Omen
After accepting Ter's apology, I gave her a sparring match suited to her level — on the condition that while she used her Divine Artifact, I wouldn't use mine. The result went exactly as expected: back and forth, evenly matched on the surface. She fired off mana rounds sculpted by her Artifact, and every single shot was a genuine threat.
Think of it as a swordsman facing a hand-to-hand fighter in a real duel. Objectively, every odd favored Ter.
KUWUNG!
"Ugh!"
And yet the streak of wins stayed mine. Ter's tiny frame skidded backward, panting short, ragged breaths.
"Tsk tsk. I told you to ease up on the power there."
I looked down at where she'd sprawled out and rolled my stiff wrist. "How... how did you—!"
"Simple reason. I'm stronger than you."
It was, quite literally, a weight class difference. A scrawny stick of a robber waving a knife around — what happens if he takes on a UFC fighter forged by hellish training? And the robber doesn't even mean to kill the man in front of him. The outcome writes itself.
Ugh. Still, I should really stop blocking that thing bare-handed. Something about it being a Divine Artifact made even a graze hurt like hell.
"Then again, compared to the other students you're decent. At this rate you'll climb fast."
I held out a hand to Ter where she sat slumped on the ground. A wordless 'good work today' — and a promise to do better next time.
"...You've got sense, I'll give you that."
She bit her lip like she wanted to bite me instead, but she didn't refuse my hand.
"That's it for today. Don't forget what I taught you."
"I won't. I'll work to refine my Divine Artifact to its very limit."
"Next battle, I want to see how well you use it."
"Next time you see me, you won't even recognize me. Look forward to it."
With that vow from Ter, we exchanged a brief farewell and went our separate ways.
Just please, next time I see you, don't get defeated by me pathetically.
She was a heroine of Academy Yuri Princess too. Someone I was rooting for. Let's look forward to her growth.
Time flowed like water. After Ter succeeded in manifesting her Divine Artifact, a long stretch of days passed with nothing of note happening. A modest daily routine of playing and eating at my leisure, occasionally cracking open the books, then calling friends over to hang out. The Academy was on recess, the lecture halls shut their doors, and classes ran as recorded video — so I'd just hit play and goof off while it droned on.
Nothing in the world thrills like sneaking in a game in the corner of your monitor with a lecture running. And Eva was a genuinely famous game addict — this was a well-known fact in Academy Yuri Princess. Whenever I found spare time, I'd meet up with her over computer games and enjoy myself to my heart's content all night long.
Studying? I'd already mastered all of it back in Korea, reading the lore books like a manual. We did have occasional skill evaluations to test what we'd learned, but none of them carried the urgency of the first one.
Easy. So easy. It was so mind-numbingly trivial I wanted to die. I actually started thinking an incident wouldn't be so bad — but alas, the peace held.
Half the semester blinked by. Before I knew it, the midterms were breathing down my neck.
These two are as bad as ever, huh.
"Eva, say aaah."
"Aaaah... mmph, hehe. Chloe, that's embarrassing."
"Oh come on, it's not like this is the first or second time."
Chloe lovingly sliced a piece of cake into perfect bite-sized morsels and brought it to Eva's lips. And Eva happily accepted every bite. A scene so sickeningly sweet it made any onlooker's blood boil.
Call the time short or long, the two of them had grown remarkably close. No — 'remarkably' undersold it. Just sitting next to them, I was in danger of burning to death from the sheer heat. Somewhere out there, I could hear a polar bear weeping over its melting home.
"Ugh, gross."
"You too? Ha, same."
Marin glared from the sideline, and I chimed right in. Their endless public displays of affection could wear out anyone forced to watch.
"Arlan, you say something too."
"..."
"Arlan?"
"Ah — yes, yes, yes! Did you need something?"
"You've been staring at those two this whole time. Tell them to knock it off."
"Ah... um, well, I think it suits them?"
Arlan averted her eyes, face flushed red. As expected of a yuri-coded character — had she completely melted into that pink aura? I didn't need to see it to know what delusions she was spinning alone in her head. If Marin and I hadn't been sitting here, we might have witnessed her taking things all the way to the finish line herself.
So close. What a shame.
Don't worry, Arlan. You don't need to envy that. I'll seat you right beside Eva myself, I promise. So hold out just a little longer.
"Mmph, mm, delicious."
"Right? Try this one too."
I sipped my bitter coffee and observed their lovey-dovey display. When would they finally show a crack? How could I drive the two of them apart, dig into the gap, and force a breakup? I watched with the eyes of a hawk, and then —
tap.
"Hm?"
A weight settled on my shoulder. Marin had quietly leaned her head against me.
"Should we... do that too?"
The suggestion came out of nowhere, yet her deadpan face carried a faint, unmistakable hope. The girl — was she jealous of that scene? Well, it made sense. Marin had lived a long, lonely, desolate life. Of course she'd want to feel human warmth again, and right now I was the only person on hand to grant the request. Her taste did run toward women like Eva, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers?
"You want to?"
"...Yeah."
"Okay then. Say aaah."
"Aah."
I scooped up a heaping spoonful of the ice cream sitting in front of me and brought it to her lips. Marin opened her mouth wide — like a goldfish staring at food dropped on the water's surface — and gobbled it down.
"Good?"
"Yeah... it's sweet."
"Glad you like it."
She chewed away at the ice cream, cheeks cradled in her hand. Was it just my imagination, or had I just glimpsed an embarrassed, girlish expression on her face?
"One more bite."
"Coming up."
She stared at me with her mouth open again, waiting. Truly a hopeless girl. I kept moving the spoon, filling her mouth with cold sweetness, again and again.
Peaceful. Peaceful to the point of boredom, even.
But don't worry. This peace won't last long either. Soon an event so delightful it would turn our worlds upside down would come bursting through. The approaching chaos — because those clan bastards were about to start moving.
Living Earth.
The dungeon the Guardian Federation had stamped with an impossible-to-clear verdict. A hellish den seething with monsters. A place where the land itself possessed one vast, living consciousness.
Whoosh!
The ground squelched, damp and yielding, like the innards of some great creature. Rust-colored mana mist billowed from the breathing holes pocking the earth, and tree trunks tangled together like veins bled sap in place of blood.
"Kieeeek..."
"Grrk... grrk..."
Monsters with glassy, unfocused eyes wandered the forest. Sprouting from the ground, tendrils clung to their bodies like parasites. Where monster and tree fused, an exposed heart throbbed with a sickening rhythm. At the center of that grotesque tableau, a man drew breath.
"Ssaaah... haaah."
Calm, steady breathing. Leaning against the great tree that filled the clearing, he too was bound by countless tendrils — but he was different from the monsters. His eyes held cold intelligence, a living spark. Where they were drained of life and left to die, he drew strength through the tendrils — siphoning the land's power, and the monsters' life force with it.
"It gathers."
He looked up at the sun, blurred and hazy behind the red fog threading the air. He reached out a hand, yearning to seize it, pouring every desperate wish into the gesture.
"That should... aah..."
Memories from the distant past crashed over him like a wave. Sky, land, sea, night, sun — all the elements composing the world. The other realm where monsters lived and this world where humans lived were different dimensions, yet fundamentally they shared the same balance, the same structure.
The God King. Fragments shaped by the hand of Her who was called the Creator of all things. Both dimensions were molded by that same hand, and so their roots were one and the same.
"That... was supposed to be mine!"
The bloodline that inherited the God King's legitimacy. The heir of a great being. He was the rightful master who should have ruled both dimensions, the other realm and this world alike.
"So why am I in a place like this...?!"
KUGUGUGU!
The earth shook. The land itself wailed and convulsed, as if screaming in resonance with his rage. The monsters collapsed limply, one after another, and from each dead body a faintly glowing orb drifted free and was absorbed into the man's flesh.
Pyaat!
Withered muscles swelled, and strength filled his voice. As vitality returned to his body, he tried to rise —
"Kghh!"
The moment of glory was far too brief.
"Hrk...!"
He coughed up a blackened mass of blood. The swollen muscles deflated like a punctured balloon, and the ember of recovered life guttered out.
"Ughh... still so far...?"
A monster's life — for now, his only lifeline. But his weakened body couldn't fully accept it. He had devoted thousands of years to convalescence, yet the deep internal wound that had hollowed out his innards never healed.
"No. Calm down. Calm..."
He suppressed the churning turmoil inside and steadied his breathing once more.
"Lord Vital."
A familiar voice. The man called Vital lifted his slumped head toward its source. A woman with pale green hair hanging loose around her shoulders.
"Diana."
"Yes, Master."
The woman bowed her head with proper courtesy. Vital forced his mouth open, wearily.
"The task I commanded — what became of it?"
"As you ordered, we released the monsters into each of the dungeons, to throw the Guardians into disarray."
"And the result?"
"..."
Diana's silence. Vital's brow furrowed — it meant the outcome had fallen short.
"How? 'That one' said, clearly, that now was the moment to strike."
"'The Star' intervened. She appeared and slaughtered the monsters to the last."
"That puppet... it's still operational? A being granted intellect and emotion by my mother, playing human lapdog..."
But if she had appeared, then it was no different from facing an unstoppable natural disaster. Understanding this, Vital dismissed the collapse of his plans as a trivial matter. With her on the field, failure was only to be expected. Besides, his true purpose lay elsewhere.
"And 'it'?"
"The dimensional rift leading to the mortal realm will open soon. A year at the longest — if you wish, I can move the schedule up."
"At last..."
Vital's body trembled like an aspen leaf. Back to that place — back to the mortal realm. He could return to the world of the humans he was meant to rule. A smile bloomed on his face at that hope — and then twisted into something far darker, fury and hatred burning through it.
- Vital, our era is over.
- Pass this power on to the next generation. Don't be greedy.
- You won't listen? Suit yourself. But then repeat after me until you die, you bastard.
"KAIROS!"
He ground his teeth, biting down until they might shatter, as he spat the name of the man who had reduced him to this — the man the world had revered as the Archmage.