea, one hibiscus.
The man's expression twisted strangely at the two mismatched cups set before him.
“⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼. ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼. ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.” (Not jokin', mon. I follow the old sayin's, mon. Fer real, mon.)
Yay! Mutes are the best! I could sass him to his face and he couldn't understand a word of it!
Having served the tea, I floated a text box toward the intruder as casually as anything.
The man flinched hard at the price. Still, he showed no sign of kicking his chair back and storming out; he just nudged the table with his foot.
What about the price? One name costs too much, you say? So I rake in money like this and then whine about being broke every single day of my life?
Of course it's a rip-off. That's the point. The price I'd quoted him was four times my usual rate.
Uh, nope. We don't do price lists here. This was the asking price. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen — welcome to Yurim's Fish Market.
I spread both arms wide and greeted him once more.
“⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.” (Come on innnn! To my Yurim!)
For some reason, it felt like the kind of morning that brought to mind someone who leapt into the Avici Hell to escape a peach.
Then again, maybe I should try my hand at the performing art of being tied up myself? With this face, I might make even more money than the shop does.
...
No. I can't give up the naming shop. This is more fun. What's so fun about being tied up?
Chomp chomp chomp.
Having wrung 300,000 won out of the rude man, I was now peacefully enjoying lunch.
Today's menu was the chicken/patty/chicken burger the landlady had bought me once before. The exact name escapes me... Anyway, the one where they swap the bun for chicken.
"Really?"
"Ehhhh! You can't lie to your unnie — that's against the rules!"
Today's lunch companion was Kim Juyeon. Ever since she'd gotten the address out of the landlady, she showed up once every three days like clockwork. It bugged me how she'd occasionally ask how to get her hands on the landlady, but she was reasonably pleasant company.
Of course, no amount of pleasantness exempted her from Yumin's now-moneyed lunch-treating duties. She'd bothered to trek all the way out to the naming shop — I couldn't very well make her pay for lunch, could I? So on Kim Juyeon days, the meal was on me.
Watching my expenses double hurt more than a little, but eating together turned out to be decently fun.
Has Yumin ever done this even once, I wonder?
Heh. I win.
Chomp chomp chomp. With Yumin's groans of social anguish as background music, I happily demolished my hamburger — and the moment it was gone, I reached for the fries.
Tap.
"?"
Kim Juyeon had grabbed my hand, placing my fry-eating under her control.
Had she somehow memorized which fries in the communal pile were hers? If so, I'd concede the control. But that was, by any sane standard, impossible.
Which meant there had to be a different reason Kim Juyeon was stopping me.
I tore my eyes from the fries, lifted my head, and looked at her. Her lips were working, as if carefully picking out her words.
"Yuna? Could I ask you for just one naming?"
All that agonizing, and it was a naming request? And here I thought she was going to ask me to conquer the world.
Naming things was my job — I could do it any time. The money, though...
"What's with the gap in the middle? You want money, don't you?"
I waved both hands in an emphatic no. Money-crazed as I might be, I wasn't about to demand payment from the landlady's older sister.
"If you won't take money instead... could I ask for photos of Soyeon?"
"About one every three days."
Photographing the landlady was laughably simple. Spot the landlady, raise my smartphone, click! Since it wasn't magical photography, it left no trace of casting behind. In theory, as long as I wasn't caught by physical means like a security camera, there was no way to be found out.
What's more, ever since my visit to the landlady's place on Monday, I had permission to at least shower there. It was the perfect environment for snapping pictures of the landlady.
But why am I the one getting nothing out of this?
I fed her hamburgers. I gave her a name. I was about to hand over photos...
What was I getting in return? Nothing, that's what.
Now that I thought about it, I was coming out of this way too empty-handed. I was not an unpaid volunteer. Throw in even a little bonus and I'd happily take a few thousand photos of the landlady for her.
The moment I sprawled across the sofa with a supremely indifferent look, Kim Juyeon started fumbling through her pockets, not knowing what to do.
"W-would this work?"
What her frantic rummaging produced was a single transparent ring.
Inside the band, lights of every color reflected off one another, birthing new hues and snuffing out old ones. The angle at which the light within the ring refracted shifted with every change in where you stood — a structure designed so the exact same play of color could never be seen twice.
Th-this was—?!
It was gorgeous, sure, but I'd never cared much for accessories. Wear too many things and they snag on everything; I'd stopped bothering long ago.
Yumin, do you know what that is? Going by the clichés, shouldn't this be the part where something ultra-rare and fabulously expensive turns up?
Ba-dump, ba-dump.
If it really was one of those, my life was made. I waited for Yumin's answer, heart in my throat.
“⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼.” (Ehhhhh.)
According to Yumin, it was just a pretty ring. She couldn't sense any magical whatsit off it, apparently.
Shiiiiiiiiiit.
Seeing my enthusiasm evaporate, Kim Juyeon apparently decided this wasn't going to fly, and launched into a hasty explanation.
"Yuna, you can't think of this as just a pretty ring. It's not an ordinary ring — it's an Anti-Glow replica from Reverse."
"One original of this could buy out an entire location of that burger place you love."
!!!
Whatever it was, it was expensive as hell!!
"Deal. Oh, and for the record, this is a contract between mages. You know what that means?"
Nodnodnod!!
Kim Juyeon sealed the agreement by slipping the Anti-Glow onto my finger. This was it — the successful life, Yumin! Life is all about swinging for the one-in-a-million windfall! Time to leverage this into becoming a magnate pulling billions a day!!
Yumin, we just blew our lives wide open!!
Kiyahaaa!
Right as I was riding that high, Yumin dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.
What?
"A replica is a copy," you say?
“⎼⎼.” (Ah.)
But the contract was already signed...? And if I broke it, I'd die...?
This was a scam contract!!
Fuuuuu——!!