The Dragon and Spatial Transfer
The weekend ended, and Monday arrived.
"Om-nyom-nyom-nyom. So good. Hehe."
"It's a new product. How's the taste? The owner asked me to try it and report back."
"Yeah. They used the pollack roe really well. Sweet and salty. Goes great with rice too?"
"Looks like our breakfast repertoire just got one more item."
Just like always, we stopped by the convenience store in front of my house for a quick breakfast before heading toward school.
Midterms were over, and Ha-yan's magic exam prep was pretty much finished, so all that was left was to coast through classes and enjoy some peaceful school life.
Of course, I was the only one feeling peaceful.
"Waaaaaaah!!! My PE performance evaluation scooooore!!!!"
"Wow. How about we just give up on early admissions and put everything into the CSAT, Ha-yan?"
"It's not that bad yet!! If I just do well on midterms and finals this time, I'm totally fine!!!"
"It's truly fortunate that PE doesn't take up that big a percentage of the performance evaluation score."
And then our two friends squeezed into the narrow gap between us.
"Where, where? The PE performance evaluation scores are already out?"
"Hey hey hey. Don't push! Let me see too! Cha Siu! Move over a bit! Ha-yan, can you scoot over a little too?"
Choi Hoon and Do Ji-yeon, having heard the news, darted over and forced their way in beside us.
Those two only ever got along this well at times like this.
After checking their own PE performance evaluation scores posted next to the classroom blackboard, both of them looked back and forth between me and Ha-yan before grinning.
"Hehehe. First place again this time, huh?"
"You're the worst, you know that? You know Ha-yan's not athletic and you still wouldn't cut her some slack this time! She even fell over during the PE evaluation! Our poor Ha-yan!"
Choi Hoon clapped me on the shoulder while Do Ji-yeon hugged Ha-yan from behind as she pouted.
I shrugged.
"What can I say? I'm just that awesome."
"...Wow. That answer just now. I seriously want to rip your mouth—"
"Grrrr!! Rip it!!! Tear it offfffff!!"
"Hey hey hey!! Lee Ha-yan!! You for real!!"
"Let's rip it!! Tear it offfffff!!"
That wasn't what I'd meant at all, but apparently Ha-yan had taken full offense.
Still wrapped in Do Ji-yeon's arms, Ha-yan charged me and tried to shove both hands into my mouth, but I hurriedly grabbed her wrists.
"Grrrr!!! Let go!! Let go of me!! Why would you say something like that in front of me!! Grrrr! You're teasing me right now!!"
"W-wait a second! Calm down! That wasn't what I meant!!"
And so, right at the front of the classroom with every friend watching, Ha-yan and I put on what was apparently a full-blown PDA display.
Honestly, I hadn't thought of it as PDA at all, but at lunch that day Do Ji-yeon sidled up and whispered the truth into my ear.
Apparently the other guys had been looking at me with eyes that genuinely wanted to tear me apart.
...Was it really that bad?
After afternoon classes ended and it was time to go home, Ha-yan and I held hands as if the fight had never happened and slipped out of school ahead of Choi Hoon and Do Ji-yeon, ducking into a quiet alley.
What, did it look like we were filming a spy movie all of a sudden?
It was time to properly test it out. Spatial transfer magic.
Once we reached a deserted alley near the school, Ha-yan and I faced each other and joined both hands.
I soothed Ha-yan, who was trembling slightly with nerves, and asked,
"Ready?"
"We're going safely to the company basement first, right?"
"Right. If we try your house and mess up the destination, cleaning that up would be way more of a hassle."
"Tch. You're saying you don't believe I can succeed on the first try?"
"It's the 'what if,' okay? What if. For the exam, even teleporting one meter to the side would get full marks, but this is basically several kilometers."
"Fine."
Spatial transfer magic was something I used as casually as breathing, but it was actually an extremely high-level spell.
Most magic was cast within the caster's line of sight, but this one moved you to some building or place that existed only in your imagination.
If your concentration slipped even a little, you could end up somewhere completely different.
That was why we'd decided to try the first cast toward our company building—the only one of its kind in the world.
And specifically, into that vast underground space beneath it.
"Ready?"
"Yeah. Starting?"
"Okay."
Ha-yan closed her eyes for a moment, and mana surged through her body in an instant.
"Hup!"
With a single soft sound from Ha-yan, the space around me changed completely.
But there was a problem.
How big had I said that underground company space was again?
Huge enough that it was like stacking several baseball dome stadiums on top of each other.
The scale on the X and Y axes was enormous, and so was the height on the Z axis.
Ah, success of the magic itself? If we were only talking about whether it worked, then yes—it had succeeded. In a single attempt she had safely transferred us several kilometers to the underground space of our company.
It was just that the Z-axis coordinate of the landing point was wildly off. Only a tiny little deviation, really.
The moment Ha-yan's spatial transfer magic successfully(?) concluded—
Riiiiip!!
My shirt tore open as I immediately unfurled my wings and pulled Ha-yan into my arms.
"Eekyaaaaaaah!! Whooooah!!"
Ha-yan flailed her legs in midair until my help finally got her snugly back into my embrace.
I adjusted my grip, sliding one arm under her legs and the other around her side into a proper princess carry.
With her body still trembling, Ha-yan took a moment to process the situation. Once the sense of security returned, she finally understood what had happened and began calming herself, her pupils shaking as she looked rapidly between me and our surroundings.
As a fairly high-level mage herself, she would have figured out exactly how we'd ended up like this.
Beating my massive golden wings to stay aloft, I held her while she finished assessing everything, then let out a long sigh and spoke in a deflated voice.
"Haa... Every time I first use a spell Siu taught me, something like this happens."
I shrugged at her lament.
"Well, you're not wrong. Burning a mountain, smashing windows, summoning storms and rain clouds... yeah, lots of incidents."
"Tch. Do you have to bring that up even here?"
"But still. You did well this time."
"Hm? I did well?"
She looped her arms around my neck, closing the distance between our faces even more.
I looked into Ha-yan's round eyes—now sparkling again with recovered composure—and spoke.
Seeing her this close, she really was pretty. Her black hair had a healthy sheen and swayed gently.
Anyway.
I slowly drifted through the air as I continued.
"Back then you usually wrecked the surrounding objects, right? Your mom chewed you out pretty hard over that stuff."
"When I completely demolished an entire building... ugh. That was the first time I realized Mom could get that angry."
Ha-yan also looked a little scared as she seemed to recall the past.
Yeah. At the time, Ha-yan's mother had given off the vibe that she could have beaten even me to death with her bare hands.
I flapped the wings on my back and gradually descended until we landed on the floor of the underground space.
Only then could Ha-yan, who had been clinging tightly to me, set both feet on solid ground.
"But why are all these kids flat on their faces?"
"I released a bit of mana when I brought out the wings. I was a little startled too."
"I don't feel anything."
"You and I share complete mana, so it doesn't apply to us. Plus every kid here is one I made. Think of it as them recognizing their master."
As I spoke, I gradually shrank my wings.
Once those nearly three-meter-long massive wings reduced to about body length, the homunculi prostrated before us were finally able to rise.
Most of them were still trembling all over even after I'd reduced the mana, and I could see a few of the ones with weaker mental fortitude collapsing to the floor.
"Ahem... cough. This part was a little sud...den~~~!!!"
"Why are you suddenly talking from so far away? That thing you're holding up to your mouth... is that a megaphone?"
"No matter how much I mouth off to Master, I am still a homunculus~~ What I'm saying is I can't handle the mana pouring out of Master's body right now~~"
"That so? All right, I get it."
"Whew..."
Rhea, who normally would have sidled right up next to me and Ha-yan to mess around, kept her distance and conversed through a megaphone she'd somehow procured.
Only after I fully reined in my mana and completely withdrew my wings did Rhea wipe the cold sweat from her forehead and approach.
Then she looked at Ha-yan with something like awe and said,
"As expected... you truly are the human Master chose, aren't you?"
"Hm?"
"It's nothing. Just a private thought that slipped out. First of all, sincere congratulations. You succeeded at spatial transfer magic with a single mana operation."
"Hehe. Th-thanks."
Rhea quickly changed the subject and politely bowed her head to Ha-yan.
At the congratulations, Ha-yan's face turned faintly pink and she scratched the back of her head.
I changed into a shirt one of the other homunculi brought over, then walked up to them.
"No other problems, right? Ah, give the ones who fainted about a day's rest. Are they newer ones? Passing out from this much mana..."
"Those children weren't originally assigned here. We were a little short-handed, so they came down temporarily."
"Short-handed? You guys? What kind of work are you doing?"
"Ahem... It's company business, so I'd rather not discuss it here."
"Ahh. Fair enough. Tell me later. Ha-yan, want to head back up and rest?"
"Hm? Oh. Y-yeah. That sounds good to me! But..."
"What?"
Ha-yan fidgeted for a moment, then grabbed my sleeve and spoke bashfully.
"Could you... princess-carry me one more time when you teleport us?"
"...I could do it all day."
"Urgh. Kek!"
"Who's gagging over there..."
I flicked Rhea on the forehead for openly retching at our flirting, then scooped Ha-yan up again and teleported us to my room at the top of the company building.
Just another ordinary day of lovey-dovey nonsense.