45. A Gamble Against Time (1)
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Clatter-clatter!
When I rested my head against the window, the faint sound of the train rolling along vibrated inside my skull.
There was something undeniably romantic about train travel. Whenever I watched the fantastic scenery flashing by outside the window, I would often find myself slipping into a daze without even realizing it.
Unlike Earth, Aether World was scattered with all sorts of mysterious terrain and plant life, so traveling through it never once gave your eyes a chance to grow bored.
As I stared blankly out the window, I pulled an envelope from my backpack. When I flipped it over, there was only a single line written in simple cursive:
[Sakwol Tower]
Sakwol Tower, huh.
Even when I had jumped into the world of ice to meet Blue Winter December not long ago, they had followed me there. At this point, it really did seem like Sakwol Tower had taken a persistent interest in me.
And honestly, that was a pretty heavy burden.
If Sakwol Tower stood on my side, there would be nothing more reassuring than that.
But if I ended up making enemies of them, then I might never be able to set foot on this land again.
Still, for now, I could relax.
At the very least, Kaen—the captain of Unit 13, Myeolam—seemed to hold a favorable opinion of me.
This invitation was the proof.
Sakwol Tower, hidden in the shadows of the world, was not a place just anyone could enter.
Even in the original game, Aether World Online, the Grand Tower of Sakwol Invitation had been one of the hardest items to obtain.
The fact that they were inviting me to their headquarters meant they trusted me to some degree.
As far as that matter was concerned, I could probably start letting my guard down a little now.
And then there were the rewards I had received for clearing this episode.
[Blessing of Blue Winter December Lv. 1]
- Strength +49%
- Stamina +21%
- Senses +19%
- Cold-Blooded Body: Below -17°C, all abilities increase by 9%, cold is no longer felt even in severe chill, and free movement is possible within a blizzard.
- Cold Energy: Allows one to infuse mana with an exceedingly pure, frigid aura.
- Treading Snow Without Trace: One may either leave no trace even when stepping on snow, or conversely, intentionally imprint footprints where one has walked.
- Memory of the Snowflake: Allows one to recall traces imprinted in snow.
- Frost Ice Dessert: Consuming ice restores stamina, but in exchange, once the recovery ends, one will suffer from high temperatures.
‘A single snow blossom that bloomed in the glacier of extinction shall never wither for eternity.’
I let out a short exclamation of admiration.
It was still only at stage one, but the stats alone were already pretty useful.
The Blessings of the Twelve Divine Months were the sort of things where even acquiring just one could grant absurdly powerful traits that ranked among the very best in the setting.
And now I had already obtained two of them.
‘Still pretty weak for now.’
There were plenty of total maniacs among the community players, the kind who, whenever they got hold of something special, would squeeze every last possible advantage out of it.
Among them, there had even been a player who had maxed out the Blessing of Blue Winter December, and when I saw that back then, it honestly shocked me.
They had bizarre skills like turning anything rolled over snow into a snowball that kept growing as it rolled.
There were also limited blizzard-summoning abilities, and even techniques that froze over an entire small area.
Whenever I ran into someone like that in actual PvP, I had lost a lot because of the special ability that froze my legs.
Well, eventually I figured out the counter-strategy and started winning more often than I lost.
And those weren’t the only rewards.
[The Constellatio Project presents you with 2 special rewards.]
This time it hadn’t been a main episode, but by resolving a story that was nearly main-episode level in such a flawless way, I’d been promised two rewards from the Constellatio Project.
Which meant that, including the one I still hadn’t claimed from before, I could now choose three rewards in a row.
So I tried getting a little clever.
“What do you think—rather than picking three separate rewards, I kind of want to combine them and get one better one instead.”
Because of the issue with narrative power, the rewards I could receive were limited.
If I took an item I had once used before, it might get nerfed so badly that it wouldn’t function properly anymore.
So in that case, wouldn’t it be better to reduce three rewards into one?
[……We will consider it.]
“Yeah, yeah. Consider it positively.”
If I really could merge all three rewards into a single one, what would be the best thing to take?
As for that problem……
I’d think it over gradually.
‘I’m tired as hell.’
After整理ing the issue of rewards, I stared blankly out the window again.
Maybe it was because the incident I had gone through recently had been so enormous and intense, but the aftereffects refused to fade.
Or maybe……
it was because of the way Hong Biyeon had been acting lately, like something in her had shifted.
‘……What’s gotten into her lately?’
Back when I played Aether World Online, the Hong Biyeon in my mind could be summed up like this:
- A completely rotten, ill-mannered high school girl.
- A princess-complex narcissist.
- A villainess with an awful personality.
- Ridiculously, pointlessly gorgeous.
To be honest, if you looked only at points 1, 2, and 3, she was absolutely at the peak of being unlikable.
But point 4 was so overwhelmingly powerful that a lot of male players, me included, ended up liking Hong Biyeon anyway.
With looks alone, she had managed to rival female characters who had story, personality, and beauty all at once……
and now she was starting to catch up in personality and story too.
She still had that sharp, prickly edge to her, but she had also become subtly softer.
And after going through hardship and adversity, she had naturally developed a mindset as solid as steel.
‘This is driving me insane.’
I didn’t even know why, but it left me feeling strangely uneasy.
Even after clearing the most dangerous death flag that had ever loomed over Hong Biyeon, it still felt like an even bigger crisis was waiting somewhere ahead……
‘Probably just my imagination.’
Figuring I should stop dwelling on useless thoughts, I fished around in my pocket, took out an eye mask, put it on, and closed my eyes.
From here, I still had to head to the Cradle of the Heavenly Spirit Tree and lift Queen Kkotseorin’s curse.
I didn’t want my mental health wrecked over some personal nonsense.
Summer break at Stella Academy was mind-numbingly boring.
At least, that was what Pung Harang thought.
After all, his days were still being consumed by classes, no different from during the semester.
The classrooms during summer break felt like hollow empty cans.
With the end of vacation approaching, there weren’t even twenty students sitting in a lecture hall built to hold a hundred.
“Hey, Pung Harang. It’s vacation. Aren’t you going back home?”
Maek, who had been staring holes into the back of the professor busily writing on the blackboard, asked Pung Harang.
“Who knows. I don’t think I’d see anything pleasant if I went back.”
“Well, damn. Guess I wouldn’t know. I’m a commoner. But when that bastard older brother of mine wore my brand-new shoes outside and came back with them splashed in sewage, I seriously wanted to kill him. Didn’t actually kill him, though.”
“Everyone has their own hardships.”
First-year S-Class, Pung Harang.
The youngest of the direct bloodline of House Pung, which governed the entire southern Pungwol Plains, he had apparently grown up under excessive scrutiny and opposition from his older brothers because his talent was so outstanding.
Normally, someone raised in that kind of environment would end up timid and withdrawn.
Instead, he had grown into someone firm and upright, with a will all the stronger for it, and as a result there were many people around him.
From commoners to Stella professors to mages of the Magic Tower, there were many who respected his opinion, because he possessed a clear set of convictions uniquely his own.
Even he, however, had one concern lately.
“……Maek. What do you think?”
“Hm? About what?”
“Flame.”
Since Pung Harang usually carried a certain weight about him, whenever he seemed lost in thought, the girls would gush things like, He must be worrying about the safety and future of his family! and make a huge fuss over it.
Obviously, no matter who he was, he did not spend every waking moment pondering matters like that.
Sometimes Pung Harang was just an ordinary student worrying about what to eat for dinner.
Sometimes he got stressed over having way too much homework.
That was normal too.
But still.
Even so.
“You too…… can think about girls?”
That question was so shocking that Maek almost could not believe it was really coming from Pung Harang, the very same guy who treated girls like stones and had rejected every confession that had ever come his way.
“……Don’t misunderstand. I’m asking out of pure curiosity.”
“No, but that’s exactly the point. Curiosity means you’re interested in that girl, doesn’t it?”
“……Is that how it works?”
“Yeah! That’s exactly how it works.”
“Then what about you? Don’t you feel any curiosity toward Haeisel, the one who’s always attached to you?”
“Curiosity my ass. If that crazy bitch dropped dead in the street, I wouldn’t care.”
Pung Harang fell silent at that.
“Well, I’ll be. Never thought the day would come when you’d be worrying about a girl. Then again, Flame’s been popular since the start of the semester.”
The moment the two of them whispered about Flame, the rear door of the classroom was suddenly ripped open with a horrible cracking sound.
Every person in the classroom turned to look.
There stood Flame, blankly holding the torn-off door in one hand.
“……What is it this time, Flame?”
Since this was far from the first time she’d caused an incident, the professor asked with a sigh that sounded almost practiced.
Flame gave an awkward smile.
“Well…… I thought it was a pull door, but it wouldn’t open no matter what, so……”
“Ah.”
The professor nodded as if he understood.
“So you forced open a sliding door by pushing it?”
“Uh, um…… yes……”
Was there anything more absurd than that?
A girl who tore off a sliding door by brute-forcing it open in the wrong direction simply could not exist anywhere in this school—
no, anywhere in the world.
“Uh…… I’m sorry…… I’ll get it fixed……”
Even Flame seemed to realize how stupid this was, because she dipped her head in embarrassment, apologized awkwardly, then hoisted the broken door onto her shoulder and left.
“Kh-hehe, why is she so hilarious?”
“Don’t you think?”
Even at Maek’s question, Pung Harang didn’t answer.
He merely watched Flame’s retreating figure in silence.
‘……The more I look at her, the stranger she seems.’
That was all he thought.
“Ah, damn. This is mortifying……”
The door had broken so thoroughly that when I took it to Stella’s repair center, they said it would honestly be better just to replace it altogether.
‘Did I really shove it that hard……?’
Lately I’d been a little out of it, so there were times when I wasn’t paying proper attention to what was in front of me.
Still, I didn’t think I’d gotten this bad, so I had no idea what was wrong with me.
As I dragged myself down the hallway, my eyes were naturally drawn to the newspaper pinned in huge letters to the class bulletin board.
[Crisis Strikes the Levian Coast]
[The Calamity of Fire and Ice]
[Princess Hong Biyeon’s Great Triumph!]
[The First to Control the Fire Spirit Flower in a Thousand Years……]
It was all stories about Princess Hong Biyeon.
Flame could tell very easily whose doing that was.
‘Baek Yuseol. You did something again.’
The last time she had seen Hong Biyeon, the atmosphere had been such that once she was dragged off to the royal family, it felt as though she would never return.
And yet Baek Yuseol had chased her all the way there, resolved the calamity safely, and quietly vanished afterward.
Flame stared at the image of the massive calamity printed in the paper……
that is, Pirate King Black Belize.
People in the outside world were calling it the Incarnation of Ice.
Flame knew very well where it had really come from.
The Incarnation of Ice came from Blue Winter December.
The Incarnation of Fire came from Red Summer June.
Those things were nothing more than fragments of the Twelve Divine Months.
And even so, they could create disasters that humans could scarcely hope to oppose.
It made her realize once again just how terrifyingly great those beings truly were.
‘Again, it’s the Twelve Divine Months?’
Come to think of it, Baek Yuseol had always seemed strangely obsessed with the existence known as the Twelve Divine Months.
Even back when they’d gone on that library “fake date,” he had spent the entire day buried in books related to them, and he was even taking that obscure elective course called Divine Month Studies.
‘Now that I think about it……’
She had been walking absentmindedly, and before she knew it, she had arrived at the library.
She had come to return a book, but it was already so late that the students were beginning to file out one by one.
Flame slipped the book into the return slot and then entered the library.
The moment she came face to face with the librarian, they immediately told her, “No more checkouts now,” but that didn’t matter.
That wasn’t her goal in the first place.
Flame slowly walked deeper into the library.
Since it was late, there were hardly any students left, so she didn’t need to worry about attracting attention.
A little farther.
Farther in.
[Ancient History A1-A12]
Stella’s library had many secrets.
It was so wide.
And wider.
And wider still.
A place designed to make you think the size visible from the outside was all there was……
but in truth, hidden spaces existed within it.
[Demonic Studies C36-48]
Thanks to Stella’s principal, Eltman Eltwin, and one of his mischievous spells, a certain area had been cleverly concealed within the shadows.
[Alchemy B12-24]
If you followed that path, then eventually you came upon a place like this.
[Legends]
A suspicious little book room with no symbol, no label, no mark of any kind.
Flame knew this place well.
Because it was a part she had read over and over again in the original fantasy romance novel.
Right.
Which meant—
‘This was the episode where…… Eizel searched for the truth about her father.’
Flame snapped her head around.
“……W-Who are you?”
There stood Eizel Morf, clutching a book tightly to her chest, her wand pointed forward, her expression tense with alarm.
She looked like a cat caught sneaking around an alley, which would normally have been adorable.
But Flame didn’t smile.
“Whew…… I was so startled wondering who’d come in. To think it was you. How did you find this place?”
“Just…… wandered around and ended up here.”
Her eyes dropped to the book Eizel was clutching.
[Walking Beyond Time……]
The latter half of the title was obscured, but identifying the book was far too easy.
‘Silver Age November.’
And perhaps……
it was also the starting point of the tragic story that would drive a girl named Eizel into ruin.
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