Chapter 55
“Thanks to you, Mother’s condition has improved considerably.”
[Ahh~]
“She woke up at dawn today. You know, she could only move one finger before, but now she can even grasp things.”
[Ahh~ Ahh~]
“I only heard about it from Noeul, so I don’t really know how something like this could happen... but I’m truly grateful. I’ll consider you my benefactor for the rest of my life.”
[Aaaah~ Aaaaaaah~ Aap]
I hurriedly covered the otamatone’s mouth.
“I’m sorry... It was just so fascinating.”
It seemed like they had been having a serious conversation, and I felt bad for interrupting for no reason.
“Haha, no, it’s fine. I’m really glad you like it.”
“I didn’t have time to explain, so I didn’t mention it, but there should be a semi-permanent alchemy circle on my mother’s left arm. You saw it too, right?”
“Yeah. I heard roughly what happened. I couldn’t see it because of the patient gown.”
“I designed it to operate on a rechargeable basis, so she’ll need to infuse at least 250 kE to 300 kE of mana a day. She can put in more, of course, but overcharging reduces its efficiency, so it’s important to do it consistently without skipping a day.”
“But how do you infuse it?”
“It’s the same as pouring mana into a magic circle. But I’m the only one who has the encryption key, so I’ll engrave it into your palm now. I have two spares, so I can give one to Noeul or Yuna as well. Could you hold out your palm?”
“Like this?”
“Yes. It’s not large enough to stand out, and it won’t interfere with your daily life, so don’t worry.”
[Symmetric Key Transfer: Protocol ARIA]
It was unlikely to happen, but to prevent a semi-permanent alchemy circle from being destroyed or going berserk by a third party, it was essential to include an encryption procedure, even if it was inconvenient.
“I set the alchemy circle’s validity period to one year. Even if your mother is in the terminal stage of multiple sclerosis, she should be fully cured within nine months, or ten at the latest. If you don’t infuse it with mana for two weeks, it will disappear on its own, so around then, just bring her to the hospital for an examination and leave it alone after that.”
With that, everything I had to do was finished.
“Thank you... Thank you... Then next year, really...”
“Yes. She won’t be able to walk yet, but she should at least be able to stand on both feet.”
“Sob... This is unbelievable. Everyone at the hospital said it was incurable... They told me to give up, that I needed to let her go, to prepare myself... I could thank you a hundred times and it still wouldn’t be enough...”
It certainly wasn’t an easy disease to cure.
Even the Akashic Records, which couldn’t be commercialized and could only be used privately, had cost more than ten million won in initial expenses.
And that was before considering the 100,000-won daily maintenance cost.
Of course, if it could cure a disease that was practically incurable, it was still cheap by comparison.
But compared with a situation filled with nothing but despair, having even the tiniest thread of hope was a hundred, a thousand times better.
Perhaps Yuna’s family would soon have days when they could smile again.
“I think you should get a medical capsule for the house rather than try to save money. I hear Noeul stays by her side and nurses her all day. There are plenty of inexpensive models these days, so even if your mother is home alone, it’ll make it easier to manage bedsores, eczema, and so on.”
“Certainly, we’ll have more money to spare now that we won’t have to spend as much on medicine.”
“Yes, and it would be better for your mother to practice moving in advance, even if it’s only in virtual reality.”
“I understand. Noeul and I will just have to try a little harder. Oh, right—Yuna should be awake by now. Would you like to call her? When we sent her home early yesterday morning, she threw such a fit, saying she wanted to stay by your side.”
“Haha, sure. If you give me her number, I’ll call her from my phone.”
“Yuna really has a wonderful academy friend. And... I also heard what you said to Noeul. It won’t be easy, but we’ll pay closer attention to Yuna and look after her from now on. But at the academy—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make lots of good friends for her.”
“No. Even one friend like you is a blessing beyond measure, more precious than ten friends. Please keep being close to our Yuna.”
Seo Maru left his home phone number on a Post-it note and departed.
A friend like me...
I thought back over the words he had said just before leaving.
No, even so, children need friends their own age.
Having a narrow social circle at an age when they were developing their social skills could be devastating.
It wouldn’t do her any good to talk often with someone like me, either.
‘Is Professor Cheon still not back?’
He’d said he was going to buy abalone porridge, but there had been no word from him.
Maybe he’d gone all the way to the sea to catch an abalone himself.
I turned on my phone and entered the number on the screen.
[Dialing: 02-8XX-XXXX]
There were still places that used landlines.
A long, tedious ringing tone continued.
Just as the song had come full circle and was about to begin its second verse, hurried breathing rang in my ear.
[Hello?]
“Did you get home safely?”
[Who is th... Noname?]
“Yeah, it’s me.”
[Name! @#% @%#$&@@$!!!]
Along with the clatter of something collapsing, Yuna’s indescribable alien language poured through the phone.
I covered the phone’s speaker for a moment so my eardrums wouldn’t be damaged, then uncovered it again.
“Sounds like you got home safely.”
[Name, are you okay now? Your wrist, I mean! And you were exhausted yesterday because you used way too much magic...!]
“Would I be calling you if I weren’t okay?”
[Waaahhh! I’m sorryyy, sob... You really are okay, right? Really, really?]
“I told you I’m fine. I heard you got home late yesterday.”
[Sniff... Mm... Three? Four in the morning?]
“You must have been tired. Get plenty of rest, even if it’s only over the weekend.”
[No, I don’t usually go to sleep even after midnight, so I’m wide awake now...!]
“It’s your birthday, and you’re all alone at home. Aren’t you bored?”
[No! I got the birthday present Name gave me. I feel like I could be happy just lying here without doing anything. Though I do have to catch up on my studies...!]
“Oh, right, your oldest brother gave me this number. He gave me a present, too. Do you know what an otamatone is?”
[Yeah, it’s that musical instrument that’s popular on TickTack. The kids in my class talk about it sometimes, so I know what it is.]
“I’m bored while I’m in the hospital, so I’m going to practice with this. When we meet at school later, I’ll play you the song I practiced.”
[So you can come on Monday, right?]
“Actually, I could be discharged right now, but I’m going to stay one more day, if only for Professor Cheon’s sake.”
[Professor?]
“He’s my adoptive father.”
[Ahh...! Yeah, I hope I can see you soon, Name!]
“I should hang up now.”
[W-wait a moment!]
“Yes?”
Yuna called out to me urgently. I turned my arm back after I had started to put the phone down.
[We’re friends, right...?]
Her uncertain question was laden with sobs.
[We’re definitely friends, right? You said yesterday, Name, that you were my friend...]
Even at the very last moment, Yuna couldn’t shake the fear that she might be abandoned.
[I won’t bother you at school. I won’t pester you to teach me, either. Just stay with me -]
“What are you talking about?”
[...?]
“By the way, next week’s practical exam on ‘Magic Infusion’ is in pairs, right? Let’s do it together.”
[...! Hehe, okay! Let’s do it together!]
* * *
“I wanted steak, not abalone porridge.”
“Meat on an empty stomach will upset it. You like abalone porridge, too, don’t you?”
Professor Cheon took out the abalone porridge he had brought and arranged it on the table one container at a time.
He tore open the plastic, checked the temperature, and microwaved it for another thirty seconds since it had cooled a little.
“I don’t eat cubed radish kimchi.”
“Why? Wouldn’t porridge alone be bland?”
“I used to like it, but now... not so much.”
If anything, I wondered how I’d ever been able to eat that stuff before.
Rice with nothing but kimchi had been enough to make a meal... and having ramen broth with it had been the icing on the cake.
But my taste buds, changed by my long years abroad, couldn’t be changed back.
Bread still tasted better than rice, and green beans (haricots verts) better than kimchi.
Still, the reason I liked abalone porridge was that abalone was an incredibly precious ingredient.
“Thank you for the meal.”
I added a pinch of sesame salt and a couple of drops of sesame oil to the steaming abalone porridge and mixed it well.
With my left hand, I stirred the porridge with a spoon to let it cool from scalding to just the right temperature, while with my right, I picked up pieces of braised beef with chopsticks.
“Ugh, salty!”
But it was delicious!
“But why did you come back so late?”
“Actually, I was late because I stopped by somewhere to buy something I wanted to give you.”
“Something you wanted to buy me? Ah... I think I know what it is.”
“Huh, I tried to hide it well, but you could smell it?”
“It’s a crepe. Now that you mention it, I can smell strawberries, too.”
“Well, look at you, with that nose of a dog. So? Does that earn me any leniency?”
He really was overflowing with thoughtfulness.
Even though I had technically lived longer if one counted only the number of years I’d been alive, the wisdom that came with age was not something to dismiss.
Or maybe he had simply always been this kind of person, even when he was young.
If so, he must have made plenty of women cry.
The two of us sitting in the hospital room and chatting amiably looked just like a close father and daughter.
It would have been wonderful to have a father like this in my previous life, too.
“I’ll forgive you this time, Professor.”
“Ho ho, how kind of you.”
“If you do something wrong next time, it’ll be two.”
“Two?”
“Two crepes.”
“You’re so greedy. Hurry up and eat before the porridge gets cold.”
“Yes.”
The piping-hot grains of rice tangled with finely chopped abalone, delivering a satisfying texture to my tongue.
The saltiness of the braised beef I’d eaten first was mellowed by the somewhat bland porridge.
And there was even a braised-beef egg; I left out the yolk because I personally disliked it.
Don’t take it as me being fussy about side dishes. I am a patient, after all.
When you’ve suffered something like mana exhaustion, there’s no restorative food better than abalone porridge.
In fact, ordinary people might never experience the symptoms of mana exhaustion even once in their lives.
That was because it was common knowledge that magic circles requiring more mana than a caster could hold would generally decompose naturally.
However, there were countless ways to circumvent that.
They included carrying out the infusion and activation stages simultaneously, or lowering the magic circle’s configuration entropy below the caster’s internal mana concentration and forcibly draining every bit of mana from the body.
It was bad for the Aura Heart and put tremendous strain on the heart in particular, so it was rightfully something to avoid.
I had arranged the runes to consume relatively little mana—not enough to qualify as Dimensional Descent, but still—yet I hadn’t expected to run short of mana.
Using magic on Yuna at school had been the cause of it, I supposed.
Even so, after writing out the fiendishly complicated Akashic Records, I couldn’t erase it just because I was short on mana.
I had to complete it in one go, even if I had to offer up not only the mana in my Aura Heart but every bit dissolved in my blood as well.
The longer I dragged it out, the more I couldn’t ignore the tiny amounts of mana consumed during the casting process.
Still, I was truly relieved that everything had ended successfully.
Yeah.
Ding
[Amount charged: 10,813,019 won]
I had no regrets.
‘Sylvia, Remilia, Klaus. If I could have saved you all like this back then...’
What was I longing for when I murmured the names of those who would never return?
The bitterness clung to my mouth and wouldn’t go away.
If I wanted to eat the sweet crepe, I’d better finish the porridge first.