Team Leader, Let’s Retrieve the Transmigrators First! - Chapter 5.1
“Team Leader? How long am I supposed to wait?”
Kangmu had summoned Iryeong, casually said, ‘You’re here? Just wait a minute,’ and then kept his eyes fixed on his tablet the entire time.
“Just a moment. This is something I absolutely have to read.”
Iryeong let out a small sigh as he watched Kangmu concentrate, then idly stared at the waterway flowing into the main current of the Hwangcheon.
“There really isn’t even a breath of wind here. No waves either.”
“Don’t say something so frightening. If waves start rolling across the Hwangcheon, the entire Underworld goes into emergency mode.”
He’d been talking to himself, but an answer came anyway. Kangmu sat sunk deep into his chair, occasionally tapping his tablet, his dopo[1] draped loosely over his shoulders.
“I know. It’s just so different from the scenery I saw on our business trip.”
Iryeong recalled the scenery from the original story on the night they brought Lee Jinwoo back.
The two moons scattering their gentle light in every direction had filled the black sky with their presence alone. Even the water in the moat surrounding the old castle Jinwoo had fled from had glittered beautifully beneath their moonlight. Though it was a world crafted at an author’s fingertips, Iryeong preferred that vibrant, living scenery to the Underworld he was looking at now.
“Nothing ever changes here. It’s unbearably boring. Maybe that’s why I can’t get attached to it.”
“You don’t seem to understand the virtue of things that never change. Want me to make some waves in the Hwangcheon for you? Bored?”
“…No. I’ll pass on the extra work.”
Did he really have to ruin the mood when someone was finally feeling sentimental? Iryeong briefly glared at Kangmu’s back reflected in the window, then sank into thought again.
If one followed the Hwangcheon upstream, one would reach the Samdocheon, where the dead who had put their mortal lives in order paid their fare and boarded boats to cross into the Underworld. Even today, souls who had met their deaths would be crowded along the banks of the Samdocheon. They were probably arguing over which boat would carry them.
They couldn’t help being objects of envy to those who existed in the Underworld. For beings of the Underworld, who could become nothing and remained fixed in place, nothing was more desperately longed for than the opportunity to live another life.
“I trust my subordinate isn’t enough of an idiot to deliberately drag up the things sunk beneath the Hwangcheon just because he’s bored.”
A teasing voice came from behind Iryeong as he leaned against the window and stared blankly downward.
“Ah, seriously. Why do you keep teasing me over something I just said offhand?”
When Iryeong snapped, Kangmu laughed quietly.
“Because your reactions are fun?”
…Let’s just not talk to him. More importantly, something had started to bother him. Iryeong recalled a conversation he’d had with Myowon-sunbae not long ago.
‘Iryeong-ssi, did you know there’s someone in the Underworld Administration who’s already filled his entire performance quota but doesn’t even spare reincarnation a glance?’
‘Come on, no way. That’s what everyone’s slaving away here for.’
‘That’s true. But that particular oddball is very close to you, Iryeong-ssi.’
‘Very close… Don’t tell me, the Team Leader?’
Myowon had given Iryeong an enigmatic smile.
‘Bingo.’
Could it really be true?
“But Team Leader.”
“Mm?”
Kangmu still wasn’t looking at Iryeong.
“Is it true that you’ve already accumulated enough performance to clear your karma, but you’re still staying in the Underworld?”
“Of course not.”
“…Right? Why would you stay here after filling your entire quota? What’s so great about the Underworld?”
“I suppose you’re right?”
So is that a yes or a no?
It was an ambiguous answer that made him tilt his head.
Come to think of it, aside from joking and teasing Iryeong, Kangmu rarely talked about himself. And that wasn’t the only rumor circulating about him in the Underworld.
“Iryeong-ssi, staring that hard isn’t going to bore a hole through the back of my head. Is there something else you want to say?”
“What? Uh, well.”
“If you stare at me that passionately, I might get the wrong idea.”
At the amusement in his voice, Iryeong gulped.
Seeing how casually he says things like that to another man, maybe the rumors really are true.
“…It’s not like I was staring that hard.”
“The back of my head is burning.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Feeling strangely guilty, Iryeong turned his head toward the window.
“What is it? If you have something to say, say it.”
Iryeong kept glancing over like a puppy desperate to relieve itself. Perhaps his curiosity had been piqued, because Kangmu finally lowered the tablet he’d been reading.
Unable to withstand Kangmu’s gaze, which seemed to tell him to go ahead and speak, Iryeong opened his mouth.
“Well, uh, I heard a rumor.”
Note/s:
[1] Dopo (도포)
– A long traditional men’s robe associated especially with scholars and yangban/aristocrats of the Joseon period. Unlike the more general durumagi, which functions as an outer coat, the dopo has a more distinctly scholarly and refined image. ↩
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