I'm Sorry, Miss Ghost (2)
Clink, clink.
Every time I moved, the little chain necklace around my neck chimed with a soft metallic jingle.
I never thought I'd wear something like this in my entire life, but…
Glancing down, I could see the ring threaded onto the chain.
"…Haa."
It was all because of that black ring.
It had been following me for days without the slightest sign of tiring, so I'd finally decided it would be easier to just keep it on me at all times.
…It really never got tired of chasing me.
It would slip into my pocket every time I went out, of course. Once, when I nearly dropped my phone in the bathroom and leaned forward to catch it, the ring tumbled right off my shoulder. Another time I woke up because my forehead felt cold, only to find the ring sitting neatly on top of it.
Even after I threw it in the trash, no matter where I ran, it hunted me down and tormented me.
Putting it on my finger would almost certainly make me cough up blood again, so this was the solution I'd settled on: hanging it from a necklace and wearing it around my neck.
I didn't have much experience wearing necklaces, so the cold touch against my throat and the constant hard press of the ring against my chest were a little distracting. Still, it was far better than bending over only for the thing to drop onto my head from above.
I toyed with the smooth ring between my fingers.
Cold, and heavier than a ring had any right to be. And yet, for some reason, holding it made me feel calm. Whenever I zoned out, I'd find myself fiddling with the necklace without even realizing it.
It felt so comfortable that I almost wondered whether coughing up blood when I put it on had even really happened.
"…Maybe I was just imagining it?"
What if I was actually a frail, sickly beauty all along, and I'd just happened to put the ring on at the exact moment I was about to cough up blood?
"……."
Then what about Miss Unknown, the girl I'd seen when I put the ring on? And the ring that kept chasing me around?
The more I thought about it, the deeper my questions about the ring became.
Alright. Let's organize this. The necklace currently hanging around my neck…
A ring I'd never seen before had suddenly appeared in my drawer with a dramatic flourish, yet it felt strangely familiar. Not content with that, the moment I slipped it onto the ring finger of my left hand, my head and chest started throbbing and I coughed up blood. Then I met Miss Unknown, who was clearly beautiful. And ever since, as if a ghost were carrying the ring around after me, the thing just kept following me wherever I went.
"…Uh."
Okay, that's actually terrifying.
A ring I'd never seen before that makes me cough up blood in agonizing pain when I put it on — but also lets me see a pretty girl — and that a ghost will chase me with if I throw it away.
Wait. Has the genre shifted a little?
How to Become a Hero was definitely supposed to be an ability-battle story.
"…If I care about it, I lose."
So I'd just forget about it and live my life. As long as I kept it around my neck at all times except when I was washing up, there was nothing to worry about. I'd just think of it as an accessory that had never been in the cards for me, but that I'd somehow ended up with anyway.
This was a world with superpowers, so a ghost existing wasn't that strange, but…
Wait. Hold on.
What if the pretty girl I'd seen when I put the ring on was the same ghost that kept chasing me around with it?
Alright. Let's picture it.
When the ring was on my finger, a ghostly beauty who lowered her voice and set the mood… and when the ring was off, that same girl carefully cradling the ring in both hands, toddling after me…!
And what did it mean when she kept trying to hand me the ring?
That's right. A proposal.
For the past several days, I had been receiving a marriage proposal from a beautiful girl.
Suddenly I felt bad for rejecting her.
I'm sorry, Miss Ghost…!
But we don't even know each other's names yet… so maybe we should start as friends first…
"How about we take it slow and get to know each other…?"
Of course, no answer came back.
I couldn't put the ring on even if I wanted to right now, so there was nothing I could do. But someday, when Miss Unknown — the ghost inside the ring — opened her heart to me, I'd put it on again.
And then we'd get to know each other properly.
A deep crimson-black aura violently swallowed the space around it.
At a woman's gesture, black chains shot forward at blistering speed.
KRAAAAAAASH!
A storm of dark crimson energy coiled around the chains and shredded everything in their path.
Click.
Her black hair, tied up tightly for ease of movement, swayed as she landed with light, graceful steps. A woman wearing a black mask that covered only the lower half of her face — reminiscent of a ninja — settled lightly onto the ground.
Everything here had been mercilessly torn apart by her hands. And yet she alone radiated an air of complete composure.
"G-gah!"
One of the lucky survivors swung his sword while coughing up blood — only to be subdued by nothing more than a casual flick of the hand holding the chains.
The chains, wreathed in dark crimson energy, flew in and wound tightly around his blade, crushing it as easily as tofu. Then, moving with the free will of a living snake, they snared his ankle and hoisted him upside down into the air.
Under normal circumstances, chains could never move like that. At best, they could be swung with force. But the chains in this woman's grip moved as if they were alive.
This wasn't something mere skill could achieve. Without telekinesis, there was no way chains could hang frozen in midair, dangling a man by the ankle.
The reason they could move this way was simpler than one might think.
The man hanging upside down with his feet bound by the chains cried out in a voice thick with terror.
"W-why are you attacking us, Hongryeon?!"
Because the woman holding those chains was Hongryeon of Eclipse.
That was all.
Hongryeon tilted her head at his words, then gave the chain in her grip a light tap with her finger. The links cinched tight in an instant, crushing his ankle.
"A-aaargh!"
Hongryeon looked down at him with utterly uninterested eyes and spoke in a cold voice.
"You betrayed us first."
"What are you talking about…"
In truth, whether he had actually betrayed Eclipse meant nothing to Hongryeon. Regardless of the facts, he had gotten on Mother's nerves — and Mother wanted them dead.
That alone was reason enough for Hongryeon to act in person.
At the tip of the chain still coiled around the man's ankle, a black blade flashed — then punched clean through him from beneath the chin all the way up through the crown of his skull.
Thuk!
A few drops of blood splattered as far as Hongryeon, but she paid them no mind. She yanked the black chain hard, and the man's head burst open like a watermelon with a wet crack as the chain reeled back into her hands.
The motion was as unnatural as a video played in reverse — the kind of movement that should have been impossible without telekinesis. And the reason it was possible was Hongryeon's ability.
Her ability was Weapon Mastery.
A doctor who had seen her power had given it that name, and she'd been using it ever since — but the truth was a little different.
First, it was true that when she gripped a weapon, she could wield it as if she had mastered it completely, as naturally as her own body. It was also true that any weapon she held was enhanced, just like others who possessed Weapon Mastery.
But there were a few key differences from true Weapon Mastery.
For one, what she could freely control was not limited to weapons. The chains she was holding right now had not originally been weapons at all. Hongryeon simply recognized them as such. Whatever she held, as long as she perceived it as a weapon, she could wield it freely. Even a scrap of cloth, if she recognized it as a weapon, would become something capable of shattering steel like tofu.
Second, the scope of "wielding a weapon freely" was different from true Weapon Mastery. When a Weapon Master gripped a weapon, they could simply push that weapon to its absolute limit. Hongryeon was different. Whatever she held transcended the laws of physics themselves.
The chains she favored lately could be made to move as if they were alive. The same applied to every other weapon. With a sword, she could project something like sword aura and cut distant targets, just like a fantasy novel protagonist. With a spear, she could pierce things that should have been impenetrable. With a gun, the bullets would curve and weave through the air as they flew.
This was the overwhelmingly powerful ability that had put Hongryeon where she was today.
"Hmm, hm-hmm."
Humming to herself, Hongryeon left the corpses behind and strolled casually away. Once she was a fair distance from the scene, she pulled off the mask covering her face, and her sharp features and almost excessively beautiful appearance came into full view.
"Mom will be happy, right?"
Muttering that, Hong Yeonha began hopping along like an excited child, the bloodstained chains still wrapped around her left arm.
She was in a very good mood. "Mother" had told her she didn't need to work — but what parent would dislike it when their child went ahead and did the work anyway? She would definitely praise her.
"And… since I finished early today, I'll be able to write sooner too."
The response to her novel lately had been pretty good. Watching the reader count climb with every chapter she posted was its own kind of fun. And for a while now, a reader with the username Elysia_123 had been leaving a comment on every single chapter — which made her want to write even better stories in return.