Chapter 61
A spear and a shield.
Ducarion, standing before them, looked deep in thought.
Watching from a distance, I slowly turned and left the sealing room, where the seal had now vanished.
Arhelark was dead.
Ducarion's sword put a period on the whole story.
Whether it was a desperate battle with a demon or a parting with friends.
When I stepped outside, people were gathered there.
Maria, Seo Hajin, and Kim Yang.
Maria in particular looked restless, as if she might burst into tears at any second.
“Will Lord Ducarion be all right?”
“He’s already fine.”
He no longer wavered.
Because I could faintly see the old side of the holy knight Ducarion.
“He’s just sorting things out.”
“Sorting things out?”
“Even if you say goodbye, there’ll still be things left in the heart.”
At my words, Maria once again peeked her head out and looked at Mr. Deok-gu. The emotion in her eyes was obvious.
“Miss Maria.”
“Yes?”
I immediately took out a business card.
“We’ll find your miracle. We’re Meracle.”
“Uh... I know.”
“Mr. Deok-gu is going to be a member too.”
After doing this much, they can at least pay something.
Whack!
Kim Yang whacked me on the back.
“B-boss. The mood.”
“Does the mood put food on the table?”
The ticket price to get up here and the carriage fare were already bad enough, and even taking a day off from the company had caused huge losses.
If my stock chart hadn’t been trending upward, it wouldn’t have been Arhelark but the demon inside me that came out.
“Looks like you’re done.”
At Seo Hajin’s words, I turned my head, and Mr. Deok-gu flinched when he saw us as he was coming outside.
“Kuhup. You were here.”
“You still make that ‘kuhup’ sound?”
I asked with a shrug, and Mr. Deok-gu wiped at his nose.
“It’s my bronchial tubes. Kuhup, when I use divine power, it feels like my nose gets cleared—kuhup! Something like that.”
“Oh?”
So divine power had that kind of effect? It was more versatile than I thought.
He might not look any different, but now he no longer stuttered or watched the people around him so anxiously.
Even if his outer shell was still Kim Deok-gu, there was clearly a change on the inside.
“Kuhup! Mr. Juseon. Thank you.”
Kim Deok-gu held out his hand for a handshake. I took it with a smile too.
“It was an honor to get the chance to fight alongside the great holy knight.”
“Kuhup, I’m not that great a person.”
Maria was bouncing beside us, clearly wanting to explain right away just how amazing Ducarion was, so I decided not to provoke her.
“What do you plan to do from here?”
When I let go and asked, Kim Deok-gu thought for a moment and then smiled.
“Kuhup! For now, I’m planning to stay on the third floor. The Rajeshta Continent doesn’t need a holy knight named Ducarion anymore.”
“You’ve got my business card, right? Call me if you get lonely.”
“Kuhup.”
Kim Deok-gu seemed to have something to say, hesitating for a moment.
Then he immediately walked up to Seo Hajin.
“Hajin. Kuhup, thanks to you pushing me from behind, I was able to gather the courage.”
“No, really. Watching what you were doing... I ended up thinking a lot too. I retired from idol work and felt lost, but I think I was given some strength.”
The way she smiled brightly was idol material through and through.
Facing a demon, a holy knight’s divine power, and so on.
After facing so much, she felt much more mature as a person.
“So, um— kuhup.”
After catching his breath, Kim Deok-gu cautiously confessed.
“Would you go out with me officially?”
“……?!”
“Huh, huh!”
I was shocked, Kim Yang sucked in a breath, and Maria’s eyes lost their light.
It wasn’t strange.
Kim Deok-gu was Seo Hajin’s fan, and in fact the first time he came to Meracle was because he wanted to be matched with Seo Hajin.
“Ah, that—”
“……”
“Sorry. Mr. Deok-gu just isn’t my type.”
He was rejected on the spot.
“I-I! Kuhup! If I lose a little weight, I’d at least be worth a look—”
“I know that. That still isn’t my type either.”
Despair settled onto Kim Deok-gu’s face.
Seo Hajin, looking apologetic instead, deliberately avoided his gaze. As if she had ruined the final scene of a splendid happy ending.
But well.
What could he do?
Saving him and seeing him as a man were separate things, weren’t they?
After all, Mr. Kim Deok-gu was a bit older.
‘Damn, thinking about the age gap makes him a crazy holy knight.’
The two of them just weren’t meant to be.
And from where I stood, Ducarion’s match was—
“Holy Knight Ducarion! Go over there! The leader is calling for you! Hurry!”
Maria hurriedly dragged Kim Deok-gu away. The freshly heartbroken Kim Deok-gu trailed after Maria.
“Hurry up!”
“Ku, kuhup?!”
“You should lose some weight—no, don’t lose it. For now, let’s go together and clean the room—”
Their voices grew farther and farther away as they went up the stairs.
Seo Hajin scratched her cheek.
“I didn’t ruin the mood, did I?”
“Of course not. Personal romantic preferences should naturally be respected.”
I shrugged and comforted our customer.
“Getting all excited because you were saved is a little tacky, isn’t it? Being saved is being saved, and personal feelings are different. Right, Kim Yang?”
It was my signal for our customer to quickly back me up and say there was nothing weird about her—
“Basse!”
Kim Yang suddenly started headbutting my back.
* * *
The next day.
After parting ways with Sailos Cathedral, we were now heading to the city near the tower in a taxi Seo Hajin had called separately.
Mr. Kim Deok-gu was going to come down to the third floor later with Maria.
Inside the moving car, Seo Hajin, seated in the passenger seat, smiled as she spoke through the rearview mirror.
“It’s a shame the tower elevator schedule is different. If we went down together, I’d at least treat you to a meal.”
“Hey, just being driven to the city is already enough to be grateful for.”
A black sedan racing along the roads of the Rajeshta Continent.
Unlike the old Murim, Rajeshta was taking in all kinds of third-floor culture and technology.
The vehicle was one of them.
Of course, at the price of riding this once, you could probably take a carriage a hundred times over, even if I lowballed it. And the maximum speed limit was 30 km/h.
Still, it was undeniably comfortable compared to a rattling carriage.
“It’s a Shilla sedan.”
“Are you interested in cars?”
“I own Shilla Motors stock.”
“……”
As expected, Shilla cars are trustworthy.
I never thought they’d be exporting all the way to the fourth floor.
As I looked around with interest, the dwarf driver laughed.
“Hoho! You’re quite interested in cars. They’re probably very different from the vehicles you see on the third floor.”
“Yes, they are.”
If I had to point out the most distinctive thing, it was the height of the driver’s seat.
It was raised like the steering wheel of a giant cargo truck, with steps, and the accelerator and brake were at about a person’s knee height.
It looked like it had been made solely for dwarves.
“Vehicles that come up to the fourth floor basically have a designated driver. That’s how few there are, and there aren’t many dwarves who can drive them.”
“Why specifically dwarves?”
“Handling machines is our specialty, y’see.”
So only separately contracted companies, and even then only a few, can bring vehicles onto the continent.
'It was more precious than I expected.'
Nodding, I was thinking I should buy more Shilla Motors stock when I got home.
“B-boss.”
Kim Yang whispered, tugging at my collar.
“That person. H-he’s drunk.”
“...?”
I wondered what she meant.
But when I leaned in and sniffed, there really was a faint beer smell.
I had thought it was just the dwarf’s usual scent.
“Um... have you been drinking?”
When I asked just in case, the dwarf guffawed.
“I always have one before I ride.”
What kind of crazy bastard was this?
Seo Hajin beside us startled and immediately grabbed the door handle.
Kim Yang also clung a little closer to me, voicing her unease.
“No, how can you drive after drinking?”
“It’d be more unreasonable to tell a dwarf not to drink and work, customer.”
“What if you get into an accident?”
“Even if I ram something, it’s just a carriage, isn’t it? The car’s sturdy, so we won’t die.”
Apparently, the Rajeshta Continent still needed a bit more basic education about vehicles.
* * *
“Then be careful on your way.”
“W-well, take care.”
“……”
Because of our reservation time, Kim Yang and I couldn’t even get out, so we said goodbye while looking at Seo Hajin, left alone in that crazy taxi.
The city we got off in was called ‘Gratia Bell.’
The village closest to the tower on the Rajeshta Continent. It was a city that formed naturally as people gathered one by one nearby after the tower appeared.
Thanks to that, the road layout was somewhat chaotic, and since the residential and commercial districts weren’t separated, it was rather confusing.
Though it was on the Rajeshta Continent, it was a unique city where many cultures were mixed together.
I’d been to the fourth floor several times, and I’d even done separate promotion work here, so I didn’t have to worry about getting lost.
“Ugh! How much time do we have left?”
“S-six hours.”
“Haaah, if I’d known this would happen, I should’ve booked something faster.”
Since I hadn't expected to end up using a taxi service, we had a big chunk of time on our hands.
I stretched once and twisted my body this way and that.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
The white bell in the center of Gratia Bell rang loudly.
It meant it was lunchtime.
People were already roaming all over the city, looking for a restaurant to handle today’s lunch.
“Since we’re here, should we have barbecue for old time’s sake? There’s a place here that bought a sixth-floor smoker.”
“B-barbecue? I-I don’t want that. It’s too h-heavy.”
“Hey, we’ve got nothing to do for six hours, so we should eat something filling.”
At my words, Kim Yang gave me a pouty glare.
“B-boss. T-that’s the opposite. We should eat less. We can snack as we go around.”
“What snacks? Do you think money grows on trees? It’s seriously delicious.”
“J-just give in.”
“Yep, I’m the boss.”
In the end, Kim Yang followed me with a grumpy glare. The barbecue place was crowded, as expected.
The meat of the day changed daily, and the last time I came here and had pork barbecue, it melted in my mouth.
There was already a long line.
But it was worth waiting for.
“Anyway, we’ve got plenty of time, right?”
“A-ah, what a waste. W-waiting.”
“You’re an influencer and you can’t even wait in line for a good restaurant?”
“I-I do that often.”
“Then why?”
“I-it’s only six hours—haah, f-forget it. Y-you idiot.”
As she said that, Kim Yang looked around. It seemed she wanted to do some sightseeing for six hours.
“Wouldn’t it be fine to eat and then look around? Hey, this is a business trip, so I’m paying all the expenses.”
As the line gradually got shorter and we got closer to the shop, a sign listing today’s meat came into view.
“I can’t read what it says.”
I can understand a little of the fourth-floor language, but I can’t read the writing itself.
I turned on the translator on my phone and took a picture.
[Lamb]
“……”
“……”
Kim Yang glanced at my phone and immediately glared at me.
“S-seriously. D-do you want to die?”
“...Let’s just eat what you want.”
Of all days, it had to be lamb today.
The story continues off the page
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