#109
Carlisle took off his glove and extended his left hand. I was momentarily startled thinking of the contamination, but he had bandages wrapped like a boxer to hide traces of contamination. It was normal for hunters to have bandages wrapped, so it wouldn’t look strange.
Besides, come to think of it, the contamination on his chest and arms that I’d seen this morning had become quite faded. Maybe the day when he could go around barehanded would come soon.
I glanced at his face. When our eyes met, Carlisle playfully raised his eyebrows slightly. His gray eyes had a faint reddish tinge, making him look a bit tense or excited.
Carlisle Lightinger being nervous in this situation… is he acting?
With the mindset of finishing this quickly and escaping, I picked up the remaining ring from the box. I put the ring on his long finger, and this too fit perfectly as if it had been made for him.
Seeing the same-shaped rings settled on both mine and Carlisle’s fingers made me feel strange. Even though I knew in my head that this was a show Carlisle was putting on to maintain his dignity while preventing me from running away or behaving recklessly, my heart kept pounding and it was troubling. I made desperate efforts to prevent my face from reddening in front of everyone.
“It’s good stuff.”
Bisang emphasized once more. Right, right. If this was an item, it would have some use somewhere someday. If not, you really…
“Shall we go now?”
“Oh.”
Carlisle pulled my hand.
“Live well.”
Bisang waved from behind. The mask whose expression couldn’t be seen somehow felt like it was smiling with satisfaction.
Live well, what live well. No, I mean we should live well, but living well together, that was… not what this was.
As I turned around with my hand held by him, the crowd of people parted like Moses’ miracle. I ultimately failed at managing my expression. My face turned bright red.
“Congratulations. Be happy, Carlisle!”
“Now get your act together and do well, Raon!”
“Wow, what good timing!”
Leaving behind the words flying from all directions—whether congratulations, sarcasm, or whatever they were—we escaped the crowd and barely made it to the street.
“Um, I don’t mean to interrupt, but boss.”
A forgotten presence suddenly spoke up. It was Taro. I’d clearly seen him disappear to Seiz’s shop, but when had he come back and start watching?
“Can I clock out now? Or I’m bored, so can I keep following you around?”
“……”
“Clock out.”
“Mm… but…”
Taro hesitated uncharacteristically.
“What’s the problem?”
“Well, there’s one item I spotted that might be needed for exploration, or might not be…”
“Buy it. I gave you a bonus.”
“But it’s not from the guild, it’s sold at Seiz’s workshop, so it’s quite expensive…”
Carlisle sighed, took out a checkbook from his inner pocket, scribbled a signature, and tore it off. (The card-based financial system was temporarily suspended.)
“Raon, see you tomorrow! Have fun!”
Taro, who’d received the check, finally waved with a delighted face and ran off excitedly.
Seiz will finally get some decent sales revenue.
The image of gloomy Seiz’s face brightening cheerfully briefly appeared and disappeared.
Since the sky had already become completely dark, the main street and plaza were colorfully lit by the lights from temporary street vendors and shops. Until yesterday, these streets had been dark and gloomy, but now they seemed like a different world.
Walking hand in hand with Carlisle reminded me again of the beach date from the desert unexpected event. Back then too, we’d walked hand in hand through festival night streets like this. The Carlisle then was young (and I was probably just as young), and that situation itself was probably a virtual illusion created by the system, but now it was reality for me anyway.
When I really return to reality, will this also feel like a dream?
Thinking this way, I felt strangely wistful.
I silently held Carlisle’s hand and walked down the street. Every person we encountered widened their eyes, looked at our joined hands, and nudged each other while whispering among themselves. Finding this awkward, I pulled back slightly, but Carlisle pulled me back to his side with strong force.
“You need to walk properly next to me. It’s a date.”
“……”
Even those words reminded me of the beach incident. Carlisle, who couldn’t bring himself to say the word “date” and blushed, but when Eira appeared, confidently said they were on a date. I unconsciously let out a silly smile.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Me? I’m not.”
I straightened my expression. Carlisle, who’d been staring at me like that, chuckled.
What are you laughing at? You’re making me grow fond of you.
We spent the evening together having this not-date date. We bought and ate various street foods. Though the variety of foods was limited due to the lack of diverse real ingredients available, many more foods than when we’d had to make do with weird food were tempting people with delicious smells.
We bought and ate souvlaki and gyros that Zorba, who originally ran a Greek restaurant, had finally shown his skills with, and rinsed our mouths with beer. Though the ingredients were still insufficient and couldn’t match the cooking that Kipling prepared at Carlisle’s house, the excited festival atmosphere and the magic of night more than made up for the lacking taste.
After filling our stomachs, we walked around the streets enjoying various simple entertainments. There were Korean traditional games like arrow throwing and jegichagi, as well as typical festival games like ring toss, mini golf, toy fishing, and dart games.
There was also a shooting game that I tried once, but I missed all the targets. I hadn’t expected much since I’d heard that game guns at these places had messed up sights so even hunters whose main weapon was guns didn’t perform well, but it was still a bit embarrassing.
Carlisle was no exception. The goal was to knock down prizes by shooting three shots, and though he seemed to shoot casually, all three shots missed the target anyway. His face was indifferent as he put down the gun, as if he’d expected this.
“You can’t do it either.”
I didn’t particularly mean to provoke him—it was just something I said thoughtlessly, but Carlisle’s eyebrow twitched. He picked up the gun he’d put down again. This time, whether he properly aimed or not, he consecutively shot down all nine of the most difficult, expensive prizes, making the booth owner’s face turn pale. Feeling awkward that I’d said something unnecessary, I was rubbing the back of my neck.
“Choose just one. What do you like?”
Carlisle said to me. In a dazed mood, I surveyed the prizes Carlisle had shot down. Even though they were expensive, they were just festival prizes from a ruined village, so they were really just miscellaneous items that would be cumbersome to carry around. But I did want to have one as a festival memento, and just then a familiar-shaped keyring caught my eye.
“That one. The white dragon keyring.”
There was a doll resembling Yongyong that I’d met in the desert hidden area. I’d forgotten about it, but suddenly seeing a similar doll reminded me. I wonder if he’s doing well?
Carlisle received the keyring from the merchant and handed it to me. Looking closely, the craftsmanship was more elaborate than I’d thought. The proportions were cute while capturing the characteristics of horns and tail well, resembling the SD Yongyong I’d seen in the game.
I hung Yongyong on my waist and left the game area with a satisfied feeling. When we left without demanding the remaining prizes, the merchant, who was in a good mood, waved from behind and loudly wished us to have fun.
Time had passed considerably while eating, looking around, and enjoying games. Several booths had already closed for the day, and the crowd had noticeably decreased.
We naturally moved toward the end of the street, in the direction of Carlisle’s mansion. The afterglow of fun and the fatigue of the day combined, and though we’d both fallen silent, there was no awkward or uncomfortable feeling at all.
Carlisle naturally took my hand whenever he turned around after doing something, and it was newly fascinating that this no longer felt subtly tense or awkward, but rather comfortable as if we’d been dating for years.
“This is the last one. I’ll give it to you at half price, so please try it before you go.”
At the last festival booth at the entrance to the path leading toward the lake, a merchant stopped us. Since it appeared to be a middle school-aged child, I stopped walking. Even though it wasn’t a cold day, his cheeks were chapped. What the child was handling were wish lanterns to float on water. They were shaped like large shells with special wicks sitting round like pearls on top, covered with thin shades that felt like Korean paper.
“I made this with advice from Uncle Seiz. It’s made only from materials from the sea, and after some time passes, it will naturally melt and disappear.”
The child looked at us with earnest eyes and explained enthusiastically. There were exactly two left, as if planned. I looked at Carlisle.
“Shall we do this as the last thing before we go?”
Carlisle nodded.
“If you want to.”
“Half price is fine.”
I handed over my entire pocket of festival coins. The child’s eyes widened as he looked inside. Thanks to my date partner being young master Lightinger, I hadn’t had a chance to use festival coins all day, so most remained.
We each took a wish lantern and entered the path leading to the sea. We didn’t walk very far though. This was because the sea had swallowed more than half of the lower part of the village. Where we stopped was originally connected to the path leading to the beach.
The beach had naturally disappeared, and part of the stairs connecting to the walking deck survived, with fences sprinkled with holy water installed at regular intervals around that area to block potential sea monsters while allowing wish lanterns to flow out between the fences.
We stood there and looked at the sea for a moment. The sea, with its filthiness hidden by darkness, was showing off mystical beauty as moonlight and the rare lights reflected on it, and wish lanterns that people had floated earlier colored the surface in various colors.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
