Chapter 66
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Let's Try the Old-Fashioned Way
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“Guardian? What's that?”
“A new company created to handle security, guarding, and auditing for Leviathan Group affiliates.”
“...Security and guarding, fine. But which company also handles auditing on top of that? Does that even make sense?”
“It doesn't. It'll make even less sense once you know who's running it.”
“Who's the CEO?”
“That son of a bitch.”
“That son of a bitch... Wait a minute! You don't mean that mad dog, do you?”
“Is there another one?”
“No, does that even make sense? Handing auditing rights over our group to that bastard of all people! Isn't this basically telling us to slit our own throats!?”
“It's the princess's orders.”
“Even if it's the princess...”
“Enough. Don't cross the line. She's lacking in wisdom in many ways, but she's still the princess.”
“Even so, how could she side with our clan's enemy and sell out the clan like this!”
“Just wait and see for now. The elders won't stand by forever.”
“Grr! Seducing our innocent princess into scheming this... You perverted old geezer without a shred of shame!!!”
“My ears are itching like crazy for some reason.”
“If you'd like, I can reserve an ICU bed for you.”
“...I meant it feels like someone's talking about me a ton. Not that my ears are itching so bad I'm about to drop dead.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Just say you're disappointed. Don't give me the chills with insincere bullshit.”
Despite Rimon's words, she didn't so much as twitch an eyebrow.
She simply stopped dialing 119 as if she were truly regretful and continued in a frosty tone.
“If there are no further instructions, may I take my leave?”
“What's the rush?”
“The princess instructed me not to disturb the Sword Duke's personal time if possible.”
The androgynous woman in male attire, Weyling, added curtly in her cold voice.
“Of course, if the Sword Duke wishes to review security systems and guard protocols for each affiliate and draft manuals, I'd be happy to assist.”
“...Get out of here already.”
“Understood. Excuse me.”
As if she'd expected exactly that, Weyling turned on her heel the moment she heard his reply and left the room without a backward glance.
Watching her retreating figure, Rimon clicked his tongue.
“Talk about zero flexibility.”
[That's not lack of flexibility. She just seems to despise you, boss.]
“Same difference. The basic rule of office life is you don't show when you hate your boss, no matter what.”
[Says the guy who used to grab the director by the collar and shake him whenever he got bored. Not very convincing.]
“Your snappy comebacks to whatever the boss says are super convincing, though.”
The bluebird perched on his head—Yuna Kyung—bickered with him briefly over who was the model employee, but her insight soon ended the unproductive debate.
[Anyway, you should be grateful for your subordinates, boss. Talented secretaries like Weyling aren't exactly a dime a dozen. Same goes for me.]
“Eh, you're debatable, but yeah, I'll give her that.”
It had been several days since Li Chingwei had saddled him with the CEO position at Guardian and the secretary Weyling.
Rimon hadn't done a thing in that time.
But Guardian had been busy.
They'd sent official notices to Leviathan Group affiliates run by the Black Dragon Clan, compiled basic info on each company, recruited immediately usable staff, and more.
All that in just a few days, handled almost single-handedly by Weyling.
“The princess knows talent when she sees it.”
[Black Dragon Clan elite, right? World-class talent is a given.]
“Fair point. Psionics-level martial artists tend to excel at everything anyway.”
[The opposite of you, boss?]
“...Why drag me into this?”
[Why not?]
As if ready to fight back against baseless slander, Rimon clenched his fist in full battle stance, but Yuna Kyung didn't budge.
She just snorted and smacked him with cold, hard facts.
[It's because of your classes, boss. You bring in a world-class violinist like Julia sis, and all you do is go in circles without making progress.]
Rimon furrowed his brow.
Unlike Guardian, which was progressing smoothly thanks to Weyling's competence, violin lessons were at a complete standstill.
That was why.
A short while later.
Julia stared blankly at the black-haired young man 'Ri'—Rimon in disguise via constellation power—who had joined the lesson.
“Ri, still no progress?”
“Unfortunately.”
“You really did the prep and review properly? Not slacking off?”
“Hate to brag, but I've been sleeping just one hour a day lately and grinding studies harder than I have in ages.”
“For someone pulling that, your eyes are way too bright and alert.”
“I'm just blessed with good health.”
Julia eyed Rimon's shameless reply suspiciously for a moment.
Then she let out a small sigh.
'Doesn't seem like a lie.'
Sure, one hour of sleep was probably exaggerated, but she knew he was putting in effort.
His attitude was a bit cocky, but his approach to lessons was always dead serious.
The problem was the results.
“Then why can't you read sheet music yet?”
“Folks my age just don't pick up new things easily.”
“Leaving aside whether that's age-appropriate, even an eighty-year-old grandpa can learn basic notation no problem.”
Julia looked incredulous.
If he'd been stuck on some advanced or technical bit, she'd get it.
But after days of focused training, he still couldn't read simple sheet music. It was baffling.
“I don't get how anyone reads this tadpole scribble and plays it. What kind of brain does it take?”
“Ri, by that logic, most of humanity has brain damage.”
“Exactly my point.”
His self-importance was off the charts.
Julia sighed as Rimon boldly declared the weird tadpoles were the problem, not him.
She'd expected teaching a total music newbie to be tough.
But not being able to read sheet music at all?
This was uncharted territory for her.
'Hmm, this is tricky.'
Rimon was equally stumped.
Thanks to the cursed violin, the starlight remnants in his body had diminished quite a bit, and they still melted away little by little with each performance.
Yet he wasn't taking lessons for fun.
His honed instincts as a Sword Master—who had dashed across countless battlefields and danced on death's edge—told him this was urgent.
The same performance was slowing down the remnants' dissolution rate, too.
'This won't cut it.'
But with lessons stalled despite dumping all work on others, Rimon was racking his brain even more than Julia.
No matter how many all-nighters he pulled cramming, the sheet music just wouldn't click.
'Tch, learning new shit at my age ain't easy.'
He was a hands-on learner from the start.
He'd always picked things up through direct experience and trial by fire.
Forcing music—ignored for centuries—into his head now was no simple task.
'Back in the day, bards and minstrels nailed songs and performances without these tadpoles. Why'd this crap even get invented...'
Mid old-man rant griping about kids these days and waxing nostalgic.
Rimon blinked.
“Do I really have to read this stuff?”
“What?”
“Can't we skip the sheet music and jump to the next step?”
“...Ri, you think that'll work?”
Julia, already headache-prone, felt her pain double at Rimon's wild idea.
“Sheet music is the foundation of all music. Learning violin without it is like growing a tree without roots.”
“Doesn't mean I can't play without reading it, right?”
“You won't learn properly that way.”
“Same if we keep going like this.”
“...”
“Think about it. Guys who couldn't master basic swordsmanship after years suddenly get it in the heat of battle slicing enemies and become Sword Masters.”
Julia narrowed her eyes at Rimon's bizarre analogy.
In a music school with a normal student, it'd be worthless.
But Rimon's learning capacity was so freakish, they might waste the whole session on notation at this rate.
For an open-minded educator like her, it was a tempting proposal.
But the current snag was...
“Fine, say we skip notation. So what exactly are you gonna learn or how? Finally gonna try playing violin?”
“Not yet. You might run for the hills hearing mine.”
“Then how am I supposed to teach you?”
Julia's face soured.
She didn't know how awful Rimon's playing was, but she had zero clue how to teach a student who couldn't read music and refused to play.
The bluebird munching snacks in the corner shook its head at how hopeless it seemed.
But Rimon replied calmly, as if he'd planned for this.
“The old-fashioned way.”
“Old-fashioned?”
“Julia, you're a musician first, teacher second.”
“If I had to pick, more violinist than wandering bard, but why?”
“What does a musician do?”
“...?”
Julia stared puzzled for a second.
Then her eyes widened in shock.
She finally got why he'd used the archaic term 'musician' for her—and what he meant by 'old-fashioned.'
As she processed that, Rimon stood.
He grabbed Julia's violin case from the side, plopped it down, and said:
“Play like the virtuoso you are. I'll handle the rest.”
Long ago.
Before sheet music was systematized.
Back when minstrels learned and passed down countless pieces just by watching and listening—like them, just show him, and he'd pick it up himself.
Julia could only gape at Rimon grinning like a madman.