53. A Shadow Cast Upon the Wind (8)
The Pung Empire was a nation whose greatest strength lay in its vast lands, so a culture of constructing towering buildings had only become fashionable relatively recently. Within a radius of eighteen kilometers around the royal palace, there were even regulations forbidding buildings above a certain height, so high-rises were rare.
But rich people always wanted to show themselves off somehow, and foreign-style skyscrapers gradually began appearing one after another, to the point that they even built a self-proclaimed seven-star hotel.
That place had now become a resting place where distinguished guests could stay in satisfaction.
Of course, as a mere commoner, it should have had absolutely nothing to do with me—
but by an exceptional stroke of luck, this time I was able to visit the so-called “Hotel Cheongpadan,” famous among nobles, a full 120 stories tall even in Taeyusan of the Pung Empire.
Actually, thanks to the item technology I worked on together with Alterisha, I was treated as a VIP often enough already, but I usually did not bother with that sort of thing.
The person sitting across from me, however, seemed different.
“This is a seriously expensive place.”
Zeliel, daughter of the head of the Starcloud Merchant Company.
When people think of elves, they usually imagine them nibbling grass in the forest, but Zeliel seemed to be a high elf completely soaked in capitalism.
Just from the elegant way she sliced through her steak, it was easy to tell that she was thoroughly accustomed to eating meat.
“Still, this worked out well. Getting to run into you there by chance.”
Meeting Zeliel right after coming out of the Persona Gate really was lucky. Using the Starcloud name, she could reserve a VIP room at Pungryeong University Hospital immediately, and she was also someone who could keep matters quiet even if dark power were detected in Anella’s body.
She was also my only ally who could protect Anella until she enrolled in Stella.
If Alterisha was my strongest ally in terms of technology, then Zeliel was one of the most reliable people I could trust when it came to power.
Even Hong Biyeon still could not properly wield her own authority yet, whereas Zeliel had been in a position from the start where she could use money and power perfectly.
“R-right…”
At my remark that it was fortunate we had run into each other by chance, Zeliel briefly looked flustered, and from beside us came a quiet snort of mockery.
It was Princess Hong Biyeon.
Looking even nobler and more dignified than Zeliel, she speared a piece of salad with her fork, brushed her hair back behind her neck, and murmured quietly,
“By chance… human connections really are fascinating. Isn’t that right, commoner? Someone who ought to have been on the Hawol Plains, and yet somehow you just happened to run into each other at the entrance to the Persona Gate too.”
It did sound like she was mocking me in some subtle way, but wasn’t it genuinely a coincidence? There was no way Zeliel would have come all the way there to seek me out for no reason.
“Well, that’s what coincidence is, isn’t it? Pretty weird.”
When I answered lightly and stabbed at my steak with my fork, Zeliel let out a strangely relieved sigh, while Hong Biyeon irritably stirred her salad with her fork.
Anyway, those two really did not seem like their personalities matched at all. One was a woman full of fury inside, and the other had a cold head but was completely insane.
I had the feeling that if I left the two of them alone together, something might explode—but seeing as we had already ended up eating together, I decided it could not be helped.
So what if they had a little cold war?
As long as the food tasted good.
Zeliel returned to her usual expressionless face and opened her lips.
“I was curious how you’ve been doing.”
“Hm? I’ve been doing fine, I guess. If you think about it, school hasn’t even been back in session that long yet.”
“…You should contact me sometimes.”
She said it indifferently, like it was nothing. In the clipped, blunt tone of someone from Busan.
“That’s why I gave you my personal line number. It isn’t something just anyone can know.”
If it were the official number of the merchant lord’s daughter, that would be one thing, but her personal number really was something extremely rare.
It was the only line through which I could contact Zeliel privately.
Yeah. I knew that. I knew how valuable it was, but…
even so, casually contacting Zeliel whenever I felt like it seemed a little much, didn’t it?
She wasn’t just anyone. Zeliel was probably the busiest person among the people my age.
“Uh… I’ll contact you sometimes. When I’m bored.”
At my casually tossed-out answer, Zeliel nodded with an expression I could not tell was satisfied or not, and quietly cut into her steak.
As I sat there looking at her, I suddenly turned my head and looked out the window.
One wall was made entirely of glass, so the scenery of Taeyusan in the Pung Empire spread out clearly in a single glance.
This felt exactly like when I used to go up Namsan Tower in Seoul. The atmosphere was similar, and it gave me a strangely nostalgic feeling.
Thinking about it, Aither World resembled Earth in many ways. From the Pung Empire and the fairies to many other nations, people often had Korean-style three-syllable names, and while the overall culture felt medieval or early modern, it still retained a strong sense of something modern.
“To be exact… it feels like everything got thrown together into one giant mix.”
Some countries felt like a fusion of the modern era and the Middle Ages, while others mixed China and Korea together. It was like countries and eras had all been jumbled up and smashed into place.
I turned my head slightly and looked at Zeliel. That culture of eating steak with knife and fork was, in the end, one of the most famous customs on Earth too, wasn’t it?
Even her white lace-trimmed shirt and black office skirt looked incredibly modern to me, yet her pointed ears shattered my sense of reality.
…No.
Come to think of it, I had not even lived here for a full year yet, and still, this place felt more real to me.
Such a strangely familiar feeling.
And when I thought about why, I realized that the life I had lived on Earth was terribly dry and barren.
Study, home, gaming, study, home, gaming.
After I became an adult, it had been the infinite cycle of work, home, gaming.
Yeah. Inside the circuitry of my life, Aither World Online had always been there.
Baek Yuseol, my character, and the countless other figures of Aither. They were virtual beings I could never truly hold a conversation with, and I even skipped the story itself, spending all day obsessed only with PVP—but I think I had still poured my heart into this game completely.
I had devoted nearly half my life to this place, so compared to the colorless, tasteless reality I had on Earth, of course living here would feel more vivid.
I was not trying to boldly declare that my life now was fun. I had no idea what might happen tomorrow, and there were always dangerous incidents where I had to risk my life.
But…
my life here had color.
And perhaps I had been quite satisfied with that.
Before I knew it, I found myself looking at Zeliel with new eyes. During the entire time I played the game, she had been nothing more than a villainess, just a character I disliked. And yet now, I was really here, sitting across from her in a high-end restaurant and sharing a meal.
The feeling was suddenly so unfamiliar—
and strangely precious.
But as I continued quietly looking at her, Zeliel kept her eyes fixed on her plate and could not raise her head, fidgeting all the while.
“Commoner.”
“Hm?”
“Staring that hard at someone while they’re eating isn’t exactly polite.”
It was Hong Biyeon’s belated comment that made me realize my mistake.
“…Is staring at someone’s face that hard while they eat one of those rude human customs?”
“Ah, sorry.”
“It’s fine…”
She said it was fine, but the way she kept her head down and just moved her lips while cutting at her steak still looked strange.
“Was it really that burdensome?”
Zeliel ought to have been used to being looked at. As the daughter of the head of the Starcloud Merchant Company, she must always have been in the spotlight, and before that, with a face that beautiful, she could not help but steal everyone’s gaze wherever she went.
Was it because there were so few people here? Was that what made it burdensome? That did not seem quite right either. The Zeliel I knew usually played the role of the one staring other people down as if trying to kill them with her eyes.
Even so, seeing her make that embarrassed face and only move her lips awkwardly made me feel a little sorry.
“You…”
Zeliel, who had eaten barely half her steak and was only idly pushing at it with her knife, finally lifted her head after a long while and looked back and forth between me and Princess Hong Biyeon.
“Do you two… often carry out missions together?”
That question had been directed more at Hong Biyeon than at me, but I tried to answer anyway.
“Not really—”
“We do them quite often.”
Hong Biyeon cut off my words and answered in my place, leaving me no choice but to shut my mouth.
“I see.”
Zeliel nodded, then after a brief silence spoke indifferently.
“When you’re dispatched on missions, try to come often to the southern plains. I can support you there.”
“There is no particular need for that. The commoner can handle things just fine without your help.”
“You never know. Just as something difficult could arise for Baek Yuseol, like today. Isn’t that right?”
“Uh… w-well, yeah, I guess.”
If you got down to it, because of Zeliel, I had been able to get Anella treated and secure her safety.
“So I was right, wasn’t I?”
When Zeliel said that with a smile, Hong Biyeon acknowledged it with a bland nod.
After that, the meal continued as a series of strange little skirmishes.
I genuinely began to wonder if there had been some sort of conflict between the Adolevit family and the Starcloud Merchant Company.
Both families wielded massive influence across the world, so naturally they must have clashed in one place or another, but even so, seeing them act like they wanted to devour each other whole still felt new.
“Jikbakguri. You don’t have anything on this?”
[There has been no major conflict between the Starcloud Merchant Company and the Adolevit royal family in the past fifty years.]
“Really?”
[On the contrary, three years ago the Adolevit family played a major role in concluding the “Grand World Merchants’ Union,” so it could be said that the relationship between the two is quite amicable.]
“…Then why are they acting like that?”
It really did feel as though I were a shrimp caught in a fight between a dragon and a tiger.
Even after that, the quiet, restrained tension between them continued like a storm blowing in, and I barely managed to finish my meal in an atmosphere that made me feel like I might get indigestion.
“Good grief, even eating one meal is hard work.”
After we finished eating, I used the excuse of getting coffee and escaped my seat.
The aroma of expensive, steaming coffee stimulated my nose, but it did not feel like caffeine was what I needed.
“Are those two really not going to start fighting?”
As I quietly sipped my coffee alone, slow footsteps in dress shoes sounded behind me, and I turned my head slightly.
Standing there was someone with a familiar appearance.
“Ah, Professor Raidin.”
A professor of New Moon Studies at Stella Academy—
and a root-level figure within the Darkkin collective.
With his neatly combed hair and monocle, Professor Raidin gave off a strongly intellectual image. He came up beside me and looked out the window together with me.
“Did you tell them about the transfer matter?”
“Yes, well. Thanks to you.”
The truth was, when it came to Anella’s transfer, I had received help not from anyone else, but from a Darkkin who had infiltrated Stella.
Wasn’t that ridiculous?
To protect Anella from the Darkkin, I had borrowed the hand of a Darkkin instead.
If the other party had been Vice Principal Akiheiden, or someone else entirely, I would have refused outright. I might even have tried to charm Principal Eltman Eltwin somehow instead.
But if it was Raidin’s hand…
then maybe things were a little different.
“With this, you owe me a debt.”
“Yes. I’ll repay it somehow, no matter what, later.”
I had ended up owing Professor Raidin the outrageous debt of getting Anella transferred in.
He would probably try to collect that debt from me somehow, someday.
And that was exactly what I was aiming for.
He would never collect from me in an ordinary way. After all, he was surely quite conscious of my existence.
“Should I call it a Mana Oath?”
“No need. I know well enough that such a thing wouldn’t work on you.”
“What a shame. Then I’ll settle for a legal pledge.”
“Very well. As a mage, you know well enough what happens if you break such an agreement, don’t you?”
A legal pledge was, literally, only a legal pledge, so breaking it would not strip away one’s mana—but socially, it placed considerable restrictions on a mage.
“Don’t worry. As a man, I’ve only ever broken a promise three times.”
“…So there have been three times.”
“Of course. When the promised time is right there in front of you and suddenly you desperately have to use the bathroom, what can you do?”
“What a pointless joke.”
Professor Raidin frowned slightly, then turned and vanished just as suddenly as he had appeared. I had no idea what he had come all the way here for, but I figured maybe the Pung Empire had some kind of honey smeared on it for the Darkkin too.
Not every single thing that happened in Darkkin society was recorded in the Jikbakguri Glasses, so it was not easy to figure out.
Still, for Professor Raidin himself to come all the way here, it meant that someone with an immense presence—or some sort of incident—must have occurred in the Pung Empire…
“Could I really not know about that?”
I tilted my head and thought about it for a moment, but as expected, I still had no clue.
Maybe if I slowly coaxed it out of Anella later, I would learn something. After all, she had come here as Darkkin herself.
“But more importantly, for now…”
I turned my gaze back toward the restaurant I had quietly slipped out of.
Hong Biyeon and Zeliel were still glaring at each other as though they might fire lasers from their eyes.
“Good grief…”
Darkkin or no Darkkin, it looked like soothing those women came first.
[Read only on MugenCodex.]
