Cooling (3)
Cooling (3)
I hammered out the base body and engraved the spell formulas with the sharpened Sky Wing Feather. It all went smoothly. The work demanded immense concentration, but I made no mistakes. The finished ring had a ceramic-like color and an understated elegance. I nodded to myself, satisfied that I'd embedded the intended performance properly.
'What the hell...'
The Calamity Flame erupted.
- Fwoooosh!
Without warning, the Calamity Flame swelled. It ballooned in an instant, as if exploding, and churned violently.
I clamped down on it as it tried to spread in every direction. Barely reining it back under control, I kept it from scorching everything around me.
I shifted my stance to face it head-on, just in case it surged toward Baek A-rin, and shot to my feet, clutching my right arm.
My face twisted at the strange phenomenon.
This pain-in-the-ass ability was suddenly throwing a fit. It had sat still like a docile puppy during the crafting process, and now it was trying to bite everything in sight like a rabid mutt.
'...No, is it trying to burn the outside?'
Something felt off.
I'd caught it as it tried to spread everywhere, but in reality, it wasn't that threatening.
The flames raged, and the workshop's temperature spiked sharply. The heat was so intense that sweat poured down my skin like rain.
But even if I hadn't grabbed hold of the Calamity Flame, it probably wouldn't have caused much damage to the outside.
- Fwoooosh!
Instead, inside my body... the seed of Calamity Flame that had taken root in my core was gradually swelling.
The fire latched onto my emotions.
'Ggghhh...!'
Thump! My pulse boomed. I hunched over from the vibration that rattled my bones.
My head clouded over for a moment, as if obscured by flames and black smoke. My consciousness flickered.
The Calamity Flame had latched onto my emotions. My emotions were spiraling. It was a classic side effect.
Calamity Flame can use many things as kindling, but it feeds remarkably well on its manifestor's emotions.
To stoke the fire further, it incites those emotions. It piles up that kindling and generates even greater output.
I'd experienced and endured this many times. I'd never suffered serious damage from this side effect before.
When it first manifested in the Tower of Growth, I'd only briefly had negative thoughts, and I'd used it while maintaining good Harmonization ever since.
'This is...'
It was a little different from back then.
The fire was fierce. The emotional spiral was not normal. The flames wouldn't properly die down.
And...
- Aaaaaaagh...!
Hallucinations replayed in my head.
Blond hair, blue eyes. The throat of an ordinary Western man was torn out.
The monster that had bitten into the man's nape—a Red Leaf Hound—chewed and swallowed the flesh.
The scream stopped. Blood flowed backward like a waterfall, and soon the man's bloodshot eyes rolled back. His stumbling form collapsed into a pool of blood.
I don't know who he was.
No, to be precise, I had observed him once.
Someone I couldn't save by a hair's breadth in Sipnaha.
My face in the hallucination distorted horribly.
Back when my hair was still black and my mana was still blue. Gritting my teeth, I lunged at the Red Leaf Hound.
My fist hammered down. Wham! The Aura-clad punch crushed the Red Leaf Hound's head.
Its body, head shattered to pieces, slumped down onto the man's corpse.
I'd killed the perpetrator.
But the murdered man didn't come back.
In Lee Ha-yul's spatial perception back then, such scenes had been hammered in with brutal clarity.
From Sipnaha until now.
There were many I had saved. Those whose lives I had barely managed to save by jumping in.
And there were many I hadn't saved. The faces of those I could have saved if I had been a single step faster—just a little faster—flashed through my mind.
People who died because of me. People who would still be alive if I hadn't gone berserk in China, pushing beyond my limits. Those who died under the excuse of preventing damage that would be doubled in the future...
'...Ugh...'
My breath caught in my throat. My lungs and heart hardened like stone for an instant.
The guilt I had buried near the bottom suddenly surged up. A sizable chunk of guilt surfaced, and the Calamity Flame, having found good kindling, latched on.
As if it had found a weak point, the Calamity Flame blazed fiercely. More hallucinations surfaced, becoming kindling.
That kind of guilt crushed my mind and body. Normally I would have suppressed it again with some flimsy self-rationalization, but my reason, swept up in emotion, had trouble doing so.
'And what the hell is this...'
My judgment was further delayed by incomprehensible hallucinations mixed in among them. Faces that resembled mine, but weren't me...
Fwoooosh...! The fire gradually intensified.
My body heaved violently for an instant.
'No, more importantly, first the Calamity Flame...'
The Calamity Flame's vigor swelled without limit, heat packing itself steadily into my body.
My emotions hypertrophied, pushing reason aside.
The heat level kept climbing. If this kept up, it felt like my body would just burst.
Whether I combusted or exploded, it clearly wouldn't end well. If I let the Calamity Flame rampage unchecked like this, I would definitely die.
My reason, blurred by the tsunami of emotion, recognized the threat to my life.
And so, I mobilized a method to break through the problem.
'Homogenization, Azure Sea.'
- Hisssss...!
Water and ice were dumped onto the fire. The hastily imitated Azure Sea urgently pushed back the Calamity Flame.
Water energy and cold energy poured into my body where the fiery energy was rampaging, canceling each other out.
Fwoosh! The Calamity Flame, which had faltered for a moment, burned the Azure Sea away.
'Not enough.'
The Azure Sea I manifested myself was insufficient to subdue the Calamity Flame that was running wild after gorging on my emotions.
"Why does the trial have to happen now, of all times..."
Around then, Azure Sea poured in from outside.
It was Baek A-rin, whom I'd momentarily forgotten. She wrapped herself in cold energy to push through the flames and placed her hand on my hunched back.
Then, forming hand seals with her other hand, a cool Azure Sea energy flooded into my body.
Baek A-rin's Azure Sea, practically pouring in like a tidal wave, interlocked with the Azure Sea I had manifested.
With the momentum of an entire polar ocean crashing down, even the Calamity Flame couldn't hold its ground and was gradually suppressed.
- Flicker...
As a result, the Calamity Flame flaring outside me subsided. The Calamity Flame's fire cut off completely, ending with a dying ember flickering just above my shoulder.
In that instant, all the strength drained from my body. Staggering like a puppet with its strings cut, I swayed to the side.
My breathing was ragged. I couldn't regain control. Baek A-rin was saying something, but I couldn't hear it well, as if I had been plunged underwater.
My body crumbled. I grew closer and closer to the floor...
- Catch.
"Goodness, what an unexpected bolt from the blue... Are you alright?"
My body never met the floor.
Just as I was toppling, right beside me, even while sighing, Baek A-rin gently caught me as I collapsed helplessly.
- Hah, huuuh...
My breathing was ragged.
'Hot...'
My body was hot. I'd put out the urgent fire, but the heat that had built up inside my body hadn't escaped. Steam was practically rising from my heated skin.
'Too hot...'
It was too hot.
Warmth is nice, but when it exceeds a certain level, it becomes scorching heat. Heat is better than cold, but I still hate it.
'Something cool...'
"It's over now, so it's fine. Breathe slowly..."
As I gasped for breath, I felt a hand patting my back.
The signature coolness of Baek A-rin...
'No...'
A cool touch swept down my back. Every time her touch brushed down my back, my burning hot flesh slowly cooled.
Even without deliberately channeling it, Baek A-rin was emanating a cool aura in waves.
I wanted to resolve this heat.
I had avoided the worst, but the remaining heat and my heightened emotions urged my choice.
"There there, you're doing well. Just focus on getting your breathing steady for n... uh... uh..."
I wrapped my arms around her slender waist and pushed myself firmly against her.
A voluptuous sensation softly caught my body.
At the same time, a coolness that quenched the heat wafted over me.
'Haaaah...'
[So cooool...]
My mouth opened involuntarily as my body shuddered. The pent-up heat began to cool.
It was like plunging myself into cold water after sweating buckets...
"Ahaha, acting spoiled again, are we?"
Baek A-rin let out a soft laugh.
With one hand she patted around my back, and with the other, she pulled the zipper of my windbreaker straight down.
- Zzzip...
The windbreaker parted to the sides, revealing my black sleeveless shirt underneath.
"Aww, our Ha-yul, were you scared because of the trial?"
Speaking in a strangely babyish tone, Baek A-rin pressed my head down, burying it firmly into her apricot-hued cleavage.
It was soft and cool.
Flicker... The Calamity Flame, like dying embers, still flared faintly.
The Calamity Flame, which had long since driven the internal Azure Sea out, clung persistently to the chill of Baek A-rin where our skin touched.
- Hissss...
The ice melted away.
"...Huh?"
Suddenly, Baek A-rin's touch stopped cold.
A dazed sound leaked from her lips, a rare occurrence.
* * *
The Lee Ha-yul Baek A-rin had come to know was like a hedgehog.
He was full of wariness at his core.
If someone suddenly approached him, rather than being glad, he'd get spooked first and bristle his quills.
He had no aggression, so he wouldn't ram into you first, but if you tried to harm him, he'd ram right into you.
If others didn't approach him, he wouldn't approach them either.
He was the type to just quietly settle in a corner and read the mood around him.
[It's so coooool...]
That was how Lee Ha-yul was before you got close to him.
Baek A-rin looked down at Lee Ha-yul, who was buried in her arms, with a strange expression.
Apparently very satisfied with the position, he kept firmly burying his face into the cleavage visible above her sleeveless shirt.
The Lee Ha-yul you get close to... becomes, crudely speaking, a completely different person.
The hedgehog full of apprehension and wariness became an affectionate puppy.
If you suddenly approached him, he'd still startle, but deep down he'd be glad and would hover around, pretending not to be.
His aggression was almost nonexistent, and rather than stabbing someone he was close to with his quills if they harmed him, he'd dig a burrow and crawl into it alone.
Baek A-rin had made an effort to become close to Lee Ha-yul.
From the moment they first met, and even more so after confirming his Calamity Flame rivaled Hong Yeon-hwa's, she'd tried to tie a tighter connection with him.
After realizing the unprecedented fact that he had manifested both Calamity Flame and Azure Sea, she had wanted to become someone whose request he would grant no matter what.
It was because she thought that only Lee Ha-yul could fulfill what she desired.
And now...
"...Ahaha!"
Baek A-rin felt hope.
Not the talk of possibility, but a realizable hope.
A laugh escaped her involuntarily.
Her heartbeat stiffened irregularly. The trespasser must be displeased. But so what.
"Snniff..."
- Hic.
Baek A-rin abruptly lowered her head and buried her nose in Lee Ha-yul's hair. As she took a deep breath in that state, Lee Ha-yul flinched.
She didn't care. Rather, she hugged Lee Ha-yul with all her strength and confined him in her arms.
He was warm. She could feel his body heat. The sensation of their damp skin touching and rubbing together, the softness of the pure white hair tickling her face.
She took one deep breath after another.
She could smell his scent.
Lee Ha-yul had already been pouring sweat like rain because of the Calamity Flame.
Instead of an unpleasant smell, his body scent had become much more intense.
Thanks to that, Baek A-rin felt almost like she was being steeped in honey for a moment.
Even Baek A-rin, whose senses were dulled by that damned curse, was feeling it that way.
The curse had weakened.
Just a tiny bit right now, but... Lee Ha-yul's Calamity Flame could influence the curse.
If it was the 'Calamity Flame' that understood the 'Azure Sea'... it was possible.
"Fuuu..."
Before long, her senses dulled again.
She pulled her nose away.
[Ehh...?]
Lee Ha-yul was floating a question mark over his head. He seemed surprised by her sudden action. Even so, the way he tilted his head defenselessly rather than resisting made her laugh anew.
"Baek Ha-yul."
[Yes?]
"I saw it."
[Saw what?]
He tilts his head innocently yet again. Does he really not remember? He might have forgotten because it was an emergency.
Baek A-rin lowered her head further and whispered into Lee Ha-yul's ear.
"You, using the Azure Sea."
Lee Ha-yul, who had been tilting his head blankly, went completely rigid. The memories from just moments ago rushed back into his mind.
Like a fish frozen solid, Lee Ha-yul's head tilted back with a creak.
[......]
[...]
[...Huh? What?]
[Ah?]
[Fuck?]
"Ahaha, look at that reaction."
Baek A-rin giggled again and lowered her hand.
"Our Baek Ha-yul, would you grant me just one request?"
She stroked Lee Ha-yul's backside.
Even in the midst of this, Lee Ha-yul was frozen stiff, incapable of even resisting.
* * *
[Player Correction System: Affection]
Lee Ha-yul → Baek A-rin
●●●●●●●○○○(69▷74/100)
｢Cold Energy｣ ｢Coolness｣ ｢Favorable｣ ｢Question｣ ｢Confusion｣ ｢Dairy Cow?｣ ｢Guilt｣