Magic (1)
Magic (1)
Praise can move anyone to dance.
They say the right kind of praise boosts motivation and greatly heightens a sense of accomplishment.
"Excellent work."
That principle applied to me too.
Ariel's cool, matter-of-fact voice said, as she looked over the problem I had just solved.
The positive response instantly brightened my expression.
I firmly reined in my body, which was about to bounce with anticipation on its own.
Instead, my Sky Wing Feather, left to its own devices, wiggled eagerly.
That patience was rewarded at once.
"The construction and the inverse calculation are both perfect. I especially want to commend the effort you put into counter-hacking defenses."
[Ehehe...]
Ariel nodded calmly, then, with a ghost of a smile, she reached out.
Beneath the gentle touch brushing through my hair, my body melted into a puddle.
Just a few words and a single gesture.
Those alone were enough to make me feel as though my very existence was being affirmed, and my mind floated up in a daze.
Ordinarily, that was a feeling I could satisfy by receiving praise from my teacher or Professor Liana, but...
Ever since I entered the Tower of Knowledge, I hadn't felt it for quite some time.
So to feel that sense of fulfillment again after ten days—it was unbearably sweet.
Ariel's behavior had started changing a few days ago.
Before, even when I stubbornly persisted, she merely looked worried.
It was as if she hesitated, reluctant to interfere with me.
She seemed to feel she had no right to do so, only watching from a distance.
Now it was different.
If she thought I was doing something strange, she promptly rushed over to stop me.
If she saw me struggling over a book, she quietly approached and asked if I needed help.
And now she deliberately found opportunities to awkwardly shower me with praise.
On top of that, saying it was better for me to sleep, she offered to hold me every night.
'This is nice...'
And so I was realizing it anew: I absolutely cannot live on my own anymore.
In the old days it was no problem.
Shut inside my room, spending every day eating, lazing around, drinking, and picking... well, not picking fights.
Occasionally tending to plants, playing games, watching videos—living like that was fine.
...Actually, back then it wasn't that I had zero thought of going outside—I just couldn't, because I was afraid.
But now I'd been half-forcibly dragged out of my room and had wandered around, and I'd felt the touch of precious people.
Now I can't go back to the me of the past.
Spending the rest of my life like that, shut up alone in my room—that's no longer happiness.
If I had to live that desolately, I'd sooner tie a noose and die.
It's an extreme thought, but I wasn't joking.
The affection and warmth of people had become that essential—something absolutely irreplaceable in my life now.
And so, over those few days of Ariel's changed behavior...
I felt the speed of my own absorption of knowledge accelerate.
"Your counter-hack interpretation was especially remarkable. The multi-curve counter-hack technique is not yet something I have taught you, yet I did not expect you to independently derive its applied use."
[Ehehehe]
Every time praise was showered upon me, my motivation swelled up full to the brim.
Feeling my heart fill with satisfaction, I relished Ariel's touch.
Now a problem that would once have held me in a long, agonizing struggle drew out an answer in a flash of insight.
The more I learned and grasped knowledge of magic, the more I came to understand.
As a result, I managed to digest the one-month curriculum Ariel had laid out in merely three days.
"A very welcome variable. With this we can devote more effort to the Unique Magic Path and other areas."
The day we wrapped up the scheduled progress, Ariel remarked while examining the books stacked around us.
Her face plainly showed a fair amount of surprise and amazement.
[Yes]
[I'll keep working hard!]
I had expected her to say something like that, so I nodded willingly.
The Tower of Knowledge isn't a place to merely finish a reasonable quota and leave.
I must learn as much as possible while I have the chance and take it back with me.
If anything, words like hers were something I would welcome with open arms.
[Unique Magic Path...!]
And on top of that, she was telling me I could learn the Unique Magic Path.
Magic Path and Magic.
Only a one-word difference in the term, but a Magic Path is magic that has advanced far enough to be recognized for its innate uniqueness.
Just completing a single spell that qualifies as a Unique Magic Path is enough to receive the title of 'Mage' officially recognized by the Magic Council, along with its honor and glory.
Setting aside whether Unique Magic Path is truly useful and amazing magic...
If it's recognized for its uniqueness, I can use it perfectly well as a reference case.
What's more, the Unique Magic Path I would learn was that of Ariel herself—head of the Magic Council and Tower Master of Knowledge.
I felt a sensation behind my closed eyes, as if they were lighting up on their own.
Filled with anticipation, I clenched my fists and steeled my resolve.
[What is this?]
And then I was facing what looked like an otherworldly text.
"This is a book onto which I have copied the spell formulas of my Unique Magic Path. It consists of three volumes, and this is the first volume recording the foundational formulas."
When I asked the question with countless question marks hovering over my head, Ariel answered flatly, as if it were nothing.
Blankly, I opened and closed my mouth and turned the pages.
Squiggly, worm-like characters. Rigidly orthogonal and angular characters. Characters that were half a mix of both. Characters that were impossible to tell whether they were text or illustration. Bizarre characters whose format defied comprehension...
Above and below those characters, intricately connected polyhedral composite circuits. Independent linguistic systems formed by the joining of character upon character. Individual significance loaded into those languages. Those connecting in complexity to exert effects...
Countless pseudo-images each carrying meaning in isolation, synchronizing with each other and deteriorating in real-time, intertwining Harmonization and defense and counter-strike between each magical system...
[Hieeek...?]
The Authority of Observation ground and squeaked.
My head, which had taken it all in, throbbed dully.
Ever since I had awakened All-Rounder and Mana Affinity in earnest...
Ever since I had realized Observation and Authority...
I had encountered many difficult, overwhelming things and thought they would be hard and grueling to tackle.
But above that, there had always been a kind of conviction piled up: 'I can do it someday.'
It's difficult now, but someday I can do it.
It's difficult now because time is short, but after I've put in enough effort, I will surely be capable.
It was an estimate my instincts had put together before any thought of confidence, and it had in fact always worked out.
[???]
But now I had lost that conviction.
Even if I dared to make an estimate... could I really do it? I couldn't be certain.
My Sky Wing Feather drooped, dyed as dark as if it had been drenched in rain...
.
.
.
My growth had sped up ever since Ariel's behavior changed, but that didn't mean my previous progress had been slow.
If anything, from an objective point of view, it was startlingly fast and pronounced growth.
With Mana Affinity and All-Rounder producing synergy, combined with the vast amounts of information gathered by the Authority of Observation, slow progress was impossible.
'And on top of that, they said the curses on me also come with a Growth Boost attached.'
The three Tower Masters who would invade.
They, too, were aware of my existence, apparently.
Aware of me—someone who would pop in from outside just like them.
They had predicted that some might impose curses on me with the aim of keeping me in check.
But it was impossible to block the curses outright.
So what they'd managed was to reduce the curses' venom, suppress them with their own power within certain spaces, and pull a trick of sorts by attaching a Growth Boost behind the curses, so to speak—making use of the curses.
Under such arrangements I was sent across to this world.
And the curses placed on me were two.
'.......'
They had clearly expected that the three Tower Masters would each cast one curse, making for three curses in total.
But aside from the curse I'd been born with anyway, the curses actually placed on me amounted to two.
Meaning one of the Tower Masters did not curse me.
Why? I don't know.
Whether they lacked the ability to cast a curse, or whether they were scheming something...
No matter how much I turned it over in my head, I still knew nothing.
It was late, after that day's instruction and self-study had both ended.
Inside the Tower, the space had dimmed to represent nighttime.
Beneath that darkness, I lay cradled in Ariel's arms, dazedly lost in thought.
"Is your bed uncomfortable?"
The voice that whispered from above reached my ears.
Beneath its bluntness resonated a tone filled with worry, and the hand that rose over my head stroked down through my hair.
[No, it's incredibly comfortable]
[I was just thinking about something for a moment]
I shook my head from side to side, then buried my face back into Ariel's arms.
Pressing my face against the large, soft warmth of her chest seemed to quiet the tangled thoughts.
Then, as I took a deep breath, the warm, sweet scent filling my lungs summoned sleep upon me at once.
...Even in that, multiple complicated thoughts resurfaced.
A Unique Magic Path's spell formulas are hard to grasp.
True to the name 'Unique,' from that level on, not all spell formulas follow the same rules.
You might call it a kind of language.
If ordinary magic was a common tongue used by all nations across the world...
Then a Unique Magic Path was a language individually created and used by a single person.
Knowing that, I'd never once imagined it would be easy to learn, and yet...
Confronted with Ariel's actual Unique Magic Path, it surpassed my imagination so completely that I doubted I could ever master it.
For a moment, the sheer bleakness filling my head made it go blank.
"...It is by no means strange for a person to find something difficult."
That was when, looking down at me in her arms while stroking my head, Ariel suddenly spoke.
"No human alive is free of difficulty, so you, Lee Ha-yul, have surely experienced it yourself. But as for why you are shaken as you are now... I presume to think it is because you are also feeling the bleakness within the pressure we so carelessly imposed."
She whispered as if she knew exactly what I was agonizing over.
The keen light in her pure white eyes seemed to pierce straight through my head, making my body flinch.
"That being as it may, I presume to say: do not worry about the Unique Magic Path."
As if soothing me, Ariel patted my back and continued.
"I am the one who created that Unique Magic Path, and I am the one who understands it best. Since I will be right by your side teaching you, I assure you: even if it seems bleak now, with your exceptional insight you will certainly master it, Lee Ha-yul."
And so, please sleep peacefully tonight as well.
With those final words, Ariel said nothing more, simply closing her eyes and patting my back.
At that gesture and speech, as though soothing a small child who didn't know what to do with themselves, I felt the frustration that had been filling my head dissipate.
I don't know whether it was true or not, but the direct assurance of the person who created that Unique Magic Path at least put my heart slightly at ease.
Thanks to that, I again fell asleep easily that night in Ariel's soft and reassuring embrace.
The next day.
As if proving Ariel's assurance right...
And as if yesterday's bleakness had been a mirage, I achieved quite substantial results.
I even received praise from Ariel.
* * *
- Crash!
The cup dropped to the floor and shattered.
Even though it was only a glass cup with a basic durability-enhancing enchantment, it broke with absurd ease.
From the glass fragments strewn across the floor, cold energy seeped out.
Crackle, crack... In an instant, a frost settled over the surrounding floor, and the contents of the cup froze solid before they could even spill.
Soon the room's temperature plummeted.
"......."
Baek A-rin stared at her own hand.
A hand that had suddenly stiffened, laced with frost.
Though it was clearly filled with cold energy, not a single tremble ran through it from the chill.
The hand, holding its icy form as though it had frozen completely solid...
Was so still she almost had the illusion that, though it was her own body, she had no ownership over it.
'...Illusion?'
- Hiiisss...
Within the cold energy that slowly subsided as if it had been a sudden fit, Baek A-rin questioned herself.