35. Reunion
“Suri… Suri… Suri…”
Maru and Sabi threw their arms around Suri and burst into tears.
“…Sniff… Even though we’ve wandered all sorts of places, we’ve never been apart for this long… To be honest, I was scared. I even thought we might never meet again… No matter how much I pretended to be cheerful and obsessed with food…”
Maru sobbed like a child.
“From now on… I won’t tease you about being last place… I really promise… We can never be separated. We’re a true family… In a family, the word ‘separation’ doesn’t even exist.”
Maru couldn’t stop his tears.
“Hey… Glutton Maru… It hasn’t been that long; why the drama? Why are you so embarrassed?… Hey… If Yuki and the others saw this… they’d make a big fuss. A big fuss… Saying that the kids who are failing are having such a good time together. Now, get off me. It’s hot. I said it’s hot…”
Feeling awkward, Suri tried to push Sabi and Maru away.
“By the way… Is this Earth’s Malta? Or Sirius’s?… I feel like I’ve been in zero gravity for a while. I have no idea where I’m falling or where I’m flying to… Is this mental state because the supply of food isn’t steady?…”
Maru’s face was smeared with tears and snot.
“Maru… Let’s send your stupidity off to the distant cosmic cliffs along with your snot… Whether on Earth or Sirius, the two are ultimately one! And what’s important now is that this island is moving. And you must remember, the two Maltas must meet. They must merge… How long do I have to keep enlightening you… Sigh…”
Suri waved his hand dismissively and then suddenly paused.
“Oh! I’ve just reached a state of enlightenment… Seeing you again, it occurred to me that some kind of magic has intervened in our destiny… We usually think of magic as chanting spells that burn our hair, making objects or people disappear before our eyes… or escaping harsh environments… But! Guys… We were separated in this vast universe, whose size we can’t even fathom… And after many twists and turns, we’ve met again. A secret can’t be explained with just the word ‘miracle’… Isn’t this magic?… So… ‘Find the sword’… This proposition is ‘Find your family’… That’s it! On the journey to find the Sword of the Memory of the Stars, we learn the magic of finding family… Reuniting with family, we thought we’d never meet again… Realizing that this is true magic… Meeting family that we could never possibly meet again… That’s real magic.”
With tears welling up in his eyes, Suri passionately spoke.
“So, we need to find our fathers.”
Sabi, her eyes brimming with tears, looked at Suri with admiration.
“Sansuna needs to reunite with his son… Earth’s Malta and Sirius’s Malta need to meet again… And I just realized one more thing. The Nova Emperor’s mother must be alive. The one who can save Nova is his mother… Yes, his mother! We need to find her to stop Nova’s evil deeds. Everyone needs to reunite for everyone to survive… Everyone…”
Before they knew it, Suri’s tears had dried, and his face was filled with astonishment.
“Hey… Remember who you are… Why are you pretending to be so smart and blabbering on? When you defied Ms. Goli… hahaha… That was like a trashy drama… Are you going to gaslight us by calling even that magic now?… Why did you fight and yell so tackily? Is this the Hunger Games? That’s already a generation old. Try acting like the Gen Z kids. Speak in Minecraft commands.”
Maru was picking his nose as usual and flicking it away.
“Ugh, Maru, didn’t you say you wouldn’t tease me?… Forget it… I am still determining the difference between science and magic. There’s no difference. They’re ultimately the same concept. Don’t I… sound like Aristotle?… I’m so cool.”
Suri began to spout increasingly bizarre words.
“How can there be no difference? The difference between science and the supernatural… It could be something like that. That’s how people usually think… isn’t it?”
Sabi wasn’t confident in her own view but found it hard to agree with Suri’s words readily.
“To me, science is also supernatural. What do I mean… Formulas I can’t understand are like a foreign language… But now, even the words you guys are babbling about need translation…”
Maru was still engrossed in picking his nose.
“All relationships are already structured through human history, so from the outside, they might look like scientific constructs… It’s obvious what could happen… But from the inside, it’s a feast of magic… All the spectacles within—comedies and tragedies—are like magic… There are no rules… No manuals… They seem to happen randomly. Suddenly… Because they occur without any plan, it’s like magic… All relationships are magic… So science and magic are like two sides of the same coin… But why does the Nova Emperor try so hard to hide that beautiful magic? Trying to stop us… Trying to block the Lightning that comes once every 72 years… Trying to prevent us from finding the Sword of the Memory of the Stars… Ultimately, he’s trying to hide his own secret… I want the Nova Emperor to acknowledge magic… The Nova Emperor needs to experience magic, too.”
Suri seemed to be speaking while gazing into the distance, his eyes filled with deep contemplation.
“Hey… I just can’t help teasing you… Ugh… You’re the last in the entire school. Please remember who you are and stay true to it. Why are you suddenly pretending to be a philosopher? Aristo… who? I don’t even know who that is… Did you get amnesia or something? Let’s not forget those days when you were dead last in school… Hahaha… This is fun. Teasing you… Oh, this is so much fun…”
Maru clutched his belly and laughed.
“…I’m Sabi… Hello…”
Sabi gave a small wave to Marblem, whom she’d been fixated on earlier.
“Now you’re finally acknowledging me… You treated me like I was invisible… Actually, I was waiting to see how long you’d continue this family reunion show… So tacky, as Maru said… Of course, considering my cosmic fame, I was a bit upset, but what can I do? A legend must endure.”
Marblem’s tone was nothing short of arrogant.
“Hey, just because you’re blond, you think you’re all that? …What planet are you from that your clothes look like that? Is your manners as bad as your outfit? Haven’t you heard the saying ‘Manners maketh man’? Don’t you watch movies on your planet? Why don’t you watch ‘Kingsman’ and then talk? You little pipsqueak… You’re really getting cocky.”
Maru fumed.
“Pipsqueak?… Hahaha… Maru, I could turn you into a real mouse right now… You’re the one who shouldn’t be messing around… How uncivilized to attack someone’s appearance and character…”
Marblem swept back his blond, high-top hair with his hand.
“Wow… This is… BTS… I’m at a loss for words.”
Sabi was utterly smitten with Marblem.
“From now on, hmm… ‘Mami’ it is, ‘Mami’… a blend of Marblem and ARMY…”
Honey practically dripped from Sabi’s eyes as she gazed at Marblem.
“It sounds like ‘mummy’ to me. You know, like a mummy. Hahaha… So funny, mummy, mummy… Hey, are you a mummy?… Hahaha… Ah!”
Maru, laughing heartily, suddenly fell forward with a thud.
“Great timing. Even in this beautiful moment, you manage to disrupt things like this? You’re a barbarian… A nuisance of a barbarian.”
Sabi wasn’t exactly in a position to scold Maru. She was wobbling unsteadily, about to collapse.
Marblem swiftly caught Sabi in his arms.
Sabi and Marblem’s eyes met intensely.
“Malta has started moving again… Ah… Look over there… Over there… Lightning.”
Suri, swaying, pointed a finger toward the distant sky.
[To be continued…]
** Starting November 2023, The Korea Daily is excited to publish the fantasy novel series “Sword of Malta – Lightning in 72 Years” on our website. This new captivating series follows a trio of young adventurers on their quest to uncover the mysteries of ancient civilizations, including the Maya and Inca. In an exciting development, Netflix is currently adapting the novel’s storyline into a film.
The ‘Sword of Malta – Lightning in 72 Years’ is the latest novel authored by Jeeyoon Ha, who created the “Pangaea series.” Ha’s debut novel, “The Pangaea: Finding Xibalba,” was selected by the Korea Creative Content Agency in 2022 as part of their initiative to support the global export of fantasy literature.
Readers can eagerly anticipate the online publication of two installments each month, with new chapters appearing bi-weekly, offering a regular escape into this magical realm. *Mark Oh translated the Korean novel into English.
