I Am the Arctic Fox!

"I really want them."

Sua laid her heart bare without hiding a thing. The reason was simple.

I have to get these. I have to!

Once before, working through Director Kim Jungi's script for Life is All About Money, she had felt her piano skills shoot up at a startling pace. No wonder the things in front of her looked like treasure now. To Sua, this was nothing short of a gold mine.

And there was one more reason her eyes were shining.

Chinese? Japanese?

Foreign languages. Sua had never learned a single one, which meant this was a chance to understand her Special Privilege a little better. She had never once experienced a script written in another tongue. How would the simulation even work? She was already dying to know—so badly her skin itched with it.

Seo Yeon-ju and Kim Iseo, however, looked anything but convinced.

"Sua, it's not that I don't want to give them to you, okay? These already finished airing, and the stories aren't even good. They're nothing but the ones that got torn apart and flopped completely..."

"That's right. Sua, a script that isn't in Korean would be of no use to you even if you took it. I will obtain good scripts for you separately."

But Sua's heart did not move. Of course it didn't. This was desperate.

Let all this EXP go? Absolutely not!

...Gonna need some kind of decent answer.

She ran straight into a wall. She knew perfectly well that her intelligence was nothing remarkable. Orderly, plausible replies were simply not among her talents.

That did not mean she was out of options. After turning a few petty schemes over in her head, Sua equipped one of the roles she had played: Wi Ji-hye, the protagonist of Sword.

Why Wi Ji-hye?

She's the heroine of a fusion historical. She's good at answers that sound convincing.

Shhhk—

And when Sua closed her eyes and opened them again—

"Both of you, please listen carefully."

The one who lifted those eyelids was Wi Ji-hye.

"..."

Both of them blinked at once. Sua's answer had apparently left quite an impression.

Seo Yeon-ju scratched her cheek.

"...See? I knew you were different, Sua. To think you'd even consider something like that."

She went over to her car and came back with several large designer shopping bags. Those, too, were full of scripts.

"Sua. Then I'll give you these as well."

"These look like scripts too. Are they?"

"Yeah. But they're a little different."

Seo Yeon-ju smiled, bright and easy.

"What's in here are works I really treasure."

"Is it okay to give away something like that?"

"It's fine. I collected them out of fan love in the first place, you know, and I've read them so many times I could recite them. If you're going to use them for such a good reason, I'd be the grateful one if you took them."

"..."

Sua felt a small stab of guilt.

No—she threw the guilt out almost at once.

It's studying either way, right?

Learning through the Special Privilege still counted as studying. And she wasn't inconveniencing anyone, she would have you know. Within moments she had assembled roughly a hundred reasons why she was perfectly entitled to hold her head high.

Watching the scene, Kim Iseo thought to herself.

I knew she was passionate, but not to this degree. As her CEO, I need to step up. From now on, I'll have to get these for her, and fast.

Sua's request for music-related scripts. Kim Iseo remembered it, but she had not been searching with any real desperation. Special Task Force 808 was already in production, and she had figured she would simply bring something back if one happened to catch her eye someday.

The situation had changed. Seeing that passion, she found herself thinking she ought to secure them somehow, no matter what it took.

...More than that, why is she fine with scripts in other languages? Does she mean to translate every one of them as she reads? Or can she already read them? This is worth confirming.

Kim Iseo set her mind turning at once.

"Sua, in that case, let us at least set aside the scripts written in foreign languages. I will secure versions whose Korean translations are already complete."

"No. Just like this is perfect."

"...!"

Kim Iseo's eyes had no choice but to gleam. To demand the original even when offered a Korean translation meant the odds were high that Sua was already proficient in that language.

Has she picked up foreign languages as well? No—from Sua's point of view, Korean itself might be the foreign language. We still don't even know where she's from. Now that I think about it, Mystic doesn't know a single thing about Sua's past, does it?

Just as those thoughts began branching in every direction, Sua, paying her no mind whatsoever, checked the time.

About three hours until filming starts...

Enough. More than enough. Without a moment's hesitation, she stepped into the Special Privilege space.

"Huh?"

The instant she entered, Sua tilted her head.

"Huh? Huuuh? The inside's changed?"

The interior of the Special Trait Hotel had been made over completely. It had once felt like a luxury hotel where red and gold kept company, but now the whole of it was wrapped in sky blue and white. Arctic fox characters had even taken up posts here and there.

"Is it being influenced by my thoughts? Well, I like it either way."

Several exclamation marks rose to greet her, but Sua set them aside for the moment. Another sight had stolen her gaze. The corridor had grown long past any comparison with before.

"Whoa..."

As the corridor lengthened, the doors had multiplied beyond counting.

Scripts, swollen all at once. Sua's heart began to race like mad.

So many! This many new scripts!

Put it in restaurant terms, and the Special Trait Hotel was a buffet where you helped yourself to scripts—except the menu had just exploded. Sua privately concluded that her gift for metaphor had improved by leaps and bounds.

But a worry rose with the thrill.

"Hm? Wait. Now that I think about it..."

A corridor this long was not an unqualified blessing. The hallway had no search function, which meant that any business with a script at the far end would require her to sprint the length of the hotel every single time. That was a bigger problem than it sounded. It seemed like it would be exhausting. It also seemed like it would be a pain.

And then—

Pop—!

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The exclamation marks floating in the air burst, and text spilled out of them.

"Ooh. You're ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a pretty sharp little thing, aren't you?"

Sua had no trouble understanding. It worked exactly like a music playlist. Favorite the ones you used often, delete the ones you didn't, and if you wanted something dragged to the front, you could move it. With nothing but her thoughts, the entire interior of the Special Trait Hotel answered to her.

Okay. From now on...

The moment she had been waiting for was finally here. Time to experience the scripts to her heart's content. She picked one out.

It was one of the works Seo Yeon-ju treasured. Sua moved at once to choosing a role.

Sua cheered inwardly.

It's there!

A special element. Sure enough, it was there—something every role held in common, and something Sua still lacked.

Japanese!

She immediately selected 002, Megumi.

Shhhhhk— At the same time, the world began to bleach white from the edges of her vision.

Phrases she was fairly used to by now. A smile settled on her lips. She wasn't afraid, either. She had already made her resolve.

But then—

"...?"

"What?"

Just as she was about to take the Special Privilege to task—

Fwaaah—!

In an instant the scenery turned over. Sua stood with her feet planted on empty air, and far below her stretched a blue sea.

"Eh?"

She frowned at the scene that had sprung from nowhere. A sea? All of a sudden?

"...?"

Then she narrowed her eyes. It was not like an ordinary sea. Strange things were bobbing and swimming through it, writhing exactly like fish, except they were not fish. Something bone-white, almost like fish bones...

The moment she dipped her head for a closer look—

"...Wah!"

Sua jolted.

Their true identity was words. Japanese vocabulary was swimming through the sea like fish.

And at the same time—

Whoosh—! The force holding Sua vanished, and her body dropped.

"Aaaaaah—!"

Splash. She plunged into the sea of Japanese words.

Air...! I can't breathe...!

She suffocated, and suffocated again. Seawater made of language forced its way into every opening of her body, raking through her, and the sensation burned. All at once her breath sealed shut and her skull felt ready to split, and she had to endure it.

Kh—!

No gap was given in which to breathe. She could not even faint. Sua had to pass through an eternity.

At last, when every drop of that seawater had been absorbed into her—

Flash—!

"Hah, hah, hah...!"

Only then did Sua come back to herself.

"Hah, hah...?"

She tilted her head, unsettled that she was gasping at all. What was she so scared of? The whole sea-of-language ordeal had felt like it lasted less than a tenth of a second.

She opened her mouth and murmured.

Afterward, as she wandered the Special Privilege space—

"...?"

A sudden wrongness struck her. She had let the words out without a thought, taking them for her native tongue, only to realize too late that the language was not Korean.

Even the rise of her startled voice was different from the questioning sound one would ordinarily let slip in Korean, and right now Sua felt that difference with awful clarity. She immediately started firing off everything she could think of.

Then, for a while, silence.

"..."

Sua stood as if she had frozen solid.

Then a fine shiver began to run through her.

She had mastered Japanese. Whatever process she had gone through to learn it, however much pain she had been forced to bear—by now she could hardly even remember.

After that, Sua tore through scripts like a woman possessed. She learned songs. She picked up the violin. She carried her piano a step closer to completion. That her musical attainment was swelling into something monstrous was only the natural course of things.

She swallowed, her throat dry.

This... this...

She sketched her future self in her head. Good at music, good at action, good at this and that besides. Maybe she really could become a monster. Still sunk in the thought, she selected one more script.

The grade was low, but it had a special ability. Combat, no less. Without hesitation, Sua picked a role and began. From now on, anything that gets cocky with me is getting beaten half to death. The sort of impudent little fantasy a timid person indulges in at least once.

And then.

Ting—!

"...?"

She was thrown at once.

"What? Musician?"

What was that supposed to mean?

Sua hurriedly looked over everything she possessed.

This one was familiar. The personality stuff—I was already feeling that anyway.

Her gaze moved to the next trait.

A rather abstract explanation. But this, too, was familiar in its own way.

And the last one.

"Ah?"

Only then did Sua react in earnest. The part she had been wondering about was written in the caution.

"So, in other words..."

Add a work that made use of Musician to her filmography. The conclusion was clear.

"I'm supposed to do one work related to music?"

A new possibility, placed in Sua's hands—and a new task besides.