Chapter 17
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
“Do you understand? Marriage means finding a partner who suits your heart, but conversely, it’s important that you yourself become someone your partner can be happy with.”
“Ooh.”
“Strength? Looks? Ha! I’ve had enough husbands to circle this building twice over!”
Slurp.
I can’t seem to quit this damn coffee no matter how hard I try. It’s like cigarettes.
“Don’t underestimate men! The days when you could just wink at one and have him go slack-jawed before marrying you passed a thousand years ago!”
“Th-then do it that way.”
“……”
Lenea, who had been passionately expounding while spraying spit, froze at Kim Yang’s sharp retort.
Then she absently brushed the dust off her apron and went outside.
“I-I can’t leave the shop unattended for too long, so I’d better be going.”
She ran away in the end.
“Ah! Wh-where are you going?”
Baek Yeonhwa, who had been asking for advice, wanted to stop Lenea, but she was so fast that she had already disappeared.
Left sitting there all alone, Baek Yeonhwa glanced around nervously.
“Th-then, it really is difficult to get married through marriage by duel, isn’t it?”
“……Come over here and sit down.”
“Y-yes!”
Baek Yeonhwa immediately dragged a chair over and sat down in front of me.
There were two chairs in the office, and when Kim Yang’s chair was taken, she grumbled and went into the consultation room.
“B-boss, I’m telling you, let’s buy another chair. Cheapskate.”
Thud.
Once Kim Yang had gone into the consultation room, I wanted to ask Baek Yeonhwa something a little more seriously.
“Why are you insisting on marriage by duel so much?”
“……”
“Is it tradition? You said something earlier—what was the sect called?”
“The Taeguk Yin-Yang Sect.”
“Right, that. Is marriage by duel a tradition in the Taeguk Yin-Yang Sect? Did your parents get married that way too?”
In cases like this, the parents’ wishes often play a role. Especially in the old martial world, where tradition is valued.
“No, it’s not like that.”
“Then why? Why are you so insistent on marriage by duel? Do you want to prove your strength?”
If that was the case, it was another misguided view of marriage that needed correcting.
A husband isn’t a trophy for proving your abilities, after all.
Baek Yeonhwa pondered, then sighed, rubbed her face, and cautiously began to speak.
“Th-this is a real secret. You understand, right? If it gets out, I’ll pursue Meracle to the ends of the earth and—!”
“I said I understand. No need to threaten me.”
“……Actually, my martial arts aren’t entirely my own.”
Her martial arts aren’t her own?
“The Taeguk Yin-Yang Sect is based on the harmony of yin and yang—”
“Ah, sorry, but I don’t really know about that stuff, so please keep it simple.”
“……Simply put, there are yin energy and yang energy. Women are generally born with strong yin energy, while men tend to have stronger yang energy.”
This feels like I’m at a traditional-medicine clinic.
Kim Yang is from the old martial world. I should’ve asked her to explain it from the side.
“But I was born with especially strong yin energy. Yet the Taeguk Yin-Yang Sect is a place where yin and yang must be in harmony. I needed yang energy to match my powerful yin energy.”
“So you need a strong man?”
I thought it connected roughly like that, but she shook her head.
“No, I solved the yang-energy problem by decocting and eating scales I received from the Azure Dragon, a divine beast, when I was young.”
“……You must be a really major sect, then?”
“We have quite a distinguished reputation.”
In effect, she had eaten part of the body of a being practically worshiped as a god.
Her smugness lasted only a moment.
A shadow fell over Baek Yeonhwa’s expression.
“But now I’m the problem. Yin and yang have reached harmony, but this power is so vast that I can’t control it recklessly.”
“So, put simply, you need a man who can suppress your own power?”
“……That’s right.”
So that’s why marriage by duel is so urgent?
It all adds up.
“Haven’t you tried restraining yourself?”
“I-I have! No, I’ve worked at it my whole life! But……! But I can’t! I-I’m twenty-three now! My friends are already old enough to have married and then some!”
People in the old martial world tend to marry somewhat young. That’s why people from the old martial world are fairly popular.
They’re young, but they entered the marriage market early, and they’re even conservative, so they focus on one person.
The downside is that, because they’re conservative, there aren’t many of them on the market.
“I heard Meracle specializes in people working in or around the Hunter world! P-please help me! Right?”
Ahem.
I folded my arms.
I got the gist.
There was no longer any reason for her to insist on marriage by duel.
This meant she wasn’t dead stock anymore.
Twenty-three years old.
Decent looks.
A promising member of the Ten Great Masters.
A prestigious family.
What a delectable prospect.
I’m going to drool.
“It’ll be difficult, but it’s not impossible.”
“G-great hero!”
Somehow, I’d become a great hero.
It wasn’t a bad feeling.
“Kim Yang!”
I called for her to bring the paperwork right away, but there was no answer.
“Just a moment.”
When I stood up and entered the consultation room, I found Kim Yang wearing earphones and playing on her phone.
“……What are you doing?”
“Huh? B-boss, did you call me?”
“You’ve really gotten into that lately. Go get the paperwork. The premium one.”
“A-amazing.”
“You’re the amazing one. Earphones during work hours? Ha, nice work.”
“B-boss, just buy a chair. Th-there are two chairs in the office.”
“There’s a chair in the consultation room. We don’t have any money right now.”
“D-didn’t we make a lot of money?”
Kim Yang looked at me with her head tilted, and I puffed out my chest.
“Kim Yang, when it comes to investing, you have to be as aggressive as possible when the market is bullish. This time, Brimlock Foundry and Yonggak Doshin Clinic are on an upswing, so I went all in—!”
“Sigh, boss. If you d-delay my pay again this time, I-I really won’t let it slide.”
“You make a fuss even when I give you information. Don’t worry. I’ll even add a bonus.”
“……”
Kim Yang eyed me skeptically, then subtly held out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“R-recording. Say that again.”
“……No bonus for someone who lacks faith. Go get the contract.”
“Tsk!”
A little while later, I called Baek Yeonhwa into the consultation room and had her sit down.
On the table lay a premium contract.
“Whew, customer. Let me explain first. Honestly, finding someone as capable as you’re looking for is more difficult than you might think.”
“Mmm! I know!”
What does she know?
Surprisingly, finding capable people is easy.
There are entire worlds on the 3rd through 6th floors, after all.
The world is vast, and there are plenty of strong people.
“In any case, strength is a kind of qualification, you see? Strong people usually hold positions befitting their strength.”
“Just like I’m one of the Ten Great Masters of the martial world!”
“Precisely, customer!”
A capitalist smile bloomed across my face.
Our young lady and I are perfectly in sync.
“Now, would you like to take a look?”
I deliberately brought out a few profiles of male customers ranked S through A.
“This is Kim Tae-oh. He’s currently working as an assistant instructor at the Hunter Academy. He’s A-rank. He looks solid, doesn’t he?”
“Hmm……”
Hmm?
“He looks a little angular. And he has a square jaw.”
“Ah, yes, he does have a somewhat stiff impression. All right, then how about this gentleman?”
When I turned to the next page, the profile of a handsome man in a martial-arts uniform appeared.
“This is Mujincheon. As you know, he’s famous even in the martial world—”
“That bastard lost to me.”
“……”
“He’s also an absolutely terrible person!”
Mujincheon is one of the Ten Great Masters too.
I casually turned to the next page.
“This is Luca Bradford. He runs a very famous mercenary group on the 6th floor. You know Cyber City on the 6th floor is the kind of place where one wrong move can leave a hole in your head, right?”
“Ahem, but he looks like he might smell a little. I’m rather sensitive to smells.”
“……”
“I especially hate the smell of gunpowder.”
Next.
“This is Edric Silverline. He’s a half-elf, and he’s only—”
“More than a hundred years older than me is a bit much.”
Phew.
What is with this woman?
“Look here, Ms. Baek Yeonhwa.”
“Yes!”
“Tell me your conditions. I’ll introduce someone who fits them.”
It seemed better to hear her conditions and introduce someone who matched them than to keep offering her my own picks.
But.
“Huh? I just need him to be stronger than me. I have no conditions!”
Should I really kill her?
The problem was that this woman genuinely believed that was all she wanted.
I’m remarkably good at detecting lies, but this woman didn’t seem to be lying.
“Whew, all right.”
Fine.
Let’s secure the contract first and think about it afterward.
If we kept talking, I felt like I was going to say something harsh.
Capitalism was urgently needed.
“Shall we start by registering your membership? The strong people you want are likely to be high-ranked, so you’ll need to sign up for a higher tier. It starts at 5 million won—”
“Th-that’s—”
“Yes?”
“I’m still living on an allowance, so I haven’t been able to save much.”
“……”
“So, could I do Basic……?”
Phew.
That’s understandable.
It happens.
In any case, she herself was an S-rank prospect.
She had some frustrating aspects, but not enough to be a problem.
Just as I was catching my breath, Kim Yang hurried into the office with the documents.
“B-boss! He’s here! Ooga-ooga!”
“What? Wait, why?”
Before I could even answer, an orc man filled the entrance to the consultation room.
“Hooow! Boss! The woman you introduced me to last time rejected me! Next woman!”
“……Mr. Gallosh, you’ve already used up all your meetings for this month. You’ll have to pay extra.”
“Just one more time! Woman! This time I’ll really do my best!”
Sigh.
Every so often, customers I can barely communicate with come in like this.
While I was wondering how to explain it, Baek Yeonhwa caught my eye.
This worked out perfectly for both of them.
For Gallosh, a chance to teach him that he couldn’t cause a scene at someone else’s place of business.
And for Baek Yeonhwa…… a chance to make her realize that she had standards of her own she didn’t even know about.
“How about this lady? She’s someone who doesn’t care about any conditions at all, as long as he’s stronger than her!”
“O-ooh! Pretty! Pretty! You, be my bride! Me, strong! Let’s go! Make bab—”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! He’s uglyyyyyyyyy!”
The wind blows.
The moment Baek Yeonhwa threw her punch, Gallosh’s body folded in half, rolled across the floor, and collapsed.
“……”
“……”
When Kim Yang and I stared at Baek Yeonhwa in bewilderment, she said between ragged breaths,
“H-he’s—! Hah! Hah! W-weaker than me!”
“Do you normally launch such sudden attacks? Were you perhaps from an unorthodox sect?”
“A-a sneak attack. That’s cheating.”