Chapter 84 - Yu Na-gyeong Saw It

[Hmm...]

In Limon’s room at the Leviathan Hotel, a baby bird still covered in soft down was bobbing her head diligently over his desk.

TAP, TAP-TAP, TAP-TAP-TAP.

For some time, she worked her beak with the dedication of an artisan carving a Buddha, shaping a piece of cookie into a pretty flower. At last, Yu Na-gyeong completed a misshapen flower with four petals and swallowed the cookie piece she had been pecking at. Then she muttered, [Team Leader’s busy.]

Ever since unidentified killers had caused the massacre at Black Dragon Construction, the Black Dragon Clan had been in a frenzy. Whether to avenge his cousin or to restore his family’s honor, Wang Gi-neung had mobilized the full resources of the Wang family of Shanghai to find the killers. Most of the other clan members were helping the investigation at least indirectly. With their regular company business to handle as well, everyone was bound to be busy.

Limon was no exception. After fending off the killers’ second attack, he had been rushing around predicting their next targets and preparing for another assault. As his predictions continued to prove correct, more subsidiaries quietly joined Guardian, leaving him busier still.

[Tch. He could at least take me along.]

That left Yu Na-gyeong bored. Limon had left her behind, and she had spent days shut in the room with nothing but her smartphone. That might have suited a shut-in, but for someone who loved a lively atmosphere and used to invent errands just to get out, it was torture.

[... Maybe I’ll go see the kids again.]

And so Yu Na-gyeong slipped out of the room. If she stayed cooped up any longer, she felt like she might start growing mold. Limon’s door was firmly shut, of course, but that was no obstacle to her.

[Hup!]

POP!

With that brief shout, she vanished from the desk and appeared outside the door. Her Teleportation had improved enormously since her first escape from the zoo enclosure, now that she was a little older.

[Come to think of it, that’s strange.]

Yu Na-gyeong tilted her head. [Team Leader said he’d already done in the Serpent That Connects the Ends, so why can I still use Teleportation?]

She might have been a high-level Teleportation player, but that had been in her previous life. She had died and been reborn, and now even the constellation she had contracted with was gone. By rights, she should no longer have been able to use a skill. Skills came from constellations, after all. So why could she still use Teleportation? It really was strange.

[Well, as long as I can use it.]

She didn’t dwell on the question. Perhaps it was her naturally optimistic disposition, or perhaps it was simply the way her brain worked. Brushing the thought aside, Yu Na-gyeong headed for the childcare facility inside the Leviathan, alternating quick little steps with Teleportation.

[Hmm. The kids are doing fine.]

Yu Na-gyeong poked her head up outside a window and smiled fondly at the children, some reading and others running around at play. [It feels a little emptier, but... they do need to go to school. Yep.]

Only the little ones remained. She thought wistfully of Seong Sia and the other children who would be at school by now. Her range had grown, but it was still only ten meters in any direction. Between that and her tiny steps, she could barely get around the Leviathan, let alone check on the children at school.

[If I could fly, I could go around on my own... When am I going to grow up?]

Wanting to grow up quickly was supposed to be a privilege reserved for children. Why did she have to worry about it? She let out a few sighs as she watched the children with fond eyes—until she met one child’s bright, wide-eyed gaze.

“Oh! A bird!”

[Ah!]

Had she been too absorbed in watching them? Her hiding place discovered, Yu Na-gyeong hastily ducked her head, hardly behaving like a former PAB agent. She hoped the child would decide they had seen wrong and let it go.

“Birdie, come play with me!”

But the child dashed straight toward her like a runaway train, making a mockery of that hope.

[Emergency escape!]

POP!

“Huh? Birdie? Where’d you go?”

Yu Na-gyeong fled. It might have been different if the children were complete strangers, but she had often visited these orphanage kids while she was alive. Getting involved with them might give away who she was.

[Phew. I nearly died.]

... Admittedly, she had felt her life was in danger, too. Yu Na-gyeong loved all her younger friends at the orphanage, but she wasn’t so doting that she expected toddlers who had only just learned to walk to control their strength. She knew all too well how wildly children handled their toys.

[Did I panic that badly? I didn’t have to come all the way to the practice room.]

Yu Na-gyeong scratched the feathers on her head. In her haste to reach safety, she had instinctively come to the practice room she often visited with Limon. Before and after her rebirth, “the safest place” had meant almost the same thing to her as “where Limon is.” Ironically, Limon’s sword was what had killed her in her previous life.

[Hmm. I can’t exactly go straight back to see the kids.]

After a moment’s thought, she turned her head and gazed wistfully at the case holding the Violin of Deepest Black, stored at the back of the practice room. [If Team Leader were here, I could pester him into playing for me.]

Since he had acquired the Violin of Deepest Black, Yu Na-gyeong had heard Limon play it more than anyone else. Even so, she always wished he would play it more often. His playing had improved by leaps and bounds, but what she heard when he used that violin was on another level entirely.

[He said he’d ease up on practice now. Does that mean I’ll have even fewer chances to hear it?]

Yu Na-gyeong crossed her wings like arms. She stared at the case for a while, then opened her beak without realizing it.

[... What a shame.]

She didn’t believe Limon’s goal of producing a performance on par with the Violin of Deepest Black through sheer skill—a goal so far-reaching it might as well have boarded a deep-sea fishing boat. But she had heard him play more than anyone else, and she knew how absurdly talented he was. She couldn’t help wondering what the violin would sound like if he really did attain the level of skill he wanted, unlikely though it was.

[Team Leader’s immortal, so maybe someday he really will play the way he wants to... but will it happen before I die again?]

How long did birds live, anyway? After thinking it over, Yu Na-gyeong gave a wry chuckle. She hadn’t even lived out her natural span as a human; it felt ridiculous to be calculating her lifespan now that she had been reborn as a bird.

[Well, whatever. This life is a bonus anyway.]

She giggled and turned around. There was nothing else to see, so she was about ready to return to the room.

[Huh?]

Yu Na-gyeong’s eyes widened. The moment she turned, she found herself looking straight into the eyes of a strangely familiar girl who stood right behind her, gazing at her.

[Huh?]

Startled that she hadn’t noticed the girl approaching, Yu Na-gyeong took a step back and blinked. Something about the girl looked odd. Her feet hovered above the floor. She could see through her body to the other side. And there was a peculiar emptiness in her eyes.

[Huhhh?]

The girl faded away.

As Yu Na-gyeong tilted her head at the strangely unreal sight, the girl vanished as though she had never existed at all. Or... as though she had no physical body.

The moment Yu Na-gyeong finally remembered what people usually called such a being—

[Aaaaaah! A g-g-ghost?!]

A deafening telepathic cry burst from her telepathy item and shook the entire practice room.

* * *

“Let me get this straight.”

His headache had already passed, but Limon rubbed his temples for a moment before fixing the downy little bluebird with a cool stare. “You send your already-busy Team Leader a long-distance telepathic blast out of nowhere, hard enough to rattle his brain, and that’s all you have to say?”

[What do you mean, “all”? I’m telling you I saw a ghost! A ghost!] Yu Na-gyeong cried indignantly.

But Limon seemed unimpressed. “So what am I supposed to do about it?”

[Oh, for fuck’s sake! Believe me! I saw it with my own two eyes!]

“I never said I didn’t believe you.”

[What?]

“I believe you saw a ghost. I just don’t see what’s so surprising about it.”

[... Team Leader, someone saw a ghost and you’re not even surprised?]

At her incredulous question, Limon looked even more incredulous. “Na-gyeong, what do you call someone who dies, then shows up in front of people again and starts talking?”

[A ghost, obviously.]

“Then can a ghost see another ghost, or not?”

[Of course it can.]

“Right. So why should I be surprised by something that obvious?”

[...???]

Yu Na-gyeong blinked several times, struggling to make sense of him. A beat later, she grasped his meaning, hopped furiously, and shrieked, [I’m not a ghost! I’m reincarnated!]

“Either way, you died and came back.”

[How can you twist things like that?!]

“The truths of life always sound like someone twisting things.”

Yu Na-gyeong stamped her feet at his unruffled reply, but Limon paid her little mind.

Every time he had hunted down black magicians, he had dealt with more than enough zombies, demons, and everything in between. A report of one ghost sighting was hardly remarkable. That didn’t mean he dismissed Yu Na-gyeong’s account entirely, though.

‘Hmm. An ordinary wandering spirit shouldn’t be able to enter the Leviathan Hotel.’

A modern building raised with a player’s construction skill might be another matter. The Leviathan Hotel had been built by traditional methods, and those traditions included the Seven Dragons Society’s formations and the temple’s wards. Without such measures, the Leviathan would have been the perfect place to become a ghost-infested haunt teeming with vengeful spirits.

‘If a ghost appeared anyway... it’s one of two things. Either Na-gyeong didn’t see a ghost, or one came in attached to something.’

An old hand was an old hand. Limon quickly identified how a ghost might appear even inside the Leviathan—and which powerful magical object could have carried one past the wards.

“A ghost and a cursed instrument. Those go together a little too damn well.”

Limon frowned at the case containing the Violin of Deepest Black. Yu Na-gyeong recoiled at his words.

[Wha—wait! Are you saying that ghost is attached to your violin, Team Leader?!]

“I’m not certain. It’s only one possibility. But...”

[But what?!]

“I told you I keep sensing something strange whenever I play that violin. It would make sense if what I felt was a ghost.”