This Time, Fold Their Spines

In his previous life, a companion had been nothing more to Shin Haneul than someone to split the rewards with. Little different from a burden he was obliged to carry.

It was no accident that he had resolved, this time around, to take everything for himself.

Even so, there had been people who truly helped. Noncombatants—and the two who stood at the core of that group were not ones he meant to let slip away in this life either.

If I can get to them quickly, I'll be several times stronger than I was before.

One of them he had no way of meeting yet. The other he could find this very moment.

No. If he didn't find him now, he never would.

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

The man had immigrated to the United States, but just before the Tower appeared he would turn around and go back to Korea, his heart already brimming with resentment toward America. By then, bringing him over would not be easy.

"You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠can give me the full roster later. For now, please find the person I'm about to name."

"You've already got someone in mind?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Kim Jong— no. Ted Kim. He should be attending a school somewhere in San Francisco right about now."

Keys clicked as Curtis's aide hunted through the data at once.

"Hmm. There is one Awakened by the name of Ted Kim in the area you mentioned. However..."

Curtis took the file and let the sentence die. What it contained did not sit well with him at all.

"This boy... he has Mana Insensitivity."

An Awakened with Mana Insensitivity—someone struck by an incurable illness in which mana had formed inside them, and yet they could not use a drop of it. Legally they were classified as Awakened. In practice, they were no different from ordinary people. Even figures once counted among America's foremost Awakened had found no way to escape it once the illness took hold. AARC had researched the condition with a frenzy, and still had not overcome it.

At this rate, isn't he just saying he'll drag in a civilian and train them?

Curtis couldn't begin to guess what the man was thinking. So he asked.

"Do you know him, by any chance?"

"We're not acquainted. Not yet."

"Then perhaps you might choose someone else? Or—if you happen to be able to treat Mana Insensitivity..."

Curtis's voice rose.

If that were possible, it would be the second revelation to stun the entire world, second only to Shin Haneul's handling of the mutated dungeon. A great many of those who had contracted Mana Insensitivity while active as Awakened had been key assets of their respective nations.

The United States is no exception. If the forces we lost to Mana Insensitivity could come back...!

They might even lessen, if only a little, the damage wrought by mutated dungeons. Other countries would be more desperate still. This was a far more realistic alternative than begging him to come in person and clear every mutated dungeon himself. The moment the fact went public, the leading figures of every nation would cling to Shin Haneul and plead for the cure.

Come to think of it, this isn't an unalloyed good for us either. It would only make other countries covet him all the more.

Possible or not, he wanted an answer at once.

But the one holding the cards here was Shin Haneul, and that man had not the slightest interest in indulging Curtis's curiosity.

"Colonel."

"Yes?"

"I believe I told you the choice of whom to raise would be entirely mine."

"...I'm sorry."

A clear instruction not to interfere. Curtis apologized at once, though his expression stayed dark.

If Mana Insensitivity could be cured, there seemed no reason to choose a student like this. America was overflowing with prospects who had shone brilliantly before the illness took them. And if it could not? Then it was a shame that a golden opportunity like this was being handed to the boy.

Shin Haneul, however, knew better.

Ted Kim was a talent among talents—one America would one day beat the ground in regret for having lost. A potion maker. Not the sort who brewed mere recovery draughts, but an SSS-Rank support-class Awakened who would create countless potions capable of permanently raising one's stats.

"We secure this person first. No exceptions."

"...Understood. I'll make contact as quickly as I can."

"No. I'll go to him myself."

"Sir?"

"San Francisco isn't all that far."

Potions of the highest grade, the ones that raised stats. If he could monopolize those, a two-hour flight on a private jet was nothing at all.

Kim Jongwoo—or rather, Ted Kim—was a senior, twelfth grade, at Barrett High School in San Francisco.

Since enrolling, however, he had not gone to school a single time. He had not even left the room he was in. A shut-in, in the fullest sense of the word.

"Jongwoo! You don't have to go to school, so just... come outside for a little while."

A knock at the door.

Today, too, his mother was rapping at it. She still showed no sign of granting the one thing he had asked for—to live in Korea. Not even after watching him suffer a full year of bullying and then shut himself inside the house.

"......"

Ted pulled the blanket over his head and pushed in his earphones. Volume to the maximum. He gave himself over to the rhythm. If he didn't, the faces of the people who had tormented him kept rising up.

The cause of it all had been absurdly small. In the library, his hand had brushed that of a girl named Emma. There had been nothing more to it than that; they had simply reached for the same book, and their hands had touched. The problem was that, in the eyes of the delinquent who had set his sights on Emma, the sight had been deeply offensive.

Passing period. A hard blow crashed into his shoulder as he walked the hall.

"Oh. Sorry, sorry."

James. The delinquent in question. He apologized, but there was no sincerity in it. Anyone could see it had been deliberate, and it didn't end with once.

"Oh— honest mistake. A mistake. Mind not being so sensitive?"

Every time, he tried to slide past it that way. Worse, books left in Ted's locker would vanish, or he would find his chair soaked through. Impossible things, happening constantly. And every time, right on cue, that clammy little laugh. Heh heh.

But there was never solid proof. James's crew was vicious, and meaner still than they were vicious. They knew the blind spots of the cameras, and they knew how to keep their voices down. With the kids around them keeping silent as well, there was nothing he could do.

His parents? His father had died a few years back, and because of that his mother was too busy keeping them fed to spare him any attention. Part of it, of course, was that he never told her. Even if he had, he doubted there would have been any real way out.

I'll just endure it somehow.

That was what he had thought. Then, one day, it happened. Heat flooded his whole body, and a fierce pain came crashing in. The agony of Awakening. Ted writhed, and still the smile never left his mouth. When he went to the Awakened Assessment Center, it was even more so.

James. And those lackey bastards. Every last one of you is dead!

He didn't need some incredible ability. With even a little mana, a pack of neighborhood thugs like James's crew would be more than enough to thrash within an inch of their lives. Sitting in the waiting room with his number ticket in hand, he ran through all the ways he might pay them back.

Then he set his hand on the machine, and the result—

"The Awakening is real. However..."

"However?"

"It's Mana Insensitivity."

They had lifted him up, and so he fell that much harder—no, harder still. Ted had never felt so wretched. How could he contract this illness the very moment he Awakened? He would have taken it gladly if he had at least gotten to use a little power, like everyone else, before the Mana Insensitivity set in.

"Mom. Can't we... go live in Korea?"

That day, for the first time, he asked his mother for the one thing he wanted. His ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠parents' homeland, a place he himself had never once set foot in. What he had seen of it on the internet was nothing like America, which might as well have been the wild. People there had intellect. They had refinement.

"Jongwoo... I'm sorry..."

But perhaps it had been an impossible thing to ask. His mother's face was deeply troubled.

"It's fine."

Ted shut himself in his room, and stayed there.

Bang! Bang!

"Jongwoo! You have a guest!"

Today his mother was calling loudly enough to cut straight through the music.

"Someone from the U.S. military is here to see you!"

"...What?"

What kind of nonsense was this? It came out of absolutely nowhere.

What could they want with me?

He was an Awakened with Mana Insensitivity. A losing lottery ticket—a miracle of Awakening he couldn't even hope to use. What business could the military possibly have with someone like him, that they would come looking in person?

The door creaked open.

His thoughts and his body moved in different directions. Somewhere deep down, a hope about his Awakening still lingered.

But the person standing outside that door was not a U.S. soldier. For one thing, he wasn't in uniform, and he looked young. He didn't look like a soldier at all. More like...

...a friend of James's?

A year's accumulated trauma crept back up through him. Ted's body curled in on itself like a pill bug.

The man who had come for Ted Kim was Shin Haneul. Seeing a familiar face after so long, he let himself sink, briefly, into sentiment.

He's so different.

The Ted Kim he knew had been a man's man among men's men, and at the same time an exercise addict who practically lived in the gym. Shin had heard it said that if the man had only cut back on all those hours under the weights, he might have turned out a few more mythic-grade potions.

With humanity's crisis bearing down, why on earth was he like that?

Shin had never been able to understand it. Claiming a shortage of materials was just an excuse. Make the mass-produced potions, then, he had argued—wouldn't even a fingernail's worth of help be better than nothing? Naturally, it hadn't taken. Not in the slightest. Even a low-grade potion took roughly the same amount of time, and if he sat at a desk every day for that long, he would lose muscle. That had been the reason.

He knows he'll die too if the world ends, and he still acts like this?

Low-grade potions, present or absent, didn't wield any tremendous influence. Even so, if something could raise one's own chance of survival by so much as a tenth of a percent, surely a man could manage that much. This one had been nothing of the sort. All he had wanted was exercise. He had wanted to build muscle.

So when Shin heard that Ted wasn't going to school and had shut himself in his room, he had assumed the boy was doing home workouts. Then he came to the house, and what did he find?

"Don't even ask. It's been months since he went into that room, and he won't come out... All he talks about is wanting to go live in Korea...!"

What was unfolding was nothing like what he had pictured. A hunched back. Shoulders drawn in. Eyes that couldn't look a person straight on. Aside from a faint outline of the face, there was almost nothing the same about him.

He was fairly sure the man had given an interview along those lines in the previous life. Looking back on it now, every word of it had been bluster. He had taken a thorough beating and never managed a single counterattack. That much was certain.

No wonder his grudge against America ran so deep.

Even if someone picked a fight, once you had folded their spine the feeling wouldn't linger. You would remember them as a fly that had been a nuisance, nothing more. And Ted Kim? An America-hater until the day he died. Offered a fortune, he would have permitted a few potions to pass even to China or Japan—but to America, he had refused to yield a single one.

The exercise addiction had been the same. Shin had never understood how, even with the world in crisis, the man would rather grind away at the gym than work himself to death forging weapons. Now he understood a little. The obsession with exercise really had been a sickness of the heart. The wound he took here had clearly never been erased, not for the rest of his life.

I really ought to fix that.

For a talent like this to spend the hours he should have been making potions on exercise instead was a loss for all of humanity. Limited to Korea alone, of course, it would have been a misfortune—

Not my problem.

For Shin Haneul personally, it was a good thing. The man would make potions more diligently from here on, and he would owe Shin a debt of gratitude besides. He could monopolize the mythic-grade potions that massively and permanently increased one's stats, of course. And unlike in his previous life, he could drive the man to pour everything he had into making them.

Then there was only one thing left to do. He seized the arm of Ted, who had shrunk in on himself until he was nearly folded double.

"I-I'm sorry. Let go, please let go—!"

To Ted, sunk in panic, he said it quietly.

"Let's get revenge. I'll help you."

"R-revenge...?"

"Yeah. I'll cure your Mana Insensitivity. This time, for real—fold their spines."

"...What? What did you just say?"

It wasn't a particularly difficult thing. Ted, though, cried out as if he couldn't believe it.

But a crash erupted behind them, and Colonel Curtis's stunned voice came out a little louder still.

"Is that really possible?!"