004 – Nymph Inoi #4
Shiver, shiver-.
Even though Inoi was wearing the padding I gave, they were shaking tremendously.
I heard they’re weak against the cold.
“Inoi… Apparently, you have the hobby of hibernating like squirrels or raccoons during winter! Why? Because Inoi is a nymph born in the hot summer like golden honey!”
I don’t get the relation between being born in summer and hibernating in winter.
However, if I were to roughly guess, it seemed like Inoi was born in summer, strong against heat but weak against cold, so they hibernated during winter to get through it – something like that.
“Truly, the master of the house understands quickly…!”
Understanding quickly –
That was a compliment I used to hear often.
I would get familiar with anything I challenged quickly. Although, nowadays, I don’t even take on challenges for various reasons.
Shiver, shiver-.
Anyways, Inoi was shaking a lot.
Should I have left them on a warm electric underblanket if I knew this would happen?
No.
How would I know what this guy would do if I left them alone at home?
Inoi might yell, “Inoi likes water cleaning!” and splash water on my computer. Their culture is different in so many ways.
“Culture…”
Suddenly, it hit me again that this guy was the only nymph who ended up in the 21st century. A rare species all alone in the world.
Because it was the Christmas weekend, there were plenty of people in the city who had come out with their families. Seeing those families made me think of my mom and dad, and I wondered how Inoi was doing.
Would they feel lonely or desolate for being suddenly dropped into the 21st century? I heard that elves gather in ‘meetings’ to overcome homesickness.
Since Inoi was the only nymph, there was no way for them to hold such a meeting.
“Does Inoi have a family like moms and dads?”
“I don’t know…! Nymphs generally don’t have moms and dads…! But Inoi, I had plenty of friends…. The forest where Inoi lived had a lot of ditch water and stream water…!”
That’s right.
From what I thought, even though this guy might have been adrift alone in this world, they didn’t seem to be lonely.
Rather, they were scatterbrained.
Inoi was busy looking around at the cars driving down the street, the flashy signs, the displays in the shop windows, and the faces of people walking by. They looked like a child on a field trip.
By the way, how old is this guy?
Even though they looked about middle-school aged.
“Inoi, how old are you?”
I asked.
Inoi, without tearing their eyes away from people sitting in the café sipping something, cheerfully shouted.
“This Inoi is as old as a small ditch of water…! That’s why I am a nymph of the ditch water…. When we become as old as stream water…we become a nymph of the stream water…!”
The more I heard the story, the less I understood. I heard elves were a long-lived race that could live up to 300 years.
Nymphs, being fairies, must be similar.
Thinking that, I entered the café.
Since I didn’t have money to buy Inoi winter clothes, I could at least buy them a warm coffee or tea.
“Is there anything you want to drink?”
Although I didn’t expect much, I asked.
Since it was their first time in a café, how would they know what anything was?
Inoi soon started looking at the menu carefully.
Can they read the letters?
I heard elves use ‘translation magic’.
“I have no idea what is written here…!”
“Alright? Then from the top: Americano. Caffè latte. Caramel macchiato…”
I read out the menu.
Then Inoi loudly declared as if they had made a decision.
“This Inoi wants to drink something called mint chocolate latte…!”
“Really?”
Why?
I drink anything without much preference, but… doesn’t mint divide opinions?
Before I could wonder, Inoi explained immediately.
“This Inoi had a friend named Menteno…! Menteno matured and tragically died at the hands of the terrifying goddess Persephone, but Menteno is still alive in this Inoi’s heart…!”
It seemed like a menu that brought back memories of a deceased friend.
I quickly placed the order.
Before that, I showed Inoi how I bought items and paid.
“You have to pay money corresponding to the price of what you buy. If you don’t pay the value, the police will come.”
“This Inoi dislikes the police…! In the place where Inoi lived, there were nymph hunters, and the police resembled them…!”
What’s a “nymph hunter” anyway?
Anyhow, it seems that the race of nymphs is quite clever, as Inoi quickly understood the concept of barter. It also seemed like they realized that it was wrong to eat fruit from the display case arbitrarily.
Their adaptation to the 21st century would be fast, indeed.
Finally, the drinks arrived.
Inoi greedily sipped on the hot drink and wore an expression of immense surprise.
“Ah! This chocolate thing is very sweet and delicious…! This Inoi, this is the first time I’ve tasted something so sweet and delicious since being born into this world…!”
“Really?”
“This Inoi and the nymph sisters… thought that the nectar of lilies was the sweetest and most delicious thing, but now that has changed…! It’s certain that no nymph has ever tasted something as delicious as what Inoi has now…!”
Is it that good?
Soon, Inoi added some strange exclamations.
“Moreover, Inoi can smell the scent of their friend Menteno…! Perhaps there’s even a possibility that Menteno might still be in this world somewhere…! This could be the proof…!”
Mint chocolate being proof that Inoi’s friend exists in this world? The flow of logic was faster and greater than I had imagined.
While wondering if all nymphs are like this or if Inoi is special, I asked.
“Isn’t that ‘Menteno’ person the one who died at the hands of a terrifying goddess?”
“Perhaps they didn’t die after all…! Maybe, while everyone believed they had died, they are actually living somewhere in this strange world, just like Inoi…!”
I thought that was unlikely.
Because when I searched “nymphs” on the hunters’ SNS, nothing came up. From what I considered, Inoi might be the first nymph to come to this world.
“This Inoi will also have their face on those ‘advertising boards’ like those long-eared elves…! There’s a definite chance that any nymphs existing in this world will see Inoi’s face and come looking for them…!”
Inoi’s expression was highly encouraged, and their eyes were glowing.
Does it make them this happy to think that maybe their friends could be out there somewhere in the world?
I thought this guy didn’t seem lonely because of my arbitrary assumption, but perhaps Inoi really suffers from loneliness.
And that’s why I couldn’t say to them, “As far as I know, you’re the only nymph.”
Well…details will come out tomorrow when the responsible officer is dispatched from the government office after the break.
# # #
The house was as always, chilly.
The boiler was broken, so the indoor temperature was 15 degrees.
It was a sad thing in many ways not to have money.
“But, if this works out well…”
Sssshhhh—
I turned on the sink water.
It was to clean the 50,000 won worth of “Hyacinth flowers.”
When I turned on the faucet, Inoi, who had been watching, loudly reacted with “Ohhh!”
What could possibly be so surprising again?
“Water flows like this…! This Inoi also wants to try turning on and off the water…!”
Is the sink tap amazing?
When I moved out of the way, Inoi turned on and off the tap water at the sink and caused quite a commotion. They seemed to love water a lot.
They’d probably go wild if I took them to a swimming pool or a bathhouse.
Sssshh—
Soon Inoi skillfully washed the hyacinth flowers at the sink.
With the water they had washed, they filled up a cup, sprinkled it on the red leather shoes, and rubbed them with their hands. The yellow, dried-on royal jelly began to come off easily.
“Oh!”
I was genuinely surprised.
I didn’t expect the queen bee’s royal jelly to clean off so easily! Could it really be resolved this easily without complex chemical treatment?
“Why didn’t anyone know about this simple solution?”
It was truly amazing.
Though, really, would some bored person in the 21st century ever think to wash the traditionally male-loving Hyacinth flower and sprinkling its water on a sticky place?
But I did.
Original discoveries are often like that, aren’t they?
Anyway, things were going as Inoi had said.
They were peculiar, but Inoi seemed to be someone who could be trusted.
Then…
…Could the ‘curse’ Inoi mentioned really be true?
According to Inoi, I was apparently cursed.
A curse?
Could I really have been under one?
At what point?
Was it because of the curse that I, who had achieved D-class so quickly compared to others, stopped improving in skills and rank from then on?
Could it be the reason I always guess the wrong lottery numbers each week?
Could the reason my computer started to lag be due to this curse?
The moment I thought I had been cursed, everything unfortunate that had happened to me lately seemed to be because of the curse. So I asked.
“Can this hyacinth oil remove the curse on me?”
I asked with a slight glimmer of hope. Then, Inoi, who was repeatedly turning on and off the tap water at the sink, nodded.
“That’s right…! Of course, it’s not just the flower oil; we also need the tail hair of a squirrel beast, the eyebrows of a cat, and the hair of a witch…!”
A cat’s eyebrows I can understand, but what’s this “squirrel beast’s tail hair”?
Is it some kind of squirrel?
While I was baffled, Inoi said:
“Hmph, the tail hair of the squirrel beasts is something this Inoi can acquire easily…. The important things are the cat’s eyebrows and ‘witch’s hair’…!”
These were fairy-tale-like ingredients.
Then Inoi said:
“But, witch’s hair is especially hard to obtain…! Witches are as horrifying as Medusa or Medea and make nymphs tremble in fear…!”
Inoi really seemed scared, shivering and pointing with their finger at a pair of boots displayed in the shoe cabinet. Then they cried out:
“Cleaning the royal jelly made me realize…! Those boots are undoubtedly boots of a terrifying witch…! If we get the hair from that witch, we can lift the curse…!”
