Chapter 13: Kkotbi (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 13: Kkotbi (2)
“By the way, Domi-oppa, I heard you got a job?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Congratulations! You finally escaped unemployment. You should buy lots of my songs with your paycheck.”
“Even if I don’t, she… no, her brother will.”
Pretending Ahyu is some fictional older brother is exhausting.
“So, what kind of work are you doing?”
“It’s hunter-related.”
“That’s right. Yua-unni, did you know? The chairperson of Oppa’s company is the Iron-Blooded Empress.”
At that, Ahyu chimed in as if a topic she knew had come up.
Referring to Baek Seol-hyang as the Iron-Blooded Empress, she let out a long sigh, her face clearly showing her distaste.
“Of all people, that woman had to be the chairperson. If I had my way, I’d tell Oppa to just quit.”
What on earth happened between her and Baek Seol-hyang to make her hate her so much?
As I watched Ahyu grumble, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘An ordinary person wouldn’t know about Baek Seol-hyang.’
Even I, someone with a keen interest in returnees, hadn’t known who Baek Seol-hyang was.
If she claimed to know her so well, it was obvious how that would sound to Yua, who was also a returnee.
“So-ra, how do you know Ms. Baek Seol-hyang?”
Ahyu, who had introduced herself to Kkotbi by her real name, Shin So-ra, finally seemed to realize her mistake, her expression stiffening.
“Ah.”
As she looked at me, silently asking how she was supposed to explain this, Kkotbi blinked once, then her eyes widened as if she’d figured something out.
“So-ra, are you by any chance a returnee?”
“Ah, haha, yes, y-yes.”
Yua averted her gaze as she answered.
“That explains it. I did get that kind of feeling when talking with you, So-ra.”
“What kind of feeling?”
Is there some kind of intuition between returnees?
As someone deeply interested in them, I cautiously asked, and Kkotbi gave a faint smile.
“It’s hard to be certain, but returnees often act in ways that don’t quite match their age. The years they’ve lived in that other world tend to show through.”
Basically, they’re old before their time.
I looked at Ahyu with an understanding expression and was rewarded with a jab to my side.
What was that for?
“So Ahyu’s sister is a returnee. Now I get why Ahyu said he likes me because he admired how I was changing people’s perception of returnees.”
“Ehehe.”
Why are you the one laughing?
Is she just happy that her favorite idol is pleased by a compliment about her?
“…By the way, So-ra, what kind of person is Ahyu in your eyes?”
Just then, Kkotbi casually tossed a question toward Ahyu.
Knowing the situation, I understood the question’s true meaning, but Ahyu just chattered on excitedly.
“He’s a great person! Super kind, does a lot of nice things, and he’s cute.”
As she spoke, Ahyu kept looking at me.
Praising herself while poking her own cheek with her index finger was so annoying that I snatched the piece of meat she was about to grab, and got hit for it.
“I-Is that so?”
Perhaps she hadn’t expected the younger sister to praise him so enthusiastically.
Kkotbi seemed flustered for a moment.
I had no idea what she was trying to accomplish by going this far, but when I saw Kkotbi fiddling with her phone, I realized something.
Since I’d already decided to cooperate with this girl, I was now her accomplice.
I stood up, using the excuse that I needed to go to the bathroom.
Then I sent Ahyu a text, telling her to come out.
“I wonder what she wants to talk about, just the two of us.”
When Ahyu trotted out with a beaming smile, I let out a soft sigh.
It seemed meeting her favorite idol had gotten her seriously worked up.
“Ahyu, Yua is Kkotbi.”
“R-Right, she is.”
As if coming to her senses a little, Ahyu’s energy level started to drop slightly.
“If you’re planning on never seeing Kkotbi again, then it doesn’t really matter, but…”
Kkotbi and Ahyu were close friends in the game.
While there was no absolute need to bring online relationships into the real world, this wasn't a friendship that should be built on a lie.
“You can’t just treat Kkotbi as Yua.”
Kkotbi came here today to meet Ahyu, though I was here too.
Not Ahyu’s younger sister.
And the same went for Ahyu.
She came here to meet Kkotbi, not the idol Yua.
“Let’s stop here. I’ll apologize with you.”
“…Yeah, I got a little too excited.”
Ahyu nodded, agreeing with what I said.
She had made a bad call in the heat of the moment, but she was a good kid who knew how to admit when she was wrong.
That was one of the reasons Ahyu and I had maintained such a good relationship all this time.
“Alright, let’s go back in.”
I smiled and patted Ahyu on the head, and she smiled back bashfully.
Slide—
As I opened the door and walked in, Kkotbi, who had been looking at her phone, lifted her head.
Her eyes met mine, and she quickly put her phone away.
“Welcome back.”
“Yeah, I ran into So-ra and we came back together.”
Ahyu gave an awkward smile as she followed me in and sat down.
“Um, Yua-unni.”
Just as I’d advised, Ahyu immediately tried to tell the truth.
“So-ra.”
But at that moment, Kkotbi spoke first.
Ahyu’s eyes widened as she looked at her. Kkotbi looked back at Ahyu, as if she had made up her mind about something.
“Can I ask you for a favor?”
“Huh? O-Okay.”
The sudden request for a favor left Ahyu a bit flustered. Kkotbi lowered her gaze slightly.
The moment I saw that, I knew exactly what she was about to say.
‘Ah, I’m screwed.’
“I like Ahyu. Since you’re his younger sister, could you help me out?”
Sure enough, a silence fell over the room at Kkotbi’s words.
Ahyu wore a dumbfounded expression, and I just silently averted my gaze.
Did Kkotbi have any idea?
Did she know who she had just confessed to?
Probably not.
If she did, she would have bolted out of here without even thinking to grab her sunglasses or mask.
“Uh, well.”
Ahyu, also caught completely off guard, darted her eyes back and forth.
Then she looked at me, and her eyes widened as if she’d just realized something.
It looked like she’d figured out that I knew from the beginning.
“…Is that a no?”
Kkotbi asked, seeing Ahyu’s flustered reaction, and Ahyu didn’t know what to do.
What terrible timing.
To confess at the exact moment Ahyu was about to reveal her identity.
With this much misalignment, maybe the two of them were fated to be star-crossed.
As I was lost in such blank thoughts, Ahyu started kicking my leg frantically under the table.
Do something!
The intention was crystal clear, so I sighed.
“Just tell her.”
We’d come this far.
It was better to just tell the truth and get it over with than to let the situation get any more tangled.
Isn’t that why they have that old saying, that it’s better to get the beating over with sooner rather than later?
“Unni, no…”
Wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo!
The moment Ahyu tried to speak, Kkotbi’s phone suddenly started blaring.
The unexpected siren made me flinch, and Kkotbi stood up.
“Looks like a dimensional gate is about to open nearby. Sorry, I have to go. Domi-oppa, when you pay, let me know how much it was!”
Blackstar Yua was also active as a hunter.
That must be why her phone gave her alerts for points farther away, even though this wasn’t a designated evacuation zone.
‘Idol work and hunter work on top of that.’
She was busy.
She was working herself to the bone, to the point where even ten bodies wouldn't be enough.
‘Though the dimensional gate phenomenon is a problem.’
The fact that my phone wasn’t ringing meant it wasn’t that dangerous.
It was probably at a level that nearby hunters could handle somehow.
But Kkotbi shot up the moment she heard the alarm, looking almost eager.
‘I’m sure of it.’
I knew she had been working constantly, even when she was arranging to meet with me and Ahyu.
Before we met, I didn’t know what kind of work it was, but now that I knew she was Blackstar Yua, it all made sense.
‘She’s always been famous for being diligent and sincere.’
Blackstar Yua. Who was she?
She was the goddess of the idol world, someone who handled a murderous idol schedule every day without ever losing her smile for her fans.
The problem was that while doing all that idol work, if a dimensional gate opened, she was also a goddess of the battlefield who would be the first to rush to the scene if she was nearby.
That was why she was called the nation’s little sister in Korea.
Fans worried if she was even sleeping properly, and whenever she turned on a live broadcast, a flood of comments saying, “Unni, please get some rest!” would pour in. To the entire nation, she was known as the hardest-working person in the world.
That was why she was so loved and supported by everyone.
But from my perspective, as someone who had gotten to know her through a game, this seemed like a pretty unstable state to be in.
‘It must be more than just difficult.’
Even if she was a returnee, she was still human.
There had to be a physical limit, and fatigue was bound to accumulate.
“Ahyu, what do you think?”
“Blackstar Yua is a goddess.”
“Not that. As Kkotbi.”
“She does work way too much. It’s admirable, but… even as a fan, I’m always worried about her.”
I nodded as I listened to Ahyu, who said she even sent her red ginseng as a gift every day.
It seemed that even to ordinary fans, Kkotbi was handling an abnormally large amount of work.
I was sure Kkotbi had more than enough money.
With her idol work and hunter activities, money couldn’t be the issue.
‘Is there another reason?’
I couldn’t know what she was working so hard for.
But as her acquaintance, it looked incredibly self-sacrificial.
“Ahyu, you’re done eating, right?”
As I stood up, Ahyu seemed to realize what I was planning and stood up as well.
Kkotbi had already gone outside, started her car, and was driving away.
“If our guildmate Kkotbi is struggling…”
“We have to be the first ones to run and help.”
The moment I started the sentence, Ahyu finished it with a grin.
Our guild’s bond was truly something else.
On top of that, I felt like we needed to resolve Kkotbi’s misunderstanding about Ahyu’s gender by the end of the day.
“Then let’s go help our guildmate.”
And so, our chase after Kkotbi began.
*
4
Yua, one of the members of Blackstar.
Originally an idol trainee, she was swept up in a dimensional shift and ended up in a fantasy world called Elysium.
It was a world where demons and humans were in the midst of a great war.
A hero had emerged in the human world, fighting desperately to defeat the Demon King.
But that was just the hopeful side of the story.
The demons were being forcibly dragged into the war by a warmongering Demon King.
And the humans were driven by the greed of nobles who were profiting from the production of weapons. It was a war that benefited no one.
Thus, no matter where one went, the battlefield was a place filled only with the sounds of wailing.
Having fallen into such a place, she wandered aimlessly.
For the first few days, she tried to find a way back to Earth, but it was never going to be that easy.
So, to survive, she used her beautiful voice to become a bard.
As a former idol trainee, Yua was a natural.
Her voice comforted countless people and became a paradise for those weary from the war.
In the process, she even met the hero.
His childhood friend and girlfriend, Bianca, loved her voice and became a very close friend.
One noble even recommended her to the royal family, calling her a saint.
But among the humans, who were a chaotic mess internally due to the war…
There were those who were displeased that her voice was reaching the world.
Because with her modern sensibilities, she sang that war only made everyone sick.
And because of that, a wind of opposition to the war began to blow among the people who were supposed to be used for the war effort.
To the human nobles who sold military supplies at high prices, she instantly became the nail that stuck out.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
And on that day, she had to experience the most horrific thing in the world.
She was kidnapped and tortured, losing her voice forever.
From that day on, she went half-mad.
She had only chosen the path of a bard to survive.
She screamed, asking why the world was so hell-bent on killing her, but no sound came out.
But ironically, it was then that she met a new connection.
Her connection was a retired soldier.
He had lost his voice in the war, just like her, but strangely, he could speak. It was a technique that involved stimulating each of his destroyed vocal cords with mana.
At first, it seemed absurd, but she learned desperately.
Her voice was all she had, and she couldn’t live without it.
And after a few years, she managed to obtain a voice even more beautiful than before.
The problem was that her voice wasn’t the only thing she had gained in the process.
Having learned how to imbue her voice with mana, she became able to influence all things with her voice.
That was…
It was the birth of the first Word Spirit Art User in the world of Elysium.
However, that was the beginning of yet another tragedy.
‘Useless thoughts.’
Lost in memories of the past, she shook her head to clear it.
The days of suffering from the disaster her power had brought were long gone.
‘I’m okay now.’
There was no need to dredge up the past she had put to sleep in her mind.
Right now, the dimensional gate was the priority.
She had arrived in front of an abandoned building where the gate had appeared.
It was lucky that the gate had opened in an abandoned building.
At least no one would get hurt.
‘I just have to do my hunter duties today, like always.’