I Have Few Friends
After dropping the kid off, Gong Ryun headed for the library.
And today, once again, he put his martial arts to the test.
The venue was a training room where techniques could be unleashed freely.
"Huanghe Palm."
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!
He unleashed the Huanghe Palm.
Ordinarily, a single use of this would have drained his internal energy dry on the spot. But now…
"Kyahahaha!!! I held on!!!"
Gong Ryun was still standing.
His legs were trembling a little, sure. But that much was fine.
His total internal energy capacity had increased.
By roughly a hundred years' worth.
It had been this way ever since the Zami Star fragment had overhauled Gong Ryun's body during their fusion as Zami-Gongryun.
When a colossal tide of internal force had swept through Gong Ryun's body, the Zami Star had used that very force to realign his meridians. Working carefully so that the Sangongdok poison-qi would never be touched, it had opened and cleared the remaining portions of his dantian—the parts that were not the poison core. Areas that had never been able to function properly under the poison-qi's influence had recovered a fraction of their original capacity.
Whoa. So this is what it takes to become a star, huh.
Gong Ryun had been genuinely impressed.
A full hundred years, just like that.
And those hundred years carried a different weight than they would for an ordinary martial artist. After all, Gong Ryun's original internal energy had been two hundred and fifty years.
Two hundred and fifty to three hundred and fifty—mathematically, a forty percent increase.
It outstripped every single spiritual medicine he had ever consumed by an overwhelming margin.
Thanks, Zami Star… Stealing my body was still pretty rotten of you… but you taught me techniques and gave me internal energy too… I won't forget this…
There were regrets, though.
Gong Ryun had not been able to reproduce everything the Zami Star had shown him that day.
The Zami Finger Bullet Art—he had fired it himself, and still he could not recreate it.
It was simply too profound. One viewing had not been enough to grasp it fully. If he kept replaying it in his head, he might eventually be able to use it somehow… but his body would almost certainly explode and kill him in the process. One tiny slip in control and he would turn into a living bomb.
…Would seeing it a few more times be enough to learn it?
Surely there wouldn't be another chance. Probably not. Ah, come on.
Even though it was better if there never was another chance, somehow he still felt a little disappointed.
After that, he practiced the forms of the Parangjang as far as his internal energy would allow.
Until now he had only been using Form Three (wide-area shockwave) and Form Four (defensive matrix) in actual fights. It was about time he started putting the others into practice as well.
Maybe he would take a few more subjugation requests over the weekend.
He hadn't been able to practice energy absorption at all.
No opponent meant nothing to absorb. And using absorption techniques on a friend during a spar felt too awkward…
Unless some real combat opponent just happened to show up out of nowhere…
…
After that brief training session, Gong Ryun arrived at the tteokbokki shop.
—Hoot.
An owl, quietly confined in its cage, greeted him.
"I dropped him off, Boss."
"So you've come, Sangongdok Goe-in. Care for a glass of sweet rice punch?"
The person in the restaurant kitchen was not the Boss.
"Oh. Owl Uncle. Was today one of your part-time days?"
"Not really. The Boss said she had a Green Parent Association meeting and asked me to watch the shop."
"I see."
He was the named mercenary known as Eagle Owl Minerva. The scar on his face gave him a distinctly veteran air.
He was wearing an apron.
He picked up kitchen-assistant shifts for a day or two a week, here and there. In truth there were so few customers that "assistant" was a stretch—his real job was simply minding the place when the Boss was out.
"Been out on a request?"
"No. I just took Sowol over to a friend's house."
"Keh-keh-keh. Truly remarkable, Sangongdok Goe-in."
"Hm? What is?"
"Leaving a child in someone's care is absolute proof of trust. To have earned that level of confidence from the Boss… I can scarcely believe it."
"Just from that?"
"It took me a full three years of building trust before I could even strike a contract with the Boss of this place! Eating that flavorless tteokbokki! Working restaurant shifts that don't even suit my constitution!! Only after that long, careful approach did I finally begin to earn a scrap of trust—and you, in that short a time, built a perfect enough relationship of trust for her to leave her son with you! It took me two years just to be allowed to speak to the boy! Incredible! Terrifying, even, Sangongdok Goe-in!!!"
"Ah."
"Just what did you do!! No matter how closely I watch from the sidelines, I can't figure it out!! Did you sell exclusive Sangongdok distribution rights? Leverage the Sichuan Tang Clan's name? Or was it… a honey trap after all!!!"
"What are you even talking about."
"Tell me!! I'm genuinely curious!! Pure, sincere admiration, I swear!!"
"Look, Uncle. Isn't the reason it took you three years because you approached everything with that pitch-black heart of yours?"
—Hoot.
The owl in its cage answered as if in agreement.
For the record, it was a species that did not inhabit this planet.
A creature smuggled in through the tteokbokki shop's channels.
"Anyway, Uncle. There's something I've been wondering about."
"Oho. What might that be, Sangongdok Goe-in? Don't tell me you've finally decided to leave the Sichuan Tang Clan's embrace and throw yourself into the Demonic Cult? For reference, I myself registered as an associate member of the Demonic Cult just to raise the Boss's favorability. As long as things have gone this far, I've been thinking of building even more trust, getting a recommendation letter, and joining the Demonic Cult properly. Another five years of trust-building or so and I should be able to get that letter."
"…No, not that."
"Ah. Perhaps you're curious about the smuggling business? Fair enough—if she trusts you with her son, she could trust you with the smuggling side as well. For the record, I handle one pillar of that operation myself. My network is quite extensive, you see."
"Oh! Right. That's what I wanted to ask about."
"I thought as much. In short, I'm in charge of promotion and client communications. The analog method of tying a letter to an owl and sending it off is truly secure. Anything that goes through the internet is always at risk of surveillance, after all. Against the planetary administrative system's tracking, Openness programmers, netrunners' hacks, and all those other threat factors—the owl is safe."
"Boy, this uncle sure talks a lot. Not that—I meant the part about your network being wide. I've been thinking of expanding my own social circle a bit, you see. I don't really know how to go about it, so I was hoping for some advice."
"Hm? All of a sudden? Did something happen?"
"I recently had an occasion that made me realize the need for a more diverse set of human relationships."
That bastard Un-rang.
Information control? Unbelievable. All this time I'd treated him as a senior in life and trusted him that much. I can't help but be furious.
And it's all because Gong Ryun's social circle is so narrow.
For nearly three years, the only people he could call friends had been Un-rang and Brigit. The nature of the unorthodox path made trustworthy people hard to find, and Gong Ryun was not a particularly sociable person to begin with, so he had simply lived like that. On days without those two, Gong Ryun always ate alone.
The fact that he had been subjected to information control was clearly because he only had two friends he trusted—and that was how this whole mess had started.
At least recently, with the tteokbokki shop ajumma, Medilla, Loro, and others, his social circle had improved dramatically. That was a relief.
As his relationships widened, his common sense and his field of vision had both expanded lately.
The Demonic Cult's information control—that was something he never would have known about if he hadn't met the cultists and the tteokbokki ajumma.
So going forward, it would be good to get to know a few more people.
He had spent too long shut away by himself.
Well, he had been dropped alone into a completely new environment after leaving his home planet, so of course he had been cautious. Everything had been foreign and threatening, twenty-four hours a day.
But he had adapted somewhat by now. It was time to go out and meet people.
Even if Gong Ryun was no natural socialite, wasn't it still better to know a lot of people?
An acquaintance-making project, basically. People grow through experience born of incidents. Today, too, Gong Ryun would take one more step forward.
…Though after the last time he had gotten tangled up with a cult by accident, he couldn't exactly just meet just anyone either.
Which was why he had decided to ask for advice.
"Is that so. You lived your whole life as an experimental subject—a living bioweapon. Of course something like that would feel unfamiliar. And with you using Sangongdok, people don't exactly approach you readily either."
"Ah, the usual slander. I've gotten used to it."
"You asked the right person. I do have a wide network. There's a reason I'm the one handling promotion and communications."
Indeed. If Un-rang was a socialite of the light, then Eagle Owl Minerva was a socialite of the dark.
Where Un-rang used the trustworthy image of a monk to befriend lawful, upstanding people, Minerva specialized in the darker side of networking. That his connections reached all the way into the black market said everything.
"Very well, Sangongdok Goe-in. Allow me to provide a solution. The method is actually extremely simple."
"Oh. And what would that be? Is there some secret social club?"
"No need to go far at all. A perfect environment is already in place. This tteokbokki shop is more than enough. Talk to the people who come here and get friendly with them. That's it. Perfect."
"Would that really work?"
"From what I can see, this place is plenty. Every person who comes here is worth getting to know. And beginnings always start close to home. From now on, whenever you have free time, don't just sit in your room—sit here in the restaurant. And when people come and go, strike up a conversation and get close to them."
"But… there are no customers? The tables are empty right now, aren't they?"
"They still come by occasionally. And there are people who order takeout, too."
"Ah. Those people."
Not many people ate their meals in the restaurant.
But people who came for takeout packaging were fairly common.
Because they were takeout orders, though, they came and went in a flash, so the shop always looked deserted.
In truth, those food packages did not contain only tteokbokki. There were smuggled goods inside.
That was why, every so often, someone would order a suspiciously large quantity of tteokbokki. And somehow they would always carry the boxes lined up in a row, as if there were long blades packed inside.
"And it's not as if ordinary people never come in for a meal either."
For example, the construction workers from the underground waterway site.
They were the technicians who built the mechanical arrays for Medilla's Arachne farm. The Boss had introduced and referred them to Medilla. For the record, the mechanical array in the Boss's own basement had also been installed by these same people.
When work was done, they came here for free meals.
"But those worker uncles barely talk and seem really standoffish. Last time I ran into them in the underground waterway I tried saying hello, and they just ignored me."
While hunting moles in the waterways, he had once passed by a construction site.
Now that he was fully in the same boat as Medilla, the restricted zones no longer applied, so he had been wandering around freely when he bumped into them.
He had greeted them, but they had just stared at him for a long while before going back to their work. Only the one who had said hello ended up feeling awkward.
"That's professionalism. People who do secretive work need to keep their mouths shut. That habit just seeps out into everything. Keep talking to them and you might get a warmer reaction."
"Hmm… Really? Next time they come to eat, I'll try saying hello again."
There were also the security guards who watched over the farm.
Those ones at least exchanged stiff greetings.
But that was where it ended.
"You shouldn't just say hello—you should actually talk to them, make some small talk. Listen carefully, Sangongdok Goe-in. That's exactly how networks are built."
"Small talk…? You mean that thing where you start a conversation with a complete stranger on the street the moment your eyes meet? Truly an incomprehensible culture…"
"That's why you have no friends. Develop some social skills. My disciple works there too, so when you meet him later, make sure you actually talk to him."
"…The path of the socialite is not an easy one."
Would Gong Ryun truly be able to become an insider?
Just as he had adapted well to a strange planet and the conveniences of civilization—
Would he overcome this challenge as well?
Gong Ryun's expand-your-social-circle project had begun.