Butterfly Effect
Butterfly Effect
A few days into the break.
"Nnngh...."
Baek Ha-na dragged her body—which felt like it had lead weights strapped to it—back to the dorm and immediately flopped onto her bed. For the first three days, thanks to Maria's healing, she hadn't felt much fatigue. But that hadn't lasted.
The biggest factor was Maria's accumulated exhaustion, though skipping proper rest to race around excitedly with the Fairy had contributed too.
'At this rate, I really won't last a few more days....'
She could feel Maria's holy power diminishing noticeably with each passing day. Unlike mana, recovering holy power required prayer, and Maria had been spending most of that time with the Fairy. So the steady decline was only natural.
Ding.
Just as her eyelids were growing heavier and sleep was about to pull her under, the dormitory door slid open.
"Ha-na... Ha-na!!"
Baek Ha-na had been staggering upright from the bed, but the call from Lee Na-young, whose voice brimmed with obvious excitement, snapped her half-closed eyes wide open.
"You finished it?"
"For now!! But, um, I haven't tried it yet, so I don't know if it's really a success...."
A deep shadow fell over Lee Na-young's face, replacing the bright excitement from just a moment ago.
"Come here for a second."
"Eek."
Baek Ha-na reached out and pulled Lee Na-young—who had been standing in front of her rummaging through her bag—into a hug.
"Sniff-sniff. You smell like herbs."
"Eehee, i-it tickles...."
Lee Na-young's shoulders twitched every time Baek Ha-na's warm breath brushed the back of her head and the nape of her neck.
"The medicine's in there?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I brought everything."
"Did you tell Idni?"
"Not yet... I was worried someone might steal it, so I ran straight over here."
"Good job. And she won't be able to come by today anyway, so we can contact her tomorrow."
"Okay. Got it. But, Ha-na?"
"What?"
"Why are you rummaging through the bag...?"
Lee Na-young blinked, watching as Baek Ha-na opened the bag that had been placed across her thighs.
"So I can check for you if it's really a success."
"......?"
Clatter.
Baek Ha-na slipped her hand out of the bag, now holding a tiny bottle about the length of a finger.
"This one?"
"Y-yeah."
"It's transparent. If you didn't look closely, you'd think it was just an empty bottle."
"But that one's Idni's, though...?"
Lee Na-young watched as Baek Ha-na casually moved to uncork the potion bottle and asked.
"Wouldn't it be better to know the result before you tell her?"
"W-well, that's... true...?"
"And if the result turns out bad, it gives you some time to brace yourself, Na-young."
"Eek...."
"It's fine. I believe in you."
Baek Ha-na quietly pulled the stopper from the potion bottle.
"So this is our little secret."
"......Okay."
"Good."
Once she confirmed Lee Na-young's nod, Baek Ha-na brought the lip of the potion to her mouth.
**
The next morning.
"The potion I've been waiting and waiting for...!!"
After getting Lee Na-young's message, Idni had visited the dorm early in the morning. Now she held up the little potion bottle, her eyes sparkling. Lee Na-young, who had been watching from the bed, spoke up cautiously.
"I still haven't tested it, so I don't know what the results are like...."
"But you said the probability of success was 97%, right?"
"W-well, yes."
"Then it probably worked."
Ecstatic that she might finally be free of the muscle aches that had tormented her every night, Idni slipped the potion bottle back into her bag. Watching this, Maria, who was seated beside Idni, asked:
"You're not going to drink it right away?"
"Why would I waste it now? We're going to train again today anyway. I'll drink it after today's training."
"...Why does her mind only work this fast when it comes to stuff like this?"
"What was that? You don't want to drink it?"
As Idni shook the heavy bag, Maria's left eyebrow twitched once.
"Ohohoho, this kid, really~? Can't you take a joke? I've known since forever that our Idni is clever."
Pat-pat.
Maria smiled radiantly, pressed herself close to Idni, and lightly patted the slight swell of her bottom.
"...I'll give it to you, so knock it off."
"Fine."
Maria's sharply raised lips settled back down into a flat, horizontal line. Clicking her tongue lightly at her friend's rapid shift in attitude, Idni asked Lee Na-young:
"Are you busy again today?"
"No...."
Lee Na-young rubbed her sleepy eyes and shook her head.
"Partly to check whether the potion really worked... I decided to go over to Ha-na's house today."
"That's great."
Idni strapped the bag to her side and got to her feet.
"I was planning to give it to you now if you were busy, but we can just drink it together later, after our training."
"Huh?"
"What? You don't want to?"
"N-no. That's not it, but... it's your share, Idni...?"
When Lee Na-young asked with wide eyes, Idni let out a small snort and answered.
"Hey. I'm a cleric too, alright? Sure, the ingredients in here are mine, but I know how hard you worked on it for days, Lee Na-young. You think I'd just shut my mouth and keep it all?"
-Ahem.
"......?"
When Baek Ha-na, who had been quiet all this time, let out a short cough, Idni chuckled.
"Even if you don't make it so obvious, I was going to give it to you too."
"Th-thank you...."
"Haha!! Why are you getting all shy about something like this?"
Idni laughed as if amused when Baek Ha-na, for a rare moment, answered while averting her eyes.
"I don't think that's it...."
"Huh? What was that?"
When Idni stopped laughing and asked, Maria simply shook her head lightly and got up.
"Let's go eat breakfast."
Her skin had a vitality it hadn't had the day before.
Maria simply found it astounding that Idni couldn't notice such an obvious change.
**
The clock on the desk pointed to nine o'clock.
Just then, the kids who had been waiting by the front door for the last few minutes stepped inside the manor.
Then came the sound of the children greeting Claire.
"Woo-jin~?"
Baek Ha-na poked her head through the study door as she opened it.
After confirming I was sitting at my desk, she slowly pushed the half-open door wide and came inside.
"We'll be in your care again today~"
"W-we'll be in your care...!!"
Maria and Idni bowed their heads lightly toward me. I'd told them it wasn't necessary—just as I didn't demand it of Claire—but these two, who took after their superior perfectly, still bowed to show respect, just as I was witnessing now.
I nodded once toward the pair, then shifted my gaze to the kid glued close to Baek Ha-na's side.
"Ah, uh, h-h-hello, th-there...."
"This is Lee Na-young. My roommate."
I already knew that.
But there was no need to tell Baek Ha-na that, so I wrapped it up with another single nod, just as I had before.
"What about the little one?"
"Before that, you've got something you need to do."
"Tch...."
Baek Ha-na, who had been inching toward the bedroom, pouted her lips at my words and turned around.
"Na-young, do you want to stay here? There's no need for you to be outside—"
"No! I, I like being outside!! I, g-get sun, sometimes, I have to, sunbathe!!"
"O-oh? Okay, let's go out together, then."
"Okay!!"
Baek Ha-na had probably meant her own room, but Lee Na-young seemed to have misunderstood and thought I was telling them to wait here.
"...See you later."
The children filed out of the study first. Baek Ha-na, the last one remaining, gave me a quiet smile and then gently closed the door behind her.
'What's in the bag... a potion, I suppose.'
The heavy bag hanging from Idni's waist.
The energy I sensed inside it was slightly altered, but it was unmistakably the Fairy's.
The reason Baek Ha-na's own energy had been so excessively well-contained was probably because she had drunk a potion that used the Fairy's Time as an ingredient.
'To turn that into a potion, though.'
It was a use I had never even considered.
Only because she didn't know how valuable the material truly was could she actually translate such a bizarre and bold idea into action.
'It is intriguing.'
From lifespan to Time, and then manufactured into a potion, its nature had shifted a little once more. Still, looking at the changes in Baek Ha-na, it was clear the potion definitely still held the concept of Time.
If that altered potion were to also work on its original owner...
'...it might be worth adjusting things.'
The thought crossed my mind that it could yield a better result than what I had originally planned.
*
-Pii-aang~!
Around noon, the little troublemaker flew in through the open gap of the bedroom door, letting out a yawn as it came toward me.
-Pii-ang.
"Anyone would think you'd been left in my care."
-Piii?
I pressed lightly on the head of the creature as it tilted its head, then pulled a Slime Essence from the study drawer and handed it over.
-Pii-aang~
Clutching the black jelly in its hands, it flew to the windowsill, plopped its rear down in a sunny spot, and began nibbling intently at the jelly while watching the sparring match that was nearly over.
'Thankfully, it's having an effect.'
Just as Maria, Idni, and Claire had been convinced, the creature had given a portion of its time to those two children. As a result, its sleeping pattern, which had only just stabilized, had undergone a major shift.
The creature, which used to fall asleep with Claire and wake around the time breakfast was ready, now only managed to drag itself out of its basket around noon, just as I was seeing now. Its bedtime had also gotten drastically earlier: the moment Baek Ha-na's group left the manor after dinner, it flew straight to its nest and curled up.
Thanks to those Slime Essences—acquired steadily through Lee Ye-sol, and a few days ago through Yoon Do-sik and Jaden—it could still wake up and buzz around full of energy as it was doing right now.
-Pii-ang!!
...Tap-tap!
...Tap-tap!
Having cleanly devoured the jelly, the creature rapped on the window with its tiny hands as if asking for it to be opened.
The children's training had also finished, so I used mana to open the shut window.
-Pwooooh!!
"Ack...?!"
Once the Fairy was in the yard, instead of landing on Baek Ha-na, who was sprawled on the ground, it flew over to Lee Na-young—who was sitting off at a distance—landed on her head, and started to wreak havoc.
"That's enough."
-Piiiii....
Just then, Claire, who had been heading back into the manor, witnessed the scene. She approached Lee Na-young and detached the Fairy. When Claire put her foot down, something that hadn't happened in a long while, the Fairy drooped its head with a deeply sullen expression.
"Na-youuuung...."
"Right!!"
At Idni's call, which sounded uncannily like an undead's wail, Lee Na-young pulled a little glass bottle out of the bag she had been clutching.
'It really is a potion.'
Once Idni took the potion from Lee Na-young, she popped the stopper and downed it in one gulp.
"Oh, oooh...?"
The scratches, swelling, and other traces of injury on Idni's body quickly began to vanish.
As a few more seconds passed, her skin, which had been covered in wounds, cleared up as if by magic—and on top of that, it even began to emit a faint, healthy sheen.
Observing the changes to Idni's now spotless body—so starkly contrasted by her tattered clothes—I became certain.
'It kept the property that lets time flow.'
However, unlike Baek Ha-na, whose hair had visibly grown longer, the physical changes to Idni weren't that dramatic. They had likely succeeded in manufacturing the potion, but failed when it came to splitting its properties into equal ratios.
'Naturally, it would still be too much for them to get right at this stage.'
Just as I finished my rough assessment of the potion, the little troublemaker that had been sitting on Claire's palm flew toward Idni.
-Pii-aang~!
"Huh? You want some, too?"
-Piiii!!
"Fine. Drink up. You're the one who gave it, so you've definitely got the right to drink it. Lee Na-young!!"
"Ah, okay!!"
Lee Na-young took out another potion from the bag and held it out to Idni. Except.
"Idni."
"Eep...."
Claire, who had closed the distance soundlessly, snatched the potion away and glared down at Idni, who was collapsed on the ground, with a chilly stare.
"You and I are going to have a private talk later."
"Wh-why...?!"
"Quiet."
Claire pierced Idni with one more sharp look as she handed back the confiscated potion.
"Ugh... f-fine, if that's how it's going to be, I'll just go out partying before I die...!!"
Pop!!
Idni uncorked the potion and held it out to the Fairy, who was waiting below with twinkling eyes.
-Pii-aang~!
"Here, I'll help you drink it. That's it."
Once the Fairy grabbed the bottle with its tiny hands and put its lips to the mouth of the bottle, Idni slowly tilted the potion.
As the bottle tilted, the clear liquid inside flowed down, soon passing through the Fairy's little lips and down its throat.
Gulp.
Gulp.
Gulp.
When it had swallowed about half of what was a considerable amount for a creature its size.
"......!!"
"Eeek?!"
Claire, who had been watching beside them, released her mana and snatched the potion out of Idni's hand.
"M-miss, Executor...?"
Exposed to the faint aura that leaked from Claire, Idni's face drained of color and turned ghastly pale.
Just then, everyone except me stood stunned by the sudden turn of events, gaping wordlessly.
-Chwiyooo!!
A child's slurred voice filled the entire garden.