Gift (3)
Gift (3)
Daera stared fixedly at her reflection in the mirror.
Her cadet uniform was crisp and neat. She had no particular eye for aesthetics, but compared to the days of wandering around draped in beast skins, this was a thousand times better—ten thousand times better.
'When I compare it to back then, what wouldn't be an upgrade... still.'
She gently ran her fingers through her hair.
What had once been a tangled, beast-fur-like mess now fell loose and soft.
Her hand moved down to her face. The reflection in the mirror blurred beneath her touch. Her skin felt reasonably smooth. The soot that had clung to it was wiped clean, gone without a trace.
But occasionally her fingertips would catch on scars with a sharper texture. That couldn't be helped.
The parts that hadn't changed. Daera glanced at her fluttering sleeve.
A right arm, gone from below the shoulder. This part, at least, still couldn't be helped.
'Tsk...'
Her spiritual blueprint had been damaged. Regeneration offered little prospect. She'd never expected it from the start, so she'd accepted it quietly.
Still, every now and then, when she became aware of that empty space, a foul feeling rose up.
The isolated dungeon. Every superhuman besides Daera had died. Her arm, already shredded and torn by the monsters' claws in several places. Her reaction came too late—a massive maw clamped down on her right arm, and with a crunch...
- Crunch!
"Ah, shit."
Pain gouged into her right shoulder out of nowhere, and her face twisted. Phantom pain paying a visit.
Daera irritably grabbed hold of the fluttering sleeve. The way it kept flapping and tugging at her gaze brought back nothing but bad memories.
In the end, Daera changed clothes.
It was still a cadet uniform, but unlike the one she'd just been wearing, this one had no sleeves.
'Supposed to be for summer weather, but it's warm enough now, so it'll be fine.'
The cadet uniform came in several variants with the same design.
Every cadet uniform had everyday magic built in as a necessity, so there was hardly any functional difference, but the academy issued them in multiple versions anyway.
.
.
.
On the way to the location Lee Ha-yul had sent her, Daera saw almost no other cadets. It was well into the afternoon major lecture block.
She and Lee Ha-yul were different. Atra had let them out of her major lecture early.
'Even the master shows this kind of flexibility.'
To Daera, it was a surprising thing. Atra tended to be soft on her, but when it came to training, she was quite strict.
She'd sigh in resignation if Daera collapsed after it was all over, but during training, Atra didn't permit distractions.
- Master, would it be possible to finish a little early today? I have something to do with Senior Daera...
- Oh? Understood.
- ?
...That same Atra had crumbled completely at a single cautious request from Lee Ha-yul.
'Grinning ear to ear and practically hugging him, it was such an eyesore...'
Even after witnessing it several times already, the sight still shocked her. Every time, she found herself shivering at Lee Ha-yul's terrifying influence.
Daera cut off that pointless train of thought and quickened her pace.
As she drew closer to the destination, the number of people noticeably increased.
But finding Lee Ha-yul wasn't difficult.
First, when you got near the destination, there was always one spot where people's gazes overwhelmingly converged. You just had to follow those gazes.
And before long, Daera's own eyes were naturally drawn there. In that place, absorbing the stares and attention of everyone around, was a pure white puff of cotton.
"Junior, why'd you come out so early."
[Says the senior who came out right at this moment too]
[Strictly speaking, didn't you come out exactly on time?]
Lee Ha-yul, who had been sitting on a bench, hopped to his feet. His pure white hair sparkled in the sunlight, and his soft white winged garment swayed gently.
His appearance was so overwhelming that finding him was easy even in the middle of a crowd.
[Senior, are you hot?]
"Hm? Ah. This is more comfortable for now. It's cooler, too."
Lee Ha-yul trotted over and tilted his head. His eyes were closed, but she could tell what he was getting at.
Her left arm was bare and cool. On her right, her shoulder was covered by a thin cloth draped over it like a cloak.
Daera shrugged. It was cool and comfortable. That was part of the reason. As for the other part, she didn't bother to voice it.
[Hmmmm...]
[Alright, let's go right away then]
After fidgeting with his hands for a moment, Lee Ha-yul turned. As he moved forward, the crowd naturally parted.
Daera, who had been about to respond, quietly fell in behind him.
'Smell of iron?'
As she walked, Daera twitched her nose. A faint metallic, oily scent brushed past her nostrils.
Clang! Right after, the faint sound of hammering reached her ears. The sound of metal being struck hard, being reshaped. Not just one—it came from multiple directions at once.
"The Craft Major area?"
[Yes, I rented a facility over there]
As expected, the destination was the Craft Major zone. Soon, various facilities came into view, and Daera nodded to herself.
Despite the somewhat complex surrounding geography, there was no hesitation in Lee Ha-yul's steps.
Without checking a map even once, he entered a building before long and descended to the basement via a staircase.
"Um, this isn't a training room?"
[Rather than a training room... it's more like a curing chamber? I suppose that's what you'd call it?]
The wide basement was empty. There was no furniture to speak of. Instead, blue stones were embedded across the flat floor in various places.
[They're attribute Magic Stones. The ones placed now are Lightning Attribute. It's a facility where you leave materials here to attune them... something like that]
"You planning to stick me in here?"
[As if that would ever happen]
Lee Ha-yul puffed out his cheeks for a moment, then walked toward the center of the basement. Daera, chuckling, avoided the Magic Stones embedded in the floor and followed after him.
"So, what are we doing here? Didn't you say you were giving me a gift?"
[Yes, I'll be giving it to you here]
"What kind of gift is it that we need..."
Daera surreptitiously surveyed her surroundings.
Maybe because of the Magic Stones embedded in the floor, the area was brimming with Lightning Energy. She could sense the presence of magic around the stones, but not what kind.
Did giving a gift really require this kind of environment? Daera tilted her head.
[Ta-da! Here you go]
In the middle of her confusion, Lee Ha-yul turned around and presented something with both hands.
It was a round lump of dark blue clay, about the size of a human head.
"Huh?"
A question mark floated above Daera's head.
She'd secretly imagined something like the winged garments that the people around Lee Ha-yul had started wearing one by one. This was nothing like what she'd pictured.
[Tsk, tsk. This is still an unfinished product. It's going to change from now on, so watch closely]
As if he'd anticipated her reaction, Lee Ha-yul clicked his tongue infuriatingly and held out the clay.
"Ah, really? Unfinished, huh."
Daera refocused her drifting eyes. Still, she couldn't quite hide the faint skepticism as she looked down at the clay.
That clay was a gift? Even if it was an unfinished product, what was he planning to make with it?
[Alright, first put your hand on it, and try pouring in your mana]
She followed Lee Ha-yul's instructions for now. She placed her hand on the surprisingly heavy clay and pushed her mana into it.
Crackle! As the clay absorbed the mana, streaks of lightning coiled around it. She glanced at Lee Ha-yul just in case, but as expected, he didn't so much as flinch.
'What in the world is this...'
Why was she suddenly being told to pour mana into a lump of clay?
- Rumble...
"Huh?"
Just as she was injecting mana and mulling over the question, the clay suddenly quivered—and shrank.
It shrank. Well, yes. But the sensation felt strange. A weird, squirming feeling crawled in through her palm...
"What is this?"
Daera, flustered, wiggled her hand.
As her fingers clenched the clay, it scattered outward from the surface into a cluster of light. It wasn't just shrinking—no, the absorption sped up.
In the end, her fist closed. Daera's eyes flew wide, and she opened her fist again, but in that instant, not a single handful of clay remained.
"What the..."
The hell is this? The words wouldn't come out properly because of this sudden phenomenon.
However, the strange event wasn't over yet.
- Crackle!
"Hrk?!"
A sudden sensation flared at her right shoulder blade. Daera recalled the phantom pain she had felt just moments ago, and her face crumpled involuntarily.
Did it have to act up right now? Daera turned her gaze to the right.
- Crackle, crackle...!
"...?"
Her head tilted on its own.
The cloth draped over her right shoulder like a cloak dissolved into a cluster of light. In its place, blue lines were jutting out unevenly from her shoulder.
"The fuck is this?"
[It's okay.]
Just as Daera, horrified, was about to burn it away with Heavenly Thunder, Lee Ha-yul's restraint made her body go rigid.
[There's no problem. It's working properly. You can leave it as is.]
"...Junior Disciple, you're not running some kind of human experiment on me, are you?"
[I already finished experimenting on myse─]
[...Of course not, jeez.]
"...Whew. You scared the hell out of me, for real..."
Seeing Lee Ha-yul's completely unfazed, casual face, Daera managed to suppress her shock.
Something was suddenly growing from her severed arm. How could she not be shaken?
Letting out a deep sigh, Daera finally observed the phenomenon occurring on her right shoulder.
"...Circuits?"
Blue lines flowing out from her shoulder. The energy forming them felt familiar. It was Daera's lightning energy, transformed under the influence of Heavenly Thunder.
The blue lines through which mana flowed were Daera's circuits.
From the cross-section of the circuits that had been torn away and blown off long ago, new circuits stretched out.
They emerged from her shoulder and hung downward. The expanded circuits formed a kind of framework.
- Whooong!
Soon, mana poured from the framework of circuits, filling the inside. Daera stared blankly at the sight.
- Clank!
The mana soon converted into physical matter. Her shoulder flinched at the weighty resonance. She reflexively wiggled her fingers.
"Ah...?"
The fingers moved. The five fingers of her left hand were moving.
On the other side, an ultramarine-colored metal, shaped somewhat like a hand, moved too.
The five digits folded and unfolded in sequence. For something made of metal, the movement was far too smooth and natural.
"Uh... uh...?"
It wiggled. She could see it. And so, she could know.
But she didn't just know through her eyes. She felt the wiggling sensation. With her trembling left hand, Daera touched the metal.
The sensation of the somewhat cool texture gripped by her left hand.
The sensation of her right side being held by something... a sensation far too unfamiliar...
"...What is this?"
[The artifact I used before got a bit broken on the Reverse Side.]
A question she had already asked who-knows-how-many times today.
As Daera, blankly stroking the metal arm, blinked, Lee Ha-yul quietly approached from the side.
[Repairing it is possible, but my own arm regenerated, you see. So I analyzed the shell... the parts that made up the prosthetic arm, and used some of them to create a prosthetic arm exclusively for you, Senior Daera.]
"...The sensation, it's connected?"
[That's the Proof of Protection—it was the same for my artifact. It's a sensory synchronization function. Also, instead of the Authority of Protection, I included a function that calibrates your Heavenly Thunder, Senior Daera.]
Lee Ha-yul offered a fluent explanation. But Daera, the one who had asked the question, couldn't absorb it as she was frantically examining the prosthetic arm.
"This, this is..."
The words wouldn't come out properly.
Lee Ha-yul's artifact, the prosthetic arm, even had sensation, he said. Honestly, she couldn't say she hadn't felt a little envious, but she hadn't been greedy about it.
It was a top-grade artifact, after all. An item that most major figures couldn't even obtain; something so significant would surely already be bound to its owner.
But even though she hadn't expected anything, she really had received something similar.
It was difficult to describe her current emotions—the surge of feeling, the deep emotion.
[I'm sorry it's a metal prosthetic.]
"...What?"
[I wanted to give you regeneration if possible, but the method of touching the spiritual blueprint is still... not safe, you see.]
Yet Lee Ha-yul was actually apologizing.
When Daera turned her gaze blankly, Lee Ha-yul gave an awkward laugh and approached, extending both hands.
Whooong! A blue light flickering from both hands seeped into Daera's face. Her face felt ticklish.
[Here, take this at least instead. I've been meaning to give it to you, but the chance never came up...]
The hands fell away. Daera, with a dumbfounded expression, reflexively raised her hand to her face.
"Huh?"
And once again, an exclamation escaped her. She stroked her face. The sharp texture. The fine scars that should have been caught under her touch were gone.
[At least this much can safely be done, though.]
She hadn't seen it with her eyes, but she understood what had happened.
Daera stroked her face with both hands for a moment, then parted her trembling lips.
"...Isn't this, this... too much, treating me too well like this?"
[Hm?]
"No, I mean this prosthetic... just how precious is it? I don't really know... I might not be able to repay this..."
She had received far too much from Lee Ha-yul.
Her life had been saved on the Reverse Side, and how many times had she received help since then? From what she heard, even Daera entering Siyoram was largely due to Lee Ha-yul's influence.
And now, at last, she had even received this precious prosthetic arm, called a gift.
How on earth should she repay all of this? No, what could she possibly repay it with?
[Who gives a gift expecting to be paid back?]
The lips that had been trembling slightly closed.
Lee Ha-yul shook his head as if he was the one who didn't understand.
[I told you. To look forward to it because I'd give you a gift. Well?]
Do you like it?
Lee Ha-yul asked with quite a proud expression. But flickering through that pride, a hint of unease was visible.
Did he not realize just how precious a thing he had given her? Even Daera, who didn't know much about the ways of the world, knew at least that.
'Ah, so that's what it is.'
She had felt it before.
Lee Ha-yul was too kind to Daera.
The reason was one thing. Because she was Atra's disciple.
He might hold a favorable impression for other reasons now, but the reason he had been extremely kind from the first meeting was because she was Atra's disciple.
It all started from just that single reason, and now he was pushing a rare treasure like this into Daera's hands, calling it a gift.
This was why the people around him glared fiercely and chased away those who approached Lee Ha-yul for worldly reasons.
"...Junior Disciple, are you deliberately trying to get your hooks into me?"
[Puzzlement.]
[Huh?]
Lee Ha-yul tilted his head. The tip of the winged garment tilted along with him.
For real, was he doing that on purpose? If so, that was even scarier. Did all the women around Lee Ha-yul get caught in his hand just like this...
"...Ah, screw it, I don't know. Junior Disciple, for real... really, thank you..."
[?]
- Poof.
Daera firmly shut her lips, which were threatening to overflow with emotion, and pulled Lee Ha-yul into her embrace.
[...Hehe.]
[Seeing you happy makes me happy too.]
Lee Ha-yul didn't quite understand what was going on, but at Daera's joyful reaction, he beamed a bright smile.