Confrontation
Confrontation
"Heeheehee."
"......."
Seo-yul smiled softly.
That smile, brimming with happiness, warmed my heart all on its own.
Is there any reason a parent would be displeased that their child is happy... there isn't, right?
'Right. If Seo-yul is happy, what's there to be dissatisfied about.'
"Daddy, you're so cute."
'Squeak...'
Seo-yul, rubbing her cheek against my head, hugged me tightly.
My face was buried in a soft sensation. Her five-colored wings wrapped around me like a blanket, their cozy warmth heating me inside and out.
'Seo-yul's gotten so much bigger than me...'
I'd expected it. Except for outliers like me, superhumans are all tall and sturdy, aren't they?
Even female superhumans, who are on the smaller side, are still taller than me.
I'd known there was no way a fairy knight, a combat specialist among fairies, would be smaller than me.
It's just that the expectation became reality, leaving my feelings complicated.
"...Seo-yul... is that you?"
Lee Ji-yeon seemed to share the same sentiment.
Slightly agape, Lee Ji-yeon asked haltingly, and Seo-yul nodded.
"Yes, it's me."
"Uh... is that so...? You've changed... quite a lot in such a short time?"
"It's less that I changed and more that I grew."
Resting her chin on my head, Seo-yul grinned. At that, I poked my head out from where I was buried in her embrace.
"What's wrong, Daddy?"
Seo-yul tilted her head.
Her white hair, reaching down to her hips, swayed gently.
Her features, centered on her blinking eyes, were distinctly more mature than before and devastatingly beautiful.
- No. Just thinkin' my daughter's pretty.
Seo-yul, who had been tilting her head, rounded her eyes.
The wings wrapped around me fluttered a few times, then pulled in even tighter, leaving no gap.
Eventually, recovering her dazed expression, Seo-yul raised the corners of her lips and readjusted me in her arms.
"Daddy, who told you to say such sweet things? Hm? Who taught you?"
- Isn't that a weird way to put it...?
Paying no mind to my strange expression, Seo-yul, radiantly happy, hugged me tight and kept pressing kisses to my forehead.
It was a familiar gesture. It's how we'd always expressed affection, between me and Seo-yul.
But that was something I used to do for her.
Why am I on the receiving end now?
Thinking about it any longer felt like it would break my heart all over again, so I forcibly changed the subject.
.
.
.
For a while, I stayed in Seo-yul's arms.
"The Fairy Grand Minister, Kariade, offers greetings once more to Her Highness Princess Lee Seo-yul, who carries on the noble bloodline."
"Yes, I offer my greetings as well, Lord Kariade. I was very rude earlier."
"Please, withdraw such words. I did not consider it the slightest bit rude."
During that time, Seo-yul and Kariade re-introduced themselves to each other.
- Her Highness Princess?
- Is she the King's daughter?
- But she's bigger than the King.
"Hello, little ones. Nice to meet you."
She also greeted the fairies who, unable to contain their curiosity, had crept closer.
Watching the fairies, I swallowed a sigh of relief.
'Looks like their anxiety has faded, thankfully.'
When the undead first caused havoc, they'd been trembling in terror, but now those signs were much diminished.
Perhaps due to Kariade's calm reaction, my presence...
And sensing the power of the high-ranking spirits now filling the surroundings, they seemed to have relaxed quite a bit.
- ...Um, Seo-yul? Could you let me go while you greet them...?
"No."
The minor problem was that I'd been held in Seo-yul's arms the entire time.
I gingerly raised the request, but Seo-yul, who had just spun me around and hugged me from behind, flatly rejected it.
A fairy who saw this tilted its head.
- Is the King the baby, not the Princess?
- Gahk.
A dagger of pure innocence stabbed me in the solar plexus. The heart I'd barely managed to stitch together felt like it was crumbling again...
- Whooong...!
Just then, the barrier opened, and a group of presences entered the forest.
Still reeling from the bombardment of innocence, I brightened and turned my head.
Soon, Terramor emerged through the forest, leading several humans.
Terramor strode right up to me and knelt on one knee.
- As per Your Majesty's command, I have escorted the esteemed guests.
- Thank you. You've worked hard. Is there anything unusual about your condition?
- I am profoundly grateful for the blessing, nothing more.
Terramor bowed her head deeper at my reply.
Her aura was noticeably denser than before.
This was because she had received my blessing before leaving the forest.
Though Terramor, already a high-ranking spirit, did not ascend, she had achieved a clear elevation in rank compared to before the blessing.
'I didn't know the blessing's effect would be this big... No wonder they guard and seek out their king like a sacred vessel.'
Not to mention it's said to be difficult for new fairies to be born without a king.
Finishing my internal thought, I turned my head.
Behind Terramor stood people with bewildered faces.
The Taesan instructor and several members of the Amak unit.
And Lee Su-yeong, the head of the Amak.
I slightly bowed my head toward them.
- I apologize for summoning you so abruptly. The immediate front line is stable, but I thought a swift meeting was necessary at this juncture, so I had you escorted here.
"No, no, no. It's really quite alright..."
Lee Su-yeong quickly shook her head and waved her hands.
Then, glancing around, she subtly checked my response.
"If I may ask... might I inquire as to your name...?"
- I am called Lee Ha-yul.
"Ah... I am the Amakju of the Taesan family, Lee Su-yeong."
Lee Su-yeong, after bowing her head slightly, shot a glance at Lee Ji-yeon, who was standing beside me.
Lee Ji-yeon, receiving that glance, rolled her eyes around and then looked back at me.
At the silent chain of glances, I nodded.
"Thank you. Then, for a moment..."
Having gained my permission, Lee Ji-yeon led Lee Su-yeong and stepped away toward the far end of the clearing.
"What is going on here?"
Once Lee Ji-yeon's footsteps stopped, Lee Su-yeong asked.
"That person... the Fairy King? Isn't that Young Master Lee Ha-yul?"
To her expression steeped in question and absurdity, Lee Ji-yeon shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know well myself."
"...If the Acting Family Head doesn't know, then who would?"
"There might be no one who knows, including the person himself?"
"Excuse me? What do you..."
Lee Ji-yeon moved her lips and explained the situation as far as she could reveal.
The sound didn't leak.
It was a Soundproof Magic that Lee Su-yeong had immediately deployed.
But it wasn't enough to deceive my Qi Sense, so the conversation entered my head.
"Ah... my head is throbbing. What on earth is all this..."
Given the circumstances, Lee Su-yeong pressed her brow at the information crammed in at high speed.
As if sharing the sentiment, Lee Ji-yeon gave a silent, wry smile.
"...Anyway, I can't help but marvel at the Acting Family Head's foresight."
"What do you mean by that?"
Lee Ji-yeon tilted her head.
At the seemingly baffled reaction, Lee Su-yeong continued with eyes full of genuine respect.
"I was worried sick on my way here. Solving the immediate Catastrophe is one problem, but I was wondering what to do about the matter of this place, the Fairy Kingdom, afterward."
"Ah..."
"The location, of all places. It's some comfort that it's not right in the middle, but it was giving me a massive headache."
Lee Ji-yeon let out an exclamation of understanding. I, who'd unavoidably overheard, nodded inwardly as well.
'She's right. Strictly speaking, it's the Taesan family's territory.'
A full thousand high-ranking spirits.
Even a hundred would be jaw-dropping, but a number approaching ten times that had entered their territory.
In the worst case, if this force turned inward on the territory, it wouldn't end with just the word 'disaster.'
The fact that they were kind, pure spirits was the only reassuring factor, but it wasn't something you could simply look away from.
"But thanks to the Acting Family Head, that problem has largely disappeared."
"...What does that mean?"
The corner of Lee Ji-yeon's mouth twitched.
She had caught the streak of mischief in Lee Su-yeong's tone. At that, Lee Su-yeong's eyes curved playfully.
"Well, our Acting Family Head is being revered as the Queen Consort of the Fairy Kingdom, so."
"......"
"Thanks to that, my anxiety has eased a lot. Should I even be rejoicing from a grand strategic perspective? Wow~ a friendly nation of formidable military power has emerged."
"Amakju Lee Su-yeong, stop teasing me."
Lee Ji-yeon, the skin above her collar flushing red, bit her lip firmly.
.
.
.
The Pure Life Pillar and others hadn't arrived yet, but we began the discussion first to save time.
"Junior, can you still not open a Gate?"
The first topic raised was naturally the Gate.
At this point, with space isolated, it was the only means by which we could expect outside support.
- Hmm...
I wiggled my fingers under the gazes gathering on me.
Even though Seo-yul still hadn't let go of me, she was sitting quietly with just her hands resting on my stomach.
- I can't say for sure if I had more time. Right now, it seems difficult.
"Is that so... Do you perhaps have a specific estimate on how long it would take?"
- Wait a moment.
I exhaled deeply and focused my mind.
Then I placed my hand on the Fairy Tree's vine wrapped around my arm.
I synchronized my consciousness with the Fairy Tree and drew upon mana.
It wasn't yet satisfactory, but for now, I manifested the Authority of Space.
The axis and center were the Fairy Tree here. The destination was the Fairy Tree located at Siyoram.
Expand the space connecting those two. Before doing that, first I needed to crack open and widen the space isolating the territory...
- Whooong...
'?'
Suddenly, a presence was detected.
It was sending a Will Thought from within the isolated space.
The meaning was...
'An Invitation.'
My train of thought ground to a sudden halt. The fingers tapping the vine stopped.
My already accelerated cognition analyzed the Will Thought that had arrived.
Threat level... none. It was an invitation to talk, literally as the meaning implied.
I thought for a moment.
Any harm in accepting? Being attacked when I meet them?
No problem. What would meet them wasn't my true body, but a fragment of consciousness not even worth calling a doppelganger.
Even with that, fleeing was more than possible at my current level.
- ...Just a moment.
"Huh?"
I raised a Will Thought and picked up the invitation.
Simultaneously, a piece of my consciousness detached and crossed over space.
.
.
.
Darkness was on all sides.
A space where floor and sky were indistinguishable.
Yet the fundamental coloration was as if it covered the sky.
- Whoooooo
- ...Squeak, screech, squeak...
- Aaaghh...
The darkness churned.
As if being crumpled like folding paper, then swirling like winding pasta around a fork, then mixing like a whirlpool rising in the sea.
But it was neither paper, nor pasta, nor the sea.
Residual Thought.
The commonly called spirits of the dead, dregs of souls.
What formed something that felt like an ocean current was not seawater, but Thought Residue.
Not a pleasant sight to behold.
Rather, it was utterly repulsive.
Suppressing the nausea rising from within, I lifted my head.
In the raging sea of the dead.
I saw a structure jutting out long and tall.
An outer wall covered in drab, earthen hues and black.
'The Tower of the Dead.'
Though an abstract space, it was unmistakably the Tower of the Dead.
The size of the tower was hard to gauge.
Partly because this abstract space made distance hard to perceive, and partly because it was simply too massive to begin with.
It was more swollen than any tower I'd seen so far.
It meant it had stockpiled power accordingly, fattening its rank and authority like a greedy pig.
'Filthily huge.'
On such a tower, I saw a snake coiled around it.
A body wound tightly around that enormous tower as if it were a mere block of wood.
Scales of a pitch black that seemed even more drab and dark than the tower or the surrounding space.
The membrane of the wings sprouting around the middle of its body was riddled with holes, and despite being a snake, it also sported forelegs.
My slowly rising gaze met something.
A snake's eyes with vertical slit pupils. My reflection was held in those baleful yet drab, contradictory eyes, like those of a dead fish.
The Tower Master of the Dead.
Whether it intended it or not, at that moment I could gauge the creature's rank and presence.
My expression distorted.
I'd thought there was no way, but now I could be sure.
'This bastard isn't an Incarnation.'
It wasn't a descent via incarnation arts.
It was its True Body.
That thing had endured astronomical damage and suppression to squeeze and crawl its True Body into this world.
Then, the creature's head lifted.
Its head rose, and its mouth slowly opened. The tongue inside entered my Detection.
The tongue was a bizarre shape.
A grotesque tongue, split into hundreds of forks.
The tongue did not move. But from within it poured a Thought Will.
『I propose a negotiation.』
'What?'
I, who had been sharpening my focus in case of unforeseen developments, furrowed my brow.
Negotiation.
An unexpected utterance from an unexpected bastard.
What nonsense was it spouting now?
Thinking that, I blinked.
I scanned the creature and the tower once more.
Setting aside the standards of good and evil, the tower was of a scale whose sheer rank couldn't be ignored.
'Is it... destroyed?'
The outer wall was broken and torn in many places.
On top of that, the tower's pinnacle looked as if it had been cleanly snapped off. I couldn't sense the part that had fallen away.
The Tower Master of the Dead, coiled around the tower.
Its scales were shattered in many places, and its membrane wings had holes in them. One of the horns on its head was split.
'...What the hell are you.'
『I propose a negotiation.』
'Stop repeating the same bullshit. What did this to you, leaving you in such a state.'
Though I shouldn't be misled by the form presented through its Will Thought, it certainly didn't feel like it was in a healthy state.
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