Chapter 35

Chapter 35: Our True Feelings, A Special Life Over an Ordinary One
Our hands touched.
Should I pull mine away? Or was I the one making too much of it?
It was ridiculous that I was even agonizing over something like this.
‘It’s not as if I’m some middle schooler or high schooler.’
Even back when I was in school, I had never been this conscious of the opposite sex.
Why was my heart beating so fast?
In the end, I didn’t pull my hand away.
If I did, Ria might feel awkward.
When I glanced to the side, Ria looked just as tense as I was.
‘Maybe she’s thinking the same thing.’
At that moment, I felt foolish.
That we felt the same way, yet were both pretending not to see it.
And once that thought came to me, I finally brought up the topic I had been hesitating over all this time.
“So, have you thought about it?”
“About what……?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“Ah…… that.”
Ria pulled away the hand that had been touching mine.
“Seon-u, I want a little more to drink.”
“Huh? All right.”
I dropped ice into Ria’s glass and poured in sparkling water and whisky to make her another highball.
Gulp, gulp!
Ria downed it in one shot.
It was pretty strong, too.
Then she set the glass down on the tray and wrapped her arms around her legs.
She stayed like that for a long while before finally speaking with difficulty.
“No matter how much I think about it, I still want you to live an ordinary life, Seon-u. I don’t want to ruin your life just because you feel responsible for me.”
That again?
My head was starting to spin.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Then……?”
“I’m asking what you feel for me.”
The truth was, I already knew.
What Ria felt.
If I thought back on everything she had said and every expression she had shown me from the moment we met until now, the answer came easily.
I wasn’t particularly perceptive, but I wasn’t completely oblivious either.
“That is……”
“That is?”
“……I can’t say it.”
Ah, this was frustrating.
“Ria, you said you were going to give up revenge and live for your own happiness, just like your father’s last wish. But right now, you’re thinking while excluding your own happiness from the equation.”
“……”
Since I had started, I might as well say it more clearly.
“If, like you said, you truly wanted me to go back to my own world and live an ordinary life with some other woman, then you never should have brought me to a place like this in the first place. A man and a woman soaking in a hot spring together in the middle of the night—how could I not be conscious of that? And that day too, even if it was because of the alcohol, you should have rejected me instead of allowing it.”
“……”
“In your head, you keep telling yourself it can’t happen, for my sake. But your heart is pulling in the exact opposite direction, and it’s making your words and actions contradict each other.”
Ria couldn’t argue.
She was too bad at lying to deny it.
After remaining silent for a while, she finally admitted it.
“That’s right. In my thoughts, I keep telling myself I shouldn’t, but my heart and my actions keep going the other way. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do either…….”
“If you really don’t know, then I’ll tell you first. Just like you said, I don’t have even the slightest desire to live an ordinary life. More than anything, I’ve come to like you as more than a friend, Ria. As a woman. Which means now, no one but you will do.”
It was only after Ria left and I began waiting for her that I realized it.
That I had liked Ria all along.
I had known, and yet had forced myself to look away from it.
Ria looked deeply shaken when she heard my confession.
“Ria, stop thinking so complicatedly and just tell me what’s in your heart.”
“……”
For a long time, Ria hesitated to speak.
She looked so frightened that even moisture gathered at the corners of her eyes.
She hesitated for what felt like forever, then finally looked at me and opened her mouth.
“I…… like you too, Seon-u. So I want us to stay together for the rest of our lives……!”
She had finally said it.
“Then let’s do that.”
Then we looked at one another, and our lips met.
An ordinary life?
I chose a special life instead of an ordinary one.
Ria was the person who would let me live that special life.
***
In the end, nothing happened at the hot spring.
We kissed, and that was all.
After we confirmed each other’s feelings and kissed, we both got too embarrassed to even look properly at one another.
If we had been drunk like we were that time, maybe things would have been different, but in a state that was almost sober, there was no chance of that.
The walk back was very awkward too.
Still, even though our eyes were turned elsewhere, we walked with our hands clasped tightly together.
For more than three hours, without saying much.
‘Why does just holding hands make me this happy?’
I found myself thinking that I wished this time would last forever.
I had never once imagined that I would ever have such childish thoughts.
When we reached the Rift house, we exchanged goodnights.
“It’s late, but get a little sleep at least.”
“Mm. You too, Seon-u.”
“Sleep well.”
“Sleep well.”
And yet, perhaps because neither of us wanted to part, neither of us could bring ourselves to walk away.
I pulled Ria into a brief embrace and kissed her lightly once more.
Only then were we finally able to turn and head toward our separate rooms.
Afterward, I lay in bed, but my heart was pounding too hard for me to sleep at all.
Morning came.
The first one to notice the shift between us was Rin.
We were drinking tea on the sofa in the living room after breakfast, and Rin, standing on the coffee table, kept tilting her head as she looked back and forth between me and Ria.
“What is it, Rin?”
When I asked, Rin pointed at me and Ria in turn and said,
“Seon-u, Ria like?”
It didn’t sound like Rin was merely saying that she liked both me and Ria.
“So you mean Seon-u and Ria like each other?”
“Like!”
That did seem to be what she meant.
Then Ria and I looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“How did Rin figure it out so quickly? That’s amazing.”
“It really is.”
Then I said to Rin.
It didn’t matter whether she fully understood me or not.
I simply wanted to say it.
“From now on, Ria, Rin, and I are all going to keep living here together.”
Ria spoke to Rin too.
“The three of us will live happily together from now on.”
At that, Rin smiled brightly.
‘I should propose to Ria and hold a ceremony soon. So she won’t have to feel anxious.’
This place was all of Ria’s world, since she had nowhere else to go.
But I lived in both the world outside the Rift and the world inside it.
That had been the biggest reason Ria hesitated when it came to our relationship.
So the only way to truly ease her anxiety was to become a complete family.
***
Right on schedule, the three S-Rank Hunters came for breakfast.
They ordered three regular meals.
“Today’s breakfast is on the house.”
My words startled all three of them.
“Seon-u, what brought this on?”
“You’re not taking Magic Stones? Are you sick or something?”
“……?”
Did these people take me for someone obsessed with Magic Stones?
Well, I couldn’t exactly deny it.
“I have quite a bit of work I want Erik and Santos to do today.”
“What? So now you’re going to work us too?”
Erik protested.
“That’s why I’m giving you breakfast for free.”
“Even so……!”
Just then, Ria came over and stood beside me.
“Erik, from now on, treat Seon-u as my equal.”
“What? Why should I do that? I heard everything from Grandpa. You said you and Seon-u weren’t like that.”
Ria gave a little shrug and replied,
“But Seon-u and I are like that.”
“……What? Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
“……”
The three S-Rank Hunters looked back and forth between me and Ria in disbelief.
Then they all looked at me.
As if asking whether what she’d said was really true.
“That’s what happened.”
The moment I confirmed it, the Sword Saint broke into a bright smile.
“Hahaha! So you two really did end up that way after going out together last night! Congratulations. The two of you suit each other very well.”
Ria and I thanked him.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Then Erik chimed in too.
“What do you mean suit each other well? It’s more like Beauty and the Beast.”
Beauty and the Beast, huh.
I wasn’t quite that much of a beast.
I was fairly decent-looking.
Then again, my comparison was Ria.
She was an overwhelmingly beautiful woman.
Relatively speaking, maybe Beauty and the Beast wasn’t wrong.
“Yeah, compared to Ria, I really am lacking in every way. Not just in appearance, but in plenty of other ways too.”
The moment I said that, Ria got angry.
“What nonsense are you saying! I’m the one who’s far too blessed to have you, Seon-u.”
As the two of us bickered, Erik made a gagging motion.
“Ugh! I’m going to be sick, so save the affection for somewhere else.”
At that, the Sword Saint added a comment.
“This is their home, you brat. If anyone should leave, it’s you.”
“……Grandpa, that’s harsh.”
Soon, I began making breakfast.
The main dish for breakfast this time was bread I had bought from a high-end bakery.
I was fairly good at baking myself, but it was difficult to hand-make a wide variety of breads one by one.
And honestly, I couldn’t quite beat the skill of a true professional pâtissier, so when it came to bread, I usually preferred buying from a quality bakery.
Alongside that, I prepared tuna tataki, a smoked salmon salad,
grilled sausages, Eggs Benedict, coffee, and more.
I laid out breakfast in the style of a luxury hotel morning buffet.
“Please, eat.”
“This really does feel like a luxury hotel breakfast.”
The Sword Saint sounded impressed.
Erik added his own comment.
“When I get back safely, I don’t think I’ll miss much, but I know I’m definitely going to miss the food I ate here. Seon-u really is freakishly good when it comes to cooking.”
So the little brat knew how to compliment someone too.
Santos nodded as if he agreed.
Then the Sword Saint nodded as well and asked me,
“If I may ask…… which restaurant did you work at, Seon-u?”
“I worked in America, and in Italy too. In Korea, I was the sous chef at a place called Pungjeong.”
“Ah, Pungjeong. I’ve never been there myself, but I’ve heard of it. It’s so famous, after all. It used to be Michelin three-star, if I remember correctly?”
“Yes, it was. Though now it’s fallen to one star.”
“I see. My apologies for bringing up something unpleasant.”
“It’s fine. It stayed three-star the whole time I was there.”
“Ah! So it fell after you left.”
“That’s right.”
There was almost no point in saying more. My mouth would only hurt from repeating myself.
The Sword Saint continued with another question.
“Do you have any plans for the future, Seon-u?”
Plans, huh.
“I’m planning to open a restaurant on this floor of the Rift.”
“A restaurant in the Rift?”
“Yes. There are probably other ways I could make a great deal of money in business, but what I truly want is still a restaurant. Before I was a Hunter, my roots were as a chef.”
“Oh, that’s admirable. A restaurant on the fourth floor of the Rift—your ambitions are certainly grand.”
“When you return, please spread the word as much as you can. Tell people that a restaurant is going to open on the fourth floor of the Rift.”
“Of course. I’ll use every contact I have. Once the relief party and the following expedition arrive here, the map from the third floor to the fourth will be completed. Then a fair number of parties from all over the world will likely step onto the fourth floor. By the time they reach it, supplies will be badly lacking, but if there is a restaurant there, then at least the problem of food shortages will be eased.”
Experience truly couldn’t be ignored.
He had seen exactly what I was aiming for.
Though his sense of direction seemed to be another matter.
“That’s what I think too.”
I planned to build the restaurant on the western plain, outside the forest surrounding our house.
I didn’t want outsiders coming close to the private space shared by me, Ria, and Rin.
But would that really be possible?
If people started pouring in, all kinds of people would come.
There might be Hunters who targeted our crops, or who approached with other bad intentions.
Or perhaps even guilds attempting to raid us.
Inside the Rift, it was effectively a lawless zone.
‘Could Ria and I really handle that on our own?’
Would we need to hire guards and strengthen our defenses?
When that thought came to me, my eyes turned to the three S-Rank Hunters, who were enjoying breakfast.
‘No. Hiring those three would be far too expensive.’
It wasn’t an urgent issue yet, so I decided to think about it slowly.
After breakfast, we began digging a cave in earnest to cultivate Glace Mushrooms.
I intended to recreate an environment as close as possible to the Ice Cave in the Cheorwon B Rift and try growing the mushrooms there.
We decided to dig the cave into the ground to the right of the back of the house.
“Excavation, begin!”
“Sigh…… Begin!”
Erik let out a long sigh as he raised his pickaxe high and brought it down.
The rocks broke apart easily.
Santos was even stronger than Erik.
When he brought down his pickaxe, the rocks shattered as though dynamite had gone off.
And so the two of them began digging the cave smoothly.
“S-Rank laborers really are something else.”