Chapter 42
#42. Kim Jina
I told her I was free even right then, but apparently Kim Jina wasn't.
Kim Jina rescheduled it, saying, “How about around this time then?” and I agreed since I didn't have anything else to do.
The meeting place was a cafeteria a little ways from the festival's central plaza.
She said there wasn't any special business, just that she wanted to meet face-to-face and talk for a bit.
But if it was just talking, we could do that over friend chat too, so why insist on seeing me in person?
And why insist on meeting separately at that? What could we possibly have to talk about alone?
Wait, is this a green light? Is this where I find out why Kim Minhyung was so snippy with me?
Nah, probably not.
Realistically, how long has it even been since we saw each other's faces? Unless I'm some celebrity-level handsome guy, that'd make no sense.
I took a dirty shard of mirror out of my inventory and looked at my face in it.
Any man will look in the bathroom mirror and say, ‘I'm not that bad, right?’ I'm no different.
But the face reflected in the mirror I pulled out on a whim didn't look fine at all; it looked terribly unfamiliar.
“What is it?”
Since when have I been making this kind of face?
**
There were still a few tournament preliminaries left, but my mind suddenly got tangled up, so I just went back to the inn.
Then I looked into the mirror in the inn bathroom, touched my hair, and changed my expression.
But no matter how many times I repeated it, the face in the mirror remained utterly unfamiliar.
Was that really my face? Since when had I been looking like this?
I'm not especially haggard or looking unwell. It just feels off somehow.
It's not like I haven't looked in a mirror since entering the Tower of Trials, but today I just seem strangely unfamiliar.
“Maybe I'm just excited.”
I may have been pretending otherwise, but maybe having a meeting with a woman had made me weirdly conscious of my looks.
It sounds ridiculous to say you don't know what you're thinking, but that isn't always true.
It took me a very long time just to admit my ugly side and call myself a hopeless loser.
An avoidant personality and defense mechanisms can sometimes deceive even yourself, so I have a duty to keep peeling back the layers and facing my true self.
Am I getting hung up on my looks just because I'm excited to meet a woman?
Or is there some other thought behind it?
“I don't know.”
They say wise people can figure out what someone is thinking just by looking into their eyes.
No matter how hard I glared into the eyes reflected in the mirror, I couldn't figure out a single thing.
-Shaaah.
Since I was already in the bathroom, I turned on the water to wash away the lingering smell of blood.
**
I wasted time doing pointless things by myself and ended up a little late for the appointment. About five minutes.
Kim Jina messaged that it was fine if I took my time, but I wasn't comfortable with that and hurried over a bit.
When I arrived at the cafeteria, I saw Kim Jina alone among the empty tables, tipping a teacup to her lips.
“Jinhyuk.”
Kim Jina, dressed in ordinary everyday clothes instead of mage gear, beckoned to me with a wave of her hand.
Her voice and face were the same as before, but because her outfit was different, she felt like a completely different person.
“Why did you come so fast? I said it was fine if you came slowly.”
“If I actually came slowly after hearing that, wouldn't I get yelled at?”
“Oh come on, I've gotten so much out of you, Jinhyuk, I wouldn't chew you out over something like that.”
I smiled faintly and sat in the seat Kim Jina had offered. There was a cup of black tea in front of me.
“I ordered one on my own. Since I'm paying, you can't complain even if it doesn't suit your taste, okay?”
With an easy smile, Kim Jina offered me the tea. I said I wasn't picky and lifted the cup.
-Sip.
I took a casual sip, and a gentle sweetness with a soft aroma spread through my mouth. It was an unfamiliar taste.
It was unfamiliar, but not a bad taste, so I took another sip and set the cup down.
“How is it?”
“It's fine.”
Kim Jina smiled a little awkwardly and said she was relieved. Honestly, whatever she'd given me, I would have just drunk it and said the same thing.
Saying I can eat anything isn't just lip service. Until just a few days ago, I was practically breathing in blood.
If I had been alone, I probably would have stirred this tea with a poison arrow before drinking it.
“Ah, the snacks are good too. Here, try one.”
This time Kim Jina handed me a cookie topped with jam. I nibbled that one too.
This one's a bit off.
I've even made mud cookies and eaten them just to raise my affinity with an earth spirit, so unless it's really terrible, I'll just eat it.
Of all things, it was insanely sweet. Giving a sweet cookie to someone who lives on White Rolls as a staple food.
I frowned without meaning to, then hurriedly washed it down with tea when I saw Kim Jina's expression sour.
“This one's fine too.”
“You don't have to force yourself.”
“It was just too sweet, that's all. It was fine.”
Kim Jina quickly restored the expression that had briefly darkened and chuckled.
**
After that, we chatted for a while. Though “chatted” is a stretch, since I didn't say a single word.
I mostly just listened to Kim Jina ramble on one-sidedly and nodded along now and then.
I'd spent so long living in seclusion that I didn't really have any small talk to offer, so that was only natural.
“Sorry, was I talking too much?”
Kim Jina had been happily chattering away when she noticed my teacup was already empty and bowed her head.
“I didn't call you here just for this... it's a little late, but can we get to the main point?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“It's about what happened this afternoon. You know the one you knocked down was a ranker, right?”
I nodded. Choi Gil-hyun, the Spear Knight, was a low-tier ranker with pitiful spear technique that didn't fit his class name at all.
While watching the tournament match, I got curious and searched his name on the open community boards, but there wasn't much there.
“You probably don't know this, Jinhyuk, but actually, that guy isn't just an ordinary ranker.”
“He was pretty weak for a ranker.”
“That's not what I mean. He's not an ordinary ranker... he's a notorious thug famous on Server 1554.”
Kim Jina started rattling off all the rumors circulating about Choi Gil-hyun on Server 1554.
People said he beat other challengers for absurd reasons, and harassed and groped female challengers every day.
People also said challengers who fought back against him were often found crippled in back alleys.
And then there were rumors that he had already killed people inside the Tower of Trials more than once, for one reason or another.
All of them were stories with unclear proof, but Kim Jina calmly told them as if they were facts.
“What a piece of trash. I should've beaten him more.”
Naturally, I snorted and brushed it off. But Kim Jina shook her head with a serious expression.
“Actually, everyone who knows him knows. There isn't evidence, but almost all the rumors are true.”
That was a strange story.
The reason I had brushed it off with a snort was because I was certain most of it was just nonsense.
That was because the Tower of Trials isn't some lawless land where the weak are simply prey.
It can't be said to run under civilized law, but most servers are policed by large guilds.
If you commit a crime, the guilds sanction you, and if that doesn't happen, exposure and public outcry through the open community are still possible.
A low-tier hunter shouldn't be able to do something like that and keep living openly.
“His father is on the Hunter Association's board.”
But Kim Jina simply shot down that opinion of mine.
“So it caused a huge uproar. He's a blue-blooded hunter through and through. Since even high-floor rankers want to leave the tower and become high-ranking hunters...”
“...they can’t help but watch their step around him?”
“Yes. Everyone turns a blind eye to little things like harassment, and even serious crimes just get buried if there's no evidence.”
There's nothing more laughable in the Tower of Trials than ‘evidence.’ In a world full of magic and skills, what even counts as evidence?
“I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that guy's younger sibling... I should've stopped you, Jinhyuk.”
Kim Jina said that and bowed her head deeply.
“I'm sorry. Really, I'm sorry.”
What kind of serious thing was she making this into? It was only this?
I'm all alone in Tower of Trials 2661 anyway, so what does it matter if I poked a guy like that?
She's really kind, or maybe just naive, to be apologizing in tears over not stopping me sooner.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I should've stopped you then, I should've...”
I have seriously terrible communication skills, so even choosing the words to comfort Kim Jina took me quite a while.
But before I could get out the words I'd painstakingly chosen, Kim Jina added one more line.
“I'm from Server 1554 too...!”
-Thud!
The cafeteria's entrance door shattered, and two short, stocky men walked in.
One wore heavy armor and carried an axe, and the other wore light armor and carried a spear.
The Choi Gil-hyun brothers whom I'd beaten showed up with imposing strides.
Ah, I was the naive one, not Kim Jina.
“What did you spike this with?”
I asked, pointing at the teacup I'd emptied while we were chatting.
“W-well...”
Kim Jina placed an empty potion bottle on the table with trembling hands.
“It was a powerful delayed-action paralytic poison. The effects should be showing by now...”
Ah, I see.
So you put paralyzing poison in it.
Well then.
What should I even say?
“Didn't I say I wouldn't let you off? You motherless beggar bastard, get back here and fight me again, you fucking son of a bitch.”
What rotten luck.