Confession Necklace (2)
Confession Necklace (2)
Ellia blinked, dazed.
The scene unfolding before her wasn't making sense.
If they'd been in the open seating area instead of a private booth, every eye in the café would have been drawn to their table.
Lee Ha-yul sat across from her. At this distance, his face was perfectly clear.
A face you couldn't quite say was prettier than a woman's.
The delicate corners of his eyes were trembling—faintly, but enough to see in detail.
[wat is this]
[you hungry?]
[but don't wanna eat]
[no wait that's not—]
Just then, a familiar voice reached her ears.
A flat, androgynous voice—hard to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman.
The sound was coming from the necklace Lee Ha-yul wore around his neck.
The Confession Necklace.
It was an artifact Ellia's grandfather had acquired during his active years as a hero.
Association grade: middle-to-low rank.
The psychological expression function had pulled its rating fairly high.
But it's useless in combat, and with a built-in Brand function on top of that, it's hardly an artifact a hero would bother with anyway.
For a combat artifact, the Brand function might have been a bonus. For a non-combat artifact like the Confession Necklace, it's a penalty.
She knew the function. She'd also heard from her grandfather long ago how it actually manifested.
Expression of the psyche.
The "psyche" here doesn't mean the deep layers like the subconscious—it reads the comparatively shallow surface consciousness.
It also expresses the nearest psyche first, and since the user can manually toggle the artifact on and off, there's practically no risk of your innermost thoughts being laid bare.
[stop]
[cease]
[arm regen]
[prosthetic arm artifact]
[Lake of Illusionary Dreams]
[hold on]
[does it hurt?]
That was what she knew.
The spectacle before her looked a little different.
Lee Ha-yul, unmistakably bewildered, floundered for a moment before swinging his right arm wildly.
The necklace caught in his hand clattered, flailing helplessly through the air.
The sight looked exactly like a chick flapping its wings in an attempt at flight that would never succeed.
'Cute.'
It was the kind of sight that drew a smile before you knew it—but Ellia's smile sank quickly.
Because on the other side, only an empty sleeve fluttered about, stirring a pang of regret.
Sorrow settled into Ellia's eyes.
There isn't a soul who doesn't know about the incident in Sipnaha.
She knew about the one who'd fought in the midst of that catastrophe, throwing away an arm for the sake of saving people.
And she knew that among those who'd received that help, one was a precious member of Ellia's own family.
That fact had stirred a strange resonance in Ellia.
The day she arrived at the Gate Terminal to set her first foot in Siyoram, suppressing her pounding heart.
One person had stood out vividly, even within the crowd.
A petite frame and a small face.
Beautiful features fully present even on a face so small.
Somehow, an impression of shadow settling beneath closed eyes and an overall downcast look.
She had seen Lee Ha-yul, struggling as though hoping for help.
And judging by his attire, he was a fellow Siyoram Cadet.
Ellia helped him. She was always one to offer such small kindnesses.
But thinking back, it seemed she'd given more help than usual.
Why was that? She still didn't know the exact reason.
She'd just felt a strange pull. In that moment, only Lee Ha-yul had been visible to her.
Amid the crowd, he'd seemed not like a person but like a different living creature.
He'd felt like an existence not quite human.
And so he'd stood out especially, and she'd been drawn to him and offered her help.
That kindness, it seemed, had circled back as a result that saved Ellia's family.
And the benefactor had lost an arm.
Regeneration of the body.
Ellia, who possesses a healing-type Unique Ability, knows it isn't entirely impossible.
Of course, this isn't any ordinary amputation.
An injury where another entity's hostile mana—their Unique Ability—has torn into the wound and taken root there: the difficulty of regeneration is on an entirely different level.
But considering the people who have Lee Ha-yul's back, it will be possible. He'll certainly be able to regenerate the arm.
That does not, however, make the wound any lighter. Not ever.
Ellia knows the decency expected of a person. Her family had likewise upheld theirs.
To treat the benefactor who saved a family member's life with anything less than sincerity—that's the sort of matter where her late grandfather would sit bolt upright and bring a club down on your head.
[hungry]
[don't wanna eat]
[no]
[Curse of Si- ebebebebebebebe—]
She'd briefly sunk into thought.
Even through it, the blunt voice that had been drumming at her ears hadn't stopped. At the end, an absurd sputtering noise burst out.
Something seemed to be wrong with Lee Ha-yul. Ellia shot to her feet.
She extended both hands and gently wrapped them around Lee Ha-yul's hand, which had been searching nowhere to be found.
They shared each other's warmth.
At once, Lee Ha-yul's struggling ceased. The necklace, which had been ceaselessly spitting out its voice, went quiet too.
[nice]
[warm]
[soft]
...At least his innermost thoughts weren't pouring out indiscriminately.
Some time had passed since Ellia first met Lee Ha-yul. They'd crossed paths in daily life, and they'd met during major schedules like Dungeon Practice and the Tower entry.
"Ha-yul? It's okay."
She spoke as gently—as kindly as she could, her voice soothing. At that, Lee Ha-yul's faintly trembling eyelids gradually settled.
Her hands didn't rest either. She carefully stroked Lee Ha-yul's hand, which she held in both of hers—making sure the sensation was conveyed, and the warmth too.
His body, which had kept flinching, slowly calmed.
The time they'd spent together was enough to grasp his personality, at least a little.
The person named Lee Ha-yul, as Ellia had come to understand him.
In a word, he was a child.
Not in the negative sense of a bratty personality, but in the positive sense of being as pure as a child.
He likes people. But at the same time, he's afraid of people, so when a stranger approaches he shrinks back and stays wary.
Yet once some familiarity builds and the wariness crumbles, from then on he shows a childlike side.
He likes the touch of a hand stroking his head, and he likes having his cheeks cupped and kneaded. He absolutely loves being held in someone's arms and patted on the back.
He pretends otherwise, but whenever he has free time he hovers nearby, dropping hints that maybe there's something he can help with. And if he receives even one considerate gesture, he doesn't know what to do with himself—yet he remembers every single one and returns the favor later.
This wasn't just true for Ellia—he simply loved receiving affection from the people he liked.
Who wouldn't, really—but with Lee Ha-yul it felt almost desperate.
He loves people's affection and warmth.
As if he'd never once received them until now and was only just getting drunk on affection and warmth.
"Breathe out slowly, and in... there we go, good..."
So the method of calming Lee Ha-yul was relatively simple.
You just had to hold his hand like this, convey your warmth, and speak to him gently.
Put simply, he calms down if you soothe him the way you'd hold and pat a child.
Ellia put her extensive experience looking after younger siblings to full use and settled Lee Ha-yul down.
At that, the necklace fell quiet as well.
She continued her explanation.
Right now Lee Ha-yul was simply too flustered and couldn't control it. If he focused for just a moment, he'd manage at least the on and off.
"Now, Ha-yul? That necklace expresses everything if your thoughts are racing. Forget about important thoughts for now—just try bringing any simple thought to mind."
[thought]
[necklace]
[Ellia? pretty]
[no wait what]
[wrong thought]
[no I don't mean not pretty]
[no]
"Oh. Th-thank you. You said you can sense everything with your observation ability, right?"
Her face reddened a few times during the explanation, but she managed to get through it.
Maybe because his hand was being held, Lee Ha-yul stayed docile the entire time she explained.
He looked so terribly cute that when she stroked his head, she even caught the curious sight of the blue cloth draped behind his back like a cloak bobbing gently in the air.
'......'
As she continued her explanation, Ellia recalled the list of words the necklace had first spat out.
Fascinating, hungry, want milk, sleepy, hate studying, necklace uncomfortable.
Some had been trivial—merely cute.
Hurt, lifespan, arm hurts, cold, life.
And there were many words that, just from looking at them, didn't carry good feelings.
'Ligature strangulation.'
There had been a chilling word, too.
Ligature strangulation.
To strangle to death.
'Why would Ha-yul...'
Why, of all times, at the moment he put on the necklace, would he think of a word like that?
Ellia couldn't know. She'd grasped Lee Ha-yul's disposition to some extent, but she hadn't grasped his precise circumstances.
'......'
What was certain was—
She hoped that Lee Ha-yul, who had saved her precious family and stirred this strange resonance in her, wouldn't think such a chilling word toward himself.
With that in her heart, she stayed by his side and helped Lee Ha-yul learn to control the Confession Necklace.
Before long, Lee Ha-yul had mastered toggling the Confession Necklace on and off.
[thank you]
[I like you]
[you're pretty]
"Mm-hm..."
Ellia felt just the slightest bit regretful.
* * *
—Crunch!
"Gh...! Urgh, grrgle...!"
A gruesome sound echoed through the gray-walled chamber.
The distinctive noise of flesh rupturing and bone shattering. Close behind came the strangled, gasping rattle of a dying man.
"Agh, aaagh..."
His voice was hoarse to the point of cracking. He tried to scream, but all that left his throat was bloody froth and the sound of leaking air.
The man writhed, his body scraping against the blood-soaked floor, the noises he made echoing through the sealed space.
—Crunch!
"Grrrgle...!"
The bursting noise rang out again. The man's eyes rolled back from the searing agony ripping through his leg.
Consciousness sank. Pain gnawed at his awareness. Death loomed just beyond.
Through his dimming vision, the man glimpsed a leg hurtling fiercely toward him and a pair of golden eyes brimming with revulsion and killing intent.
Wham! His head snapped backward with enough force to break it. His upper body, hurled back nearly to the point of tipping over, slammed into the ground.
—Crash!
The impact was enormous, but neither the man's body nor the floor shattered from it.
The chamber was built from special materials,
and the man sprawled across the floor was a superhuman close to the upper-middle grade.
"Is that it?"
"No. Three more locations remain."
"...The vermin are excessively numerous. Are you not managing the crackdowns properly?"
"You say that, but realistically, cracking down on all of it is impossible..."
Atra kicked the unconscious man a few more times, then scowled and turned her head.
She scraped the tip of her shoe against the floor as if to clean it, though it needed none.
Not a single spot of blood had touched her pants. The Aura she'd deliberately emitted had blocked every last bit of the filthy blood.
Atra had tasks to handle over the weekend.
Matters related to her disciple... Lee Ha-yul.
In principle, a Dungeon Rampage was a natural calamity—unavoidable.
But the Dungeon Rampage in Sipnaha could have been prevented.
No, it wasn't even a matter of prevention—it was a man-made disaster that, if not for their filthy greed, would never have occurred at all.
And Lee Ha-yul had been caught up in that man-made disaster and had nearly lost his life.
Therefore, the task Atra had to carry out over the weekend was to hunt down and beat the pigs who had dared indulge their filthy greed and couldn't even handle the consequences to save their worthless lives.
She could just hand them over to the Association.
The moment they caused a chain of Dungeon Rampages—on top of operating countless unapproved farms—every last person involved was a dead man walking.
But Atra had stepped in personally. To block any possible escape routes with her own hands, and to vent the fury boiling inside her.
Besides, there were bastards who had run. They'd bolted early, knowing there was no chance of survival if they were caught.
She'd already rounded up scores of such bastards in a single day.
And the ones with a particularly hefty share of the guilt—she was beating the hell out of them personally.
Once he confirmed her venting was over, Maxwell flicked a hand.
The personnel standing by retrieved the man from the floor.
He hadn't been killed yet. Truthfully, killing him would pose no real problem, but they planned to interrogate him just in case.
Atra glanced at the personnel dragging the man away and asked,
"The numbers have increased, not decreased, haven't they?"
"There are plenty of other reasons."
Maxwell shook his head as if sick of it.
"No matter how much they blather on about peace, villains are crawling all over, aren't they. And with the state of the Demon Realm lately, more of our surveillance capacity has been redirected toward the Demon Realm expansion. The foot soldiers have to run their legs off catching every small-time crook themselves."
So that's why we never have the manpower to spare...
Maxwell muttered, his face haggard with fatigue.
Atra turned her head away, disgruntled. The circumstances were pitiable enough, but she didn't particularly feel like helping.
Besides, in this matter, Atra was the one providing help, not receiving it.
"Let's keep moving. I have to finish and get back within the weekend."
"You're, how shall I put it... devoted to an extreme."
"Shut up and move."
'I said I'd be back by the end of the weekend, so I need to hurry.'
A bit of time had been delayed while she blew off stress.
After threatening the cheeky Maxwell beside her with a raised fist, Atra quickened her pace as she exited the chamber.