Chapter 203
『Translator: RainTL』
༺ A Perfect Plan (3) ༻
Located north of Merkarva City was a small mountain called the Moonlit Hill. The slope wasn’t intimidating and the scenery from the hilltop was a sight to behold, which invited many hikers to the mountain.
And recently, rumors started to spread about the mountain climbing tracks, with the primary people involved being middle-aged women.
- I’m telling you. His body is incredible and it’s just… yeah! Amazing!
- I heard he’s a student of the Guardian Academy.
- Just come along for goodness’ sake. It’s good exercise as well!
Finally, when a middle-aged woman successfully persuaded four of her friends to reach the middle of Moonlit Hill, they came across a strange sight.
“Let’s go. One two! One two! Shout out loud…! Let’s go!”
“One two!”
“One two!”
“Louder! Brothers and sisters! Is this all you got!? LOUDER!”
“ONE TWO!!”
“ONE TWO!!”
“Knees down for ‘One’, and hands on the ground for ‘Two’! And jump at ‘Three’! Let’s go!”
““ONE TWO!!””
“There you go! You’re nailing it!”
It was a puzzling sight to come across.
A young man wearing a short pair of pants that were sticking to his skin and a sleeveless shirt was shouting out loud, with around a hundred middle-aged men and women mimicking his movements.
“W, what is going on?”
“He’s a knight student of the Guardian Academy, and he’s teaching people how to exercise these days.”
It all began around 2 weeks ago when the Guardian Academy was busy preparing for the finals. A young man wearing a sleeveless shirt began speeding through Moonlit Hill, which was a popular hiking spot for middle-aged men and women.
Even though the slopes were quite gentle, it was still shocking to see someone skipping across the hiking tracks like it was nothing. The hikers began to call him the Flying Squirrel of the Moonlit Hill and noticed that he started to exercise in the middle of the mountain after around 3 days.
At the start, people approached him wondering who this handsome young man was, which was nothing strange because experienced hikers were always happy to see young and fresh blood added to the group.
Their relationship quickly escalated thanks to the young man’s exceptional speaking skills and amicability.
“Korin-dongsaeng. How are you so exceptionally fit? Is it because you are a knight?”
“Even if you are not a knight, anyone can do it with consistent exercises and a controlled diet. Do you want me to teach you some exercise?”
“That would be great!”
“Can I have the muscles you do just by following what you say?”
“Trust me. Let’s do an in-body checkup, and we’ll start from your cores!”
Seeing a student of the Guardian Academy was nothing out of the ordinary, but they were nonetheless elites with a bright future ahead of them. No one was against the idea of a young elite knight helping them exercise for free.
Rumors began to spread until the number of people who came to see the knight from the Academy reached over 100. There was especially a large number of middle-aged women.
“Oh my~ Korin-dongsaeng. Look at your muscles.”
“It’s my first time touching muscles this solid.”
Middle-aged women groping young and fit trainers was quite a common sight in the gym. It was something that personal trainers had to withstand and overcome to earn a living, but the innate insider knight here was unperturbed by it. In fact…
“Oh dear!”
“Did you twitch your chest muscles just then? How did you do that?”
“Oh wow! Look at them move!”
“Huhuhu! It’s a muscle magic show only for you, sisters!”
Korin Lork.
An ex-national athlete and a personal trainer.
He was an amicable young man who thought nothing of the middle-aged women being a little over-the-top. In fact, he even went as far as to provide them with an extra bit of fan service.
Even back in the gym on Earth, he used to be a super popular trainer who led an army of middle-aged women. It was to the point that there were more women in his group exercise classes than in yoga classes.
The owner of the gym that he used to work at even grabbed onto his pants and pleaded as such.
『I can retire in peace if you become the director of this gym. Can you please work here forever?』
『Wait, boss. What are you doing?』
『Normally, dating is not allowed but I will turn a blind eye to it, even if you date Hanbyul!』
『??? What does Hanbyul have to do with any of this?』
He was a gifted personal trainer who used to promote the gym the most. Of course, some of the people around him had to suffer constantly because of his dense nature but that was a different story.
“Make some noise! Let’s pump out our chests…!”
“Oh my oh my!”
“Kyaakk! Oppa, you’re so hot!”
Only after an extra bit of fan service as a cherry on top did Korin finish the training for that day.
“Oh right, brothers and sisters. Do you guys know about the Harvest Festival happening soon in our Academy?”
“Yeah, I heard that.”
“They’re hosting a big event, right? My daughter wanted to have a look as well.”
It was finally time to reveal the real reason behind all this. Korin naturally shifted the topic to the Harvest Festival and handed out the pre-organized pamphlets.
“I’m planning to make some food on that day, and I’ll give them to you at a cheaper price. 10% discount for everyone here!”
“Oh wow. Really?”
“We will definitely go to your store, Korin-dongsaeng!”
“I’m looking forward to it!”
After making the move on the ladies, Korin then approached the group of men who were here to learn from him. The men were looking at his bare upper body and his pumped-up muscles with gazes of jealousy.
“Brothers. We need muscles like this by next Summer, don’t we?” said Korin.
“There’s no way… people like us can make muscles like that.”
“I am jealous though…”
“It’s not that hard. Trust me – just control your diet for 3 months and that sets the foundation. That’s all! Just a little bit of hard work after that and by next Summer, you will be set for a Body Profile and you know? Go to the beach and… well, you guys know, right!?”
“D, do you really mean it?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying! And I was trying to avoid saying this because it’s not the most sophisticated way to put it but… if you have muscles, it’ll be amazing at night.”
“H, hoho…! Ehem ehem!”
“What, kuhum, nonsense are you saying!”
“I’m serious though! If you work out and eat this then… Kyaa~. It’s really good for men. I’m not... supposed to tell anyone this.”
Good for men?
From past to present, regardless of where one was, that combination of words was something that men simply couldn’t ignore. After raising their expectations to the extreme, Korin was about to open his mouth but hesitantly shook his head.
“Fuu… Nah. I have to keep this for myself. Otherwise, the price is gonna skyrocket.”
“You can’t do this to us! After making all of us curious like this!?”
“That’s right! Don’t hoard all the good stuff by yourself and share it!”
“Kuhum… You see.”
Whisper! Whisper!
The men lamented in shock after hearing his story.
“Is that really that good for men?”
“Absolutely. I only have a small amount being supplied by a friend of mine and I don’t have much in stock either. I was just planning to test out if it is viable for sale during this Harvest Festival.”
Some of the men, however, immediately looked at him with distrust the moment he said that. It wasn’t strange though, because it sounded like he was trying to trick them.
“You’re not doing this just to make money, are you?”
One of the men voiced out his doubt but he was immediately faced with a rebuttal; not from Korin but from the other people there.
“Watch your words, brother. Old man Gallan! How dare you say that to Korin-dongsaeng?!”
“Don’t you know he’s the fabulous young man who deals with the trivial and small missions around the city?”
“E, ehem… What I mean is…”
“If this young man didn’t remove all the Water Demons from the sewage for us, our summer this year would have been rough as hell!”
“That’s right! Back when that freaking pervert kidnapped the young ladies from Beimber Street, something could have gone real bad if he didn’t deal with that in time!”
Korin Lork was an innately good person, and because he knew about the future, he would often be able to promptly deal with issues before they even became a problem. On top of that, he helped the citizens with missions that didn’t even net him much in terms of rewards, therefore, it was inevitable for people to know about his good deeds.
“K, kuhum… My bad. Sorry for doubting you.”
“Don’t worry about it. The world is rough these days so I didn’t take any offense at your words.”
Korin, who felt a prick in his conscience after seeing the citizens stand up for him with conviction, readily accepted the apology.
“Then I will see you all at the Harvest Festival, brothers! Let’s all work out together for a bright future!”
Leaving those words behind, he then headed to the barbershop. The connections he had spread like a cobweb around the city were wider and deeper than what others could imagine.
***
With the Autumn Festival right around the corner, Merkarva City had to begin its preparations ahead of time.
Merkarva City was the biggest and the most prosperous city among the cities located around the capital. In a cruel world full of demonic beasts and spirits, safety led to prosperity and a gathering place for many people.
Therefore, the higher-ups naturally started to sponsor guardian academies, and a large part of the Chairman’s job was to maintain and deal with those sponsors.
“Haha. You really are as beautiful as the rumors say, Chairman Erin.”
“Do you by any chance have spare time after?”
Erin ignored the men trying to hit on her and spent a boring day greeting the sponsors of this year’s Harvest Festival.
“Ahh~ I miss my disciple.”
“Sorry? What was that?”
“Ah. Nothing. By the way, are you participating this year as well, Sir?”
Glossing over the slip of her tongue, Erin continued the conversation.
It was becoming more and more commonplace recently, and she frequently had to shake her head to remove the image of a boy faintly glimmering before her eyes.
“By the way, Chairman Erin. Your necklace suits you perfectly.”
“Really?”
The man thought it was a good topic to bring up, but it ultimately ended up being a mistake.
“This is a gift I received from my disciple for my birthday. He has great eyes for things, doesn’t he?”
“R, right.”
Erin, who seemed bored by the sponsor party, suddenly became over-excited, and even the man became slightly agitated, but Erin showed no signs of stopping her bragging.
“My dear disciple is so handsome and lovely; he treats his master with so much respect even without being told anything. And there’s nothing to complain about his progress either. You teach him one thing, and he learns ten different things and---”
In the end, she continued bragging about her disciple until the man had to escape in fatigue.
“Fuu~”
She took a break by heading to the bathroom, where she turned to the mirror after washing her face, which had not a single bit of make-up on.
“Hmm… Was I a bit… too bold today?”
She was wearing an open-shoulder dress that explicitly revealed the contours of her body.
It was a simple black open-shoulder dress. She could have worn something better and fancier, but she deemed it inappropriate considering her age.
What still put her in a good mood was the gold necklace that shone brightly by itself.
“Hmm~. Hmm… S, still, I don’t look that bad… Do I?”
Erin murmured to herself while looking at herself through the mirror. After realizing what she said, her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, but the words of her disciple echoed in her ears and enlivened up her mood again.
『It’s pretty. You’ve been wasting your beauty for far too long.』
“Heh…”
It was just a single sentence but it meant a lot to her. Erin took a deep breath to contain the rush in her heart.
………
……
…
Leaving behind the excited banquet hall, Erin walked out onto the terrace. The party on the night before the Harvest Festival was gaining more and more momentum over time.
“So the Harvest Festival… still continues even this year.”
Erin was one of the few leftover gods in this land who knew of the thousand-year-long history.
She knew how this Harvest Festival, which had begun even before her birth, had a long and ancient history to it, and how it was originally a thanksgiving festival to Dagda, the Danann of Earth.
On this grand festival, several Danann used to receive gratitude in an order.
The first of them was Dagda who brought fertility to the land. Then it was Nuada of the Sun and Lugh of Light for supporting the growth of the plants. After that was the Danann of water and rain; followed by the Danann of Music who brought life and energy into the festival.
Marking the finale of them all was the Lady of Autumn event, which picked the beauty of the year to be blessed by the Danann of Beauty.
Erin remembered the time when the world had been abundant with harmony and joy. However, the ancestors that she used to enjoy the festival with back then… were left behind as nostalgic yet unretrievable fragments of memory.
“It’s been 2,000 years, has it? I thought you passed away back then.”
She said while turning to the beautiful young man, who appeared on the terrace next to her.
“Oh dear. Looks like our youngest is quite mad at me.”
Eochaid Bres – the Danann of Beauty.
Even Erin was unaware that he had been alive the entire time.
“I remember we couldn’t locate you ever since Nuada banished you from the land. We certainly weren’t expecting you to have been staying under the wing of the northern gods.”
“I was not staying under their wing. It was a conquest. They too met an apocalypse of the gods, so I ended up returning later than scheduled but… our re-encounter is thanks to that little coincidence.”
The place that was now referred to as the Northern Kingdom – that place filled with demonic beasts used to be prosperous in its own right, and Erin remembered the horrendous disaster that had struck that part of the world.
It was even more of a distressing memory for her because there was a time when Erin used to teach the Valkyries of the God King there, back when there was still an ongoing connection between them.
“So why are you back here again… and why did you go under Tates? Are you perhaps merely meddling with the affairs of the world on a whim? ”
Erin barely managed to stop herself from talking about him wounding her disciple. It was because she wasn’t confident that she would be able to hold herself back from pointing her spear out the moment she voiced that out loud.
“Well, that is because Valtazar would most probably come out victorious. That is also the reason why the Frost Giants are supporting him.”
Bres took a sip of the wine that was provided at the banquet for free, before pouring it away as if it was worthless.
“The world will realize when the battle is over; about their fake gods and the true existence of gods.”
But one thing was certain to him…
It didn’t even matter who the winner would be at this point.
Bres was quite certain of it.
“Your boring era of Justice is coming to a close. The new world will either be led by the Light or the Sun.
“On that note…
“Unlike Justice or Beauty, the Light and the Sun are on a different level of necessity.”