Something's Wrong
...Something about this feels wrong.
Yena was hardly the first to use the techniques of the Celestials or the Demons with a different race's body.
Quite the opposite — such cases had been practically overflowing.
The techniques of the Celestials and Demons boasted a strength and uniqueness that no other race in existence could hope to compare with, and countless beings had regarded them with awe.
'Techniques beyond the standard rules.'
'If I could pull that off, couldn't I become like them?'
'Couldn't I wield power like a god's?'
'Couldn't I even drag them down from their thrones?'
It wasn't just humans — elves, dwarves, dragons... countless races racked their brains over the method behind those techniques.
And before long, they found it.
The Celestial techniques came from a saintess touched by Celestial influence. The Demon techniques came from nothing more than experiments performed on captured Demons.
The secrets of both races unraveled far too easily, and the many who grasped the method cast the techniques at once.
'......'
And then they were annihilated.
The sin of trying to climb a heaven that could never be reached. The limits fixed into them from birth were painfully, brutally clear.
Their fragile souls couldn't endure even a fragment of the techniques, and simply ceased to exist.
The Celestials and Demons must have known.
Whether their techniques were unraveled or not.
'That everyone who tried would die anyway.'
Take Annihilation — even the high-ranking Celestials struggled to bear it. So what chance would races incomparably weaker than they ever have?
Even for me, it was a technique I'd only barely mastered after crossing the line between life and death more than once.
'She'll be able to hold up. For now.'
Still, the reason I taught her anyway...
'The system hasn't shut down completely.'
Because the system was there.
Because the shield that could admirably block the damage and dissolution of a soul was still standing firm.
So I taught her, and within that shield, Yena was steadily, healthily growing into that power.
Far in the future, even if the system vanishes, her soul will already have expanded enough to withstand the strain on its own.
'A soul is like a vessel that grows. Force too much in at once and it shatters — but pour it in little by little, and it's a different story.'
Just as he had done for me.
In the same way, I was slowly stretching the vessel that was Yena.
Even though the system freezing mid-operation had cracked that vessel wide open.
'Anyway.'
"...Why won't it grab."
Rustle. Rustle.
I was fishing around in the core of Yena's soul.
This should be catchable, but it just won't take.
Is it because the dimensional boundary is so ambiguous here?
Still, stepping outside would drain her power, so for stability's sake it was better to do this here.
If we went out and her strength ran too low to sustain her, that would be a real disaster.
"Ooh."
"Ah... um."
"Oh my."
But something strange had been going on for a while now.
I lifted my head from my careful concentration.
Redberry and Leo, faces flushed scarlet. Devil's eyes wobbling in the distance, while Yul and Mul were having a conversation along the lines of, "Is this normal? No, you idiot, of course it isn't."
"...What are you all doing?"
"Um..."
"N-nothing at all! Please, continue!"
Redberry shook her head vigorously, her face as red as her hair.
"...?"
I turned my eyes to the chat window.
"...Please don't get the wrong idea."
Good grief.
Shloop. I drew my hand back out of Yena's broken soul.
A hand flowing with pure white divinity.
I'd left the stream running because turning it off mid-situation felt awkward, and it had only made things worse.
In a way, an entirely predictable outcome, but still...
"It's not what you're all imagining. I never even touched skin, to begin with."
I slid my hand back into Yena's chest once more.
This time, deep.
Through the clothes, and straight through the skin itself.
Only then did a different kind of confusion flood the chat.
"This is work on the spiritual aspect, not the physical body. The part I need to treat happens to be located around the heart, that's all."
In other words: no bare skin was ever touched.
Of course, that didn't stop her scandalized students from keeping their faces burning red, and the chat kept getting flooded with (♥‿♥) spam all the same.
I let out a sigh and went back to digging through the core of the soul.
Just focus on the work.
Drifting.
I am drifting.
Where did I come from, and where am I flowing toward?
...I don't know. I don't know anything.
I don't know who I am. I don't know why I'm in this state.
Truthfully, I don't even know why I should ask — but somehow, I keep asking questions anyway.
No. I must ask.
Somehow it feels like I have to.
'If I do... I won't be lost. I think.'
And so I kept drifting somewhere in the void, throwing questions at myself, one after another.
At last, when every question had been spent—
'.....'
One question surfaced. A primal one I'd been putting off until the very end.
'But.'
Something about my chest feels strange.
"PUHAHH!!!"
"There she is."
Hah... hah...
Yena gasped for breath and looked around wildly.
Lily sitting right in front of her, watching her, along with the users gathered around.
Lily in particular had one hand raised at an awkward angle, wearing a sheepish expression rarely seen on her face.
"...Lily? What..."
"Thank goodness."
The raised hand settled gently onto Yena's forehead.
Saaaah... Divinity washed over her, and the queasy feeling of having been flowing loose like liquid melted away in an instant.
"How do you feel?"
"...My chest feels."
Something about her chest felt strange.
It wasn't exactly a bad feeling, but it was oddly, inexplicably off.
'It's just... something...'
It felt like something had been... touched. An awful lot.
"You still seem unwell. I'd say rest for today, log out, and get some proper sleep..."
"It feels like you're avoiding my eyes."
"Don't be ridiculous. No, I'm not."
"What do you mean, no?"
"It just means no."
Yena's sudden collapse had brought the tournament to a halt.
It was a shame we couldn't crown a strongest among them, but the tournament had only ever been a sparring exercise — part of the lecture itself.
Everyone had already fought at least one match apiece, so the lecture had fulfilled its purpose.
"Originally, I planned to give the winner one-on-one instruction along with the weapon I provided as a prize. That was announced in advance."
At my words, the seven who had returned to the classroom nodded.
Yena had already logged out.
I'd found the core of her soul and stitched it back together, but it would take more time before she was fully restored.
Once this unstable patch passed, her soul would swell far larger than it had been before.
'Though if I ever pulled this stunt a second time, she'd genuinely die.'
Honestly, the fact that she'd survived at all bordered on a miracle.
One wrong move and this could have ended in true catastrophe.
There were, admittedly, other methods — but none of them were the kind of thing you'd show on a broadcast.
Those were strictly for enemies I wanted dead.
"Given the stability concerns, and since we're in no state to continue right now, I've decided to end today's lecture here."
"Ah."
"One more thing."
I handed each of the seven a mana stone infused with divinity.
Far smaller than what I'd once forged into a weapon, but still enough to shape something like a light dagger.
"This happened because of my mistake, so I'll be compensating all of you. I'll be giving Yena one as well, so there's no need to worry about fairness."
"Ooh."
"We just... take it?"
"Yes."
A mana stone holding divinity.
They could use it for refinement, or work it into part of a weapon. A mage could channel its divine power through an orb to cast techniques with it, if they liked.
Whatever the case, even a small measure of divinity like this was a treasure with no shortage of uses.
"You won't be able to wield it as easily as a mana stone, mind you. It's a power with an entirely different grain than mana to begin with."
"So is working with this our next homework assignment?"
Leo asked, rolling the stone between her fingers.
I shook my head and passed each of them a scroll.
"You could call that practically the final homework of my entire course. What you're about to learn is something else entirely..."
Flutter.
"This is... a magic scroll?"
Manifestation.
Now, the real lesson began.
"...So what exactly was that supposed to be?"
"No idea. Honestly, it's the first time I've ever seen anything like it."
The Nutri Company Korea Branch, with the entire sprawl of Seoul spread out below its windows.
Lee Ji-na, an employee whose primary occupation was salary looting, sat beside her supervisor, the Assistant Manager, both of them watching the most talked-about Lily clip of the week.
Mid-lecture, Lily had conjured some strange pocket of space, and when the user Yena collapsed, she'd pushed her hand straight into the girl's chest.
DeoEn was not an adult game. Contact was one thing — burrowing inside someone's clothing was flatly impossible.
And yet Lily had slid her hand in as easily as breathing.
Granted, it wasn't actual touching — more like a hand passing through a ghost — but still...
"Even if we asked upstairs about this, they wouldn't tell us anything, would they?"
"Obviously not? Then again, it is fascinating."
"It's not going to be a problem, though... right?"
"Hard to say. Lily's popular enough that I doubt any special sanctions get applied."
Ji-na nodded at the Assistant Manager's even-toned assessment.
It would probably blow over like everything else, without incident.
Not interfering with whatever users got up to was, after all, the core of DeoEn's operating philosophy.
You could call it irresponsible, but apart from outright griefing, the company barely lifted a finger — and as a result, players were actually more satisfied than ever.
When people are enjoying themselves on their own terms, some suit declaring "this is banned, that's banned" only sucks the fun out of everything.
To be fair, what Lily had done could technically qualify as "griefing" — but well, as long as neither party filed a complaint—
Beep.
Beep.
"Hm?"
"Huh?"
In an instant, an alarm that should never, ever have sounded rang out from every computer in the office — no, throughout the entire company.
An alarm that rang only once a year.
And this year's alarm had already rung once, back in January.
"Assistant Manager, this is..."
"...Something about this feels wrong."
Emergency Update — System Stabilization.