Chapter 210: Japan (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 210: Japan (3)
Nothing happened.
Truly, nothing at all.
The girls and I sat in a circle on the living room floor of our hotel suite, surrounded by a mountain of beer and snacks from a convenience store, and talked all night.
It was a cozy, happy time.
Strangely enough, I could feel that they'd all grown much more comfortable with each other.
They’d fix each other’s tangled hair, lean on one another’s shoulders to sleep, and even pop snacks into each other’s mouths.
For some reason, it looked like they were all already close friends.
Of course, it wasn’t perfect peace.
“But, you know…”
In the drowsy, pre-dawn atmosphere, Cheon Yeo-wool, blinking as if fighting off sleep, had spoken up.
“Is anyone our age still a virgin?”
For a moment, a couple of them glared at Cheon Yeo-wool for her provocation.
But in the end, they seemed to let it go, chalking it up to her being drunk.
And this is coming from someone who hasn’t been a non-virgin for that long, either…
That’s what I thought to myself, but on the outside, I acted as if nothing was wrong, simply stroking the hair of a sleeping Yoon Chae-ha.
In the end, all six of us laid out blankets and slept in the living room.
Each in our own bedding, just like we were on a school trip.
Truly. Without incident.
Well, there was one very small exception.
Around dawn, I got up to go to the bathroom.
‘Hm?’
There, I happened to run into Ha Sion.
‘Ooh… ah… mmm…’
We took some time to gently comfort each other.
I felt guilty for leaving her for ten hours to be with another woman, and she regretted having left me in the first place.
Well, that was nothing major.
And so, the next day dawned.
Outside the window, the Tokyo morning was breaking. I pushed my stiff body up.
On the living room floor, five girls were still sound asleep in their blankets.
I hope they get a good rest. Things are only going to get busier from here.
The first to wake up was Kang A-rin.
“Honey…”
“Hm?”
“Can you go get the food…?”
It seemed she had ordered breakfast via room service, and it had arrived right on time.
Stretching with a voice still thick with sleep, she asked me to bring it in.
“I told them to just leave it outside the door…”
That made sense, since everyone was sleeping.
I wheeled the cart in.
It was loaded with a mouth-watering breakfast.
Woken one by one by the smell of food, we began to eat.
As the meal was winding down, I brought up the day’s schedule.
“I have some business to take care of today.”
At my words, they all looked at me, forks in hand.
“Sion and Chae-ha, you two probably don’t need to come either. Since it's a rare chance for the five of you, go have some fun.”
They nodded.
They seemed to understand, since I’d given them a rough idea of my plans yesterday.
“Alright.”
Sion’s reply concluded the short briefing.
And just like that, our day began.
After finishing my meal, while the girls were chatting in the living room, I quietly returned to my room to get ready to go out.
Once I was ready, I headed for the shrine.
*
The morning sun lit up parts of the shrine, but the grounds were strangely quiet.
I’d expected it to be bustling with early morning worshipers, but today there was an unusual lack of people.
I was here early, it was true.
I had originally planned to visit in the afternoon but decided to just come early.
Puzzled, I headed inside.
Despite my early arrival, someone in traditional clothing was waiting for me in front of the main building.
This time, however, it was a woman, not a man.
She, too, greeted me with an expressionless face.
“The shrine was temporarily closed as of yesterday.”
Noticing my curious glances, she spoke first.
Her Korean was perfect, just like the man’s.
“I see.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised.
They had more important matters at hand than receiving worshipers at the shrine.
“Ms. Rin is…”
In the main hall again today?
She seemed slightly surprised that I used her name so casually. The woman’s eyes widened a fraction before she bowed her head.
“The Family Head… is at her residence today. She said she would wait for you there.”
Her residence?
Rin’s home?
She answered immediately and began to lead me down a different path than before.
We went out a side gate of the shrine and toward an annex.
It was the path to Kisaragi Rin’s private quarters.
What came into view was a small, immaculately kept garden that seemed to be off-limits to the public.
At the far end of the garden stood a small but elegant annex.
“I cannot go any further than this.”
She stopped.
“Thank you.”
I went inside.
When the annex door opened, another vast garden lay within.
It looked modest from the outside, but the inside was spacious.
There was even a large pond.
I could see several koi swimming within it.
To think such a tranquil piece of nature could exist in the heart of Tokyo.
I opened a sliding door and walked down the corridor, intending to find her room, when I suddenly spotted a familiar figure in the inner garden outside the window.
She was neatly dressed in the same dark kimono as yesterday, scooping moss from the pond with a small wooden ladle.
Even from behind, she exuded an air of elegance. I approached without a sound and stood quietly a short distance behind her.
It was at that exact moment.
—Splash, splash!! Flap!
“?!”
Suddenly, a massive golden koi leaped from beneath the pond’s surface.
It was nearly as thick as a person's torso.
It slammed its tail against the water, thrashing about wildly.
—Whoooosh!!
As a result, a huge amount of pond water came crashing down right on top of Rin.
“……Ah?”
Struck squarely by the deluge, Rin’s eyes widened in shock as she stared blankly into space.
Her neat hair was now plastered to her face, and her kimono was soaked through, revealing the lines of her body underneath.
She looked like a drowned rat.
After flapping in the air for a moment, the giant koi, as if its job was done, leisurely disappeared back into the depths of the pond.
Why is it so deep?
Rin slowly turned her head, her expression still dazed, as if she hadn't yet processed what had happened.
She lifted the hem of her heavy, soaked kimono and began to wring it out with both hands.
Her expression remained impassive despite the unexpected incident.
Streams of water pattered to the ground.
And I stood there, watching the entire thing.
It seemed she had no idea I was standing there.
“……”
Once she seemed to have wrung out as much water as she could, Rin finally lifted her head.
And her eyes met mine.
A moment of silence.
Rin’s eyes showed no change.
But then, her brain slowly began to register the situation.
Her unmoving eyes gradually widened.
This was only my second meeting with Rin, but both times, things had taken a strange turn.
Her face turned bright red.
“Could you… c-could you please wait a m-moment?”
She hastily looked down, trying to speak calmly, but her tongue seemed to betray her in her flustered state.
Without a word, I slowly approached her.
Her shoulders tensed and went rigid at my movement.
There was a lotus leaf stuck to the crown of her head.
“Ah…”
I reached out and plucked it off.
Rin let out a small gasp as the leaf was removed.
“Take your time. I’ll wait.”
I said, stepping back.
“Thank you…”
Rin offered her thanks in a voice as small as a mosquito’s from behind me.
—Rustle. Snap!
She practically threw herself through the nearest sliding door and disappeared.
I chuckled and sat down casually on the wooden veranda.
The sight of Rin hastily disappearing was less like the Head of the Three-legged Crow and more like that of an ordinary girl.
Time passed as I admired the scenery.
I’m not sure how long it had been.
Without a sound, Rin was suddenly standing beside me.
She had changed into a perfectly dry kimono, as if nothing had happened.
“I apologize for my unsightly…”
“It’s fine. Please, sit down so we can talk.”
I gently cut off her apology, gesturing to the spot beside me.
She was being overly formal.
There was no need for it. In fact, it made things a bit uncomfortable.
Rin gave a slight bow and sat down next to me.
A faint, soapy scent, as if she had just bathed, wafted from her.
So she even took a bath.
I spoke first.
“The way to resolve your curse seems surprisingly simple.”
That was the conclusion I’d come to after thinking it over.
For an ordinary spellcaster or healer, lifting the curse of the Head of the Three-legged Crow would have been next to impossible.
There was a good reason all her ancestors had died young.
The curse was that subtle and that powerful.
However, I had a cheat key that let me ignore all that.
The Fragments. And, by extension, Flapper, who crawled out of one and has been sucking up the Apostles' power.
“I’ll get straight to the point. I’m raising a spirit beast.”
I continued slowly, looking her in the eyes.
“This little guy consumes only malevolent energy for sustenance. It doesn’t touch any other kind of energy, like life force or divine power. Therefore…”
Even if it ate right off her, there was no risk of her life force being drained.
It was the same principle as holding a magnet to a pile of sand and watching only the iron filings lift away cleanly.
Finishing my explanation, I gestured into the air to show her my spirit beast directly.
Soon, a black hole opened in the air.
—Flap, flap.
A black hawk flew out of it and into the room.
It circled the air a few times, seemingly wary of the unfamiliar space.
Then, it gently landed on what it deemed the safest spot—my shoulder.
“This is the spirit beast I'm raising, Bam.”
I gestured to Flapper on my shoulder, introducing him to Rin.
“……”
But Rin’s expression was very different from what I had expected.
What is it?
Flapper wasn’t that ugly.
It was the most intense expression I had ever seen on her face.
Then, Rin covered her mouth with trembling hands and, in a tearful voice, murmured to the creature on my shoulder.
“The… Three-legged Crow…?”
“?”
Looking at my Flapper, she had just invoked the name of the Three-legged Crow—her people’s god and symbol.
—Tweet?
But Flapper, on my shoulder, only tilted its head in confusion.