Chapter 97 (1) – Date…?

Part 1

‘I should organise my thoughts.’ The impatience he had been feeling faded away, with his decisions.

‘First, I’ll need to find out more about the upper echelons of Camille.’

Before entering into negotiations, or the more likely confrontation in this case, it was important to accurately grasp what type of person the other party was.

–

“Although there weren’t many who could be considered at the top of Camille, those in the north fall within the top five in rank. In our city too, we have opened an exchange and we do business with Camille. This much is publicly known.”

Euphir, who was under orders from Bacan to help Sanghyuk as much as he could, went beyond the answer the Fruit Merchant Euphir would give, and instead, answered as Euphir, a member of Black Cat.

“The top brass isn’t known, but everyone who ought to know, is aware of Camille’s status as the top echelon of smuggling. Maxim Camille, the owner, is a person who started out from the back-alleys so he knows smuggling, from inside out.”

Euphir calmly spoke of all he knew about Camille. Thanks to him, Sanghyuk was able to get a good picture of the top levels of Camille without spending a lot of money or effort.

Sanghyuk, who had bought a bag of fruit in return for priceless information, immediately returned to his hostel and logged out.

He took a quick shower and for the first time in a while, began making dinner. Although Leah was still in the capsule, he knew that she would be logging out within the next hour which is why he began to prepare dinner.

Although Sanghyuk wasn’t particularly interested in cooking, he had lived alone for a long time and knew how to make a simple spaghetti meal well.

As he prepared everything and waited, Leah also cut the connection and came out of the capsule.

“Oh, you came out early.”

“I figured I’d come out early to prepare dinner for once, since I’m always getting fed by you.”

“It’s not like my cooking was anything amazing. Oh right! I finally started a new quest today! Even though it’s just delivering the completed weapons, at least it’s much better than the job of just maintaining them.”

Leah looked genuinely happy, like she was truly enjoying herself.

“It’s not too bad if the second quest is a delivery. Build as many friendships and contacts with the Sun People as you can while doing that, it’ll be a big help later.”

Right now, the most important thing for Leah and Gyebaek was their favorability with the people of the Continent of the Sun so Sanghyuk advised them to prioritize that.

“Even if I don’t do that, I’m still working hard.” Leah answered with a bright smile, looking at her smiling like that, Sanghyuk vaguely felt that he could understand what people meant when they talked about how charming real beauty is.

She had just come out of the capsule, had no makeup on and her hair was still a mess but Leah was…so pretty.

Especially because these days, in the game, Sanghyuk had been immersed in the beauty of women through Ilya, it made him even more aware of Leah’s beauty.

Of course the feelings he had for Ilya and the feelings he had for Leah were completely different. The former was closer to an “animal” lust, and the latter was akin to an almost “spiritual” connection. They very much understood and appreciated each other’s thoughts and attitudes.

After dinner, Sanghyuk and Leah decided to sweat it out a bit.

Of course, it was only a light workout from Leah’s point of view – for Sanghyuk it was a more intense workout but either way, Sanghyuk was able to learn a lot through sparring with her.

The reason why Sanghyuk sparred with Leah whenever he had time was that he was able to develop his understanding of close combat, which helped him in the game.

Leah, as a person who had skill and experience enough to be called the world’s strongest woman, had unimaginable battle senses.

Sanghyuk was able to learn a little of that from her, which was applicable in both EL and in real life.

However the learning process was very difficult, but these days even that was becoming fun, as Sanghyuk’s proficiency in hand-to-hand combat and martial arts grew. He was no longer a living punching bag for Leah.

“Hua…. I really can’t do it anymore.”

Sanghyuk lay on the mat and breathed heavily.

“Hey, let’s do one more set.”

“If I do another set of that, I’ll die. I won’t be able to play EL and might have to spend the whole day lying down.”

“Tch… it feels like something’s missing.”

“I always say this, but lower your standards a little bit. I think you keep forgetting but I’m just a normal person.”

“Honestly, you’re not at the level of a normal person – it might not be up to the level of a pro, but your skill can be considered quite high at the amateur level.”

“Thank you for the compliment but I can’t do more.”

“Aww, well, let’s do some stretching together then.”

While they were finishing up the stretches, Sanghyuk carefully asked the thing he had been curious about for a while,

“Leah… is it alright for you to not go back?”

To be honest, Sanghyuk liked having Leah at his house. To be more precise, he liked it a lot.

He had been hesitating to ask this because he had been worried that she would go back as soon as he asked, but now it felt like he should know.

“Why? Would you like it if I went back?”

“No! Not at all! There is probably no roommate in the world better than you! You’re good at cooking, you teach me how to fight, you even clean up – it’s to the point where I wonder why people would bother getting marr- er so I mean, I don’t have any problems no matter how long you want to stay!” (EN: ^_^ )

While talking, Sanghyuk felt that he might have gone too far in his frantic speech and hurriedly glossed over the end of it.

“I like being here too, of course I like the gaming environment and Korean food. More importantly, this place is more comfortable than my American home.”

“Well, Korea’s high speed internet is definitely the best. Is there nowhere you want to go or anything you want to eat? I feel bad since we always stay in, when we’re not in the capsules.”

Sanghyuk was starting to get shy so he changed the subject by saying some nonsense.

“Hmmm, in fact, there is one place that I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Where? Wherever it is, I’ll take you.”

“I’ve always heard that Korea’s capsule game cafes have great facilities, I’ve always wanted to go there.”

(T/N – Search up ‘PC Bang’ if you don’t know what she’s referring to – they call it a ‘bang’ in the raws too which means ‘room’ but I used ‘cafe’ since it more accurately reflects what a PC bang is actually like)

The place that the world famous Leah Collins had always wanted to go was a capsule game cafe. She was certainly different from the average person.

“Only that?”

“‘Only’? It’s the place I’ve wanted to visit the most since coming to Korea.”

“Don’t you have capsule game cafes in the US?”

“The US has strict laws on capsule installation so there are very few capsule game rooms and the ones that do exist aren’t as nice and colorful as the ones in Korea.”

“Well, it’s not hard to go…”

It wasn’t difficult to go because Korea was overflowing with capsule game cafes but Leah’s celebrity status might cause a problem.

“Okay, wait a bit, I’ll try and find us a decent place.”

“Ooh? Really?”

“It’s not like it’s going to be anyplace amazing. But it wouldn’t make sense if I couldn’t take you out to a simple capsule game cafe.”