Re...union (1)
Re...union (1)
"Dad, it's already morning."
A gentle voice drifted through the haze of my groggy mind. Sensation returned little by little, and I felt the light touch of someone shaking me.
Consciousness, which had been buried in dreams, surfaced abruptly into reality.
'Ah... I fell asleep with Seo-yul last night.'
Trifling everyday talk, giggling and playing with each other's hands, then finally succumbing to sleep while holding each other tight—that was my last memory.
"Do you have to get up now~?"
Seo-yul shook me gently awake. It felt a little strange being woken up later than my own child, but I honestly couldn't bring myself to get up yet.
[Drowsiness]
[Sleepy]
[Haziness]
'So sleeeepy...'
Sleepiness filled my head. My body felt as heavy as a cotton wad soaked through with water.
It couldn't be helped.
Maybe it was because my body consumed so much vitality energy and calories while returning to normal.
This young body of mine was an exceptionally heavy sleeper.
When I was small enough to still classify as a baby, I'd sleep practically around the clock. Even while awake, I had to wolf down food and then fall right back asleep.
[Okay... I'll get up...]
I dawdled only for a moment.
Aware of presences stirring throughout the mansion, I squirmed upright and sat on the bed.
— Ssrrk
The Sky Wing Feather that had been draped over me like a blanket slid downward, then gathered behind my back.
The Sky Wing Feather, which had been wriggling as if in hesitation, swiftly shaped itself into its winged garment form.
Seo-yul, who had been watching intently, furrowed her brow ever so slightly.
"Hmm... Why not wings, I wonder?"
[Sleepy]
[Huh...?]
"No, it's nothing."
Shaking her head rapidly, Seo-yul gently cupped both of my cheeks with her hands.
At that, our eye level practically matched. Thanks to time passing and my body recovering considerably.
...Though why were we still nearly the same size?
"Dad? Can you still not see me?"
[...Yeah.]
"Hmph."
When I opened my eyes slightly, a murky fog filled my vision, hiding Seo-yul from sight.
She seemed to realize that her reflection—her fairy form?—wasn't reaching my gaze, because a dissatisfied look settled on her face.
Puffing her cheeks out a little, Seo-yul leaned her face closer.
— Mwah
A soft sensation brushed my lips. After giving me a brief kiss, Seo-yul asked again.
"Still can't see me?"
[Yes...]
The result was the same. Seo-yul's cheeks puffed out even more, and a troubled expression drifted across my own face.
As embarrassing as it is to admit, I'd also thought that a kiss was the condition for weakening the curse.
But it apparently didn't work on Seo-yul.
Maybe I'd misunderstood the condition, or perhaps something else besides a kiss was required.
.
.
.
After soothing the puff-cheeked Seo-yul, I went down to the first floor to prepare a meal.
The kitchen was more of a cooking suite in scale.
When my body had been too small, Ellia or Lady Eriel had handled the cooking, but these days I was back in charge of the meals.
Of course, up until just recently, whatever I could prepare had been a tiny amount. After all, the people staying in the mansion, counting myself, had been barely four.
Now it was different.
"You're sure you don't need anything else?"
"No, no. We don't need a thing. Not a single thing, so hurry over and sit down."
"Little one? There's already more than enough, so come on."
"Ahhh, just a moment. Let me just carry this..."
Under a barrage of urging, I walked briskly over to the dining table.
The number of people seated around the round table had grown.
The ones who had been on the battlefield had returned.
'What a relief.'
Floating a dozen or so bowls in the air, I smiled brightly.
Thanks to that, the bleak, empty mansion had recovered its liveliness.
The rampage of the Reverse Side had essentially ended.
Its entrance still remained in the world and the front lines were still being maintained, but the spatial encroachment had ceased, and so had the flood of monsters.
That was why all the outside forces that had come as reinforcements had been disbanded.
'I'll have to visit the Reverse Side later.'
At present, only the Association's Defense Army and part of its Subjugation Force remained stationed at the front.
We'd stopped the rampage that had been accumulating for over two hundred years, but the space called the Reverse Side was bound to remain.
The Association was managing it for now, so I planned to go there myself at a later date.
'Senior Lee Ji-yeon said she'd come before the semester starts.'
Lee Ji-yeon hadn't yet returned to Siyoram.
First she had gone to her family's main estate along with her troops, and apparently some matter had come up that would take time.
— Something I need to deal with at the family. Paperwork... I suppose you could call it that? That's why I have to stay a bit longer, so don't worry.
That was what Lee Ji-yeon herself had told me over the phone.
Still, she said she'd come before the semester started. I took my seat, thinking about what I could do for her in return when she arrived.
"There's plenty of food left, so please don't hold back. Eat without guilt."
"Ha-yul, if a superhuman like me eats this much amazing food until I'm stuffed every day, I might end up getting all flabby, you know."
That was Hong Yeon-hwa's retort.
Her eyes sparkled at the table piled high with food as she answered in a playful tone.
'......'
At that, I tilted my head slightly and fixed my gaze on Yeon-hwa's chest.
Data stored precisely thanks to the Authority of Knowledge. I pulled up her physical information from among the files and compared.
'Hm.'
She had definitely gained a little. But that was good news for me.
She's a superhuman, and in the first place, Yeon-hwa's body is still in its growth phase.
"...Just what are you staring at?"
"Please have some of this, too."
"Huh? Oh... thanks."
.
.
.
After everyone finished eating, and I finished my own meal as well.
I swiftly cleared everything away with magic and stepped outside onto the lawn, where a multicolored wave was surging toward me from a distance.
It was the baby unicorns and the spirits.
[You came? Did you sleep well last night—]
[Prrrrrrb!]
I was swept up by the wave. My body tumbled this way and that across the grass.
— Woof! Arf!
— Prrrrrrr!
[...Looks like you slept well after all.]
They were rubbing themselves against me from every direction.
Mixed in among them were plenty of the spirits that had contracts with Ellia and Professor Liana.
It was a little absurd, but watching them happily fuss over me brought an involuntary smile to my face.
— King, did you sleep peacefully?
— You were coughing!
[Yes, did you all sleep well, too?]
Next, the fairies flew over to greet me as well. They had gone out to play with the spirits early in the morning, so they were flying in from the same direction.
"...Spirits... fairies... unicorns? Is this some kind of paradise?"
As I kept moving my hands without pause, petting all the little ones, Senior Daera, who had been following slowly behind, murmured in a daze.
[Ahaha, somehow it ended up that way.]
"Somehow you ended up with spirits, fairies, and unicorns all roaming loose on this enormous lawn? Give me back my common sense, Junior Disciple."
[In this world, looking for common sense is the most pointless thing.]
"...What is that. It sounds like nonsense, but I can't deny it."
[Hehe. Oh, was the food to your liking?]
"Junior Disciple, I seriously thought I'd burst. I've eaten plenty of field rations and supply food, but the meal you made was incomparably delicious. You didn't slip anything weird in there, did you?"
[I'm happy to hear you say that as the person who cooked it.]
Tapping her full belly, Senior Daera came closer.
I smiled faintly and asked,
[Senior, are you all ready?]
Senior Daera was dressed in her Siyoram uniform, fully outfitted.
Specifically, she was even wearing the ornaments, shoulder cape, and other accessories meant for ceremonies or festivals.
"Yep, didn't forget a thing. Geez, the way Master nags, you'd think I was a kid going on her first field trip."
Before I knew it, the winter chill had faded and the warm spring days had arrived.
With the new semester fast approaching, today was the day of the 122nd Cohort Freshman Welcome Party.
Having proudly passed the Recommended Admission, Senior Daera was a 122nd Cohort cadet who had to attend the Freshman Welcome Party.
She'd been assigned a dormitory on campus, but I'd personally invited her to the mansion, figuring it'd be better for us to live together.
- ...This is a house?
I vividly remember Senior Daera's jaw-dropping reaction the first day I invited her, as she stepped onto the mansion grounds.
It was such a funny reaction that I carefully preserved it with the Authority of Knowledge. I'll use it to tease her later.
[You're a... student too, aren't you, Senior Daera?]
"A student and a cadet are different things!"
[You're both affiliated with an educational institution—]
[Bbubrbrb]
"You little—taking your senior lightly! You think being called a senior while you're a cadet is everything?"
Senior Daera giggled, holding both my cheeks with one hand. At her words, I gave a strange expression.
How should I put it... the hierarchy got weird.
Senior Daera, Master's first disciple, is a cadet of the 122nd Cohort, and I, the second disciple, am a cadet of the 121st.
Meaning I'm a second-year and Senior Daera is a first-year.
The senior became the junior, and the junior—me—became the senior.
To an outsider, it was a "what even is that" kind of relationship.
[Bgrghheeeng]
[Let go of me...]
"Hmph, have you finally realized your senior's dignity? Show more respect from now on!"
[...Senior, what was your admission rank...? Bgrghhheee...]
For the record, Senior Daera is in the top tier, but she isn't the Top Seat or the second seat.
That's because she didn't particularly stand out on the theory side.
To give you a gauge, she's a bit higher than I was at the time of admission.
She has a valid excuse that she forgot everything while she was missing on the Reverse Side, but the result was unavoidable.
[This is tyranny...]
"What was that? Junior?"
[Nothing at all.]
I pouted, rubbing my stinging cheeks with my palms, then quickly backed away from the fingers approaching my lips.
.
.
.
Just like last year, the Freshman Welcome Party was held at the First Banquet Hall.
That was why the autonomous buses passing through the Central District, and specifically the First Banquet Hall, were in high demand.
Freshly issued, stiff cadet uniforms and green ornaments symbolizing spring.
There were plenty of cadets glancing around nervously and excitedly.
They were the 122nd Cohort of Siyoram, this year's new students.
'...It's kind of a weird feeling.'
Watching them through my observation, my expression became strange without my meaning to.
This time last year.
I'd been on one of those buses too.
Crammed into a corner seat, trembling violently under the barrage of gazes and the future that awaited me.
Then I met Yeon-hwa. Coincidentally, in the form of a full-body tackle that sent me tumbling to the ground.
[Relief]
[Reassurance]
At the time, it had only felt like I'd already gotten on someone's bad side and was terrifying, but looking back, it was nothing short of a heavenly stroke of luck.
Because thanks to that, I met Yeon-hwa.
If all the misfortune before that had been for the sake of that meeting, it was a miracle I could accept without hesitation.
...Of course, I'm too embarrassed to say that out loud, so I plan to keep it locked up tight inside.
- Ahem.
I cleared my throat and gulped down some water I'd bought from a convenience store.
My current location was an alley a bit away from the First Banquet Hall.
Near where Yeon-hwa had slammed into me.
The narrowed range of my observation exactly overlapped this street, so it had worked out by chance.
'I'm still burdened if I fully deploy the Authority. And more than anything...'
I wiggled my right hand.
On the surface, it was smooth skin.
I remembered my right arm, burned to a crisp like an ancient tree struck by lightning, having withstood Hellfire and the Calamity Flame in tandem.
'Fucking bastard.'
He really screwed me over. Fortunately, it was restored on the surface, so it's fine, but it had nearly left me with another scar to carry around.
Of course, I don't give a damn whether my own body gets scarred, but it's the way the people around me—the precious ones—look at me that's the problem.
'My left arm is...'
I subtly poked and prodded my left arm.
An arm made of real bone and flesh. To use the Proof of Protection in its original form, I'd have to cut this arm off.
...I could easily picture what future would unfold if I did that, so I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it.
'I'd like to use it as a prosthetic, if possible...'
In terms of combat advantage, a prosthetic form was better.
Though it did seem like I could operate the Proof of Protection in a way other than a prosthetic...
It was at that moment.
- Hwooong...
A clear wind swept past me. At the sensation embedded within it, I gently expanded my observation.
'Ah.'
I didn't even need to expand it. Someone had just hopped right into my observation range.
A woman crossing through the alleys with slightly quick steps.
Her attire was a cadet uniform adorned with ceremonial decorations. The color of the decorations was green... a first-year.
But there wasn't any hesitation in her steps as she crossed the alleys. She found the path accurately, as if she'd traveled it for a long time.
'She's sending the wind ahead to sense things.'
I nodded, recalling the wind that had swept over me.
The owner of the presence drew closer.
Her destination seemed to be the First Banquet Hall, since this alley led there.
I considered moving out of the way but dismissed the thought immediately and finished my water.
I'd been planning to meet and sense her directly sooner or later anyway.
I could sense her now too, but since we were going to run into each other, I might as well say hello.
Eventually, the woman revealed herself from a side alley a short distance away.
At a glance, my impression was filled with pale spring-green.
Her hair and eyes were a clear pale green. Since she was a first-year, the ornaments on her clothes were green too.
Added to that, the aura she possessed was wind energy, and her Innate Talent was also deeply related to strong wind.
"...Huh?"
The woman, who had been walking briskly, saw me and her already large, round eyes grew even wider.
Her footsteps halted. Her wide eyes stared directly at me.
Soon, a hand came up to gently cover her mouth, and a moment later, her lips parted slightly beyond those fingers.
"Ha-yul...?"
"?"
A name slipped from between her lips. That wasn't strange.
It might sound like I'm full of myself, but my name is fairly well-known in the world.
Moreover, my appearance is so distinctive that anyone who sees me would immediately know the three syllables "Lee Ha-yul."
'What's this?'
But the way she said it was rather intimate. Not "Lee Ha-yul," but specifically dropping my surname and calling me "Ha-yul."
Do people who live abroad call names like that?
The moment I thought that, I read the emotion reflected in those pale green eyes.
Surprise, uncertainty, curiosity, welcome...
'Welcome?'
I'd never met someone like her before.
It was just as I was thinking that.
[Yes]
[Nice to meet you]
[Lee Ha-sol]
'?'
The Confession Necklace clicked.
* * *
