A Strange Calling

For an instant, it felt like some enormous pressure was bearing down on my entire body. It might have been Paewang directing it at me.

Of all things, he had to bring Ara along......

Having her witness me like this was, frankly, a little awkward. There was no denying it anymore — what she felt toward me went well beyond simple fondness.

More importantly, I need to get out of this situation first.

But how? I was well aware of the way Kim Seohyun had been subtly curling into me. What was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I supposed to do about it? In the split second of panic, my body had moved on its own, and that was how Kim Seohyun's panties had ended up parked directly over my face.

......Why is it so damp, though.

There was a faintly fishy taste to it, and a tangy, sour scent that came along with it.

My head was burning up. Lust stirred inside me, as if trying to take control of my body outright. I could feel the blood of the Heukshin physique racing through my veins at a frantic pace. I tuned my body and forced myself level with Meditation, hammering my emotions back down. The calm settled over me like a lid, and from that third-person detachment I was finally able to assess my situation objectively.

Well. Now I can breathe.

I had my Infinite Stamina to thank for that. It was a talent that stoked your passion whenever you set your sights on a goal — useful, certainly — but it also turned into a genuine liability whenever you got too close to a woman.

Either way, I needed to extract myself from here. I pushed Kim Seohyun's thigh and leg off of me.

"Seohyun, for starters, your leg......"

No matter how I turned it over in my head, the only real way out of this was for Kim Seohyun to regain her senses. Sliding my body down and out from between her legs was technically an option, but that would be far too embarrassing —

Actually, no. Hard to get more embarrassed than this.

"R-right. Right, right."

Face flushing crimson, Kim Seohyun lifted her leg. And now that I finally got a proper look, the front of her panties was absolutely soaked. I steadied myself with Meditation one more time and sat up.

"......What exactly is going on here?"

The presence that hit me was overwhelming. There was a movement to it that felt fundamentally alive in a different way entirely — enough that the seed of the Origin rooted in my core reacted to it, swelling hard.

Kim Ara had appeared.

Her violet eyes seemed to hold something vast within them — so much so that I genuinely wondered whether she had awoken to the true power of Primordial Force.

But that shouldn't be possible. That's supposed to require intense emotion — the kind you feel when Paewang dies.

Users of the special stat Origin had to feel a violent surge of emotion first. Only then did they grasp a little more of the Origin's power, and the signs of awakening began to manifest.

So there was no way it could be happening now. Kim Ara hadn't lost anything precious. Paewang was alive and well.

And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet, without quite meaning to, I took a step back.

"Um, about that."

"Funny how you never ask whether I'm a woman."

Kim Seohyun said it with something like a smirk.

No. That couldn't be right. Kim Seohyun was a genuinely good person. She was the one who believed in humanity to the very end and fought for humanity's sake — that was who Kim Seohyun was.

But the girl standing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in front of me right now was someone I barely recognized.

"Figured it out just now. All this time I thought I was rooming with a guy. Who knew you were a girl?"

"Honestly, I'm a little disappointed too. If your grades had been just a tiny bit worse, Seoha, we might've actually been able to be roommates."

"That's a crime, you know."

"Is it?"

Kim Seohyun let out a soft laugh. "Anyway — Ara, what are you doing here?"

"I heard the planes couldn't take off for a bit because of the monsters, so I came out to meet you, Seoha. Papa came with me."

"...Papa?"

Kim Seohyun pounced on the word, wearing an expression that seemed to ask — Papa boy? No, Papa girl?

......What is going on.

It had to be my imagination. I did my best to ignore the warning wail rising from the Sword Demon and looked over at Paewang.

He was watching me with eyes full of something complicated. He looked conflicted, and pitying, and — somehow — like he also wanted to kill me.

......Did he figure out how Ara feels?

Read the room, I told myself. I kept my mouth shut, took my place beside Kim Seohyun, and trailed obediently after Paewang.

The group boarded a plane and headed for Paewang's home. Monsters had swarmed in the area, but Paewang, who had been waiting aloft, swept the flying beasts aside with a single stroke of his blade.

"Every now and then, it's not so bad to loosen the body like this."

The place Paewang introduced ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as his home turned out to be a palace. And not just any palace — an absurdly, opulently grand one.

— It resembles the palace of the previous owner.

— It really does. The pointless vastness of it, the way the sheer number of servants overflows with swagger — all so similar.

Yeongcheon agreed with Heukcheon's assessment.

"What do you think? Land's cheap in this region, so I splurged and built myself a proper estate."

"I can see that. Very impressive, sir."

Paewang's chest swelled with pride, and I offered him a suitably diplomatic round of agreement.

"So you came to China because of my daughter's words, then."

"Yes."

"I saw the Vermilion Bird burning with Black Flame."

"And what did you make of it?"

"It resembled your power."

"......"

I fell silent for a moment. If anyone else had said it, I might have doubted them — but this was Paewang speaking directly. The power the Vermilion Bird wielded was similar to mine.

Which meant it was almost certainly true.

They said she achieved Defying Heaven, didn't they?

— Yes. Imperfect, but she offered up her own rank and standing as the sacrifice. All from a single yearning — the desire to resemble the Heavenly Demon. That's why I can't say for certain. Of every enemy you've faced so far, her full strength remains the greatest unknown.

How strong has she become?

— I don't know. But considering she is one of the Four Guardians who escorted the Heavenly Demon — alongside the dragon we saw in America — at the very least, she should be your equal or better......

Yeongcheon let the words trail off. She looked uncertain of herself.

At worst, my equal, hm.

Still worth a fight, though.

I pulled up my status window and looked at the concept stat section.

Concept stats were, quite literally, the power to govern the forces associated with them. Yeongcheon and Heukcheon had both kept saying it — my command of Defying Heaven already surpassed even the Heavenly Demon's.

If we're drawing on the same power, the one holding a concept stat or a special stat has the advantage.

So if I fought the Vermilion Bird, the odds favored me heavily. No matter what she did, her flame could never harm me — while every blow I landed would strike her with fatal effect.

I lowered my gaze a little further to another line on the window.

Concept Stat: Alchemy. Forged from the fusion of my Faith and Aptitude stats, this one had performed miracles of alchemy that bordered on the absurd.

When I first touched alchemy, I honestly wondered if I was allowed to have something this broken.

That was back when the Emperor had asked me to help repair his puppet-craft. I had run experiment after experiment using Alchemy, and it had delivered a power far beyond anything I'd imagined.

Thanks to that, I've built quite a number of mental images, too.

They were closer to things I'd brute-forced into existence through Alchemy — but then again, my mental images were bloated by design, and in the end, they were vessels only I could fill.

"Welcome."

Once we stepped inside, a violet-haired woman came out to greet us. She looked like a shrunken, aged version of Kim Ara — yet there was no mistaking whose genes Kim Ara had inherited more of.

I bowed with formal courtesy.

"I'm Lee Seoha, a friend of Ara's."

"Yes, I know. Ara talks about you often — and you've become enormously famous lately, haven't you?"

She looked at me with warm eyes, and I found myself scratching my cheek, embarrassed for no good reason.

"I'll show you to your rooms. While you're here, think of this place as your own home."

"That's right. From here on out, this is our honeymoon nest."

"......"

Kim Ara's honeyed declaration, delivered with what sounded like genuine sincerity, made my head swim.

Once inside the room, I found even a robe laid out for me.

— Ooh, traditional Chinese martial garb. Lord Seoha, would you care to try it on?

Yeongcheon said it with an uncharacteristically delighted look on her face. I unfolded the Chinese battle robe. It resembled the kimono worn in Japan in many ways, and once I had it on, the feel of it wasn't bad at all.

Wait — this is basically a kimono, isn't it?

— Master?

Heukcheon was looking at me as though something were off about me.

What is this?

A strange feeling washed over me. The sensation of being called, from somewhere far away.

What is it?

Unfamiliar — and yet strangely familiar at the same time. And within that dissonance, one thing clicked into place. This was the same phenomenon I felt when the followers of the Veritas Cult called out to me.

"......"

I fixed my gaze on a single point in space.

Click.

A switch flipped inside my mental image, and the world began to bleed into the colors of mana. But there was nothing unusual to be found. This was Paewang's territory — naturally, no one would dare pull anything funny here.

"Is something the matter?"

"A strange feeling came over me."

"Strange how?"

"It feels as though someone is calling for me — desperately."

"......"

Paewang's expression turned strange.

"Can you make even a rough guess as to where it might be coming from?"

"......Yes."

"Absurd."

At my answer, his face shifted once more — into the look of a man recalling something from long, long ago.

"Sometimes, when I look at you, I think of myself. I was ten years older than you are now. It was the era when the dimensions overlapped, you see. Back then, I was a coward. I was running a business when a man I trusted stabbed me in the back and left me in ruins."

After that, Paewang spent roughly twenty minutes delivering what could only be called his autobiography. An ominous premonition crept over me — that if I let him keep going, the sun would rise on us mid-monologue — so I cut in.

"And then I met the event that would shake my destiny to its roots......"

"Would this happen to be a story about Faith?"

"It is."

Paewang wore a flicker of irritation at the interruption, but he answered me anyway.

"Faith is the power of belief. It's an abstract force, but it is also a force that exists within the laws of the world — a way of converting the belief of others into your own strength. I never cared for it, but...... hold on. Don't tell me you've actually taken in Faith?"

Without a word, I spread open my hand.

WHUUMMM!

A sphere of golden light gathered in my palm. It was Alchemy, transmuted into a true concept stat.

"......And you call this Faith? It feels like something with a slightly different nature."

Paewang said, studying the power of Alchemy in my hand.

"Then follow that power to its source. I shall graciously lend you my aid."

"It isn't that."

The power calling to me right now was not Alchemy.

Wuumm.

The illicit force nested within my body had stirred — Defying Heaven. Right now, it was Defying Heaven that was reacting to whatever was calling out to me from beyond.