The Women of the Deserted Island

* * *

Day 12 of being stranded on a deserted island, 11:08

Even on the way back, the weather was wildly unpredictable. The rain I thought had stopped suddenly came pouring down again.

Once, I got drenched myself. After that, I used the Glyph of Wind to make an umbrella and carried it around.

"The weather's a real pain in the ass."

Maybe we'd just been lucky until now.

But there was a bright side, too.

I already had something I could do with the power of my new magic, <Preservation>.

Until now, I'd combined the Glyph of Change with the Glyph of Wind to create all sorts of applications.

I'd used it as a weapon and a tool, and it had helped with things like ventilation and barriers to keep bugs out.

If there was one thing I wished it did better, it was lasting longer.

I'd dreamed of semi-automating magic for a while, but although the Glyph of Change let me freely manipulate the flow of mana,

it wasn't suited to keeping that flow in one place for long.

The Glyph of Preservation could overcome that limitation.

Take the wind umbrella I was using now, for example.

I could use the Glyph of <Preservation> to sustain the layer of air I'd created with wind.

By using it this way, I could enjoy the benefits of magic for much longer.

I wouldn't have to get rained on while walking anymore.

Of course, if the rain came down as hard as yesterday's, none of that would matter.

So I quickened my pace.

I was worried about whether the Assistant Manager, Manager Han, and Luka were safe.

Aside from its unpredictable weather, this island was full of things whose identities were a mystery.

But if you asked me how to prepare for them, honestly, I had no idea.

If animals like monitor lizards or boars were roaming around, I could just wait for the right moment and hunt them.

Their danger level was within the range I could expect, and it was clear what I should do.

But the things I'd seen on this island made me doubt my own eyes, even after seeing them.

Could they have been an illusion??

Or did I just want to believe they were an illusion?

Seoyun, who'd seen it with me, had forgotten everything.

That meant I was the only one who remembered it. What if I'd seen something else and gone crazy?

In the end, there was no way to know.

One thing was certain: it wasn't a threat humans could handle.

A 4.2-inch mortar, a 106 mm recoilless rifle, an aircraft carrier…

Wouldn't I need that kind of firepower?

'If what I saw was real, how are we able to live on this island like this.'

I decided to stop worrying about things I couldn't do anything about.

For now, I was more likely to starve to death.

"Oppa?"

"Oh, Mr. Woojin…"

On the way, I ran into that college-student duo again.

Baek Miryeong, the suspicious shaman wearing a white wig and gold-colored contact lenses,

and her friend Cha Yuna, who wore horn-rimmed glasses.

"Do you live around here?"

It sounded like a pickup line, but it wasn't.

I was genuinely curious.

"Oh, yes. Our camp is nearby."

Yuna answered without reading anything into it.

"Did you two make it through yesterday's downpour okay?"

"Rain?"

Yuna tilted her head.

Huh? That reaction—could this be…

"It didn't rain where we were."

…Had it been a localized downpour!?

"Look. The ground's wet here."

I started wondering if I was losing my mind, so I stamped my foot on the ground.

"Oh, yes. It looks like it rained on one side."

Thank goodness.

So what I'd seen probably wasn't an illusion.

"Were we able to avoid the rain thanks to your spiritual reading, Shaman?"

"Hwaa… Um, maybe we were, or maybe we weren't."

Miryeong stammered, seeming flustered.

She's a really shy shaman.

"Anyway, thanks for the spiritual reading yesterday. I think I made it through thanks to you."

I decided to pay her for the reading.

Honestly, I thought she'd earned at least that much.

I made two more bottles of drinking water and held them out to her.

"Thank you…! That's so much."

"Thank you, Oppa."

They bowed.

Seeing them greet me so politely, they just seemed like a cute pair of college students young enough to be my little sisters.

"Can you give me another spiritual reading today?"

"Ah… Well, the O-Gok Spirit doesn't have anything to say right now…"

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to ask too often…

Yuna's eyes darted between Miryeong and me.

She gave Miryeong a little nudge on the shoulder, as if to scold her for talking that way to the guy who'd given them water.

"M-Mr. Woojin! The Spirit might have something to say next time, so… if you come back for a reading, Miryeong will do her very best!"

"Sounds good."

For a little event that only happened once in a while, it was pretty nice.

───Just as we were about to go our separate ways, Miryeong called out to me.

"Oppa!"

"Hm? Yes?"

"Th-this…"

Miryeong held something out, her hands trembling and her face red as a tomato.

It was a disposable lighter with just a little gas left.

"What is this? A revelation that I should be careful with fire next time?"

"N-no! It's not a spiritual reading. I-I mean, it's to thank you for giving us water──"

"Ah."

Water in exchange for fire. Reasonable.

But why was she so embarrassed?

"Thanks, Miryeong."

"Hehe."

At that moment, something about her caught my attention.

At first, I'd been distracted by her wig and contacts, but her face looked a little familiar.

"Baek Miryeong, have we met somewhere before?"

Miryeong sucked in a sharp breath.

"You look familiar…"

"N-no! I don't think we've ever met in person. Probably…"

Really?

I looked closely at her face again, but nothing came to mind.

* * *

After turning away, Baek Miryeong sighed with relief and pressed a hand to her chest.

She'd been afraid Kim Woojin might recognize her.

"Why didn't you tell him? He looked pretty satisfied that his spiritual reading was spot-on."

"It'd be embarrassing, like I was bragging."

"You really were amazing back then. You even went on TV."

"That was then…"

Baek Miryeong had once been a famous child shaman.

「You committed a crime deserving of death. You meddled with the children's rice bowls!」

An image of the young Baek Miryeong shouting had once filled a TV screen beneath the large caption 「The Scolding Child Shaman!」

「Every time you smile, so many people are shedding tears of blood. So many!」

「And the person you killed still hasn't let go of their grudge」

「Next summer, everything will come to light, and you'll pay the price」

Miryeong had appeared on a variety-show special from the 2010s, <The Astonishing Child Shaman>, a program with an unmistakably dated feel, and predicted the downfall of a famous celebrity.

Her spiritual reading, almost like a curse against a beloved celebrity known for being a generous donor, drew people's condemnation.

That is, until the celebrity fell from grace at exactly the time she'd predicted.

After that, news articles reversed their positions overnight and turned young Miryeong into a star shaman.

『‘Nation's Uncle’ Yoon Tae-jun suspected of covering up drunk hit-and-run seven years ago… Manager may have made false confession』

『Yoon Tae-jun, the fall of a ‘charity angel’… Allegations of covering up fatal drunk hit-and-run emerge』

『“The children are crying”: Child shaman Baek Miryeong's words revisited amid allegations Yoon Tae-jun exploited trainees』

『Did Yoon Tae-jun build a “tyrannical kingdom” over young trainees? Victims continue to come forward』

Miryeong had suddenly become a star shaman, but her golden age was short-lived.

Less than a year later, people started saying her spiritual powers had faded. She had no clients at all, only flies buzzing around.

Baek Miryeong returned to being an ordinary college student.

But in search of a way to survive as a shaman, she'd turned to YouTube.

That didn't go well, either.

「Isn't this just a regular person pretending to be a shaman? Everything feels so awkward」

「No! I'm really a shaman… I used to be a child shaman.

「Oh, so you're a streamer with that kind of gimmick?」

Miryeong had been talking with fewer than five viewers when she burst into tears.

'Spirit, why won't you come to me again?'

That was when it happened.

She received a response from the O-Gok Spirit.

"……A flight to Singapore??"

Of course, from Miryeong's perspective, it was a prophecy she couldn't understand at all.

"Is it really true I'll meet my destined husband, Spirit?"

It was the first time the O-Gok Spirit had ever prophesied Miryeong's fate.

"Understood─!"

Miryeong clenched her hands tightly.

Anything was fine, as long as she could escape this situation where she was starving. A shaman, someone's bride, whatever.

Honestly, all Miryeong wanted was for someone to please come and save her.

It was the raw plea of a college student who'd never had a normal childhood and couldn't find another path, born of her desperate desire to live.

I want to marry into money!

The problem, of course, was that her friend had only come along to help, thinking they were filming overseas content, and got dragged into this without knowing the circumstances.

"Yuna, I'm sorry."

"Huh? For what??"

"Sob, sob… I'm a sinner!"

"Good grief, there you go again. Don't worry. When we get back, your shaman YouTube channel will be a huge hit. You're a child shaman who survived on a deserted island, after all."

Miryeong couldn't say a word.

She was tired of playing the part of a pathetic shaman whose powers had faded, and she couldn't exactly tell Yuna that she'd brought her all this way because she'd been told she'd meet her destined match…

"By the way, Miryeong, do you like that guy?"

"~~~!?!!"

Miryeong's face turned red.

"You!! You're falling in love in a place like this!? I knew it. The way you looked at him was something else. What do you like about him? What?"

"Sniff, sniff. It's just… Oppa is handsome…"

"And all those older women from work seem to adore him. He seems like he'd be a top performer at his company, too. Mr. Woojin, I mean."

"Yeah… Yeah! He's so capable, and he has this sharp look about him… But he's so easygoing most of the time, and that's so cool. I'm totally smitten."

Yuna snorted.

Well, look at that.

Watching Miryeong pour out her true feelings like a flood now that someone was playing along, Yuna laughed.

"You should've gone over and talked to him when you were at the beach."

"I'm embarrassed!!"

As she watched Miryeong fret over her crush, Yuna thought, as a content creator, that her channel might blow up even more if she filmed Miryeong's everyday life instead.

* * *

When I got back, our hideout was a complete mess.

The platform we'd gone to the trouble of building was soaked, and the bathroom partition had been smashed, its debris scattered everywhere.

The Assistant Manager had lost the office outfit she treasured, and greeted me in a white tank top stretched taut across her chest and a pair of jeans.

"You're back? Well, it's certainly nice to see you again so soon."

"I got held up overnight."

"Somehow?"

Oh. This is bad.

I shouldn't have poked the Assistant Manager when she was at peak irritation first thing in the morning.

"Don't tell me you didn't sleep at all?"

"It's not a 'don't tell me'—it's a fact. How could I sleep with rain coming down like that?"

"Oh, dear…"

"I bet you slept like a baby, though, didn't you, Mr. Woojin?"

"No. I didn't sleep a wink, either."

That part was true, too. Heh.

"Hmm. But why do you look so… How should I put it? You look kind of smug. Why do I think Kim Woojin looks incredibly happy?"

"A huge 'oh, yeah'—I mean, a huge misunderstanding."

"I guess that open-minded foreign beauty treated you really well, huh?"

"Haha─."

The Assistant Manager's attack was fierce.

But her tone was closer to that of someone glad to have me back than someone seriously picking a fight.

Her expression was half embarrassed, half annoyed.

This wasn't the Assistant Manager when she was really pissed off.

This was how she hid her embarrassment, by bickering with me.

She was happier to see me than she let on. Heh.

"The rain kept me from getting back sooner. I'm sorry."

"……Hmph. I know it wasn't your fault, Mr. Woojin. But!"

But?

"……But…"

Seoyun's voice trembled, thick with tears.

Huh…

I didn't make her cry, did I?

Seoyun was looking at the platform and the wooden bathroom…

They'd both been reduced to a miserable wreck. There was no way to fix them.

But seeing her hands, it looked like she'd tried to pick up the debris and do something with it.

"Assistant Manager…"

"……I'm sorry. Everything you made, Mr. Woojin, it's all… This island really is the worst."

Seoyun murmured, her eyes full of tears.

"I want to go home."

Without a word, I summoned a gentle, lukewarm breeze and dried Seoyun off.

"We can dry the platform out again, and we can rebuild the bathroom."

"Mr. Kim Woojin…"

"We can start over from the beginning, together, Assistant Manager."

"……!"

The Assistant Manager's face turned red.

"W-what do you mean?"

"Huh?"

"No…! You just said it in a way that was easy to misunderstand."

"What was?"

I hadn't said anything ambiguous at all.

"Are you just sleep-deprived?"

"Ghk……!!"

The Assistant Manager glared at me in frustration, twisting her wet tank top and squeezing the water out of it.

"……First, please give us some wind. We're all going to catch colds."

"Yes."

"Oh, Woojin, you're back?"

Manager Han's office clothes were all wet.

…She's a married woman. A married woman.

It wasn't easy to keep myself in check!

I'll just have to take care of it in my head.

What an incredible ass…

Manager Han Jia's colossal, homegrown royal backside could make even a Brazilian butt take a step back.

Manager Han must have had a rough night, too. Her forced smile couldn't hide how exhausted she looked.

"I'll dry you off. Why are you still wearing wet clothes?"

"Oh, I changed into dry clothes, but then the rain suddenly came pouring down…"

"Oh, dear."

I got caught by that trick, too.

"Oppa~~! Why'd you take so long?"

"Luka~!"

I caught Luka as she ran into my arms.

"You didn't get wet because you were wearing a bikini, Luka."

"Heheh. Long live bikinis! Luka's got the best luck, right?"

"Aren't you cold?"

"Nope."

Luka was doing fine. They say idiots don't even catch colds, but…

I briefly felt her forehead. No fever.

Good.

Let's get things back in order.

The Assistant Manager was a perfectionist, and she tended to get really discouraged when something failed.

But… well.

Kim Woojin, on what might be his third—or maybe fourth—life, could take it in stride.

We'd slapped those things together in the first place. It wasn't surprising they'd fallen apart.

The repairs wouldn't take long. More importantly…

'I want to live somewhere even better than that cave.'

Now that I thought about it, since my water supply was unlimited, I had no reason to insist on living beside a freshwater source.

I'd learned how important it was to secure high ground where rain wouldn't cause trouble, so something like this wouldn't happen again.

Should I start a fire first?

Click, click.

'Hmm, shit.'

Shit.

The fire we'd been tending was out, and the lighter wasn't working.

Please, please.

I prayed silently as I spun the wheel, but nothing happened.

Should I use the Glyph of Wind to make a spark?

……No! It had rained so hard that every last ember was dead.

Just then, I pulled out the lighter Miryeong had shyly given me.

'Will this work?'

Click.

I rolled the wheel, and a flame appeared.

Maybe that college-student shaman was my goddess of good fortune after all.