Human Embrace
There were many structures in the world whose size you simply couldn’t grasp unless you saw them with your own eyes.
You might dismiss something as merely underground, only to find a vast space hidden below; other times, a skyscraper so tall it seemed to cut into the sky might be standing right there before you.
Most people never got the chance to experience such enormous places, and even when they did, it was usually only once or twice at most.
The treatment center I had stayed in for a week hadn’t seemed all that large, either, when I looked back on it now.
Ah, and why did I say looked back on it now?
Because...
"Wow..."
The overwhelming weight radiating from the academy’s main gate.
Even that enormous entrance was covered in elegant patterns and layers upon layers of refined magic.
Just looking at it, even without knowing the first thing about magic, gave me the sense that this was a colossal fortress that would never, ever fall.
Seeing magic like that on even the gate of Sielm made me realize all over again that calling it a prestigious academy was not exaggeration in the slightest.
"Mm, Keirel, you’ve had it rough. Um... I’ll contact you from the dorm, so come by in a few days, okay?"
Han Riae was humming happily as she spoke to Keirel, her personal escort.
"Yes, yes. For the love of all that’s holy, while I’m gone, please don’t cause any trouble and stay quiet this time."
Keirel looked like he had a lot more to say, but he swallowed it down so he wouldn’t spoil Han Riae’s good mood.
"Got it, Keirel-ssi~"
Han Riae answered with a smile, as if one ear in and the other out.
"Then, Lim Paran-nim, I’ll see you again later. I do hope nothing bad happens to you in the meantime."
Keirel removed his sunglasses with proper care, bowed to me, and bid me a temporary farewell while voicing his concern.
"Ah... yes, Keirel-ssi. I’ll see you again later too."
Refusing that kind of greeting would have been uncivil, so I bowed back as well.
Keirel put his sunglasses on again, got into the car, and left.
Even as he departed, I thought I could see the faintest smile on his side profile.
"Then... Paran! The entrance ceremony’s still a while off, so shall we go to the dorm first?"
Han Riae deliberately kept a little distance from me, considerate enough not to make me tremble with fear.
"I’d be grateful if you’d come with me. Let’s go to the dorm."
I couldn’t shake off that consideration, and I didn’t want to refuse it either, so I accepted her offer with a smile.
As we walked slowly along, I saw first-year students who had arrived early at Sielm.
Among them were many cadets carrying their own tools at their backs or hanging from their waists.
Since this was an academy for training hunters, I supposed a sight like this was only natural.
And among them...
- That... blue hair... isn’t that the special admission student?
- Whoa... it’s really blue???
- He’s smaller than I expected.
Maybe because of my hair color, I could feel intense gazes coming at me from all around.
With the trembling and ringing in my ears that those stares brought on, I kept walking a little farther.
Before long, we reached the transit corridor.
"Hold your bracelet up here."
Han Riae said that and demonstrated it herself.
When I held my bracelet against the panel set into the corridor gate, light flooded the screen and it checked my identity.
{Cadet Rie Meliton (Han Riae)}
{Where would you like to go?}
"Mm... my dorm."
{Checking...}
{Confirmed}
{Transporting to dormitory}
"See? Simple, right? You’ll be able to do it well."
"Yes, I’ll try my best."
"Good. Then I’ll wait first in the lobby—"
And then a white aurora wrapped around her and disappeared.
Watching Han Riae vanish, all sorts of thoughts ran through my head.
What if it broke during transport?
What if it worked fine but there were tons of people packed in there?
"Damn it... whatever!"
I shoved all those negative thoughts aside and walked up to the warp gate.
Just as Han Riae had shown me, I held my bracelet to the panel.
At that moment, it felt as if all the mana in my body were surging wildly.
It had to be checking the bracelet against my personal information.
{Cadet Lim Paran}
{Where would you like to go?}
"...The dormitory."
{Checking...}
{Confirmed}
{Transporting to dormitory}
The instant those words appeared, a white aurora made of mana began to wrap around me from the bracelet.
I had no idea where this pure white light would take me, but there was one thing I knew for certain.
This was Sielm.
Once the white aurora fully enveloped me from my toes to the top of my head, my consciousness went hazy.
Huh...? Wha...?
I...
can’t...
stay...
* * *
"Hyek!"
When I came to, I was lying on a plush sofa.
Cold sweat was pouring down me, and my head was starting to ache.
"Where am I..."
Just as I was looking around in confusion, wondering where this was, I heard a voice.
"Oh? Paran, you’re awake~"
A soft, clear voice I knew well.
"Riae... where..."
"Ah, you must be a little out of it from just waking up."
Han Riae confirmed that I had come to and explained everything that had happened earlier.
She had arrived at the dormitory lobby through the gate, and while she was waiting for me, she had seen me warp in and collapse.
"You usually get a little dizzy during warp transport, and a very small number of people faint for a moment. Most people recover right after the transport ends, but Paran, you didn’t look like you were coming around at all, so..."
She had brought unconscious me to her dorm and laid me down for a while.
"Ah... I see..."
I was a little, no, very embarrassed.
I had said I could do it, that I’d try...
And yet here I was, disappointing her again and making Han Riae-nim go to all that trouble.
I could feel the guilt that had been building up in me all this time reaching its limit.
There wasn’t a single person around me who could hurt me, and in the first place there was only Riae nearby, but...
my body, soaked in guilt, reacted instantly.
"Pa, Paran? Are you okay?"
"I’m sorry... I’m sorry..."
"Huh...? Huh?"
"Sorry... I’m... sorry..."
"Pa... ran??? "
"I’m sorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry"
It felt as though layers upon layers of chains had been locked around my body, tightening until I could barely breathe. Faces, figures, and shapes of the people I had unintentionally rejected while they tried to help me flashed through my mind like a flood of light, and my head filled completely with the image of everyone I had turned away. My body began shaking violently, as if sharing in that pain.
"I’m sorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry..."
I wanted someone to end this attack that would never stop.
I couldn’t hold anyone, and I couldn’t let anyone hold me.
This cursed body refused to allow anyone near, and any approach only brought terrible pain to the person trying to come close.
Even if I left this fragile body alone, it would just let a bone-deep cold crawl across me and burn through every inch of my skin.
Was there any point in continuing to live like this?
Wouldn’t it have been better to just die quickly from Mana Erosion?
Could I ever overcome this pain, this fear of humans?
No. Was I even sick in the first place?
All kinds of delusions surged into my head without stopping, flooding in like a burst dam.
And in the tsunami that dam had created was a living thing on the verge of letting everything go.
I was like an overinflated balloon, so swollen that even the slightest touch would make me burst.
Like a balloon that could simply lose a little air and drift peacefully away, except I didn’t know that, because I was already one breath from exploding.
Please.
Anyone.
Please...
"Help me..............please..."
I didn’t want to hurt anymore...
The crushing pressure of my heart hammering like mad, the ringing that would not leave my ears, the headache that felt like my skull was splitting open, the throat that kept closing up, the cold sweat that wouldn’t stop coming, the tears that blurred my vision...
I hated it all.
Please.
Please...
Please.......
"Please..."
- Cuddle
The instant the world went dark and I was about to let go of everything, something warm and soft wrapped around my body.
Warm.
Comforting.
A warmth unlike the cold, one that seeped all the way through me.
Inside that warmth, all the pain clinging to my body stopped at last, and the strength drained cleanly out of me.
"A... ah... ah...?"
This was definitely a person’s embrace.
But...
"I don’t want to let go..."
I buried myself deeper into that warm embrace.
A human embrace I had never experienced before.
It was undeniably a person’s arms, and yet my foolish body did not reject it; instead, it wanted to stay there forever.
Whose arms was this?
With my hazy, half-lidded eyes, I looked upward.
"Riae..."
There she was, Han Riae, wearing an expression that said she didn’t know what to do.
"Paran... are you okay?"
"Y-yes..."
"Thank goodness..."
She let out a relieved breath as she looked at me, then continued.
"What exactly is our Paran so sorry about?"
"Ev... everything I’m sorry about, ngh..."
I was burrowing even deeper into her arms as tears slipped from my eyes.
"Are you okay with being held now? Sorry... you looked so pitiful that when I heard you asking for help, I just hugged you before I realized it. I’m sorry."
"It’s... not your fault, Riae. You shouldn’t be apologizing... I’m the one who should be sorry... it’s all my fault..."
Why did she keep apologizing to me?
I was the one who should be saying sorry, the one who should be thanking her.
Every time I thought that, tears welled up and slid down my cheeks.
"Riae’s arms are nice... warm... comforting..."
Warm.
Comforting.
I never wanted to let go.
"Is that so? Then you can stay like this for as long as you want."
"R-really?"
"Mm. Just relax."
Hearing that, I unconsciously clung even tighter to Han Riae’s embrace.
Her generous chest pressed against my head, but just knowing it was Riae’s arms made me feel safe, and a good feeling began to swell inside me.
"Hehe, our Paran is such a cute little thing."
"I’m not a little thing..."
"Yes, yes, our Paran’s not a little thing~"
"Mm... don’t tease me..."
"Hehe."
So this was what a person’s arms felt like when they were warm and comforting...
"Thank you... Riae..."
It was an embrace I never wanted to lose.
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