130 – A Day with My Partner Nymphs
“Somewhere, I can sense the smell of boring past memories…! That Illinois dislikes these disgusting past memories…!”
Illinois frowned dramatically.
Then, he opened the window and fluttered his clothes.
“Hmm, now it’s no problem…! The smell of boring past memories has been deleted by Illinois outside the window…!”
“Oh, hey! What’s with you? Sit down! Why suddenly open the window and make noise? Close the door! Today, the fine dust level is bad!”
Seo Ye-rim couldn’t understand what Illinois was saying as he suddenly acted out.
Nymph Illinois often acted in bizarre ways, sometimes having outbursts like this, but whether this was a characteristic of nymphs or just Illinois alone, she couldn’t tell.
“I’m super busy as it is! Ugh! Really!”
Seo Ye-rim had been busy with the S-rankers’ joint operation “Argonaut,” and she didn’t even have time to contact Haildo.
Now, she finally had a moment to breathe.
She stretched lazily.
When she looked at her phone, she saw a flood of messages from various people.
However, there were no messages from Haildo at all.
“This guy is quiet, so I’m feeling uneasy. So, Illinois, have you been keeping a close watch on whether other girls are approaching Haildo or not? I heard that the partners of cores can also become the cupids of their cores?”
“Of course…! Nymphs can indeed become the messengers of love…! Illinois has been closely watching the housemaster’s movements…!”
Illinois informed Seo Ye-rim that Haildo had entered a T-rank dungeon with Yu Ara and Lee Jin-A.
Upon hearing this, Seo Ye-rim felt her hair stand on end.
“Hey! Illinois! You said you’d keep an eye out so other girls wouldn’t go after him! Why were you just watching? You should have stopped them! I even bought you a big TV because you said you’d keep a watch!”
Illinois looked at the enormous TV that was installed in his room, very nymph-friendly. No other nymph could possibly have such a large TV.
Soon, Illinois smiled contentedly.
“Hmm, Illinois indeed kept the promised watch…!”
“You really just kept watch!”
“If you want additional movements, you’ll need to purchase the Illinois season pass…! These days, the trend is the season pass! Nymphs must ride the flow of the times…!”
“What’s going on?”
Seo Ye-rim frowned dramatically.
She imagined bringing Coris instead of Illinois.
How about leaving Illinois with Lee Jin-A and bringing back the kind and innocent Coris?
If Coris were her partner nymph, Seo Ye-rim was confident she could brush Coris’s hair every day, have delightful conversations, and enjoy outings together.
“Isn’t that a very disgusting thought? That kind of thinking is a waste of money…! Still, Illinois did indeed keep a very well watch…!”
Illinois started talking about the awakened Xiao Xiao from China that they had encountered.
Seo Ye-rim couldn’t help but ponder.
“If it’s Xiao Xiao, that’s China’s S-ranker So So Hee, right? It seems that she knew Haildo from long ago?”
An S-ranker from China and Haildo.
What kind of connection could they possibly have?
Seo Ye-rim couldn’t even dare to imagine.
“Why does this guy Haildo have so many women in his past? It seems there were more women from the past besides Lee Jin-A, so how many more are there?”
“Core Ye-rim is awakening…! If this continues, Core Ye-rim might also end up being one of the women from the past…! Of course, Illinois has a secret to prevent that…”
Swoosh.
Illinois handed a lotion contained in a glass milk bottle to her partner Core Seo Ye-rim.
“This is the potion that was taught to me by the Illinois tribe long ago…! If applied before bed, it will truly make any man fall for you with perfect skin…!”
Seo Ye-rim accepted the milk bottle.
Despite everything, Illinois was good at making potions.
“After drinking your potion, my mom’s back pain totally healed, and my dad’s receding M-shaped hairline has started to grow back again. What exactly do you make this from?”
“Hm, that’s a corporate secret…! It’s truly an industry secret…!”
Swoosh-swoosh.
Before going to sleep, Seo Ye-rim sent Haildo a message and applied the lotion Illinois had given her to her face.
She couldn’t tell if her skin was improving, but she distinctly felt her skin’s “fire resistance” increasing.
“That’s effective.”
“Hmm, now do you finally recognize the greatness of Illinois…? You can praise me even a bit more vigorously…!”
Seo Ye-rim’s flames were both her strength and weakness.
Her intense flames sometimes caused her to hurt herself, so instinctively controlling her fiery power was Seo Ye-rim’s shortcoming.
“If this much increases my skin’s mana resistance… I could unleash single-ranker level power instead?”
Although it wasn’t yet public knowledge, Seo Ye-rim’s true firepower, having grown while eating golden apple pie and similar treats, surpassed that of a single number S-ranker.
This time, she would unleash that strength and widely declare her status.
“Then Haildo would look up to me even more, right? Haildo is like a puppy chasing a mosquito. He likes to chase after something with a goal.”
Seo Ye-rim felt good about being able to become Haildo’s goal.
An idol.
Indeed, an idol.
“Great job, Illinois! Come here! I’ll praise you! Don’t just play games from now on, make more potions like this, okay?”
Swoosh-swoosh.
Seo Ye-rim ruffled Illinois’s hair vigorously.
“Core rub, nymph petting…!”
Swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh.
Illinois felt very good.
“Feeling very good…! It’s now time to tell you about ‘Core Rub Nymphs Giving Allowances’…! This is a powerful secret that only intermediate-level cores and above can use…!”
“…Is there really such a technique?”
# # #
“I lost the flower necklace that I was working hard to make as a gift for future core Jin-A…! The flower is half-broken, so it’s not a flower necklace anymore, but flower fragments…!”
A few days passed after exploring the T-rank rift.
Coris, the nymph of ice water, was feeling very down because the flower necklace and crown she had worked hard to create were now in tatters.
“I tried my best to fix it, but it still didn’t work…! These useless flowers must be mocking Coris…!”
Coris stuffed the flowers into her mouth and chewed them up.
Her gloomy mood turned aggressive.
“Arrraa, arraa…!”
“Coris, why are you eating flowers… huh?”
Lee Jin-A, who had been staring at Coris for a while, realized that the air conditioning had turned off.
The indoor temperature was 29 degrees.
Sweat was dripping down Lee Jin-A’s back and chest.
“Did mom turn off the air conditioning? Coris gets really weird if the air conditioning is off!”
Having evolved from the nymph of ditch water to the nymph of ice water, Coris turned into a boiling water nymph when the weather was hot.
Whether it was common for nymphs to have two attributes or if it was just Coris’s unique trait, she didn’t know, but the boiling water nymph Coris had become very troublesome.
“The yard better have flowers, or else I’ll make Coris come out…! If I find out, this Coris won’t let it go…!”
Coris was trying to rummage in the yard for flowers.
Then the air conditioner turned on with a ding-dong sound.
Soon, Lee Jin-A’s mother came and scratched her head.
“Sorry. I turned off the circuit for a bit to do some work. How about it? Is Coris better now? Are you okay now, Coris?”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but Coris feels good with this cool breeze…! No ice water nymph could enjoy an air conditioner like this…!”
With her arms raised up as if feeling good, Coris was beaming.
Lee Jin-A gently stroked Coris’s hair.
“Coris feels good, but I’m sad that the flower necklace I wanted to gift future core Jin-A got ruined…”
Coris wanted to gift a flower necklace and crown to the future core Jin-A.
To become a core, one needed to have lots of money and beautiful jewelry.
“Future core Jin-A is a very suitable girl to become a core but has nothing, making her unfit to be one!”
Core (Κόρη).
That was a splendid state dreamt of by all women.
Nymphs deliberated carefully before appointing cores, and it seemed that Lee Jin-A would be recognized as having the qualifications to be a core if she wore a beautiful flower crown.
Swoosh.
However, now there was only one beautiful and special flower left.
Lee Jin-A accepted the flower from Coris’s hands and carefully tied the delicate stem around her finger.
“I can make it into a ring.”
“Ahh…! That’s an excellent idea…! With this, I might not be able to reach a low-grade core, but I can surely be called a junior core…! Whew…!”
Coris blew out a cold breath.
Then the flower petals and stems tied around Lee Jin-A’s finger seemed to harden into a beautiful ring.
“Oh─, that’s kinda cool?”
The items made by nymphs possess a mystical power.
Because they were nature’s fairies.
Surely, the “Core Flower Ring” made by Coris would have a special ability as well.
“I wonder what kind of ability it has?”
Lee Jin-A was excited to think about testing various possibilities as she ruffled Coris’s hair.
Coris felt very happy.
“I hope soon that the house owner marries Jin-A and they become happy…! When Jin-A becomes happy, this Coris will definitely become happy as well…!”
# # #
“So, in fact, Xiao Xiao is So So Hee. I heard the name ‘So So’ reads as ‘Xiao Xiao.’ So So Hee transferred to my school when I was in third grade…”
Nod, nod—.
Now that I noticed, Oinoi had fallen asleep in front of the glass bottle by the window.
When I stopped talking, Oinoi woke up from his slumber.
“Ahh…! I fell asleep…! Some nymphs have a tendency to get sleepy when they listen to past memories…! It’s because nymphs are forward-looking fairies…!”
I see.
My knowledge about nymphs increased once more.
In any case, I had something I wanted to say when I met So So Hee again.
I should apologize.
Because I had made my first and greatest mistake in my life against So So Hee.
The incident back then was, to be honest, so humiliating and embarrassing that the very act of recalling it felt like a significant shame, a mental defense mechanism leading me to bury it deep in my memories.
“I thought she would hate me. I didn’t know she remembered me. And that she had been active as a ranker in China.”
“Ahh-! The house owner says to look at this…! The typhoon in the glass bottle has started to shape little by little…!”
Oinoi said this happily.
The typhoon Oinoi had captured was indeed growing well in the glass bottle, resembling a light blue cloud, and also looked like cotton candy.
“It’s growing very well, but something seems lacking…! If we pour in herb-infused water, it should grow robustly…! From now on, Oinoi will request you to find the herbs that I mention…!”
Oinoi requested something from me after a long while.
On her sketchbook, she had drawn numerous herbs.
However, I didn’t possess enough knowledge in herbal medicine to recognize these various herbs, and something suddenly reminded me that So So Hee’s mother used to run a health store in my old neighborhood.
“I wonder if it still exists?”
「☆Birthday Party Invitation★
You’ve already been invited!
To So So Hee’s birthday party!」
Crumple-.
I gazed at the note that brought back memories from a long time ago.
There was a crooked neighborhood map sketched out there.
