Old Wounds

Chapter 122

A week after the model town showing, Hetcha and Mira were ready to leave. I made a point of kitting them out with a limited set of reasonable quality gear on the horses I provided. They'd both looked at the good stuff with apprehension. It was nice enough it might inspire theft.

Fortunately, that wasn't an issue. The decoy set would make them stand out less and look like ordinary travelers. They would simply access the good stuff through the inventory. They'd be able to use the best things I had to offer and wouldn't have to worry about extra weight.

"Make sure you don't drink the water… basically anywhere. Not unless you drop a purifier in it first," I cautioned over a call. They were departing just after dawn from the farm. I could have gone up to say goodbye but had decided against it. Not because of my anxiety. I simply doubted they wanted to see me in person.

"Understood, 42," Hetcha replied.

"Also, if you get a chance, try it on seawater. I'm unsure whether it will remove the salt, separate it, or only clean up the other bits," I added. Elim could have tested that too, but he was staying rather firmly inland for the moment.

"We will," Hetcha agreed though she was hardly paying me any attention. Instead, she was looking around like something was missing.

"Forget something?" I asked.

"No… I'm just not sure where Mina is," Hetcha said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. I nodded at that. She hadn't made a fuss, but that didn't mean splitting up from her friends was easy for Mina.

"I'll be right back," I said and cut the call. Checking the map, I found Mina wasn't far. Or at least not outside of the valley. She'd gone to the model town and was playing checkers with Jeffry, one of the human fighters.

I watched this through the security feed and waited a few moments for their game to end before I called Mina. They'd been playing out on the porch of the future general store and had a small audience. Mina excused herself from the table and stepped into an alley between buildings before accepting.

"Hi... so, Hetcha and Mira will leave in about half an hour. If you want to hang out in town until then, I can teleport you over when it's time," I offered in a bit of a rush. Subtlety wasn't my thing, and I didn't think trying to pry into her feelings would work out in my favor.

"Ah, right… I'll let you know," Mina said unenthusiastically. She didn't hang up, though, which I took as a sign that she wanted to talk.

"You know, there's something I've been meaning to ask you… If your Korea does it the same way as mine did, then your given name is Jun, Mina is your middle name, and Lee is your surname. Is that how it is? Or is Lee your first name because that's how it comes up over your head and how you signed the contract, Lee Mina Jun," I finally asked. It had been bugging me for a while, but I'd been concerned that asking would cause problems. People could be touchy about names. It seemed like a far less fraught point of discussion at the moment than what was going on.

"My given name is Jun," Mina replied with mild disbelief written across her features.

"Do you prefer Mina?" I asked to cover my bases. It was honestly a bit of a pain in the ass any time I went to write their names. Not that it came up a lot. Still, if I mumbled a bit, it wasn't clear who I was talking about either.

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"I don't mind it, but… Mina is my middle name or, you know, my English name. My mom picked it in case I wanted to study abroad eventually, but I mostly used it when I was doing international streams," Mina explained. I nodded sagely, having a vague idea of what she meant and no genuine interest in an in-depth clarification.

"So you landed on planet renaissance fair and decided to go with that?" I asked out of curiosity.

"Huuuh, basically," Mina said with a long-suffering sigh. "When I first arrived here, it was in a city of giant fucking weebs. So when I told them my name was Lee Jun, they misunderstood it as Lee-kun, like the honorific."

"Oof," I offered a sympathetic noise since I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say.

"Yeah, oof. No amount of explaining got them to change it, so I started going by Mina," Mina growled the first part and sighed the rest.

"Okay, so, would you rather I call you Jun? Or would it be Lee-hubae? I only half-ass know how honorifics work," I asked.

"Fuuuuck, that was nice to hear," Mina replied and laughed.

"So?" I asked, trying to remind her she hadn't answered.

"Just Jun, thanks," Jun, formerly Mina, said with a grin.

"Jun it is, and you can just call me 42," I replied.

"Aaah, I can't call you 42-nim?" Jun asked playfully.

"You can if you want," I said, having no investment in the subject. There were a few beats of silence, but it felt relatively comfortable. Jun also didn't take the opportunity to hang up, so I again assumed that meant she was still okay with talking.

"I'm scared I'll want to go with them," Jun said, apropos of nothing.

"Huh?" I replied, eloquent as usual.

"With Mira and Hetcha. I'm scared I'll feel the same urge I did before and follow them. We all tried to ditch each other a couple of times during our "hero's quest," but it never worked. Even if we got away from each other for a while, we'd always catch up," Jun explained.

"Oh fuck," I said. This time it was definitely the appropriate response.

"Yeah… It was the same thing with my name. I could have changed it, and I even tried when I first got to Stromholt. But, then those fuckers put the pendant on me," Jun continued.

"It was like my brain leaked out of my ear. I started thinking, doesn't Mina sound so much more proper and feminine?" Jun explained, looking angrier as she went. By the end, she was a little red in the face as she snarled feminine.

"It's a girl's name in Korean, and it means talented," she added more calmly.

"Guess your mom had a premonition," I offered. Jun laughed at that, and some of the tension went out of her. She leaned against the side of the general store, looking exhausted in a way a sixteen-year-old shouldn't.

"You know… I like it here, but I can't just disappear on her. My dad was a piece of shit who bailed on us when I was young. So she raised me on her own, which wasn't easy," Jun offered.

"Well, for what it's worth, I hope you get back to her soon," I said honestly.

"Would you go back if you could?" Jun asked me. The question caught me off guard.

"Honestly, no," I said after only a moment. I hadn't thought about it because it hadn't seemed like an option. Now that I was, the problem of subsisting on murder aside, I honestly didn't feel drawn to the idea.

"No?" Jun asked. She seemed curious rather than judgmental as she did.

"No… As much as I'm not happy with my job, I'm pretty much god in my domain, and there's magic and fantasy stuff everywhere," I trailed off, organizing my thoughts. "I'm not trading this for a return to the subsistence living gig-job hellscape I came from."

I only remembered my last few minutes of life before I died. The inciting incident, if you would. It was enough when combined with the factual information I could recall.

If I got the option to switch to a different job, I might consider it, but that was all. Even then, I wasn't sure if I'd want to make the change. As much as I didn't like having to pay a tithe, I liked the powers I had.

"42… could you do me a favor? Teleport me over, but don't let me leave with them, even if I try to insist?" Jun asked. It broke me out of my reverie, and I nodded immediately.

"Yeah, Jun. I can do that," I said simply.