Kkonnim (3)
Kkonnim (3)
After the Tower Master of Observation discovered the hope known as Lee Ha-yul.
The Five Tower Masters rejoiced at finally finding a way forward, but several problems remained.
- Did my ears deceive me? Can you say that again?
- That, that child... his soul seems to have departed...
- ...He's already dead?
- No... just that his soul is gone...
- What the hell are you talking about, you shit
- Don't swear, Gracia...
One problem was that Lee Ha-yul's soul, separated from his physical body, had flown away to an isolated world.
- There's truly no way?
- I'm sorry, it's impossible... I don't have the capacity to conduct precise observation of another world...
The other problem was that the Tower Master of Observation lacked the capacity to observe even the outer worlds.
At the time, the Tower Master of Observation was under an especially heavy strain.
It was an era before the Chaos Period had fully settled. The one who observed and predicted the countless perilous incidents and disasters was the Tower Master of Observation.
She was also the one observing the approaching Outer-realm Tower Master.
She was the one who had run simulations to find countermeasures, and she was the one now running simulations to deliver information to Lee Ha-yul.
- Observing the outside is difficult because of the firewall... If I try, I would have to lower the firewall...
- Then those bastards would invade immediately, wouldn't they?
- That's exactly the problem...
The circumstances refused to cooperate. Complex factors overlapped, making it impossible to observe Lee Ha-yul's soul, which had absconded to another world.
- I'll go.
That was why Neriel had sent an incarnation.
Among the Five Tower Masters, she was especially proficient in incarnation techniques. Even though she lacked the capacity as much as the others, she could manage to send a single incarnation.
The incarnation arrived safely.
Thanks to the Tower Master of Observation having pinpointed the world, the incarnation did not wander off course, nor did any accidents occur along the way.
But it wasn't without its own problems.
This world was a sort of parallel world. The name of the world—Earth—was similar, as were its seas, continents, and the nations that occupied them.
'It really is similar to the era before the Great Cataclysm...'
It was just like before the Great Cataclysm.
The mana dissolved in the world was dreadfully low.
It was at a level where dungeons and monsters could not even be born, and where the innate talents kindled by humans could scarcely take root as supernatural abilities.
'With this, the restrictions on activity are far too severe.'
An incarnation was unavoidably inferior to a true body. That was true even after countless modifications, so it went without saying for a shoddy incarnation patched together with nonexistent capacity.
To give an idea of the extent, its physical ability was only a little higher than that of an ordinary person.
The world was vast.
To Neriel, who had reached the level of a superhuman, it was not eternally vast, but to an incarnation with human-scale strength, it was far too vast.
In that vast world, she had to find a single person.
Fortunately, she was not entirely without means.
It was the observation device that the Tower Master of Observation, Ast, had pressed into the incarnation's hands. Through it, she could observe the faintest of traces.
She could also draw upon a pittance of mana to use simple magic.
After she had wandered like that for several years, the observation device at last caught a trace.
The Korean Peninsula region.
In her original world, it was the region where the Three Great Families had established their footholds, and the trace of Lee Ha-yul was observed in the southern part.
A city teeming with electric-based civilization. Not a sprawling metropolis dense with skyscrapers, but a place with a sizable population.
'So I just have to search with this as the starting point.'
It was a trace barely caught. She let out a deep sigh and swept back her hair; the deep brown strands slipped through her fingers.
Her violet hair drew too much attention, so she had changed it to a common color.
Neriel took out the observation device.
Its shape and size were similar to a compass. It was predominantly white, with a pale teal needle.
Neriel took a deep breath and slowly infused mana into it.
The mana she had accumulated with great difficulty flowed into the observation device. Her core bottomed out. Her head spun from the mana exhaustion.
'Did I overdo it...?'
Neriel furrowed her brow at the dizzying vertigo.
Maybe narrowing the range had made her hasty. Neriel tensed her trembling legs and held firm, then opened her eyes, which she'd gently shut.
'...Ah.'
Inside the observation device. The pale teal needle was trembling faintly. At a reaction more intense than any so far, Neriel's eyes widened.
The needle that had been spinning around suddenly straightened and pointed behind her.
The meaning of this phenomenon was simple.
'The location has been fixed...!'
As soon as she narrowed the range, it had pinpointed the exact location.
Which meant the distance was quite close.
On Neriel's face, where fatigue clung heavily, joy blossomed—
- Honk! HOOOOONK—!
A horn tore through her eardrums.
A powerful noise that pierced through the ringing in her ears brought on by the vertigo. When she snapped her head up, a massive cargo truck was barreling toward her.
'What kind of maniac...!'
Aghast, Neriel's eyes flew wide. Though the performance of her eyes was poor, the consciousness dwelling within was high-grade. She judged the situation quickly.
She was screwed.
Her consciousness was high-grade, but her body was trash.
She could not dodge. If it slammed into her, she would be pulp. Magic? She had just poured all her mana into the observation device.
The protective magic she normally kept in place. A barrier barely wreathed in murky, feeble mana. Blocking a mass of that speed and weight was impossible.
A desperate crisis.
And of all moments, right when she had pinpointed Lee Ha-yul's location?
'First, even if I have to unfurl every last drop of mana...!'
- Tap-tap-tap...!
It was the moment when Neriel clenched her teeth and tried to forcibly twist her core.
Someone rushing from the right rear slammed into Neriel before the truck could.
Not shoving with hands—they rammed her side with a shoulder, full force. Neriel's body went flying sideways.
Her protective magic activated, so there was no impact whatsoever.
'Ah...'
But Neriel's mind was struck by a violent shock.
Her vision was still sluggish.
Neriel saw the boy who had pushed her.
Like most people in this region: black hair and black eyes. Bloodless white skin, a gaunt and frail exterior.
- Thump—!
Her heart pounded fiercely.
Neriel's pupils contracted. A dizzying sensation bored through her head. Her widening field of vision caught the observation device.
The pale teal needle pointed at the boy.
'Ah—'
Wait.
She muttered that word.
Word Command—Neriel's unique ability.
Though she had never used it since imposing the Curse of Silence upon herself, it was an innate talent she had spent a lifetime honing, and one she took pride in.
- CRAAASH—!
The Word Command only reduced the truck's speed; it could not stop it.
The boy, too, could only deflect some of the impact, not fully escape it.
Those powerless words left only the pain of tearing through her throat as they scattered futilely.
.
.
.
"...Urgh."
Neriel, who had been sent tumbling across the ground, swallowed blood.
Her mind reeled. She had babbled a useless Word Command while already suffering mana exhaustion, and all it did was damage her body while triggering the curse on top of it.
"Ghk, ghhh...!"
This was no time to fuss over the state of her body.
Clenching her teeth, Neriel forced herself upright and shifted her gaze in the direction indicated by the observation device fallen on the ground.
The cargo truck, toppled on its side. The surrounding chaos of screams and the pool of blood spreading across the ground...
'No.'
The boy fallen on the ground... no, Lee Ha-yul.
Neriel's eyes trembled pitifully.
One leg was gone entirely; the other was crushed below the knee. The rest of him was far from unharmed.
She had endured countless battlefields and was accustomed to grotesque and Bitter Cold scenes, but now she could not remain composed.
Even in their original world, this would be a grievous injury, but in this world without magic or supernatural ability...
'No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not...!'
The legs that lunged forward tangled, and she fell. She practically crawled to Lee Ha-yul, reaching out a hand.
'He's alive.'
Neriel clenched her teeth.
Her stomach churned with nausea, and the acrid stench was overwhelming.
My mana was already exhausted. Using a Word Command far beyond my capacity had strained my core and mana circuits, and layered curses left my body wrecked.
I ignored it all and wrenched mana from my core. I clawed at the surrounding atmospheric mana with my rake-like grip and crammed it into my circuits.
Filthy, turbid mana ravaged my circuits and core. I repeated that brutal process over and over.
The moment the barest minimum of mana gathered, Neriel forced her lips apart.
『Bones and flesh shall regenerate』
In a whisper no one nearby could hear, mana and will-thought seeped into the wounds.
The most lethal internal injuries began to resolve, and the bleeding started to subside. Most importantly, the gushing hemorrhage from where his leg had been mangled and torn away rapidly stalled.
"H-Heok...!"
Neriel, having confirmed his state, let out the breath she'd been holding, her head bowing. She swallowed the blood surging back up her throat.
She'd managed to stop the bleeding somehow. In her current state, proper healing was impossible, but emergency first aid had been administered.
'...What do... I do...'
She couldn't feel relief.
With a haggard complexion, Neriel kept forcing herself to swallow the blood. She clung to her fading consciousness, watching Lee Ha-yul be carried into the hospital, her body trembling.
* * *
Some time passed.
During that period, Neriel could barely move.
Mana exhaustion was the least of her problems.
She had repeatedly scraped at her depleted core to draw out power, then forced filthy external mana into herself, obliterating her circuits and core.
It was far too reckless for her patched-together incarnation. Even if she recovered as much as possible, the incarnation's performance would likely be drastically reduced.
Eventually, only after more time passed was she able to move again, and she could finally collect detailed information.
'It's completely ruined.'
Neriel couldn't keep her mouth shut. Her head throbbed worse than her body lying on the hotel bed—like she'd been smacked with a blunt weapon.
Covering her face, Neriel trembled.
'Why... why on earth...'
How many years had she wandered the world? She'd combed through densely populated cities and remote hinterlands alike, searching meticulously, yet found nothing.
Why then, at that exact moment?
She had drained her strength keeping her Detection spread wide, and on that particular day had pushed herself a little too hard, struggling to stay upright against the dizziness. Then a drunk-driven cargo truck rammed into the sidewalk, and the very Lee Ha-yul she had sought for so long just happened to witness it. To save her, he pushed her out of the way and took the impact himself?
'What kind of insane bullshit...'
A coincidence this extreme reeks of pure malice.
Even if someone had tried to set this up, landing it would be nearly impossible. It felt as if the world had deliberately set out to screw over either Neriel or Lee Ha-yul.
"Haa..."
Despair lined the sigh she exhaled.
Neriel looked down at her phone with a bewildered expression.
The cargo truck crashing into the sidewalk in broad daylight became a major incident.
Reporters pounced on it instantly, and breaking news revealed the condition of the victim, Lee Ha-yul.
He survived, by some great fortune.
But he lost his legs in the process.
'.......'
A self-loathing and wretchedness too difficult to describe churned in her chest. Neriel closed her eyes, gasping for breath.
If she followed her heart, she wanted to go to him immediately.
She wanted to apologize for that day, to take responsibility and look after him while he was unable to move freely.
But she couldn't bring herself to approach.
'He might recognize me.'
Neriel clutched the blanket tightly and bit her lip.
Would it really be okay to approach the current Lee Ha-yul?
He'd been crushed under a cargo truck, literally ground up. Just seeing her face might trigger the trauma of that day.
On top of that, she herself was barely mobile. Given how her condition was worsening, she had no idea when this incarnation might suddenly collapse. If she approached Lee Ha-yul recklessly only to abruptly vanish, that made it difficult to reach him right now.
...She was also afraid that Lee Ha-yul might resent her.
'For now, should I try to become friendly through a virtual messenger...?'
After agonizing for a long while, Neriel finally came up with a workaround.
She knew it was a shameless, cowardly plan, but Neriel grabbed the crutches propped against the wall and got out of bed.
This was a building she'd purchased outright with cash, located near the house Lee Ha-yul had moved into after leaving the goshiwon. Neriel sat in front of the computer and tapped the keyboard with practiced fingers. Soon, a globally used messenger program appeared on the screen.
[We sincerely welcome you to the service!]
[Before starting, please set the name other users will see!]
▶Username:
Neriel stared at the screen for a moment, then moved her fingers without much thought.
▶Username: Agapanthus
Agapanthus.
That was the name of a flower Neriel liked. She typed in the username without much deliberation and created the account.
'The username and unique ID number... this was it.'
Neriel entered Lee Ha-yul's user ID number despite never having heard it from him directly.
Magic was truly convenient.
▶Me: Hello? 「No. 1 Shut-In Idiot」?
▶No. 1 Shut-In Idiot: Why are you cussing at me?
▶Me: Excuse me?
"?"
Neriel blinked in confusion. Why was he asking why she was cussing? Wasn't Lee Ha-yul the one who had set his username as 'No. 1 Shut-In Idiot'?
...That was a username that stirred up many thoughts and much guilt deep inside her.
Every time she saw it, it felt like a blade stabbing into her chest...
* * *
"...That was the full story of what happened."
"Huh?"
The smoothly flowing memory cut off abruptly. I blinked, having been watching the memory with keen interest.
Kkonnim, who had paused the memory with a gesture, turned around to face me.
"That day, I became aware of Lee Ha-yul's presence. But out of shameless fear, I couldn't step forward. I hid behind a messenger to make contact with you."
"......."
"I am truly sorry."
Kkonnim lowered her head deeply. Her violet hair cascaded gently, spreading a lovely fragrance.
I wanted to breathe in that scent, but the guilt and fear spreading across Kkonnim's face were seared into my mind.
I blinked for a moment, then broke into a bright smile and pulled Kkonnim into a hug.
"It's okay."
I wrapped my arms around Kkonnim's flinching waist, buried my face in her chest, and gave a shrug.
"I knew you didn't deliberately put me in danger."
"...The accident still happened because of me."
"Nnng... I don't care about that. I'm alive and fine right now, so it's okay."
"Still..."
"I'm sorry for not believing in you unconditionally."
Kkonnim's words stopped dead in an instant. In the meantime, I buried my face deeply into her voluptuous chest and inhaled.
Maybe it was because we were in a mental world? Even faintly, a warm body scent lingered.
"I should have unconditionally believed that my Kkonnim would never do something like that, but I couldn't. I'm the one who ought to be truly sorry."
"Eut..."
"So we're both at fault now, right? Besides, you didn't show me the whole memory and kept trying to treat it as solely your fault, so let's cancel out our mutual mistakes and call it even."
I sniffed at Kkonnim's unfamiliar scent to memorize it, then lifted my head with a beaming smile.
Kkonnim's face flushed red, and her shoulders trembled.
Her hands wandered in the air for a moment before she squeezed her eyes shut and gently cradled my head.
"...Thank you."
"Ehehe."
Gratitude really is better than an apology. Affection is better than regret. Maybe because this was a mental world, I could feel her tender, warm heart clearly.
Grinning goofily, I buried my face back into Kkonnim's chest.
- Fuck this, I can't take it. I'm going to bring him here and feed him.
That was the moment.
The memory lurched forward on its own again.
Kkonnim, sitting in front of the computer, was suddenly seething with cold fury. She shot to her feet and opened a cardboard box stacked in the corner of the room.
The box was filled with cans of various kinds.
"...Were you trying to kidnap me... Mmph."
"......"
Kkonnim didn't answer. She just pressed my head down and held me close to her chest.