How to Keep a Fallen Lady (6)
A date.
That's not what the word originally meant, but these days it generally means "spending time together with a lover."
Is she looking at me as a romantic prospect right now?
If so, that would be quite a problem. Not once in my life had I ever fallen for a woman. I'd built my existence around investing everything in myself rather than coexisting with other people, so while people had started gravitating toward me lately as my life finally found its footing, my interest in them never went beyond that. Nyarlathotep, Cthugha, Iris — I hadn't viewed a single one of them as a romantic option.
In other words, the relationship I wanted with Iris was commander and subordinate, not lovers.
"What do you mean by that?"
So I asked. There was a chance she didn't mean what I was worried she meant.
"...For the five days you granted me, I thought about it constantly."
Thought about what? Weren't you unconscious for those five days?
"The meaning of your words — 'what comes next is what matters'..."
Yeah, that just meant let's be friendly from now on. Was that really such a difficult phrase it required days of agonizing?
"And after endless deliberation, I finally understood!"
"...Understood what."
"That you would spare my life for threatening it, but in exchange, I was to devote myself to your service from now on!!"
No. No, that's not it, you lunatic.
"And so I have decided to serve you."
The Iris who said those words looked simply hollowed out.
"I have nothing left, you see."
She was far more broken than I'd expected. That wasn't what I'd meant at all, but to her, it seemed my words had become the sole meaning of an otherwise meaningless life.
Thankfully, it wasn't the romance-related issue I'd been dreading.
But still.
"...You're going to serve me?"
Things had gone exactly as I intended, yet something about it left a bad taste in my mouth. And to be clear, it wasn't the fact that she'd fallen in line so easily.
This was too easy.
What I'd done wasn't some feat reserved for a contractor of Nyarlathotep — any ordinary human could have pulled it off. Who on earth couldn't order around a person who'd hit rock bottom and make them dance? That was my complaint. After becoming the avatar of something beyond even a Constellation, the end result was nothing more than what any random schmuck could produce.
I should have created a result worthy of me...
"Whew."
I had no idea why I kept spouting this nonsense. It worked out, so it's done. Satisfied or not, who cares? This was that. I gained one decent subordinate, and that's the end of it.
"You said you wanted to go on a date?"
"Yes? Yes."
I turned to her, who had been waiting for my answer. I'd just gained a subordinate, after all — might as well indulge her a little.
"Fine. Let's go."
"They're gone."
Having confirmed that Kim Hyunseong had left with Iris, Nyarlathotep emerged from her room.
"Ugh, son of a— I thought I was gonna suffocate in there."
Right after her, Cthugha came bounding out of the cramped room.
"Cthugha. Something strange is happening in R'lyeh."
"What?"
Nyarlathotep's face was grave as she answered.
"The flow of time has accelerated to an extreme degree."
"..."
At those words, Cthugha swallowed hard, her expression tightening with alarm.
R'lyeh. The ancient city sunken somewhere in the Pacific Ocean — and at the same time, the place where a single being was sealed away.
"What has Cthulhu done?"
Cthugha asked, her voice trembling slightly. It was the reaction anyone who understood what "something is wrong in R'lyeh" truly meant would have shown.
The High Priestess of the Great Old Ones. Cthulhu. A being so overwhelmingly powerful that even Outer Gods couldn't handle her, which was precisely why she had been sealed at the very bottom of Earth's deep sea.
The problem was that even that seal was unstable, destined to break someday. Just not now. Not yet.
The flow of time in R'lyeh had accelerated drastically — so much so that a year outside would feel like a single day within its walls. Which meant there was a very real chance it was still speeding up even now.
By rights, the seal on R'lyeh would break only when the stars in the heavens returned to their proper alignment. But given enough eons, it could also simply decay, its power wearing thin until it gave way.
Cthulhu would wake. That was something even Nyarlathotep, an Outer God herself, had reason to fear.
"I'll go and see for myself. If I'd known this would happen, I'd have dropped by more often..."
"The last time I visited was a hundred years ago... Just hurry back, okay?"
For the first time, the two eternal bickering rivals were in perfect agreement. And so Nyarlathotep sank into the earth and vanished — crawling her way toward R'lyeh.
"I'm starving. Do you know any restaurants that are actually good?"
Five days without a bite to eat had left me hungry to the point of madness. It was the first time in my life I'd felt hunger this intense.
Come to think of it, don't most people die after five days with no food or water?
Well, Nyarlathotep probably supplied me with nutrients here and there. That much was entirely within her capabilities.
"A good restaurant? Actually, I know just the place!"
Thankfully, she seemed to know her way around the local food scene and answered without a moment's hesitation. But there was one thing that worried me.
Can I keep up with this girl's palate?
It's a bit rich coming from me, but I had what you'd call an "old man's palate." More precisely, a "stoic-chad meme palate." Ever since I was a kid, I happily munched on red ginseng candy that everyone else hated — though that's not to say I skipped the actually delicious fruit candies either. By any measure I was a textbook omnivore, but there was exactly one category of food I couldn't stand: those insufferably pretentious "aesthetic" monstrosities.
Every time I watched people gleefully shoveling down things like strawberry-something-chocolate-chip whatevers, I found myself genuinely wondering whether I truly lived in the same country as these people. If Iris belonged to their tribe, then honestly, I didn't think I could follow her lead.
"Here it is!"
Original Grandma's Homemade Gukbap
But my worries amounted to less than the effort of a single wipe. She led me through the doors of a gukbap house — a humble joint serving heaping bowls of rice soup — with her head held high.
"A gukbap place, huh?"
"Yes! It's my go-to whenever I'm broke!"
Go figure. A girl who looked like she'd mainline malatang and finish with some hyper-sweet dessert had, for some reason, a palate suspiciously similar to mine.
Ding.
We passed through an oddly modern automatic door — for a place called "Original Grandma's," anyway — and took our seats.
Don't most places like this lean into the old-school atmosphere? Just as the thought Is this grandma an MZ-generation grandma? crossed my mind, she spoke up.
"Shall I order us some drinks?"
"Uh... just a can of coke for me."
Glancing down at the table, I found my share of utensils and water already laid out, complete and waiting. It felt like watching a maid in her everyday uniform. Seeing this, I could tell the conditioning had taken root thoroughly.
Did I hammer it in too hard?
All I'd done was dangle a rotten carrot under the guise of "a chance at redemption" before a girl who claimed she'd "lost everything." I genuinely never imagined she'd swallow it this easily.
"About what you said earlier — having nothing left. What did you mean by that?"
I have nothing left, you see.
Her hollow-eyed words from earlier suddenly resurfaced in my mind. All I knew was that her reputation had been dragged to rock bottom and that she'd failed an assassination contract from a Constellation. The fine details were a mystery to me.
"Haha, well, the truth is..."
She gave an awkward look at my question, then forced a smile and began.
"The real reason I wanted to become a hero was to restore my family's standing."
"Mm."
The Gostrick family. A house that had produced famous shamans for generations, but with the bloodline of sorcerers running dry, I'd heard they were on the verge of collapse.
"My kind, loving mother and father, and the sisters I shared a single room with through thick and thin — I wanted to make every one of them happy."
"Mm."
"So I came to the Academy to become the very best and lift the Gostrick name back up... and then a Constellation handed me a murder contract."
"Mm."
"I took it because refusing would only hurt my goals. I rationalized it to myself — told myself I'd be the villain either way."
"Mm."
I listened, giving little more than the occasional nod. And slowly, I began to understand why this whole outcome had bothered me so much.
"Then I lost to you, and I handed over five hundred million won and the Tome of Spirit."
"That you did."
"Altogether that's about nine hundred million. Pocket change to the great families, but for us, it was a sum with the family's very survival riding on it."
"Mm."
"So my father, disappointed in me, cut me off. I'm no longer allowed to bear the name Gostrick."
That was a genuinely shocking revelation. Whatever grave sins Iris had committed, for her own flesh and blood to cast her aside so casually...
The source of my discomfort was coming into focus.
"On top of that, my Constellation was disappointed too — they've cut off all further support. I'm no longer a genius, you see. A genius without a Constellation — what kind of genius is that?"
"..."
After those words, I stopped responding entirely.
Now I understood. Now I knew exactly what had been gnawing at me.
"But it doesn't matter anymore! I've found my new purpose, haven't I?"
"Mm-hm. Right. Yes, of course."
If something bothers you, you fix it. That's all there is to it.
"Here's your gukbap, hon."
I watched the server set my steaming bowl of soup and side dishes in front of me, thinking: this place was unbeatable value for the money. And then I thought of her too — scraping together every last bit of cost-efficiency because she couldn't afford anything more, all for the sake of reviving her family.
"So, after we eat — is there anything you'd like to do?"
she asked, her face bright and full of life.
"We're going after your Constellation."
There had been exactly one reason for my discomfort. Everything tangled up with her had been irritating me.
And anything irritating gets removed.
I smiled.