Moving (1)
Moving (1)
At first, I only meant to scold him a little.
It isn't unwarranted—the boy absolutely refuses to treat his body with any care whatsoever.
The last time we met under the pretext of training together, I watched him from the side, and it was a sight to behold.
He throws his own body around like it's a lump of clay.
He abuses it ruthlessly, as if convinced that even if it breaks, it'll just recover, and even if it gets torn off, it'll just grow back.
He does it without even sleeping. Unless someone—Hong Yeon-hwa included—holds him in their arms and puts him to bed, he won't sleep for days.
When the people around him freak out and pester him about it, he just wilts and looks around nervously without ever changing his behavior.
He's normally an obedient child who goes along with almost anything, but on this one point, he's stubborn.
As if driven by something, he abuses his body like he'll drop dead if he doesn't do it right this instant. I couldn't make sense of it at all.
Well, he's a child with so many secrets, so I'm sure he has his reasons... but to the people around him, he looks nothing short of precarious.
That's why Hong Yeon-hwa and Ellia practically reached an agreement: whenever Lee Ha-yul shows up at the dormitory, they run him ragged, then swiftly bundle him off to sleep alongside Lee Seo-yul.
'I'm seriously losing my mind...'
It's as if Lee Ha-yul is laboring under the delusion that his body is some kind of machine where you can just swap out parts or replace the whole thing with a new one.
No, seeing that prosthetic arm he wears, I think that really is what he believes.
Truth be told, Hong Yeon-hwa wanted to yank that prosthetic off this instant. And it wasn't just Hong Yeon-hwa—most of the people around him felt the same way.
They resented that rigid prosthetic occupying the spot where a pale, slender arm ought to be.
I wanted to tear that prosthetic off right now and stuff Lee Ha-yul full of elixirs to regenerate the arm...
A top-grade artifact? A rarity with integrated sensation and circuits? A treasure with a built-in Unique Ability? An elegant design?
...So what?
Hong Yeon-hwa would rather touch Lee Ha-yul's own real skin than some damned top-grade artifact...
She held it in. She'd intended to rush over and tear it off the moment she saw the prosthetic, but Lee Ha-yul's ferocious resistance rendered the attempt futile.
The temptation did cross her mind—to pin him down for days, reduce him to a helpless fool, and force the thing off... but she barely managed to restrain herself.
Even now, every time she sees that prosthetic, it eats at her. Every time she feels hard metal instead of a soft, pale hand, her heart aches.
And as time passed, the possibility of regenerating the arm only grew dimmer.
While she's been holding all that in... now he comes back from an ordinary lecture with his remaining arm cleaved in two?
He was experimenting with magic on his own and his arm split open lengthwise?
That alone makes her blood boil, but if Lee Ha-yul shows up with another prosthetic he picked up somewhere, presenting it like it's his right arm now... Hong Yeon-hwa might just faint on the spot.
"Should I cut off my own arm as an experiment? Would Ha-yul understand how I feel then?"
And so, she scolded him just a little. She brought out some slightly cruel words, telling him to recognize this nasty habit of treating his body like modeling clay.
Put yourself in the other person's shoes. Reverse the situation. If it were Hong Yeon-hwa walking around with an arm cut off and a prosthetic dangling, would that sit well with you? Wouldn't it break your heart...?
"I'm sorry...! Yeon-hwa, you mustn't get hurt...!"
But the moment she said that, Lee Ha-yul's whole demeanor changed.
Lee Ha-yul, who had already been watching her nervously like a puppy drenched in rain, started clinging to her desperately after Hong Yeon-hwa's remark.
"It's all, all my fault... hk, hk! Hic...! Please don't say that, please..."
"No, I meant I'd really pull it off, I didn't—wait! All right! I said it wrong! D-don't cry..."
He looked so frantic that it was clear he believed Hong Yeon-hwa might tear her arm off at any second.
The child who, even while his arm was being sliced open, had merely been flustered and downcast—now he was clinging to her, sobbing and hiccuping.
So naturally Hong Yeon-hwa, and even those who had been standing by insisting he really needed a scolding this time, rushed over in a fluster to soothe and comfort him.
"Don't get hurt... I was the one who did wrong..."
"I get it. I'm sorry I said something weird. I absolutely won't do it. So let's stop crying, okay?"
In the midst of comforting Lee Ha-yul, Hong Yeon-hwa suddenly felt gazes directed at her.
"Ha-yul? Yeon-hwa probably didn't mean it either... No. Well... probably?"
"That was really cruel of Yeon-hwa. Why would you say something like that to the child?"
"Cadet Hong Yeon-hwa... that was far too harsh."
"A coarse tongue finally brought trouble."
When she quietly raised her head, she was met with the sight of the girls who had been comforting Lee Ha-yul alongside her now looking at her with decidedly lukewarm eyes.
'Oh, so they all stood around doing nothing, and I'm the only one getting crap for it?'
She raised her chin under the accusatory gazes, as if they were all asking why she'd done that.
No, these same people had gathered beforehand and argued that they really had to scold him this time—why were they glaring at her like that now?
It was as though, despite having plotted together, they were now pinning the blame on Hong Yeon-hwa to preserve their own Affection scores.
"Don't bully Daddy!"
"...Hm."
Hong Yeon-hwa, who had been sweeping the room with a murderous glare, quietly averted her gaze when she met the sharp stare of Lee Seo-yul, who was patting Lee Ha-yul's back.
It was a scene where father and daughter seemed to have swapped places, and though it gave her an odd feeling, she couldn't afford to lower the Affection of her already low-ranked adopted daughter—foster daughter?—any further...
"...Anyway, I'm sorry I said something mean, Ha-yul. But just like how sad you are right now, I'm really sad every time you get hurt..."
Whatever the case, she had to salvage the situation.
She pulled Lee Ha-yul, who had mostly stopped crying, into a tight hug and rubbed her cheek against his pure white hair.
"Y-yes... I'm sorry."
"Yeah. I'm sorry too. So Ha-yul, in the future, think of other people and please don't treat your body carelessly."
"Yes... sniff, I'll be careful..."
"Yeah, that's a good boy."
After he'd cried it out, Lee Ha-yul sniffled and answered obediently, and seeing that, Hong Yeon-hwa gave a warm smile.
Then she pressed a tender kiss to his hair, which carried a sweet, subtle scent.
"......"
"Hmph."
She paid no mind to the many stinging gazes she felt from in front of her. What could they even do about it?
"Sniff... Yeon-hwa, let's move."
"Sure, sure, let's move... you want to move?"
Hong Yeon-hwa's display of affection continued until the sudden declaration of moving out.
As Hong Yeon-hwa blinked blankly, Lee Ha-yul pulled a key from his pocket and gently shook it in front of her eyes.
* * *
Moving is, by nature, an extremely complicated affair.
It's the act of changing one's residence—one of the three basic necessities of human life.
One wrong decision can lead to years of hardship, so it demands a truly careful choice.
And among all those cumbersome steps, packing up one's belongings is especially tedious.
The sheer volume of stuff that comes out of a lived-in home is staggering.
You have to sort it all item by item, pack up what you're taking, and set aside for disposal what you're leaving behind.
On top of that, heavy and bulky furniture or valuables prone to damage in transit have to be handled with special care,
and all the other miscellaneous belongings pile up by the boxful, so moving everything takes no small amount of energy.
I didn't have any particularly good memories about moving either.
'I really had a tough time back then...'
After my name ended up in the news because I got hit by a car.
I was utterly sick of the people who swarmed that tiny goshiwon, as if overcome by curiosity.
It was driving me crazy, so how much worse must it have been for the other people living in the building? Just because one resident appeared on the news, the place was crawling with people like a swarm of bees for days on end.
More than my own irritation, I felt like I was losing my mind over the fact that I was causing trouble for others.
So in the end I had to move to get away from all that... but preparing to move with a missing leg was truly, genuinely, overwhelmingly cumbersome and difficult.
But that's a story from the other world.
Those were the circumstances of Lee Ha-yul, the frail, one-legged boy.
The circumstances of the current Lee Ha-yul, who can casually lift and throw a car and is highly capable, are completely different.
- Whoooom...
A hole opened in midair. The flow of the surrounding air shifted around the hole that had appeared with a strange vibration. A light gesture made the hole follow the movement.
Not only the air that overlapped with its path, but the piled-up belongings were slurped straight into the hole. In its wake, only a pristine, dust-free floor remained.
I gestured a few more times. The hole navigated every nook and cranny of the dormitory, gobbling up the moving items on the spot.
Furniture containing clothes or other belongings went in whole; items left out separately were also swallowed up.
Any other miscellaneous items I caught with the Sky Wing Feather and tucked neatly into the hole.
To look at it, it's a whisper-thin, fluttering cloth—but with enough force behind it, it's an artifact that can slice through a lump of metal like tofu.
A clean, swift process accompanied by not a single sound or speck of dust.
Preparing to move? With the Authority of Space, there's no problem whatsoever.
I can just shove all the junk into my Subspace. No damage, no effort, and fast.
'The Authority of Space is divine, and the Subspace is invincible...'
Now this is an Authority.
A satisfied smile crept onto my lips of its own accord.
"To wield spatial magic with this level of precision... it's amazing!"
As I steadily fed items into my Subspace, Baek A-rin, standing behind me, widened her eyes. Her blue gaze was fixed on the hole—on the Subspace—neatly gulping down the belongings.
"Even with it unfurled right under my nose, I can't sense the spell formula at all."
"I know, right. And a bed, a refrigerator, furniture... big things all go right in."
"It expands freely, the capacity is tremendous... people who can handle spatial magic this way are truly few and far between..."
'......'
I managed my expression at the reactions of Baek A-rin and Ellia, who were hovering around the Subspace and expressing their admiration.
They can't sense the spell formula? The capacity and size are absurd?
'Well, that's because this isn't magic; it's an Authority...'
The Authority of Space. The more I get used to it, the more I find I can do.
At the very start, it was spatial perception; after that, the Subspace, the exercise of Dominance, the Wall of Space and spatial isolation through it, applications of attractive and repulsive forces...
No matter how you look at it, the scope and depth I can handle surpass magic.
Of course, unlike magic, it's not my own innate power, so if the Authority is ever taken away, I'll be helpless...
'...Would I be unable to use it?'
I tilted my head at the sudden thought. By now, using the Authority for its fundamental manifestation is as easy as breathing. I've grown so familiar with the sense of it and how to wield it. Couldn't I imitate it?
It might be the ability of another entity, not me, but strictly speaking, this could be considered the Unique Ability of a Tower.
If so, wouldn't I be able to imitate it...?
"Didn't you say you learned spatial magic from the Vice Headmaster?"
[Ah, yes.]
[The Vice Headmaster personally taught me.]
Hong Yeon-hwa's question cut abruptly through my thoughts, and I offered the excuse I'd prepared in advance.
It was the same excuse I'd given to Lee Ji-yeon before.
The Authority of Space versus spatial magic. Since other people can't distinguish between the two, the excuse works perfectly.
"...Met up separately to learn?"
[Yes, yes... Why do you ask?]
"...No, it's nothing."
Hong Yeon-hwa's expression turned a little odd. When I tilted my head and asked why, Hong Yeon-hwa shook her head and said it was nothing.
[Shall I leave your belongings aside separately, Baek A-rin?]
Now that I thought about it, there was no longer any need for Baek A-rin to live together with us. My Calamity Flame has stabilized now, so Baek A-rin will be returning as well. I asked, feeling a strange sense of regret, and Baek A-rin tilted her head.
"Ah, is the capacity insufficient?"
[No, capacity isn't a concern. But it feels a bit awkward to just toss them in carelessly...]
"Then please put them in together. I have to remove everything anyway, and leaving only my things sitting forlornly would feel odd, and fetching them separately later would just be a hassle, wouldn't it?"
[Still, will it really be all right with you?]
"Yes, yes, it's fine. I'll handle it later. And really, what could be the problem?"
Baek A-rin smiled. At that, I nodded and swallowed up the belongings in what was Baek A-rin's room(?) into my Subspace.
"Make sure you pack the underwear properly. And don't drop a few along the way."
[?!]
"Quit talking nonsense and get out of—! Just leave now!"
Hong Yeon-hwa screamed and chased Baek A-rin out.
"Whoa, you shove pretty hard..."
Baek A-rin rubbed her back where she'd been shoved and grumbled with a pout.
"Oh, and also."
Putting on her shoes at the entrance, she suddenly looked back at me with a strange smile.
"So, I'll see you tomorrow?"
[...?]
[Yes, I'll see you tomorrow.]
Tomorrow's a weekday, so we'll run into each other during class.
I'll have to move as well, so it'll be a busy day.
Nodding, I thought.