014 – Nymph Inoi #14
“Are you having a meal with Yu Ara? For what reason? What did you talk about?”
Seo Ye-rim, with her brows furrowed, bombarded me with questions.
It was common for the duty officer to ask various questions to someone who had dealt with a dimensional rift. However, I thought the content of her questions was rather personal.
“Is it related to closing the dimensional rift? You’re busy, right? Isn’t it better to stick to the essentials and finish this quickly?”
“I’m not that busy, okay? I can talk for more than two hours.”
When Seo Ye-rim raised one eyebrow, I shook my head.
“No, I mean, I’m busy. I have to clean my house.”
Crinkle—
Seo Ye-rim’s forehead crinkled again.
At that moment, Inoi spoke up.
“Ah…! The temperature in the room is suddenly starting to warm up in a Nymph-friendly way…! It must be clear that that thing they call a boiler is fixed…!”
Inoi joyfully spread their hands, seemingly pleased with the warm temperature in the room. Kkungkkungi, who loves warmth and hibernates in winter, was hopping around excitedly.
Woof woof…!
Was it really the boiler that was turned on, making the room warm?
No, it wasn’t.
It was Seo Ye-rim, the human firewood, who raised the temperature in this room.
If I made Seo Ye-rim’s mood worse, it would become hot, to the point of roasting us!
Deliberately worsening the moods of witches who manipulate fire according to their emotional changes was as foolish as poking your bare hand into a hornet’s nest.
I hastily spoke up to lower the room temperature.
“Well, I just recently reached C rank in terms of my internal mana capacity. So, I went for a check-up and found out that Yu Ara was working as the health officer. Did you know?”
“The health officer? Did she? I heard that…”
Seo Ye-rim’s raised eyebrow gradually lowered.
Seo Ye-rim was a picky woman, but one thing that made her somewhat easier to deal with was that her emotional changes were reflected on her face.
They say the personalities of those who deal with fire are mostly like that, right?
Before the rift opened, there was a trend regarding a personality classification system called MBTI. It’s still popular, but among awakened individuals, it feels like its popularity has waned a bit.
After all, the “Awakened Aptitude Test” is more accurate.
So, do you have an aptitude for “pyrokinesis”? If your personality is extroverted, passionate, straightforward, and you handle psychokinesis, would you be delicate, passive—stuff like that.
Of course, whether that’s true or not is another matter.
There are cases where someone with a pyrokinesis aptitude reaches B rank as a reinforcement type…
Anyway.
Swish—
The room temperature returned to normal.
Inoi lamented, “The boiler is broken again…!” but I was relieved.
“Anyway, I just met Yu Ara for the first time in a while and had some meat. Since I reached C rank, I was hoping to get some tips on skill development.”
I spat out an abbreviated explanation.
Seo Ye-rim looked slightly surprised.
“You reached C rank? Whoa. That’s impressive. Anyway, it seems like you have a rough picture. You ate, then suddenly a rift opened, and you went home to close it. And you brought this ant here.”
Zzzz—
The golden shining emperor ant swayed its head rhythmically from side to side. It seemed like it was trying to express something, but I still couldn’t understand what it was saying.
Seo Ye-rim’s inquiries ended there.
I wondered if she might take the “emperor ant” as part of her research, but she didn’t.
“You’re really living well in a house where the boiler doesn’t work. You know, if your housing situation is unstable, you can be excluded from the responsibility of being a drifter, right?”
At Seo Ye-rim’s words, I searched my memory.
I remembered that a long time ago, a kind elf woman was happily living in a rooftop room in a poor neighborhood with her caretaker. But when the people around protested, saying, “How can you let an elf live in a rooftop room! Aren’t the qualifications for caretakers supposed to be stricter?!” the laws were strengthened.
“Inoi, wouldn’t it be better to live in a better place with kinder people than in a place like this? How about my house?”
Seo Ye-rim asked.
Inoi shook their head.
“This Inoi is fine…! Because the owner of the house is very Nymph-friendly… Even in the cold winter, I can take a bath in cold water…!”
“What? You take a cold bath in the winter?”
Seo Ye-rim gasped in surprise.
And then, glaring at me, she said, “Why would you bathe in cold water in the freezing winter? Is it because the boiler is broken? If this gets around, you’ll really lose your caretaker qualifications…!?”
“No, no, we use a water heater instead of the boiler! And I’ve told Inoi how to use a water heater several times, but they said they preferred cold baths! Hey, Inoi, clarify!”
“This Inoi lived in a place where… in winter, the ditch water and creek water… all the flowing streams freeze…! So it’s hard to take a cold bath…! That’s why this showerhead is great because it has cold water flowing out…!”
So that was it.
Inoi just preferred cold water.
Seo Ye-rim made a face as if she couldn’t understand, but then sighed heavily.
“Anyway, it’s best to secure your housing environment. You know, this sudden rise to C rank is related to Inoi, right? If you don’t make sure of that, you might end up separating from Inoi.”
That was true.
The reason I could reach C rank was thanks to Inoi.
I had been thinking about mutually supporting each other in various ways.
“Well then, I’ll be going.”
Swipe—
Seo Ye-rim turned her back.
As she was dusting off her shoes from the dirt on her feet, I noticed her figure looked surprisingly down-to-earth.
At that moment, I suddenly became curious.
“Seo Ye-rim, you were somewhat close with Yu Ara, right? Back then, your girl team was mostly close together. You all ate together and visited each other’s homes.”
“Yu Ara? Well, we all got along.”
“Then what’s the relationship between Yu Ara and S rank Lee Joon-Hun?”
I thought maybe Seo Ye-rim, being at S rank, might know, so I asked. Seo Ye-rim looked at me while putting on her shoes and shrugged her shoulders.
“Well, I don’t know much. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m not really into gossiping behind people’s backs.”
Seo Ye-rim saying she doesn’t like gossiping about others didn’t seem plausible.
While I was contemplating that, Seo Ye-rim opened the door and said one last thing.
“Yu Ara had a lot of bad rumors about her. That’s all I can say.”
Creeeak, clunk—
With those words, Seo Ye-rim closed the door and left.
Clop, clop—
The sound of her heels gradually disappeared down the stairs.
# # #
“Seo Ye-rim was really a princess…! My goodness, this Inoi has never seen such a big and beautiful house before…! There’s a pond filled with water in the garden…!”
“That’s probably a swimming pool, not a pond.”
“There are koi too…!”
“It’s a pond after all. Wow, is there really a pond in a private garden?”
Inoi was looking at the monitor in amazement.
They seemed surprised looking at the mansion that popped up after searching for Seo Ye-rim’s house.
“This Inoi thought the house by the beach was Core Ye-rim’s house…! But there was a real house separate from that…! This Inoi wants to live with Core Ye-rim now…!”
Inoi seemed to feel a sense of disillusionment living in this old, crumbling studio when looking at Seo Ye-rim’s mansion. I felt the same way.
It’s certainly unfair.
Still, I did clean up the room somewhat.
Crackle—
“The emperor ant really does a great job. I suppose I’ll have to name it. Since it’s an emperor ant, how about something cool like Nero? It’s a powerful emperor’s name.”
Shake shake—
The emperor ant shook its head from side to side as if it didn’t like the name. But it was just an ant, unable to reject the name I imposed on it.
What would it do if I said I didn’t like it?
I doubted whether it could even understand my words.
Nonetheless, just to be sure, I asked again.
“Then how about Zzi, since it’s Zzzi?”
Shake shake shake—
It seemed the emperor ant also didn’t want to be named Zzi, vigorously shaking its head.
In the end, its name became Ahn Ahn, the name Inoi had picked.
I didn’t know why it was called Ahn Ahn.
The sense of those who had drifted in another world was often quite different from that of modern people.
“It’s called Ahn Ahn because ants like to munch on things with their pincers…!”
Moreover, the sense of the drifting nymphs seemed a bit more… peculiar compared to the drifting elves.
In this way, my house became shared by myself, Inoi, Kkungkkungi, and Ahn Ahn.
And now that I think about it, the place was smaller than I expected.
At this rate, wouldn’t it be better to change houses?
“I was originally saving money to get the proper weapons after ranking up. But with things like this, I should really consider changing houses.”
There was no choice but to break open my savings.
“I wish this Inoi had a garden where flowers could be grown…! And a pond that resembles clear stream water…!”
Woof!
Zzi.
Inoi wanted a house with a pond.
Kkungkkungi and Ahn Ahn seemed to think it would be nice if the new house had trees and soil. To be honest, Kkungkkungi and Ahn Ahn’s preferences were just guesses I made.
Anyway.
“A spacious house with a yard.”
I also wanted a spacious yard.
Since I had risen to C rank, I wanted to practice my combat skills in the yard.
I had always imagined it, but because of my insufficient internal mana capacity, the “combat skills” that ended up as mere dreams already had my body itching with anticipation to practice.
“Hehe.”
With those feelings, I opened the app for my savings account.
My assets stood at ten million won.
Could I find a house with a yard in the city for ten million won…?
