Chapter 77
A week.
That was how long Kim Yul had stayed in the port city of Alberis.
Although he was occasionally at Eisen's mercy, Kim Yul and Historie thoroughly enjoyed the original purpose of the trip.
A short but fulfilling break.
"The water is so clear. In my database, the sea was a horrifying place with toxic jellyfish floating around, plastic straws piercing turtles' noses, sewage overflowing everywhere, and all that."
"I'm sorry, humanity..."
They even exchanged eco-friendly talk while looking out over the jewel-blue sea's horizon.
"Ah! Ah! I caught one!"
"That's the feel of it, tin can."
While possessed by a big-game fishing fanatic, he wrestled the fish in a tug-of-war and, despite the eco-friendly talk, helped wreck the ecosystem.
"..."
"..."
At the place they had been recommended as a good restaurant.
They also broke out in a cold sweat at the sight of a monstrous fish-like dish that was far too huge to even call a fish.
Kim Yul, making memories in a place that was somewhat similar yet still completely detached from his original homeland,
and Historie, for whom every experience was strange and new, and who was slowly beginning to fully understand what it meant to "live."
And today.
The final day of their stay.
"Haha! Come in!"
"Thank you for the invitation, Your Highness."
A relatively unenjoyable time amid the enjoyable ones.
Kim Yul was once again dragged, as always, to a drinking party with Eisen.
But the atmosphere was a little different from before.
Even in the eyes of the naval officials who had first looked at him with distrust, there was now recognition, along with admiration.
Victory in the war game did not immediately produce that reputation, however.
Because after actually putting his military exercises into practice under Eisen's direction, the single-file formation Kim Yul had devised turned out to be quite effective.
By then, the look that had once treated him as nothing more than a theory-spouting armchair expert had become that of an unparalleled genius and
"Ulysses, any thought of enlisting in the navy?"
"None. Absolutely not."
a promising future slave candidate.
So it was only natural that the slave-farm owners would swarm around Kim Yul.
Of course, about half of it was a disaster of his own making.
"Is there no way to break the single-file formation?"
"In a war game, the conditions are ideal—orders are transmitted and carried out instantly—but that won't be the case in reality. You can exploit that point, or even charge in parallel in rows of two or three to shatter the front line itself and then pick them off one by one."
Having dabbled a little in naval history, Kim Yul let the trick of Nelson Touch slip from his mouth as if it were his own idea.
Why else would a history nerd be a history nerd?
When a subject from his own field came up, his mouth itched and he couldn't stop himself, and sometimes he even fought keyboard duels—that was the fate and curse of a history student.
Naturally, those words came back as new bait, another toast, and another drink.
But Kim Yul had already once been fooled by his academic advisor, so he never gave them even the slightest opening.
Instead.
"War can be likened to a mysterious and paradoxical triangle..."
The alcohol had taken over his brain.
By plagiarizing Clausewitz's theory and putting it into words, he even sent the soldiers gathered around him into a spin.
"If a man like you served in the military, you might even have become the grand admiral of the black-haired navy...!"
After several more attempts, he ended up with the dismal record of six battles, six losses.
Yet precisely because of that, Winston couldn't help but let out an admiring sigh from deep in his heart.
At the same time.
Eisen's intense, lingering gaze was fixed on the back of Kim Yul's head.
No matter how it was looked at, Kim Yul was a man worth wanting.
* * *
"Ugh, my head..."
"How much did you drink? Humans really are foolish."
The next day.
After having a nightmare about reenlisting,
and then being hit with a hangover on top of that, Kim Yul returned to the imperial capital, staggering as Historie supported him.
"My disciple, you've had a hard time."
"There's nothing to make a fuss over. Taking care of Kim Yul is my duty."
"My, my."
There was, however, a small incident: the troupe leader smiled fondly at Historie's deadpan shamelessness.
In any case, Kim Yul successfully crossed the rift and returned safely to his everyday life.
After parting with the troupe leader and immediately returning to the longed-for laboratory,
Kim Yul immediately plugged a charger into his dead laptop.
And then.
"Phew... I feel a little more alive now, so let's take a look around."
"Aren't you tired?"
"I've got to do what I've got to do..."
Kim Yul immediately led Historie back out onto the streets of the imperial capital.
Where he headed, naturally, was an instrument shop.
"Is art, in the end, something that evolves toward convergence? Pianos and violins all look similar to the ones on Earth."
"Well, it's not as if there aren't one or two things like that in this world. If it were a civilization built by a human-like species, wouldn't they inevitably exist?"
Putting aside his doubts about the mysterious similarities he often felt for the moment, Kim Yul wandered around the shop, looking at the instruments and the sheet music.
.
.
.
But then.
A less-than-friendly gaze was fixed on Kim Yul.
'They look like a couple of beggars...'
It was the owner of the instrument shop.
Since music was traditionally considered the preserve of the wealthy, instruments were expensive.
But right after returning from the trip, and because they had gone out without even washing up,
the two of them, Kim Yul and Historie, looked rather scruffy in the shop owner's eyes, and the dust from the rift still clung to their clothes.
And, to make matters worse,
"There's sheet music too. I can't read the bean sprouts."
"What are bean sprouts?"
"Notes. Doesn't that expression exist in your database?"
Even as he listened to the conversation of the two who seemed utterly ignorant of music,
the shop owner briefly wondered whether to politely show them out, or at least grab a broom and chase them off then and there.
"Mm, hmm, mm, hmm—this is what this piece feels like."
"Not bad."
At the tune hummed in a clear voice by the woman who had picked up the sheet music, the shop owner grew briefly dazed.
A perfect note, with not a single error.
It wasn't as though she had known beforehand; every score she picked up was hummed with such exact, vivid clarity that she caught the core of the notes.
The shop owner could only shiver.
"Excuse me, may I try playing that sample piano over there for a moment?"
"Ah... yes, please do."
And so, even with that request, the shop owner had no choice but to readily agree.
Though she was dressed shabbily,
she was clearly a woman who understood music.
But could she really handle such an extremely difficult instrument as the piano properly?
"Should I play this sheet music?"
"No. Hmm... how about Für Elise?"
"No problem."
When the shop owner swallowed his questions and anticipation, the slender fingers of the red-haired woman finally skimmed across the piano keys once.
At first, seeing the woman—like a beginner learning the piano—press random keys and listen to the sounds,
the shop owner clicked his tongue inwardly: just as I thought.
But it was only for a moment.
Before long, as her fingers glided softly over the keys and drew out the melody,
"Ah... no...?"
the shop owner could not hold back his astonishment.
Though it was a melody he'd never heard before,
he, who had spent a long time savoring music, could tell instinctively.
that within the light melody, very deep anguish and perfectly gentle harmonies were woven together.
Once the performance ended.
"Sorry for just stopping by to look around."
"Thank you for giving me the chance to perform, sir."
Up to the moment the two women politely bowed and departed,
the shop owner could not shake the shiver surging through his whole body.
"H-hey, wait!"
As soon as he recovered from his daze, the shop owner immediately dashed outside to stop the two women, or at least ask their names, but
they had already vanished into the crowd.
.
.
.
On the way back to the lab,
Kim Yul was certain.
There were certainly songs full of their own unique character.
But if it was Beethoven's music,
it would surely be able to deliver emotion and resonance to this world.
* * *
Two weeks later.
In front of the Peach World Tree, where condolence flowers were still occasionally being laid.
Seeing a group of people carrying stage equipment and a piano, passersby began to gather, wondering what was going on.
After a rather ornate-looking piano had been set up.
"Huh?"
"It's the troupe leader!"
"The troupe leader can play piano too?"
A face that any art lover would know.
The troupe leader appeared together with a strange red-haired woman.
The two women approached the piano together and placed their hands on it.
The next moment.
From the end of that touch,
the phantom of a single person began to emerge.
Stiff-looking, yet with madness flickering through him.
Blunt-looking, yet somehow cheerful.
The image of a man in whom several impressions coexisted was etched onto the piano bench.
The two women stepped away and left the spot behind,
and the phantom of the man, left alone in that empty spot, placed his fingers on the keys.
The next moment.
Not only the people who had been watching the scene with interest,
but everyone passing by stopped at the same time.
And, listening closely,
they were drawn into the melody.
The piano's plaintive, wistful melody, like the first syllable of a love confession lingering on the tongue but never spoken, began to envelop the air.
Soon, his left hand gently embraced it with arpeggios, and as if sorrow were flowing over a lonely river, it slowly made the heart ache, neither too deeply nor too lightly.
The mood of the piece shifted slightly,
as though a curtain that had been closed were being drawn back, as though sunlight were pouring into a dark, empty room.
The light, lively rhythm that followed skipped merrily over the keys like footsteps running through a flower bed.
But that warmth lasted only a moment.
The right hand, racing furiously, once again drove out the lingering darkness, sublimating all the repressed emotion at once.
Despair at what could not be reached.
A heart-rending plea, as if triplets were sweeping through the air, split the void.
And then again.
Like a lie, the storm subsided.
The sad theme that had opened the piece returned, and a final gentle harmony embroidered the air.
The moment the piece ended.
From the upper tier of the Peach World Tree, a huge tapestry unfurled with a rustle, embroidered like a backdrop supporting the piano.
What was stitched onto it was the face of a man exactly like the phantom, and
the catchphrase, "Friends, applaud! The comedy ends here."
And beneath that.
The title Kim Yul had originally insisted on was supposed to become the bizarre "Ear-Splitting Musical Genius,"
but Chloe, who had said that title absolutely wouldn't do and had selflessly offered to let him touch her ears to his heart's content, had poured all her sacrificial spirit into the result.
The name of the novel's protagonist, and at the same time the name the novel itself would bear.
Beethoven.
Only those three letters were elegantly engraved.
Before the piece of writing was born into the world,
his music first gently enveloped the imperial capital.