The Sweetest Fruit
Erciel was a born winner.
Erciel knew how to be loved.
While others had to study the question, Erciel simply knew. It was an understanding absorbed through the senses alone—she could always tell exactly what it would take to make someone love her.
With that talent, Erciel had grown up from her earliest days receiving nothing but love.
📈 Proficiency of Beloved by All (B) is increasing.
"Just look at the Merhen family's eldest daughter. Such poise, and she learns so quickly. If she were my own daughter, I'd never want for anything again."
"How can one child be so pretty and so lovely?"
"The Merhen house is going to rise again, you'll see."
Life had been easy for Erciel.
The things others wrenched from the world—strength earned by weathering adversity, prizes clutched only through bone-grinding effort—Erciel obtained as easily as breathing.
The walls of this world were far too low.
It was nothing more than a playground built just for her.
That was what she believed, right up until the day she met her teacher.
"—I am Merhen. Melanie, Empress of an empire that has stood for a thousand years."
The woman who introduced herself as a Transcendent showed Erciel a far wider world. She stretched Erciel's limits and showed her just how far she might reach.
The world Erciel could see grew larger.
And then she went to school. Korea Hero Academy—one of the most prestigious high schools in the world.
It was quite an interesting place.
No one there surpassed her—but there were people who had climbed as high as her heels, or even up to her chin.
Things got a little more fun.
Until one boy showed up.
Lee Seoha.
Until she laid eyes on the boy who had shattered every record in the Tower of Ordeals.
Everything about him was interesting from the very start.
Her teacher—the woman who seemed to know everything there was to know—had screamed the instant she saw the power that boy wielded.
A Heavenly Demon, bearing a power that disregarded every ability in existence.
He was anything but boring. If anything, he was fun. The curiosity sparked in a single instant.
And it did not take long for that curiosity to bloom into fondness.
"The shadow serpent's nothing special either, right?"
He brushed past grueling ordeals as if to say, this much is nothing. "I hear the demons are on the move—will you help me?" He moved as if he could see the future.
"And what about me?" She liked, too, how he refused to take the bait no matter how openly she came on to him. When she learned that he was Veritas, she was surprised—but even then, a part of her had thought:
Well, it doesn't seem impossible.
He was a man with far more unknowns than knowns.
While steadily stacking up his affection, Erciel—Erciel Merhen—behaved with meticulous care, all so that she would be the one to hook Lee Seoha first, before anyone else.
Never be a burden.
Never be greedy. Buy up as much of his goodwill as she could. And if she ever did cause trouble, smooth it over with an even greater reward.
If she piled up his affection step by careful step, then someday—surely—it would be possible.
That process was nearly unbearable for Erciel.
Unpleasant, even. But Erciel held back. She endured. So that one day, she would be the first to taste the sweetest fruit.
She endured everything.
Until she saw the way Lee Seoha looked at the student council president.
What the hell is that.
It was practically the gaze of a man in love. Every single time he looked at her, honey all but dripped from his eyes.
You would never have guessed it from Lee Seoha, who was usually so utterly indifferent.
She was the first person he had ever shown open affection for.
It's a little reckless, but.
Erciel used business as a pretext to stay behind with him, just the two of them.
She knew perfectly well that it was a hasty move.
But every time she looked at him, she turned sentimental.
I don't want anyone to take him from me.
A childishly petty feeling.
And jealousy, aimed at the student council president.
Something like a black flame swallowed Erciel whole. But she restrained herself. Her talent for being loved by all—her inborn instinct—told her to hold it in.
Because she had judged that antagonizing the student council president would gain her nothing.
She looked at Lee Seoha.
"Hello. It's Erciel, Veritas's partner, here to see you."
His face stayed blank, but the moment she gave Veritas a sly little poke, his expression changed. Erciel giggled.
It was an annoyed look, but Erciel loved that look. It was rare—a moment where he actually let emotion out. She wanted to tease him more. She wanted to bind the existence called Lee Seoha to her alone.
She let herself imagine it, just for a moment. Lee Seoha clinging to her, begging.
Ah, that's dangerous.
Crude, maybe. But for one instant, merely picturing that scene had nearly sent her over the edge.
Erciel picked up the instruction sheet and read it, careful not to let anything show. Compared to the potions already on the market, Lee Seoha's concoctions boasted effects so superior it was almost an insult to the competition.
"No wonder they say you turned the whole study of alchemy on its head. This is truly remarkable. You could sell a single elixir for a hundred million won and buyers would still be tripping over each other."
Erciel steadied herself with words threaded with sincerity.
"Then will you buy it at that price?"
"Yes, an elixir of this grade is worth every won of that."
She said it, but for some reason, Lee Seoha looked especially handsome today.
"You don't have to pay. Consider it a service for a valued customer."
"If you keep handing out perks like this, I might just get the wrong idea."
Erciel looked up at him.
His eyes wavered, just slightly. Normally, Erciel would have stopped right there.
But today was different.
Today, she didn't want to stop.
"Would it be all right if I misunderstood, just like this? Because I'd like to keep misunderstanding."
That was how Erciel confessed to Lee Seoha.
I looked at Erciel.
She was staring up at me with trembling eyes. This was Erciel, born into a noble house and schooled in the art of wearing expressions—and to see her shaking like that, she must have been nervous beyond measure.
Or maybe not. Maybe she's just making herself look like she's trembling.
The talent of being loved by all had granted her an innate sense for it. Call it an instinctive gift for knowing exactly which move would raise someone's affection, and when.
Unfortunately, I had no talent for seeing through it.
The Sword Demon's instincts were confined to combat alone.
Anyway. I looked at Erciel.
I should refuse this.
It wasn't that I hated romance. And no, it wasn't because I was a eunuch, either.
The reason was simple: I didn't have time.
I wanted to fall in love too. But protecting this world while dating someone? Impossible.
Tak Yoonil had said:
This world will be destroyed before long. He wasn't wrong. It was a line that had earned him a beating, but part of what he'd said was true.
In the original story, Kim Seohyun does defeat every last one of them, but—
There was no such thing as humanity in that ending.
One by one, the Transcendents were ground off the face of the Earth, until Kim Seohyun alone survived. That was the first ending of Epic World.
If the difficulty had stayed the same, it wouldn't have mattered.
Even starting from nothing, there was always some way to scrabble and claw my way up. There was even the strategy of abandoning my own growth entirely and going all-in on Kim Seohyun.
The problem was that the Higher Beings were already beginning to show themselves.
It's too fast.
Originally, the Higher Beings weren't supposed to surface until around now—a mere taste of things to come, stepping in front of the protagonist just to demonstrate how strong they were.
Which meant there was no time to waste on romance—
"Shh."
Erciel quietly pressed a finger to my lips.
"You don't seem to have feelings for me yet. So don't say it."
"I'm glad you didn't say 'I'm sorry.' That means there's still a chance."
Erciel's eyes curved into crescents.
"I don't know what it is, but looking at everything you've been through, Seoha, you always seem in such a desperate hurry. So—I'll stop here for today."
She winked, one eye twinkling.
I couldn't say a single word.
After parting ways with Erciel—and after Seong Hanbyeol insisted she wanted to repay me, only for me to load her up with even more potions and elixirs instead—I returned to the penthouse.
Normally I would have trained with Heukcheon, but today I wasn't in the mood.
......
I lay sprawled on the bed with a blank expression on my face.
And I...
I closed my eyes and switched on my Talent, Tranquil Mind. The gloom dragging at me was forcibly steered back to equilibrium.
Depression was dangerous.
Once you sank into it, that feeling wasn't easy to climb out of. Forcing myself into calm, I turned on the computer.
I went digging for a few fun things. It wasn't a rest day, but I'd decided I needed the break.
I picked up my phone.
I scrolled through the internet news section.
The news didn't look like it had much entertainment value either.
I slipped into the Alchemy Guild's forum. It was wall-to-wall posts praising me. But even the praise was boring.
Maybe I'll do some shopping.
I opened the Multidimensional Shop.
I selected the talent I'd been planning to buy in advance.
Flame of Ideation
Rank:S-
To be honest, I'd gone back and forth on this one. The Flame of Ideation was a power that ran on mental strength.
The ability itself was simple.
Whatever power I wished to manifest would be imbued with the nature of flame. Take Defying Heaven, for example—a power of negation. Imbue it with this, and it gained the property of burning.
The energy it consumed was mental strength, same as Intent.
And in this world, using mental strength was synonymous with saying the synergy was overwhelming.
I kicked off the bed and stood. I wanted to get outside and test the ability.
I put on the Faceless Mask of Glamour and threw a hoodie over it, tugging the hood down deep to hide the mask.
Somehow, that put my mind a little more at ease.
I set out along streets washed in faint moonlight and went hunting for demons.