abcnovels
Chapter 307:
Chapter 307:
Chapter 307:
“Ho ho ho! I’m sorry about that. You’re such a nice person, and I doubted you for no reason.”
“Hey, it’s okay. It happens.”
It didn’t take long for Yu-hyun to befriend the innkeeper lady.
He offered to help her sincerely and did various chores, and he answered her questions promptly.
She soon smiled warmly at him, as if she had never been angry.
Her true personality was probably more like this, cheerful and outspoken.
“My name is Bella. I’m the owner of this inn, ‘A Piece of Spring’.”
“Nice to meet you, Bella. I’m…”
“Ah, don’t worry. I already know your name. Everyone does. I’ve heard it many times before. Anyway, let’s not stand here and talk. Have a seat. Have you eaten?”
“No.”“That won’t do. You need to eat well at times like this! Come on, sit down.”
“Uh, I’m really fine…”
“Well, since we’re here, let me show you what I can do today. Just wait a bit. I’ll treat you to a delicious meal.”
Bella forced Yu-hyun to sit at an empty table and went back to the kitchen to cook.
He wanted to help her, but she glared at him and told him to stay put. So Yu-hyun had no choice but to sit still.
‘But what about me? What’s going to happen to me?’
The things that were related to his body, called Kaira, were not simple.
There were people who hated and despised his appearance, not his essence, and their number was larger than he thought.
Yu-hyun was not Kang Yu-hyun in this place, but Kaira.
And Kaira would be a huge obstacle for him if he wanted to do anything here.
‘Maybe I should find Ringug again and ask him more questions.’
Who was this man named Hender, and what was the situation here? What exactly was the curse of the frozen land, and was there a solution?
Another thing that bothered him was the man named Lean.
He seemed to be the leader of this city, or someone close to that position, judging by how the people around him couldn’t move a muscle.
The first time he saw him, Yu-hyun felt that he was looking at something unfinished.
‘Lean. That man is definitely strong.’
He looked like he had conquered the world by his expression, but Yu-hyun noticed that he wore a sword and had an extraordinary aura.
But he didn’t feel complete. He felt like an incomplete work of art, missing something crucial.
‘I wish I had my book-reading ability now.’
But he couldn’t help it. His unique ability, the power of reading books, didn’t work properly since he came here.
He didn’t abandon it.
The power of the book-reading fragment was still with him.
He gave away the rest of the fragments to Kang Hye-rim, Kwon Jia, Seo Sumin, and Yoo Young-min, but this one was his alone.
He didn’t want to give it up, nor could he.
But he couldn’t use it properly in this world.
‘This power is severely limited.’
The system didn’t recognize the fragment.
That meant that Yu-hyun’s inability to use his power properly was not due to the system’s suppression.
There was something in this world that suppressed his fragment’s power.
‘It must be because of another fragment.’
There was another fragment in this world.
He knew that from Oelo’s vague explanation, but when he came here, it felt too far away.
He thought it was not an ordinary fragment, but rather a very large and powerful one.
‘But where do I find it?’
When he arrived at Guardian, Yu-hyun looked around carefully. But he couldn’t feel anything related to the fragment.
‘The fragment somewhere in this world, and the various problems related to my body, and the need to create a story in this city full of despair.’
He had more than one thing to worry about. He couldn’t afford to relax.
Even if he wore this body, his essence was still a teller. If he didn’t get enough points, he would disappear.
Just like the other tellers who came before him.
“Here! Sorry for making you wait! This is Bella’s special soup!”
Bella came out of the kitchen and slammed a steaming plate of soup in front of Yu-hyun.
He hadn’t eaten anything since he came here, so he ate the soup hungrily without realizing it.
Bella sat across from him and watched him with a proud smile on her chin.
“It’s delicious.”
Yu-hyun muttered as he put down his empty plate.
“Ha ha. If you want more, just say so. I have plenty left.”
“No. I think I’ve had enough. This body can’t take more than this anyway.”
He felt full after just one plate. It wasn’t the soup that was strange, but the body itself.
He was hungry, but he recovered his energy with just a little food.
Bella’s eyes sparkled at his honest words.
“You’re different from the ones who came before.”
“Me?”
“Yes. They were too different from you. They hated this situation so much that they always scowled like this. And they acted like they were the boss and ordered me around. Even when I gave them food, they threw the plate and said who would eat that crap.”
“That’s too much.”
“Ho ho. That’s right. You went too far.”
Yu-hyun thought that it was something a Teller could do. Most Tellers were so arrogant that they didn’t care about mingling with the people of the lower world.
Besides, this place was literally a place of exile.
It was bitter enough to be sent here, but how easy would it be to impress the humans of the lower world and get out of here?
There must have been conflicts.
“So what happened to the guy who threw the plate?”
“What do you think happened?”
Bella flexed her arm muscles and asked.
“Uh, no. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Ho ho. Don’t worry. I only use my strength to discipline those who annoy me enough to be insolent.”
“I think I know why the people around here reacted that way when they saw me.”
“That’s unfortunate. Not all of them are the same, you know. There are also good and honest kids like you. But people don’t know that.”
“I’m not sorry about that. It’s something that can’t be helped.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
Yu-hyun could vaguely guess what had happened here in the past from Bella’s words.
‘The other Tellers who came here must have had this body called Kaira. But what could the Tellers who came to this place of exile do? The ones who were protected by the Guardian would have a harder time adapting to moving with their own bodies.’
And they had to show their story here, but he had no clue where to start.
‘Story means showing a story. But just surviving in this place doesn’t make it a story. What the system wants, and the way for me to get out of here is only… showing a story that suits it.’
The first thing that came to Yu-hyun’s mind was the curse of the frozen land.
‘This world became a frozen world because of the curse of the frozen land. Until then, it was a place where people lived, but with the curse of the frozen land and the appearance of the frost giants, most people died and hid and lived like this.’
Then why did the curse of the frozen land happen?
What were the frost giants that appeared with the curse of the frozen land?
Yu-hyun thought that the story that the system would acknowledge was related to the curse of the frozen land.
‘And this place is, strangely enough, in a bad state with the system.’
It was as if something was mixed in the blizzard, and the connection with the system was not good.
It was not for nothing that this place was called the world where stories were frozen.
There was something in this blizzard that interfered with it.
‘It’s like there’s a wide-range jamming going on. It’s no wonder they all failed when they dropped here.’
And then, that failure piled up and piled up until the Gard survivors became distrustful just by seeing Kaira’s appearance.
The situation was desperate.
But Yu-hyun didn’t give up or despair.
‘Yeah. This is what it should be.’
No matter how hard it was, he vowed to show them that he could overcome it.
He wouldn’t have started if he was going to collapse here.
A fierce light swirled in Yu-hyun’s eyes. There were a lot of things to do, but Yu-hyun calmly planned to solve them one by one.
‘First of all, about that man named Lean.’
He thought Bella would answer his question right away with her friendly attitude.
It was at that moment when Yu-hyun opened his mouth to ask.
A noisy noise came from outside. At the same time, Bella’s expression crumpled.
“What’s going on all of a sudden?”
“It looks like the emperor’s gang is here.”
“The emperor’s gang?”
“You might as well see for yourself since you’ve found out. Come on.”
Bella led Yu-hyun out of the inn. The source of the commotion was not far away.
What Yu-hyun saw when he arrived there was two groups divided and confronting each other.
At the forefront of one side was Lean, the blond young man who had guided Yu-hyun to the inn, still standing with a tired face.
On the opposite side of him was.
‘He’s big.’
No, he wasn’t actually a giant. He looked about 190cm tall, but compared to the people Yu-hyun had seen so far, he wasn’t that big.
But he muttered that he was big without knowing it, because of his presence.
The silver-haired man who glared at Lean with his arms crossed. His lips were twisted as if he was amused, and his unkempt silver hair grew wildly like a lion’s mane. And his rough beard too.
The two groups were divided around the two men.
“Ugh. That damn emperor’s gang is at it again.”
“The emperor?”
“He’s not even an emperor anymore. The empire fell a long time ago, but he still talks about being an emperor.”
Yu-hyun’s eyes naturally turned to the man who was called the emperor.
At the same time, the man also looked at Lean and then threw his gaze at Yu-hyun.
‘Did he see me?’
He felt that he was watching him exactly from among the crowd.
And the other person also saw Yu-hyun and smiled.
It was a smile that was full of wildness.
He looked more like a bandit leader than an emperor.
Then the emperor opened his mouth.
“Hey, Lean. This is a bit disappointing, isn’t it?”
“What did you say?”
“If another Kaira came back, she should have given us some favors too.”
“…”
As soon as Kaira’s name was mentioned, Lean’s expression froze coldly.
“Frishen! You’ve gone too far!”
One of the people behind Lean shouted angrily.
The emperor, Frishen, snorted.
His attitude was arrogant as if he had no worth to talk to him.
Frishen’s eyes had been fixed on Lean since a while ago.
“Lean. No, no, you still have some lingering feelings for her, don’t you?”
“…”
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought that lady in here.”
At Frishen’s words, Lean’s gaze turned to Yu-hyun among the crowd.
At the same time, the eyes of the people around them all focused on Yu-hyun.
‘Oh, great.’
He just wanted to watch from a distance, but he couldn’t because of that guy named Frishen.
The people near Yu-hyun moved away and a path was formed around him.
Yu-hyun sighed and walked forward.
Lean’s gaze moved from Yu-hyun to Frishen.
Frishen spoke with a showy tone as he looked at Yu-hyun.
“Oh, Kaira. It’s been a long time. The last time was three years ago, right? Or maybe you can’t understand me. You’re just a stranger wearing Kaira’s mask.”
At his words, the hostility of the people turned to Yu-hyun. He expected this to happen, but he didn’t feel good to hear such words in front of him.
More than anything.
‘Frishen. This guy is not just provoking me. He’s using me to provoke Lean.’
But Lean remained still despite his words. He didn’t protect Yu-hyun or agree with Frishen.
He just kept his expressionless face as he did when he first saw him.
Frishen was surprised that he didn’t get the reaction he wanted.
“Hmm? You’re quieter than I thought.”
Frishen thought that if he provoked him on purpose, Kaira would react before Lean.
Those guys who looked like Kaira always acted as they pleased, as if they were superior to the guardians.
They couldn’t stand such trivial insults and immediately got angry.
He thought this Kaira would be the same, but he was quieter than he expected.
‘Is that his original personality? No. He’s calmly accepting the situation.’
He was different from the previous Kairas.
Frishen’s eyes were filled with curiosity. He moved his steps and stood in front of Yu-hyun.
“Yo, Your Majesty.”
“Stop.”
The soldiers behind Frishen tried to stop him, but Frishen silenced them with one word and scanned Yu-hyun from head to toe.
“Hmm. You look exactly the same.”
But his personality is different. Is he more docile? Or does he know how to control his anger?
Whatever it was, he was different from the previous Kairas.
Frishen’s search became more blatant. He deliberately pushed his face close to Yu-hyun’s nose.
As if to provoke him, he asked if he wouldn’t get angry.
“Tha, that guy!”
Bella was furious and tried to step forward, but Yu-hyun reached out and stopped her first.
The people who were gathered there changed their expressions as if they didn’t expect Yu-hyun to stop her.
Yu-hyun smiled and asked Frishen who was in front of him.
“So, are you done checking?”
“Huh? Ha. Hahaha! Are you done checking? My goodness, are you asking me that now?”
Frishen laughed as if he didn’t expect Yu-hyun to say that.
He was different.
He was different from the other Kairas he had seen!
“You’re interesting.”
Frishen said that and grabbed Yu-hyun’s chin with his hand.
“Good. I like it. How about becoming my woman?”
At his blatant words, angry voices erupted from Lean’s side. But Frishen didn’t care about them and waited for Yu-hyun’s answer.
Yu-hyun smiled brightly.
His beautiful face lit up with a smile, and the atmosphere around him seemed to change in an instant.
Even Frishen, who spoke provocatively on purpose, was unknowingly tempted by him.
“I’m a man, you bastard!”
But his words were the opposite.
Yu-hyun clenched his fist and punched Frishen in the jaw.