Translator: Wan ED/PR: Personal Ghost
26. Chess Player (5)
British-Korean Player, Kwon Jane.
The master of Eternal Lake team, one of the world’s top 10 guilds and one of the 4 top guilds in England, and world famous violinist.
An artist who possessed her very own solid music world.
Even if such Kwon Jane makes a slightly particular comment, no one will think it’s strange and just say ‘Worthy of Blue Violinist!’ or ‘As expected, Kwon Jane is different from ordinary people, huh!’.
So on the day of Kwon Jane’s Korean performance at the Hoyeon building.
Our class kids were only surprised and didn’t attach much meaning to Kwon Jane’s words or actions.
That was a blindspot.
Shaa—!
I looked up into the sky when the sound of the wind got a bit louder and saw an air stagecoach limousine landing.
From the inside of the limousine, whose engine didn’t stop, came out Jared Lee.
“Hi, Uisin-gun. I’ll give you a ride.”
“Yes, hello.”
Even today, Jared Lee was wielding perfect Korean which was like watching dubbing.
Jared Lee was much more haggard than when I met him at Seokchon Lake.
The shine flowing through his golden hair before disappeared and his cheeks were sunken.
“I’m sorry for calling a student at this late hour. Kwon Jane wanted to come, but currently her body state isn’t so good, so…”
Jared Lee spoke with an ashamed expression.
At first Kwon Jane said she would come to meet me at Eungwang School.
While waiting for Kwon Jane at the main gate, the call came again and Kwon Jane said:
[Teammates got in the way. Sorry. Uisin, please come. I’ll send you a ride.]
I said it’s okay, because I could guess what happened, given the circumstances.
But I didn’t expect that the team sub-master would pick me up.
“Even though the team doctor and other teammates tried to talk to her, Jane was stubborn, so… It was difficult to stop her. She merely agreed on the condition I will bring Uisin-gun personally.”
Inside the car quietly heading towards the destination without noise.
I heard Jared Lee mumble with a weak voice.
“It’s all because of me…”
***
Seoul, Yangcheon district, Sinwol, West Seoul Lake.
The Eternal Lake team building located in this vicinity.
The wooden building harmonizing well with the lake scenery on the outside was the Eternal Lake team’s fortress, coated in otherworld metal on the inside.
‘Considering the events the Eternal Lake went through, isn’t it natural?’
The Eternal Lake saw the England’s Association being drawn into a state of destruction with the Jin people’s attack, and then they lost the majority of teammates in the Manchester Great Otherworld Conquest.
They couldn’t help but be sensitive about security.
When I passed through three security portals connecting the inside of the building, Jared Lee who continued to exchange messages with someone through the device, spoke up:
“Uisin-gun, that… I have a request.”
“Please speak.”
“Can you convince Jane to eat some food? Because these days she doesn’t eat at all. She endures as she is an outstanding Player, but we don’t know when she will collapse. She won’t even use the recovery item card and…!”
Looks like Kwon Jane’s state was worse than I thought.
“Yes, I’ll try.”
“Yeah! Thank you, Uisin-gun!”
Jared Lee started to hastily write messages with a rejoiced expression.
I guess he was probably sending messages like ‘Bring all the food you can!’.
As under Jared Lee’s guidance I crossed the fourth portal, I saw the door engraved with a blue violin.
In front of the door made from the otherworld metal, I saw the restless Eternal Lake’s team members standing.
“This student, is it student Jo Uisin?”
“It’s the child that came as a staff member. It’s been a long time.”
“Please induce Jane to eat something. Please!”
They were people who came as staff to the Hoyeon building.
The person standing the closest to the door opened them while smiling with sunken eyes.
“For Kwon Jane-nim, please do your best.” [1]
As if the Eternal Lake’s team members received a word beforehand, no one followed after me through the door.
‘Worthy of Blue Violinist’s room.’
It was full of frames made out of otherworldly metal with successive generations of Kwon Jane’s performance posters inside.
On one side of the wall was an analogue printed poster, on the other side was a hologram with Kwon Jane’s video performance.
Under the poster and hologram, I saw trophies and awards laying on the exhibition stand.
‘I guess she is both practicing and composing here.’
Everywhere in the room were dozens of all kinds of music stands and on them were music scores and quill pens.
On the waist high table, ink bottles and empty music sheets were piled up.
However, ironically, currently in this place, a sound that didn’t harmonize with the great violinist’s room was ringing out.
Kiiiiiiiik— Kkiik!
The sound with the power to destroy ears was pouring out.
The horrible sound, close to the death cries of annihilated Enemies, was ringing out from the deepest part of the room.
‘Is Kwon Jane making that sound?!’
As I approached the origin of the sound, Kwon Jane stopped the act, which I didn’t know if it was a violin performance or destruction, and turned towards me.
“Hi, Uisin.”
Kwon Jane’s thin face was completely without color.
It was the same tranquil voice as when we talked over a call, but when she talked like that with such a face, it looked like bluffing.
“Sorry for making you come all this way. Let’s sit down.”
After sitting down on a feather fabric sofa, I noticed a table set with so many dishes that the table legs were almost breaking.
Pudding, jelly, congee, soup…
The glasswares, about as big as vending machine paper cups, were all filled with nothing but food that was easy to digest.
On the table that didn’t have space and on each cart that was brought over completely caffeine-free drinks to drink.
“Can I eat?”
“Of course.”
“Senior-nim, please eat too.”
I grabbed the pudding with tart cherries and raspberry juice in front of me as I spoke.
“I, a bit…”
“I feel uncomfortable eating alone.”
Thinking about the terribly worried Eternal Lake’s members, starting with Jared Lee, who were behind the door, I spoke up.
Kwon Jane hesitated, and then selected a blueberry jelly bowl.
However, she didn’t hold a spoon.
It seemed difficult to solve Kwon Jane’s food problem any further.
“Didn’t you say you have something to talk about? Speak.”
“I wanted to talk about the relationship between Lee Lena and senior-nim.”
Tok.
The jelly bowl Kwon Jane was holding fell to the floor.
Thanks to the spread out blue carpet, the jelly bowl didn’t break, but Kwon Jane only quietly stared at her hands that lost strength.
“May I continue to speak?”
I decided to indirectly ask Kwon Jane for permission.
Because strictly speaking, I was a complete stranger, an outsider.
“Okay. You’re that child’s class friend and didn’t you save her one time?”
Kwon Jane looked at me with her blue eyes.
I guess Kwon Jane even knew that I saved Lee Lena.
As I obtained Kwon Jane’s permission, I decided to open my mouth.
“It was strange from the moment you ran into each other at the Hoyeon building for the first time. Because both senior Kwon Jane-nim and the Eternal Lake’s team members’ actions were awkward.”
“Awkward? How?”
“The first thing that caught my mind were the names.”
The day of performance at Hoyeon building.
As working staff, all four of us from our class were wearing staff name tags on our necks with big names.
“In our country, the name ‘Lena’ is very rare. If we check the electronic family register system, not even 300 people use the name ‘Lena’. “
“What is the problem?”
“Isn’t senior Kwon Jane-nim’s mother-nim’s name Lena? And the piece you planned to perform as an encore song was named ‘for LENA’, right? So if you see a child that uses that rare name in Korea, your natural reaction would be to be amazed and bring it up in the conversation at least once. However, that day no one mentioned it as if they promised beforehand.”
The Eternal Lake’s teammates that day treated us very kindly while talking to us about all kinds of things.
It was to the degree that they invited us to go to the after-party together.
Even so, the topic of Lee Lena’s name never came up.
It contrasted with Cheong-ho’s disciples I met on the same day, who reacted straight away the moment they saw the name ‘Jo Uisin’ on the staff name tag I was wearing.
“Even senior-nim, rather than being surprised by the identity of Lee Lena’s name, was surprised by the fact Lee Lena was a staff member. It’s likely you heard from someone the fact that Lee Lena came, but you couldn’t hear how she came properly.”
As if my reasoning wasn’t wrong, Kwon Jane quietly stared at me.
“The second thing that caught my mind was the supernatural violin.”
“Is it bothering you that I gifted that child a supernatural violin? I possess close to a hundred supernatural violins, so it isn’t strange even if I give one off as a gift.”
“Yes, senior Kwon Jane-nim possessing numerous supernatural violins became a clue.”
“What are you saying?”
I looked around at numerous posters and videos hanging on the walls as I spoke.
“Because all of senior-nim’s numerous supernatural violins are blue. Senior-nim is famous for playing only blue violins.”
“Ah…”
“The supernatural violin gifted to Lee Lena was platinum, right? Wouldn’t it be prepared beforehand to be given as a gift if Lee Lena showed interest in violins? If not, it’s difficult to explain why senior-nim had a platinum supernatural violin just before the performance.”
Mun Saeron prepared a thousand pages of materials.
When checking all the information about the supernatural violins in Kwon Jane’s possession which came with it, I didn’t see a violin of any other color than blue.
Tremont blue, royal blue, queen blue, bing blue, oriental blue, etc.
There were violins in various shades of blue, but nowhere was platinum color.
Worthy of the alias ‘Blue Violinist’, Kwon Jane was obsessed with blue-bodied violins and didn’t even once break this stubbornness.
Kwon Jane didn’t refute.
“Third was Jared Lee.”
“Jared?”
“It was strange that the team sub-master Jared Lee-ssi came out to meet our class children, who were manual labor workers, and to personally give us instruction and help.”
“He may have done it because you’re my juniors, right?”
“Even if it was as you said, there were more strange things.”
From among materials sent by Mun Saeron, I unfolded a hologram with Hoyeon staff list.
There, on the last page, I looked at my, Sawol Seeum, Lee Lena and Kim Yuri’s names with the added note ‘Affiliation: Eungwang School’.
“Here is an identical information to the staff name list on the Eternal Lake’s side.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Jared Lee-ssi knew our ages. On the staff name list, our age or grade wasn’t written anywhere.”
Unknown Supernova was known to be Eungwang School’s freshmen, so there is a possibility of guessing it by looking at my age.
But I was without an alias on the staff list.
The only people who would make a connection between me and my alias straight away are people affiliated with the school, people who were introduced to me by someone beforehand or people who investigated me.
‘It’s hard to think that people who came back to the country with an urgent schedule would know about me.’
That day, Jared Lee said something like that:
— In addition, they are still young children. They are said to be only seventeen.
“I considered the possibility of you investigating beforehand after only seeing the names, but the time was tight. Jared Lee-ssi probably said something like that because he clearly knows Lee Lena’s age, correct?”
The staff list was confirmed a day before.
Because it was a situation where Hwang Jiho was considering whether to work as staff or not until the last moment.
“For such reasons, I thought that the Eternal Lake’s team members, in particular senior Kwon Jane-nim, knew Lee Lena before.”
“Right, I know Lena.”
The guesses up to this point were correct.
“And then it recently became a problem when it was revealed that Jared Lee-ssi was sending about 30 billions of remittance for the past 10 years to the Player relatives who were permanently expelled for being connected to Fantasy Controversy.”
Kwon Jane’s face turned pure white.
“The source of remittance funds were senior-nim’s personal assets. However, senior-nim didn’t have any kind of exchanges with those Players and didn’t gain any profit from the Fantasy Controversy, correct?”
Wasn’t it that Kwon Jane wanted to support someone through Jared Lee?
“I thought that senior-nim didn’t do that purely to aid someone with monetary problems.”
30 billions isn’t a small amount of money.
A person Jared Lee put such an effort and money to support would probably be a family member or someone as dear as a family member.
‘Kwon Jane said that during the Manchester Great Otherworld Conquest she lost her mother and older brother, but isn’t there any surviving family besides them?’
Kwon Jane is half British, half Korean.
Her father was Korean using the surname ‘Kwon’.
Her mother was British, her name was ‘Lena’.
And though not common in modern England, there were cases when a granddaughter received the name of her grandmother.
Even the princess who was born in the British royal family 25 years ago received the name after her great grandmother and grandmother.
Finally, the person Kwon Jane gifted a platinum supernatural violin had a name ‘Lee Lena’.
Was it by chance?
‘In addition, like the target Jared Lee sent the remittance, Lee Lena’s parents were connected to the Fantasy Controversy and were permanently expelled Players. Could they perhaps be the same people?’
‘Lee’ is the same surname as Jared Lee.
‘Lena’ is the same name as Kwon Jane’s mother.
Most of it was still in the domain of a guess, but it was difficult to look at all of it as coincidence.
“Isn’t Lee Lena’s real name ‘Kwon Lena’?”
Kwon Jane didn’t say anything for a moment and stared at me in silence.
“Correct. Lena is my sole remaining blood relative.”
From Kwon Jane’s blue eyes, a single tear dropped down.
“Lena is my deceased brother’s daughter… My niece.”
*~*~*
[1] “For Kwon Jane-nim, please do your best.” – Differently from people above, this person was speaking formally towards Jo Uisin.
Translator’s note: First, congratulations to people who noticed and guessed some things or entire thing beforehand~
Here are some chapters with foreshadowing to it: 28, 39, 69-72, 74, 78, 80, 81, 98
And now shout with this translator: Kwon Lena’s “parents” are fucking ##&*&##&@!
Did you see a mistake? 🐞
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