The First Blessing (Part 4)

"...No way."

I placed my hand gently over the blessing inscribed in the codex.

"Miss Yoon Seoha?"

There was no answer.

"Can you hear me?"

I waited for a few moments, but the silence remained unbroken. I tried shutting the Blessing Codex and opening it again, and even pressed my fingertips against the bearer's name, but nothing happened.

"...Thank you."

Yet that soft voice I had heard only moments ago did not return.

"What was that just now?"

It had been far too distinct to write off as a hallucination. Above all, the Blessing Codex had pulsed with a faint radiance the very instant the voice echoed. The chances were overwhelming that those words had been spoken by Yoon Seoha to me—or more precisely, to the mysterious entity recorded as [???] who had bestowed the blessing upon her.

'Was that... a prayer? Or did her thoughts somehow reach me?'

Her tone had held an unmistakable air of reverence. Unless it were a prayer of gratitude, there was no earthly reason I would suddenly hear something like that. Then again, when I thought about it, it was only natural. A blessing, by its very definition, was power granted to a mortal by a god or some higher being.

'At this rate, isn't she going to mistake me for an actual god?'

Of course, so long as my true mundane identity wasn't exposed, it hardly mattered. My sole interaction with Yoon Seoha in the real world had been accidentally bumping shoulders at a supermarket. A being who bestowed blessings like a deity—there was no chance my true self would ever be found out here. Even so, the realization that another human being might regard me as a god felt utterly bizarre.

Rather than flattering, it felt like an immense burden. For someone who had been nothing more than an ordinary office worker until yesterday, bearing the weight of someone's religious faith was far too heavy.

'I'm really not a god, you know.'

I turned my gaze back to the blessing. Footprints that had abruptly wheeled around in front of a faint glow of light—they were the fresh traces of a new path that Yoon Seoha had forged with her own two hands. I had no way of knowing the precise details of what had transpired inside that gate, but judging by her sincere thanks, it certainly hadn't ended poorly.

Keeping my hand resting against the blessing, I murmured toward the page, "There's really no need to thank me."

A sheepish grin tugged at the corner of my lips.

"As long as it served you well, that's enough."

Right at that moment, the blessing flared with light once more, and a voice resonated clearly in my mind.

「And if there is any price to pay... please let me know in advance.」

"..."

For words that were ostensibly expressing gratitude, there was something undeniably off about them. Her voice trembled faintly—not with overwhelmed awe or tears of joy, but with a cautious, shrinking dread.

"Just what on earth do you take me for?"

The grumble slipped past my lips before I could stop it. But as soon as I turned the situation over in my mind, her terror made complete sense. An unknown entity whose identity couldn't even be detected had suddenly thrust a customized blessing upon her based on her innermost traits. From her perspective, wouldn't it feel as though some creepy, divine stalker had latched onto her while lurking in the shadows?

'And when she mentions a price... does she think this came from the Abyss Domain?'

It seemed she had fallen into a terrible misunderstanding. It felt entirely unfair, yet taking in the whole picture, her suspicion was completely justified. The imagery of the blessing I had crafted was dark, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠viscous, and pitch-black; "Abyss" was practically the most fitting word for it. While I had never received a blessing myself and didn't know whether the recipient could perceive its inner imagery directly, she had still made sure to offer her thanks first despite her overwhelming dread.

"Please don't be afraid."

If only she could hear those words, perhaps some of this bizarre misunderstanding could be cleared up. Regrettably, no reply came. By this point, it was blatantly obvious that two-way communication was impossible.

"I don't eat people, you know."

I spoke the words anyway, clinging to a sliver of hope, only to realize how pathetic I looked—standing alone in an empty studio apartment, making excuses to thin air.

"......"

I looked down once more at Courage of a Coward. This blessing had been woven from the scattered traces of Yoon Seoha's life, and the moment she made a brand-new choice, it had absorbed that resolve and transformed itself. As more traces accumulated in the days to come, I would eventually gather the raw materials needed to craft a second blessing for her. However, I had no intention of piling another onto her shoulders right away.

"I got lucky this time."

Fortunately, my first creation had functioned properly. But had the result gone wrong, there was no return policy on a divine blessing. It was a power sculpted from the bearer's very life and engraved directly into their soul; unlike a botched tattoo, it couldn't simply be lasered away. At worst, fixing a mistake might require gouging out a festering wound straight from the soul itself.

Which meant one thing was certain.

"I can't make the next one haphazardly like this."

If I was going to bestow another blessing upon Yoon Seoha, it had to boast a far higher degree of completeness than this initial attempt.

"First, I need to hone my craft."

That daunting challenge aside, a warm satisfaction settled in my chest. The power I had fashioned had brought about a positive turn in someone's life. And frankly speaking...

It was thrilling.

Thump, thump.

Now that my first creation had proven a success, an undeniable eagerness to craft a second surged within me. The only real problem was obvious.

"How on earth am I supposed to improve my skills?"

It wasn't as if there were online video courses on divine blessing crafting, nor could I casually ring up a god to ask for pointers.

"...I'll figure that out later."

With a quiet sigh, I closed the Blessing Codex.

The following afternoon, Yoon Seoha visited the Hunter Association's equipment depot. While the official investigation into the sudden orc appearance was still underway, the compensation for her shattered weapon had been approved ahead of schedule.

Unforeseen accidents occurred constantly inside gates. For that very reason, the Association maintained a mutual aid compensation program to cover equipment losses suffered by registered hunters.

"Under standard protocol for regular damage, you would only be issued gear of the exact same tier," the clerk explained, flipping through the paperwork. "However, in this instance, your weapon was destroyed after being thrown for the explicit purpose of saving a human life. As such, the Rescue Loss Rider has been applied."

"There was a rider like that?"

"It requires unanimous verification from every single member of your raid party, but once validated, the equipment compensation ceiling is raised substantially."

The clerk turned the document to reveal the final page. There, neatly penned without a single omission, were the signatures of every hunter who had stepped into that dungeon with her.

"Every one of them signed without the slightest hesitation."

"......"

Yoon Seoha stared down at those familiar names in quiet contemplation.

Clack.

The clerk unlatched a heavy equipment crate and lifted the lid, revealing a sleek, pitch-black spear resting on the velvet interior. She carefully reached down and hoisted the weapon. It was noticeably lighter than her old, fractured spear.

Whirrr—

The moment she channeled a thread of mana through her palms, the entire shaft hardened with absolute rigidity. The center of gravity leaned slightly toward the front tip—a deliberate balance optimized not merely for thrusting, but for throwing with deadly precision. While formally categorized as a D-rank weapon just like her previous spear, it was effectively considered a top-tier D+ rank modern model. The mana conductivity and structural durability alone existed on an entirely different plane.

"Thank you very much."

Stepping out of the Association building, Yoon Seoha made her way directly to a nearby hospital. Inside the sterile recovery room lay the party's tanker, who had collapsed during the raid. Thick bandages swathed his torso and shoulders, but his complexion looked far healthier than she had feared.

"How are you feeling?"

"Well, considering I'm breathing, I'd say pretty damn good."

The man offered a faint, grateful smile and pushed a small, velvet-lined wooden case across the bedside table toward her. Resting inside was a slender glass vial filled with a luminous azure liquid.

Yoon Seoha's expression instantly froze.

"Why are you giving this to me...?"

"I heard you've been working as an active hunter for seven years."

"Yes."

"Yet inside the dungeon, you didn't manifest a single skill."

Her fingertips twitched involuntarily. It had been true before the orc breached the line, true while she rushed in to save the tanker, and true throughout their desperate retreat. Relying solely on the baseline physical enhancements granted to an awakened human, she had wielded ordinary spearmanship—never once unleashing a proper hunter skill.

The tanker asked gently, "Is your mana capacity insufficient?"

"...Was it that obvious?"

That single quiet admission was answer enough.

Seven long years had passed since her awakening. She had poured over countless skill manuals published in the Association's public archives, studying their mechanics until the pages frayed. Yet whenever she attempted to channel them, her internal mana reserves ran completely dry long before the foundational formula could take shape. Her naturally timid disposition had certainly played a part in keeping her trapped at D-rank for so long, but the insurmountable wall that truly chained her was an innate, crippling deficiency in mana capacity.

"If this is an overstepping assumption on my part, feel free to hand it back," the man said, sliding the box a little closer to her.

"...Elixirs like this are far too expensive."

"I've already ingested two potions from that exact same alchemical family. Even if I drank that one down, it would barely produce a ripple of an effect."

"I already received fair compensation from the Association."

"That was a debt the Association owed you," the man said, tapping his bandaged chest with a firm knuckle. "This is the debt I owe you."

Yoon Seoha looked down at the glowing blue elixir. Drinking this single bottle wouldn't spontaneously grant her high-tier combat skills overnight. Even so, it offered her a chance to challenge the very wall that had blocked her path for seven agonizing years.

"I will put it to good use."

Bowing her head, she finally accepted the box.

As she stepped out through the hospital's revolving doors into the cool afternoon breeze, her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. It was an official push notification from the Hunter Association.

Yoon Seoha's footsteps ground to an abrupt halt on the pavement.

"C-Rank..."

It was a rank she had spent seven years believing had nothing to do with her. If she passed the evaluation, her market valuation would skyrocket; the caliber of dungeons she could raid and the commissions she could accept would transform entirely. At the very least, she would finally escape the humiliating poverty of hesitating over the price of a tasteless energy bar at a convenience store.

A superior black spear.

A mana-enhancing elixir.

An official promotion evaluation.

Ever since she received that bizarre blessing, her stagnant life had begun shifting forward at a breathless, dizzying pace. Suddenly, the image of that nameless benefactor flickered unbidden in her mind.

'Don't tell me... they're not going to calculate all of this into the price later on, are they?'

A sharp chill crept down her spine. The new spear was an earned reward validated by her teammates' signatures, and the elixir was a gesture of goodwill gifted because she had risked her neck to save a dying man. Yet there was no denying that this entire chain of events had been sparked by that initial blessing.

'I truly am grateful, but please... anything but a divine provisional seizure...'

A legal property garnishment in the real world was terrifying enough on its own; she didn't even want to imagine what compulsory enforcement carried out by an almighty divine entity would look like.

Setting her paranoia aside for the moment, one thing was unmistakably clear: whether for the upcoming promotion evaluation or to survive in C-rank environments, her current capabilities fell short. But unlike before, a tangible ray of hope now lay within reach. A skill—something she had never even been able to initiate due to her meager mana pool—might finally be unlocked.

Returning to her cramped studio apartment, Yoon Seoha carefully placed the vial on her modest wooden desk. It was just a small glass bottle, yet its market price dwarfed even the high-end spear she had received today.

"Whew..."

Her hands shook violently as she reached out. Nobody was there to snatch it away, yet she spent several minutes nervously glancing around the empty room before finally mustering the courage to pop the wax seal. A frigid wisp of raw mana ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠accompanied by the bitter, sharp fragrance of concentrated herbs drifted into the air. Squeezing her eyes shut, Yoon Seoha tilted her head back and downed the elixir in a single gulp.

"Ugh!"

The taste was horrific. Apparently, an astronomical price tag didn't guarantee a luxurious flavor profile. But moments later, a faint, soothing warmth blossomed deep within her lower abdomen. The heat coursed through her blood vessels, spreading outward into every limb before gathering in a concentrated vortex at the center of her chest.

Thump.

The sensation of mana filling her core was familiar, but today, an amount that would normally have brought her to overflowing began seeping smoothly into a deeper reservoir. The vessel containing her mana had expanded, ever so slightly.

It was the very mana she had craved for seven long years. Her mind was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already filled to the brim with theoretical knowledge of the Association's public combat skills—techniques she had never been able to materialize simply because she couldn't meet the baseline activation threshold. Whether this modest expansion would be enough remained to be seen, but there was only one way to find out.

"......"

Yoon Seoha seated herself cross-legged on the floor and closed her eyes. The diagrams she had reviewed dozens of times in the Association's reading room flashed across her memory. Though she had never successfully executed them, the basic foundational circuits were so deeply engraved in her mind that she could trace them by heart. Drawing a steady breath, she began guiding her expanded mana along that long-practiced path.

Late that night, when I opened the Blessing Codex, several unfamiliar traces had inscribed themselves upon the parchment.

"Looks like something good happened to her," I murmured softly to myself, smiling as I read through the list—until my eyes snagged on the final entry.

{Inability to Trust Kindness Free of Charge}

"...Something good *did* happen, right?"

I had no way of divining the exact circumstances she had experienced today. Still, I could clearly sense that Yoon Seoha's life had begun charting a fundamentally different trajectory than before. The raw materials at my disposal for crafting her next blessing had expanded considerably as well.

"Not yet."

Resisting the temptation, I refrained from touching the new traces and left them safely preserved in the ledger. My next blessing would only be forged after I had substantially honed my craft. That was a resolution I had already carved into stone.

The following morning, during my routine commute on the packed subway, a line of text I had never seen before suddenly materialized before my eyes as if offering an answer to my lingering dilemma.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Chime.