The Macaron Sorcery
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Namgung Yerin brushed herself off and rose before long.
"Ahem-hem."
The ponytailed woman clutched at her chest and cleared her throat, cheeks flushed as though embarrassed to have keeled over so briefly. It was enough to make me suspect that what she had felt hadn't been my Fierce Tiger Fist at all, but a Heart-Crushing Palm driven straight into her heart meridian.
But I had seen that exact expression dozens, hundreds of times since my return, and I knew precisely what it meant. It was identical—identical!—to the look my little sister Sea-ah wore every single time I did anything at all...! That look of hers, the one that lately seemed to regard me less and less as an older brother and more and more as some tiny hamster of a creature...!
"Um, excuse me..."
Namgung Yerin approached cautiously and, hesitating, held out her smartwatch.
"So... your name was Yujin, right? Yujin, would you show me what you just did one more time? I'd like to save it... as a photo or a video. Okay?"
A photo. A video.
I see. So the Fierce Tiger Fist that I, Bonjwa—whose single punch had once brought cliffs crumbling down and split mountain ranges in two—had unleashed with every last ounce of strength... was now nothing more than a child's adorable little performance, the kind a parent films with a camera at a school festival. So harmless that even a hunter, hardened by real combat and attuned to the faintest trace of hostility, couldn't perceive it as an attack in even the slightest degree.
A kitty punch.
A kitty punch... she said?
"...GAL!!! Kitty—no, owie...!!!"
On the verge of tears. The moment I felt even a flicker of futility, this accursed body of mine instantly began stringing great, glistening drops from my lashes.
Namgung Yerin, her face gone scarlet and her fluster beyond hiding, waved her hands in a frantic flurry.
"Wh-whoa? D-did I say something wrong? I-I don't know what it was, but I'm sorry!"
"GAL...!!! I will never... forgive... hnngh... you... hic...!"
"Ah, um...! There's a really good macaron café near here. Do-do you want some macarons? Hm? You like sweet things?"
Drip.
"Ma...carons?"
"Yes, macarons! Big sis will buy them for you! How many do you want? I'll buy as many as you can eat, okay? So please stop crying..."
Macarons.
A dessert of round meringue cookies with cream piled generously between them. Whether tiny or enormous, one bite sent sweetness flooding through the mouth, cutting clean through the richness of the cream. Macarons came in every color and every flavor, and sometimes they hid more than cream inside—fruit, ganache, other toppings besides.
Some might call them nothing but lumps of sugar, but to someone who had tasted nothing sweeter in Murim than rock candy, they had been a revolutionary flavor...! They were pricey enough that a mere three cost as much as a hearty bowl of soup and rice—a dessert I could never casually touch on the allowance Sea-ah handed me. A luxury among luxuries, beyond any comparison to something as honest and filling as a hot hamburger. That very... macaron of legend...!
"Ho-howaaaa... N-no!! No, owie—!!!"
Whap-whap-whap!
"Eek..."
As I whipped my long hair around like a vengeful spirit risen from a well and shook my head from side to side, Namgung Yerin's face turned to open horror.
I had very nearly fallen for that incomparably cunning serpent's tongue. Just as expected of a vile lackey of the orthodox sects...! How many times had it been now—proclaiming I would uphold the dignity of the Greatest Under Heaven, only to be dragged along by the instincts of this damned body!
I, Bonjwa—the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin, Greatest Under Heaven—was no child entranced by sweets, but a proud and dashing hero! Had I not already been caught once, falling for Sea-ah's temptation and lured out for tonkatsu straight into a trap that ended in a hospital checkup? And this time my opponent was not even my little sister Sea-ah, but the monstrously wicked bitch of the Namgung clan, registered second on my kill list...!
And who was I? The terror of the orthodox sects, the absolute sovereign of the unorthodox, master of the Demonic Realm—Blood Demon Cheon Yujin...! To fall for the same trick twice would make me the biggest fool under heaven. Never again would I bow to food dangled as bait by women who treated me like a child...!
"—Mmm-nom-nom-nom-nom."
The rich sweetness spreading thick through my mouth, the almond flour lending its gritty, crackling chew. Clutching a macaron bigger than my tiny palm in both hands and gnawing at it, I felt like a hamster. Macarons eaten beneath the cool blast of air conditioning, paired with a glass of cold milk, were melting my whole body away... melting me away... mel...
"Mmm-nya, nom-nom-nom... Huh?"
What was this.
Why was I in a macaron café.
Sorcery...? It had to be sorcery. Just as expected of Namgung Yerin, second on my kill list—posing as orthodox while wielding wicked arts on top of it all!
Of course, I was nothing like those orthodox bastards who shrieked "Sorcery!" in perfect unison every time I so much as unfurled a single martial technique. The moment I showed them so much as a finger trick that made it look as though my thumb had snapped clean off, those third-rate orthodox charlatans would convulse, screaming sorcery. No matter what state this body was in, there was no way that I—Bonjwa, who had sworn never to be so pathetically fooled again—had simply surrendered. Therefore, it was sorcery...!
I, Bonjwa, the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin, was absolutely not a third-rate, worthless, drooling idiot...!
"Mmm-nom-nom... sho tashty..."
Perhaps the macarons were simply too sweet; even my tongue had gone a little slack. For some reason, Namgung Yerin—sitting across from me with a hand pressed over her mouth and her head bowed low—cleared her throat and spoke.
"I'm glad you like them. Um... Yujin, things were pretty chaotic back then, weren't they? Let me introduce myself again. I'm Namgung Yerin."
"I know... Namgung, Yerin. Dungeon..."
"The dungeon. Right, that's it. So... since then, um, are you feeling all right?"
Namgung Yerin asked, eyes wavering, hesitating enormously.
I recalled that day.
"Third-rate..."
Cue the flashback!
Trembling, trembling. As my body shook with the humiliation and fury of that day's memory, Namgung Yerin, for some reason, sent me a look of tender pity.
"...Ah! Now that I think of it, why were you collapsed out there? Do you live around here?"
And she even changed the subject so desperately that anyone could see it. Well, I had no idea why she was acting that way, but it was hardly any concern of mine.
Straining to control fingers that squirmed for no reason, I opened my mouth in a voice that kept creeping upward.
"Going to... Sungmuryeon..."
"Hm? Sungmuryeon? Oh, the Sungmuryeon Guild? Wait—Yujin, are you an awakener?"
Shake, shake. When I shook my head without a word, Namgung Yerin smiled awkwardly.
Using my fury and grudge toward the nemesis I'd met head-on on a narrow bridge as fuel, I had suppressed the instincts of this damned body to the very limit. But perhaps because I'd stuffed myself full of macarons and milk and was thoroughly satisfied, I had reverted to a state where I couldn't even manage a proper voice. It was irritating.
Then Namgung Yerin rounded her eyes and pushed back.
"The Sungmuryeon Guild won't be letting civilians visit for a while, you know. It's under lockdown because of the Indefinite Gate."
"Huh?"
My flawless plan—to punish the corrupt and purge the violent, and raise up the gangho's righteousness that had fallen to the ground—was...
"Oh, was the gate your destination, not the guild? I suppose that tracks. It's a pretty rare gate, so plenty of people come to take pictures of it."
It's big enough to see even from outside the restricted zone, she added, answering her own question.
After scratching the back of her neck as if deliberating a moment, Namgung Yerin spoke up.
"As it happens, this big sis works there? I'm off duty as of now, but... if you'd like, shall I walk you to the restricted zone?"
"Huh? No, I, uhh, Sungmuryeon..."
"Hm? Your voice is too quiet... what was that? Oh, you don't have to be so polite about declining. Besides, the area where I work is a perfect spot for photos. A real hotspot."
"I, Sungmuryeon, Sung..."
"Oh, let's box up some macarons to eat on the way!"
And then.
By the time I came to my senses, I was being led along by Namgung Yerin's hand toward the Indefinite Gate.
...It was absolutely not the case that Bonjwa had failed to mount a single proper rebuttal and had fumbled and mumbled my way into this. The guild was off-limits anyway... I was merely intending to round off my second outing by at least glimpsing the gate that happened to sit near Sungmuryeon...!
And the trivial fact that moving with Namgung Yerin meant more boxed macarons and cold milk exerted no influence whatsoever!
"Mmm-nom-nom."
No influence whatsoever.
How long had we walked? Fences and entry-blocking signs spread across the heart of the city came into view.
"Everything past this is the restricted zone, so you can watch from here. So? So? You can see it really well, right?"
A proud smile playing at the corners of her mouth, Namgung Yerin pointed past the fence, toward the gap between the buildings.
But I was no longer listening to a word she said.
"..."
Without any will of my own, my gaze had already locked fast on what lay beyond.
A violet crack, spread wide and vast between the buildings. A violet fissure that slashed across the sky, splitting the empty air like a wall gone to fracture.
"...Yujin? What's wrong?"
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart pulsed like a beating war drum. Rising within my chest was a single, vivid crest of emotion.
I knew this feeling. Standing atop the highest peak of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, gazing out over the world as it spread beyond the horizon—gazing out over a world without the colossal buildings visible even from afar, without the transmission towers linking them together, without the neon signs that glowed so bright each night. That feeling that would steal over me, unbidden.
A distant longing.
"Yujin...? Wait—Yujin! I told you not to go in!"
At some point, I had started running. Toward the crack—straight ahead, never stopping no matter what might happen, right up until the moment just before I realized, with a soft plop, that the macaron had slipped from my hand.
"...Huh?"
Ohh...
The three-second rule... probably doesn't apply here, huh...?