༺ Korin Guardians (2)༻
Alicia’s got-well party progressed without a problem.
The only semi-complaint that we got against the food Marie, Hua Ran and I had prepared was from Lunia, who complained that there was no alcohol in the party.
“There are a lot of underaged people here, so please hold back on alcohol,” I told her.
“Hoh? But were you not drinking just fine at our…”
“Ehem! What are you saying in front of these little kids!? Do you mind a drink later?”
“Fine. I will prepare the drinks myself.”
A drinking plan with one of my few adult acquaintances was a rare and precious opportunity for me considering how hard it was for me to access alcohol.
“Uhh, Korin… Are you going to drink?”
“Kuhum… Did you hear that, Senior Marie?”
Marie, seemed to have heard the secret discussion that went on between Lunia and me, and said while sitting next to me. Was she going to get mad?
“Can I join if you’re going to drink?”
“What?”
“I’m an adult starting from this year, didn’t you know?”
Oh right. This year, Marie was turning 19, which was an adult according to the laws of the kingdom. I was caught up with the image of everyone being students, but the 3rd year students of this Academy were all adults.
“Did you know, in the South, we have the tradition of using the first potatoes of that year to make alcohol!”
“Can you make alcohol with potatoes?”
“Yes! You put yeast in steamed potatoes and ferment it.”
“Ohhh…”
As someone who had been through the physical education college and the military, I was confident I could enjoy any drink, so long as it wasn’t a somaek1 Somaek = A Korean word for soju and maekju (beer). Essentially soju mixed with beer. with a burnt cigarette dipped inside.
“Our dark beer is also pretty impressive. It is one of our few specialties. We only export a few of them because it happens to be a favorite of our horses.”
“Ah. I remember you showing me that before.”
It was very interesting seeing horses indulging themselves in dark beer. Due to the large number of horses being raised in the East, they appeared to have gotten better at crafting dark beers in order to feed the horses.
I remembered hearing something about how beer was amazing for horses who had the illness of being unable to sweat.
“Hmm…”
Instinctively, I realized that I had to choose one of the two. None of them insisted, but it was going to be awkward no matter who I chose. After a while, Lunia kindly stood up and left us behind.
“I will go see my sister.”
“K, kuhum…!”
“Ugh…!”
Lunia walked away so that things wouldn’t turn awkward. Thank you very much for your consideration!
“Sorry… I was being too childish, right?”
Marie said while sneaking glances at me with a depressed look on her face as if she was afraid of being hated by me. Finding that cute, I opened my mouth.
“Let’s say it’s something I have to bear as someone blessed with a big fortune.”
I replied while patting her head. Her silky strands of hair were pleasant to touch.
“Hehe…”
She and I became even closer after that incident. It might be because of my sense of guilt but more than anything…
“You can lean on me if you want to… you know?”
For some reason… I felt like lowering my guard next to Marie.
– Kung!
That was when a plate fell crashing down on the table in front of us. I turned to the table in surprise and noticed Hua Ran… or rather, Ran, gazing down at us with a smile on her face.
“Are you enjoying the party, oppa?”
“Yeah… Hey R, Ran.”
“Can I sit next to you? Oh right, see this? This is the fish I cooked.”
“R, right.”
Ran sat on my left, on the other side of Marie, and snuck closer in. Unlike Hua, she was very skilled at deboning the fish.
Hmm…
Seeing her do that with the same face as Hua, who always waited for me to finish removing the bones of her fish while doing nothing but stare at my face, felt rather strange. Even as I watched her do that, I felt an urge to help her with the process.
Thankfully, Ran had a completely different atmosphere to Hua, and it therefore wasn’t unbearably weird or anything. Even her eyes…
“Oppa. Are you dating anyone right now?”
“N, no…”
“Here.”
As soon as I opened my mouth to reply to her question, she shoved a small piece of the fish into my mouth. Then, she looked up into my eyes with an amiable and wide smile hanging on her lips.
“So, I’m not too late then.”
“Yeah…”
Every time, Ran’s aggressive and daring proactiveness made it difficult for me to know what I was supposed to do in response. She had a charm that was completely different to Marie… It’s a bit, a bit weird, you know!
As the recipient of Marie and Ran’s undeserved love and attention, I knew I had to make a decision one day but…
“Would you like some more?”
Ran suggested I eat more fish with the same wide smile on her face. For some reason, it felt like her eyes were facing the person behind me, and I could only hope that it was an illusion.
“Oppa. There’s a lot of food. Which one would you like to have first?”
“Well, we made all of them together so anything’s fine, right?”
“Don’t try to weave your way out of this. By the way, that lamb skewer over there is something I made.”
“Oh. Sounds good. Let’s give it a shot then.”
“Korin. I made that blood sausage over there.”
…Marie-noona. What’s wrong with you now? And what? Blood sausages? Are you sure they’re alright? I’m not getting another system message after eating that, am I?
Korin Lork. 18 years old.
Other things I could not say with certainty, but what I could say for sure was that I was amazing at reading the mood. If I were to choose someone here, I could imagine the severe imbalance it would cause on this fickle battlefront of love.
That was how sharp a person I was. I even read like 3 romance novels throughout my life, okay? I knew my way around things.
‘Alilciaaaaaaa…!’
I sent a telepathic message to Alicia, who was roaming around the tables of food in the distance!
“Uuun?”
Alicia, who was chewing on a mouthful of meat, suddenly looked back at me. We’re best buddies aren’t we?! I know you’ll understand what I’m trying to say with my eyes!
“Ah…!”
Did she figure out what I was saying?
After looking into my eyes, Alicia quickly came running while carrying a plate of a massive piece of meat.
“Mr. Korin! Look! This is the roast beef that I made, and I think it turned out great. You should try it! Next time, I’m going to try making beer chicken. Ah, by the way, do you think I can eat beer chicken even though I’m underage?”
“…”
The options just increased to 3 from 2.
Et tu, Alicia…!
I was running out of time, and I had to choose fast. Oh dear. Why do I have to go through such hardships…!
Looking back, I remembered something similar happening a few times even in my last iteration. Back then, it wasn’t something to do with love and relationships but the method I used to escape from those ordeals was by choosing to eat Bastard Sihu’s food… Goodness gracious! So I’ve been digging my own grave the whole time!!
“Boss.”
“Nn?”
That was when a tiny hand pulled my clothes from the back. Turning around, I found Ren looking up at me.
“I brought chicken. I felt bad coming here empty-handed. Would you like some?”
In her minute hand was a chicken drumstick. She seemed to have bought it at Mr. Yoon’s chicken shop nearby.
“Ohh, sure. Of course I will eat what Little Ren got for me!”
“Stop treating me like a kid.”
She gave a curt reply, but I had never felt so grateful in my life.
“You adorable little girl!”
“Ahh! Don’t rub your face on me! What’s wrong with you!?”
When I received the drumstick from her hands and started rubbing my face on her cheeks, Ren started shouting that in contempt. That was when Ron dashed towards us from afar.
“Bro! Broo~! This tastes amazing! Did you make it?”
Ron had grown up a lot compared to Ren, who still looked like a 10-year-old, and looked around 14. He was pretty darn handsome.
“Ron, huh. Have as much as you want. We have more than enough… Ah.”
Looking around, I noticed that we were starting to run out of food and decided to refill some of the tables.”
“Senior. Let me go cook a few dishes again.”
“I can go with you!”
“It’s fine. Take a rest. I can do it with Doggo.”
Some might call me a coward but this was a strategic retreat. After quickly running away from the girls, I stayed holed up inside the kitchen for a very long time.
Huu…
“It’s going to appear like I’m two-timing if I do this wrong.”
Being loved by two beautiful girls… All I could say was that I was a very fortunate man.
“Huu… Two, huh. It’s too much.”
I was cooking with a sigh, when Jaeger and Lark, who came into the kitchen trying to scavenge for food, suddenly started looking at me like I was beyond help.
“Look at this guy. He still has no clue.”
“Let him be. Let’s see how long it’s going to take.”
****
After everyone had enough food to fill their stomachs, I stood up before the invited crowd.
“Hello, I’m Korin Lork. There’s no need for me to bother introducing myself, right?”
Hearing me say that, everyone turned their eyes towards me. The reason I invited Master, Josephine and outsiders like Lunia and the Five Swords as well as my peers from the Academy; Dorron, Yuel, Kranel, Jaeger, and Lark, was because I wanted to discuss the future.
“The reason I have invited you all is to explain the grand objective of us, ‘Korin Guardians’, and to talk about the future we are heading for.”
“I’m here for the money, but I surely wasn’t expecting you to be the type of person to say things like that, boss.”
From the other side of the table, Dorron Warsky with his clean and tidy appearance interjected. He was one of the first members I hired from our peers.
“Well, listen up for now. This is going to be a good source of income for you as well, vice-captain of Warsky.”
“Hmm~.”
Dorron seemed intrigued by my words. That money fiend would do anything as long as I gave him the money, even if he had to involve the entire group of Warsky mercenaries for it.
“I’m sure you all remember the recent uproar of the Tower of Mages. The chairman was assassinated and the freshmen students were attacked by the mages of the Tower.
“Things like this will only keep happening from now on. This is not a prediction that I’m making, but a predestined fact. The Tower of Mages, the Old Faith… Whoever it is, they will continue attacking and messing around with Merkarva Academy.”
I then started talking about the wicked man Valtazar, the goal they wanted to achieve, and also told them that our objective was to stand against them.
“Umm…”
That was when Golem Mage Kranel carefully raised his hand.
“Why… us?”
It was a short yet profound question. The first of his doubts was probably a question on why we were the ones that had to save the world. Considering how there were the royal family, the Guardian Alliance and the New Faith, it was understandable for him to question whether it was right for mere students like us to involve ourselves.
“Great question. There are two main reasons, with the first being that we can’t trust them.”
The royal family… Unfortunately, it wasn’t an overstatement to say that most of the people in the royal family were under the influence of Princess Miruam.
Due to her role as the saintess, Princess Estelle usually stayed at the Grand Chapel of Zeon instead of the capital and refrained from attending to worldly politics. She didn’t even have a great ambition for the throne in the first place and was simply being forced to her position by her surroundings. It was thus inevitable for her to have less influence than Princess Miruam in the royal court.
On the other hand, Princess Miruam involved herself in internal matters, actively increased the size of her faction and was in control of the nobles as well. We could not trust anyone that was under the command of the royal family.
The same was true for the Guardian Alliance. Something that would happen later down the line was the division of the Guardian Alliance before the final battle. Like remnant Nazi soldiers that spread out wide unbeknownst to everyone else, there were hidden spies everywhere.
The conclusion I came to after the last iteration was that there was no one in the Alliance that was worthy of our trust, except for a small number of the named characters.
And lastly, the New Faith. Although this was an allied faction of the player, they were also rather difficult to trust, because the pope himself was a traitor.
“Huh?”
“What…?”
“The… Pope?”
“That can’t be!”
A few of them strongly retaliated as if they were genuinely shocked. Mei and Milia of the Five Swords were devout believers of the New Faith, and they shouted in disbelief.
“I’ll prove whether I’m right or wrong later down the track. What I was trying to say is that what I have in front of me are the only people that I can trust from the bottom of my heart.”
Renowned household for swordsmanship, the Arden family.
There was no need to even bother explaining about them – they were one of the key allied factions in the final battle of <Heroic Legends of Arhan>. Led by the greatest charismatic character, Sword Emperor, were the named playable characters, Lunia Arden and Alicia Arden.
They were a trustworthy ally that stayed with the player until the very end.
Dunareff Dukedom of the South.
Originally after Marie turned into a vampire, and because most of the events occurred in the North, they were a faction that wouldn’t have actively participated in the battle, but it was a different story now.
Marie was wholeheartedly trying to support me and now, I decided not to downright turn her feelings down either.
I was now going to borrow the finances of this enormous noble family, and accomplish things that were impossible both in the game and the last iteration.
Warsky Mercenaries.
In the previous iteration, the main members of Park Sihu and my party were Dorron and that freshman student. Dorron was one of the few strong male characters in the game that had the potential to become a semi-Unique Grade depending on the path, and the method to make him stronger was fairly simple.
Money, ‘teacher’, and the mercenary group. Those were the keywords of his growth.
The plan was to flood him with support in preparation for the future battle. It was going to be easy as long as I had Marie and her never-ending supply of money.
Even aside from them, there were the named characters Alicia, Lunia, Hua Ran, Yuel, Kranel, Ren, and Ron.
After having a fair number of men and a strong enough faction, what mattered the most was having a powerful party of named characters that could beat the King’s subjects, who were extraordinarily stronger than any other enemy that came out before them.
Like what we had been doing till now, my plan was to defeat the enemies with my party members.
“’Everyone’ needs a teacher? Does that include me?”
Lunia pointed out something in the middle of my explanation, after hearing that even she was a part of the people that had to be taught.
“Yes, Miss Lunia. You are going to receive lessons from her as well.”
“Hmm~. The only person who can say that to me is the old man. Is she as strong as him?”
“Of course. And when it comes to teaching, she’s going to be a lot better than the Sword Emperor, that eccentric old man.”
“Hoh?”
Immediately after saying that, I threw a glance at Erin. The lady, who had been quietly listening to my story without mixing into the crowd, slowly headed to where I was along with Josephine.
Taking off her hood, she stood before them – the spear-wielding Queen of Paradise, who had been teaching heroes for over a thousand years introduced herself to the crowd.
“Hello? I am Erin Danua.”
****
Erin Danua.
The owner of Paradise who hid herself, and the Danann of Justice. She didn’t bother explaining to them that she had been a part of the race before humanity, and that she used to be one of the beings referred to as gods.
The faith that had spread across this land was that of the Goidels, and it was better not to link this to talks about religion and mythology, which was bound to lead to confusing discussions.
All she revealed was that she used to move around in the name of Chairman Eriu Casarr, and the information about Tates Valtazar. After that, she told them that the Old Faith and the Tower of Mages were in collaboration with him.
“This is not something like a political fight for supremacy. Valtazar and his subjects sincerely wish for the destruction of humanity.”
The main members like Alicia, Marie, and Hua Ran were already aware of their objective, but the rest of the crowd appeared confused by her story.
However, not many of them questioned the legitimacy of her statement.
Josephine Clara.
The presence of the witch who had been serving the Academy for 80 years as the Senior Professor, was adding credibility to the words of Master Erin.
“Do you wish to move Arden – us – as a part of your army?”
I had made a pact with Lunia in the East, that she lend us manpower at the level of the 1st Sword Squad in return for me resolving her engagement problems.
She stared at me, asking if this was what that pact was for. She was half-right. My original plan was to use their army instead of letting Master Erin out but…
“Similar, but we will have a proper reward system. Our Susanoo friend, the vice-captain of the Warsky Mercenaries will probably sign the contract without even bothering to read through the content.”
“What a big statement, boss.”
“My dear fiance. If you so wish, I can entrust myself with you anytime, but it is a different matter altogether if you wish to involve my men into it.”
“I’m sure even the Five Sword sisters will love it if they hear the deal.”
Before continuing with my words, I turned to Master for the final approval. She gave me a nod, showing her firm belief in my decision.
“The ‘Treasury of the Danann’ will be opening soon and will stay open till the end of our summer holidays. That is the place we are going to go to.”
Paradise and the inheritance of the Danann.
It was a part of the main quest that was supposed to open up after the destruction of the Academy and the death of Erin Danua.
And now, we were going to open that 1 year ahead of schedule.
Footnotes:
1 Somaek = A Korean word for soju and maekju (beer). Essentially soju mixed with beer.
