After buying the children hamburgers, I planned to head home.
“Nom, nom, nom…”
“Munch, munch…”
“Gobble, gobble…”
‘They truly ate with gusto.’
A single hamburger costing 30,000 gold, I mused. While the differing currency units might make it seem exorbitant, 100,000 gold was roughly equivalent to 20,000 Korean Won.
This meant that 30,000 gold could be considered about 6,000 Won.
Of course, that 30,000 gold was for a single item, not a set; we had ordered a set, which came to 50,000 gold.
Still, to me, gold was merely a surplus.
My children earned gold for me in the first place.
More precisely, they *created* it.
Even now, the children in the village were generating gold amongst themselves.
“Unnie, what are those people doing?”
“Hmm? Who are you talking about?”
“Over there… Huh? There were people there just now…?”
“Really? Weren’t they just passersby?”
“Is that so…?”
I wasn’t sure what Cat-Dog had seen, but it was probably nothing significant.
If something truly noteworthy had been happening, I would have noticed it too.
“Two people were hugging and pressing their faces together…”
“‘Cat-Dog,’ I murmured, ‘just forget what you saw. You’re still too young to understand such things.'”
“Huh? Do you know what it was?”
“Yes, I know. But it’s something Cat-Dog shouldn’t know.”
‘She was likely referring to a couple engaged in a public display of affection.’
‘I had seen them too; I had simply pretended not to.’
‘I had considered buying the children ice cream to distract them, but Cat-Dog must have already witnessed it.’
‘Sigh. I really wish people wouldn’t engage in excessive public displays of affection. It’s not good for my children’s education, you know?’
‘Of course, it wasn’t just harmful to my children.’
‘Such sticky displays of affection were an imposition on everyone around them.’
“Umm… Understood. I’ll pretend I didn’t see it!”
“Good girl, Cat-Dog.”
“Ehehe…”
‘Cat-Dog claimed to have forgotten, but I doubted she truly had.’
‘Could anyone truly forget something like that so quickly? I only hoped she wouldn’t try to look it up at home later.’
“Shall we head home now?”
“””Yes!”””
Exiting the comprehensive shopping mall, I made my way to the dedicated warp zone and opened a portal.
One might ask why I couldn’t simply open a warp inside the mall, but doing so could inconvenience others, making it preferable to use the designated warp zone whenever possible.
Naturally, the warp I had used last time was also from a dedicated zone.
They even sold warp-specific ropes and boxes there.
Oh, and it went without saying that in my own village, I could open a warp anywhere I pleased.
The Summoner’s Village was essentially an island, meaning there was no way to enter unless one was warped directly or crossed the sea.
This might lead one to wonder how the Wandering Merchant could visit multiple Summoner’s Villages, but that was a detail even I didn’t know.
The Wandering Merchant likely possessed some unique means of access to the Summoner’s Village.
In any case, I saw no need to learn their method.
All I needed was to be able to reach my own village, wasn’t it? Was there any compelling reason to visit someone else’s village? From my perspective, none existed.
This game lacked not only a system for traveling to other villages but even a friend system, so there was even less reason to go anywhere else.
“Well, we’ve arrived. Everyone had fun, right?”
In truth, having arrived via warp, there wasn’t much of an “arrival” to speak of.
Still, I announced our arrival to set a cheerful mood.
“Yes! It was fun!”
“I want to go again next time!”
“Deun thought the hamburger was delicious!”
Their reactions were all positive.
‘So Deun enjoyed the hamburger… I’m relieved that it’s unlikely to become her preferred food.’
“Alright, we’ll go again sometime.”
‘Though I couldn’t say when that would be, seeing my children play so joyfully had been restorative for me, so I knew I had to take them again soon.’
“Oh, Summoner-nim. Where have you been?”
“Ah, Tokkaengi. I just took the children out to play.”
“The children, you say… Ah, so that’s what it was?”
“Yes, why?”
“No, it’s just that I hadn’t seen Summoner-nim since morning…”
“Is that so? Well, I need to take the children home, so I’ll be going now.”
“Ah, Summoner-nim. Just a moment!”
As I moved to take the children home, Tokkaengi stopped me.
‘Seeing how urgently she held me back, I wondered if something had happened.’
“Well… you see…”
“You haven’t caused any trouble, have you?”
“Th-that is…”
“…Did you really cause trouble?”
“…It wasn’t trouble *I* caused, but trouble Seokyung-ssi caused.”
‘Seokyung, Seokyung… what on earth have you been up to?’
“Haa, what happened?”
“Seokyung-ssi and Nmae-ssi… they started arguing, and then at some point, they began fighting… and Seokyung-ssi, well, she just…”
“…Surely she didn’t *kill* them?”
“No, not killed. Unless you count a spiritual death…”
‘Nmae had suffered a spiritual death at Seokyung’s hands… I was beginning to grasp the general idea.’
“Tokkaengi, I’ll take the children home first. It sounds like something too early for them to hear.”
“Ah, yes, yes. Please do.”
‘Before anything else, I needed to send my children home.’
‘Surely, the “spiritual death” Nmae suffered at Seokyung’s hands implied something far too inappropriate for a 15+ rating.’
‘Haa, even if succubi weren’t bound by gender, this was a bit much.’
‘I resolved to give her a stern talking-to this time.’ With that thought, I sent the children home, then followed Tokkaengi to the scene, only to find…
“Uhm… I brought Summoner Unnie…”
“Where’s Nmae?”
“Ah, you’re here? Nmae’s condition is quite poor right now…”
“Surely Seokyung didn’t do *that* sort of thing… right?”
Upon arriving at the scene, I quickly realized that Seokyung’s actions weren’t what I had imagined.
Nmae was sprawled on the ground, frothing at the mouth as if they had fainted from sheer terror.
“When Tokkaengi said Nmae suffered a spiritual death at your hands, I assumed you’d done something… inappropriate.”
“…What *is* my image, anyway?”
‘A succubus, a demon who thinks only of lewd things.’
“…Since succubi inherently have that image, I can’t really argue.”
“Exactly. It can’t be helped that you have that image, Seokyung. Succubi are inherently lewd demons. It’s only natural.”
“So, what exactly happened?”
“Well… we were arguing over something trivial, and then…”
“Arguing… and then?”
“Before I knew it… Ahahaha…”
“‘…Seokyung, shall we go somewhere cozy and have a *very* serious talk?'”
“H-Heek…!!”
‘I had thought Seokyung wasn’t responsible, but clearly, one shouldn’t judge a person solely by their image.’
‘Despite her lewd image, Seokyung was still a demon. She could probably cast a simple curse with ease.’
‘But Nmae was the master of the nightmare world, practically a nightmare incarnate. What kind of curse could have been cast to make them faint with such terror?’
“First, let’s get Nmae to regain consciousness. What kind of curse could make Nmae, who is a nightmare incarnate, faint?”
“W-well… it was just a curse that made ghosts visible, I suppose…”
“…Nmae fainted from *that*?”
“I didn’t know Nmae would be scared by a ghost and faint either…”
‘Hmm, it’s hard to blame Seokyung for this, given that I didn’t know Nmae was afraid of ghosts.’
‘…But Nmae looks like a ghost. So a ghost is afraid of ghosts?’
‘Well, characters with such quirks aren’t unheard of if you look hard enough, so perhaps it’s not a major issue?’
‘Everyone has different fears, after all. Even I’m afraid of flowers, insects, bugs—especially butterflies!’
‘Why am I afraid of flowers and butterflies, you ask? For butterflies, it largely stems from a butterfly episode I saw in Spongebob (TL Note: The original Korean uses “스xx밥” as a censored reference to Spongebob Squarepants.) as a child. As for flowers… their very existence simply feels terrifying to me.’
‘Perhaps you’d understand if I called it an inexpressible dread? Though, I wouldn’t particularly care if you didn’t.’
‘In any case, Nmae’s fear was probably for a similar reason—a terror that others couldn’t comprehend.’
“So, what kind of ghost did you show them? Show it to me too.”
“W-what? You want me to show you…? Uh… you might actually die, you know…?”
‘What kind of ghost did she *really* show them?’
‘That just makes me even more curious! What did she show them?’
“Just tell me. I’m confident I won’t die!”
“Ugh… Summoner-nim… I really can’t say… Why don’t you ask Nmae when they wake up…?”
“Haa, I was going to forgive you if you told me… but I guess not. This is a good opportunity to give Seokyung a serious scolding.”
“W-what!? S-Summoner-nim… what exactly are you planning to do…?”
“What else? A disciplinary smack of love.”
“H-Heek!”
Of course, I didn’t actually hit her.
I regarded my summoned beings as my own children, and I couldn’t bring myself to strike my own child.
…Unless, of course, they were about to commit a crime. In such cases, I would have to stop them, even if it meant resorting to violence.
Otherwise, there’s no telling what might happen later.
****
“Ugh…”
“Ah, you’re awake?”
“Huh… Summoner… Unnie…?”
“Yes, it’s me.”
“Seokyung is…”
“Seokyung is currently reflecting on her actions. That aside, what kind of ghost did Seokyung show you?”
“…Summoner Unnie might die if you knew.”
“How can you and Seokyung say the exact same thing?”
“Th-that is… Ugh… I still can’t say!”
‘Aaaah! I’m dying of curiosity!’
“If you tell me, I’ll buy you the new ice cream.”
“I’m not Tsundere-ssi; I wouldn’t fall for such a temptation!”
“And five of them.”
“…It was a ghost holding a thick book.”
‘Yep, I knew five new ice creams would get them to crack.’
But a ghost holding a thick book?
“…What’s so scary about that?”
“And that ghost whispered to me, asking if I had any intention of going to graduate school.”
“…A graduate school recommendation is indeed scary.”
While I wondered why Nmae knew what graduate school was, it truly was a terrifying ghost.
Well, I’m glad I’ve never received a graduate school recommendation.
Incidentally, that night, a professor appeared in my dream and asked if I planned to go to graduate school, which woke me up.
“It was a truly terrifying dream…”
