Chapter 102

Blaine didn’t know exactly what an Arowana was, but since it was supposedly on the same level as a Coelacanth, he figured it must be expensive. He quickly cast his line following Theo’s lead, hoping that both of them would catch plenty of Arowanas.

Blaine’s earnest prayer was answered—but only halfway. While Theo was catching nothing but small fry, Blaine was pulling in Arowanas at a decent pace. By now, this was hardly surprising.

Fidgeting next to Theo, who was casting his line with mechanical soullessness, Blaine quickly revised his prayer: Please let Theo catch more Arowanas than me.

As Blaine cast his line while accumulating a mountain of groundless guilt, Theo, who had been piling up small fry like a mountain of his own, asked casually.

“Did everything go okay at the Center yesterday?”

“Pardon? Oh, yes. Nothing special happened. The backup went well, too.”

“Really? That’s a relief.”

Theo didn’t mean that he should feel free to be attacked just because he’d backed up his data, but he felt they could at least breathe a sigh of relief. However, Blaine only gave a bitter smile and turned his head back to the calm surface of the water without responding.

Theo, puzzled by the somewhat despondent reaction, asked.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I’m more afraid of that.”

“Of what?”

“Using the backed-up data.”

“Why?”

“If I were to be attacked and disappear, and then they used the backed-up data… would that really be me?”

It was a perspective Theo hadn’t considered. He stared blankly at Blaine, feeling as if he had been struck by something. If a 2nd-gen with a physical body was injured, you treated the wound; if it was a 3rd-gen, you swapped out the broken parts.

He had thought about it in the same context. If a 4th-gen’s data was corrupted, you simply replaced it with the backup. He had thought about it too lightly and carelessly, failing to realize it wasn’t about healing a body part or replacing a component—it was about replacing the person’s entire self.

He couldn’t even fathom the anxiety Blaine must be feeling, standing right in front of that danger.

“If the data burns and vanishes, the ‘me’ of right now is gone. Can I really say the life lived by the backed-up data is truly mine? What if it feels like a substitute is living in my place? That data won’t have the memory of me fishing with you today, Hyung…. Will the backed-up me and the current me live with the same thoughts? Can we really be called the exact same person without a single error?”

Numerous questions were thrown out, but Blaine didn’t seem to expect an answer. It felt more like a question he was asking himself rather than Theo. That was why Theo couldn’t bring himself to answer—that they wouldn’t be the same, and that the backed-up data would live on without ever knowing he had even had these worries.

Looking at Blaine’s resigned profile, a sudden thought crossed Theo’s mind. I want to protect him. He wanted to keep him safe so that he wouldn’t be anxious or in danger.

While he was thinking about what would be best for him and what might comfort him, a voice he didn’t want to hear echoed loudly from behind.

“Wow! So this is where you were!”

A shiver ran down his spine. Theo and Blaine spun around in shock, their faces instantly pale with horror. Standing there—somehow having tracked them down—was Daize. Holding his own fishing rod, he scrambled across the bridge to the plaza and sidled up next to Theo with a cheerful greeting.

“Wow, that was seriously tough! I knew you went fishing, but I had no idea which village. I wandered around forever trying to find you two. I kept asking in the guild chat, but neither of you would answer.”

As Daize prattled on, feigning tears, Theo stared at him in utter disbelief before stammering out a question.

“How did you…?”

“Oh, the cake you gave Father yesterday. It turns out they only sell those in Adver Village. So I thought you were there, but you weren’t. I had no other choice but to search every single village where fishing is possible.”

“…And why exactly are you here?”

“I need to make some money for my town maintenance fees, too. You don’t mind if I join you, right?”

Without even waiting for an answer, Daize flashed a nonchalant smile and cast his line. Watching him hum a little tune, the words “Actually, I do mind” rose to the tip of Theo’s tongue. He wanted to kick him out, but he knew Daize wasn’t the type to leave quietly. He’d probably just bark back, asking if Theo owned the whole village. Theo considered moving to another town, but this was the only place where Arowanas could be caught.

Theo furrowed his brows and pressed his fingers to his temples. He was getting a massive headache.

As a last resort, Theo grabbed Blaine and moved to the opposite side of the plaza. But Daize followed right behind them, quipping, “Why are you moving? Do they bite better over there?”

What was even stranger was that he wasn’t pestering Blaine anymore; he was pestering Theo. He even seemed to be strangely wary of Blaine’s gaze.

Having shamelessly claimed the spot right next to Theo, Daize didn’t seem interested in fishing at all. Even when he got a bite, he ignored it, busy trying to strike up a conversation with Theo about this and that. It wasn’t as if Theo was actually responding to him, either. Theo mostly ignored him or spoke only to Blaine, but Daize kept his mouth moving incessantly, regardless of being snubbed.

After being ignored for quite a while, Daize finally seemed to run out of things to say and began to focus on fishing. However, as time passed, his boredom became obvious. No one talked back to him, and all he caught were worthless bitterlings.

With half-closed eyes, yawning repeatedly and casting his rod with total indifference, Daize eavesdropped on Theo and Blaine’s quiet conversation. The talk itself was trivial and mundane. Daize stole a glance at Blaine. Seeing that Theo hadn’t reacted specifically to him being there, it seemed Blaine hadn’t ratted him out about their previous conversation.

The reason he had scoured every village to find them was that he had been anxious that Blaine might tell Theo and the other guild members what had happened. If Blaine told them everything—including things Daize hadn’t even mentioned—it would become quite a nuisance. He figured it was better to keep an eye on them from the side than to sit around worrying.

Yesterday was a bit too impulsive, even for me, he thought. The maintenance fee wasn’t even that urgent. He needed to be more careful with his words and actions.

While he was eavesdropping on them, he felt a tug on his line. He moved his hands with zero expectation.

“…….”

As expected, it was a bitterling. Daize cast his rod back into the water with an irritated grumble.

“How am I supposed to save up for maintenance fees earning like this? Is this actually profitable?”

Theo gave Daize a rare look. He replied with a flat, indifferent tone.

“If you don’t like it, go do something else. No one is stopping you.”

At the blatant suggestion to leave, Daize’s lips pouted out in a huff. At that exact moment, Blaine pulled in another Arowana.

Faced with such biased luck, both Daize and Theo stared blankly with hollow eyes at the golden fish flopping vigorously on the ground. Their own inventories were filled with nothing but bitterlings.

Smacking his dry lips, Daize asked Theo.

“What are you going to do if you can’t make the town maintenance fee this month?”

Theo let out a short sigh, staring not at Daize, but at the surface of the water.

“I suppose we’ll see.”

His answer suggested he wasn’t particularly worried. It felt as if he were brushing the question off—letting it go in one ear and out the other. Daize stole a glance at Blaine before sidling up to Theo and whispering.

“Why don’t you try borrowing from Blaine-nim? I’m sure someone like him would be more than happy to lend it to you.”

Theo’s face, which had been consistently indifferent and aloof, instantly contorted as he snapped his head toward Daize.

“You want me to borrow a kid’s lunch money?”

“…Excuse me?”

Lunch money?

“Father and Holanghee are right there. To suggest borrowing from a child—are you out of your mind?”

“Huh? Ah, no, that’s not what I meant….”

Theo’s voice rose in anger, and Blaine looked over, sensing something was wrong.

It was common knowledge that the 3rd and 4th generations were groups consisting of some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Blaine likely possessed significant assets. His parents were both 3rd-gen, and they had enough wealth to afford the staggering costs of the 4th-gen surgery required for their ailing child.

But regardless of that, in Theo’s mind, Blaine was just a little kid standing by the water’s edge. A lucky little kid. And that kid’s fortune was like a collection of pretty pebbles he had picked up one by one.

He pictured Blaine crouching by the water with his tiny hands, carefully selecting round, beautifully colored stones. To suggest borrowing those “pebbles” felt insane to Theo. Besides, Blaine was six years younger than him. Six whole years!

Theo glared at Daize with a look of unforgiving ferocity. Daize, taken aback by the unexpected reaction, stumbled backward. He felt that if he didn’t put some distance between them, Theo might just pull his fishing rod out and whip him with it.

He felt like a small animal cornered by a predator. Just as Daize was seriously contemplating whether he should apologize to quell Theo’s momentum, he saw something white fluttering down. It landed on Theo’s shoulder, and at the same time, an excited voice called out from behind Theo.

“Whoa, Hyung! It’s snowing!”

Theo reflexively looked up at the sky. The heavy, grey clouds had begun to dump large flakes of snow.

Before long, the snowfall grew so thick it was hard to see what was in front of them. It was practically a blizzard. Realizing they couldn’t continue fishing, the three decided to head into a nearby shop to wait for the snow to stop.

Since they couldn’t just sit there blankly, they decided to eat and drink. They ordered an assortment of food, spreading it out across the table as they watched the snow through the window and chatted. Of course, the conversation only flowed between Theo and Blaine. Daize shifted in his seat several times, feeling like he was sitting on a bed of nails, but he stubbornly stayed put. At this point, going home felt like losing.

The snow didn’t last long, but the sky remained a heavy grey. Likely, the sky over Nellavia would never truly clear. As if to prove the point, the snow interrupted their fishing several more times throughout the day.

Having fished all day with these forced breaks, the three finally called it quits late in the evening. If asked if they had caught anything good, Blaine would have given a radiant smile. Theo and Daize, however, could not—their heavy inventories were filled with nothing but worthless bitterlings.