The Heavenly Demon Has Returned (4)
“Then I’ll buy you something sweet!”
“Understood. But could you wait a moment? I have many questions.”
I held up the textbook from my bag, but Enry waved the idea away.
“I’ll teach you myself. I’m pretty good at Korean, you know.”
It did seem that way. Still, being skilled at something and being skilled at teaching it were two entirely different problems. My hesitation didn’t last long. Refusing a kind gesture would damage the other person’s pride, and if Enry’s teaching ability proved excellent, I could ask for her help again later. Accepting assistance once was not a bad choice.
“Then I’ll be in your care.”
*
Enry Scott was a cheerful and incredibly talkative woman. When she answered one of my questions, she would branch off into another story, eventually recounting all the troubles she had faced upon first arriving in Korea. It was never boring. She possessed a natural talent for storytelling. If she ever visited a rural village, not only the children but even most of the adults would likely hang on her every word.
Despite how much she talked, Enry’s explanations were easy to follow. Perhaps because this was a one-on-one lesson rather than a group lecture, she noticed when I failed to understand something and offered multiple different explanations until I grasped it.
“Wow, it’s already this late?”
By the time I had satisfied all my curiosity, the sun was beginning to set. In the Murim, this would have been the hour when one should already be asleep, but modern society was different. It was the time when office workers headed home, savoring the start of their evening rest. Since today was Friday, it seemed many would be seeking excitement rather than quiet relaxation.
“Thank you. You were a great help.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
My head ached a little, but I had somehow managed to understand everything taught today. One thing had become clear: I would have many more questions for Enry in the future. It was fortunate she had taken her time with careful explanations. Otherwise, I might not have comprehended today’s lesson even after several days.
For the sake of my Korean studies, maintaining this connection with Enry was necessary. It was lucky the relationship had begun with goodwill. That would make it easier to continue.
“If we’re talking about who should be grateful, I’m the one who’s more thankful. You saved me, after all.”
Enry said she streamed on a platform called Turret. When she went live, thousands of people would watch. That made her a truly remarkable storyteller. Most of her viewers were good people, but not all of them. Just as five people gathered will include one scoundrel, when thousands gathered, a few lunatics were bound to slip in.
“That man was a stalker.”
The man from the West had persistently followed Enry wherever she went. He would leave letters at her door, ring her doorbell and run away, or trail after her when she went out. She had eventually reported him to the police, and thanks to that, she hadn’t seen him for several months afterward. But somehow he had learned she would be attending language classes. Or perhaps it had been a coincidence. Either way, they had ended up in the same class.
At first Enry had tried to ignore him, but the man refused to leave her alone. He desperately tried to strike up conversations with her. She had gritted her teeth and endured it for a few days, but Enry was only human. There was always a limit, and the argument I had witnessed between her and the man had been the result of that limit breaking.
“If you hadn’t been there, Miss Ara, things would have gotten much worse. The way you blocked his fist—bam!—it was so cool. You really looked like the Heavenly Demon from the game.”
As her story continued with animated gestures, one word caught my ear.
Heavenly Demon.
Perhaps noticing my interest, Enry naturally steered the conversation in that direction.
“The Heavenly Demon. Do you know about it?”
“I do. But what you know and what I know are likely different.”
To me, the title Heavenly Demon was one the world had forced upon me. I had never wished for it, never sought it, yet it was a shackle I could not discard. However, what Enry spoke of was surely something else. She could not know that I had once been called by that name.
“Is that so? What I know is the Heavenly Demon from a game called Apis. Miss Ara, have you heard of Apis?”
“I have not.”
“It’s this amazing game that has dominated the VR gaming market for years. It’s insanely fun!”
I didn’t fully understand, but it was clear Enry loved this game called Apis. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as her voice rose. Her explanation was mostly filled with terms I couldn’t comprehend—competitive fighting game, fantasy UFC, and so on. Though the words were in Korean, they might as well have been an alien language.
Sensing my interest waning, Enry took out her smartphone.
“Would you like to watch a video? It doesn’t look like you’ve tried VR games before. Once you see it, I think you’ll get interested.”
The video looked less like a game and more like a scene taken straight from a movie. The realism was so vivid it could rival reality itself. It was completely different from any game I remembered.
The protagonist in the video faced a swordsman wielding a greatsword as massive as himself, and a short-haired woman dressed in the attire of the Demonic Cult. The two displayed their martial prowess, exchanging lethal strikes meant to kill each other. Among them, the woman—the one wearing Magyo clothing—was someone I knew. It was unmistakable. Aside from her hair being more neatly arranged, everything was identical. There was no way it was a coincidence.
Because the woman in the video was clearly me from my younger days. The version of me who had wandered the Murim filled with hatred. The foolish version of myself from that era. Only after experiencing many things had my personality softened, but during my prime, I had been different. There had been a time when I would shed blood without hesitation simply because something displeased me.
The version of me that Enry showed in the video resembled that past self. The one who would do anything for revenge. The cruel and tyrannical version that perfectly matched the world’s image of the Heavenly Demon.
“This game. What did you say its name was?”
“You’re interested now?! It’s Apis. Apis.”
Was it mere coincidence that a game created in this world contained a character resembling me? Or was something hidden behind it? I couldn’t know, but it was worth investigating.
“How does one play it?”
“If you have a VR device at home, you just need to install it.”
“VR device?”
“You’ve never tried VR?”
“No.”
Enry looked at me as if I were some rare creature. Was it truly that surprising?
“You have a computer at home, right?”
“I do.”
“As for the specs… you probably wouldn’t know.”
Obviously. I had only ever used my computer to browse the internet and watch videos on MyTube. How could I know whether its performance was good or bad?
“As long as the computer specs are decent, playing Apis won’t cost too much money. These days, the entry-level VR devices are really well-made.”
Explaining that speaking about it would take too long, Enry said she would send me the information separately and held out her smartphone.
“If you give me your number, I’ll send it through CoffeeTalk.”
I couldn’t readily accept it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to give Enry my number or that I suspected her intentions. It was simply that—
“I don’t know my own phone number.”
I simply couldn’t remember it. Enry blinked, then burst into quiet laughter before asking me to hand her the phone. She said I could just call her.
*
Enry had promised to start streaming at seven but had begun without a word at eight. For an ordinary person, the situation would have been dizzying, but Enry remained calm. It wasn’t as if this was the first or second time she had angered her viewers. She was a veteran who had fought countless battles to crawl back from the abyss. A fire of this scale couldn’t even be called a controversy.
“What excuse could I possibly give? It’s all because I’m lazy.”
At the words “penalty roulette,” sweat beaded on Enry’s forehead. It wasn’t as if Enry had only been late once or twice. She was a habitual offender. To the point that whenever other Turret streamers were late, people would say they had “pulled an Enry.”
After one particularly fiery incident caused by her repeated tardiness, Enry had turned on an apology stream. She promised it wouldn’t happen again and made a public pledge. That pledge was the penalty roulette. She declared that every time she was late, she would spin the roulette and carry out whatever punishment it landed on.
The punishments written on the roulette were all horrific. Playing horror games on stream. Eating murderous tonkatsu. Eating extremely pungent fermented skate. Doing Ring Fit for an entire week. Playing jump king on stream. Twenty-four-hour broadcasts, and more. Each one was lethal with even the slightest contact. The MyTube editors would rejoice, but Enry, the one actually carrying out the penalties, certainly did not. She knew it had been necessary to extinguish the flames, but every time she was late, she cursed her past self. Why was I so full of bravado back then? I should have made the penalties a little milder. I must avoid spinning that roulette at all costs. That place is hell.
“It is my fault, but I’m sure you all want to hear the circumstances.”
“If I explain—!”
Whether from the donation voice or the chat window, chaos erupted, but Enry ignored it all. If she got swept up in that, she would have no choice but to spin the penalty roulette.
“I mentioned that I enrolled in language school, right?”
In truth, Enry had no need to attend language school. Born in Britain with not a drop of Korean blood, she had fallen in love with Korean culture, learned the language, and even studied abroad at a Korean university. Her Korean was fluent enough that she could pass for a native. Yet the one reason she had enrolled in language school was to make friends with other foreigners.
No matter how familiar she was with Korea, Enry was fundamentally an outsider. Most people found her intimidating, and even when she was with her Korean friends she felt an awkward distance. That was why Enry had always wanted foreign friends who also loved Korea. She longed for real-life friends with whom she could share her feelings.
A streamer, a MyTuber, a foreigner—she didn’t want any of those labels. She simply wanted people who would like her as plain old Enry Scott, a human being.
However, her goal had not been realized. All because of that damned stalker. The stalker had hovered around her and prevented her from getting close to others, as if she belonged to him alone. He was utterly, completely insane.
“There’s a blond stalker at the language school. The same guy who used to harass me before.”
Seeing the people who had been setting the chat on fire moments ago now expressing worry, Enry smiled. She really couldn’t dislike them.
“Don’t worry. Nothing serious happened. Though things almost got serious, fortunately someone helped me.”
She recalled the scene of Baek Ara saving her. The way that small hand had blocked the man’s enormous fist. The way Ara had stood confidently before a man easily twice her size. She looked exactly like the Heavenly Demon Enry had always imagined.