Omen (4)
It was late at night by the time we stepped off the plane and set foot on Japanese soil.
Our status as Explorers meant immigration took a little longer than usual, but once we cleared it we collected our luggage, headed outside, and climbed into the car waiting for us, bound for the hotel.
"Welcome. How may I help you?"
"We'll check in, please."
Thanks to the translation-magic pills we'd taken on the way, language was no obstacle at all. Stretch the truth a little and it almost felt like being in a slightly different version of Korea. Money and magic really could solve anything.
"Whoa… this is our room?"
"Like it?"
"It's way better than I expected."
The place Choi Yeonjeong had booked was outrageous. Every corner whispered understated luxury—elegant without being gaudy—and the space itself was so open and generous that dozens of people could have stood inside without feeling crowded. One of Japan's top three hotels, they said. The floor-to-ceiling windows laid the entire Tokyo nightscape out before us; pure, unfiltered capitalism at its finest.
I should make a lot of money and bring Nakyeong here someday.
It felt almost wasteful to enjoy somewhere this nice alone.
"Oh, right. The camera."
While Yeonjeong dug the camera out of her bag, I wandered the suite, pouring out quiet admiration.
This bed is bigger than my whole room back home.
Then something felt off.
…Bed? Wait.
No matter how hard I looked, there was only one bed.
"Hey… Yeonjeong."
"Hmm?"
She glanced over, still fiddling with the camera.
I hurried to point out the problem.
"There's only one bed in here. Did they give us the wrong room?"
Her brow furrowed. Realization dawned.
"Ah…"
"I must've booked it wrong."
"What."
The news hit like a bolt from the blue.
"Sorry. Honestly, I never checked how many beds there were. I just saw the glowing reviews and booked it on the spot."
"You've got to be kidding…"
I couldn't bring myself to scold her for the mistake. She'd secured us a place this incredible; it would have been ungrateful. The sofa alone looked better than most hotel beds. Hell, I could have thrown a blanket on the floor and slept just fine.
Spilled milk…
In the end I gave her the bed and took the sofa. There was no way I was making Choi Yeonjeong sleep on a couch.
"You sure? It's going to be uncomfortable…"
"Uncomfortable? That sofa's softer than the master bed at my place."
…That had been the plan, anyway.
"Ugh…"
The next morning I woke with a fuzzy head. For the first time in ages I'd drunk without worrying about getting home, and somewhere along the way I'd blacked out completely.
When did I end up in the bed?
All my noble resolve from the night before had evaporated. I was lying in the bed.
With Choi Yeonjeong.
"……"
I watched her sleep for a moment, then took a steadying breath, steeled myself, and carefully peeked at the clothes peeking out from under the blanket.
Those are the same clothes she was wearing yesterday, right?
Thankfully, whatever disaster I'd been dreading hadn't happened.
Phew.
I slipped quietly out of bed, drank a glass of cold water from a cup someone had used, and stepped into the bathroom intending to shower first.
"…Huh?"
The second I started pulling down my pants, something felt wrong. My underwear was on backward.
I put it on properly, though…
I scratched my head, puzzled, and stepped fully into the bathroom.
Or did I?
I must have been imagining things.
It was nearly lunchtime when we left the hotel early and made our way to a café in a small city about an hour outside Tokyo. We were there to meet Bae Eun-gyeong, daughter of the late Professor Bae Jongseok, who lived nearby.
"Think she'll show?"
"Hard to say."
Yeonjeong had already dug up Eun-gyeong's personal details and contacted her by email, saying she wanted to hear about the research her late father had been doing. Thankfully the message hadn't been ignored, but actually appearing on the day was another matter entirely.
"She should be here soon…"
We sat side by side nursing coffee and waiting. After a while the clear chime of a bell rang out, and a woman carrying a small child on her back stepped into the café. She patted the child gently while scanning the room.
"Yeonjeong. That woman…"
"Yeah. I think that's her."
Bae Eun-gyeong.
"Wow. I never thought I'd actually get to meet someone this famous…"
"Thank you for making time for us."
"No, no—I should be the one thanking you."
Eun-gyeong, child in her arms, looked genuinely delighted to see Choi Yeonjeong. Celebrity recognition really did open doors.
"So… you came because of my father?"
"That's right."
I cut straight to the point and asked whether she knew about Mawang.com.
"That site? Ugh, of course I know it."
The mere mention of the name made her shudder.
"I dropped my major because of that thing. It was just too hard…"
From that exchange we learned she wasn't the one keeping the site online.
If Bae Eun-gyeong isn't maintaining the server…
Then someone else was.
"Would you mind telling us a little more about the site? Things like where the information came from…"
Sensing we were close to the truth, I pressed a little harder, my tone growing impatient.
"Ah… the source…"
For some reason she hesitated. Her eyes darted around, face faintly flustered; whatever it was, it clearly wasn't easy to talk about.
"If it's difficult, you don't have to tell us right now."
Yeonjeong, who had been watching quietly, stepped in with calm reassurance, making it clear we hadn't come with any ill intent.
"As I said in the email, this is purely personal curiosity. We won't cause you any trouble, Eun-gyeong. If you want, we can even sign a confidentiality agreement."
"Mmm…"
Eun-gyeong wavered.
"Honestly… I don't really know what it was myself."
"You don't… know?"
She let out a short sigh.
The source of everything her late father, Bae Jongseok, had researched was a certain "book."
"I think… it was a magic tome."
Not an ordinary book—an actual magic tome.
"A magic tome?"
"Where did he even…"
Now we understood why she'd been reluctant to talk about the source. Magic tomes were extremely rare artifacts, found only in the rarest of dungeons. From the first appearance of dungeons until now, the total number discovered worldwide could be counted on one hand. International law forbade private ownership of them.
"Well… my father said he discovered an unregistered dungeon a long time ago."
"!"
Yeonjeong and I both startled and looked at each other at the same time.
A dungeon!
It had to be a dungeon from the world we once lived in.
"Do you know which dungeon? Even a rough location…"
"I don't know that much either. Father said he only managed to enter it once."
"Even the professor…?"
Apparently Bae Jongseok himself had never found that dungeon again after discovering the book. He'd only stumbled into it by accident after falling into water and thrashing around.
"Father said it was like an enormous library. The entire place was under magic that perfectly regulated its condition…"
Magic that let a library maintain and preserve itself.
No way.
Coincidentally, I knew of exactly one library that had been under that kind of magic—magic so complex and vast that no one had ever dared touch it. Even when war reduced everything else to rubble, that place alone had stood unbroken, an impregnable fortress.
The Empire's Library.
If it was the Empire's Library—the place said to collect every book in the world—then the presence of a magic tome wouldn't be strange at all.
"…Then, would it be possible for us to see that book?"
Yeonjeong, clearly thinking the same thing, immediately wanted to confirm the identity of the "magic tome."
But—
"Um… what should I do? I don't have the book with me right now."
Her father had never handed over the book he had devoted his life to.
"Then where is the book…?"
More precisely, he hadn't been able to.
"Right before he passed, he did give me the key to a safe… but he died before he could tell me where it was…"
In the end, when Bae Jongseok died, the book vanished with him.
Haa. Maybe we should just give up.
We'd more or less uncovered the secret of Mawang.com. I figured there was no more hope and was ready to walk away.
"If it wouldn't be an imposition, would you mind if we tried to find the book using that key?"
Yeonjeong, however, had no intention of quitting.
"He wouldn't have used just any safe. If we look carefully, I'm sure we'll find it."
Eun-gyeong hesitated, gazing for a long moment at the child in her arms.
"……"
Then—
"I'll… try looking for it."
She gave us a positive answer, promising to make the effort.
After we parted ways with Bae Eun-gyeong, I watched her receding back—child still in her arms—and found myself drifting into memories of my days as a Hero.
"The Empire's Library…"
Yeonjeong was lost in the same recollections.
"We were so pathetic back then."
Ambushed by a Demon King's spy who had betrayed humanity, we had abandoned any hope of escape and barricaded ourselves inside the Empire's Library for a long siege. Surrounded by tens of thousands of demon troops, we held out for months. Thanks to Kim Yubin's efforts we eventually managed to flee, but of all the long journeys we endured, that period had been the most desperate.
It had also been the time we grew closest.
"Yeah. Exactly."
Nakyeong had been conceived right around then, too.
"Whoa. Look at all these comments."
On the way back to Tokyo, Yeonjeong suddenly exclaimed while scrolling on her phone.
"What is it?"
"My channel."
"Oh, right—that was launching today, wasn't it?"
While we met with Bae Eun-gyeong, the "Yeonjeong's Place" channel she had been preparing so carefully had finally gone live.
"How's the response? Any views?"
"Mmm… well…"
Her reaction was oddly lukewarm.
"…You might be better off not looking."
"Huh?"
Thinking the reception must have been far worse than expected, I hurriedly searched for "Yeonjeong's Place."
And then—
"……?"
I squinted at the subscriber count on Choi Yeonjeong's channel.
192M.
In other words, 1.92 million.
Barely any time had passed since the channel went public, and it already had 1.92 million subscribers.
Is this a bug?
Trying not to panic, I reached for her first vlog video—the one with the thumbnail that read, in rather suggestive lettering, "Lunch Date with My Guy Friend."
"Hello. I'm Choi Yeonjeong. Um… I started a vlog."
The beginning was ordinary enough—clean, understated editing, the familiar flavor of a standard vlog. Then one particular segment piled up into a massive mountain of most-viewed moments. By that point I didn't even need to watch to know what it was.
"What the hell is that?"
The part where I appeared.
Wow. She put in that much footage?
Slightly flustered by the length, I swallowed hard and opened the comments.
And there, among thousands of comments, I found my name mentioned over and over.
Only then did I truly grasp just how high and mighty the name Choi Yeonjeong stood. She was far more famous, and far more influential, than I had ever imagined. In a single stroke I had become the guy friend of Choi Yeonjeong—someone the entire world now knew.
"Hey, this…"
Flustered, I was about to ask her if it was really okay to leave it like this. Aggro was one thing, but devilish editing was another.
Right then—
Vrrr—.
My phone buzzed. A message from Nakyeong.
A screenshot of an article that had freely fantasized about my relationship with Choi Yeonjeong.
And a single question mark loaded with far too much meaning.
I'm fucked.
For the first time in a long while, cold sweat began to trickle down my back.