Do You Want to Touch It?
Do You Want to Touch It?
The weekend flew by. I hadn't caught up on even half of the written material, and time slipped away like water.
My practical skills for the midterm evaluation were a little shaky, but now that I thought about it, the written portion was just as precarious.
The low weighting of the written exam wasn't a reason to relax.
I was already as weak in written work as I was in practicals. And now that I had fallen this far behind pace... I was worried about what lay ahead.
Heaving a sigh, I opened the wardrobe.
I took out the cadet uniform and put it on for the first time in a long while.
'Hm...'
I examined myself with the Authority of Observation. Aside from the left sleeve hanging limp, there was nothing unusual.
No extraneous decorations—just a cleanly designed cadet uniform. It gave me a strange feeling.
It felt like an eternity and yet like I'd worn it just yesterday... A vague, ambiguous sensation.
When I went to Sipnaha, I had worn one of my few sets of casual clothes, and the weeks I spent in the recovery ward were lived in a patient gown.
The time was objectively long, but most of it was so frantic and I was so out of it that my sense of time grew dull.
At the same time, the tightly coiled thread of tension was slowly unwinding.
My nerves had been on edge ever since I left Siyoram.
I was uneasy, partly because of the spiteful interference I'd suffered the moment I left Siyoram in the 7th Iteration.
As it happened, I'd been hit with interference in Sipnaha and nearly died. If I'd been even a little less careful, I really would have been digging my own grave there.
In the recovery ward... oddly enough, if Professor Atra wasn't next to me, I felt anxious and irritable. I simply had an aversion to the facility itself—the recovery ward.
My nose would twitch on its own, and I'd feel like retching. I simply hated being there.
【Aversion】
【Hate it】
【The smell of alcohol?】
It stirred up bad memories.
While I was thinking that, the necklace went ahead and spat out my thoughts. I had deliberately not controlled it, just to see, and sure enough, exactly what I expected happened.
Wait, but they said it doesn't blurt out the subconscious mind. That alcohol smell thing... isn't trauma supposed to belong to the subconscious?
'Tch.'
Bad memories came back for no good reason. I straightened my clothes, then checked my own face.
...Even by my own judgment, my complexion was far from good. The shadows under my eyes had deepened a little, and my whole face was drenched in fatigue.
It was because I couldn't sleep.
Even lying in bed, sleep wouldn't come. More precisely, sleep would come, but I absolutely couldn't fall into it.
My consciousness wouldn't sink. An inexplicable anxiety pushed sleep away.
I'd had those symptoms at the start of the semester too. The world around me had changed, and everything was just as full of anxiety as now, so I couldn't sleep properly.
That was why I'd stuck to the strategy of forcing my body to move until I practically passed out... but now, even when my head was tired, I couldn't pass out.
And as for moving my body, I was afraid of Professor Atra's threats...
There probably isn't a safer place in the world than right here, so what exactly was making me so anxious that I couldn't sleep? I don't even know myself.
I just felt empty, and...
【Lonely】
【Professor】
【Being held in her armsbebebebb】
'Oh, for fuck's sake.'
Aghast at the unfiltered words spilling out, I clenched the necklace tight.
An embarrassing and unseemly word had almost popped out.
Even thinking about it alone in my head made me want to die of embarrassment, but imagining someone else hearing that... I wouldn't have the nerve to hold my head up and keep living...
My fingers trembled faintly. An impulse rose in my head.
【Destroy】
...I suppressed the impulse. If I broke the reward that Ellia and my family gave me, I'd be worse than a beast.
I brushed off the Sky Wing Feather draped over my shoulders for no reason and stepped out of the dormitory.
Siyoram... I can't be bothered to count what week it is anymore.
Two weeks left until the midterm evaluation.
.
.
.
As announced in the group chat, most of this week's general lectures were focused on spirit-related classes taught by Professor Liana.
Because of that, I headed not to the Beginning of Spring classroom but to the Second Nature Park, as we'd been instructed beforehand.
Getting there didn't take long.
I left the dormitory, boarded an autonomous shuttle bus, and it delivered me right to the entrance of the Second Nature Park.
Contrary to the name "park," the nature park wasn't a recreational facility for relaxation.
It was a proper training facility established for cadets.
Also, as you could tell from the name "nature," though it was a facility in name only, much of the natural scenery was preserved.
'Oh...'
After getting off the bus, I spread my observation range wide. It was a range that easily surpassed my previous maximum. Fortunately, my head didn't feel overly strained.
【Headache】
【Nosebleed】
【Retinal hemorrhage】
Just the usual degree of headache.
'This is working well.'
I had also practiced handling the authorities over the weekend.
Observation and Space. Authorities I had no idea why I possessed.
I'd built up a certain proficiency with spatial perception, but once I split apart what had been forcibly merged, stuttering started popping up here and there.
The Authority of Space was even worse in that regard.
Honestly, maybe it was because I'd always used spatial perception more like observing than truly perceiving space.
Luckily, the Authority of Observation stuttered less. Even just using it in a way similar to my spatial perception, once I became conscious of it, was enough.
'...The Authority of Observation.'
The authority granted by the Tower of Observation.
The Tower of Observation was one of the towers that upheld the current world order.
How many people were still having their lives saved right now thanks to receiving advance warning of incidents caused by the Demon Realm, dungeons, villains, and so on?
The reason such advance warning was possible was the existence of the Observation Platform established by the Tower Master of Observation.
Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Without a moment's pause, the Tower of Observation was watching over the entire world.
Of course, due to practical limits, the bulk of the observation was concentrated on the Demon Realm and the outbreak of dungeon rampages.
That was why it couldn't take especially active measures against crime inland.
The only help it provided was indirect—supplying magic tools infused with a minimal amount of the Authority of Observation.
But even if it was indirect, without this, the arrest rate of villains who committed crimes by exploiting all manner of unique abilities would have been scraping rock bottom.
'Hm...'
Within my observation range, the park's appearance came through clearly.
Amidst it, I didn't see many traces of human intervention. There was little sign of hands-on care like pruning.
The only trace was really just the path leading near the lake.
At the center of the nature park was a large lake, its water clear and free of any murky tinge.
And perhaps because it was early in the morning, though not quite dawn, a faint mist hung in the air, giving it a distinctive atmosphere.
The surroundings were likewise clean, so it wasn't off-putting. It looked like even if I rolled around right then and there, not a speck of dust would come up.
At the entrance was a path densely packed with stones. That was pretty much the only visible trace of human touch here.
As I walked along the path leading to the lake, the human presences I'd been feeling drew closer.
I had come out fairly early, but there were people who had come out even earlier than me.
They were cadets from the same Ipchun Class. Professor Liana hadn't arrived yet.
As the distance closed, a few of them who sensed my presence turned their heads.
Their eyes flew wide open. When they nudged the cadets next to them, those cadets turned their heads too, and their eyes widened just the same.
Gazes pinned me all at once. My body flinched at the stares—different from before... much more intense.
"......"
"......"
I quietly swallowed.
The kind of emotion you'd have looking at something remarkable... and pitiful...
Those cringeworthy stares were hard to bear.
The one saving grace was that no one approached me to talk.
Hong Yeon-hwa and Ellia hadn't arrived yet either.
Same for people I had a little familiarity with, like Attila, Aiden... Nam Gyeong-jun.
In other words, there was no one for me to talk to either.
Reading the mood, I sat down in a spot some distance away.
Maybe because the grass was lush, the ground wasn't as hard as I had expected. It wasn't cold either, so sitting wasn't uncomfortable.
I entertained the thought of spreading out the Sky Wing Feather and lying flat, but aware of the gazes fixated on me in real time, I sat still.
- Whooong
A gust of wind brushed past my body. The wind was quite cool.
Had I been sitting there for a little while?
As cadets arrived one by one, a cool presence approached me with soft, light steps.
"Ha-yul, you came out early?"
A familiar voice and presence. Above all, a cool, chilling aura I could never possibly mistake.
"It's been a while since my visit to see you!"
Oddly enough, Baek A-rin greeted me with a beaming smile.
It was a bright and gentle smile, refreshing enough to lighten the surroundings, but I, who held knowledge from the original story, didn't let my guard down.
'Still...'
I gave a hesitant nod of my head in return.
I also remembered Baek A-rin's actions—the consideration she'd shown me all this time.
It was the same whenever we met during general lectures. In the Tower of Growth, she had given me a lot of help. Even afterward, when we met, I could tell she'd given me all kinds of consideration.
So I didn't feel an outright sense of rejection.
It felt wrong to unreasonably reject someone who had never once harmed me and had always been considerate—over something she hadn't even done.
But I wasn't just blindly trusting her either. If the knowledge from the original story was correct, wasn't it still possible to get stabbed in the back at any moment?
I had done some deduction about the circumstances behind that, but it was nothing definitive.
All the same, I tensed up just in case. I paid an unprecedented degree of attention to controlling the necklace.
If my trap... if the necklace slipped up here, a disaster like the 11th Iteration would unfold.
【Hello】
【Baek A-rin】
【Nice to see you】
The Confession Necklace activated. The words I recited internally were projected in a blunt voice.
"Oh."
Baek A-rin's eyes rounded. Her surprised gaze landed on the necklace hanging around my neck.
A glint of interest rose in her eyes. She seemed to have recognized that it wasn't just a simple magic tool, but an artifact.
"It's an artifact, isn't it? Is its effect vocal output?"
【Yes】
"Ah-ha. This kind isn't common..."
At that, I nodded inwardly.
Among various artifacts, the Confession Necklace had a function that leaned toward the peculiar side.
Peculiar, not superior.
In the original story, the Confession Necklace wasn't really used.
Even if you tried using it for interrogation, information got filtered since the wearer could control it, and due to the brand function, if it changed owners a few times, it would break down from overload.
In that case, it was far quicker and more certain to just use magic and pry the mind open.
'But is it really novel enough for Baek A-rin to find it interesting?'
The Changhae family must have seen truly every kind of artifact under the sun.
Especially if you considered the top-grade artifacts the family head would be wrapped in from head to toe or the artifacts active in the main house—shouldn't something like the Confession Necklace feel plain by comparison?
【Thank you for visiting me when I was hurt. And the gift you brought... I ate it well】
The thing Baek A-rin had brought as a get-well gift was high-quality candy. Seeing Hong Yeon-hwa press candy into my hands, she'd said she chose candy too.
Of course, they were both called candy, but the kind was different.
If Hong Yeon-hwa's were mainly sweet fruit candies in apple flavor, Baek A-rin had handed me a traditional confection—a sweet?... candy called okchundang, made from rice flour and malt.
With all its bright colors, it looked quite delicious on the outside.
On the outside, it did.
"I'm glad you ate it well! If you ever want more, please say so anytime."
While I was having such thoughts.
Baek A-rin, who had been exchanging a few words with me... and the necklace, plopped down beside me.
Then she drew her stretched-out legs together and hugged them with both arms.
Baek A-rin steered the conversation as if nothing were amiss at all.
'Hm...'
It was a common, ordinary posture.
- Squiiish...
Right now, that ordinary posture felt terribly uncomfortable.
It was because of Baek A-rin's chest, naturally compressed as her legs pulled in toward it.
I wasn't paying it any deliberate attention, but... Baek A-rin's chest was massively large.
Since Baek A-rin was so tall, her proportions made it look decent, but even by my own estimation, lacking any relevant knowledge, her chest was tremendously big.
With a chest like that getting squished down like that, it was hard for even me to breathe comfortably.
It was just a passing thought. I tried to let thoughts of this nature slide by as much as possible.
After gaining what I had thought was spatial perception—the authority—I'd become even more careful.
After manifesting the Calamity Flame through unconscious homogenization, strange impulses kept welling up, so I was even more cautious.
The Authority of Observation had such outstanding information acquisition.
Because of that, a wee bit of peculiar information trickled in.
I paid special attention to ensure I didn't... misuse that information.
This time was the same. I was regulating the Authority of Observation. I let uselessly captured information slide.
A tiny bit of information came in, and the unseemly thoughts that arose from it were immediately swept away.
It was the same as always.
【Your chest is really huge】
If only there hadn't been a brief moment where my attention on the Authority of Observation meant I slightly lost control of the necklace.
【Huh?】
"Huh?"
'?'
What did I just say?
No, what did the necklace just blurt out?
My brain ground to a halt. The blunt voice that pierced my ears didn't register properly.
But one thing was certain: it had been a terribly impudent and rude remark.
After a split second passed, my mouth fell open. The color drained from my face.
Baek A-rin blinked.
Her rounded eyes, as if she'd heard something completely unexpected, blinked a few times.
And then, soon after.
- Grin
The corners of her eyes curved gently like crescent moons, and the edges of her lips rose sharply. A mischievous smile spread across her face. It was the reaction of someone who'd just found teasing material.
"My chest is a bit big, true. Why? Want to touch?"
Giggling, she poked me repeatedly in the cheek.
Frozen absolutely rigid, I flinched in alarm and shook my head frantically.