Chapter 40
Siyeon, who had brought Dohyun to the dorm room door, paused for a moment.
Come to think of it.
…She'd rushed out in a panic that morning and hadn't cleaned her room!
“Wait, just a second!”
Siyeon left Dohyun standing outside the door and rushed inside first.
She quickly cleared away the clothes strewn across the bed and the papers scattered on the desk.
After roughly tidying up, Siyeon smoothed her messy hair and opened the door.
“…P-please come in.”
Dohyun stepped into the room.
A man and a woman alone in a cramped room.
At the thought that this was the first time she'd brought a man into her room, Siyeon felt oddly melancholy.
But there was something she hadn't managed to put away.
…A pair of light purple lace panties draped over a chair!
“Eep.”
Siyeon quickly snatched them from behind her back and stuffed them into a drawer.
Her heart was pounding.
Dohyun casually looked away as if he hadn't seen anything.
“Oh, and…”
Siyeon mumbled.
“Just a moment, Master. I need to change clothes.”
“…?”
“It's just… my success rate goes up if I always wear the same clothes.”
Did that sound strange too?
But it was true.
Every familiar sensation mattered when it came to bringing her soul back.
“Do whatever's comfortable.”
As expected, Dohyun answered nonchalantly and turned toward the wall.
Siyeon changed into pajamas in the bathroom.
Loose pajamas.
…And the moment she looked in the mirror, her face flushed hot.
To think she'd have to show him what she looked like in this.
‘Ugh… I should've just not changed.’
But it was already too late.
With her face burning red, Siyeon timidly stepped out of the bathroom.
“…Then I'll start.”
Dohyun turned around.
Fortunately, he didn't seem the least bit interested in Siyeon's thin pajamas.
…Whether that was fortunate or not.
Siyeon lay flat on the bed, conflicted.
Thump, thump.
Her heart was pounding out of control.
She could feel the young man's gaze beside her, and her face kept heating up.
‘No. Focus. Let's focus.’
She had to concentrate.
The ceiling came into view.
The familiar ceiling she saw every night.
Siyeon took a deep breath and slowly closed her eyes.
She exhaled slowly, steadied her breathing, and drew her awareness down to the depths of her chest, where her spiritual power gathered.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
The sensation of a knot there, always tightly tied, slowly coming undone.
As she did every night.
Her fingertips tingled, and from her toes upward, her body became featherlight.
Swoosh.
Her consciousness slipped out of her body.
As if floating up on water.
The weight of her body gradually drifted away.
And—
Whoom—
Before long, her soul rose out of her body.
The world's sounds grew a layer farther away, and her vision became clearer.
Rising slowly, Siyeon looked down at her body lying still on the bed.
No matter how many times she saw it, it felt strange.
I’m the one lying there.
And the one looking at it is me too.
And beside it.
A ridiculously handsome younger guy… no, no, it was Master Dohyun standing there.
With a strange man in the same room, lying there so defenselessly…
It felt strange all over again.
‘Ugh… I feel weird.’
But then.
“……?”
The young man was quietly taking a step toward her motionless body.
Then he bent slightly at the waist and began examining something closely.
What his gaze had landed on was.
“…….”
Siyeon couldn't believe her eyes.
“……!”
‘H-hey, where are you looking, you maniac!’
That guy. Don't tell me he had some other dark motive hiding behind his scholarly zeal?
He thinks my eyes are closed and I'm unconscious, so now he's looking at my chest like this…!
Thump, thump, thump!
Even in soul form, she felt as if her heart might burst.
*
That's right. Dohyun was staring intently!
Dohyun was staring at her defenseless body!
…but not admiring it, of course.
Swoosh.
A strand of pale yellow light slowly rose from Siyeon's body.
It was the very same spell formula he'd seen yesterday.
‘...So that's the soul.’
To look more closely, he loosened the restraint slightly and gathered spiritual power around his eyes.
Then.
‘...Oh?’
The risen soul and the body lying on the bed. A thin something was connecting the two.
‘...That's.’
Near the woman's chest, more precisely just below the collarbone, he could see a very thin flow of spiritual power linking the two like a string.
A thread of spiritual power connecting body and soul.
It was fascinating.
He looked closer.
‘...Aha. So that's how it works.’
So this was the thread he'd seen in Siyeon's materials.
It seemed the human body bound soul and flesh together with this thread.
But for this woman, that thread seemed to have been tied a little loosely from birth.
So she'd probably had experiences of her soul slipping out on its own since she was young.
‘Interesting.’
In other words, she'd studied how to deliberately loosen that thread and turned it into a spell formula.
As expected.
Then if he adapted it beyond merely loosening the thread and used it to cut it entirely.
‘...Right. That should work.’
It felt like something blocked in his mind was finally loosening.
A way to completely separate a spirit-bearing being from its body and put it into a gourd.
If he adapted this spell formula, it should be possible.
However.
‘...This is no ordinary difficult task.’
To pull the soul out of the body while still keeping that thread from being completely severed would require immense skill.
If he let go of the thread even slightly, the soul could scatter.
Or it might not return to its body again.
No wonder she'd had dark circles like that.
‘...She must've been practicing this every night.’
Dohyun gave the pale yellow soul floating there one last look.
Yes. He'd seen enough.
“...All right.”
He straightened the waist he'd bent slightly.
“Thank you. I think I've seen enough.”
Just then, Siyeon, who was still floating in the air, was also nearing the limits of both her concentration and spiritual power.
Whoosh—
Siyeon's consciousness was drawn back into her body.
Starting from her heart, something spread tingling through every part of her body as her senses slowly returned.
“…Hah.”
Siyeon quietly opened her eyes.
And slowly sat up.
But then.
“…….”
That handsome guy was somehow standing close by.
‘Too close. And what…? You've seen enough? Seen what?!’
When she'd looked down from above just a moment ago, he had definitely been staring only at that horribly embarrassing place.
“Hmph…!”
Startled, Siyeon wrapped both arms around her chest.
“W-what do you mean you've seen enough…?!”
With her face red enough to burst, she stammered the question, and Dohyun tilted his head slightly as if he had no idea what she meant.
Only then did Siyeon realize what she'd just said, and she hurriedly lowered her head.
Thump.
Thump, thump.
Her heart started pounding again. She was too embarrassed to lift her head.
After finally summoning the courage, she looked up.
“……!”
That man was staring straight at her face.
‘What is it, seriously? Is this really a signal?’
Thump, thump, thump.
To stare at her so directly from this close.
There had to be something going on.
To me, really…
‘Should I close my eyes?’
Just as Siyeon unconsciously started to lower her eyelids, at that moment.
“...Are you okay? Your face looks a little red.”
“……!”
Dohyun looked closely at Siyeon's face.
‘...Hmm.’
Her face was blazing red.
Even her ears were bright red.
…Of course, it had absolutely nothing to do with Dohyun's heart pounding because he was alone in a room with a strange woman, or anything like that.
‘Does a side effect like that happen after soul-separation sorcery?’
‘What kind of principle is that?’
It was a genuine question.
Since it was a spell formula that forcibly pulled the soul out of the body and then put it back, maybe the strain on the body was causing heat to rise like that.
His interest as a craftsman was piqued.
“Could those kinds of side effects normally…”
Puff!
It looked as if steam were rising from the top of Siyeon's head.
“Ah, n-no….”
Her voice shrank to a whisper.
“It's… not normally like that. It's nothing…”
Siyeon quickly lowered her head.
‘Aaaah….’
What was she even thinking on her own?
He'd only looked because it was interesting, and she'd been the only one jumping to conclusions.
She was so embarrassed she wanted to hide in a mouse hole.
“Ah… i-it's just suddenly gotten a little hot.”
Siyeon kept fanning herself with her hand for no reason.
“Ha-ha….”
She jerked her head to the side.
“The spell formula is… really short and all that, so I don't know whether it was of much help.”
“No. It was a huge help.”
“…Pardon?”
Siyeon whipped her head up.
Then, up close, the man's eyes were sparkling.
“Everything in the materials you wrote, Siyeon, was correct.”
“……!”
“That… thread connecting the body and soul. It really exists.”
“!!!”
The soul-thread theory.
It was the theory at the core of Siyeon's research.
Something she'd never been able to prove to anyone, something she'd only ever believed definitely existed based on the sensations she'd felt in her own body since childhood.
He'd seen it with his own eyes? How on earth?
“There's something I'm making right now. To complete it, I think I'll definitely need your spell formula, Siyeon.”
Dohyun lifted his eyes from the materials and looked straight at Siyeon.
“Siyeon.”
“Yes… yes?!”
“Would you help me?”
“…….”
“To properly understand this spell formula… I absolutely need your help, Siyeon.”
Thump.
‘...Help me?’
‘I'm necessary?’
Siyeon sat there blankly for a long time.
A study that was useless and only dangerous.
The spell she'd heard nothing but 'quit it' about her whole life actually had value?
“It's really… useful?”
Dohyun smiled.
At that moment, something surged up in Siyeon's chest.
The tip of her nose stung.
Her heart began beating even harder.
As Siyeon sat there blankly, feeling an emotion she couldn't tell was excitement or something else.
Clack.
Dohyun closed the materials and suddenly said.
“Though I wouldn't exactly call it compensation, but…”
“……?”
“I'll finish that spell formula for you.”
“…Pardon?”
Dohyun added as if it were no big deal.
“Because I don't think it'll take very long.”
Because I don't think it'll take that long.
notes":"Aligned the chapter title to the nearby English style and lightly polished wording for naturalness and accuracy."