The Skin Bazaar
Jenia wiped the cold sweat from her brow, forcing a smile despite her obvious tension. “This many… fairies… I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Moare, on the other hand, was breathing hard, eyes wide and fixed on the door, refusing to let her guard down even for a second. She was nothing like Vertea, who had spent the entire journey nestled against me and was now breathing steadily. Neither of them was in any condition to fight. Concealment had been the smart choice.
I congratulated myself on that decision as I stepped back from the waterproof sheet covering the door.
“What exactly are these fairies?”
My question made Moare and Jenia exchange glances.
“You’re… really calm about this,” Jenia muttered.
“You really… Never mind. Fairies are monsters. One of the most common ones in Dongdaemun District.”
“Details.”
“Remember what Mr. Bell said earlier? There’s a reason this place is called the Skin Bazaar. The main monsters here are the ones that strip adventurers of their skin and wear their equipment.”
It was roughly what I had expected.
“Including those things out there?”
“Yes. The fairies too. Though they’re a little different. Their goal is usually reproduction.”
When I looked at Moare, she loosened her necktie and continued.
“They usually target adventurers who’ve already been skinned, but if they can’t find any, they’ll use a living one as a host. They slice open the skin, hollow out the insides, and lay their eggs inside.”
That was how they gave birth? Even though they looked vaguely humanoid? It wasn’t exactly scientific. But if this was the labyrinth, there was no point complaining.
“They’re apparently hybrids of the northern Chernobyl nymphs. Individually they’re weak, but they usually appear in huge numbers, which makes them a real nuisance. If a single adventurer becomes a host, they can birth dozens of the things. And then… well, you can see for yourself.”
A disturbingly familiar place name. Chernobyl? While I frowned, Moare reached out and pointed at the waterproof sheet over the door. The countless bloody footprints outside suggested these fairies had only just been born.
“So some poor bastard became a host.”
“Yeah. Normally a swarm this size would scatter naturally to form more groups… but we got unlucky. All of us.”
“Then we should camp here.”
If we had to kill time anyway, preserving our stamina was the best option. The space had only one entrance, making it easy to defend. We didn’t know when we’d get another chance to rest, and if night was dangerous, now was the time. I offered the suggestion with perfectly logical reasons.
“Guess we should.”
“…Ah, yeah. That makes sense. Whew, that was close.”
Jenia plopped down on the floor, wiping away sweat, while Moare placed a hand over her chest and tried to steady her breathing. Seeing them like this made it clear the situation was a genuine crisis. If they were reacting this way even though I was here, a human white phosphorus grenade, then a large number of these things really did pose a serious threat. I burned that fact into my memory and set my backpack down.
“Bell, could you help me set up camp?”
“This unit will gladly assist, Master.”
Fortunately, Vertea was always composed. She opened the refrigerators inside the food court and searched for any ingredients that were still usable. I tore apart wooden furniture to make firewood, and she lit a fire. Starting a fire indoors was generally a bad idea, but…
“Can the fairies climb walls?”
“No. As far as this unit knows, the wall-climbing monsters in the Skin Bazaar are a different species.”
“Can that other monster get through windows this size?”
“It cannot.”
“Then we just need to be careful about the fire alarm. Most buildings like this have automatic shutters that drop during a fire. Let’s light it by the window over there. We don’t want to get trapped between those superalloy shutters.”
Luckily the windows were small, so we could safely light a fire long enough to warm some food without risking an ambush.
“Delicious,” I said.
“If I asked whether halflings are naturally good at cooking… would that be speciesist?”
“This unit does not mind even if Lady Jenia and Lady Moare label it a speciesist.”
“…No, I didn’t actually mean it like that…”
And Vertea’s cooking was, as always, excellent. Her manner of speaking was a bit strange, but the food was so good it didn’t matter. It was clearly a stew made from pork and mushrooms that must have been created during the labyrinth’s maintenance process, seasoned with a sharp, spicy broth. It paired perfectly with the flatbread I had already tried. If the entire Church of Darkness was full of cooking enthusiasts like her, it would have been easy to get along with them. What a shame.
I finished the stew and spoke.
“Tell me about mystics.”
“Hup? What?”
“Mystics. What’s the difference between them and mages?”
Both Moare and Jenia stared at me with identical ‘what the hell’ expressions. I knew it was common knowledge, but I still had to ask. I genuinely had no idea. About any of this world.
“Uhh… seriously?”
“Yeah. Not a clue.”
“I thought they existed in the East too?”
“Not where I’m from.”
“Hmm.”
Moare narrowed her eyes, looking half-skeptical, but by now I had figured something out. She enjoyed showing off her knowledge. The way her ears twitched made it obvious she was interested.
“It’s simple. Mysticism is directly handling the power of dead gods, while magic is refining that power according to the formulas created by the God of Magic.”
“Dead gods?”
“Wait, you don’t even know that? Gods of fire, plague, winter, deception, art, death… those kinds of gods.”
Could gods actually die? More surprising was the realization that gods truly existed. As I processed that, Moare looked at my face as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Anyway, when the great God of Magic killed the other gods to open the human world, the leftover divine power is what mystics use. You have to be born with the talent. You can only handle one type, and it’s closer to a constitution than a skill.”
“Interesting.”
“Jenia here was drawn by the winter god’s mystery, so she handles winter. That Bell person over there handles fire.”
“What’s the actual difference between mysticism and magic? Don’t they use the same power?”
“They’re very different. Mysticism is in the realm of talent and constitution, but anyone can learn magic if they study.”
Oh. That was good news. I had wanted to try using something like magic.
“It usually takes about forty years unless you’re a genius like me, but if you’re interested, visit the Magic Tower later… in Gwanak District. The tower visits regularly.”
Forty years. Not that long. I was about to say I might learn it someday when I felt like it.
“That’s enough. Answers are over. I’m not saying anything else. I’m hungry.”
Moare cut me off and sulkily focused on her meal. The sight was less annoying than it was cute. Maybe because she was still a kid. I smiled with satisfaction and took another spoonful of the stew Vertea had served me.
“Then, Bell.”
“Yes.”
“What about light?”
Moare raised an eyebrow as if she couldn’t believe me, but I ignored it.
“Is the power used by the Church of Light magic?”
“No. The power handled by the Church of Light is called divinity. It refers to the power used by the churches of the gods who survived when the God of Magic slaughtered the others.”
She answered before I could even ask, as if she had anticipated the question. Surviving gods. So there were more besides light and darkness. It felt strange all over again that this was a world where gods actually existed. The Earth I came from had gods whose existence wasn’t even certain. As a child, after the world had become like this, I had said countless times that if gods existed but refused to intervene, it would be better if they didn’t exist at all. A childish thought, but still.
“Fascinating.”
A completely new world lay waiting outside the labyrinth. If I could come and go freely, it might be nice to travel there whenever labyrinth exploration grew tiring. I was genuinely looking forward to it. The labyrinth itself wasn’t so bad so far, either.
“I’ll take the first and last watch, so the rest of you get some rest.”
“Huh… you’re going to stand watch twice?”
“Yeah. I’m used to it.”
“Still…”
“It’s fine. Kids need their sleep. Leave it to the adults.”
“W-we’re adults too!”
“Whatever. She said it’s fine, so just do what she says. I’m tired.”
Once the protesting Jenia and the accepting Moare had gone to bed, I leaned against the window and watched the darkness slowly settle over Seoul’s sky. My second day in the labyrinth. I had faced danger, but I had also learned that this world was worth exploring. It was a rather pleasant feeling. If anything, I felt quite excited. To think there were still so many things in this world that I didn’t know.
I was lost in thought, sitting in a chair while on watch, when—
“Um…”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Not exactly… Hehe, I just wanted to talk about something.”
Jenia, wrapped in a blanket, was looking in my direction. I rested my mace on my shoulder and kept my eyes on the view outside the window. It was still early to be sleeping anyway.
“What about?”
“Um, well… that is…”
“Take your time. We’ve got a long way until morning.”
“So… you’ve only just become an adventurer, right, Mr. Jinwoo?”
“That’s right.”
“What did you do before?”
The pure-white girl looked at me with curiosity, her mouth hidden behind the blanket. She wore a blue dress and breastplate that seemed completely out of place in the labyrinth, yet she had shown considerable skill. The contrast was striking. Dressed like a hero from a fairy tale, yet genuinely competent. I didn’t know what her previous party had been like, but she must have been quite capable before receiving an unwanted blessing—or before her companions rejected the blessing she carried.
I rested my chin on my hand.
“I was a soldier.”
“I thought so. You fight incredibly well. You’re so calm, even when that many fairies were singing, you didn’t panic at all.”
“It was a place where the first person to lose their cool died.”
“I thought the East was peaceful. Guess not.”
It would be troublesome if anyone here had actually visited the East or came from there. I simply smiled quietly without answering.
“Why did you leave your hometown and come here, Mr. Jinwoo?”
“It wasn’t my choice.”
“Still, you could have done something other than becoming an adventurer. With your skills, you could have become a knight in the Empire… or a Holy Knight in the Church of Light.”
“Didn’t appeal to me. I was sick of being a soldier. It didn’t suit me.”
“Really? You seem like a soldier through and through.”
The girl whispered as she rolled over to look at me. She was easily a hundred years younger than me, yet she openly showed her curiosity.
“Do you want to become a hero in the labyrinth too, Mr. Jinwoo?”
“I have no desire to be a hero.”
“Then what?”
“I’ve… always liked finding new things.”
It had been that way since I was a child. There was nothing to play with, and simply surviving each day was difficult. When winter came, children died. Those too unlucky to enter an orphanage often chose to jump instead. That was the kind of era it was. Even so, I would light up at the sight of new places. Even lying in bed starving at night, I would imagine the darkness beyond and dream of the unknown. Even while shouting for revenge and resenting the world.
“Guess adventure is in your blood.”
A story from a childhood that already felt impossibly distant.
“That’s cool.”
“It was just immaturity.”
“You don’t look that much older than me?”
“I have a baby face.”
Jenia giggled, smiling with her eyes, then stared at me for a moment.
“Do you… smoke?”
“Hm?”
“Our old leader used to. Before… before it happened.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“A little. Just a little. Really.”
It wasn’t a habit I had wanted to pick up. Gathering information through micro-currents put a heavy burden on my brain. Even after the modifications eased it, I still needed a routine to reduce the neural strain. Medication wasn’t appealing, and neither were the other options. Smoking had been the least bad. My modified body barely retained any scent, and I didn’t get bad breath. My lungs could withstand poison gas, so smoking didn’t even damage them.
“Want one?”
“Is that okay?”
“I don’t smoke.”
Jenia wriggled out of her blanket, stood up, and rummaged through her backpack. She tossed something to me. When I caught it, I saw a familiar package. American brand, red packaging. Not a brand I disliked. If anything, it was one of my preferred ones.
“There are only two left. If I find more, I’ll let you know.”
Thankful for the girl’s consideration as she laughed shyly, I pulled one out, put it in my mouth, and moved to the window so the fire alarm wouldn’t go off.
Crackle!
A spark from my fingertip lit the cigarette. I held it between my index and middle fingers and took a deep drag. My second night in the labyrinth. The dark Seoul sky was strangely familiar despite the cruelty spread out below. Perhaps it felt familiar precisely because it was cruel.
I gazed down at the unfamiliar Dongdaemun District through the cigarette smoke. Only when the heat from the burned-out butt began to tickle my fingers did I close the window.
*
Morning approached. Since I was in charge of the final watch, I stayed awake, chin in hand, staring at the flickering sunlight beyond the waterproof sheet. I had no idea what the fairies had done. They might have split into smaller groups, or they might still be roaming in one massive swarm. Either way, we couldn’t stay holed up here forever.
I planned to suggest we conduct a cautious reconnaissance today, eliminate any small groups we encountered, and complete the request. I glanced at the three who were still asleep under the sunlight and decided it was time to wake them. The moment I stood up—
A tremendous roar echoed through the silent Pungmul Market.
KWAAAAAANG!
The sound of a door being ripped off its hinges. It wasn’t from our side of the food court, but from the entrance we had passed yesterday. Jenia and Moare woke with a start. Vertea, who had been sleeping soundly, was already on her feet. A voice followed the roar.
“Jenia! Moare! Come out quietly! We know you’re in there!”
Jenia and Moare shook their heads at my glance. An unfamiliar voice. Yet the hostility was unmistakable. I nodded, drew my mace—Yeojin—and held it ready. Lifting the waterproof sheet slightly to look outside, I saw ten people entering the Pungmul Market.
And the moment I saw the man standing at their center, my instincts screamed at me.
White hair, red eyes, a sharp, predatory gaze. Solid plate armor covering his entire body, and a massive greatsword far taller than a man. His steps were silent, his center of gravity perfectly stable. Even through my micro-current sense, I could feel the dense, tightly packed muscles throughout his body.
The instant I saw him, I knew.
He was a formidable opponent.