Chapter 68
‘She’s incredibly beautiful.’
I couldn’t help but silently marvel as I peered inside the box.
Such a quiet, refined face.
It was a little at odds with the image Lumina had shown me until now.
Considering her figure, her rider jacket that revealed her curves and breasts, and the playful jokes she was always making at me, I had imagined her as the delinquent older-sister type.
An older girl with short hair and a tomboyish air.
Maybe with one or two piercings in her ears.
And perhaps her hair dyed slightly blue.
You know, something like that.
Even when she first met me.
-Nice to meet you, Mincheol.
-Cute~.
-Here’s noona’s number. What, are you embarrassed because I called myself noona?
It had that kind of feel.
But then.
‘She’s too pure-looking.’
Her face, lying there as though asleep with her brown hair spread around her and her eyes closed, was the exact opposite of what I had imagined.
A clear, gentle impression without a trace of makeup.
She had no piercings at all, and there wasn’t even a hint that her hair had been dyed.
If I had to compare it to something, she felt like an exemplary student and a sharp, capable ‘class president.’
I looked at her peacefully sleeping head.
Long eyelashes, a slender face, distinct features, and smooth skin.
‘How had she maintained that sly, playful energy all this time with such a pure face?’
No, was it possible because she had no face?
It was when I was standing guard in front of the box, having such ridiculous thoughts.
“Mincheol!”
After confirming that there was no mana reaction, Lumina came rushing over to my side.
She hurriedly examined my body before even looking at what was inside the box.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you? Really…….”
Even though the head she had been searching for so desperately was right in front of her.
Her voice held nothing but concern for me.
I chuckled and shook my head.
“I’m fine. As you can see, I’m perfectly all right. And there’s something more important than me right now.”
I pointed inside the box and spoke.
“I think it worked.”
At my words, Lumina’s shoulders stiffened with a start.
The helmet she had been using to examine me slowly turned toward the hand I was holding up.
An open box.
Silent mana.
“I-is it really……?”
The blue flames flickering inside her helmet were churning violently.
I carefully supported the head with both hands and held it out so she could see it clearly.
“Yes. Now check whether this is your face, Ms. Lumina.”
Lumina stared down at her own face while holding her breath.
Her hands, which always threw chains around without hesitation, were visibly trembling.
The fingertips of her leather-gloved hands hesitated in midair, as though they had lost their way.
As if handling a fragile glass ornament, she carefully accepted her face from my hands.
“……It is.”
Her voice trembled faintly as she held the head.
“I can definitely tell that this is my head. I can vividly feel the sensation that my soul is connected to it.”
Her voice trembled with the joy of finding the missing part she had sought for so long.
But the joy lasted only a moment before deep bewilderment colored Lumina’s tone.
“Then why isn’t anything happening?”
Her voice trembled as she looked down at her own face.
“I thought something would change when I held it, that we would resonate with each other and something would happen…….”
Lumina clasped her head with both hands, but nothing changed.
She had expected the blue flames flickering from her neck to spread to the head and awaken it, but her head remained completely still.
“My instincts are definitely screaming that this is my head, but even when I’m holding it, there’s no reaction. Why? Why aren’t we connecting?”
She had thought everything would be resolved as soon as she found her head.
Lumina’s shoulders drooped with disappointment.
“I thought that once I found my head, it would reattach itself and I would recover the memories I’d forgotten. I thought I’d understand why I became a dullahan and what I’m supposed to do from now on…….”
A faint anger colored Lumina’s voice.
The greater her expectations and joy had been, the greater her sense of betrayal must have been.
Her hand trembled as she held the head.
The flames inside her helmet quivered.
There was even something tragic about her as she failed to hide her profound disappointment.
For some reason.
The fire rising from her body even felt cold.
“Ms. Lumina…….”
That was when it happened.
Belarus’s words came back to me.
The words that only I, as a human, would be able to handle this object properly.
At first, I had thought that meant I could open the box.
It had actually reacted to me, and opened.
But.
‘What if it wasn’t only about the box?’
What if the statement that only a human could handle it applied.
Not only to the box, but to what was inside it as well?
“Could I try touching it?”
“You, Mincheol?”
“Yes. Something……. I don’t think the reason I had to come here was simply to open the box.”
At my words, she met my eyes and nodded.
“…Yeah. Be careful.”
I carefully accepted the head from Lumina’s hands.
The head I received from her was strangely cold.
It had definitely been warm before.
Why?
My question lasted only a moment.
Once I received the head, I began to feel its warmth returning little by little.
Faint, but.
Definitely.
Sensing the change, I clasped the head in both hands.
“Ms. Lumina, I think this is having a little effect.”
The first change appeared on the face inside the box.
Her pale cheeks began to flush bright red, as though they were burning with heat.
Like the face of a shy girl.
“Huh?”
Lumina’s flames quivered as she sensed the change in her face.
“Hng……!”
At the same time, headless Lumina’s body jerked violently and trembled.
“M-Mincheol……. W-what is this? S-suddenly, hng!”
Her body trembled every time I caressed her face.
As if the sensations were connected.
‘This is it.’
It wasn’t simply because I was human.
The World Tree powder in my hands.
That power said to contain an abundance of life force.
Could that power be.
Affecting Lumina’s sleeping head?
“Min, Mincheol. My body is suddenly…….”
“It’s reacting.”
“W-wait, Mincheol, st-stop.”
“No. Ms. Lumina, we have to keep going. You can feel the head, can’t you?”
“I-I know……. B-but this feels d-dangerous…….”
A hot breeze, something that could never come from the dead, was rising over her leather jacket.
I instinctively realized.
That the head and Lumina’s body were reacting through me.
“Ms. Lumina, please excuse me.”
“Huh? W-wait. Mincheol?!”
While carefully cradling the head with one hand, I tightly interlaced the fingers of my other hand with Lumina’s flustered hand.
Then I pulled her waist toward me, pressing her tightly against my body.
The effect was immediate as our physical contact increased.
“Ah……!”
The blue flames pouring from Lumina’s body blazed fiercely and began stretching toward the head held in my arms.
“S-stop. If you do this, it’s a little…….”
“Please stay still. It’ll be over soon.”
She lowered her head.
***
‘Finally.’
When she saw her face inside the box Mincheol was holding, her heart surged with emotion.
Lumina’s memories from before she lost her head were unclear.
No, they were practically nonexistent.
She didn’t remember how she had become a dullahan.
Nor did she clearly remember what she had done afterward.
The only things she remembered clearly were becoming a hunter and climbing the tower.
And that she had been fairly strong.
But she couldn’t remember the most important moment of all—the moment she lost her head.
It was as though someone had deliberately erased only the memories connected to her head.
That was why she had vaguely thought that perhaps she could recover her memories if she found her head.
Who had she been before becoming a dullahan?
Would she be able to learn why she had died in this form?
And today, she could see the end of her long wandering.
She firmly believed that she would finally be able to hear the answers to the questions she had been chasing.
She carefully accepted the head.
Mine.
My essence.
She held the fragment of the soul she had longed for so desperately in her arms.
But.
‘…Why?’
Nothing happened.
Her instincts were clearly screaming that this head belonged to her, but the head was simply cold.
There was no connection.
Even when the flames burning from her body touched the head, there was no reaction.
‘Why isn’t it working…….’
Her despair was as deep as her expectations had been high.
Would she have to live as a half-monster for the rest of her life without ever knowing her past?
Then what had all her hardship and effort been for?
What had any of it been for?
Along with the sense of emptiness, anger surged through her.
It felt as though even the flames wrapping around her body had frozen over.
She was angry.
She wanted to destroy everything in front of her.
Perhaps doing so would relieve her anger, if only a little.
That was when it happened.
“Could I try touching it?”
Mincheol took the head from her hands.
She wondered what he could do, being only human, but Lumina handed him the head.
He had always found the right answer in unexpected situations.
If it hadn’t been for Mincheol’s help at the auction, she would have lost the head right in front of her.
She had also been able to realize that it wasn’t her head because he had been there.
Perhaps Mincheol could do it?
The moment he clasped the head in both hands.
“Hng……!”
It felt as though an electric current flashed through her entire body.
‘W-what is this feeling?!’
A strange sensation enveloped her body.
She could feel sensations in places that had never existed.
Every time Mincheol’s hand stroked the head’s cheek, the severed nerves reacted intensely, as though screaming.
She began to feel the sensation of a face that definitely did not exist.
Every time Mincheol’s touch reached the head, her body trembled against her will.
A sensation so unfamiliar and dizzying that it was dangerous.
No.
Dangerous.
This was really dangerous.
I have to stop…….
“W-wait, Mincheol, st-stop.”
A startled voice escaped her before she knew it.
The composure of the older woman she had always presented herself as was nowhere to be found.
The sensation was entirely new, and her legs had gone weak enough that she felt she might collapse.
“No. Ms. Lumina, we have to keep doing this. You can feel the head, can’t you?”
“I-I know……. B-but this feels d-dangerous…….”
Dangerous.
She meant it.
Her instincts were warning her.
If this continued, she would really be in danger…….
“Ms. Lumina, please excuse me.”
Mincheol didn’t stop.
His fingers slid between hers and interlaced with them, while his sturdy arm pulled her waist tightly against him.
She couldn’t resist.
Why?
She had never been caught even once by Max, the commander of the Army of the Dead.
Yet she couldn’t evade the hands of Mincheol, who had no abilities at all.
“Ah…!”
The moment her body pressed against Mincheol’s, something suppressed inside her exploded.
At first, she had kept him by her side because of his cute face, because he was a human she couldn’t easily encounter, and because he never looked at her with surprise.
But the Mincheol holding her in his arms today was a little different from usual…….
Her face felt hot.
Because she had no face until now, she had usually expressed her emotions through the wavelength of her flames in situations like this.
How violently were the flames inside the helmet she wore surging?
Her fluster at the younger man’s sudden directness lasted only a moment.
She could feel the warmth of Mincheol holding her in his arms.
His body was hotter than she had expected.
And firm.
Until now, physical contact had been something she could simply laugh off.
Even when he had wrapped his arms around her waist from behind on her motorcycle, she had only done it because teasing him was fun.
But now that it had come to this.
‘Embarra, ssing.’
The flames surged even more strongly.
Her heart pounded like mad.
And then.
Fwoosh!
Her mana roiled.
Lumina met Kim Mincheol’s eyes.
“How is it? Can you feel it now?”
Mincheol had one hand interlaced with hers.
With the other, he held the head.
Every time his fingers gently kneaded her cheek, a strange sense of shame and an unfamiliar sensation made her chest tingle.
Sometimes he stroked her head with his hand.
Sometimes he playfully rubbed her nose.
Sometimes he touched her cheek as though lightly pinching it.
It was so embarrassing.
“M-my face isn’t a slime.”
She forced the words out.
She was surprised that she could react so shyly.
“It’s a way to wake up your head.”
He smiled with his eyes while meeting her gaze.
And at that moment.
“S-stop…….”
She realized that her voice was coming from somewhere other than above her neck.
And half a beat later.
Her field of vision flipped.
Not the scenery she had seen from inside her helmet.
She could see a clear, vivid world.
A view as though she were looking up from below.
She could clearly feel the fingers touching her.
She belatedly realized that she had spoken with her mouth.
And she realized that this view was the world seen through her eyes.
“Huh?”
A brief exclamation.
Confusion came first.
Surprise came next.
Joy came a little later.
“I-it worked……? Really? It works? It worked? Really?”
A smile formed around her mouth.
Pure joy.
She smiled brightly.
It was worlds apart from what she had seen through the flames.
What she had always seen was the flow of mana.
Because she had no face, she saw the world by receiving mana’s resonance through her flames.
Like a bat perceiving the world through ultrasonic waves.
For her, seeing the world through the eyes she had regained was on an entirely different level.
She saw Kim Mincheol looking down at her with a startled expression.
It was different from what she had seen through mana until now.
The difference was enormous.
“Ms. Lumina, your face……. Your face reacted! You’re connected, right? We succeeded, right?”
When she saw Kim Mincheol’s face, surprised yet smiling with delight as he looked at her.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Ms. Lumina?”
“U-um…….”
“Are you all right? Did the connection suddenly break again……?”
“Uh, c-could you move your face away…….”
An honorific slipped out before she knew it.
It was too embarrassing to look directly into his eyes.
“Please…….”
“Ms. Lumina?”
She hurriedly released their interlaced hands and hugged her own face.
She took several steps away from Kim Mincheol as though fleeing.
“S-sorry……. I-it’s been a l-long time since I last looked directly at someone’s face…….”
She was flustered by her own sudden embarrassment and behavior.
Huh?
Why am I acting like this……?