Obsession (1)
Obsession (1)
Fire is dangerous.
You never have to be taught that; you know it without ever touching a flame. Even when fire dances beautifully, the searing heat against your skin forces your body to recognize the threat.
You're instinctively wary of fire. Everyone knows getting burned hurts.
"Guh, ggrrk...!"
Having been through it myself, I had no choice but to revise my previous opinion.
It doesn't just hurt a little. It is utterly, horrifyingly agonizing.
Fire horses latched onto my arm. The outer skin blackened in an instant. Through the splitting, cracked flesh, blood bubbled and dripped like molten lava.
Cruelly, the sight was etched onto my retinas. I could see my arm burning in real time, fully engulfed in flames.
My thoughts cut out in bursts. My consciousness sank, only to be yanked back up by sheer survival instinct.
I scuffed uselessly against the ground like an insect about to burst and die.
'Ah, fuck.'
The thoughts that had been severed suddenly connected again. The instant reason flared, my face twisted.
'I, I... ate the elixir, was harmonizing the mana, when...'
An irresistible wave of sleep crashed over me, and then I lost consciousness.
And opened my eyes inside a nightmare.
A regular sort of nightmare.
A house collapsing in flames, myself writhing in agony in a nearby alley, a terrible searing heat burning through my mind...
The day the house burned down.
'Ggh...'
Of course getting burned hurts. I knew that even then, but now, having grasped the full story, I understand exactly what this searing heat is.
Calamity Flame.
A vicious flame that might be the most cursed thing in the world. Having been on the receiving end of it, I can't deny that fact.
'I-It's okay...'
Fire is terrifying. After that day, how many times did the mere sight of fire make me convulse?
Even later, getting used to a gas stove by myself took an enormous amount of courage.
But now it's okay.
More precisely, it became okay after Hong Yeon-hwa came to care for me.
Before that, I didn't have a single good memory about fire, but after receiving Hong Yeon-hwa's affection, I started accumulating good memories of it.
I'm not afraid. Hong Yeon-hwa's flames are warm and cozy. They never posed the slightest threat to me, only ever offering gentle warmth.
So it's okay. I'm not afraid. I can endure the pain...
I huddled into myself, repeating the words in my head. The flames didn't spread beyond my right arm.
I don't know how to end a nightmare quickly.
I just have to endure the pain and kill time until it passes naturally.
"Nggkhh..."
Even so, my past body in the nightmare crawled along the ground, dragged roughly across the dirt, clothes and flesh getting torn.
Using my fiercely burning arm to prop myself up, I crept little by little toward the collapsed, burning house.
Why? I couldn't say for certain. Even now, thinking back, it's the same. Back then, I was a confused, complicated mess who couldn't declare anything with certainty.
A place that offered nothing but misery and a mountain of nightmare fuel.
Yet tangled emotions remained, driving me to crawl across the ground to confirm something.
The place I was supposed to be, the last blood relative I had left, the only relationship that ever existed, the person I had once hoped might, maybe, give me affection.
So I crawled and crawled, confirmed nothing was left of the house, stared blankly at the ground while waiting for the fire on my arm to go out, then rationalized it as cathartic and woke up. That kind of nightmare.
This nightmare always ended that way.
"Ah, f-fuck...! Civilians...!"
"...?"
I'd never heard someone else's voice before.
My head, which had been buried in the dirt, shot up.
Through my blurry vision, a man was staggering.
Red eyes stared at me. It was a familiar red. The eyes—a tangled mess of guilt and confusion—squeezed tightly shut.
"Sh-shit, f-fuck...! Arghhgk...!"
He clearly wasn't in his right mind. He whipped his head down and clawed at his hair.
His body swayed feebly, as if about to collapse at any moment. Still clawing at his head with one hand, the man slammed his forehead into a wall.
Boom! With an explosive crash, the wall crumbled. Rubble rained down, kicking up a cloud of dust, and my eyes flew wide open.
- Fwooosh!
The instant the dust cloud swallowed him, flames erupted from the man's entire body and swallowed the cloud right back.
It was the Calamity Flame from my vivid memories. The flame that burned the house, burned my parents to death, and crippled my arm.
"Arrgh, ggrrrkkh...!"
The man wreathed in Calamity Flame let out agonized sounds. He clawed at his hair, his face, staggering in place. Through the glimpses, drool was dripping from his mouth.
'What.'
I couldn't make sense of it. This had never happened in the nightmare before.
No—had this even happened in the past...?
'...Or not?'
My train of thought stopped. In truth, my memories of that day aren't clear. They're a jagged mess, with pieces broken off and clumsily tangled together. Unreliable memories.
One day, the house caught fire. An explosive bang sent me flying, and I was flung into some nearby alley.
I saw the house collapsing in an instant, swallowed by the fire horses. I heard screams full of pain.
I writhed on the ground, in agony from the flames on my right arm... crawled toward the house, and at some point, I was just staring blankly at the ruined house, my right arm no longer burning.
That was the end of my memory. I had no memory of coming face-to-face with a man unleashing Calamity Flame like this.
"Kgk..."
While I was still sifting through the past amid the fire eating my right arm, the man's movements suddenly stopped.
His staggering feet, his swaying upper body, both hands trembling violently as they clawed at his face and hair—all of it froze, unnaturally still. At the same time, his drooling, pained moaning also ceased.
In an instant, silence swallowed the surroundings.
My arm was still burning in the corner of my vision, but I couldn't hear a single sound.
- Thud!
Suddenly, a pulse pushed the silence aside. A heavy reverberation, like a drumbeat, spread in all directions. In that instant, my skin flushed with searing heat.
The epicenter was the man. It wasn't a drum—it was the sound of his heartbeat.
A moment later, the man lifted his head.
The sight of his face stole my breath.
Familiar red hair, equally familiar red eyes.
They were different now. Crack! Fractures spread across those vivid red eyes. They split, the shards fell away, and deep crimson eyeballs rolled beneath.
The eyes scanned the area briefly before fixating on me. My mind went rigid under that gaze.
My body, my mind, was burning. Just like my right arm searing in the fire, my head blazed white-hot.
『What's this, a fairy... no, something different?』
The man—or the thing possessing him—tilted its head.
* * *
The moment Lee Ha-yul's necklace signaled something wrong, the two of them moved fast.
"Aurora!"
Liana, holding Lee Ha-yul in her arms, immediately called forth her spirits.
With her shout, the mana radiating from her entire body interlocked with the surrounding water energy and soon coalesced into multiple forms.
There were lower spirits of blue light, as well as mid-level spirits with forms shaped by their individuality.
And among them, one had taken human form—an upper spirit.
"Aurora! Quickly!"
Aurora, the high-ranking water spirit contracted to Liana.
Rising gracefully behind her contractor, Aurora urgently extended a hand at Liana's command.
Wooong! The lower and mid-level water spirits summoned nearby lent their power as well.
Water spirits were beings that could also perform recovery. Under the high-ranking spirit's direction, water energy coalesced into healing properties and seeped into Lee Ha-yul's body.
"Activate, Recovery Melody."
Ellia didn't stand idle either. She quietly closed her eyes and formed a hand seal. The mana seeping from her split into two strands and embedded themselves firmly into Lee Ha-yul's body.
'Immediate Recovery' and 'Recovery Amplification.' She controlled the ratio between the two processes perfectly. Urgent areas were blocked off with regeneration, and sections that still had leeway were restored through rapid recovery.
- Crrrrack...!
Despite such swift intervention, the ominous sound coming from Lee Ha-yul wouldn't stop.
"Right now! His body is being torn apart!"
Ellia, concentrating on regulating her mana, shouted in a strained voice.
"I'm casting healing, but it's barely working!"
"That's not good news at all!"
Liana gritted her teeth.
The child in her arms was trembling violently. Crrrack! The sinister noise showed no sign of stopping. Even to her inspection, something strange was happening inside Lee Ha-yul's body.
The maddening part was that she didn't know why.
Normally, when someone takes an elixir improperly, the mana rampages and shatters their mana circuits and core, and from there the body breaks down. That was the most common outcome.
But the phenomenon happening to Lee Ha-yul right now was different. His core and circuits were intact. Yet his body was suddenly ripping and tearing itself apart.
Neither Ellia with her specialized medical knowledge nor Liana with her extensive frontline experience could figure out the cause.
Without understanding the reason, there was no clear course of action.
[Sharp Pain]
[Fear]
[Searing Heat]
"Tch...!"
"Ah, damn it!"
Making it worse, the words projected by the necklace and the sight of the child writhing in pain made both their hearts burn black.
They shouldn't have listened to what the Golden Child said. They'd trusted him too much. How could they have believed the claim of such a precarious child, one who might drop dead the moment they looked away?
The elixir's origin was Taesan, and even according to Liana's own examination there had been no issues. They should never have given it to him based on that alone...!
- Ngh, nnngghh...
"Ha-yul!"
"Little one...!"
Not much time had passed.
A faint groan slipped past Lee Ha-yul's lips. At the same time, the sinister noise emanating from his body stopped. The two of them, drenched in cold sweat, opened their eyes wide.
[Question]
[Purga?tory]
[Pain...]
As the disjointed words followed, the two hastily examined Lee Ha-yul's condition.
"Little one! Are you coming to?!"
"Ha-yul! You can't lose consciousness again! It hurts, but you absolutely have to stay awake!"
Liana gently cupped the cheek of Lee Ha-yul, who was stirring in her arms.
She held his face as if handling a delicate, breakable craft, carefully lifting it so she could take in every detail of his face.
- Hhhaaah...
The breath reaching her from right before her was so terribly faint. It brought a fear so sharp that she wondered if it might simply go out at any moment.
[Professor Liana...]
[Ellia...]
Lee Ha-yul, breathing heavily, shook his head slightly. It was a clear signal that he was conscious, and their expressions brightened in relief.
"Yes, I'm right here, little one? Your body, is your body all right...?"
"It's okay! I'll fix it in no time! I've already pretty much healed it! So everything's fine now, okay...?"
The two of them, frantically checking Lee Ha-yul's condition, suddenly blinked.
Their bodies felt constricted, and it was hard to breathe.
When they looked down to see what was going on, they saw their bodies meticulously bound by deep-blue cords.
[Fear]
[Obsession]
[Possessiveness]
"Mm...?"
It was Lee Ha-yul's artifact. What had taken the form of wings just a moment ago had now split into dozens of cords, restraining the two of them and pulling tight.
The force was considerable. To the point where it was a struggle just to breathe.
"Little one... just a moment... I need to check your condition, so could you let go of this a little...?"
[Nooo...]
[Stay by my side...]
[Don't leave...]
"Ah..."
When Liana carefully stroked his head to soothe him, Lee Ha-yul shook his head and instead bound them even more tightly. A strangled gasp escaped their lips at the sensation of being squeezed.
[Don't disappear...]
[You're mine...]
"M-Mine...? I-I'm not... an object..."
"Uh... I-I mean, I might be okay with it...?"
[No...! You're mine...! Professor, be mine...!]
Lee Ha-yul's arms wrapped around Liana's waist and pulled her tight.
Her breath caught in her throat. Lee Ha-yul had buried his face firmly between her full breasts and was whining stubbornly.
"Uh, uhh..."
The desperate, clingy emotion bleeding through his voice and actions made Liana's body flinch. A mixture of embarrassment and a red flush crept over her face, which had been brimming with urgency just moments before.