Chapter 40
Chapter 40
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 40
Chapter Title: Closed-Door Training (1)
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Three days had passed since I'd cured her eyes with the Dragon's Pupil.
-Rustle, rustle.
As usual, Oh-jin woke at the crack of dawn, finished his light morning training, and came downstairs to a strange sight.
"I-Is this how you're supposed to do it?"
Szzzzzzzle!!
"Aack!! Wh-What the hell!! Why did it turn into a lump of charcoal?!"
In the small kitchen, Ha-eun, wearing an apron, was concocting something.
Yes.
That wasn't cooking; it was alchemy.
"...What are you doing?"
Oh-jin stared blankly at the room, which was filled with acrid smoke.
Flinch!
Ha-eun's shoulders trembled.
"Wh-What? Oh, it's nothing!"
"For nothing, the house is a mess."
Cough, cough.
Waving his hand through the thick smoke, he opened a window.
He let out a dry laugh as he looked down at the meat (or what was once meat) in the frying pan.
"What's the occasion? You're cooking?"
Putting aside whether this could even be called food.
It was the first time in his life he'd ever seen her cook.
"Ah~ well... I just suddenly had a craving for meat!"
"So you decided to conjure up some charcoal?"
"It's not charcoal!! Damn it... This is weird. I'm sure they said if I did this, some kind of Maillard reaction or something would happen..."
She scratched her head, staring at her smartphone.
"Well... anyway, here."
She placed the charred meat on a plate and held it out to him.
"Have a bite."
"...You want me to eat this?"
Had she lost her mind?
"It'll be fine if you just cut off the burnt parts!"
He stared at her confident declaration for a moment before picking up a knife.
'Well, it's the first thing my sister's ever cooked for me. I should at least taste it.'
And it was a waste of meat.
He slowly brought the knife to the meat.
Crack.
The meat split in two, revealing a completely carbonized interior.
"......."
He threw it away.
"Hey!! How could you just throw it away?!"
"What do you expect me to do, eat it?!"
How on earth could someone burn something this badly?
"The gas stove here is too weak, so I used a bit of my Stigma..."
"No."
That's why it burned, you idiot.
'She just started her rehabilitation training.'
Even though the Dragon's Pupil had removed the curse, her body hadn't fully recovered yet.
At best, she was just taking her first baby steps.
There was no way she could control her Stigma properly in that state.
"Hmph."
As if she had nothing more to say, Ha-eun turned her head away.
Her profile as she turned.
An incongruous feature that didn't match her delicate looks caught his eye.
"Is your eye okay?"
"Oh, this?"
She touched the corner of her left eye.
Unlike her normal right eye, her left eye held a menacing, reptilian yellow pupil that gleamed.
It was also much larger than her right eye, and the veins around it bulged like tree roots, giving it a rather grotesque appearance.
"It might look weird... but I can see perfectly fine. In fact, things look much clearer when I focus with my left eye."
"That's a relief, but..."
Every time he saw that menacing, gleaming yellow eye, he couldn't help but worry.
"...It's not a side effect of the curse, is it?"
[That it is not, so do not worry.]
The answer came from an unexpected source.
Poof.
Appearing in mid-air with a halo of silver light, Vega circled Ha-eun once before replying.
"If it's not a side effect, then why did this happen?"
Ha-eun also asked, gently touching the corner of her right eye as if she couldn't understand it either.
[Hmm.]
Vega gazed intently at Ha-eun's left eye and continued.
[Rather than a side effect... it could be considered a type of 'blessing' in a sense.]
"...This is a blessing?"
Ha-eun narrowed her eyes as if to say, "What kind of nonsense is that?"
[Your Stigma... the power of the dragon, generated during the process of your Draco Stigma dispelling the curse, interacted to create a 'Dragon's Eye'.]
"Dragon's Eye?"
Ha-eun tilted her head and looked at her left eye in the mirror.
The yellow, reptilian iris and the vertically slit pupil.
A dragon was certainly a reptile, so she could see how it might earn a cool name like 'Dragon's Eye', but...
"...For all that, it doesn't seem much different from a regular eye."
There was a slight difference in that things looked clearer when she focused with it, but that was it.
In her daily life, aside from its grotesque appearance, it was no different from her normal right eye.
[That is because you are not yet accustomed to wielding the power of the Dragon's Eye. Once your Stigma returns to its original state, you will be able to use its power in earnest.]
"Hmm."
Ha-eun thought of the Stigma engraved over her left breast.
The Stigma of Draco.
It wasn't one of the twelve Zodiac Stigmas, but it was powerful enough to rival them.
'Of course, the difference in recognition is abysmal.'
In the first place, you could count the number of Awakeners with the Draco Stigma on one hand.
There were maybe four or five in Korea, and less than twenty in the entire world.
And among them, not a single one had shown any remarkable achievements.
'It's no wonder it's not well-known.'
If she hadn't possessed the Draco Stigma herself, she never would have known that it was powerful enough to stand up to the Zodiac Stigmas.
"Well, I guess that means I need to focus on my rehabilitation training first."
"You don't have to push yourself."
"Heheheh! 'Don't have to push myself,' my ass."
Ha-eun grinned and gently pinched Oh-jin's cheek.
"I need to recover quickly so I can take care of my little Oh-jinnie. You know I can't stand being in debt."
"Does that mean you're going to keep 'cooking' like you did earlier?"
"Just trust your big sis."
"Fuck."
Why are you doing this to me, sis?
"Oh, right. A package came earlier. Did you order it?"
"Yeah. I ordered it."
He opened the small box sitting in the corner of the room.
"Here, this is for you."
"Huh? What is it this time?"
Ha-eun looked bewildered, as if she hadn't expected him to have ordered something for her.
He took the item out of the box and handed it to her.
"...An eyepatch?"
"It'd be a little weird walking around with that eye, wouldn't it?"
"I guess so."
She put the black eyepatch Oh-jin gave her over her left eye.
Though it was an eyepatch, it was quite large, completely covering her left eye and the bulging, root-like veins around it.
"S-So, how do I look?"
Ha-eun asked cautiously after putting on the eyepatch.
"You look like a failed youth who's almost thirty, has never been in a relationship, and escaped reality by getting into otaku culture, only to develop a late-onset case of chuunibyou."
"For dinner tonight, I'm thinking of making fried mint chocolate."
"It suits you perfectly, sis."
How can my sister look so pretty even with an eyepatch?
"Hehe. Right? It looks good, doesn't it?"
Ha-eun giggled, touching the eyepatch.
But jokes aside, she was naturally so beautiful that she actually pulled off the eyepatch look quite well.
Even if it did look a bit chuuni.
"Is it uncomfortable?"
"Yeah. It's a little inconvenient not seeing out of one eye, but this is nothing."
True.
For someone who couldn't see out of either eye until recently, this was probably a trivial matter.
"Anyway, are you okay? You spent all the money... you'd saved up."
Ha-eun asked, her voice slightly subdued.
"I can always earn more money. There's no rush anymore."
"Ahem. I-Is that so?"
Ha-eun cleared her throat unnecessarily, her face flushing.
His words, "There's no rush anymore," filled her with an unbearable sense of happiness.
It felt as if her whole body was being tickled by soft feathers.
It was hard to keep the corners of her mouth from turning up.
"W-Well, who told you to be an idiot and buy it at the instant buyout price? You could have gotten it for much cheaper if you'd just bid normally."
Trying to suppress the ticklish feeling, she nudged Oh-jin's side with her elbow.
"What if someone else had hit the buyout price first?"
If that happened, the auction would end immediately, and the Dragon's Pupil would go to someone else.
It was an item that might show up once a year, if that. If he missed this chance, Ha-eun would have to spend that much longer trapped in pitch-black darkness.
"Rather than take that risk, it's better to secure it when you have the chance."
Money was just a means to an end, after all.
As long as he could achieve his goal, the cost didn't matter.
'Still, bidding ten billion all at once was a stupid move.'
He hadn't intended to hit the buyout price from the start.
His plan had been to feel things out and buy the Dragon's Pupil as cheaply as possible.
—But.
The moment he saw Song Ha-eun shedding tears.
Something snapped, and he'd blurted out ten billion in one go.
"Ah, uh."
Song Ha-eun's face turned bright red as she lowered her head.
"Heh, hehehe."
She giggled like a broken machine, her shoulders shaking.
"I-I'm just gonna step out for a bit!"
Whoosh.
She fled the house as if escaping.
[.......]
After staring intently at her retreating back, Vega flew over to Oh-jin.
[You truly cherish that child.]
"Huh?"
[I heard you have protected that child since you were young... Is there a reason for it?]
"What? She told you that?"
That he had protected Ha-eun since they were young, huh.
That was half right, and half wrong.
"I wasn't the one protecting her; she was the one who protected me first. No... to be precise, she protected everyone at the orphanage."
[Oh?]
Hearing this for the first time, Vega's eyes sparkled.
"Back then, she was like a leader to the other kids at the orphanage."
A bitter smile touched Oh-jin's lips.
He recalled a distant memory.
The girl who would charge at the director like a furious beast for the sake of the children who followed her.
The image of Ha-eun, radiant like a brightly burning jewel.
"But you know what? As tough as she seems, my sister is actually a huge crybaby."
On nights when the director hit her, she would hide under the covers and secretly cry.
"So..."
[You stepped up in her place? To repay her?]
"I wonder."
Repaying her.
Of course, that was part of it.
'But that wasn't the only reason.'
Oh-jin shook his head with a wry smile.
"I'll tell you about that later."
[Hmph.]
For some reason, Vega pouted with a slightly sulky expression.
[Hmph, hmph.]
Vega flew up to his head and irritably pulled at his hair.
That hurt.
[...Still, it is a relief.]
Vega, who had been pulling his hair, now began to gently stroke his head as she continued.
[This is the first time I have seen you smile so genuinely.]
"......."
Oh-jin nodded with a faint smile.
[In your last life, were you unable to save Ha-eun?]
"That..."
He didn't know.
Whether he had saved her in the first timeline or not.
'I probably failed.'
Was that why his first-timeline self destroyed the world?
'I don't know that either.'
He had no memories of the first timeline, so there was no way to know.
Honestly, it was hard enough to believe he was the one who destroyed the world; how could he possibly know the reason why?
In any case.
"Yeah. Back then... I couldn't protect her."
He decided to play along for now.
[I knew it.]
Vega looked down at Oh-jin with a pitiful expression, then gently tapped his forehead.
[Cheer up. You saved her this time, did you not? With your own power, you have already changed the first page of fate!]
"Pfft! Yeah, I guess so."
Of course, he wasn't a regressor.
He didn't have any memories of the first timeline.
But even so, he could change fate.
[Ahem! Still, do not forget! Ha-eun is, and always will be, nothing more than your 'sister'!]
Why was she emphasizing the word "sister" so much?
[Anyway! Now that Ha-eun's curse is broken, what is your next plan?]
Vega hurriedly changed the subject.
'The next plan.'
He did have one thing in mind.
"Vega. Can you do me a favor?"
He absolutely needed her help for this plan.
Poise.
Sitting on his palm with her legs crossed, Vega straightened her back and replied.
[If it is something I can do, I shall grant you anything!]
He nodded and gently cupped his hands around her.
"A few hours a day isn't enough."
[Hmm?]
"Twenty-four hours a day—I want to be with you all the time, Vega."
[Wh-What?!]
The goddess's cheeks flushed bright red.