Chapter 27: The Night of Counting Stars (1)
There’s a saying that when something strange happens in world history, you can point at England and you’ll roughly be right.
Kim Seon-woo had studied internet memes rather harder than world history, so while he didn’t know the detailed reasons, he did know the meme itself.
From Ivan’s position, he knows that a similar meme is widespread in this pre-modern world as well.
When something strange happens in world history, point at the Elves and you’ll roughly be right.
Elves are fundamentally a breed full of chosen-people mentality, arrogant, fiercely proud, and regarding racism as common sense.
The only reason Elves were able to belong to the United Kingdoms is that from their standpoint the demonfolk were more repugnant than humans. (Dwarves, regrettably, were a race free of prejudice, so they sided with the demonfolk.)
There is a theory in academia that humans may perhaps be evolved monkeys. In most respects you differ little from monkeys, but humans at least display something like a fragment of intellect. Don’t take it too negatively. It’s a compliment. What, a human is answering back? Dear me, what is the world coming to…… Magic……? You’re trying to attach far too grand a name to playing in the dirt with magic power. Human. Isn’t your race far too young to work magic?
The above sayings are words Beolgrin, evaluated as having the finest character among the Elves, personally offered to Ivan.
Ivan still remembers those moments clearly.
Every member of the Hero’s Party is a lunatic, but Beolgrin belonged to a remarkably high-grade class of lunatic.
The more astonishing point is that Beolgrin in fact bore no particular malice.
Which is to say, from his standpoint those words were simply a natural statement of position.
Even now, at this point when the war with the demonfolk has once again cut down an already scant population, and the moment has come when the gates must be opened to preserve the body politic.
Elves are fundamentally rotten in character.
“A ‘volunteer club’?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“Hm.”
“Why?”
The Hero’s Party’s Saintess and Thief, that is, the Theology Faculty department head and a Knight Faculty full professor.
And the Magic Faculty department head had authorized it besides, and while this wasn’t compulsory, he could at least persuade the boy to spare a little time out of regard for their standing.
Instead Ivan stroked his axe handle and deliberated. Because from time immemorial it has been a historical truth acknowledged even by the Demon King that killing an Elf is faster than persuading one.
“Big brother, I’ll handle it!”
At that moment a youth beside Ivan rose indignantly and called out.
This is the story of how he suddenly acquired a younger brother.
***
“I’m Korean. Kyah, it’d be great if you were Korean too, sir. Isn’t it nice, someone from home? Um, sir? Is there any reason for us to redden our faces at each other? Did you know? It’s written even in scripture that there’s no problem in this world that can’t be solved through talking.”
This possessor, abducted from the theology campus, spouted this sort of thing the moment he came to his senses.
Ivan was rather taken aback. Not only had he revealed his identity far too easily, he was a fellow with more nerve than expected.
“Your name is Ivan Petrovich, correct, sir? Kyah, look how stylish the name is. Yevgeny. How’s that? From a Korean’s standpoint it’s hard to pronounce and annoying to memorize. No, good heavens, the only thing I know about Russia is roughly Stalin, so why was I suddenly dropped into a world like this? Ah, you’re from the post-Stalin era, right? The Soviet Union collapsed, actually.”
This fellow poured out things nobody had asked in an instant.
Ivan stroked his chin, listening to Yujin’s harangue, and then suddenly stopped.
“How did you know I was Korean?”
“You know. You were inferring about a status window, weren’t you? The status window is actually a concept that only comes up in the Northeast Asian sphere. Character sheets appearing in a novel’s prose at all is roughly Korean web novels and Japanese light novels! Elsewhere abroad it was still a somewhat unfamiliar concept, you see? Though these days you do see it a bit more……”
“And?”
“And because the countries that pronounce the name Yujin phonetically that precisely are roughly Korea and the Anglosphere! So the only commonality is roughly Korea, and I took a shot! Heheh.”
The 3 Northeast Asian countries are all within the Chinese-character cultural sphere but their phonetic readings differ. Which is to say, differences of pronunciation arise even for the same character.
Japan adds a long vowel, China adds tone. Clipping it short into “Yujin” is a Korean name.
Which meant he had worked that reasoning out during the time he was being dragged along. Should one call it survival instinct, or had there been help from the status window.
Even accounting for those—
This fellow is more capable than expected……?
Ivan nodded.
“So, you can see a status window?”
“Yes, of course! Can you see one too, sir? Kyah, right up until it popped up in front of my eyes, I thought, this, this is it, my life’s set! But it doesn’t give anything, doesn’t get anything, and out of nowhere it hands out a quest by itself and then cancels it. Honestly this isn’t a status window, it’s a shatus window. Is yours like that too?”
“I have none.”
“Oh good heavens, I envy you, sir! I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I say this, but in the 4 years I’ve been here the status window has never helped with anything at all! Kyah, the moment I try to do something it’s all Warning! Warning! and that’s it.”
Yujin was talkative beyond even being capable.
“Ah, by the way, how many years have you lived here, sir?”
“30 years.”
“Ohh……”
At Ivan’s words Yujin went hiss and shut his mouth.
30 years without even a status window……? No, that period is even before the demonfolk war……?
“By any chance, what year was it when you came over from Korea?”
“It was 2021.”
“Oh! Mine was ’22! Good heavens, could a 1-year difference back home be a 30-year difference here? Then since 4 years have passed since I came here…… it wouldn’t even have been a few months!”
“It’s hard to think so.”
Among the stories of “possessors of the distant past” he’d heard from the Saintess, there had been things that could only be regarded as modern civilization’s artifacts.
It’s difficult to think Earth’s time and this world’s must necessarily be proportional. Because perhaps a person from further in the future was possessed further in the past than he was.
Is there some criterion? What condition governed possession.
“Ah, by the way, sir, what were you doing before you came over, by any chance? I was wondering whether there might be some commonality. Between the two of us.”
“I was a university student.”
“Oh, I was an office worker. Well now, that makes me the elder! Want to try calling me big brother?”
“……??”
Ivan closed his mouth and looked at the lunatic before him.
Yujin, who had been energetically prattling about this and that, flinched as he felt Ivan’s gaze. He hurriedly continued.
“Buuut of course age isn’t important, is it? By years experienced, that means you’re currently at least over 50……? 20 years on Earth, 30 years here…… right?”
“……?”
Ivan deliberated a moment.
To begin with, he had never thought deeply about his own age.
But somehow that felt like being mocked.
“Ummm…… so! Mm! May I try calling you big brother?”
I’m fucked.
Yujin cursed his own mouth and lamented this awkward silence.
Why on earth did I say something like that. Have I lost my mind.
Ivan looked at Yujin and thought.
This one’s rather interesting?
Talented enough at swordsmanship to use Line-of-Fire Detection, walking the regular theology track, possessing a status window, and glib besides……?
He could be useful. More so than Dmitri, at least.
“Hisss…… well, if not, it can’t be helped! Then instead of big brother, shall we make it sir? If that’s more comfortable for you……”
“It makes no difference.”
“……Yes, big brother!”
Ivan looked at Yujin, laughing heh heh like a sycophant, and nodded.
“Let’s do a job together.”
At the point when he analyzed the profiles of every enrolled student at St. Yansk University—
—those suspected of being possessors totaled 3. Yujin, Yuri, and an Elf named Oswald.
It’s possible this fellow is the only possessor and the rest were merely ordinary residents of this other world who landed on the suspect list through bad luck.
But whatever it is, certainty is better. With the Saintess’s authorization there was no room for trouble either.
Gather every possible possessor, sift them, and then analyze what they have in common—
What my story is. What story remains in this world.
There could be some commonality permitting at least an inference.
Such as the conditions of possession, the commonalities of possession, and whether or not an “ending” exists.
Because an experiment fundamentally guarantees meaningful results only when the control group is broad.
“Yes, big brother! Just leave it to me!!”
***
Isabelle, Yuri, and Esidis had been eating together constantly since the term began.
This was the result of several tangled interests.
First, Isabelle. She instinctively registers the gazes of those around her. It was a technique acquired at the end of long court life. She could perceive the “insincerity” of others.
That she was the Hero’s daughter was far too famous a fact, so everyone approaching her could not help but be conscious of her background. That being one of the things Isabelle hated most, she became a voluntary outcast.
Esidis’s case, on the other hand, is a little different. As recalled at some point, she attends university together with her uncle.
Arts students being far too delicate and sensitive to gladly cultivate friendship with an Esidis under close marking by a muscular uncle, she ended up an unintended outcast.
As for Yuri, there was nothing more to say. She was an orphan, and however much the times had improved, most of those able to pay university admission fees are naturally nobles.
A war-orphan background, plus skill soaring far beyond the nobles.
She is a figure whose very existence scrapes at noble pride. Accordingly she too ended up an outcast.
While these 3 loners were embracing one another’s wounds and writing out a high-school drama together—
“Oh! Mister!”
Isabelle set down the sandwich she’d been eating and waved gladly toward somewhere.
Yuri, who had been munching a sandwich alongside her, suddenly turned her head and dropped the sandwich with a plop.
Walking straight toward her was the gardener with the towel around his neck.
A Golden Sun’s been added……?!
Accompanied by a young noble youth laughing at his side like a sycophant.
Sign up to join the discussion...
Already have an account? Log in
No comments yet. Be the first to discuss this chapter.