Bonds, and Bonds (3)
Bonds, and Bonds (3)
【...I behold the Exalted One.】
I walked past the prostrate creature without resisting, its head pressed to the ground in reverence.
"Woo... Woo-jin...."
He had bitten his lips so hard that the area around his mouth was stained crimson from blood smeared by the rain.
"That's a bad habit."
"Ngh...."
When I reached toward his injured lips, something other than rain slid down his cheeks beneath those red, swollen eyes.
I smoothed down the wet strands of hair clinging to his face, then extended my hand to the side.
The Fairy, lying motionless on Claire's palm as if dead, rose into the air and settled onto my open hand.
"Claire."
"...Yes."
I had briefed her in advance. The moment I called her name, she moved.
"Lee Ye-sol. Take the children and withdraw."
"...As you command."
Snapping out of her frozen state, Lee Ye-sol gently gathered the children, their faces a mess of emotions, and slowly backed away. Even as she retreated, her gaze kept drifting toward the small creature on my hand. She'd grown quite attached.
"You lot, withdraw as well."
Ssssshhh─!!
The warning, sharp with killing intent, sent the onlookers who had been doing nothing but darting their eyes around scrambling backward in a hurry.
"Then...."
Claire bowed her head toward me and stepped back several paces.
I spread my mana, raising a thin membrane that obscured both myself and the creature still kneeling before me.
"Lift your head."
【...Yes. O Exalted One.】
A gaze of pure reverence met mine. Not a shred of deceit in it.
"How long can you hold?"
The creature was forcibly restraining the Scale, which was trying to execute the transaction. By my will, it obeyed.
【Five minutes. If I push further, I might manage ten. But in that case... I would fall into a slumber lasting perhaps ten years by human reckoning.】
"Hold it."
【Yes. O Exalted One.】
This was the first time I had seen it manifest with a physical form. But ever since that night—the night I freed it from its long, agonizing seal and the shackles of a god—this creature, a being made by someone like me, had been utterly devoted to me, just as I saw now.
I placed my other hand over the Fairy, which lay on my palm—neither dead nor truly alive, hovering on the boundary between.
"Cough...."
【Exalted One...!!】
"Focus on your task."
I wiped the dark-red blood trickling from the corner of my mouth with my sleeve.
'I won't be able to do this twice....'
For me, a being whose physical body has no finite lifespan, a lifespan is worth less than dust blowing down the road. And so, to balance the scales, I had torn away a piece of my own soul.
As a result, my internal organs were now thoroughly wrenched out of place, and blood was surging up my throat in rebellion.
Fortunately, the severed portion of my soul would slowly regenerate from the intact parts over time. But the memories contained in what was lost... those would never return.
For now, I had no way of knowing which memories had vanished. They were, quite literally, no longer a part of me.
"Hoo."
I steadied my breathing and focused my mind.
The sharper my senses grew, the more acutely I felt the pain of my twisted innards—but to someone who had ceased to be human, it was merely tolerable discomfort.
Ssssshhh─!!
The Greed I had kept suppressed all this time began seeping out of my body, obedient to my will.
"Insolent...."
The moment I released it, the thing tried to run rampant, defying my control.
I unleashed every drop of mana I had stockpiled in my heart and crushed Greed back down.
Ssssshhh─!!
Hissing like a serpent, it oozed back into my body.
But trying to control it with a broken body—when I hadn't been able to properly suppress it even at full strength—was a fool's errand.
'Obey my will.'
So I chose to negotiate.
'Do that, and I won't crush you completely.'
Twitch─!!
"Puhh...."
It constricted around my heart, now hollowed of mana.
The Fairy. That little one lying on my palm as if dead. And this wretch thrashing like a mad colt.
'If you want to be swallowed by Void, keep struggling.'
They all shared one trait: gentle persuasion never got through to them.
Ssss....
The force crushing my heart faded.
It seemed the thing had developed a healthy fear—likely from being utterly flattened by Void when it briefly stirred awake, on top of my own suppression.
'So long as you don't rampage, I will suppress you no longer.'
So obey my will.
Sssssss....
The creature that had been trying to coil around my heart slowly flowed through my body instead, gathering in the palm I held over the Fairy.
'Take it.'
Fwooosh─!!
A crimson energy seeped into the Fairy's body.
"Kuhh...!!"
With part of my soul already torn away, adding this burden in place of that foolish creature accelerated my body's collapse even further.
'Even in this state, it's this bad....'
The reason I hadn't revived the Fairy immediately was simple.
Taking from the dead is far easier than taking from the living, and far less burdensome. That was all.
Surge.
"...Ptui."
I spat out something far too dark to be called mere blood.
"Hoo."
If I let my focus slip even slightly, my vision flickered and threatened to go dark.
My heartbeat gradually slowed. My hands and feet trembled as my blood ceased to circulate. Yet I did not hurry Greed along.
Pushing it would not speed things up, and more importantly, I couldn't allow impurities to mix in.
After a minute that felt like an hour—
Ssssss....
—the thing that had permeated the Fairy's body emerged.
'Return.'
The crimson energy sank into me, cradling a mass that shimmered faintly with rainbow hues.
At the same moment, amid the foulness of pain, a warmth brushed against my emotions.
'That's not me.'
I seized what was trying to assimilate into me with Greed and guided it deeper—into the depths I myself could not see the end of.
Kieeeek─!!
"Kh...."
The instant it touched Void, Greed thrashed in panic.
'So long as I exist, you will not be annihilated....'
Whether that meaning got through or not, the creature gradually quieted and descended, still cradling what it had taken from the Fairy.
Kihik....
Greed quivered as if terrified.
I opened the eyes I had been keeping shut.
'Until it is fully delivered to her, you must protect it.'
No response came. But I could feel that it had accepted my command. It must have realized, after all, that touching Void did not mean its own annihilation.
"Cough...."
【O Exalted One....】
"One more minute... just one."
【It is more than enough....】
I nodded and burned away the blood I had spat onto the ground and the trails dripping from my chin.
The ambient mana drifting in the air was more than sufficient for that much.
Gulp.
I forced down the blood trying to rise again and looked at the Fairy resting on my hand.
'I hope there are no major changes.'
Its life was not the issue.
It hadn't been truly dying in the first place, and the moment that creature—a being like myself—resumed the Scale, its depleted lifespan would fill again.
What concerned me was how the Fairy might change due to what Greed had taken.
What I had extracted was a portion of the emotions that had swelled within it until the very last moment.
Joy at reunion. Delight. Happiness. And the pain of parting.
When it awoke... would it still be the same Fairy as before?
【O Exalted One.】
"...."
The time had come. I nodded.
**
A thin barrier had suddenly been raised, blocking any view of what was happening inside.
Baek Ha-na looked anxiously between the barrier Baek Woo-jin had entered and Claire, who stood guard outside it.
She waited like that, unable to hide her unease and impatience, when—
"...?"
"Uh...."
Everyone's eyes turned skyward.
The rain that had been pouring down like a storm only moments ago had stopped, as if it had all been a lie.
"Uh, uh...?"
Idni stared up at the sky, her eyes swollen from crying, looking utterly dazed.
It was understandable. The dark clouds that had packed the sky were scattering in all directions as if they were alive.
Crack, craaack─!!
The gazes of the children, fixed on the heavens, snapped toward the thin barrier that shattered like glass.
Where the barrier had vanished, Baek Woo-jin stood alone in his black jacket.
The woman who had been handling the Scale was nowhere to be seen.
"H-he's... he's all right, right...?"
"Shut up...."
Idni swallowed hard. Maria clapped a hand over Idni's mouth, her own voice cracked and hoarse.
"He's... he's coming."
Accompanied by Claire, Baek Woo-jin approached them.
Baek Ha-na watched him draw closer and clenched her fists tight.
Because if she didn't, she felt sure she would start crying again.
"Woo-jin...."
"...."
Baek Woo-jin did not answer Baek Ha-na's call. Instead—
—peep... peeeep....
He placed the Fairy, curled up with its tiny thumb in its mouth, onto her palm.
"Chirp—"
"Shut it...."
"Hurk...?!"
Idni, struck precisely in the throat, tumbled across the ground.
But no one paid her any attention. They were all simply gazing at the Fairy, breathing peacefully with a serene expression.
Baek Ha-na's face, however, was troubled.
'...The smell of blood.'
It had been only for a fleeting moment, but when he extended his arm, the thick scent of blood had brushed her nose. And it was a scent she had smelled once before—Baek Woo-jin's blood.
"Woo...?"
Baek Ha-na, who had been looking at the Fairy, lifted her head—and closed her lips.
The man who had been standing before her just seconds ago was gone.
"The professor had business to attend to and has departed."
"...I see."
Baek Ha-na nodded at Claire's answer.
She knew, after all, that he possessed the ability to conceal his presence.
"More importantly, we should begin preparing now."
"......?"
The children, except for Idni collapsed on the ground, blinked in confusion.
Claire did not explain. She simply turned around.
"You, come over here as well."
The graduates who had been standing apart on the other side approached cautiously, reading the mood.
"Stand behind the children."
"Ah, yes. But what about this junior here...?"
"Maria."
"Good grief...."
Maria hoisted Idni up, the girl still twitching feebly where she'd fallen, and supported her.
"Stay just like that. Lee Ye-sol."
"Yes?"
"You as well. Stand with them."
"M-me as well, you mean?"
"Yes."
Lee Ye-sol flinched at her superior's command, momentarily flustered, then quickly collected herself and found a suitable spot in the empty space.
"Good."
Claire pulled out her smartphone.
She aimed the lens at the little group gathered before her.
Boooom~!!
Bang~!!
Boom-ba-bang~!!
She captured their image together with the fireworks brilliantly adorning the night sky.
**
"Shit... it wasn't some fortuitous encounter, it was an actual Fairy."
Somewhere in the unlit corners of the Academy.
One of those who had received the Chairman's invitation, hidden at the meeting spot alongside Kim Gyeong-tae, watching from the shadows without ever showing himself until the end.
"Tch, not showing up on camera either...."
The Fairy had been visible at first. But after that unidentified barrier vanished, it could no longer be seen. Still, the way the funereal atmosphere had brightened in an instant made it obvious—the Fairy had been revived.
"Solo testimony won't be credible enough... if I rope in a few more and sell the intel to someplace like the Clock Tower, it'll be a nice bit of coi—"
Crrrrack─!!
"Gurk... y-you...?!"
The man's eyes went wide at the face of the person who had appeared without a sound and seized his throat.
Crack.
And that was all.
An Hyeon-do, the middle-aged man who had snapped the man's neck in an instant, gazed up at the moon rising in the sky and let out a sigh.
"Next time I make a bet with that bastard, I'm the monster. Tch...."
The Chairman tossed the man's body, neck broken, into a suitably out-of-the-way spot, then launched himself into the air in search of other graduates.