Chapter 66 - Let’s Do It the Old-Fashioned Way

“Guardian? What’s that?”

“A new company created to handle security, protection, and audits for the Leviathan subsidiaries.”

“... Security and protection, fine, but what company handles audits on top of those? How does that make any sense?”

“It doesn’t. Even less so when you find out who’s in charge.”

“Who is it?”

“That bastard.”

“That bastard... Wait, don’t tell me you mean that mad dog!”

“Is there another bastard I could mean?”

“How can this be happening? Of all people, they’re giving that bastard the authority to inspect our group? They might as well be telling him to come for our heads!”

“It was Her Highness’s order.”

“Even if it was Her Highness’s order...!”

“Enough. Don’t overstep. She may lack good judgment in many respects, but Her Highness is still Her Highness.”

“Even so, how could she fall for the clan’s enemy and sell out her own clan?”

“Be patient and wait. The elders won’t stand by forever.”

“How dare that shameless, perverted old geezer sweet-talk our innocent princess into plotting this!”

* * *

“My ears are itching like crazy.”

“If necessary, I can reserve you a bed in intensive care.”

“... I meant it feels like someone’s talking about me a lot. Not that my ears itch so badly I’m about to die.”

“That’s fortunate.”

“Just admit you’re disappointed. Don’t give me chills saying things you don’t mean.”

She didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at Limon’s words. She merely stopped herself from dialing emergency services, as though she truly regretted it, and continued coldly.

“If you have no further instructions, may I leave?”

“What’s the rush?”

“Her Highness instructed me not to intrude on the Sword Lord’s personal time if I could avoid it.”

Wei Ling, the woman dressed in men’s clothes, delivered the answer curtly, then added in a cold voice, “Of course, if the Sword Lord would like to review each subsidiary’s security systems and protection arrangements and draw up manuals, I’d be delighted to give you the work.”

“... Off you go, then.”

“Yes. Excuse me.”

As though she had expected nothing else, Wei Ling turned sharply and left the room the moment she heard his answer. Limon clicked his tongue at her retreating back.

“Talk about inflexible.”

[“That isn’t inflexibility. I think she just hates your guts, Team Leader.”]

“Same difference. The first rule of working life is not letting it show, no matter how much you hate your boss.”

[“That’s not very convincing coming from someone who grabbed the Director by the collar and shook him whenever he felt like it.”]

“And that’s very convincing coming from you, who talked back to your boss at every opportunity.”

Limon traded jabs with Yu Na-gyeong, the bluebird perched on his head, in an ugly contest over which of them had been the more exemplary employee. It was Yu Na-gyeong who ended the pointless debate.

[“Anyway, you should appreciate how lucky you are with your subordinates. Me aside, do you think capable secretaries like Ms. Wei Ling are easy to find?”]

“I have my doubts about you, but I’ll grant you she’s capable.”

Several days had passed since Li Qingyu had saddled Limon with both the position of head of Guardian and a secretary named Wei Ling. In that time, Limon had done nothing. Plenty had happened at Guardian, though: official notices had gone out to the Leviathan subsidiaries run by the Black Dragon Clan, basic information on each company had been compiled, and employees who could start immediately had been recruited. Wei Ling had handled practically all of it alone in the space of a few days.

“I can see why the princess put her in such an important role.”

[“You said she’s one of the Black Dragon Clan’s elite. Of course she’s a world-class talent.”]

“True enough. A martial artist who’s reached that level in psionics is good at just about anything.”

[“The opposite of you, Team Leader?”]

“... Why drag me into this?”

[“Why do you think?”]

Limon curled his fingers, ready to deal with any baseless slander, but Yu Na-gyeong didn’t flinch. She merely snorted and struck him with the cold, hard facts.

[“You went to all the trouble of bringing in a top-tier violinist like Julia to teach you, but every lesson is the same thing over and over.”]

Limon frowned. Unlike Guardian, which was running smoothly thanks to Wei Ling’s competence, his violin lessons had hit a wall.

That was why, a little later, Julia looked so overwhelmed when Limon came to his lesson disguised by the constellation’s power as the black-haired young man Lee.

“Lee, you still can’t do it?”

“Afraid not.”

“You really did all the preparation and review, didn’t you? You haven’t been slacking off?”

“I hate to say it myself, but I’ve been sleeping just one hour a day and throwing myself into studying for the first time in ages.”

“Your eyes look far too bright for that.”

“I happen to be exceptionally healthy.”

Julia eyed his brazen answer with suspicion for a moment, then sighed softly.

‘I don’t think he’s lying.’

The claim about sleeping only an hour a day was probably exaggerated, but she knew he was making an effort. His manner could be rather arrogant, but he always took the lessons seriously. The problem was the result.

“Then why can’t you read music yet?”

“When you get old, new things don’t sink in so easily.”

“Leaving aside the fact that you’re not old enough to say that, even a grandpa over eighty could easily learn to read simple sheet music.”

Julia stared at him in disbelief. She would have understood if he had been stuck on something technical or difficult. But after days of intensive instruction, he still couldn’t read a simple score.

“What I don’t understand is how anyone can look at a score and play it. What kind of brain sees these tadpoles as sounds?”

“Lee, by that logic, most of humanity has something wrong with their brains.”

“Exactly my point.”

His self-importance was almost impressive. Julia sighed as Limon confidently declared that the problem lay with those strange tadpoles, not with him. She had expected teaching someone utterly unfamiliar with music to be hard. She hadn’t expected him to be unable to read a score. It was a hurdle she had never encountered before.

‘Hmm. This is a problem.’

Limon was just as troubled.

Thanks to the cursed violin, the starlight remnants within him had diminished considerably, and a little more dissolved whenever he played. But he wasn’t taking lessons because he had time to spare. The instincts he had honed as a Sword Master, crossing countless battlefields and skirting the boundary between life and death, told him this was more urgent than anything else. Indeed, repeating the same performance was dissolving the remnants more and more slowly.

‘I can’t go on like this.’

He had even handed all his work off to someone else so he could take these lessons, only to make no progress. He was more frustrated than Julia. The trouble was that, even when he stayed up all night trying to cram it into his head, he simply couldn’t make sense of sheet music.

‘Tsk. Learning something new at my age was never going to be easy.’

He had always learned by doing, training his body through firsthand experience. Music had held no interest for him for hundreds of years, so it was hardly going to sink in now.

‘The bards and musicians of old sang and played just fine without these tadpoles. Why did anyone have to invent the damned things...?’

While grumbling about the younger generation and yearning for the past like an old curmudgeon of historic proportions, Limon suddenly blinked.

“Do I really have to learn to read this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t we skip the sheet music and start with the next step?”

“... Lee, do you honestly think that would work?”

Already nursing a headache, Julia felt it grow worse at his outlandish suggestion.

“Sheet music is the foundation of all music. Trying to learn the violin without knowing how to read it is like trying to grow a tree without roots.”

“But not being able to read music doesn’t mean I can’t play, does it?”

“You can’t learn properly that way.”

“Looks like I can’t learn properly this way, either.”

“...”

“Think about it. There are people who can’t master basic swordsmanship after years of trying, then learn it by cutting people down on a battlefield and go on to become Sword Masters.”

Julia drew her brows together at Limon’s bizarre analogy. If this were a music university and Limon an ordinary student, she wouldn’t have entertained the suggestion for a second. But his ability to learn was so catastrophically poor that, at this rate, she would spend the entire course of lessons teaching him nothing but sheet music. As someone who believed in flexible teaching, she had to consider it. The problem was their present situation.

“Fine. Let’s say we skip the sheet music. What exactly do you plan to learn, and how? Are you finally going to play the violin?”

“That’s a bit difficult right now. If you hear me play and run away, that’ll be the end of it.”

“Then how am I supposed to teach you?”

Julia’s expression turned sulky. However awful Limon’s playing might be, she had no idea how to teach a student who couldn’t read music and refused to play. Even the bluebird pecking at snacks in the corner of the practice room shook her head, as though the situation were hopeless. Limon, however, answered calmly, as if he had already thought of that.

“We do it the old-fashioned way.”

“The old-fashioned way?”

“Julia, before you’re a teacher, you’re a musician.”

“More a violinist than a traveling musician, if we’re being precise. Why?”

“What does a musician do?”

“...?”

Julia gave Limon a puzzled look, then stared at him in dismay. Only then did she understand why he had used that old-fashioned word for her, and what he meant by the old-fashioned way.

Limon rose, fetched Julia’s violin case from where it lay to one side, and held it out to her.

“You’re a performer, so give me the best performance you can. I’ll take it from there.”

Long ago, before musical notation had been standardized, musicians had learned and passed on countless pieces simply by watching and listening. All she had to do was show him, and he would learn on his own.

Julia could only stare, dumbfounded, as Limon made that insane claim with a broad grin.