NBFTR 16

Chapter 16

Ten days after the day of the completely insane company dinner.

Airy Coilestium, Viscount of Merit, was rubbing her eyes as she checked over a spell formula when she suddenly froze.

What am I doing?

What were these familiar yet unfamiliar formulas and research materials?

A blueprint for the Second Underground City? Why am I drawing a blueprint here without even a 캐Xdo? And what does “Second” mean?

Why were all these people who looked like strangers, yet whose names somehow seemed familiar, standing around her and staring at her?

Is this Earth? Was the eleven years since I possessed the body of the book’s character all just a dream?

“Airy. Are you okay? Do you want another cup of coffee?”

“Coffee? Why is there coffee here? Is it an iced Americano?”

“This is terrible. Get a grip, Airy! You said you were holding up fine!”

Airy staggered as the people around her shook and pushed her from one side to another. She covered her face.

Her head felt hazy and dizzy, as if she had worked for seventy-two hours straight without sleeping.

The researchers around her clicked their tongues and brought chairs and blankets, settling Airy down.

“Rest until Kailey-nim gets here. Hmm, there are about four minutes left.”

Has the name Kailey always been this terrifying?

It was enough to raise goosebumps on her cheeks.

Airy pulled the blanket covering her body all the way up to her face. She was shivering.

A moment later—

Knock, knock.

Everyone in the laboratory flinched for an instant. Then, upon seeing the door crack open, they buried their noses back into their work.

Airy, who still hadn’t come to her senses, belatedly turned toward the door without thinking.

Through the gap in the open door, her precious young master was grinning.

The cognitive dissonance was overwhelming.

“No!”

Airy screamed and sprang to her feet. She quickly pushed him out of the laboratory and slammed the door shut.

Laertes looked extremely startled as he grabbed Airy by the shoulder blades.

“Why? Did something happen?”

“Young master. Please don’t come here if you can avoid it. Don’t let them notice you.”

“Why are you acting like this? Airy, are you finally sick?”

“Magic scholars are all perverts. They’re mentally deranged. Don’t go near them. No, this royal palace is strange. Let’s escape. We need to get outside.”

Laertes’s expression as he listened to the torrent of words was…

Truly bewildered.

A little while later, Airy entered her room with Laertes escorting her.

In the laboratory, Laertes had personally explained the situation. Airy had been making strange eyes and talking nonsense, so he was going to let her rest for a while and bring her back later.

The people in the laboratory were disappointed, but they let them go, apparently for the sake of an even greater future.

The moment Airy saw her room, memories of the past ten days came flooding back.

Her eyes filled with tears.

I really worked for seventy-two hours without sleeping.

Is it really acceptable to abuse someone like this after they’ve practically died and come back to life…?

The man placed a cup of warm grain tea into Airy’s hands and asked worriedly,

“I thought you’d been pushing yourself too hard lately. Have you been taking your mandatory sunlight break?”

What was that again?

Come to think of it, a very long time ago, someone had told her to go out and get fifteen minutes of sunlight once a day.

There was apparently a place called a sunlight room, a small garden where she could also take a walk.

But Airy had never seen anyone leave the underground laboratory on the third basement level for more than fifteen minutes a day, except the head of the research institute, Else Kailey.

Everyone there had pale complexions and hollow eyes.

Dark circles hung beneath their eyes, their eyeballs were red, and their lips were the color of dried blood…

Wait. Weren’t they basically zombies?

Laertes let out a short sigh and helped Airy to her feet.

Amazingly, the sunlight room was less than ten meters from the room where Airy was staying.

She simply hadn’t known because no one had ever, not even once, told her where it was.

Of course, Airy had never asked either.

Before she knew it, Airy found herself enjoying the luxury of walking through a garden in the sunlight with a cup of warm tea in her hands.

Apparently, summer was just around the corner.

The sun was blazing fiercely, and Airy complained about damage to her corneas before retreating into the shade.

Only then did she get a full view of the sunlight room.

The sunlight room—in other words, the underground garden—had been turned into a vegetable garden for growing crops, unlike before the Great Raid.

Inside the circular walking path, which could be circled in about five minutes at a brisk pace, there were eight fruit trees and five rows of edible crops.

There was a fence preventing anyone except the caretakers from entering, and a lock the size of two fists hung on the entrance.

Apparently, quite a few people had been stealing food.

A stone wall decorated with moss for a touch of beauty rose impressively all the way to the ceiling.

If she looked up, she could see flying monsters passing overhead, as well as their young peering down.

That was what made this different from ordinary life.

But simply seeing the blue sky and bright light made her feel as though she could breathe again.

Airy’s entire body suddenly went limp.

She murmured absentmindedly,

“We had it good back then. Even if we didn’t have enough clothes or food, we could sit in good chairs, read books, and talk… I miss those days.”

“Airy, it hasn’t been that long since then. It’s barely been over two weeks.”

“I can’t believe it. I feel like I’ve spent my entire life here. And what is this sunlight room? Does anyone in this royal palace actually come here every day?”

“It was pretty crowded in the morning and around lunchtime. At least I come every day. I bring Pepper with me.”

“Pepper? Pepper? Where is Pepper? Is it really okay to leave him alone? What if someone eats him or something?!”

“It’s fine. He’s safe. Pepper was even given a title.”

“What?”

“His full title is now Honorary Baron Pepper Treasure White. He even gets a salary. He’s really made it big.”

Wait, why on earth does my miraculous pork cutlet have a noble title?

Airy’s eyes widened.

It was hard to believe that only ten days had passed. It felt as though the entire world had been turned upside down.

“What kind of noble duties could he possibly fulfill? Isn’t that animal abuse?”

“Abuse…”

Laertes gazed intently at various parts of Airy’s face.

“Looking at you, I really think that’s the right word.”

Airy touched her face and the area around her neck.

She seemed to have eaten regularly whenever she had the chance, but there wasn’t a single place on her body where she had gained any flesh.

Even the area beneath her eyes seemed deeply sunken…

Laertes sighed softly, then gently nudged Airy into the sunlight and pulled a sandwich from inside his clothes.

The woman instinctively frowned.

But when she recognized that what was nestled among the greens inside the bread was fried minced Palrak bird meat, she accepted it.

The Palrak bird was a flying monster that looked like a gigantic tongue, flying around while flapping its slick, slippery body.

It had appeared during the Second Great Raid, and its ability to spray slime made it particularly difficult to deal with.

But once its unpleasant outer shell was removed, the meat inside was extremely fatty and delicious.

Having gotten that far in her thoughts, Airy shook her head.

If it tastes good, that’s all that matters.

She had never dreamed that she would end up eating monsters, but she had heard that the Palrak bird meat she had drunkenly eaten at the company dinner had amounted to two whole birds’ worth.

“There are apparently several inner chambers of the old royal palace where the defense and locking magic is still active. You can’t enter them because of the rubble from the buildings, but apparently Pepper has been going in and out of them diligently and bringing out the royal palace’s treasures.”

“He really is an incredible little guy.”

“Right? He gets paid in mid- to low-grade mana stones. He eats the insides and leaves the shells behind, which were a hassle to dispose of, but apparently the people in the royal palace process them into jewelry and wear them. It’s fashionable. Apparently, they’ve been touched by a spirit beast.”

“My goodness. Even in the middle of all this, I suppose some people still have enough leisure for that.”

“They always do. And he doesn’t actually eat that much. Pepper also seemed happy that he was doing something for people.”

The skin that had been exposed to the sunlight began to sting.

And then sleepiness came rushing over her.

Airy forced herself to stay awake, opening her eyes wide.

Even so, she diligently continued eating her sandwich.

“How is the research going these days? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you standing upright and in your right mind that I have a lot of questions.”

He was smiling sheepishly.

Airy liked the expression so much that she smiled along with him.

She then casually explained the underground city design they were working on, which would allow more people to live safely.

She also briefly explained the subject she was researching with Else Kailey, called Magical Mechanics.

“We’re studying how magic reacts when it comes into contact with the physical properties of the world, how the two can be combined, things like that. Since there hasn’t really been a concept like this before, it’s fun creating everything from scratch. We have the basic framework now, so I think we can fill in the rest through experimentation.”

Even with her eyes half-closed, Airy continued talking nonstop about her research.

Laertes couldn’t hide his laughter as he watched her.

Airy rambled on about the underground city for a while longer.

Then she suddenly realized she had been doing all the talking.

She wasn’t someone who was particularly curious about other people, but at this point, she found herself wondering about her young master’s recent activities.

“Young master, haven’t you still joined the knights? Then what have you been doing?”

“I trained a little. I worked on getting my body into proper shape, and I studied using the most recently revised monster compendium.”

“The Fourth Wave monsters? The compendium is already out?”

“Not all of it yet. I think I’ll have to go on an inspection outside the royal palace grounds soon. With the knights.”

“Oh, you’ve made progress. Wouldn’t it be easier to join the knights, then?”

Airy asked while wiping the sauce from the corner of her mouth.

Laertes looked down at her and smiled.

“I had something I wanted to say about that, but I don’t think I’ll talk about it today.”

“What? Why?”

“Just because. I like things the way they are now.”

Airy assumed there must be something he hadn’t sorted out yet and nodded.

Then, thinking perhaps she had given up on getting an answer too quickly, she awkwardly tried to continue the conversation.

“Tell me once you’ve sorted it out later. I’d like to hear it too.”

“I’m happy to hear you say that. I definitely will.”

His smile seemed suspicious, but Airy decided to accept it.

The memories that had gradually been awakened were now clamoring loudly inside her.

It was her survival instinct warning her that if she kept slacking off, she was going to pay dearly for it.

The two of them walked one more lap around the garden while talking a little more about Pepper, and then went their separate ways.

Until that moment, Airy hadn’t thought deeply about Laertes’s problem.

So this place where I’m working is reality.

Airy thought that amid the research consultations pouring in from every direction, ongoing research, and ongoing projects.

If this really is reality, I need to keep my head straight.

Five neck rotations.

Five back-muscle stretches.

Reminding herself not to cross her legs.

Having suffered from quite a few ailments as someone who was practically permanently attached to an office desk, Airy decided that, despite being young, she would start taking better care of her decidedly un-fresh body.

In that same spirit, on the afternoon of the day she went for a walk with Laertes, Airy laid down the law to Else Kailey, the head of the research institute.

“I will be following the mandatory sunlight ordinance for fifteen minutes after every meal. If anyone doesn’t want to do it, that’s unavoidable, but Kailey-nim, I would appreciate it if you would pay particular attention to our labor rights—”

“Go.”

She gave Airy a cold look that seemed to say, Why are you bothering to explain something so obvious?

Airy enthusiastically tried to rally the people around her, but the young people who had been soaked in work their entire lives weren’t easily swept up in it.

Airy abandoned her plan to start a labor union and went for a walk alone the following day.

After her fifteen minutes of heavenly sunlight came to an end, Airy left the sunlight room in a good mood, a slight sheen of sweat on her body.

A servant came running toward her in a panic.

“There you are. His Majesty the King is looking for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Airy Coilestium.”

Her philtrum instinctively crumpled at the news.