077. Bound Item
077. Bound Item
Flinch.
Shin Su-yeon awoke from sleep with a frown, bothered by an inexplicable sense of oppression.
Soon, the last scene she had witnessed surfaced in her mind.
Violence had poured down upon her without mercy, and with zero experience in interpersonal combat, she had been utterly helpless against it.
And then the Mana Absorption Artifact had shattered.......
And then.
Shin Se-hee's eyes.
Tremble-tremble─
Her body began to shake.
'Ah, oh....... No. No....... That bitch Shin Se-hee found out....... Wha, what do I do? I have to contact the clan... the clan......!!!'
Shin Su-yeon's eyes flew open.
Then, with a blank expression, she looked around.
'Where is this......?'
An unpleasant, musty smell, a gloomy space barely touched by light.
All sorts of utterly vicious educational tools hung on the walls.
Looking at the scene, relief instead bloomed inside Shin Su-yeon.
'......So I was brought back to the clan.'
This was Shin Se-hee's room.
The space where the clan educated her.
'The clan must have rescued me without delay.......'
Since she had gone out alone to monitor Shin Se-hee, she had thought the clan might be late, but thankfully, they seemed to have been on time.
Yet, strangely, the oppressive feeling on her body wouldn't go away.
She looked down at herself with questioning eyes.
'......Huh? Why, why am I......?'
She was currently bound to a chair.
And a gag was stuffed tightly in her mouth, so no voice came out.
She was sitting in the place that had always been Shin Se-hee's spot.
A sinister foreboding sank heavily in her chest.
It was then.
— Yeah, Mother. I met her.
Shin Su-yeon lifted her face and turned her head toward the source of the sound.
— But I think I'll live at Shin Se-hee's house for a while.
Someone seemed to be on a call outside the closed door.
To Shin Su-yeon, the voice sounded oddly familiar.
— No, being apart for a while made her way too arrogant, and it's not acceptable. And if I brought her back to the clan anyway, there wouldn't be much time to hold her. Since the academy will eventually come looking for her.
'Wait....... Tha, that's! My voice......!?'
Shin Su-yeon's eyes widened in shock.
Someone was imitating her voice while talking on the phone.
— In that case, I figured it'd be better for me to just live at Shin Se-hee's house and manage her directly.
— Huh? Didn't the academy stop it?
— Mm, apparently family members can live together if they agree. And since Shin Se-hee doesn't live in the dorm, it was even easier.
Unable to comprehend the current situation, Shin Su-yeon even held her breath and listened closely to the contents of the call.
— And well, there's no way Shin Se-hee could defy me anyway, right? I just said I wanted to see where she lived. She was trembling and showed me around, you know?
Shin Su-yeon's expression gradually hardened.
'This place right now....... It isn't the clan......?'
Looking at the room again, she began to see things that were slightly different.
She twisted her body and tried to scream.
"Mmmmph!!! Mmmph!!!"
But from her tightly blocked mouth, no sound could escape.
And the restraints on her body were far too solid to loosen.
— What's that sound? Ah, Shin Se-hee must be awake. Uh-huh. Time to give her the education that's been postponed. Yeah, I won't be reachable for a while.
— Don't worry about the family activities, I'll resume them after I've absorbed enough Mana. Yeah, okay. Hanging up.
With those last words, the voice ended.
Clack.
Clack.
Creeeak─
The firmly shut door opened.
And the one who appeared was Shin Se-hee.
Her own younger sister.
"......Fufu, a magic tool that can imitate someone's voice....... I've immediately gotten to use Jin Yu-ha's present."
Shin Se-hee looked at a beautifully decorated red brooch shaped like a butterfly.
"Jin Yu-ha, really. How did he know my taste and think to give me a gift like this? I wonder if he gave me a butterfly because my alias is Cheonhwa."
Her eyes, which had been staring at the brooch, blurred hazily.
"Jin Yu-ha's embrace was so warm and wonderful....... I'm so sad I couldn't keep holding on. I wonder if I'll get another chance later......?"
Shin Se-hee clutched the brooch in both hands and brought it toward her face. She inhaled deeply, as if breathing in the lingering scent left behind.
Sighhh─
Shin Se-hee, who had been burying her face in the brooch like that for a long while, raised her head.
"Mm, but I should do what needs to be done first, right?"
She turned her head.
And then her eyes met Shin Su-yeon's.
"Sis, did you sleep well?"
"......Mmmmph!"
Shin Su-yeon writhed with her whole body.
"Fufu, you know better than anyone that those don't come undone. Sis, this place is familiar, isn't it?"
Shin Se-hee spoke while slowly looking around.
"That's right. I created an exact copy of the space where you always locked me up and affectionately taught me all sorts of things back when I knew nothing."
"Mmmmph!!!"
"Since I was recreating memories I'd rather not recall, it was a bit lacking at first, but I already improved many shortcomings through the last person who passed through here. So you should be satisfied."
Shin Se-hee said this with a bright smile.
Now she too could understand the whole situation.
Shin Se-hee had imitated her voice to contact the clan.
The clan had been informed that she was at Shin Se-hee's house, educating her.
But in reality, the one being educated was herself.
In this space where there was not a single soul to rescue her, an unending time of education would continue indefinitely.
'I'm on the receiving end of Shin Se-hee now......?'
All the things she had done to Shin Se-hee over the years flashed through her mind.
The acts that began out of jealousy for a younger sister with greater talent than her own,
the past where she had treated her harshly since childhood, thinking the clan could swap her with her sister at any time.
The clan had also put Shin Su-yeon forward, judging that a person with a weakness was easier to handle than one with talent from the start.
Emotions she hadn't felt when she was doing it.
A distant terror consumed her mind.
'I, I have to apologize.......'
"Hnng....... Hnnn."
But as if denying her even a single excuse, only tightly muffled sounds leaked out.
"Sis, have you had fun all this time......?"
Shin Se-hee's face was expressionless as she asked that.
"Was all of that just an act? If you were this scared of me, how could you act so shamelessly all that time?"
"Mmmmph!!!"
"Fufufu, I'll 'educate' you exactly as I suffered all this time. Sis."
Shin Se-hee gently stroked Shin Su-yeon's cheek.
Regret and despair filled Shin Su-yeon's eyes.
* * *
The next day.
I headed to the Swordsmanship major class that Baek Seol-hee taught.
"Hmm? After finishing your quota today, you want additional lessons......?"
Baek Seol-hee frowned when I requested extra lessons to learn grappling to teach Kang Do-hee.
"Yes, I want to learn grappling to prepare for situations where I lose my sword."
"......Today's lesson will be extremely difficult to endure."
"I'll be fine."
Uncharacteristically, Baek Seol-hee tried to dissuade me, but I spoke firmly.
There was a reason I could confidently demand these extra lessons from her.
'Because I used the items from Alice's Box.'
Originally, the items I used from Alice's Box.
「Moonlight」 and the 「Moonlight Earring」
These two items were not bound items by default.
They were items I could use and pass on at any time.
Of course, while things like swordsmanship manuals and Trait Recommendation Letters couldn't be helped, for the items I did use, I had always assumed I'd hand them over to Alice someday.
It wasn't so much that I was that fond of Alice, but more that I thought Alice would be far more helpful than me in actually clearing the game, which was why I kept hesitating until the end.
But now, the hesitation was gone.
'Because it'll let me properly digest the lessons that raise my stats. Stat increases are much more important than Alice.'
At the moment, I had two items equipped.
The 「Bracelet of Experience」
And
the 「Ring of Ability」
Once these two items were equipped, they could not be removed.
In other words, bound items.
But their performance was guaranteed to match that condition.
First, the 「Bracelet of Experience」 was a starter-pack item for newly pulled characters to close the gap with characters who were already pulled and fully spec'd up.
An incredible 30% bonus was applied to experience gained in all processes, including training, clearing, story rewards, etc.
Second, in the case of the 「Ring of Ability」, it was an absolutely broken item that let you choose one of your stats and increase it by 10%.
Since this effect was always active, the higher your base stat went, the more dramatic the effect became.
When your base stat was 10, you got an extra 1 bonus,
when it was 100, you got an extra 10 bonus, and so on.
Among them, I chose Mental Power.
It was the result of having experienced her lessons.
Because I thought that, more than any other stat, an unbreakable mental fortitude was essential for this lecture.
It wasn't a class that a soft modern person's mind could endure.
"......Even so, with classes only twice a week, there is absolutely not enough time to teach proper swordsmanship."
"Yes."
"So, I chose to raise the density of the lessons to teach. But what you are demanding now is for me to teach you another field on top of that."
"......."
Baek Seol-hee stared at me blankly, then let out a sigh.
Sigh.
"Really, you won't regret this."
"......No."
A slight hesitation crept into the end of my words at her overtly intimidating statement, but I looked her in the eyes and nodded.
Baek Seol-hee stared at me blankly, then let out a smirk.
"Honestly, what a greedy brat you are. As an instructor, it's a welcome thing. But if you ever feel you can't do it, ask for it to stop."
"Yes, understood."
"Then let's start the lesson."