A Reality That Shouldn't Exist
The next day after a reality that shouldn't exist. I woke up early and made my way to the training grounds. I practiced sensory training, shot arrows, and spent the remaining time on wildness drills. "Grrr..." I raised both hands threateningly at the mirror. It didn't feel any better than the first time. I still couldn't tell if anything had changed. Since they said this kind of training took years, I couldn't afford to feel disappointed yet. Without lingering, I left the training grounds behind.
"That is..." Directly across from the training grounds stood a place called the Physical Training Room. It resembled a gym from my previous world, and my gaze kept drifting toward it whenever I passed by. I really did need to build up my strength. Maybe just a quick taste wouldn't hurt?
While I was loitering in front of the door, someone came pattering up. "King, let's play!" I couldn't help but be startled by Levinas's bright, cheerful face. During sensory training two hours earlier, I'd sensed a presence and only now realized it had been her. I'd wondered who could stand perfectly still for two whole hours, and it turned out to be Levinas. The fact that she'd waited for me all that time was hard to believe.
"Levinas, were you waiting for me?"
"Yeah! I didn't want to interrupt King's training, so I waited right here!"
"Don't wait around. Go play with Saebyeok instead." Come to think of it, where was Saebyeok? I glanced around but saw no sign of her.
"Dark says King is sleeping!"
"Still?"
"Yeah! The baby cat said she sleeps a lot! She said she needs ten hours a day!"
"Ah..." So her sleep schedule was influenced by the cat too. At least she wasn't sleeping more than twelve hours. I'd heard once that kittens could sleep over twelve hours. Too much sleep would interfere with daily life, so it was a relief Saebyeok hadn't reached that point.
"King, but if you're a baby cat too, why do you only sleep seven hours?"
"Me? I'm not a baby cat...?"
"Oh?" Levinas's eyes went perfectly round. I had no idea what had surprised her.
"What's wrong?"
"I guess King is a middle baby."
"Uh, yeah..." She wasn't wrong. I was an adult, but my body was still young. When I nodded in agreement, Levinas clapped her hands together.
"I see!" She looked like she'd just had a revelation. Since I didn't know what it was, I simply scratched my cheek in silence.
"King, what should we play?"
"Hmm, want to check out the Physical Training Room with me?"
"Physical Training Room?" Levinas plastered herself against the glass door. I did the same, pressing close to peer inside. There were machines I recognized and others I'd never seen before.
"Want to go in?"
"Yeah!"
"But it's dangerous, so you have to stay right next to me, okay?"
"Yeah! That's what Levinas likes best!" Sticking close was what she liked best. That was so very Levinas. Feeling my tail sway, I stepped into the training room.
I knew aerobic exercise should come first in physical training. So the first thing we tried was the treadmill.
"Hmm..." This treadmill looked very different from the ones I knew. There were more than twice as many buttons, and it was large enough for four or five people to stand on. Thanks to that, Levinas and I could both climb on together. But how did it work? Not knowing the controls, I just stood there staring blankly at the buttons.
"King, what's this?"
"It's a machine for running on top. I just don't know how to use it."
"Really? Can't we just press something?"
"Uh... maybe?" Since it was just for running, pressing buttons probably wouldn't be dangerous. Following Levinas's suggestion, I tried pressing a few at random. Beep! Beep! I tapped the arrow buttons that looked like keyboard directional keys. When nothing happened, I tried others. After pressing several more, the treadmill belt finally started moving.
"King! It worked!"
"Yeah." Thud-thud-thud. I walked forward along with the belt. While I was wondering what speed would be good, the belt suddenly accelerated to an incredible pace.
"Eek!"
"Hup!" It was terrifyingly fast. If I stopped, the momentum would fling me far away. Levinas seemed to understand this too, because she was already sprinting at full speed beside me.
"H-help! King! Save Levinas!"
"Uwaaah." I desperately reached for the buttons, but I was being pushed backward and couldn't reach them. Was there no separate stop function? Even though we were in danger, there was nothing I could do.
"Stop, frog! Ah, if you don't stop, you're a bad snake!"
"Th-this is bad...!" Ah. We were going to fly off. In a panic, I pulled Levinas into my arms to brace for impact. Using my sharpened senses, I calculated how badly we'd be hurt. At this speed, we'd roll at least five times. We might smash into the equipment and break bones.
"Hup!" I closed my eyes and shielded Levinas's head. But no matter how long I waited, the impact never came. All I felt was something soft.
"......?" When I cautiously opened my eyes, I saw Encia. She was holding both Levinas and me in her arms. It seemed she'd caught us mid-flight.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. Thank you for helping us." At my thanks, Encia's tail began wagging rapidly. As if responding, my own tail wagged along with it.
"As expected, you are truly impressive."
"What do you mean...?"
"Even though this was a violent training method that could easily cause injury, you carried it out without hesitation. I found it admirable."
"Uh..." Encia gave me a thumbs-up, as if she'd learned the gesture somewhere. With her eyes shining so brightly, it was hard to admit it had been a mistake.
"The problem is that Lady Winter's delicate body cannot keep up with her mental fortitude. Perhaps you should lower the intensity?"
"Yes. I'll do that." I nodded and glanced at the still-spinning treadmill. If this had been my original body, I would have been thrown off the moment it started and badly hurt. This world even makes exercise equipment dangerous. It really was a brutal place. I swallowed hard and looked back at Encia.
"By the way, how do I lower the speed?"
"...Remarkable."
"What is...?"
"The fact that you don't know how to lower the speed is remarkable." She meant I was an idiot. Blood rushed to my face in embarrassment.
"Because you only pursue maximum speed, you never bothered to learn how to slow it down, correct?"
"Th-that's not it."
"And so modest...!" Encia's tail began spinning like a propeller. It was so fast I could feel the wind pressure.
"U-um..." Encia was always so serious, yet her way of thinking was a little strange. Still, I liked how she always looked after me. Following her lead, I spun my own tail around too.
The Yeomyeong Guild conference room. Three women sat in their chairs looking haggard. Being hit, scorned, and tormented. Even though the three of them had taken turns experiencing it, their mental strength had already reached its limit. Just how strong must Winter's mental fortitude be to have endured all of it alone? No, more than that—did she still have even worse memories left? A thick layer of despair settled over Jeong Yuna's face.
"Yuna, if it's too hard, you can stop now."
"No, I'm fine..." It was painful and exhausting, and she'd even had nightmares, but compared to what Winter had gone through, it was nothing. Jeong Yuna steeled her resolve with nothing more than a blink.
"This is bad..." Tap-tap. Chae Juyeon tapped the magic stone. The surface of the red stone crumbled, sending fragments scattering.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't think the magic stone can take much more. One more memory and it might break."
"What...?" The evil spirit had read memories until it vanished, and now even the source—the magic stone—was on the verge of shattering. Yet Han Yeoreum knew she still hadn't come close to the depths of despair. Winter said she was buried underground. That disgusting memory hadn't surfaced yet. So far they'd only seen the surface level, and now it was ending. For Han Yeoreum, it was all the more despairing.
"I didn't realize the trauma ran this deep."
"Yeah..." This was their last chance. They couldn't afford to waste this precious opportunity. Han Yeoreum snatched up the magic stone before anyone else could react.
"Yeoreum?"
"I'll take the last one."
"You just did one. Are you sure you're okay doing another?"
"Of course." Winter was her precious little sister. Even if she couldn't erase the trauma, she wanted to ease it as much as possible. Han Yeoreum knew her actions were just bravado, but she pushed the thought aside. Please, let something come out. Praying to a god she didn't believe in, she accepted the mana from the magic stone. The unpleasant evil spirit's mana mixed with Chae Juyeon's divine power and pulled Han Yeoreum into a past memory.
"This place..." Before she even opened her eyes, the ears she'd borrowed from Winter perked up. The enhanced hearing unique to beastkin told her what kind of world this was. It was quiet. When she opened her eyes, she saw collapsed high-rise buildings. Below them, dried blood and grotesquely twisted corpses lay scattered across the ground. Where on earth was this? There had never been a place like this on Earth. At the sight of the devastated city, Han Yeoreum's tail bristled. She still wasn't used to the sensations of ears and tail, but she had no time to worry about that. An unfamiliar ruined world lay before her eyes. It was a world that absolutely should not exist in reality.