Orange-Scented Miracle
A pale-faced girl lay on the hospital bed.
Her expression was bright, at odds with that wan, drained aura — but Son Ga-yeong knew better.
Every bit of it was a forced smile, put on for her sake.
"…"
Son Ga-yeong looked down at her little sister, Son Da-eun, with worried eyes.
Looking at that pure, cloudless face made her heart ache so badly she could barely stand it.
Heaven was truly heartless. She was only a little girl who had just turned ten.
What sin could a child like her have committed, to be tormented like this? Ga-yeong resented the entire world.
She let out a long, silent sigh.
"Mmm… so good. Nom nom."
"Is it tasty? Want me to peel you another one?"
"Really? Yeah, yeah!"
"Okay. Just a second."
She buried the pity as best she could and forced out a sunny smile. A few flicks of the knife later, a cute rabbit-shaped apple sat in her palm.
"What is it, what is it? The apple's head is all spiky!"
"I carved it into a rabbit this time. Pretty, right?"
"Wow…! It's too cute to eat!"
"Don't worry about it — just eat plenty. Unnie will carve you as many as you want."
The moment the words left her mouth, Son Da-eun polished off every apple on the plate. Watching her stuff a whole handful into her cheeks and chew was adorable — and, at the same time, it filled Ga-yeong with a quiet guilt.
"All done?"
"Yep! Super tasty."
"Then it's time for your medicine, okay?"
Once Da-eun had finished eating, Ga-yeong handed her a syrup bottle. Inside, a bright yellow liquid sloshed gently.
"Ugh… I have to drink that again? It tastes awful…"
"The bitter medicine is the one that's good for you. Drink it quick. That's how you get better."
"Hiiing…"
Son Da-eun scrunched her whole face up and downed it in one go. The empty bottle left her making retching motions over and over.
It really was far too bitter for a little girl to handle.
"Ugh… it tastes so lonely!"
"Not lonely — nasty. So how do you feel, Da-eun?"
"My tongue's all tingly. Yuck. Bleh."
"Not the taste — your body. Do you feel any better after drinking it?"
At the question, Son Da-eun shook her head hard from side to side.
"Nothing's different. Just the same!"
Of course it was.
Ga-yeong had expected as much, but the disappointment still settled heavy in her chest.
Professor Baek Seung-tae.
He was a professor with a real reputation for crafting elixirs, so she had asked him for help. She received all kinds of remedies from him on a regular basis — and this time had been no different.
What am I supposed to do…
On top of everything else, there were already signs that Da-eun's eyesight was deteriorating, and there wasn't so much as a speck of improvement in sight. If things kept going like this, Son Da-eun could lose her vision completely.
The worry that kept welling up finally pushed Ga-yeong into a gamble.
Fine. Nothing to lose by trying.
She took out the remedy Cheon Hae-beom had made with his own hands.
Its main ingredient was a poisonous herb called night-greeting flower, yet somehow the medicine was harmless to the human body. Ga-yeong had even drunk some herself — so it wouldn't do Da-eun any harm either.
"D-do I have to drink that one too?"
"Yeah. It's the last one, so just squeeze your eyes shut and take it."
The appearance of yet another medicine made Da-eun jump. She reluctantly accepted it and twitched her nose, taking a sniff.
Whatever she caught in the scent, her crumpled face slowly smoothed out — and then she let out a tiny gasp of wonder.
"Wow… it smells so good. It smells like oranges!"
"Hm? Oranges?"
"Uh-huh! Unnie, you wanna try some too? I bet it tastes amazing!"
The medicine smelled like oranges?
The doubt crossed her mind, but she didn't bother dwelling on it. It was probably just Cheon Hae-beom's own little consideration. She ought to thank him properly sometime.
Da-eun sniffed at it for a while longer, then steeled herself and tipped it into her mouth.
This time it must have suited her — her eyes went round as saucers.
Ga-yeong asked without any real expectation.
"How's this one?"
"It's delicious! The best, the absolute best! Unnie, can I have just one more?"
"…Not the taste."
"Ahh. Mmm…"
Da-eun trailed off and tilted her head, puzzled.
"Huh…? What's going on? Unnie, my body feels weird!"
"Weird? D-did something go wrong? Does it hurt a lot?"
"No, no! It doesn't hurt — how do I put it…?"
She wore a baffled look, as if she were feeling some strange new symptom. Ga-yeong swallowed dryly.
"My body feels light! Before, right here — my heart? My chest? — it kept pounding and pounding, but now it feels calm!"
"W-what?"
"Wow! And I can see clearly! I can see Unnie's face, and the flowers over there too! It's like someone cast a magic spell!"
"…You can see clearly?"
She was still so young that putting what was happening to her into words came out clumsy and incomplete — but Ga-yeong understood exactly what she meant.
"S-so you're saying the pain is completely gone, and your eyesight is fully back? Really?"
"Hmm… some places still hurt a little. But I feel so much better than before!"
As if to prove the words true, a faint smile spread across Son Da-eun's face.
It was a change so dramatic it barely seemed real.
"Unnie, can I have just one more of those?"
"…"
"Unnie? I'll split it in half! Let's eat it together! Please?"
Her words never reached Son Ga-yeong, who sat there completely stunned.
Quiet dawn.
The instructors-only training room was still and peaceful.
The other instructors gathered in the morning to train together, but I couldn't join that crowd. From what I'd heard, the average bench press among the instructors started at five hundred kilos as a baseline. Not a five-hundred total across three lifts — five hundred on a single press.
If I tried to squeeze in among them, I'd only humiliate myself.
So I was using the training room now, while no one else was around.
"Wonder how much I can actually lift."
I finished warming up with stretches and push-ups, moved on to some light shoulder work and bicep and tricep training, and finally went for the heavy weights.
"Gghhk!"
No good. Forget a hundred-fifty-kilo deadlift — even a hundred kilos was a struggle.
My Strength stat was still the same, so there was no real difference from my original body.
But there was no real need to grind it out the hard way.
The points piled up on my open status window said otherwise.
Holding P: 100,000
"Whether it's a game or real life, pay-to-win is still king."
I figured it was time to spoil myself a little for once. With this many points, even going a bit overboard shouldn't be a problem.
First things first — I upgraded my stats.
When a stat reaches 50, each 1 SP costs 100 points.
Part of me wanted to dump everything into Mana, but that wasn't an option, so I spread the points evenly. My pitifully pathetic stats were finally looking halfway decent.
Points remaining: 6,600.
"Hmm…"
Was there anything good among the talents and skills?
I scrolled down, taking in the various skills and talents on offer — and sure enough, they lived up to the strongest being in the entire setting.
"Holy shit. What's a Sword God doing here."
SS-Class talent: Sword God.
The talent that defined Ma Seong-yong was Sword Saint — and this guy had Sword God? It drove home Cheon Hae-beom's sheer stature all over again.
"Ugh, but… this is a bit much…"
My eyes nearly rolled back in my head for a second, but it was absolutely out of reach. Unlock cost: 100,000 points. Single-use limited version: 10,000 points. Looking closer, the basic requirement was a Strength stat of 80.
My Strength was sitting around 61 right now, and at 100 points per stat point…
"Even for a single-use activation, you're looking at roughly 12,000."
My vision went dark just thinking about it.
I set Sword God aside and looked at the rest. From S-Class on up, there were piles of talents and skills I'd never even heard of. The one complaint — if you could call it that — was that every last one of them demanded 10,000 points or more. Would the day I could unlock any of these ever even come?
"…Suddenly I feel pathetic."
I hated the version of myself that had grinned like an idiot over receiving 10,000P. I still had a long way to go.
"By the way, how the hell do you raise Synchronization?"
Synchronization — I still had no idea what it was even for. No matter how much I ran myself into the ground, it sat frozen at 1%. I didn't know how to raise it, and it didn't seem all that important, so I decided to stop caring.
"Might as well crack open a random box."
Having a random shop at all was better than nothing. Honestly, Cheon Hae-beom's skills and talents were the best available — but the price tags were brutal.
I opened the random shop right away.
"How should I play this…"
How to spend 10,000 gold. Play it safe and buy three upper-tier random boxes? Or go all-in on a legendary and chase a jackpot? The indecision hung there, vague and heavy.
"Ah, whatever. I've already seen what the upper-tier boxes look like."
The decision came with the words, and I bought a legendary box. Without a second of hesitation, I opened the box sitting in front of me.
— Fwaat.
I'd invested 10,000 points expecting something incredible. What I got left me distinctly unsatisfied.
◈ Grants favor and trust from hatchling dragons that catch the scent.
"Wh-what the…"
I'd jumped when I saw "Dragonkin Unique Ability" — but what kind of flimsy ability was this?
A breath weapon, polymorph, something like that would have been so much better.
"Ha… damn it. A dud."
I wasn't some dragon nanny. Where the hell was I supposed to use a skill like this?
Besides, there was probably only one dragon in this entire setting to begin with.
The dragon Hellion, who showed up around chapter 300 of the novel.
The moment she appeared, she wiped out an entire city and flaunted the kind of presence you'd expect from a final boss. The protagonist's party, Ma Seong-yong, and a whole group of other S-Class heroes had to join forces just to take her down — and the casualties were catastrophic. Ma Seong-yong lost an arm, and four other S-Class heroes died.
"Of course, that doesn't happen for another three or four years."
Far enough off that I didn't need to worry about it right now.
……Wait a second. What if?
In the novel, after the successful subjugation, Ma Seong-yong had said something.
— Lucky it was a young one. If it'd been a full adult, we wouldn't have stood a chance.
A young one…
My eyes drifted back to the S-Class ability, Mother Dragon's Scent, of their own accord.
Grants favor and trust from hatchling dragons that catch the scent.
Hellion wouldn't start making a real name for herself for another three or four years. So how young was she right now?
"C-could she be tamed?"
An absurd hypothesis rose up unbidden.
The most infamous dragon in the entire novel. Hellion. Could I actually tame her? The insane thought tore through my head and refused to leave.