A Solo Night (Part 2)
I had known samgyeopsal since I was a kid—Korean through and through—but the food Yuri had laid out felt strangely different.
The slabs were thicker than usual for bacon, yet she sliced them off without a second thought. Her ice-magic spell had already sharpened into a flawless blade, so she didn’t even need a knife.
She set out two disposable plates and arranged the meat on them.
“I… made it myself. I’m not sure if it’ll taste good. Want to try?”
Plenty of fat, only a thin layer of meat showing. It looked almost raw, though a faint aged scent clung to it.
This… was Russian traditional food, wasn’t it?
Salo—Сало, in the old tongue. The same thing: fat and a little meat, seasoned with salt and spices and left to cure in its natural state.
I had eaten it before, of course. When Eins cafeteria disappointed me, Yuri would pack either square cup ramen or this very salo and call it a bento. The memory made my mouth water.
Before I realized it, she had already pulled out a bottle of vodka. The label told me it was a premium brand—high proof, brutally dry.
“Oh, I almost ate it plain. Black bread would make it even better.”
She sliced a thick slab of the dark rye bread the Slavs loved and handed it over.
Slavia Kingdom wasn’t Russia, yet the resemblance was uncanny.
Red Lake must have adored Slavic culture. That tracks with the original novel’s setting. And Yuri… she was watching me with those bright eyes again.
Almost too bright. Almost nervous.
This salo. She said she made it herself.
The recipe was simple; anyone could follow it. She must have wanted me to taste something she had personally prepared.
Handmade bento with pork fat.
I slid the salo between two slices of black bread and took a bite. The flavor hit exactly as I remembered—sharp rye notes, a faint tang, and the rich, fatty melt of cured pork fat sliding between them.
Subtle. That’s the right word.
Black bread already had a strong personality; the salo’s texture and bacon-like richness made it even more complex. Pure Slavic comfort, yet somehow refined. Still, I could eat it without complaint.
Camping food tastes, too.
Salo itself was born for Siberian winters—fat layered over meat to burn slowly and keep a body warm. Yuri watched me eat with quiet satisfaction.
“How do you like it?”
“It’s… edible. Actually, it’s delicious.”
“Really? I was so worried you wouldn’t like it.”
Her smile was sudden and warm. Most people only saw the cool mask; this reaction told me she was genuinely happy.
She really enjoyed making it for me.
It was the same feeling you get when someone you care about crafts something special for you. Maybe not entirely, but close enough.
Yuri started eating her own salo sandwich right beside me, then poured a proper glass of vodka and drank it like juice. The night air outside was freezing; inside the shelter the fire crackled, and the alcohol loosened something in her.
“Ah, what you drank earlier…”
“I only need water here.”
“Still, this place is special… I packed extra just in case!”
She reached into her backpack and handed me a non-alcoholic beer.
Beer by her standards is basically a drink.
The alcohol-free label made me think she had considered me.
“Thank you, Guild Master.”
I popped the can open. The two of us paused, cans in hand, eyes meeting.
“Should we… toast? It’s not like it means anything big. Just… coworkers having a light drink, right?”
“Sure.”
The night stretched long. Just the two of us in a shelter. I didn’t mind giving her a little space to relax.
The meal stretched on. The alcohol helped; the mood grew softer, warmer.
***
The evening felt longer than it should have been. More like a camp-out or an after-party that never ended. Yuri finished one bottle of vodka, then pulled out a second.
Two bottles. She really came prepared.
Her cheeks flushed an unnatural white under the firelight. As an S-rank esper she could probably stay sober until dawn, but the fire’s gentle glow and the shelter’s strange, heavy silence were working on her.
“Young Slav women these days have no spirit! Back in my day—Slavia’s girls would kill a boar bare-handed! So now we’re supposed to forget all that with this new ‘spiritual education’ and chase the dream of the Great Slavic Federation again…”
Her voice grew louder, rambling. She launched into long speeches about Slavic philosophy that sounded more like a drunken noble daughter than anything else.
Strange. Almost… grandfatherly.
Of course she was Guild Master now—Flame’s cool, communicative CEO. But if the interns saw her like this, the reputation would vanish overnight.
Still… impressive.
Her drinking habits didn’t match a proper noble daughter. Neither did the young Yuri I remembered.
She really hunted boars since she was eight.
Most Slav girls didn’t, of course. Yuri was special. Her father had ordered her to train as a hunter from childhood.
Tarkovsky family tradition—successor education.
At eight she was still just a kid, but she had spent her early years in the frozen north of Slavia, the Siberian wilderness.
Brutal training for a hunter, but the only kind that built real strength.
She never got to feel a mother’s love; her mother had died when Yuri was young.
“My nanny, Anna, taught me everything from the basics to the advanced. At nine she even cut a Siberian tiger’s head off with a single dagger. All thanks to Anna.”
It sounded like a tall tale, but the conviction in Yuri’s voice made it believable. If she were still that girl, three hundred tigers could swarm her and she’d freeze them solid.
And that grandfatherly side of her drinking… clearly came from Anna. The nanny was a former Soviet Spetsnaz operative, not a native Slav.
“These young Slav women today—whether Russian Federation or Slavia—they’ve all gone soft! Salo has a strong smell; they hate it. Same as a Korean who thinks kimchi is disgusting. Or makgeolli. Complete nonsense!”
Some Koreans hated kimchi too, but I let the drunken ramble pass in silence.
Only I get to see this side of her…
Flame held regular after-parties before the intern arrived. The highlight was always Yuri and So-so competing on who could drink the most. Both had downed bottles on the floor and never once shown signs of intoxication.
Yuri finished the second bottle, pulled out the third, and finally quieted down after telling the first monster-hunting story of her ten-year-old past.
The Guild Master of Flame—the one known for flawless execution and skill—was showing a side that was strangely endearing.
She glanced at me, then quickly lowered her head. She tucked her knees to her chest, one hand still clutching the vodka bottle like a takeaway coffee cup.
“Minsu… um, I mean…”
“Yes?”
“Men don’t usually like women who aren’t… feminine, right?”
It came out late and slurred. Her free hand traced idle circles on the floor.
She only did that when she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.
I let the question sink in. Her circling fingers sped up.
“People are different, aren’t they?”
My answer came calm. Of course it did. The normal Yuri was a woman so beautiful it made other women jealous.
And the version currently rambling about Slav or Soviet spirit, boasting of childhood exploits, was the only one I had ever seen.
I didn’t mind it at all.
“Ah… yes. If I knew someone who was like that, I’d probably hate it. That’s what I thought. Of course, I wasn’t talking about me—I mean, about women in general.”
“As long as there’s a heart, any appearance is fine.”
“Really? Whew… that makes me happy.”
Her speech was getting messy from the alcohol, but her eyes were locked on me. Suddenly she sliced more salo, topped it with bread, and pushed the sandwich toward me.
“Minsu, winter salo tastes best. This last piece is yours.”
She gave the remaining fat a sad look, then smiled the moment she saw me eat it.
The food was gone. A long silence settled between us.
I turned the mini stove’s flame a little higher. The warmth and drowsiness grew thicker.
Finally Yuri spoke, voice soft.
“This shelter… it’s cold.”
It was an absurd thing to say. She looked around as if deciding something, blew across the vodka bottle like a snow whistle, then suddenly moved closer and sat right beside me.
She took my hand.
***
Yuri’s head was spinning.
Her body didn’t ache anywhere. She was simply drunk.
Her skin felt hot and feverish. Normally her overwhelming mana would have burned the alcohol away in minutes, but tonight something felt off. She had chosen not to metabolize it on purpose. She wanted to get drunk. Only then could she spend this night—alone with Minsu—without her mind staying perfectly clear.
Everything feels… strange. Good. Warm. My body is burning… strange…
Right now the heat from the hand she was gripping—his body temperature—filled her. Even her own feverish skin felt hot, but his was far warmer. The warmth radiated from their pressed bodies too. If this continued she might melt.
Her usual icy mana was also turning liquid, vanishing.
If her blood really carried the Undying Butterfly’s lineage—the demon’s cursed blood—then she should have pulled away. But she didn’t want to.
The salo she had given him with her own hands. The childhood stories she had boasted about. Small, clumsy appeals from a girl who still had deep feelings for him.
She still loved him. That much was certain.
Even drunk, the thought crossed her mind that none of this was the kind of thing a man should like. But Minsu had said he didn’t mind.
As long as there’s a heart…
She let her mind drift back to Eins Academy—graduation night, the moment right before she would have said what she had planned.
Her words would have been the same as what Minsu had wanted to say to her.
And then she remembered the Tragedy of Eins—the cold, rational part of her that had trapped him in a thousand-year seal while trying to suppress her own emotions.
She had suspected him, yes. But her heart had never agreed.
She had no intention of ever letting him go again.
Back then she had been deciding to join her father’s Snowfield Knights. She had known Minsu’s foreign blood would never let him join the pure-blood order.
But she would have dragged him into the White Mage Tower by force. No brilliant talent should waste time in a research institute when she could have offered him the best guild in Korea.
She had wanted to leave him. She had not wanted to.
She had chosen Flame instead—built with her own hands so he could soar freely.
She had already registered the guild with the Association before the tragedy struck.
After the tragedy, her cold logic had sealed him away forever. Even her feelings—her refusal to let him go—had only made the seal colder.
She wanted to trap him in that seal for a thousand years and make him her man.
The Undying Butterfly…
If her blood really carried that cursed lineage, she should have feared the heat. But she didn’t.
“Guild Master?”
Minsu’s voice pulled her back. The shelter’s interior had gone deathly quiet. She realized she had unconsciously reinforced it with a seal. She shook her head to clear the fog.
“Sorry… I must be drunk. My mana control…”
But the feelings beneath the alcohol were still there. Right now the shelter belonged only to the two of them.
Temptation.
She heard the voice in her heart and liked it.
Minsu’s fingers laced through hers as she spoke.
“Minsu. I… I want to take a bath.”