Chapter 3
I’m translating the chapter into the required HTML format and preserving the in-universe UI blocks where they appear. I’m also normalizing the names and terms to the glossary, including the academy and status readout.CHAPTER_TITLE: A Straightforward Proposal
“The one who came to find me.”
That single sentence brought my thoughts to a stop.
Now that every memory of me had been erased, now that every memory of me had been wiped away, it was strange beyond reason that someone had come looking for me.
No, more than strange.
I was curious.
Of course, suspicion came first. Maybe I was an escaped death row prisoner, and he had come to kill me again.
But with no memories at all to guide me, if anything could become a clue, it was worth the risk.
Besides, I’d also clung to a small hope that he might be able to keep me safe here, even for a little while.
And so time passed.
Then the one who had come to see me appeared.
He was a man.
His body was lean, but his shoulders were broad in a way that looked good. He was tall as well, with excellent proportions overall, the sort that would make anyone see him at first glance and think he must be a model.
The dark green long coat he wore over his suit only made his build stand out more.
But his face was different.
Deep dark circles marked him, as if he’d been awake for at least three days straight. He had grey hair, tied back tightly in a ponytail, and that only deepened the uncanny air around him.
Before long, the man stepped into my private room.
I was crouched and trembling on the edge of the bed, and after staring at me for a long moment, he said, “You should come to Sielm Academy.”
His voice was low and somehow edged with frost, so cold it almost sounded like a snake speaking.
For someone like me, who hated the cold, it was as though he were exhaling chill itself.
I could tell at once that exhaustion weighed on his entire body.
His voice was very low, but then mana seeped into it, and it struck perfectly into my ears.
“Wh-wha...?”
I forced down the body that was already shaking in fear at the sight of another person standing right in front of me and pried open the throat that had locked shut.
It was embarrassing. Pathetic, even. But right then, all I could do was praise myself for having mustered the courage to answer at all.
The man watched me quietly, as if observing me, then said, “So it really is... blue. Your hair...”
He looked intrigued, yet at the same time, there was something somber in his expression.
“I was very surprised. It’s the same color as his. Perhaps you don’t know this, but blue hair went extinct a hundred years ago.”
Who was “he”...?
Was blue hair really that rare?
I had an instinctive sense that my hair color was unusual.
Certainly, while I’d been here, there had been people whispering about my hair, but I had never once seen anyone with the same color as mine.
I had never once seen hair I could honestly call blue...
“You really are afraid of people.”
As he spoke, he came closer still.
“How about this distance?”
“Aaaahhh!”
He finished his sentence and suddenly leaned his face toward me.
The body that had only just begun to calm started shaking violently all over again.
My heart pounded like mad, and a buzzing ring of tinnitus filled the inside of my ears as I clapped my hands over them again and again.
Obviously, the ringing wasn’t going to stop. I covered my ears and fled under the blanket instead.
Tears spilled out.
“...Ah, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was this severe.”
The man apologized and returned to where he had been standing before.
But the panic attack did not ease so easily, and I had to catch my breath under the blanket for a while.
I steadied my breathing and gathered my mind.
I was still trembling, but at least it was better than before.
The severe breakdown from earlier had not happened again.
No, perhaps it would be more accurate to say I had kept it from happening.
Once I’d calmed down enough, the man finally spoke again.
“I apologize for that just now. Ah, right, I haven’t introduced myself yet. I am Mahiel Serenata, a current 1st Class Hunter and the Vice Principal of Sielm Academy.”
After saying that, Mahiel Serenata’s bracelet flashed from the wrist he held out.
Name: Mahiel Serenata
Age: Security
Sex: Security
Height: Security
Position: Vice Principal of Sielm Academy, 1st Class Hunter
Unique Ability: Security
Countless details flowed out from the bracelet.
It also seemed to have a function that could conceal personal information.
If the bracelet only ever showed the truth, then Mahiel had probably brought out proof so I wouldn’t have to question him.
It was said to be a power artifact created by the Tower of Observation, and that it recorded only the truth.
Hunters were ranked from 3rd Grade up to 1st Class.
Most of them, I’d heard, ended their careers at 3rd Grade.
Against that backdrop, being a 1st Class Hunter meant holding tremendous prestige.
I nodded hard to signal that I understood.
“Good. Then your doubts about my identity should be gone now.”
He continued.
“So I’ll say it plainly. Lim Paran, I would like to bring you into Sielm Academy as a student.”
He repeated what he had said before.
Sielm Academy.
The most prestigious hunter academy on the Velospia continent.
It was so famous that people said most of the continent’s top hunters were alumni of Sielm.
The academy had been founded by a hero who had once insisted that the future mattered most, among the hunters active three hundred years ago.
Top-tier mana density, state-of-the-art training facilities, an absurdly luxurious faculty.
Sielm Academy had nothing lacking.
And now the vice principal of that academy had come to take me, lying in a hospital bed, back with him.
Suppressing my still-shaking body, I managed to speak.
“W-why... me...?”
“Ah, you must have read the bracelet incorrectly because of the confusion earlier.”
He thought for a moment, then asked me back, “How are your injuries, by the way?”
Startled by the sudden question, I answered, “Th-the... the places that got scarred are all healed... there’s nothing left...”
The wounds that had been treated yesterday with bandages and IVs were now perfectly healed, without even a scar...
Even as I said it, I felt that something was off.
Just yesterday, my whole body had been wrapped in bandages, but now they were nowhere to be seen.
“Isn’t that abnormal?”
“W-what? Why?”
“Do you truly think it’s normal for so many cuts, so many deep wounds, to heal completely in a single day, without leaving even the smallest scar?”
He still looked exhausted, but his voice carried the air of someone trying to explain something that made no sense to him.
Then what was I, the one who had healed completely in a day?
As I was thinking that, he went on.
“You are currently in a mana erosion state, Lim Paran.”
Mana erosion.
An incurable disease affecting only 0.0001 percent of the continent’s population.
When an excessively high and pure concentration of mana is generated within the human body, the body enters an eroded state.
And when the body is exposed to mana without impurities at that kind of concentration, it is gradually destroyed by that “purity.”
In as little as one hour, or within half a day, the body’s mana reverses course, the whole body collapses, and the person dies.
But according to him, shouldn’t I already have died from mana reversing in my body?
“When mana erosion sets in, every scar and chronic illness is healed in an instant. It’s almost like... a mirage.”
He looked straight at me as he spoke.
His face said clearly that he had already grown used to exhaustion and mastered it.
“But mirages are destined to disappear. Those who are freed from pain for only a brief moment go back to it, then die while coughing up blood in horrific agony.”
“T-then... shouldn’t I already be dead...?”
I asked back, my voice tight with fear and blocked in my throat.
“Yes, you should already be dead. But Lim Paran, you’re standing here now, talking to me in this perfectly normal... state, aren’t you?”
A body that should already have died, and yet here I was, breathing.
“That is why Sielm Academy wants to bring you in as a special-admission student and study your mana erosion.”
Study my abnormal body.
Study...
The moment that word surfaced, my body went into another spasm.
Tears came to my eyes.
My breathing turned ragged, and my heart began racing again.
Mahiel watched that reaction with the calmness of someone who had seen it all before.
“Your body’s mana concentration is bizarrely dense and perfectly clean, without impurities. Yes, that means you are still in a mana erosion state.”
...Yes.
Sielm Academy was a place for the sons and daughters of noble families, or for those blessed with overwhelming talent.
It was not a place where I wanted to enter as a research subject.
“Of course, you may refuse.”
Then he added, “But rather than live a terminal life in a facility like this, never knowing when you might die, I would recommend coming to Sielm, receiving an education, and uncovering the truth behind your condition.”
...
“For reference, special-admission students are given various privileges. Sielm treats all students equally, but you are special.”
It was as if he were saying that not only would they pluck a flower growing at the edge of a cliff, but they would also provide the pot that helped it thrive.
“Then... what exactly would you study about me?”
“Simply...”
He paused for a moment.
“Simply show your talent here at Sielm. Student Lim Paran.”
He said it with absolute confidence, calling me “student” as if that settled everything.
And at those words, I...
“Y-yes... I’ll be in your care... Vice Principal Mahiel... sir.”
It seemed there was no need to keep thinking over the answer I had already decided on in my heart.
He made a motion as if he were about to shake my hand, but then, remembering my earlier panic attack, he quietly stepped back instead.
“Then I’ll see you on the day of the entrance ceremony, Student Lim Paran.”
With that, he opened the door and walked out.
Now I was alone in the room again.
After being visited by such a massive storm, I didn’t have the energy left in my whole body for anything else.
Thinking about it now, it was almost absurdly unbelievable what had just happened.
Sielm Academy, an academy for cultivating hunters, was said to be the best of the best.
They were going to take me there as a special-admission student.
The vice principal of Sielm, Mahiel, had come personally to tell me this, and also to inform me that I had a mana erosion condition no one could cure and that I should already have died from it.
It was, in every sense, good fortune... and disaster.
“Is there anything strange anywhere?”
A nurse’s voice came through the speaker.
“N-no, no, I’m f-fine...”
I answered in a strange voice, flustered.
I could hear laughter from the other side, but I pretended not to notice.
Ha...
So I’m going to Sielm...
* * *
And then, on the day of the entrance ceremony,
“U-uugh... h-hah...”
Going outside had become almost like descending into hell...