Chapter 77 - Partner

In a silence so deep he might have heard an ant crawling, Limon raised his head slightly and asked, "Well?"

"What?"

"Did that song sound like noise to you?"

"..."

Only then did the trio seem to remember their bet with Limon. Standing at the very front of the audience with the most dumbstruck expressions of all, they suddenly looked as though it had hit them. They exchanged glances, their faces impossible to describe.

Until a moment ago, they had thought the bet would be nothing. It was simple: all they had to do was say the performance had been awful, a public nuisance. Taste was subjective, after all. No matter what anyone else said, they could simply claim it had sounded bad to them.

But...

"Th-that's cheating."

"Cheating? How?"

"You said you'd perform without a skill, but you used one."

"Huh? That was a skill?"

"Of course it was, you idiot! How else could a song sound like that without one?"

Without a skill, they insisted, that ordinary song could never have changed so much. Therefore, they had no reason to honor the terms of the bet, either. Limon listened without arguing or getting angry. Instead, a curious smile touched his lips.

"Sounds like you're saying our performance was as good as one done with a skill."

"... That has nothing to do with it. What matters is whether you used a skill just now."

"I don't know. Seems pretty relevant to me."

"What do you mean?"

"If we used a music skill, then we have the right to perform here. If we didn't, then we've proved we can put on a show every bit as good as a player with a skill, haven't we?"

"...!"

The trio looked aghast.

"Well, if you really want to call it cheating, go ahead. I'll gladly apologize and leave." Limon gave them a faint chuckle. Then he tilted his head toward the crowd behind them, a meaningful smile on his face. "If you're confident you can follow that performance with one of your own, that is."

The trio turned without thinking and fell speechless again. A crowd now packed the street, which had been relatively quiet only a short while ago, as tightly as sprouts in a tray. Every gaze seemed to say the same thing: they wanted to clap and call for an encore, and the trio was holding them up. The pressure was suffocating.

'We're supposed to perform instead?'

'In front of all these people?'

'After they just heard that?'

Cold sweat broke out on the trio. Blinded by the prospect of a bet, they had only now realized they'd fallen for Limon's scheme.

'He got us good...!'

'That bastard never proposed the bet because he wanted to win. He just needed a chance to perform.'

They understood what Limon had been after, and the sheer nerve of it left them stunned. Calling it a scheme was one thing, but it required absolute confidence that a single performance would draw a crowd this large—and that the trio could never follow it with anything to match.

It was an absurd level of confidence.

'A high-level player with a music skill might have that kind of confidence, but...'

By any reasonable measure, it made sense. Unless they were famous entertainers, unknown musicians couldn't draw a crowd like this in moments with nothing but a guitar and a voice. Not without a skill.

'... But was that performance really a skill?'

Doubt still nagged at them. Limon had boasted that he would perform without one, and even now he stood there utterly confident. More than anything, the performance had left an odd impression unlike anything they had ever seen or heard before. It made them wonder: what if?

"So? What's your answer?"

For a moment, they weighed the pressure of all those eyes at their backs and the doubts rising inside them against their pride as musicians and the burden of taking the stage themselves. At last, they sighed and asked with resigned expressions, "Do you take song requests?"

Before they were musicians, they were human. They simply couldn't resist the powerful urge to hear a little more of that performance.

It was the beginning of an endless relay of requests and encores from an audience of more than several hundred.

* * *

"What a mess."

["... I don't think you're in any position to say that, Team Leader."]

"Why not?"

["Because you're the one who caused it."]

"How is it my fault? All I did was play a few songs like they asked."

["There's a limit to how many encores you can give! Who keeps taking requests for five or six hours straight?"]

Yu Na-gyeong shook her head in disbelief. Limon had been performing here for over nine hours now. Most performers would have run out of stamina or enthusiasm long ago—if blisters or muscle cramps hadn't stopped their fingers first.

But the body of a Sword Master was a marvelous thing. Even after playing all that time, his hands showed no blisters, or so much as a drop of sweat.

["And now every last one of those spectators has collapsed here!"]

The trouble was that not everyone was superhuman like a Sword Master. If the performance had been mediocre, people might have listened for a while and left. Instead, the strangely delightful harmonies kept them lingering for just one more song, then another. Most had ended up staying to the very end. Nine hours was more than enough to wear them all out.

"Collapsed is a bit much. They just sat down to rest."

["That's what collapsed means!"]

Sitting down for a short rest? Understandable. Borrowing chairs and tables from restaurants and cafés along the street? Resourceful, even. Ordering something because it felt awkward to borrow the furniture without buying anything—and having a drink while they were at it—was forgivable too.

... If only more and more people hadn't followed suit until the entire street became one enormous party.

The result was this: long past midnight, the crowds still thronged a street that looked less like a street of music than a street of drinking.

["What is this supposed to be, a festival or a concert? They're not even friends having a party together. Why did they suddenly start drinking?"]

"Exactly. If they're going to throw a drinking party, they could at least offer me some. Young people these days have no manners."

["That's what matters to you?!"]

"Of course. I spent my precious time giving them a free concert. It'd be sad if I couldn't even get a drink at a party they owe to me."

["So you admit this is all your fault?!"]

As Limon and Yu Na-gyeong bickered while watching people drink and make merry, a can of beer appeared in front of him.

"How about a drink, lone wolf?"

"... Why am I a lone wolf?"

"Hmm. Would you prefer king of the beasts? Or solitary tiger?"

"I'm not asking you to change the species. I'm asking why you're so determined to compare me to an animal."

"Because that's the kind of vibe you give off, friend. It's why everyone else is just watching from a distance instead of coming up to you, isn't it?"

Limon had no answer to that blithe reply, but Yu Na-gyeong nodded in agreement.

["Well, you do look pretty scary, Team Leader."]

'Do I really look that scary? I even changed my appearance so I wouldn't stand out.'

["Ha! As if putting a wolf costume on a dragon would make it look friendly to rabbits."]

'...'

For a moment, Limon considered plucking every feather off his cheeky former subordinate, now a blue pigeon-chicken. Then he sighed.

He took the cold beer from the hoodie-clad performer who had played alongside him all this time and said, "Call me Lee."

"I'm Eugene. And I'd prefer it if you called me 'friend.' With affection."

They had performed together for hours and were only now exchanging names. The two were remarkable in more ways than one—not least because they were still more energetic than the audience their performance had worn out.

Neither Limon nor Eugene gave it a thought. They sat side by side, clinked their beer cans together, and continued their conversation.

"Thanks for lending me your guitar."

"You really made good use of it. I never knew my guitar could sound like that."

"That's because your playing is such a mess. Why do you play it like that? You'd be better off letting a phonograph handle the accompaniment and just singing."

"A phonograph...?"

"You know, machines that play music from records or CDs."

"Oh, like an amp? I don't use those. If the music isn't played live, the song has no soul."

"Soul, huh? That's a fine word."

Limon let out a small laugh despite himself. In an age when even the quality of music was judged by skill level, Eugene spoke of "soul" as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Even to Limon, the word sounded old-fashioned. Somehow, hearing it made him smile.

"I think today was my lucky day," Eugene said cheerfully.

"Because you didn't get chased off?"

"That too. But it's been ages since I had so much fun singing. And I found a partner who's amazing on guitar."

"A partner? What partner?"

"Huh? My partner in music from now on, of course."

"Who?"

"You, friend. Obviously."

"... When exactly was that decided?"

"Probably when you played that incredible music on the guitar you borrowed from me?"

Eugene beamed.

When Limon first asked to borrow the guitar, Eugene had merely been curious. But the thrill that surged through Eugene on singing to his accompaniment, and the sheer joy of it, had swept that idle thought away.

"You've made it so I can't be satisfied without you anymore, friend. You'll have to take responsibility."

"Could you stop saying things people might take the wrong way?"

"But it's true."

The tone was light, but Eugene's eyes were quite serious. Limon scratched his cheek.

"You say that, but playing music is just a hobby for me. I don't intend to make a debut, now or later."

"Oh, even better. I'm not interested in making a debut either."

"Once work gets busy, it'll be hard to line up our schedules."

"That's fine. I'm a freelancer. I can work around yours."

"..."

It was like talking to a wall. No matter how firmly Limon refused, Eugene kept smiling and nodding, as relentless as a trainer who would shout, "It's fine, just be my partner!" and trap him in a red-and-white ball. Limon stared.

'I was planning to wrap up my training soon.'

He had realized what his playing lacked, and he knew how difficult it would be to supply it. He had intended to stop going around listening to performances and begin taking control of the Seven Dragons Society in earnest. That would leave him incomparably busier than before, with no time to go around doing things like this.

He knew it perfectly well, yet he did not turn Eugene down outright.

'And then this performance gave me a clue that might replace all that training.'

When he had played with Eugene, he had felt the fragments of starlight dissolve and gained control over the power of another constellation. A strange look crossed his face. Until now, the constellation's power had dissolved only when he used the Violin of Deepest Black. The fact that it had responded to an ordinary performance at all was a major step forward.

'Whether it was the song or the person, I don't know exactly what the constellation's power responded to, but...'

Limon folded his arms.

Of course, there was no guarantee that spending time with Eugene would produce any results. But with a powerful enemy like the constellations ahead of him, he could not ignore even the smallest possibility.

After a brief moment's thought, he asked, "Just to be sure—does it have to be guitar, or would another instrument do?"

Limon Aspelder. For the last Sword Master, who had spent hundreds of years doing nothing but swinging a sword, it was the historic moment he decided to try having a hobby.