“Uh. But who are you? I don’t think I saw you at OT.”
But then, the club president suddenly stopped what he was saying and pointed at me.
“I’m Kim Hajin. I couldn’t attend OT due to personal circumstances.”
“Ah~ That’s fine. We didn’t do much during OT anyway. For now, today…”
I let his words go in one ear and out the other as I looked for Chae Nayun. I found her quickly, but for a moment, I was startled.
Chae Nayun was also looking at me. With suspicious eyes, staring very intently.
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Different Dreams (2)
I climbed the mountain. Then, among the countless trees at the summit, I climbed one. It was an especially massive red pine. Standing at its top, I looked down in every direction. The horizon of my vision widened without limit, and I could see everything. Even obstacles like solemnly rising pine trees and the rustling leaves pressed against one another were easily pierced through by my Thousand-Mile Eyes.
I saw everything. An unknown male cadet chasing after a beast boar, a second-year couple hiding and dating instead of doing the hunting they were supposed to, Chae Nayun shooting arrows with practiced movements, and even Sven throwing pebbles by the stream.
Chae Nayun and Sven had separated because they were having a hunting wager. Because of that, Chae Nayun was absorbed in hunting, but Sven wasn’t. He was quietly staring into the stream. It was by no means an act for the sake of hunting.
Then something strange happened. Suddenly, a beast appeared on the other side of the stream. It was an utterly common wildcat. Sven did not look at it. Instead, a tentacle rose from behind his back. The tentacle shot out like a spear and pierced the wildcat’s neck. The wildcat was dragged over to Sven’s side, skewered on it.
Without a doubt, it was Asmodeus’s power.
The hunt continued like that for an hour. Chae Nayun went around personally searching for beasts, while Sven dealt with any beast that entered within a 300-meter radius without lifting a finger.
Before long, as though the promised time had come, the two gathered by the stream.
—Six in total. Three boars, one wildcat, and two rabbits.
Chae Nayun said proudly.
—As you can see, I have eight.
Sven smiled, pointing to the beasts lined up beside him. For an instant, Chae Nayun’s mouth dropped open.
—Ah, seriously?
Chae Nayun approached Sven’s side and checked whether it was true.
—Ah, it’s true. Wow~ Does this even make sense? How did you find eight of them?
Ruffling her own hair, Chae Nayun sat down beside Sven.
—Where did you get these? How much did you pay for them?
Then she tapped his arm and joked around.
Sure enough. Looking at it like this, Chae Nayun really is giving him room for misunderstanding. She’s probably doing it without thinking anything of it, though.
—Then you have to grant my wish, right?
—…Tsk. Fine. What is it?
It was a wager with a wish on the line, no less.
I was starting to understand why Sven went berserk, and how it all happened.
—Um….
—What.
—……
Sven peered into Chae Nayun’s face. But soon, he gave a faint laugh and shook his head.
—Never mind. It’s nothing.
—What is it? Say it.
I took a handgun out of my subspace. The distance was roughly 1 km. But sniping was still more than possible. Whiiish— Aether clung to the handgun, enhancing its performance.
—It’s just….
If he confessed and got rejected, it would be understandable. At the beginning of the semester, Sven had fallen for Chae Nayun at first sight when he met her. On top of that, the Asmodeus Sven had contracted with was a so-called “Demon of Lust.” For a Djinn whose emotions were amplified and desires swollen, patience was a tale from a faraway land.
—I like you.
—……Huh?
At the sudden confession, Chae Nayun’s entire face crumpled.
—What are you talking about all of a sudden?
—…You don’t like me?
—Of course I don’t. We started talking, what was it, on Tuesday, so it’s only been two days. Would you like it if you were me? No. If it were you, I guess you would. But I don’t.
Chae Nayun stood up coldly. Sven lowered his head deeply. He had merely been rejected, but Sven’s body began to change little by little. Black magic power bloomed here and there across his body.
I aimed the muzzle at his head.
—And I like men who are stronger than me.
—……Than you?
—Yeah. You’re way weaker than me. If that’s the case, I don’t see you as a man.
With those words just now, the switch had been flipped. Sven’s eyes burned blood-red.
He had endured well until now, but in the end, Sven was nothing more than an extra. This was the limit of an extra.
—……Is that so?
Sven stood up. Without even looking back, Chae Nayun spoke.
—Yeah. So don’t contact me from now on. I’m sorry too, but it’s better to cut things off cleanly than to give you half-baked false hope, isn’t it?
Sven leaned toward Chae Nayun. At the same time, I fired the gun. My target point was the crown of Sven’s head. However, the impact landed a little lower, at his shoulder blade. The distance was fairly far, and Sven had moved.
Sven had probably tried to pounce on Chae Nayun, but at that moment, the bullet lodged in his body and made him lose his balance, so it ended up as nothing more than a body slam.
—Ugh!
Chae Nayun was struck by Sven and flung forward. However, with an agile breakfall, she stood up without suffering the impact and swiftly turned around.
Sven was there, half his body already mutated.
—You, you!
—……
Sven glared with red eyes and extended his tentacles toward Chae Nayun.
I fired repeatedly. One, two, three, four… I emptied an entire magazine. Though Chae Nayun was bewildered by the mysterious support, she did what she had to do.
She quickly retreated, widened the distance, and fired an arrow. The arrow pierced Sven’s shoulder and multiplied inside his body. Arrows sprouted from his body like thorns, but Sven instead charged forward in a great burst and seized Chae Nayun’s head.
—I’m stronger!
Shouting loudly, he slammed his entire body down to the ground.
—Than you.
Boom!
Sven crushed Chae Nayun beneath him. Chae Nayun struggled and condensed magic power in her hand. In her grasp, magic power compressed into the shape of a dagger. However, Sven grabbed that wrist.
“…Tsk.”
At this rate, I couldn’t support her either. Magic power aura was already spread across his back. Ordinary bullets couldn’t pierce that aura, but firing a light bullet was impossible too. They were too tightly pressed together, so Chae Nayun would inevitably be caught up in it as well.
Left with no choice, I crossed from tree to tree. The handgun in my grip changed to shotgun mode. I had to get in close, to point-blank range, and blow apart Sven’s head, where the magic power aura was weak—in other words, the part that had not yet fully become a Djinn.
The 1 km distance closed in no time.
I landed softly and approached the place where Sven and Chae Nayun were piled on top of each other.
“Mmph, mmph!”
Sven was not killing Chae Nayun. As I said, Asmodeus was a Demon of Lust. What Sven, who had contracted with him, was trying to do was obvious.
I placed the muzzle against the side of Sven’s head as he licked Chae Nayun’s face. At the coldness of steel, Sven flinched. His eyes rolled toward me.
I pulled the trigger immediately. The buckshot blasted from right in front of him tore through Sven’s head. Sven screamed and was sent flying away.
“Kek, kek.”
“Fortunately, you’re alive.”
I looked down at Chae Nayun. Her face was wet with saliva, and wounds remained all over her body, but she was still alive.
This aspect—trying to do something pointlessly unnecessary, failing to kill, and then dying—is indeed a unique trait of Djinns of lust.
“Get up….”
Just as I reached out a hand to Chae Nayun, a tentacle flew in from afar.
Aether instantly took the shape of a shield and blocked the first attack. However, Sven rode that tentacle and rushed at me. He lightly knocked away the Aether shield and seized my neck.
“Ugh!”
It was a pain I couldn’t even begin to describe. The pressure crushing my neck cut off my oxygen. I couldn’t breathe, and no words came out. All I could do was flail….
…My vision turned hazy. Strength left my arms and legs. My entire body only felt numb. My life did not flash before my eyes.
The thoughts that tried to continue were cut off one by one, and my pulse slowly came to a stop.
I closed my eyes. The sensation of death was unfamiliar.
—Let go! You bastard!
For an instant, a thunderous shout awakened my fading consciousness.
Chae Nayun was leaping up behind Sven.
With both hands, she swung an unbelievably long sword. The longsword cleanly sliced from Sven’s shoulder blade down to his pelvis.
“……Puaaak.”
Sven collapsed in two pieces, and I, sprawled on the ground, inhaled air with all my strength.
Never before had oxygen felt so desperately necessary.
Haa. Haa. Haa.
After taking three huge breaths in total, I leaned my body against the base of a tree.
“Whew. Wow. Whew. …That’s insane. What is that? A lightsaber?”
Then, pretending to be relaxed, I pointed at the longsword in Chae Nayun’s hand.
Chae Nayun had woven a blade using only pure magic power. The harmony between the seething, burning blade and the quietly settled hilt was perfect. I knew just how difficult that was. Even Kim Suho probably couldn’t do it. That was why this was part of the “true talent” Chae Nayun possessed.
“……I don’t know.”
The magic sword wavering in Chae Nayun’s grasp soon disappeared. Chae Nayun and I silently looked at each other.
But the more I looked, the worse Chae Nayun’s condition seemed. Blood flowed freely from her wounds, and her clothes were torn mercilessly, revealing her underwear. I took off my coat and held it out to her. However, Chae Nayun merely stared at it and made no move to take it.
“Take it.”
“……Are you okay?”
Instead of taking the coat I told her to take, she asked something strange.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a relief.”
“……I’m the one who wants to ask if you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
Thud.
As soon as Chae Nayun answered like that, she collapsed.
“……”
Well. After using that much magic power, there was no way there wouldn’t be side effects.
I turned the fallen Chae Nayun over properly and covered her with my coat. Then I looked at the spot where Sven had been standing just moments ago.
Without a sound, without a trace, Sven had disintegrated. This was the death of a Djinn. Because a human had contracted with a devil at the cost of their own soul, even the traces of their death belonged to the devil.
Shaaaaa—
The forest cried bleakly.
Tomorrow, perhaps, tragic news would be delivered to Germany.
* * *
Sssssss—
At the sound of leaves swaying in the wind, and the chilling cold brushing against her cheek, Chae Nayun opened her eyes. The entire world was pitch-black. But before she could question the situation, pain surged into her temples like a tsunami. Chae Nayun clutched her head. The agony, as though shards of glass were stirring inside her skull, tormented her for a long time before disappearing.
“……Haa.”
After the pain subsided, Chae Nayun caught her breath while lying on the ground.
Only then did she have the leisure to reflect on the situation.
“Was I dreaming?”
Everything she thought she had experienced felt so distant that Chae Nayun suddenly had that thought. However, the wounds still remaining on her body and the coat covering her told her that this was reality.
“…Ah. Right.”
Chae Nayun hurriedly tried to raise herself.
But at that moment, she discovered the silhouette of a person right in front of her and was startled out of her wits.
“Ah! Ah, you scared the shit out of me!”
“Yeah. You’re awake.”
It was Kim Hajin. Sitting with his back against the base of a tree, he was looking at his smartwatch. It was Kim Hajin again. For some reason, whenever something happened, that man was always nearby.
…Though thanks to him, she had overcome life-and-death crises three times now.
“What time is it?”
“10 p.m.”
“Ah. What the hell. It’s almost curfew.”
Chae Nayun hurriedly tried to stand up. But there was no strength in her legs. Wondering what was going on, she tried moving again. However, both her legs would not move. Even when she tried to put strength into them, no strength entered.
In that instant, an extreme sense of foreboding surged up and made her heart tremble.
“W-What is this. M-m-m-my legs, what’s wrong with my legs. M-m-my, my……”
“Magic power exhaustion. Is this your first time?”
“……Huh? Magic power exhaustion?”
Magic power exhaustion. She knew about it. Its dictionary definition was “the state in which all magic power within the body has been depleted.”
If one used up all the magic power in their body, the speed at which magic power recovered afterward would drop significantly, making it impossible to recover magic power for several days. She had probably heard that she wouldn’t even be able to move around for two days.
“Yeah.”
Kim Hajin answered shortly and walked over to her. Then he turned his back and bent his knees.
At that incomprehensible action, Chae Nayun narrowed her brow.
“What are you doing?”
“Get on. You can’t move.”
“Have I lost my mind?”
“……Then would you care to stay here for the rest of your life?”
Kim Hajin’s gaze, looking at her as if she were pathetic, was humiliation itself.
But there was nothing she could do. Right now, she would be in trouble without his help.
Chae Nayun slung the arm that still had some strength left around his neck and clung to him.
“We’re going down.”
“……Fine.”
Kim Hajin slowly began descending the mountain.
Chae Nayun stared at the distant mountains and thought. Sven was a Djinn. Then had Sven been the culprit behind the disappearances? No, she had heard that Djinn were made after birth. Then when had Sven become a Djinn? And where did this Kim Hajin keep appearing from? Don’t tell me he’d been following only me this whole time?
‘This bastard…… does he actually like me?’
……It seemed Chae Nayun still needed a great deal of time to understand everything that had happened today.
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Exam Period (1)
10:55 p.m. We arrived safely at Gangwon Province’s Portal Customs Office. Fortunately, there weren’t many people. I set Chae Nayun down on a nearby bench. Chae Nayun glanced at her smartwatch and muttered.
“I’m cutting it close for curfew.”
For a moment, I was dumbfounded. In her condition, going back to Cube was out of the question. I stared at her in disbelief, then said,
“Call your father.”
“Why?”
“You know best. Go get treated at a hospital first, then come back.”
Leaving Chae Nayun on the bench, I turned toward the passage connected to Cube.
“I’m going.”
“What? Where?”
“Cube. Return my coat later.”
“Take me with you! Hey, agh!”
Chae Nayun tried to stand, then toppled forward. Seeing her sprawled out so miserably, I couldn’t help but sigh.
“……I told you to call someone and go to the hospital first.”
Chae Nayun clamped her mouth shut and glared at me. Her chin and lips trembled. That was how much she didn’t want to call her father.
I understood. Chae Nayun’s father was, after all, the chairman of a chaebol. In other words, he was an important man with more than enough to do. Of course, no matter how busy he was, if he heard his daughter was hurt, he would drop everything and come running, but Chae Nayun didn’t want that in itself.
“Then a secretary or, I don’t know, someone like that should exist.”
“……Fine. Go.”
Chae Nayun answered curtly.
“Yeah.”
I was about to walk over to the portal employee, then stopped.
Something suddenly occurred to me. Today, Chae Nayun had awakened her talent without even realizing it. The power of magic that had cut down a Djinn in a single blow. That was the talent Chae Nayun would have to develop from now on.
“You. Are you going to keep using a bow?”
“What? What kind of bullshit is this all of a sudden?”
“You felt it today too.”
Chae Nayun’s talent was specialized for all-out combat—no, for “war.”
As long as she had a conductor for magic power, she could amplify her magic to an absurd degree. For example, if a two-meter sword were combined with her talent, it would transform into an enormous weapon up to twenty meters long—something it would be embarrassing to even call a sword. Moreover, because magic power inherently had no weight, there was no restriction from mass.
In a way, it was similar to Sun Wukong’s Ruyi Jingu Bang. The difference was that Chae Nayun could display a similar majesty even without the help of a legendary weapon.
Imperial martial might that could slaughter hundreds of monsters with a single slash. Since it was a hegemonic power that even Djinn feared, the title “Overlord of the Battlefield” was one prepared solely for her.
“You should be able to handle a sword better than a bow.”
Just as in the original story, a massive longsword, such as a zweihander or claymore, suited her. And Chae Nayun had more than enough wealth to buy an expensive weapon.
“Bullshit. You’re acting like you know everything, huh? What the hell do you know about me?”
But the Chae Nayun of the present did not know that future. She even refused to accept it.
Chae Nayun’s fear of close combat had yet to disappear.
“……Forget it, then.”
I stepped beyond the portal.
A resentful gaze pierced into my back.
She was probably thinking, ‘Is he really leaving me here?’—but I really was just going to leave her.
* * *
The next day.
True to the saying that word of mouth is the fastest thing in the world, the events of last night spread in no time.
Chae Nayun had been attacked by a Djinn. The attacking Djinn was none other than a fellow cadet, Sven. Fortunately, Chae Nayun had won, but she was seriously wounded.