Whirrrrrrr…
The sound of the computer working hard could be heard. I turned on the computer and was checking whether the Little Magician Lumi’s goods had come out or not. With my tiny hands, I accessed the portal site, entered my ID and password, and started rummaging through my mailbox.
Since I participate in events every day, I once received an email saying I had won a prize. So, the first thing I check when I turn on the computer is my email. But today, there was a strange email.
It wasn’t from the usual account. I opened the email to check.
[This letter started in England…]
[If you read this, you will not be able to win Lumi’s goods in the future.]
[To avoid this, you must send this email to two people.]
“Huh…?”
I couldn’t help but panic after reading the email. Not being able to get Lumi’s goods in the future! This was a big deal. I barely calmed my trembling eyebrows and read the email again.
But the content didn’t change. It said that I could only receive Lumi’s goods in the future if I sent this email.
After reading the email, I was in a huge dilemma. If I don’t send this email to two people, I will never get Lumi’s goods again. That fact confused me. But if I send this email to two people? I can get Lumi’s goods, but the two people who receive the email won’t be able to see Lumi’s goods in the future.
“Sniff…”
With tears in my eyes, I was thinking about whether to send this email to someone else. Lumi’s goods should be distributed fairly to everyone. That was Lumi’s principle. But if I send this email to someone else, it would be no different from betraying Lumi’s principle.
If Lumi, who values justice, knew about my actions, she would be very disappointed. I was sure that Lumi would never send this email to someone else.
“Ugh!”
I had no choice but to collapse in front of the computer and cry. In my head, an angel and a devil were fighting. The devil’s side was telling me to send the email, and the angel’s side was telling me not to harm others.
But then I came up with an idea. What if I asked Bora and Haru? Bora and Haru didn’t seem very interested in Lumi. I like Lumi and am interested in her, but if I weren’t interested, Bora and Haru wouldn’t even know about Lumi’s existence.
In households without children, they probably wouldn’t know anything about characters from children’s animations. If they were married, they might know because they watch children’s animations with their kids.
But I had to get their permission. Sending the email without permission would be no different from betraying Bora and Haru, who have always supported me. But my feet wouldn’t move easily. How betrayed would Bora and Haru feel if they knew my thoughts?
The brilliant idea I came up with also became ambiguous to execute. I made a sad face and just moved the mouse wheel up and down. Even with my excellent brain, no other solution came to mind. I only thought of the despicable method of shifting responsibility to others.
‘Bora and Haru would be disappointed if they saw me like this…’
I slammed the keyboard, saying “Eat, eat!” The despicable email was bringing out my violent side. Tears welled up for no reason. I had no choice but to wander around the room with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t calm down if I stayed still.
Then, Haru opened the door and came in. Haru had just come back from work, wearing a coat and skirt. Haru was startled to see me crying and approached me.
“Hana! Why are you crying? Did someone bully you?”
“Sniff… sniff… There… a strange email came!”
I showed Haru the email while hugging her. Haru calmly read the email and then smiled and said.
“Hana! This is just a prank email. Spam mail!”
“Really…?”
“Yeah!”
I suddenly felt better at Haru’s words. I don’t know who it was, but sending such a lie-filled email… I prayed that they would get struck by lightning while walking.
“Hana. Should we go buy Lumi goods today?”
“Really? Haru, you’re the best!!!”
Haru noticed that I was feeling troubled and suggested we go buy Lumi’s goods. I smiled and changed my clothes to go out. Haru is really the best.
————————————————————————————-
“Really… amazing…”
Park Gu-il was at some graduate school…
Thanks to the notebook brought by Saeng, a groundbreaking discovery was made. No scholar could achieve results like Park Gu-il.
On the desk, A4 papers printed from the printer were piled up like a mountain. Since Park Gu-il’s eyes weren’t great, he put on magnifying glasses and carefully read through each A4 sheet, one by one.
A decent graduate student had produced unexpected results. Of course, Park Gu-il, being a reasonable educator, planned to include the student’s name as a co-author. Hogging all the credit wasn’t his style.
“If you put in the effort, you should share it.” That was Park Gu-il’s motto. Anyway, he kept reading the symbols on the A4 papers, frowning as he went.
“This is absolutely, absolutely not some made-up language pattern as a joke. There’s no doubt that someone who knows the Gate language wrote this. But who in Korea knows the Gate language this well?”
Park Gu-il tried to mobilize all his connections to find the owner of the notebook, but it was a failure. Searching every corner of the country, finding the person who wrote this notebook seemed impossible. Korea might be a small landmass, but to Park Gu-il, it felt like an enormous continent.
Then, the assistant next to him spoke up.
“Could it be that one of the Hunters knows the language? Hunters have all sorts of abilities, and someone might have suddenly gained knowledge of languages, right?”
When the assistant asked, Park Gu-il shook his head.
“I inquired with the government, and they said there are no certified Hunters with such abilities.”
In Korea, to operate as a Hunter, you had to be certified by a government-run agency. Just like needing a driver’s license to drive a car, Hunters had to obtain a license to operate. If caught operating without registration, there would be severe penalties.
There was even a government agency dedicated to catching unregistered Hunters. Of course, since registered Hunters received tremendous benefits, there were hardly any unregistered ones—unless they were truly eccentric.
“But the person who knows this language has quite a unique taste.”
“Right?”
You’d expect something like strict ceremonial texts or dignified sentences, but the Gate language in this notebook contained the opening lyrics of the Little Magician Lumi.
“Doesn’t it seem like someone who likes jokes knows the Gate language?”
The assistant said while looking at the extracted Gate language from the notebook. Until now, they hadn’t even understood the sentence structure, but thanks to this notebook, they made progress. They figured out the sentence structure and discovered that this Gate language combines words to form sentences.
“Something… something feels like it’s within reach, but not quite.”
Park Gu-il thought that if there were just a bit more content, they could make a huge breakthrough in deciphering the Gate language. Relying on just one song’s lyrics made it hard to interpret the entire language.
Still, they succeeded in decoding the language patterns, which allowed them to decipher languages found in other Gates. This alone was enough to shake the linguistics world. As they were diligently analyzing the patterns, one assistant chuckled and said.
“Could it be… that the person who knows this Gate language is a kid who loves the Little Magician Lumi?”
The assistant had hit the nail on the head, but that logic was quickly dismissed by Park Gu-il’s scolding.
“What nonsense! The handwriting might look a bit childish, but I think this is a smokescreen. They must be subtly hinting that they know the Gate language. There’s no way a kid could know this.”
Park Gu-il staked everything on the idea that the person who knew this Gate language was some kind of attention-seeker. After all, it made much more sense than a kid knowing it.
