38. Heart-Stealing Constitution (4)
In order to resolve Kkotseorin’s curse, we first had to seek out Crimson Spring March of the Twelve Divine Moons.
To be honest, I didn’t really know whether this would truly become a fundamental solution. I had only ever met Crimson Spring March in person once, and when I received the blessing, I had been unconscious, so my memory of it was hazy.
When it came down to it, all I really knew was that the root of my power lay with Crimson Spring March. In terms of actual knowledge, I wasn’t all that different from Kkotseorin.
“…It’s been a long time since I came in here.”
The roots of the Celestial Spirit Tree, the divine beast domain.
This place, which Crimson Spring March had created for the divine beasts, was protected by the World Tree’s barrier, and unless one had the permission of both the High Elf elders and the Elf King, the gate would never open.
Last time had been a rather special case, so the Black Mages had been allowed to invade, but even so, this was one place you could probably dare to call the safest in the world.
“Your Majesty. Are you certain you truly don’t need us to accompany you?”
“Yes. It’s alright, so please rest.”
Only Kkotseorin and I were entering the divine beast domain. Once inside, they planned to remove the mask, and if their face were exposed to other mages, a rampage similar to Oranha’s could easily occur.
“Whew… Then, shall we go in?”
Watching Kkotseorin, who somehow looked tense, made my conscience sting a little.
If this failed, it was going to be unbelievably awkward…
Still, since we were talking about one of the Twelve Divine Moons, I figured there was no way they wouldn’t be capable of undoing a blessing they themselves had bestowed.
Fwoosh!
The barrier opened, and the moment we stepped through it, the environment changed instantly. The Cradle of the Celestial Spirit Tree, blessed by the World Tree, was filled with cool, refreshing breezes even in midsummer, but the inside was a little humid and warm.
Still, since I’d been born with a body that adapted quickly to its environment, it didn’t really feel like it would be difficult to endure.
“Let’s go.”
“…Yes.”
Kkotseorin seemed tense, but once I started walking in front, they quickly followed after me. To begin with, that standard fantasy trope about elves being good at climbing trees applied here too, so in terrain like this jungle, their stride would probably be even faster.
Of course, that would be a different story if I started using Blink, but even then, I had to calculate the distance and angle precisely every single time, which made my head hurt enough already. I didn’t particularly want to do that under normal circumstances too.
“From here on, you can take the mask off. There’s no one around anyway.”
“Would that really be alright…?”
They hesitated for a moment, but soon removed the mask. There weren’t any people here anyway, and the power of enchantment didn’t work on divine beasts at all.
“Haa…”
Even while casually removing the mask, they still protected the dress to the very end. A face was one thing, but they seemed deeply reluctant to expose the bare skin of their body.
Then again, after centuries of accumulated trauma, hiding their body away completely had probably become second nature. There was no way something like that would disappear all at once.
“Do you feel a little refreshed?”
“Yes… It feels wonderful.”
“That’s good.”
We walked on immediately.
Past the 1st stratum, toward the 14th stratum.
Crimson Spring March’s true body was located in the 15th stratum. But no one could enter that place. Unless it was another one of the Twelve Divine Moons on the same level.
That was why we planned to meet one of Crimson Spring March’s avatars in the 4th stratum.
Because I had encountered Crimson Spring March so easily in the 4th stratum last time, some people might get the wrong idea and think you could just wander around and eventually meet them somewhere…
But the 4th stratum alone was at minimum four times the size of Seoul.
The reason I deliberately added the word minimum was because the area expanded depending on Crimson Spring March’s mood. Normally, it maintained an area around six to seven times the size of Seoul, and occasionally, when they were in a good mood, it even exceeded ten times that.
That was exactly why, even though the magpie glasses had a map of the 4th stratum recorded in them, I had still asked Flame for help and borrowed the aid of the Windflower last time.
Because regardless of whether the size stretched or shrank like rubber, as long as you knew the direction precisely, you could find your way no matter what.
In any case, randomly meeting Crimson Spring March in a place like this was practically impossible…
And yet I advanced straight across the 4th stratum without hesitation.
Sometimes high-ranking divine beasts threatened us aggressively, but Kkotseorin drove most of them off.
Not by subduing them with magic, but by simply stroking their foreheads a few times as if playing with neighborhood puppies. The beasts would immediately brighten and trot away. Maybe it was because they were the Elf King, but their affinity really was on a different level.
Then again, since they were the king of all fairies, perhaps that was only natural.
We walked in silence for a long time. Originally, this was a place one had to pass through over the course of several sleepless nights, but perhaps because we pushed ourselves so hard, we managed to reach the 14th stratum by only the second night.
It was an entirely pink space.
The light pouring down from the sky, the plants growing on the ground, the earth, the rocks, the cliffs, even the river water—everything in this place was dyed pink. Someone might think it sounded quite romantic, but if you actually came here in person, you probably wouldn’t feel that way at all.
To be honest, I felt something closer to madness than romance.
As if being trapped in this pink space would drive you insane…
That kind of feeling.
“It’s beautiful.”
But perhaps Kkotseorin liked it perfectly, because the expression on their face—which had already been beautiful to begin with—grew even brighter.
Looking at it now, the atmosphere really did become romantic. To overturn the entire mood of a place with a single face alone…
Even I, who had been able to remain fairly indifferent to women before receiving Crimson Spring March’s blessing, nearly forgot how to breathe for a moment when I saw that smile.
Looking at them now, I had the feeling that even if the Heart-Stealing Constitution vanished, there would still be plenty of people who suffered from lovesickness anyway.
In this bright pink atmosphere, we now had to search for Crimson Spring March. The locations where they appeared at random were all recorded in the glasses, so even at the shortest estimate, we should be able to find them within three days.
But contrary to what I expected,
all the pink ahead of us suddenly split open to either side… and another space came into view before our eyes.
For a moment, I stood there blankly, staring at the mysterious phenomenon as though space itself were folding over and over, and then something appeared from within it.
It was a fox.
Its twitching ears were dyed red, but its body was white, strangely at odds with the pink atmosphere around it, and though it was an animal, it held an oddly human-bewitching magic within it.
The fox looked at us and suddenly spoke.
“You have come, my children.”
I lowered my head out of courtesy, but Kkotseorin could not.
“Ah…”
They stared blankly at the fox. Crimson Spring March accepted that gaze and spoke in a bitter tone.
“…You do not remember me.”
When Kkotseorin nodded, guilt settled over Crimson Spring March’s face.
“I am sorry. Because of me, you were forced to bear far too much karma. It was my greed. Because of my greed…”
Even hearing Crimson Spring March speak in such a self-reproachful way, neither of us could say anything. When Kkotseorin slowly shook their head in confusion, Crimson Spring March spoke carefully again.
“When I first saw you, you were very small. Just a child. Yes… that was how it was. The High Elf elders probably pushed you in here to test whether you possessed the qualities of a king. Do you not remember?”
Kkotseorin shook their head, and Crimson Spring March spoke with regret.
“The shock must have been great. As you know, this is not a place a child can enter easily.”
Divine beasts were pure.
But was purity always a good thing?
No. Absolutely not.
If you had never experienced something like pure malice, you could never understand.
They tormented and hurt others with genuine purity. There were even divine beasts of 4-Star rank and above here, and I could not begin to imagine the despair and terror the young Kkotseorin must have felt back then while facing them.
“But I saw hope in you. The hope that perhaps you might revive the withering World Tree once more… and that you might give us a perfect sanctuary. That kind of hope.”
And so Crimson Spring March granted their blessing to Kkotseorin, who was still only a very young child.
But at the time, Crimson Spring March had only recently finished creating the divine beast domain and was utterly exhausted, unable to control their power properly. In the end, they bestowed far too great a blessing upon Kkotseorin.
After that, Crimson Spring March fell into a long sleep, while Kkotseorin was forced to spend their entire life tormented by a curse.
Having lost all memory of the cause.
Over the course of a single night, they had simply become someone who could never show their face to the world again.
‘Anyone who meets your eyes will die.’
‘Your face is cursed.’
‘Hide it.’
‘Hide yourself.’
‘For the rest of your life, do not ever come outside.’
The elves had never needed a king in the political sense—someone to rule over them.
They had only needed a bridge, someone who could commune with the World Tree and pass its power and energy on to them.
And so Kkotseorin was pushed forward by others…
and became the most noble and exalted being of the World Tree.
Even now, unable to show their face to the world, they continued devoting themselves to all the fairies of the World Tree.
Though there was no one who truly recognized that sacrifice, Kkotseorin endured.
And endured.
Hoping that one day, they would be free.
— Read only on MugenCodex —
“I… made you live in hell.”
In the end, all of this had happened because of Crimson Spring March’s greed.
And because of that, one person’s life had been ruined to this extent.
“Hate me. Resent me. I do not dare claim that I can lighten the burden in your heart.”
Kkotseorin pressed their lips together and lowered their head. Strangely enough, there was no anger in their face at all. Even though the very one who had condemned them to a lifetime of despair stood right before them.
But Kkotseorin had spent their whole life hating themself. They had grown timid and fragile, and by now no longer had even the strength left to blame anyone else.
They simply… smiled bitterly.
“I’m alright.”
Perhaps it pained Crimson Spring March deeply to see Kkotseorin like that, because they took on a human form, walked barefoot to them, and embraced them.
The sight of two beauties embracing was lovely enough to belong on the cover of a pictorial magazine, but it was about time we actually solved what had to be solved.
Because with the Mana Leakage Constitution, lingering too long in a place overflowing with divine beast energy like this wasn’t going to do my health any favors.
“Um, so… is there a way to resolve it?”
When I cautiously raised a hand and asked, Crimson Spring March slowly stepped back from Kkotseorin and nodded.
“It would be best if I could reclaim the power, but at present that is impossible. My true body is asleep, and I no longer have the strength to grant further blessings or take them back. My current form… is nothing more than a shell, a body manifested from spirit alone.”
At those words, Kkotseorin’s expression darkened slightly, but Crimson Spring March was not finished.
“There is still a way. It is possible to ease the blessing by transferring part of the power to another who has received my blessing.”
As they said that, Crimson Spring March looked at me. We had already expected that much in the first place, but because we didn’t know the method, we had come all the way here.
But there was one small problem with that method.
“You two must perform a special ‘communion.’ To do that, a certain divine relic is required, but it was lost outside, and even now it has not been found.”
“Communion…?”
“Yes. Even if you received the same blessing, how could it possibly be transferred without any price or process at all?”
According to them, it was like creating a kind of passage.
Though we had received the same blessing, it had separated into different properties—Kkotseorin had become one who could draw in the hearts of others, while I had become one who could perceive the hearts of others.
And in order for those to be exchanged, a passage connecting the two of us was absolutely necessary. But the divine relic that would assist with that process was currently missing.
‘What is that supposed to be?’
I hurriedly searched with the magpie glasses.
[Search: Kkotseorin divine relic]
▼Search History
O Kkotseorin
O Crimson Spring March divine relic
O yeon!-on。
O Crimson Spring March Kkotseorin communion
O Kkotseorin communion
O n えseorin
But no matter what keyword I searched, nothing related to it appeared. A divine relic that wasn’t even recorded in the magpie glasses…
‘How did Flame solve the curse in the game again?’
Just as I was about to search that part separately, Crimson Spring March asked,
“Obtaining that object may be easy… or it may be extraordinarily difficult. Even so, are you confident you can bring it back?”
What choice did I have?
Whether the glasses had a record of it or not, I had already decided to save Kkotseorin, and since we had come this far, I had to see it through to the end.
“Yes. I’ll find it.”
I nodded as if there were nothing to hesitate over, and only then did Crimson Spring March smile faintly.
I had a bad feeling about this…
But it should be fine, right?
