44. Let There Be Light
Oh Hyeon-seong was dead serious about recovering his body.
Shaking off the lingering aftereffects and regaining his full strength wasn't something he had any reason to refuse in the first place — but the real reason he took it so earnestly was to bring back every single spirit he had lost.
It was why he had thrown himself so fiercely into rehabilitation, and why he never skipped a single meal, no matter what.
After all, he had seen it with his own eyes — the moment his body recovered, Alvern had returned to him.
So when a brilliant white light burst forth inside the room, his first thought was that perhaps another old spirit had come back.
But what appeared before him now was a child he had never seen before in his life.
"You're... who, exactly?"
A little girl hiding behind the door frame. Her shoulders were hunched up tight, and she blinked her enormous eyes.
Her expression looked anxious, and yet she couldn't seem to tear her gaze away from Oh Hyeon-seong.
He was every bit as flustered as she was, and so a strange standoff stretched on between them.
What is this?
Judging by the aura she gave off, she was definitely a spirit.
But she was a spirit he had never laid eyes on before — not once.
For one thing, this was the first time he'd ever seen one manifest in such a complete human form.
Alvern's true form was humanoid as well, but when materialized, the spirit took on the shape of an otter. The child before him now, on the other hand, would pass for an ordinary human girl to anyone who didn't know better.
Being able to manifest like that means she's no low-tier spirit... but her presence doesn't feel like anything above that level, either.
Oh Hyeon-seong stared at her intently.
And true to her spirit nature, the girl was strikingly exotic-looking, with a head of pure white hair.
"...Risa."
"What?"
"Alisa."
Oh Hyeon-seong's mouth fell open.
She was speaking human language.
It wasn't strictly impossible — but unless a spirit possessed rank of considerable standing, it couldn't wield human speech at all, and even among those who could, the higher spirits were too proud to use anything but the spirit tongue.
"Can you tell me where you came from? I never summoned you. How did you even know to come here?"
"..."
Head bowed low, she said nothing more.
Whether she was being quiet or simply timid, an answer didn't seem likely to come easily.
But in a situation like this, there was a simple way to find out.
Oh Hyeon-seong walked over to her, crouched down, and held out his hand.
Alisa stared at him for a moment, then grabbed it without hesitation.
Fwoooosh!
The moment their contract was sealed, their souls linked together.
Fwaaash!
The moment Alisa pressed her hands together, brilliant white light poured out of them.
Light that lit up every corner of the room — bright, and yet warm.
The instant she drew her hands back, the light snuffed out as quickly as it had come.
This had been something Oh Hyeon-seong had asked her to try.
The light attribute... so this is my fifth attribute?
Compared to the other elements, light was an attribute with remarkably few bearers.
It couldn't hold a candle to his 'Life' attribute, of course, but it was rare enough to rank among the top five scarcest in existence.
Granted the right innate constitution, someone could be scouted and treated lavishly on the strength of their affinity to that attribute alone.
But this doesn't seem like ordinary light at all.
The light attribute he knew carried a sharp, piercing, blazing image.
The light Alisa wielded was different — soft, and touched with warmth.
What's more, she drew exclusively on the mana of his sixth core, that mana of such unusual purity.
When she tried to channel mana from any of his other cores, she couldn't cast spirit arts at all.
That was something he'd almost never seen in his other spirits, who freely shared and drew upon the mana of every core.
Kyuu!
Alvern and the other spirits beside them all gazed at the newcomer with wonder.
Alvern in particular wore a look that seemed, oddly enough, guarded where Alisa was concerned.
By nature, Alvern was prickly with everyone but Oh Hyeon-seong — though it at least knew enough to recognize when someone was a stranger to it.
"All right, time to eat. You too — come sit with us."
It happened to be mealtime, so he set the table and seated Alisa beside him.
Since it was their first meal with the newest member of the household, he'd put real care into it, laying out dishes he knew the spirits loved.
But the girl just sat there, staring blankly, without touching a single bite.
"What's wrong? You're not going to eat?"
Alisa shook her head side to side.
Alvern, still in its otter form, was busy crunching its way through a potato — and this girl was turning out to be even pickier than that.
Granted, as a spirit she might simply be unaccustomed to the act of eating, but he'd assumed that with a smell this delicious, she'd dig in soon enough.
Hmm... maybe it's the menu she doesn't like? She might have a kid's palate, judging by how young she looks.
Alisa's outward appearance was right at the age when children get fussy about food.
He nodded to himself and sprang up from his seat.
Then he grabbed his fishing rod and headed straight for the reservoir.
The plan was to catch fish and cook them for her.
Nothing bonds you with someone faster than a good meal.
Normally, after forming a first contract with a spirit, you needed time to grow close to it.
Alvern clung to him now with single-minded devotion, but back when they'd first made their contract, it had been nothing but a source of headaches.
There had even been a time when, thinking they were finally getting along, he'd tried to pat its head — and frozen his hand solid.
It's been years since I brought a new spirit into the fold. I can at least put in this much effort.
He didn't know if she'd even like fish, but it was worth a try.
Meat would have been the sure bet for a child's palate, but there was nowhere to get any.
Factory-produced synthetic meat wasn't something a spirit would ever touch.
Then again, you really didn't have to follow me out here.
Alisa had been trailing at his heels this whole time.
Every other spirit had stayed home, yet here she was, still following him wordlessly.
Well — at least she doesn't hate me, he thought, walking on toward the back mountain.
And as he made his way along the mountain path toward the reservoir, a rustling sound reached his ears.
"Shh."
Oh Hyeon-seong turned around and raised a finger to his lips.
Alisa froze mid-step with a start, then gave a stiff nod.
Something's up ahead.
A presence, close enough to be felt distinctly.
It was no human, that much was certain, and he moved toward it.
What emerged between the trees was an enormous wild boar.
Grunt!
A boar? Huh. Didn't think I'd actually run into one.
There had been a time when he'd gone around asking the village elders about the back mountain reservoir.
But while the elders had been happy to tell him about the water, every single one of them had urged him to stay away from the area itself.
The biggest reason, of course, was that it lay inside a Restricted Area thick with miasma — but there had been another: it was known territory for wild animals.
They really did have their reasons for warning me off. An ordinary person running into that thing would've been in real danger.
Wild animals exposed to miasma over long periods grew more aggressive.
They rarely came down into the village anymore, but they'd been known to attack anyone who crossed their path by chance, making them a recurring problem.
If something strayed into their territory, they would chase it relentlessly to the very end and maul it — even if it meant no harm.
Of course, the actual danger was nothing next to a monster.
But to civilians without awakened power, these beasts could still pose a genuine threat to life.
Where once insects and snakes had been the biggest problem, nowadays the large mammals had taken their place as the greater menace.
Even the famously timid water deer had gone half-feral, attacking people on sight.
Most people living in cities, blissfully ignorant of all this, would gape in shock every year when the statistics on wildlife-related deaths were published.
Still — when did it get that big?
Wild animals exposed to miasma for extended periods did tend to grow in size.
Even so, allowing for that, it must have been a monster of a boar to begin with — it looked like a compact car parked upright on four legs.
Alisa, apparently finding the sight fascinating, was staring at it with her mouth hanging open.
Skreee!
"Yikes — it spotted us."
The boar swung its head toward them and let out a terrible shriek.
Then, with terrifying momentum, it began charging straight at them.
Alisa, startled out of her wits, clung tightly to the back of his leg.
Had an ordinary person been struck by that oncoming bulk, they would have gone down feeling the impact of a head-on car crash.
But Oh Hyeon-seong didn't dodge. He simply clenched his fist, light as anything.
"Should've learned to be scared of people."
CRACK!
Oh Hyeon-seong's knuckles landed squarely between the boar's eyes.
The beast staggered to a halt, its eyes rolling back white, and then toppled over sideways with a bone-shaking thud.
One flick to the forehead, and it had departed this world.
Alisa picked up a tree branch and poked at it a few times, but it didn't so much as twitch.
"Hmm... it seemed dangerous, so I subdued it. Now what do I do with it?"
He stood over the massive boar's carcass, pondering for a while.
The thought of simply leaving it there and walking on did cross his mind, but he soon shook his head.
Come to think of it, maybe this is an opportunity.
A boar was a pig.
It sounded obvious enough to be laughable, but that enormous body was, in essence, a massive slab of pork.
It's been ages since I've had real meat. Might as well give it a shot.
Ever since he'd started farming with his spirits, he'd been living a life of meals that satisfied him down to his soul.
But a field couldn't provide everything.
The fish from the reservoir had filled the gap to some extent, but no matter how good they were, they couldn't take the place of land-dwelling meat.
"Fishing's cancelled, then."
Oh Hyeon-seong hoisted the boar up onto his shoulder.
It was far bigger than he was, but it didn't feel the least bit heavy.
Even better, since he'd subdued it without leaving a wound, there was no blood dripping everywhere — carrying it home was simple.
Back at the house, he laid the carcass down in the yard.
"Don't go touching it, any of you."
The spirits came swarming over with a chorus of excited cries.
They all gazed at it as though it were some great marvel.
Meanwhile, Oh Hyeon-seong fetched a knife from the storage shed, drained the boar of its blood, and began to butcher it.
"It's been quite a while since I've done this, too."
Thwack!
He started at the ankle, working the blade in, then slit the hide along its length and peeled it off in one smooth strip.
He'd never made his living at this kind of work, but there had been plenty of occasions in the field when he'd had to procure his own food on-site.
Thanks to that, butchering a wild animal was something he could do with his eyes closed.
Remove the organs, strip the bones away, and methodically break the carcass down cut by cut.
He had once considered raising livestock — pigs or cattle — for meat, back in the day.
The problem had been that the idea of slaughtering and eating an animal he'd raised himself didn't sit right with him.
He felt no discomfort whatsoever eating meat butchered out of sight somewhere far away — but human nature was a funny thing.
Especially when the animals in question would have been scampering and playing alongside his spirits the whole time they were being raised — turning them into dinner felt like a step too far.
Chuk!
"Whew. Done."
Oh Hyeon-seong drove the knife in one last time and straightened his back.
Several cooler boxes sat filled to the brim with meat, and he tidied up after the butchering without a trace left behind.
Then he brought out the grill and set to roasting the meat.
"What do you think? Smells good, right?"
Alisa, watching from nearby, shook her head slowly side to side.
The other spirits seemed to feel the same way, keeping their distance from a respectful range — which stung a little.
Oh Hyeon-seong paid it no mind, picked up a finished piece with his chopsticks, and went for the long-awaited taste test.
"Ptui! PTUI! Aaagh...!"
Oh Hyeon-seong shot up from his seat, hopping and gagging.
A nightmarish, abominable flavor ran roughshod over his tongue and left.
No — even now, at this very moment, the aftermath still lingered.
I expected as much... but I didn't think it'd be THIS bad.
His stomach churned violently.
That horrific taste, that texture.
Above all, the overpowering stench that burst out with every chew was enough to drive a man insane.
Back on operations, I could choke this stuff down just fine. Now I can't stomach a single bite.
It was the moment he understood, down to his bones, why the wealthy threw fistfuls of money at premium synthetic meat.
Meat from a miasma-exposed wild animal was, quite simply, garbage.
"...What am I supposed to do with all this?"
He looked at the mountains of meat piled high in the cooler boxes.
As it stood, this stuff was flatly inedible.
Honestly, he'd known it would taste bad.
From the very start, he'd brought this meat back fully intending to treat it — to purge it with the power of his spirits.
Should I try burying it for a few days after all?
He didn't imagine a pork tree would sprout from the ground or anything.
The idea was that if the meat sat for a while inside the clean soil tended by the earth spirits, some of the miasma might leach out of it.
He'd brainstormed any number of experiments, but this one looked the most promising of the lot.
Fwaaash!
But at that very moment —
A brilliant white light burst forth behind him.
It was Alisa, standing wordlessly in front of the cooler boxes, the warm and crystal-clear light of a brand-new Spirit of Light streaming from her small frame.