Chapter 349

"…You're saying to make a contract with my son. Right now?"

Belluna finished the line and slowly gestured for me to come closer.

As I stepped up, Ivan came over to us at once — probably worried something ugly might happen — and, sure enough, Belluna snapped her fingers with a sharp click.

"Don't worry, I just put up a wall of wind so no one else can hear us. They won't be able to see either. Way better for this than any half-baked magic or spell."

Just as she said, a wind fierce enough to see with the naked eye had marked off a boundary around the three of us, like a fence.

It was so fierce, in fact, you had to wonder if brushing against it would rip you to pieces on the spot.

"Well, then."

Belluna slowly reached out and lightly closed her hand around my throat.

"Mother!"

"You stay put, son."

The instant Ivan startled forward to stop her, Belluna held out her other hand to keep him back, her eyes still on me.

"Want to try explaining what you were thinking when you said that? Before I tear this throat of yours out or pop it, Yu Ji-hyeok."

"…I don't see what the problem is."

I played dumb and asked her back.

"You said a pure human wouldn't do, right? By your own logic, Ivan's a halfling — half human, half spirit. And his affinity with spirits is stronger than anyone else here's, on top of that."

"That isn't what matters."

"Then what on earth is it about? If it really has to be that way, how about Sharisna? She's a garuda, not a human — and as a race that handles wind, her compatibility with you might well be a good fit."

"I didn't mention it before, but I made one more vow."

She murmured it quietly.

"That I would never make a contract with anyone but someone I loved."

"…Then all the more, there's no one but Ivan."

At that, Belluna gave a slow grin.

"Yes, that's right. The person I loved was Brix, only him. Now that he's gone, there's no one left for me to love but Ivan — his son, and mine."

Her fingers pressed down harder, little by little.

"And I lost the man I loved, who was also my contractor."

"……"

"It happened only half a year after I made the contract with him — after he said he was going to take on the Seven Calamities, and I meant to be his strength."

Hostility, grief, anger, and regret slowly filled her eyes.

Considering spirits normally never let their emotions show, that alone was enough to tell how violent a storm of feeling had hold of her.

"And is it a coincidence, too — that it's already been half a year since Ivan met you, got pulled into Seven Calamity business, and nearly died?"

"Mother."

Ivan called Belluna quietly.

"Father and I are different, Mother."

"What happens once can happen twice. And, son — have you already forgotten that just a month ago, your arm was cut off?"

Ivan hesitated for a moment at that.

"That happened because I was inexperienced. It wasn't Ji-hyeok's fault, or anyone else's."

"Right. And it wouldn't have happened at all if the opponent hadn't been a Seven Calamity."

"…I really didn't want to have to say this, but shall I put it plainly?"

Still with Belluna's hand around my throat, I quietly spoke.

"The day we first met, Ivan was one of the strongest of us — near the very top. He was actually the overall top student in his year. But that isn't the case now. Do you know why?"

I could feel her fingers tightening on my throat, bit by bit.

The strength packed into that slender arm was so vicious that if I'd been an ordinary human, I wouldn't have been able to speak properly by now.

"It's because while every one of us was getting stronger and putting in the work, Ivan couldn't."

"…What, are you trying to say my son is lazy? Or that it's because I haven't made a contract?"

"That isn't it, is it."

I looked at her straight on.

"Miss Belluna — you're the one standing in Ivan's way."

Ivan Hunt.

He was the sort of person the phrase 'the perfect superhuman' really did fit — someone who resembled Ahn Do-hoon and Lee Ye-eun, the ones who go through inner growth or come to grasp their own place, and yet wasn't like them at all.

Because from the very start he'd already been mature enough not to need any inner growth to speak of, and he had long since come to understand his position and identity as the young head — the one charged with rebuilding a house that had fallen with the death of its master.

Ivan's story was mainly about him following the traces of a father someone had deliberately hidden away, and, along the way, mending his warped relationship with his mother.

In the end, he comes to grasp his mother's love, Belluna in turn comes to grasp her own feelings toward her son, and their relationship slowly heals.

…Maybe that was why.

Because he was the polar opposite of me, his story had stayed with me particularly vividly.

Even now.

"Yu Ji-hyeok."

"A spirit-user can't put out their real strength if they can't handle a powerful spirit. And anyone can see how immense Ivan's affinity is. So why is it that, even now, Ivan doesn't have a single powerful spirit under contract? At his level, powerful spirits should've been coming to him in droves without him lifting a finger."

"Be quiet."

"You're the one who blocked it. Worried Ivan would get pulled into something dangerous if he got strong, you spread your own presence around him so no other spirits could even come near."

It was similar to what Rauné had once done for me.

By marking a place with its own presence, it left a warning to the effect of: I have my eye on this human, so if anyone lays a hand on him, I'll take it as an invitation to fight to the death.

In fact, after Rauné had done that around me, the faint spirit presences I'd occasionally felt had disappeared entirely.

And if even Rauné's warning did that — how on earth would other spirits have taken a warning from Belluna, someone who was once worshipped as a god in one region?

"I could have. Sworn."

Belluna wore a chillingly menacing smile as she stepped closer to me.

"I told you. To. Be. Quiet. Didn't I?"

"Slow as I am, even I picked up on it right away."

I said it, looking her steadily in the eye.

"Do you honestly think a guy sharper and quicker than me hasn't figured it out until now? He probably knew way, way before this. And even so, he's played dumb this whole time and just kept fighting with only that mage-bow of his."

"Ji-hyeok."

Ivan let out a sigh and spoke.

"…That's enough. I'll take it from here."

He slowly reached out and took hold of Belluna's hand where it was locked around my throat.

"Just for a little while — let the two of us talk."

"Ivan, my son. I…"

"Mom."

"……"

Belluna, silent for a long stretch, quietly let me go.

Then she opened up the wall of wind that had penned in the three of us, ushered me out, and closed the wall again right after.

"How'd it go?"

Su-yeong, who'd clearly been waiting for me, asked the moment I came out, and I shook my head.

"Ran my mouth and got told off, that's all."

That's what I said, but honestly, past this point wasn't ground I could step into.

Half-forced and rude as it had been… now that the opening was there, it was fair to say — mercifully — it had worked out.

Those two would talk it out somewhere no one could see or hear them, letting out all the words they'd kept holding in and the feelings they'd hidden.

That alone was enough.

"That's just how it goes. Ivan and Miss Belluna have been on bad terms for a long time — and out of nowhere, something like this. You think either of them would just be, oh, sure, sounds good?"

From beside us, Yu-na quietly muttered:

"One look at it and it seems like Miss Belluna practically abandoned him and washed her hands of it. Ivan's got a big heart, honestly."

At that, every one of us turned our eyes on her.

Yu-na looked distinctly put out and stuck her lip out as she muttered:

"What. It's not exactly the same for me, but I'm in a similar spot, so I get it to some degree. I grew up in an orphanage, and the moment I started here at the academy, my birth parents suddenly got in touch with me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, when I was reading the oath as one of the joint top students. Anyway — those people never got in touch even when I'd had an accident and been in the hospital before, and then all of a sudden they call to say they're worried about me. Miss Belluna's a completely different case from people like them, of course… but at least the awkward feeling of meeting a parent you haven't had contact with for a while — that, I know well."

"Wouldn't know myself."

Su-yeong muttered in a flat voice.

"Hyun-woo and I got left before we even knew what our parents' faces looked like. I don't even know if they're alive."

"Ah."

Yu-na flinched, and glanced at me and Lee Ye-eun right beside her.

Neither of us quite counted as orphans, but it wasn't as if we'd enjoyed some kind of well-adjusted family life either.

"I— I really didn't mean it like that…. If that hurt, I'm truly sorry…."

The moment I saw her eyes trembling faintly, I found myself saying, before I could stop it:

"Couldn't really tell you either. Up through middle school I lived with my mother. Then she started coming at me and Ji-na in the middle of the night, telling us to die and putting her hands to our throats — and that's how we ended up living apart in the end."

Hearing that, Lee Yu-na gave a small shudder.

Meanwhile, Lee Ye-eun was quietly casting around too, as if searching for what she was supposed to say.

"Wh-why are you doing this to me. Even you, Ji-hyeok, seriouslyyy…."

Just as a thoroughly deflated Lee Yu-na was muttering that, half in tears —

System

Ivan Hunt's awakening condition has been fulfilled!

Awakening condition — Form a contract with a Spirit King-tier spirit.

You have now fulfilled the awakening conditions of 5 people in total.

As a reward, you have acquired the hidden skill 'Wind's Blessing'!

Wind's Blessing (Limited / Conditional)

A blessing that lasts only while you hold the favor of the wind spirits.

Every projectile weapon aimed at you loses its force, and its edge is gone.

System

The contents of the hidden quest, until now veiled, are revealed!

The information for the quest 'Origin Point' has been updated.

The wind lifted.

At the heart of that small storm, Ivan and Belluna were looking at each other.

Ivan was the first to speak.

"My name is Ivan Hunt."

He said it, quietly steadying his breath.

"The son and sole blood of Brix Hunt and Belluna Hunt asks to enter into a contract with you."

"Granted."

Belluna slowly nodded.

"I, Belluna Hunt, accept your offer. From this moment on, you and I share blood and flesh; our fates run as one; your enemies are mine; and I shall be a storm bent against any who threaten you."

With those words, she lifted a finger and tapped Ivan on the forehead.

Right after, Ivan's presence and Belluna's began to intertwine and mix, and in a heartbeat the whole of it swelled up into something you could call threatening.

With the contract sealed, the two were now resonating with each other's power, growing stronger still.

Ivan, who'd stood still like that for a long stretch, gave a small smile and took a step back, and Belluna, in turn, slowly nodded and opened her closed eyes.

She turned her head our way and spoke.

"The south pole, wasn't it, Yu Ji-hyeok?"

She gave a small, sly smile and slowly ran her eyes over the whole of the group, us included.

"I'll get you there in ten minutes."

"There's still some time left, so let's have a bit of a chat."

The Smith of Yado stood before a huge slab of ice and murmured quietly.

All around, countless enormous ice pillars thrust up like thorns, but the one directly in front of him was by far the largest.

"I made your seal, and Venus's along with it."

He blew out a breath of flame with a soft huff.

"…He might well be thinking that, I suppose. That maybe I tampered with the very things I was asked to build. Which, from where I stand, is a terribly unfair charge."

Of all the countless names he bore, the Smith of Yado was the one he was proudest of, the one that meant the most to him.

"I made them with everything I had. Just as he asked — 'a seal that will bind Venus and Juno perfectly for at least three hundred years.'"

The ice pillar he was speaking to said nothing.

"A seal doesn't mean the inside and the outside are cut off completely. Time keeps flowing, and by the same token, time flows for those sealed within too."

Before she was sealed, Venus had taken hits again and again.

The finishing blow, you could say, had been the direct hit from the breath Minerva unleashed on her just before the sealing.

"On top of which, she was a being that lived in deep water — so instead of recovering, her wounds could only get worse. And Minerva's last breath was too much. It would've been a fatal wound even taken in perfect health, and she caught it while she was already dying — that the wound festered and killed her wouldn't be strange at all."

The truth was, it had been half by design — but even he hadn't known whether it would play out this cleanly.

Only Ahriman had watched the whole thing without a word.

As if it had all been going exactly as expected from the start.

The moment the seal came undone, Venus lay sprawled on the hot sand, savored the last taste of her freedom with one great heave of breath, and quietly let go.

For the end of a Seven Calamity, it was an absurdly quiet, unremarkable end.

"But you'll be different."

The Smith of Yado carefully ran his hand over the ice.

Cold spread off it so bitterly that even to his hand — a fire spirit's — it registered as chill, and he gave a small smile.

"The three hundred years brought death to Venus. So how about you, I wonder."

With those words, he slowly took his hand off the ice, and soon, starting from where his hand had been, cracks began to spread little by little across the surface of the figure.

Any moment now.

The seal he'd made would only hold up for around three hundred years to begin with, and above all — with five of the Seven Calamity seals already broken, there was nothing strange about Juno's seal following the others and giving way at any moment.

Really, any moment now.

"You know what?"

Thinking it might be about time to step back, the Smith of Yado slowly began to move away and murmured:

"That man — Yu Ji-hyeok. Word has it he's on his way here."

A reunion after three hundred years, hmm — what a feeling that must be.

With that last murmur, he made to leave the spot.

By now they'd figured out he was tangled up with Ahriman, so there was nothing to gain by running into them face to face — that was the thought behind it.

But he couldn't leave.

Something that had come lancing out through the shattering seal had punched clean through his head.

It had happened in the blink of an eye.

"— Haah……."

With a bone-chilling sound, the seal began to break apart.

Then, out of the shattered ice, a massive golem slowly revealed itself.