After D?eath (3)
After D?eath (3)
Baek A-rin's childhood was, without the slightest exaggeration, one of utmost privilege.
From the moment she was born, she entered the world as a member of the Changhae family's main house, the first child of its clan head.
After she awakened and manifested the Azure Sea unique ability, she became the family's heir.
At an age when she could not yet read a single letter, Baek A-rin already held an exalted status.
Such a childhood could not possibly have been deprived.
The clothes she wore felt impossibly soft even against her delicate skin, and every meal laid before her was a brilliant, colorful feast.
She regularly consumed elixirs that others might spend a lifetime failing to obtain even one of, and she received intensive, priceless instruction directly from the elders of her family.
No one could deny that hers was a blessed life.
Baek A-rin was born into blessing and grew up receiving treatment befitting that station.
If one had to name a misfortune, it would be that she lost her mother before she had even taken her first steps.
That was undeniably tragic, but measured against the countless real misfortunes in the world—and weighed against the blessings she had received—it would have seemed like the complaint of someone who had never known true hunger.
Her father, Baek Wol-seon, bore the pain of losing his wife yet loved and raised his daughter, Baek A-rin, with wholehearted devotion.
Her stepmother, Kim Yu-yeon, also approached her earnestly, hoping to open Baek A-rin's heart.
By any standard in the world, Baek A-rin's childhood was one of absolute, unblemished abundance.
'Then why.'
Baek A-rin, however, could not simply feel grateful for that abundance.
It was because of the curse that had coiled itself around her heart, unseen by anyone.
The Curse of Bitter Cold.
As a child, Baek A-rin had no knowledge of curses or hexes, but she recognized the curse placed on her all the same. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say the curse made itself known to her.
This curse was stealing Baek A-rin's very existence.
It was a cruel curse, gradually eroding her body to make it its own, in order to wield her like a tool at its whim.
From the moment the curse took root, Baek A-rin's body and mind began to freeze, little by little.
Her five senses dulled and the highs and lows of her emotions subsided.
Painful sensations arrived as mere mild discomfort.
She struggled to empathize with or even comprehend the misfortunes of others, and she could scarcely summon gratitude or joy for her own happiness.
It was a truly wretched feeling.
Who would ever welcome such a curse, embrace its encroachment with open arms?
Baek A-rin felt the same, but there was no clear way to resolve it.
Seeking help from others was also difficult.
The constraints embedded within the curse blocked her from revealing its existence or asking for aid.
She had tried to deal with it alone, but even that yielded no results.
Even in her earliest years, when she understood nothing about curses, she had instinctively known that this curse was terrifyingly powerful.
And as she grew older and more skilled, as she learned more about curses, she felt with increasing, concrete clarity just how horrific and hopeless this curse truly was.
This curse cannot be broken.
There is no method.
It is impossible.
- Give up.
- Accept it.
- Surrender.
Her instincts and every solution her reason uncovered were thrust at her as if a verdict had been handed down.
The curse coiled around her heart crooned resignation as if whispering to her.
- My beloved daughter.
But Baek A-rin did not want to accept it.
Very long ago. Before the curse coiled itself inside her. When her mother was still alive.
- I'm sorry, my daughter... and thank you. Thank you so much for being born.
She remembered the hand that had stroked her hair.
She remembered the affection that had spilled from the eyes that gazed so tenderly into her own.
She remembered a love that she had given nothing in return for, a love she had simply received without price.
She remembered the smile that had always been there, even as the end drew closer.
All of it had been gentle and warm.
Even as her body and mind slowly froze, the memories of those early years clung tenaciously to her mind and would not let go.
Nor did she want them to.
She did not want to be consumed by some curse and throw away this warmth.
She did not want to lose herself.
She wished to keenly receive her senses, to feel whole and undiminished emotions.
She wanted to feel warmth, not coldness.
"......"
Baek A-rin, leaning back against the headboard, looked down at her own hand.
She saw a pale, smooth palm. Slowly, she curled her trembling fingers into a fist.
Warmth gathered within the closed hand.
When she wrapped her other hand around the fist, she could feel the warmth shared between the skin touching skin.
Her body temperature was lower than most people's due to the influence of the Azure Sea, yet even this felt warm and astonishing to her.
That was not all.
The blanket enveloping her legs was soft, and the temperature-controlled room held a lingering warmth.
Sensations she could not have felt before now touched her skin with intimate clarity and traveled to her mind.
- Thump... thump... thump...
Inside the quiet room.
Even without actively listening, she could hear the steady beat of her heart within her chest.
It was not the small, faint pulse of before. It was a normal beat, like anyone else's, declaring its presence.
The corners of Baek A-rin's eyes trembled.
'...It's gone...'
The curse coiled around her heart had vanished. The malice that suppressed her will and actions was gone. The bitter cold that gnawed at her body was gone.
It had all burned and melted away.
And so now, undimmed and complete sensations, joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure filled her heart.
The moment when those sensations came back to life rose in her memory.
Shunk... The sensation of a spearhead slicing through her chest and piercing her heart.
At first it had been so faint she could scarcely perceive it, but as the flames and the light cluster seeped into her body, it grew more and more vivid.
The coldness of the spear shaft clutched in her hands.
The sound of her opponent's heart beating fainter and fainter as the spearpoint drove through it, even as her own heart reclaimed its rhythm.
The body of her opponent growing cold and still, its warmth draining away, even as her own body recovered its heat...
"Ugh, urgh...! Bleurgh..."
At the sudden surge of nausea, Baek A-rin's eyes flew wide open.
Reflexively, she clamped a hand over her mouth and doubled over. Her shoulders heaved again and again as the sensation of her insides twisting and turning overwhelmed her.
The nausea washing over her was far too intense.
'My senses are too... too...'
Were they even her senses? For an instant, Baek A-rin felt a flicker of doubt.
The revulsion welling up from inside was unmistakably real, but it felt as though its source was not entirely physical.
Alongside the tangible sensation, an intangible emotion was gouging at her heart.
"Heok, hic, ngh...!"
The full, undiminished senses and emotions she had so desperately wished for were simply too sickening to endure.
"Hey, hey, hey...! What the fuck! Over here! She's acting strange again!"
"A-rin?! Pull yourself together! There's nothing here right now... Hurry!"
Hong Yeon-hwa and Lee Ji-yeon, who had been sitting beside the bed, recoiled in alarm and shot up from their chairs.
The attendants waiting outside the door came rushing in breathlessly.
.
.
.
"Ha... fuck... I'm exhausted..."
Hong Yeon-hwa slumped into her chair and gulped for air. Lee Ji-yeon also let out a heavy sigh, her face etched with fatigue.
"...It's as I said. I plan to watch the frontlines for a few more days, then stop by the family's main house before coming back."
"That's you, sis. As for me... I'll probably head to Siyoram."
On the bed, Baek A-rin, who had at last been calmed, sat leaning against the headboard.
They had been told that Kim Yu-yeon was on her way after hearing the news.
Hong Yeon-hwa, intending to stay by her side until then, spoke up.
"Anyway, that's what he said. And he told me to tell you not to torment yourself because Ha-yul will be back soon. He seems to have a pretty good idea of what kind of state you're in right now."
She conveyed Lee Ha-yul's words to Baek A-rin.
Baek A-rin, who had been letting out thin breaths, closed her mouth.
"Right now, he... he's telling me... to believe that...?"
After a brief silence, a trembling voice slipped from her lips.
"Well, we've gotta believe him. What else can we do? Ha-yul does tell lies... sometimes, sure, but about something like this... he wouldn't... lie."
Probably. Hong Yeon-hwa firmly suppressed the doubt that tried to follow.
Believe that? Who the hell could blindly believe it? Hong Yeon-hwa thought it was absurd too.
A soul and a body aren't some simple jigsaw puzzle you can just snap together. They aren't clothes you can take off and put back on whenever you feel like it.
She believed it only because it was Lee Ha-yul who had spoken with such conviction. She believed because she did not want to deny it.
Lee Ha-yul had said it.
That his spirit and flesh would separate, but he would return soon. That he was fine, so don't be sad, don't worry, just wait for him...
'That... that can't... possibly happen...'
Blue eyes trembled. Clenched fingers tore into the blanket.
'With a curse like that, with the Authority... his heart... his soul...'
To Baek A-rin, it had been brief, but the Tower Master of Bitter Cold had dwelled within her, and during that time she remembered all the power, the techniques, the deeds that the Tower Master of Bitter Cold possessed.
So she knew all too well how terrible the Authority of Bitter Cold was, the one that had poured out without pause.
A cold aura that, with the slightest brush, would freeze spirit and flesh together.
Lethal enough that even a reasonably renowned superhuman could not escape instant death from a single scratch.
To drive out the descending Tower Master, Lee Ha-yul had been exposed to the Authority of Bitter Cold countless times, hurling himself against it.
And as if that weren't enough, at the very end...
He had driven a spear forged directly from the Authority of Bitter Cold into his own heart, and the Authority had struck his body and soul head-on.
'There's no way... he could survive...'
Was there?
Because she had understood that Authority, Baek A-rin found it all the more impossible to believe.
'Why...'
When she first knew of the Special Admission Cadet at Siyoram, of Lee Ha-yul, it would be a lie to say she hadn't had expectations.
Hadn't she approached him intending to be of help from the start?
At first it was a small investment.
She didn't know what kind of superhuman he would grow into, but he seemed promising enough, so she thought to build some goodwill.
When he manifested the Calamity Flame, her expectations grew larger.
When she saw him manifest even the Azure Sea, she held a hope that grew more certain.
And so she drew closer, sought to become someone precious to him in order to receive definite help.
All of it was calculated.
Hadn't she tried to exploit the fact that Lee Ha-yul couldn't help but crave affection?
And as a result, she truly succeeded.
She had been struck by a curse, despairing at a curse that seemed utterly insoluble, but Lee Ha-yul had ultimately saved Baek A-rin.
And then he was pierced by a spear, struck by the Authority of Bitter Cold, and ended up like that.
'......'
The curse had been lifted.
Her senses and emotions were returning whole, and now her existence could never be stolen by another's will.
She had achieved the wish she had so longed for.
And yet she felt not the slightest joy.
Baek A-rin placed her hand over her chest.
It felt as though a hole had been punched clean through her heart.
The sensation of that hole reached her far more vividly than before.
* * *
My hand touched the floor. The pile of fruit and flowers that had been stacked here had finally revealed the ground beneath.
"Here you are."
I had been about to quickly move my hand, but in an instant I blinked at the fruit now filling the floor.
The fairy that had replenished the fruit nearby took a few more steps back, then knelt reverently and bowed her head.
The innate talent I could feel from the five-colored wings stretching behind her left no room for doubt—she was a fairy.
The peculiarity was that this fairy, like Seo-yul, was of human-scale size.
"...Mmphmumph."
I had meant to say thank you, but at some point my hand had stuffed fruit into my mouth and my pronunciation came out garbled.
Even as I worked my jaw hard, swallowed, and moved my hand again, more fruit went into my mouth.
Eventually I gave up on speaking and just focused on chewing.
- The King...?
- For real...?
- Look, look! We have just one pair of wings, but that one has three!
...At the murmuring around me, I glanced sideways.
Through my blurred vision, the fairies who had been huddled together whispering among themselves opened their eyes wide at Lee Ha-yul's gaze.
Then, after tentatively gauging the mood, they flitted behind the trees with a soft chime.
...About twenty seconds later, only their heads popped out.
Similar scenes were unfolding all around me. I broke into a cold sweat under the gazes of what must have been at least a hundred fairies.
'I, I miscalculated...'
The separation of spirit and flesh had been inevitable.
After all, wasn't I what you'd call a hybrid crossbreed, with a soul and a body from different species?
Their respective innate talents were quite pronounced and had been clashing against each other with a bang.
Because of that, I needed to fully separate them once and take the time to fit them together anew.
It was something I'd have had to do eventually, so when the opportunity came, I meant to handle it all at once.
The plan was this.
At the moment of facing death, the connection between soul and body naturally wavers.
Using that, the instant I took damage approaching death, I separated my spirit and flesh from my end first.
Normally that would mean death, but my spiritual species is presumably fairy.
Fairies are spirit bodies whose souls also fulfill the function of a physical body, so there's no real problem even when freed from the flesh.
'That was the right call.'
The prediction was correct, as usual.
Right now I have no physical body, but I am unmistakably a spirit body that exists and can influence the world.
In other words, my spiritual species is indeed fairy.
And I was supposed to open my eyes at the Fairy Tree I had preset beforehand.
...But there seems to have been some kind of mistake.
- Swish... swish...
When I lowered my eyes slightly, I saw a tree branch wrapped around my abdomen.
The branch gently stroked my stomach, steadily pouring vitality energy into me.
It was a branch of the Fairy Tree that stood tall behind me.
'I knew there was another Fairy Tree...'
I had seen it in what I assume were dreams of the 1st Iteration, and I had thought there could be other Fairy Trees in this world.
But I hadn't expected to open my eyes at a Fairy Tree I hadn't raised myself.
- Oooong...
When I gently grasped one of the branches wrapped around my stomach, the branch hummed with projected thought.
I roughly interpreted it as "eat a lot and grow big and fast."
'...Alright, first I need to eat a lot and recover.'
Behind me, the Fairy Tree.
At a respectful distance, a large fairy watching me with deference.
The curious gazes of the small fairies, their numbers still growing.
Enduring those gazes, I held a yellow fruit in my mouth and chewed. The vitality energy soaked deep into the fruit slid down my throat and flowed into my body.
- Whooosh...!
The wings unfurled behind my back poured out light with vigor.
Five-colored wings. Not the Sky Wing Feather, but wings woven from my own innate talent.
'So hungry...'
The innate talent of the fairy, the innate talent of my soul, blooming as if it had been waiting to be freed from the flesh.
Perhaps as a reaction to having been suppressed all this time, the moment it blossomed it expanded rapidly and demanded great amounts of mana and vitality energy.
In contrast, the mana I possess right now is meager.
It couldn't be helped—I had always stored and held my mana in my physical body.
That's why I'm replenishing mana and vitality energy from external sources like this.
'The All-Rounder too, I see. And the curses—they were all applied to the body.'
Not only the innate talent of the All-Rounder, but the presence of the curses had also faded.
It's so hazy I can barely distinguish what's right in front of me, but the fact that my vision has cleared even a little is proof.
'The Curse of Short Life... or was it the Curse of Beauty's Misfortune.'
That too was a curse placed on the body.
The aura of death I had felt every single moment had grown faint.
But it hadn't been severed entirely.
That's because I haven't been fully cut off from the physical body.
'I really do need to return soon.'
Given that the body's loaded with curses one after another, I did briefly wonder if maybe I should just remain independent.
But even so, I can't very well discard a unique ability like All-Rounder.
Nodding slightly to myself, I grabbed hold of a large flower.
Five healthy yellow petals.
At the center of those petals, a round bead of vitality energy had gathered.
It seemed to be one of the plant species that fairies cultivate.
Normally you'd just pluck the vitality energy from the center of the petals, but... there's vitality energy on the backs of the petals too. Without hesitation, I put the whole petal into my mouth.
"Aahhhn... nom."
"...Uh, uh..."
"Om-nom-nom..."
I held the flower in my mouth and chewed diligently.
My tongue was tingling.
The cold tongue was numb beyond belief.