I had a dream.
The scene visible through the thick fog carried a familiar smell.
In the classroom within it, my pants had been pulled down, and the children I called classmates were laughing.
One by one, their eyes fell upon my shameful bare legs.
The scene changed, and I was surrounded by several people as they beat me.
Fists struck my back, and elbows drove into me.
They hit me in the pit of my stomach, knocking the breath out of me in ragged gasps.
Then I heard someone say this.
[The one getting beaten up is at fault too.]
In that moment, something flashed through my mind.
It was not as if a light had come on, but as if it had gone out.
The comic-book protagonists I admired fought back when they were beaten, yet I only cried.
I must not blame others.
That was wrong.
“Ah... It was all my fault. I was the one who did wrong.”
Perhaps I could not breathe unless I found someone to blame, so I began blaming myself.
The bastards who beat me rang the doorbell at my house.
The teacher had told them to come apologize.
My mother opened the door, and I sat before those children.
Unable to even make eye contact, I accepted their apologies.
The next day, someone else—not me—was being victimized.
***
“Gasp!”
Desi opened his eyes in bed.
He felt unpleasant, as though cold sweat had dampened the bed.
‘Ah... I fell asleep after coming home.......’
Darkness came in through the window.
The stillness settled so deeply that he could almost hear the moonlight passing through the window and dimly illuminating the room.
“Huff.......”
Desi held his head and crouched on the bed.
He began recalling Ar's final words.
[We will leave for the Royal Palace in five days. The conscription will be in one day... so that would be tomorrow. Prepare yourself mentally.]
Desi raked his fingers through his hair.
‘A damn war after a damn dream.......’
A hollow laugh escaped him.
He wanted to tend fields peacefully and dig up potatoes.
Peace in which his own sweat felt rewarding.
The feeling of looking forward to tomorrow.
None of it was merely wavering.
It was shattering.
[What is so funny?]
A voice rang out in the room, which had held nothing but silence.
“Aagh!!!”
Startled, Desi let out a strange cry and fell from the bed.
“Ugh.......”
When he got up, the orb of light was floating there.
A fist-sized orb shone in midair, brighter than the moonlight.
“A-Angel?”
[Yeah, an angel.]
The orb of light had appeared again after a very long time.
For convenience, he had called it an Angel.
But,
“Your speech... seems more informal?”
It had always spoken brusquely, but it had never dropped its formal speech before.
[What?! I'm in a bad mood, so drop it! If you've got a complaint, speak casually to me too!]
The Angel began buzzing about wildly.
“Please... calm down.”
At Desi's words, it faltered. Then the Angel, glowing like an LED, flew right up before him and shouted.
[Do I look like I can calm down!!!]
”A-Aagh! My eyes-!!”
***
After venting her anger, the Angel floated silently for a while.
“Um... Angel?”
Desi broke the awkward silence first.
He could not sit there forever, staring at an orb of light.
[Don't call me an Angel. My name is Eirin. I'm the World Tree's creation and daughter, a being sent to support you.]
The orb of light began to churn.
Its movement was fiercer and more boisterous than a heat haze, lighting up the room.
The lines of light it emitted became fingers and toes, and before long, a single silhouette took shape.
When the dazzling light faded, a woman with white skin and softly shining blond hair appeared.
Her green eyes quietly asserted their presence.
When the dazzling light faded, Desi opened his eyes wide and looked at her.
“Eirin? The World Tree?”
Wearing a white dress, Eirin slowly descended through the air. With a sigh, she sat on the bed.
“Ha... Where do I even start explaining so I do not have to see that stupid expression?”
Eirin furrowed her brow deeply and glared at Desi.
”In the beginning of this Otherworld, there were Uncle Black Dragon, Auntie White Dragon, and the World Tree. You know that, right?”
It was a legend and myth of the Otherworld.
The primordial god had created the Black Dragon, the White Dragon, and a single tree.
Desi remembered the legend that the Black Dragon had received a Curse, the White Dragon a Blessing, and the tree the Rift.
”The World Tree received from the god the Authority called the Rift. And so, it created me, a being of the Rift who is neither Black Dragon, White Dragon, nor human.”
The Rift.
To Desi, that word—that Authority—was difficult to understand.
“I-I get the Curse and the Blessing and all that, but what are Authority and the Rift? No, why did you suddenly appear like this?”
All the question marks tearing through Desi's mind made his head ache.
At his many questions, Eirin gritted her teeth and began rubbing her forehead.
“Ha... The World Tree told me to protect you. Authority is magic with names like Blessing, Curse, and Rift. Will you stop asking questions now?”
Eirin furrowed her brow as she continued.
“First of all, I can't die unless it is by Authority magic, like a Curse or Blessing. So naturally, neither can you... as long as you're con...nected to me.”
“I-It is like a healing factor?”
“That's right.”
Desi sprang to his feet from the floor and began trying to sort it all out.
Angel, Eirin, Black Dragon, White Dragon, World Tree, healing factor.
He wondered whether he could sort any of it out.
“This is absurd.”
“What?!”
“N-No, nothing...”
Mindful of Eirin's glare, Desi cautiously spoke.
Her fierce eyes felt just like the eyes of the children who had beaten him.
“Um... I get all that, but what is Authority magic?”
Eirin sighed.
Desi flinched at that sigh, but he did not let it show.
“Authority is more like a declaration than ordinary magic. ‘I bless your health~’ ‘I curse you to be in pain!’ Something like that. Just by saying it, this world accepts it. There's no defying it.”
He could instinctively sense that it was beyond magic that shot fire or electricity.
It could kill or save with just a few words.
It was a god's declaration.
“T-Then what about the Rift?”
Eirin jumped to her feet and whipped her head toward Desi.
“Enough with the questions! I am already pissed off enough as it is!”
Her ringing voice filled the room, which had been so quiet.
“But... I've never even heard of something called the Rift!!”
Desi raised his voice as well.
The being sent to help him offered no explanation, only irritation, and his patience was slowly reaching its limit.
Eirin ground her teeth and held out her hand.
Pale particles of light formed on her palm and drew themselves into lines.
“The Rift is abstract. The gap in a door. The space between you and me. The middle between that side and this side. Those are Rifts. That's why I could bring you from that world to this one.”
“The World Tree brought me here, then?”
At Desi's words, Eirin hurriedly clapped a hand over her mouth.
Her widened eyes darted around before she glared at Desi.
“Y-Yeah!”
“Why... me?”
Eirin waved her hands as she continued.
“Your power comes from me. I'm a being born from an offshoot of the Rift, so I can't die unless it is by Authority magic. My form isn't fixed either, so I can change it into all kinds of shapes. Oh, and you can't. You've only got that healing factor and ‘Intuition.’”
Eirin began to shine again.
The dazzling light made it seem as though another moon had risen in the room.
The light shrank and turned into a ring.
Light burst forth once more, changing into the shape of a sword, then a spear, then a necklace, before finally returning to her original human form.
“Intuition lies between consciousness and unconsciousness. It is a subconscious sense born from sensation. That will apply to you too.”
Another hollow laugh escaped Desi.
Curses, Blessings, Rifts.
What kind of bullshit was this?
They had not even revealed why he had been brought here.
“So... why are you giving me those abilities?”
At Desi's question, Eirin flopped onto the bed and replied.
“I don't know~ The World Tree says you can't die.”
Cannot die?
Desi had a question.
“Am I... going to die?”
At Desi's question, Eirin closed her eyes and snickered.
“Then will you live? What are the chances that an ordinary person survives a battlefield? Especially someone like you? You're guaranteed to die.”
Desi quietly stood up.
He began grinding his teeth.
He would die.
Someone like him.
Of course.
He had been free since coming to the Otherworld.
He had not needed to hear that someone like him could never do anything.
There had been no such thing as a given certainty.
Freedom that did not predetermine failure or assure success.
Every word Eirin spoke felt like it was mocking that freedom.
Whack!
Desi grabbed a pillow and brought it down on Eirin's face.
“Ow!!”
Eirin stamped her feet and shouted.
Desi did not back down and brought it down once more.
Whack-!
“Hey! What are you doing?!”
Eirin sprang up with a shout, and Desi threw the pillow at her face.
“You are the one who needs to watch your mouth!”
After taking the pillow squarely to the face, Eirin stood there with a dumbfounded expression.
Her face had turned faintly red.
“Die? Fine, just kill me! You... seem to have forgotten, but I've already died once. Doing it once is the hard part; why would doing it twice be hard?!”
Desi's hands trembled.
Whenever he let his emotions explode, his whole body shook.
“W-What...?”
Eirin stammered, apparently flustered.
“If you don't want me to die! You... stop poking at me. Damn it, this time I'm about to dive off a cliff before I even make it to the battlefield.”
“...I get it, so do not pick up that pillow again.......”
Desi's hand, which had been reaching for the pillow, flinched.