192 – Nymph and the Ugly Chick #2
Childhood.
Children often went to play at their friends’ houses.
“Today is my birthday! Let’s play card games at my house! Let’s do Duel Stones!”
“Okay! Ari, you’re coming too, right? Let’s go!”
Yu Ari was the same.
Yu Ari frequently played at her friends’ houses, and inevitably, she faced situations like this.
“Ari, next time, let’s play at your house! Don’t you need to have a birthday party? Let’s do it at your house! I want to see your house!”
When it was time to invite her friends to her house.
Yu Ari always had to decline, saying, “Uh… our house is not okay…”
Not only was her grandmother, whom she lived with, scary, but there were also many aspects of her home that she didn’t want to show.
She couldn’t even dream of having a birthday party at her house.
Her friends lived in clean apartments with young and pretty mothers.
Instead of a messy floor and a sitting mat, there were elegant tables and chairs in the kitchen, always adorned with fruits or snacks.
When she opened the refrigerator, cold drinks like juice were waiting, and there was ice cream in the freezer. It was then that Yu Ari first tasted 31 flavors of ice cream.
Her friends’ houses even had beds.
There were clean computers, and some houses had small puppies or kittens.
But—.
There was none of that at Yu Ari’s house.
Yu Ari’s home was located in an old alley and had a strange shrine-like structure, along with a scary grandmother.
There were no ice creams, snacks, or drinks.
So Ari didn’t bring friends home.
To shake off friends who tried to follow her home, she would twist and turn through the alley or sneak into her house whenever no one was watching.
But children could never keep a secret completely.
“Did you hear? Yu Ari’s house is a shaman’s place!”
“Do you also see ghosts?”
“How can a shaman’s house have Athena? It’s a scam, right? Fraud!”
Mischievous boys teased Yu Ari, having somehow found out about her home. Ari felt embarrassed about this and her personality grew more timid.
This tendency became most pronounced during puberty when she started to become sensitive and moody.
No longer would she bring anyone to her house or introduce them to her home— with this thought in mind, Yu Ari prepared for independence at a rather early age.
Even now, after going through “a lot” and becoming a respectable member of society, she felt deeply embarrassed that someone had come to her grandmother’s house. It brought back long-forgotten memories like a wave.
“Of all people, it’s you…! I thought it was Morales…!”
Now, Yu Ari’s state was far from normal.
Due to recent events, her senses had dulled, and thus she was unaware that Haildo was approaching.
“What should I do…!”
Ari looked in the mirror, inspecting the bruise on her left eye. She tried covering it with makeup, but the bruise wouldn’t easily disappear.
At a loss, she wore an eye patch, the kind used for conjunctivitis, over her left eye. It looked awkward, but it was better than showing her bruised face.
# # #
Had it been about five minutes?
Ari opened the door.
She was wearing a yellow dress, with a small bag over her shoulder and high heels.
I was astonished at how neat and vibrant she looked in that outfit.
“It’s not easy to pull off that yellow!”
Just changing clothes in such a short time made me realize how much a person could change!
But the eye patch still bothered me.
“How did you get hurt? That looks like a bruise from a direct hit.”
It wasn’t easy to get bruises around the eye from falling or bumping into something.
Bruising around the eye typically required someone to hit you intentionally.
Soon Ari spoke.
“Let’s go for now. I know a café nearby, and it would be best to go there!”
“No, I came here not for a café, but to see your grandmother, right? It’s your grandma, isn’t it? I feel like I haven’t seen her since that time.”
“……”
At my words, Ari cast a quick glance, as if gauging my intent.
Though on the surface and by business card, she had become a respectable member of society, these traits reminded me of the past.
Long ago.
I had visited the home where Ari lived, particularly for her, who stood out as lagging behind among my squad and was awkward at everything.
Ari, a high school trainee who was resting on the weekend, was very flustered when I came to visit her home and didn’t know what to do. She blushed and acted even more timidly.
At that time, she was likely embarrassed.
It wasn’t a typical household.
I had a younger sister, Hirae, so I knew well how sensitive and delicate teenage girls could be.
Some girls, while walking with friends, might intentionally ignore their parents on the street if they appeared too old and shabby.
If such a mean girl were my sister, I would have given them a good thrashing on a rainy day.
In any case.
Everyone has things they want to hide, things that embarrass them.
I felt surprised that the now respectable Ari hadn’t escaped that embarrassment.
Part of me wondered if I had been somewhat inconsiderate.
Should I come again?
As I pondered this, I heard the creaking sound of the front door opening.
Turning my head, I saw a woman in an expensive-looking leopard-patterned trench coat, holding a small handbag.
Her heels were high, her lipstick was red, and her skin was so tight that she seemed like a young lady.
It was the kind of look that would belong to women who freely walked through luxury stores in department stores.
In truth, from head to toe, she was adorned in expensive items.
This woman’s identity was—
“Ari’s grandmother, right? It’s been a while. I don’t know if you remember, but… I’m Haildo. The last time we met was 8 years ago, but you seem even younger now.”
Though she looked like the young lady of a wealthy family, she was actually a grandmother with a fully grown granddaughter like Ari!
From just appearance, someone might say, “She must have married young and had her daughter early!”
What could her anti-aging secret be?
I would even like to share it with my mother.
“Are you….”
Ari’s grandmother, known as a famous virgin shaman, glanced at me from top to bottom. Her gaze, slightly sharp, made me feel somewhat intimidated.
“Oh-! It’s that young man from that time. It’s been a long time, but you’ve changed quite a bit, I barely recognized you. You’re even dragging around some animals. Anyway, doesn’t your shoulder often feel stiff and heavy?”
Lady Jomoryeong stared intently at my shoulders.
Is she a shaman or something?
Soon, the ghost spider, Bang Bang, who had been sticking to my shoulder invisibly, revealed itself.
“Hieooong!?”
Bang Bang seemed rather surprised that Lady Jomoryeong had seen through its invisibility. However, Lady Jomoryeong also appeared quite startled.
“What a bizarre spider! So it’s not a ghost!”
“This is a ghost spider.”
As a side note, Bang Bang could also acquire ghost-type abilities, much like the nightmare raccoon. As its name suggests, it was half spider and half ghost.
Lady Jomoryeong’s gaze, which had been marveling at the ghost spider, turned toward Ari’s yellow chick-like dress.
“Yu Ari, I told you not to wear yellow clothes for a while, right? Go change! You’re going to attract bad spirits! Come here!”
It was a remarkably frightening scolding.
Soon, Lady Jomoryeong began sprinkling salt that she had picked up nearby toward Yu Ari, and seeing this, I felt dizzy in many ways.
Inoi seemed puzzled too.
“Why are you sprinkling salt on the provided Core Ari? This Inoi doesn’t understand…! If you’re going to sprinkle something, it’d be better to use delicious Prinkles than salty salt…!”
Inoi liked Prinkle chicken.
The seasoning’s color was supposedly honey-colored like Inoi’s hair.
The emotions of a nymph were quite unique.
“Come in.”
In any case.
With that feeling, I was invited into the house.
Once inside, I saw that the interior was just the same as it had been 8 years ago.
The living room floor was wooden, an old refrigerator hummed- away, and a yellowed national map was stuck to the door.
On the bookshelf were textbooks that seemed to belong to Ari. One would expect to find novels or comic books, but there were only textbooks and reference books.
As Inoi looked around, it spoke.
“There’s no TV or computer…? This place is so nymph-hating and uncivilized…! There’s no water purifier either…!”
That was true.
There was no TV, no computer, and no water purifier.
It was the essence of complete naturalness.
Soon, the scent of mugwort-like bitterness wafted in as Lady Jomoryeong brought tea and said to me.
“TVs, computers, they are all spiritually harmful things. They muddle the human soul and make fools of people. Drink up. It’s herbal tea.”
While saying this, Lady Jomoryeong took out a modern Telos phone from her pocket to check the time. It was probably around 3 PM.
Throughout this process, Ari sat beside me, glancing nervously between me and her grandmother. She didn’t open her mouth, appearing to hope that no incident would occur.
Then Inoi asked.
“With a granddaughter and a daughter, why are you called a virgin shaman…? Cores can’t be called Cores after they get married…!”
I was curious about that too.
Then, taking off her coat and donning a colorful traditional garment of sorts, Lady Jomoryeong sat on a cushion and lightly coughed.
“I serve the virgin commander. Our family has inherited this tradition from mother to daughter, from daughter to her daughter.”
As she said this, her gaze toward Ari was quite fierce.
“But Ari’s mother ran away. All that’s left for me now is Ari. This child must inherit the family business. It is our fate.”
Swish-.
As Lady Jomoryeong spoke, she showed me a painting.
It was a painting hung on the wall, and Inoi was the first to recognize it.
“That is the painting of Athena, the goddess of war and weaving…! This Inoi once visited Athena’s temple long ago and saw a goddess statue just like that…!”
Shaman and Athena.
Although I had seen it long ago, even now it felt like a bizarre combination, and Morales chuckled.
“Indeed, Athena is a splendid battle commander…! And she is a virgin goddess…! Lady Jomoryeong is a priestess of such Athena…! Core Ari is also destined to become a priestess…!”
“Ah-! Now I understand the source of the familiarity I felt…! Now that I think about it, this place resembles the temple of the goddess Athena…!”
Inoi marveled.
Then Morales puffed his chest out as if to announce something even more magnificent.
“Becoming a priestess of the virgin goddess allows one to become a high-level Core…! Because being a priestess of the virgin goddess is a glorious position that only the chosen high-level Cores can hold…!”
High-level Core.
It was literally a senior concept of Core.
Raising high-level Cores provided more pride than a mother who sent her child to Seoul National University during family gatherings among nymphs.
At that moment, Ari, who had quietly listened, said, squeezing out her courage.
“I… don’t like things like being chosen by a deity. I don’t believe in it in the first place…! Besides, to become the shaman of the virgin goddess, you have to marry the partner the deity designates, right…! I absolutely don’t want that…!”
Pop-!
In the end, unable to hold back, Ari went into her room and shut the door with a click.
Seeing this, I became curious.
“What does it mean to have a designated partner?”
“…The only ones who can serve the virgin goddess are virgins. But, if that’s the case, our family line would be cut off. So we decided to use the ‘red thread’ to have the partner designated by the deity.”
To marry only the partner designated by the deity—
Then, temporarily getting married and having children would still be acknowledged as keeping one’s purity.
It was a rule that was unyielding, or perhaps flexible, it was hard to say.
“These days, young people talk a lot about free love and such, but in truth, people have their partners fixed from birth. This ‘red thread’ represents that partner.”
Swish-.
As Lady Jomoryeong pulled out a bundle of red thread from somewhere, Inoi seemed very surprised.
“That must be the ‘Athena’s thread’…! The goddess Athena was not only the goddess of war but also the goddess of sewing…! What a remarkable item…!”
Inoi’s amazement made it seem realistic.
Could it be a relic on the level of an artifact?
I was naturally predisposed to believe in superstitions and oracles, but thanks to Inoi’s excitement, I was increasingly drawn into it!
“This red thread, if tied to your little finger and you close your eyes, your soulmate will appear in the black imagery. How about it? Would you like to give it a try?”
