I Became a Raid Boss-Chapter 210: Know your enemy and know yourself (2)

The gym was filled with tension.

Yuki, who had been watching my movements with a determined gaze, finally made her move.

At the same time, a clear bell rang out.

~♪

"Wait a minute."

I raised my hand, and Yuki, who had just moved, was suddenly stopped in her tracks.

Her body tilted as though she might fall, but with great skill, Yuki managed to regain her balance and glared at me with an expression of dissatisfaction.

Hmm... sorry?

Actually, not really sorry.

"Uh, uh?!"

But Da-eun couldn’t manage the same.

Having started moving before Yuki, and not being as skilled at handling her body, Da-eun couldn’t stabilize herself due to the sudden stop.

"Ugh!"

She wobbled, eventually falling to the floor.

"...Puh."

Her fall resembled the image of water spilling from a bucket.

I covered my mouth with my hand, but the sound escaping was hard to suppress.

At the same time, the corners of Da-eun's eyes lifted.

"...You’re laughing? Someone fell, and you’re laughing...?!"

"Well, it's good. You said you wanted to see Kana laugh. Now that you've seen it, isn’t your wish fulfilled?"

"...That’s... that's true, but...! I didn’t want to make you laugh with slapstick!"

"But you did laugh, didn’t you?"

"...Ugh!"

Yuki, who had approached Da-eun, poked her back, while Da-eun yelled at Yuki as she was being poked.

Why is she just lying there on the floor if she's so embarrassed about falling?

I really can’t understand Da-eun's thinking.

I ignored the playful banter between the two and took my phone out of my pocket.

"Since we're at it, how about considering a career path in that direction? You seem to have quite a talent for it."

"Don’t just say random things! And how would you know if I have talent or not, Yuki?"

"...What do you mean?"

"Yuki, you can’t act for shit."

"...."

"You can’t act to the point where it's unbearable."

"...Movie directors aren’t in their positions because they’re good actors."

"Even so, I don’t think anyone’s as bad as you."

"This is it. Get up. I’m going to hit you so you can’t talk anymore."

"Yeah, I won’t fight unless it’s arm wrestling~"

...Is this just a joke?

Anyway, I hope the trouble doesn’t land on me.

I shrugged my shoulders and received the call, which had interrupted our sparring.

"Yeah."

-...Why are you picking up so late? You're not trying to make excuses like it’s a scam call again, are you?

"I wasn’t planning on doing that."

In a sense, it’s a phone call more unwelcome than a scam.

As I listened to Edel’s voice from the other side, I thought about that.

"Why are you calling?"

-What’s this? Do we need some sort of incident to call each other?

"...Ugh."

...This is honestly pretty gross.

I couldn’t hold back a gagging sound that came up from my stomach, especially since I couldn’t stop laughing earlier.

"Don’t do that again."

-You’re right. I regret it too, so be quiet.

And then she muttered, as though complaining.

-I knew I wasn’t going to hear anything good, so why did I do that?

"I know."

-What?

"You’ve lived too long, so your head’s gone weird."

As a god, you’d be different from humans, of course.

Having lived for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years, it wouldn’t be strange if your mind slipped for a moment.

Just now, I had a sudden, unexpected reaction, but I couldn’t help it.

"I understand."

Yeah. I’m broad-minded, after all.

-...Who’s broad-minded?

"Me."

-What do you mean, broad-minded with a flat chest? Oh, I see. It's broad because there’s nothing sticking out?

"..."

-Why aren’t you saying anything? Did I hit a nerve?

"I’m not bothered."

I wasn’t even hoping for anything to grow, so why would I be bothered by something like that?

But where did she learn to talk like that?

-Where would I learn? If you’re a game developer, you should have a basic understanding of internet culture.

"I’m not a game developer. You tricked me by saying it was a game. Scammer."

-I made it up and put it out, so I’m a developer.

"No."

-Yes.

"...This is childish. Aren’t you embarrassed, bickering at this age?"

-If you can’t rebut the message, you attack the messenger.

Edel and I clashed without yielding an inch.

This was a fight of pride.

Now that we’ve come this far, there’s no backing down.

...Or so I thought, until I turned around, sensing something strange.

"..."

"..."

Both Da-eun and Yuki had stopped fighting and were staring at me.

And all of them were wearing warm smiles.

"...What? What is it?"

"Uh, nothing."

"Good luck."

Da-eun said gently, still wearing a warm smile, while Yuki waved her practice sword like a cheering stick.

Seeing them, I felt an inexplicable heat rise in my face, so I quickly turned my head.

Yeah, what would I gain from fighting with Edel?

As I said before, I, being the more broad-minded one, should just understand.

"Time’s running out. Just tell me what you want. If there’s nothing, I’ll hang up."

-You’re the one with no time, huh? I’m sure you’re just wasting time, lying around.

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"I’ll hang up."

I ended the call, and almost immediately, another call came through.

The caller, of course, was Edel.

As soon as I answered, Edel spoke, as though she couldn’t believe it.

-You really hung up? Are you completely crazy?

"I told you I’d hang up if there was nothing to say."

-How prickly.

Edel sighed softly and finally started getting to the point.

It had been a while since the call started, and now, only now, was she actually talking seriously.

I barely held back a sigh.

-That thing you brought before, remember?

"That thing?"

It was easy to recall what Edel was referring to, since there was only one thing I had given her.

It wasn’t hard to remember at all.

"Are you talking about the cube?"

-Yes. That.

"Why suddenly? Did you find something out?"

-Well... I’m not sure whether to say I found something or not.

"...If it’s either one or the other, what’s with the ‘neither’?"

-I found something, but it’s not a huge discovery.

Edel started to unravel the story she had been holding onto.

What happened in Jeju was because of the cube, and the strange weather was caused by the separation of realms, which twisted the flow. As expected, it was something from outside the dimension.

While listening to Edel pull out details from her bag of stories, I nodded.

"...Is that it?"

In the end, there wasn’t much I learned, aside from confirming what I had suspected.

Of course, there’s a difference between suspicions and confirmed truths.

Still, this wasn’t really something she should be calling about so confidently.

"If you were going to tell me this, why not just text me?"

-You kids are scared of phone calls, right? Seems like it’s true.

"I’ve said that before."

-I know.

"I thought... you forgot."

-Can I ask what you were about to say before ‘forgot’?

"I wasn’t really thinking about anything. You got something to say?"

-...Ha. Forget it.

Edel clearly understood the implications in my words and waved the white flag.

-You were the one who threatened to hang up if I said something else. Anyway, if that was all, I wouldn’t have called.

Judging by the way she spoke, there was something important here.

I quickly sat up, and Edel spoke in a serious tone.

-The cube, separating the realms... it’s very similar to how we create worlds. Of course, it’s not without instability...

"...?"

Her voice was serious, and the content sounded serious too, but...

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get much sense of urgency from Edel’s words.

"Why?"

If "we" refers to gods like Edel and the manager, then it’s nothing private, right? I wouldn’t find it strange if that’s possible.

From what Edel told me, it seemed like she wasn’t lacking in intelligence, so it wouldn’t be odd if she learned about her methods during our fights.

Know thyself, know thy enemy.

I guess she thought the same.

But Edel didn’t seem to agree with my thoughts.

-What you know and what you can do are different, okay? Do you think creating worlds is easy?

"Uhm... I guess not."

-At least, there’s something on the other side that’s almost as powerful as our abilities. Without that, it would be impossible to even imitate something like this.

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy.

This was definitely too serious a topic to be dealt with by text.

I mean, I could do it, but it wouldn’t feel as real, would it?

"Do you think it’s something we can handle?"

-For now, we’ve decided to be more prepared. Just building up walls won’t be enough. We realized that.

"So, no sharp solutions, huh?"

-Exactly.

It was a surprisingly straightforward admission.

Earlier, she was arguing about something insignificant, but now she was admitting this so easily.

"So, what should I do?"

I figured there was more she wanted to say, so I wanted to get it out.

In response to my words, Edel replied.

-Not much. For now, there’s nothing for you to do. If anything, just focus on building up your strength.

"Really, that’s it?"

-Yeah. I just called to hear the voice of a fellow shipmate. I told you, didn’t I? Do we have to have some big incident to call each other?

"...Did you eat something weird?"

At this point, even I started to feel worried.

Her unusual behavior had me softening my voice, and Edel let out a hollow laugh.

-If you have time to worry about useless things, just focus on getting stronger. You’re still far from ready.

"I’m doing it, even if you don’t say it."

Unlike Da-eun or Yuki, who can improve their skills by sparring, I don’t have the right means to earn experience.

I responded bluntly to Edel’s words.

-And...

Edel hesitated, as though she was about to say something, then-

-...No, it’s nothing. Forget it.

"...What?"

-I’ll hang up now. I’ve got a busy schedule.

And with that, the call ended.

"...?"

What was that...?

She started with the intent to say something important, but then just ran off without saying it.

If she wanted to stir my curiosity, it was a complete success.

But what I felt from Edel’s voice wasn’t anything like that.

"..."

I suppressed the uneasy feeling that had unknowingly come over me and looked down at the phone that had just been hung up.