episode_0136

While Victoria slept, I sat quietly and looked outside through the small window.

Since the boat was moving along the coast, I wasn’t bored because I could see the coast in the distance.

Because being on a boat doesn’t mean you’re going to an island or another continent.

Victoria’s school and home are on the same continent, but between them lies a dense jungle that is impossible to conquer.

So, if Victoria wants to get home from school, she either has to take a boat along the coast or take a long train ride back.

Victoria just chose the easy and quick way out of all of them. Taking the train really takes a long time.

In the distant forest outside the small window, you can occasionally see flashes of light.

No matter how you look at it, it looks like fire, but no fire broke out.

It is the light of the indigenous life forms of this world.

There are wild beasts that can be called monsters roaming the jungle.

So that’s an area where people don’t go.

In the first place, the jungle itself is an area that rejects people.

Even with the development of civilization, forests often last longer than expected. Unless you have special resources, or even the technology to conquer the forest, the cost of clearing it is too great compared to the benefits you can gain.

It’s a world that doesn’t use magic or energy.

In a world where there are creatures that use magic or energy, the risk increases hundreds of times.

So, although the outline of this world has been drawn, the inside has not been filled.

That’s the kind of world it is.

“Huh, uh. Huh? Who are you?”

Victoria woke up with a startled expression. She hugged the blanket over her body in surprise and looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.

I’m still half asleep, so I can’t come to my senses.

“I’m still having nightmares.”

I answered half-jokingly. Half-truthfully, he looked around the room and me with a puzzled expression.

“Ah! Hello. Good morning.”

“Strictly speaking, it’s night.”

I pointed out the window. It was a small window that couldn’t be opened because it was a ship, but I could see that it was a night sky full of stars.

Victoria blinked her eyes and lowered her legs from the bed.

And then he looks down at his clothes and is startled.

“My, my clothes! What the! I don’t think I’ve ever slept with my clothes changed!”

“I changed them because they were in my suitcase. When you wake up, wash first.”

Victoria looked around, perhaps still half-asleep or having a hard time grasping the situation, then stood up to gather her thoughts.

Then he made a creepy expression, turned my clothes inside out, looked at my underwear, and said something.

“Isn’t it too much to make you change your underwear?”

“I’m sick.”

“Are you my mother?”

Hygiene is important, especially in a world that is only moderately developed.

Of course, in this world, magical and physical healing methods coexist, and there are also antibiotic injections.

Rather, magical methods are more popular. As long as there is magic, it is not completely ineffective.

There is a somewhat transitional feel to it.

Although it is possible to regenerate lost limbs, it is not very effective against diseases caused by deadly plagues or pollution.

Anyway, you just have to be careful within your capabilities.

While I was waiting like that, Victoria called me from where she had gone to wash up.

“Hey! Come inside!”

“Yes.”

Inside, a naked Victoria is floating on water droplets, looking at herself in front of a mirror.

Even when viewed from the side, it’s quite a strange sight.

There’s a giant water drop floating in the air, and Victoria is in the middle of it. Only her head is sticking out of the water drop.

And although it’s transparent and hard to see, the water is spinning inside, washing your body like a washing machine.

Superpowers. You’re good at handling them.

Victoria spoke to me while I was washing in front of the mirror.

“I didn’t know that the fur color would all change to purple. It’s good that the skin turned white, but what happened?”

He asks in a rather explicit manner.

“If you make a contract with me, that’s what happens. Unless you’re dying, your fur turns purple, your skin turns white, and your wounds heal, your body becomes stronger, your mind becomes sharper, and sometimes you gain abilities.”

I guess it’s not that it happens often, but it’s when you’re faced with a reality that you can’t escape even with an improved body, but I won’t say anything about it.

Victoria looked closely at her body, then reached out to me.

And then the water droplets split and flew towards me, and I fell into the water with my head out.

At first glance it looks like an attack, but it is not an attack.

The water droplets fell on me, sucking me dry as if I had been put in a washing machine. I must have been quite dirty, because the water droplets turned black.

And those drops of water go straight into the drain.

I don’t have a drop of water on my body, but I washed myself clean.

“Ability. You use it well.”

“It feels bad because you move naturally like you’re moving your hands and feet. But aren’t you really a god? It seems really good just from what you say? Above all, this ability. If it’s not given by a god, then what is it?”

But that means the loss is greater.

I don’t talk about that.

Instead, I said something else.

“Remember, the contract is only for one time. If you get hurt again, don’t think that you can get better with the contract.”

“I’d rather be scared if I could keep living. What else?”

There is nothing else.

I was about to shake my head as I thought about that, but then I stopped.

There is one.

“When a creature with a life-threatening wound makes a pact with me, its skin turns blue.”

“Blue? I think my skin looks a bit blue too, is this it?”

That’s because the skin has turned white. Pure white skin is sometimes described as pale, but it’s not that kind of blue.

I pointed to a bright blue picture on one side of the bathroom.

“This color.”

Victoria was shocked.

“It’s the color of a corpse. I’m going to mistake it for something a necromancer made. But, if it’s only possible once, then it’s none of my business, right?”

Right now, yes.

But when someone is in big trouble, there is someone there with superpowers who can heal any wound.

Accidents really do strike out of nowhere, and the scars last a lifetime.

If you call me then and complain, it will be difficult, so I draw the line in advance.

“I mean, I’m not a god, I’m just a monster, so please know that.”

Victoria nodded seriously, perhaps sensing something in what I said.

Then I got down to the floor and poured all the water into the drain.

There is not even a speck of moisture left in the washing area.

You’ve gained some incredibly powerful abilities.

I thought that if I did it right, I could either dry people out like jerky or move the blood inside them.

It’s something that happened in the work, but there was an instance where waterbending turned into bloodbending.

But instead of saying that, he said this.

“Get dressed quickly. Before you catch a cold.”

Victoria smiled bitterly.

“It’s a bit strange for you to introduce yourself as a monster while saying things like that.”

“I have a belief that I will not lie. Then, I will go out.”

I went outside and waited for her to get dressed.

I was trying to straighten Victoria’s hair as she came out, but I put my hand down when I realized that it was dry.

Superpowers are really amazing.

And Victoria and I sat across from each other. There was a strangely awkward moment.

Paaah

The announcement of where to arrive rang out with a honk. After the third announcement was loudly made, Victoria opened her mouth as if she had been waiting.

“We won’t get off here. Remember, we’ll get off next time.”

I already knew this, but I nodded as if I didn’t know. I don’t plan on telling anyone that I have memories of the harvest season. I will continue to do so.

Victoria stares at me intently, examining me from head to toe, with a very glassy gaze.

“By the way, your name. I asked you to decide it earlier.”

Asking that means you’ve decided on a name.

“Is the hold over?”

“Yeah. I thought it would take a long time if I thought about it in a complicated way, so I decided to just keep it simple.”

As Victoria waved her finger, the humidity in the room dropped and water droplets appeared in front of her.

She moved it around to make letters.

“Bell.“

It’s a simple name. Well, a name like that suits me. It’s a nickname anyway.

“Bell. Then, from now on, I will use this as my name.”

“Don’t you think it’s too simple?”

“I like that.”

Victoria lets out a small sigh of relief.

Actually, I think this is also a blessing because I know Victoria’s naming sense.

I’m the type of person who only puts scientific and emotional names like “Version 1.2 of Synthetic Structure for Ingestion” into my inventions.

That one, by the way.

It’s Pokarak.

You can probably guess what kind of naming sense there is.

“Bell. Beauty? Does this face look pretty?”

“Oops.”

There was a clicking sound. I looked at Victoria and she avoided my gaze with an apologetic expression. I searched Victoria’s memories, but there was no one named Belle.

“What is it?”

“No, that’s it. Don’t be mad?”

“I won’t give you anything.”

As I answered like that, I quietly stretched my hand into the air. Then, a monster’s shape appeared out of the air.

This is the first form of the body.

“This was so horrible, so how about we approach it sarcastically?”

It’s an impressive face. White, cloudy eyes. Sharp, needle-like teeth are packed close together, and the face is hideous, like a mix of fish and human.

Even by the standards of Daegon’s original race, he’s handsome!

“He’s a person who’s going to get scolded.”

“You said you weren’t angry!”

I’m not angry.

It seems unconscionable to name someone like that, but I can understand the concept of calling an ugly creature pretty.

“I’m hungry, so buy me some food. This body. I’m going to be in trouble if I don’t eat soon.”

“You really speak strangely. But, yeah. That’s right. There should be a restaurant, so let’s go there.”

Victoria is the one with the money.

We left our luggage and headed to the restaurant together.