37. Soul Orb (4)
Eltman, taking Kkotseorin into consideration, prepared a special reception room for her.
No sunlight could leak in, and a spatial barrier had been set up, so there was no danger of her curse spilling out.
After having her guards and closest attendants wait in the room next door, she entered the reception room with Baek Yuseol.
It was not very large, but it was a cozy, warmly lit space.
With Baek Yuseol seated directly across from her, Kkotseorin wondered what words she ought to say first.
No matter what, an ordinary human boy would never be the one to speak first with the Elf King right before him, so she thought she would have to take the lead.
And yet, perhaps that boy felt no pressure at all—
“Would you like coffee? Or green tea?”
Watching him fiddle with the little coffee pot as if someone like her did not matter in the slightest, seriously considering whether to add sugar to the coffee first and then an extra shot, or the reverse order, left her dumbfounded.
It was not that she felt bad.
She simply felt…… a little strange.
“I…… I’ll have green tea.”
“No can do. I already made two coffees.”
“……Then I’ll have coffee.”
“For the record, it’s iced coffee.”
Since the thing she hated most was cold coffee, she made a rather pained face, but she was not so cold-hearted that she could reject something that had already been prepared for her.
“Here.”
As Kkotseorin accepted the cold coffee and only toyed with the cup, Baek Yuseol let out a small laugh.
He knew that Kkotseorin disliked iced coffee.
But this, too, had been one of the best ways to attract her interest even in the original game.
Usually, in romance simulation games, you raise affection by giving the other person something they like.
But Aither World Online had been quite unusual: if you first did something opposite to the other person’s preference, and then followed it up with something better later, you could stack several times more affection.
Not that Baek Yuseol had any intention of building up Kkotseorin’s affection in order to romance her, but either way, he thought it was the best way to open her heart and get her talking.
While secretly glancing at Baek Yuseol as he sipped his iced coffee, Kkotseorin noticed that a strangely familiar scent was coming from him.
The presence of the spirit Iphanel?
Of course, that was there too.
But more important than that…….
“……The scent of the same curse as mine is coming from you.”
“Yes. That would be right.”
That was correct.
The hellish ‘scent of curse’ that had forced Kkotseorin to live her whole life hiding in the deepest shadows…… was coming from Baek Yuseol as well.
But that was strange.
Baek Yuseol went around openly showing himself to the world, and yet people were not falling fatally lovesick over him and dying, were they?
“Have you…… overcome that curse?”
Receiving that question, Baek Yuseol was convinced his guess had been right.
‘Looks like she doesn’t even know she’s been blessed by Crimson Spring March herself.’
There hadn’t been many records related to Kkotseorin even in the Bulbul Glasses.
So he had done a good deal of deduction on his own, and one of his conclusions had been that Kkotseorin herself had no memory of Crimson Spring March.
“Well, I suppose you could say I overcame it…….”
“……Really? Then how? Please, teach me too!”
Her hands trembling as she clasped them together and begged so carefully, she looked terribly desperate and pitiful—
but the truth was, Baek Yuseol had not exactly overcome the curse by himself either.
In the first place, when Kkotseorin had received the blessing, Crimson Spring March had been far too powerful to control it properly.
And so Kkotseorin had been granted power in excessive abundance, leaving her with a charm ability so strong that it became a curse.
But when Baek Yuseol received his blessing, Crimson Spring March was already weakened almost to the limit, so he had received almost none of its bewitching power.
All he had gained was a stronger mind and, in part, the ability to perceive the psychology of others.
“Well, there is a way.”
“……Really?”
To tell the truth, he didn’t know very well.
All he knew was that it should be possible to offset the curse by using Crimson Spring March’s protection.
Even the Bulbul Glasses only recorded it in a vague, ambiguous way, so he had no idea what exact method was supposed to be used.
Apparently the original game had skipped over most of the scenes where the curse was resolved.
Even so, the reason he was willing to bluff was that he was sure of one thing.
If he used the protection of Crimson Spring March that he currently possessed in the right way, he could somehow get rid of the curse.
Kkotseorin had been almost an extra in the original game, but she was a character close to complete goodness, and her stats were too remarkable to waste by leaving her like this.
There was no guarantee that, as in the original game, Flame would be the one to save her, so he had no choice but to step in and solve things himself somehow.
A mere ordinary student did not often get the chance to meet the Elf King in private.
So, having barely managed to seize this opportunity, he had to push the pace aggressively while he could.
“If it isn’t too rude, could you…… remove that mask for me?”
“Th-that…….”
Kkotseorin hesitated, but both of them already knew.
That her curse had no effect on Baek Yuseol at all.
Remembering the time she had faced him bare-faced before, Kkotseorin slowly touched the area around her face.
First the veil, then the magically protected mask, and then even the additional mask beneath.
As she took off the multiple thick layers—thick enough that one might wonder how she managed in midsummer—the first thing to fall loose was a cascade of pure white hair, like snow-blossoms from the Icebound Mountain Range, spilling along her neck.
Hair so white it almost looked like spilt milk.
Her golden eyes, resembling the North Star, seemed to shine with their own radiance, and simply gazing at them made one feel as though they might be drawn in.
A beauty that went too far beyond what an intelligent being could reasonably bear.
And yet a face that, because of the curse called [Body that Draws in Love], had been forced to hide itself away behind the world.
Baek Yuseol faced that beauty and stayed completely still, as though his breath had stopped.
“……Ah, so after all, the curse still…….”
Seeing him like that, Kkotseorin assumed it was impossible to escape the effect of the curse, and hurriedly reached for her mask again, but he raised a hand and stopped her.
“No, the curse seems fine.”
“……Really?”
Even the cautious way she asked was beautiful.
“Yes. Really.”
There was almost no effect from the curse.
The problem was that curse or no curse, her face had a pull like a black hole.
No wonder that in the original game, with [Body that Draws in Love] on top of that face, it had been categorized as an S-rank broken trait capable of mass slaughter.
All she had to do was stand around openly with that face exposed, and people would start dying one after another from lovesickness.
And even more terrifying was the fact that she was still in her ‘androgynous stage.’
An elf in the androgynous stage did not yet display strongly pronounced gendered traits in the shoulders, chest, waist, hips, and so forth.
And if she already looked like this in a state where almost no sexual appeal had developed yet, then if later on she followed the original game and fell head over heels for Flame and turned into a man……
that was frankly a little frightening.
There was a chance even perfectly ordinary men might end up falling for a man.
“It’s just as I thought.”
At Baek Yuseol’s sudden statement, Kkotseorin’s eyes widened, and he adopted a serious expression as though he had predicted everything all along.
“Some time ago, I entered the divine beast realm and met one of the Twelve Divine Moons, Crimson Spring March. And I received that being’s protection directly.”
“Ah…… I see…….”
“And yet Your Majesty carries the aura of the very same protection that I do. Which means…… that you, too, have already received Crimson Spring March’s protection.”
“……What?”
Seeing Kkotseorin’s completely unexpected reaction pained him.
The solution to her curse might have been much closer than she had ever imagined.
“The method is simple. Either Crimson Spring March retrieves the protection that Your Majesty received…… or, if that is impossible, shares it to me, who have already received that protection.”
“……I see. Because you have already discovered how to overcome this curse.”
That wasn’t it, actually.
But he quietly interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them as if that were exactly right.
Because it made him look impressive.
“……Mm.”
Kkotseorin’s fingertips trembled slightly, and her gaze wavered visibly.
That was the look of someone who had found hope.
He couldn’t hear it in this room, but her heart was probably pounding hard in her chest by now.
If what the boy before her was saying was true……
then at last she could show her face proudly and go out into the world.
She would no longer have to endure those stifling nights when all she could do was wander forest paths at dawn in secret to relieve the suffocation inside her.
She could stroll boldly through the middle of a city, speak freely with others, exchange sincerity through their eyes, and be openly loved by all.
That meant she could live as one ordinary person.
“I want…… to dispel this curse as soon as possible.”
“I think so too. If you want, we can even go right now.”
“No. That won’t do.”
“……What?”
Baek Yuseol had not expected to be refused there, and was left a little taken aback.
“That would only satisfy my own personal desire too much. I did not come here for that reason alone. I wanted to apologize properly for the wrong I did to you…… and, if time allowed, I wanted to speak of an old dear friend of mine.”
“Ah.”
Right.
She had not arranged this meeting simply to ask about the curse out of nowhere.
In that sense, she really was remarkable.
Even though she could now potentially dispel the hellish curse she had likely suffered under for centuries, she still meant to keep the order of things properly, to the point that it almost looked like a kind of compulsion.
If it had been Baek Yuseol, he might well have thrown everything else aside and run straight off to dispel the curse first.
Kkotseorin looked at the clock on the wall, then smiled softly.
There was no need to rush.
After all…… right before her sat living proof that someone could suffer under the same curse and yet overcome it.
With the boy who held the method to escape this curse right in front of her, why should she hurry?
Surely if she rushed now, she would later regret not treasuring this time.
So for now, she decided, she would relax and slowly enjoy tea time with him.
……She still disliked iced coffee.
But somehow, she felt that if she were drinking it with Baek Yuseol, she might be able to appreciate the taste well enough.
The room immediately beside the reception room served as a kind of waiting room, a place for subordinates to remain while their masters spoke.
Likewise, while Kkotseorin stayed in the reception room, the finest magic knights tasked with guarding her were supposed to wait in that room and keep strict watch on the surroundings.
But Kkotseorin had sent them all away.
Since she would be removing her mask inside, there was a chance the curse might leak outside and affect them.
For that reason, the waiting room should have been completely empty.
And yet—
there was one person still there.
Oranha remained, waiting for Kkotseorin.
Tap, tap.
Tapping his thigh with his fingers, he counted the passing time.
Quite a while had gone by, yet the two inside showed no sign of coming out.
He found it deeply frustrating and made him jealous, but he endured it.
There was no way such an absurd situation would occur—His Majesty the Elf King suddenly falling for some teenage human boy.
Her Majesty had commanded him.
‘Return.’
But he had not listened.
There was no charm in a man who truly turned back just because a woman told him to go.
Having gone through several relationships as camouflage up to this point, Oranha prided himself on knowing quite a lot about romance as well.
Once Kkotseorin came out after finishing her private talk with Baek Yuseol, he would offer a proper apology, then brief her on how he intended to handle her schedule going forward.
He would prove his competence once more, and lead her to trust him and entrust things to him again.
After all, because of that ‘curse,’ Kkotseorin was not someone who could comfortably move about in public on her own.
‘Your Majesty. Without me…… you can do nothing, can you?’
No matter what mistake he made, in the end, she had no choice but to entrust everything to him.
That was the destiny that had already been set.
Thinking that, Oranha endured that time of patience with iron resolve.
And at last, when evening came and the sun had fully gone down—
Click!
The door opened, and the two of them walked out.
“Your Majesty!”
Oranha rose with a bright face to greet his queen.
And then—
still half-risen, his body froze stiff.
‘Huh?’
His queen…… had removed her mask.
That beautiful face—familiar from dreams, yet longed for—smiled brightly at the boy beside her, only to harden when she saw him.
‘Why?’
It was a truly strange thing.
Even with Kkotseorin’s face before his eyes, another question had begun to crawl through his mind instead.
‘Why did Her Majesty show her bare face to some mere human, when she would not show it even to me?’
By the time jealousy had filled his entire mind, he found himself staggering toward her without realizing it.
“Your Majesty, why…….”
Why did you give that kind of human all of what you would not show me—your beautiful face, your smile, your affectionate eyes?
Carrying all of those unspoken questions, he reached out his hand—
“……Do not come any closer.”
Kkotseorin stepped back with a wary expression and said those words.
“Ah…….”
That instant of shock made Oranha stop in place.
And then—
Thud!
The world tilted, and he collapsed to the floor.
His vision darkened.
He could no longer…….
think at all.
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