Part 1 Chapter 2 (13)

“…What the hell.”

Gaeul’s heart felt like it was about to burst. That was me? That vulgar woman who was choking a man to death and panting like a dog?

Thump, thump, thump.

Her pounding heart showed no signs of calming down. The long, long night of passion under the moonlight was more provocative, captivating, and poignant than any experience Gaeul had ever had.

Just who in the world was it?

No matter how hard she tried to recall, nothing came to mind. Only the blue flame that had warmly embraced her came to mind; she didn’t know the man’s face or name.

Only that blue flame remained in her mind.

“…Ah?! Ahh!”

Why had she forgotten this? Gaeul startled and sat up.

“I’m alive.”

Gaeul touched every part of her body, confirming she was alive. Her hand felt soft fabric.

“What’s this?”

A translucent turquoise silk cloth. Gaeul hugged the veil that was wrapped around her neck and rose from the sofa. Instead of her missing high heels, a pair of fluffy slippers, perfectly sized for Gaeul’s feet, were neatly placed on the floor.

‘Who is it?’

From the situation, it seemed clear that someone had saved her and laid her down here. As Gaeul searched her memories from before losing consciousness, a girl with blue hair came to mind.

‘She was truly beautiful.’

Her beauty was so striking that even Gaeul, whose looks were renowned in the entertainment industry, couldn’t hold a candle to her. The blue flame wings blazing behind her back were as beautiful as an angel descended to Earth.

…Blue flame?

“Ah. So that’s why.”

They say that the desire for survival and reproduction intensifies right before a person faces death. Gaeul was so embarrassed that it had manifested as an erotic dream that her face was burning hot.

‘To mistake a girl for a man. Ugh, was that my preference?’

She also felt confused about her sexual orientation. Gaeul rubbed her cheeks with her palms and composed herself. As her cluttered mind slowly cleared, she had the leisure to look around.

“This place is….”

A worn-out sofa and a table with wobbly legs. And some pantry items and old curtains. It looked familiar.

“The men’s lounge?”

It was a place she had never been able to enter as an undergraduate student but had briefly visited for a shoot. An abandoned lounge, so dusty that they had to return to the car to prepare.

That lounge was spotless, not a speck of dust. As if a cleaning fairy had visited.

“The dimensional gate… is it over now?”

Before entering New Seoul, she had often heard monster alerts, but this was her first time facing a monster directly. Gaeul searched for the smartphone she had put in her inner coat pocket.

“It’s broken.”

The screen was shattered, and the power wouldn’t turn on no matter how many times she pressed it. Gaeul, thinking it might have broken when she was attacked by the monster, put on the slippers and carefully stood up.

“You’d better not come out.”

“Hee-eek?!”

Startled by the sudden voice from beyond the door, Gaeul plopped back down onto the sofa.

Thump, thump.

A hulking figure in a hood ducked his head and entered the lounge. The man’s skin, illuminated by the fluorescent light, was a curbstone-like gray.

“An ability user? Are you… a Hero?”

“No.”

As Jo Deokbae strode inside, Gaeul slowly backed away.

“Then a Hunter?”

“Not that either.”

Gaeul hid behind the sofa, scanning for an escape route. An ability user who was neither a Hero nor a Hunter. The man was a Villain.

“W-what are you going to do to me?!”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Deokbae flopped down onto the sofa opposite where Gaeul was hiding. He simply sat there with his eyes closed, as if he had no interest in Gaeul. He even crossed his arms and leaned his head back against the sofa, looking exactly like someone waiting for someone.

“…Um, excuse me?”

“What.”

Gaeul, peeking her head out from behind the sofa, asked.

“The person who saved me… it wasn’t you, was it?”

“It wasn’t me. That….”

Deokbae, with his head down, bit his lip. No appropriate word came to mind to refer to ‘that’.

“Phoenix must have saved you.”

“Phoenix?”

Deokbae glanced at his smartwatch and checked the time. 7:12 PM.

“That person named Phoenix, by any chance, has blue hair…?”

“An ability user who wears a high school girl’s uniform.”

“Ah!”

Gaeul clapped her hands in surprise. The angel she had seen before losing consciousness wasn’t an illusion, but a real ability user with blue flame wings.

“Then are you their colleague?”

“…….”

Deokbae closed his eyes without a word. Gaeul took that as an affirmative silence and came out from behind the sofa to sit opposite him.

“Thank you for saving me. I won’t forget this kindness.”

“I told you I didn’t save you. But can I ask you something?”

At Deokbae’s words, Gaeul gulped.

‘Should I tell the truth?’

He’s finally going to say what she was worried about. Gaeul decided to simply admit it, as her identity would be revealed anyway.

“Yes. I am actress Cheon Gaeul-“

“Who are you and how do you know Phoenix?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, what’s your relationship with them? That crazy b- *ahem*. It’s the first time they’ve treated someone specially, you know?”

Seeing the hand stroking Gaeul’s hair, Deokbae ran to the bathroom and dry-heaved. The look in Phoenix’s eyes as they gazed at the sleeping Gaeul was even wistful.

‘How did they see me at first, I wonder?’

Human trash. A bug too disgusting to touch. What kind of person would be precious to someone who used not only themselves but everything around them as a tool for their own purposes?

“So, how did a kid like you end up with someone like that-“

“I’m not a kid! I’m 28 years old!”

Now it was Deokbae who was speechless. Gaeul huffed and puffed, pulling out her ID card and thrusting it at Deokbae.

“Here! Look! My New Seoul Resident Registration Card!”

“…Forgery?”

“The New Seoul Resident Registration Card is issued by the government in conjunction with the association, you know?! Forgery itself is impossible! Look! The official mark with mana reaction!”

“No. I know that, but your condition is….”

Although her clothes were tattered in places, as if she’d been rolling around in a rough area, to Deokbae’s eyes, Gaeul looked like a college student in her early twenties no matter how he looked at her.

“Aren’t you lying about your age?”

“Heh, heheh. I’m quite famous for not looking my age, you know.”

Gaeul, who was soon approaching thirty, continued speaking with a triumphant expression at Deokbae’s suspicion regarding her appearance.

“But you don’t know me? Cheon Gaeul, the nation’s first love, a child prodigy actress, who’s enjoying peak popularity for her role as Hyun Jiyun in ?”

“…By any chance, the one from ?”

Cheon Gaeul clapped her hands and laughed.

“Oh! How did you know that? That was my debut work! It flopped so badly that many people think my debut work was something else.”

“……Just.”

Deokbae swallowed his words. That movie the orphanage director used to play while abusing them. It was a movie that made him think a lot, watching a child of a similar age being harshly abused in the film.

“But you’re really Cheon Gaeul? Why would an actress come to Seoul?”

“Exactly!”

Perhaps her tension had eased with the ongoing conversation, Cheon Gaeul began to complain about her unfair near-death experience.

“No matter how high the ratings are or how much they want historical accuracy, does it make sense to film a drama in Seoul? Not even Incheon! For a scene that could just be shot on any university campus….”

Deokbae raised a hand to cut Gaeul off. One chatterbox, Phoenix, was enough.

“Stop. I get it, just stop. Anyway, you’re really Cheon Gaeul, right?”

Deokbae stood up from the sofa and pointed outside the door.

“They are waiting.”

“Ah.”

Gaeul scurried after Deokbae. Her cautious following, keeping a slight distance as if ready to run away at any moment, was like a wary cat.

Deokbae, who had climbed the stairs, stood in front of a classroom on the second floor and pointed inside. Gaeul alternated glances between the door and Deokbae, then gently opened the door.

“Excuse me…?”

Inside the classroom, a girl sat cross-legged on a desk, staring intently at the blackboard. Even with a marker in her mouth and a deeply furrowed brow, Gaeul found her so beautiful that her heart momentarily thumped.

“…? Oh.”

As Gaeul, standing at the door, came into Phoenix’s sight, Phoenix hastily snapped their fingers. Blue flames erupted on the blackboard.

“Kyaa!”

Gaeul, startled by the sudden blaze, recoiled. The flames burned away the numerous writings drawn on the blackboard.

Bang!

As Phoenix clapped their hands together as if in prayer, the flames vanished instantly. The blackboard gleamed as if it had just been made new.

“Cheon Gaeul-ssi?”

“Yes, yes?”

When Gaeul replied, Phoenix clicked their tongue. Deokbae, who had followed, shrugged.

“I hoped it wasn’t you.”

“They said they are Cheon Gaeul. If they’re not the person you thought they were, then kill them yourself?”

What? Gaeul was momentarily startled and pressed herself against the wall. Phoenix uncrossed their legs from their seated position on the desk and let them drop below the desk.

“Congratulations, Cheon Gaeul-ssi. You’re alive because you’re Cheon Gaeul.”

“What were you going to do if I wasn’t?”

Phoenix let out a hollow laugh and stretched.

“Killed you. Jo Deokbae-ssi would have.”

“…!!”

Gaeul was certain. These two were Villains.

“For what purpose did you save me? Money? A New Seoul Resident Registration Card?”

“Cheon Gaeul-ssi, I think you’ve watched too many dramas.”

“Of course, I’m an actress! No, that’s not the point right now!”

This won’t do. Deokbae inwardly offered his condolences to Cheon Gaeul, who was slowly starting to get tangled up.

“Hmm… to be precise, I didn’t save Cheon Gaeul-ssi.”

Phoenix fiddled with their fingers on their shoulder and frowned.

“I just happened to see a monster while passing by, so I killed it, and it just so happened that you were on the verge of death at that moment. The reason I brought you here was because I wondered if you might be someone I knew.”

“…Have we ever met before?”

Gaeul searched her memories. During her life in the entertainment industry, she had met countless people, and among them, there were easily over a hundred beauties one could never forget after seeing them once.

But no matter how hard she thought, the person named ‘Phoenix’ in front of her was not in her memory.

“Plastic surgery, perhaps?”

“It’s natural.”

“Then… gender reassignment?”

“It could be, or it might not be. More details will come when the time is right… Just kidding, we haven’t met before. But.”

Phoenix got off the desk and approached Gaeul. Gaeul pressed her back tightly against the wall and stood on her tiptoes. Gaeul, who was already tall enough to be only a finger’s length shorter than Phoenix, now stood on her toes, bringing Phoenix’s eyes to about her neck level.

“U-um, excuse me? Just who are you that-”

Wham.

“?!?!”

Phoenix hugged Gaeul. They wrapped their arms around Gaeul’s waist and buried their head in her collarbone.

“U-um, excuse me?”

The body heat transmitted from their close embrace felt like warm sunlight. Gaeul rolled her eyes, holding her hands up in a ‘hands up’ gesture, not knowing what to do.

“Ugh!”

Deokbae, already disgusted, was dry-heaving and running down the hallway. In this situation where they were suddenly left alone in the empty lecture hall, Gaeul paused at the subtle trembling transmitted through their clothes.

“…….”

The girl was crying. No, she seemed to be forcibly holding back a bursting cry. Gaeul hesitated, then lowered her hands and hugged the one called Cheonghwa.

“I-I’m sorry. I really can’t remember….”

“…Haa.”

Gaeul shivered at the deep sigh transmitted through their clothes. At the breath that seemed to contain both relief and longing, Gaeul’s face flushed, and her body felt like it was burning up.

Thump, thump, thump.

She had already had an inexpressible dream while briefly sleeping, and now this sudden encounter. The demon dormant in Gaeul’s subconscious awoke and whispered.

‘Possible.’

The demon laughed, clashing two scissors together. The angel, who had been looking at him pitifully from the opposite side, whispered to Gaeul.

‘Wouldn’t it be okay if there was just love?’

“??!?!!?!?!?!”

With her heart beating faster and faster, Gaeul unconsciously gulped. The sound was so loud that it seemed to fill the entire classroom.

Pfft. A hoarse sound was heard from somewhere. Phoenix patted Gaeul’s waist as if to comfort her and lifted their head.

“Don’t think it’s strange. I was just checking Gaeul-ssi’s mana Affinity Rate inside your body with mana resonance.”

“…Eh?”

“Food, air, water. Mana accumulated in nature is stored, albeit in very small amounts, within the human body. The human body only absorbs mana of the attribute that best suits its constitution. That becomes the trigger for humans to awaken as ability users.”

A lecture suddenly began. Gaeul fell into a state of panic at this new teaching method that indiscriminately poured out unknown knowledge to the academic world.

Of course, the professor’s explanation didn’t stop even with the undergraduate student’s mental breakdown.

“Because the maximum absorbable amount for each attribute differs from person to person, everyone’s mana has its own unique properties. This is expressed as an ‘Affinity Rate’ for each attribute, for example, Fire attribute 17%, Water attribute 72%. Unless it’s a doppelganger, mana Affinity Rates can never be exactly the same.”

Phoenix raised their head, met Gaeul’s eyes, and smiled sweetly.

“So there’s no way you’re not Cheon Gaeul. Fire 2, Water 17, Wind 68, Earth 31, Light 8, Dark 37, Illusion 88. The numbers are exactly the same as I remember. Puhuhu.”

“Uh… um….”

“Ha. That’s really unfortunate. If your Fire attribute had just exceeded 50%, I could have forcibly awakened your ability. But like this, it’s hard to awaken your ability before breaking the brainwashing of the other kids. Hmm. More importantly….”

“So, what exactly are you saying…?”

Phoenix released the hug and stepped back two paces, scanning Cheon Gaeul up and down. Cheon Gaeul instinctively pressed her arms tightly against her chest at the somehow lecherous gaze.

“No. It’s just…. Your mana values are the same, but you seem like a completely different person. Is it because of the age difference? Your body shape seems similar though. Cheon Gaeul-ssi, can I touch your chest?”

“Are you crazy?!”

Cheon Gaeul huffed and puffed, screaming. Phoenix blinked in surprise, then waved their hand and laughed.

“Ahahaha! My apologies. If it were that person, they would have made even more sexual jokes and told me to touch them more. Huhu. Then, hmm… just a moment. Since it’s our first meeting in a while….”

Phoenix neatly brought their hands together in front of their forehead. The atmosphere, unlike their frivolous demeanor just moments ago, was solemn, as if performing a ritual, making even Gaeul feel reverent.

Hwaruruk.

The uniform Phoenix was wearing transformed into Azure Flame, swirling around Phoenix’s body. At the glimpse of their pure white naked body visible through the flames, Gaeul placed a hand on her chest and gasped.

The Azure Flame dispersed with mana, transforming into a flowing silk cloth. A priestly robe, with a sapphire-melted blue surface adorned with luxurious white embroidery in a blazing flame pattern. As Phoenix spread their hands and swept them down from their head, the Azure Flame scattered into fire dust, becoming a translucent veil that reached their waist.

“…Ah!”

Gaeul realized whose the turquoise veil around her neck was. Phoenix gently placed their right hand on their left shoulder and bowed their head in greeting.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Cheon Gaeul-ssi.”

“Ah, yes! It’s nice to meet you. Um….”

“I am the Incarnation of the Sun. The eternally unextinguishable Azure Flame. I am called Phoenix.”

“…Uh, what?”

Gaeul, having heard several titles in an instant, fidgeted, not knowing how to respond. Phoenix approached Gaeul, took both her hands, and smiled refreshingly.

“Just call me Phoenix.”

“Ah, yes. Nix-ssi.”

“Phoenix.”

“…Yes.”

Gaeul clasped the hands holding hers in return and bowed her head to Phoenix.

“Anyway, thank you for saving me. If it weren’t for Phoenix-ssi, I really would have died.”

“It’s fine. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Wow, look at them discriminating based on gender?”

Deokbae, who had returned from the bathroom at some point, twitched his face and entered the classroom. His light gray skin was cracked in places from mana backflow.

“…When did I tell you to interrupt when the atmosphere was good? Subordinate No. 2?”

“No. This is ridiculous. Right now. A Villain who burns people to death, guh!”

A lump of flame, shot like light, struck Deokbae’s mouth. Gaeul tried to avert her gaze but barely managed to stop her head from turning due to the force on her hands.

“Huhu. It worked out perfectly. That hulking figure over there is Jo Deokbae. He’s my Subordinate No. 2.”

“…Subordinate, you say.”

Gaeul felt a little sympathy for Deokbae, who was writhing on the floor, tormented by the Azure Flame stuck to his face. Deokbae, who had regenerated his rock-like skin by circulating mana again, got up and threw the chair he had grabbed onto the floor.

“Bastard!”

Deokbae shouted something, but no sound came out. Phoenix shrugged their eyebrows and pointed at Gaeul.

“Let me introduce you. This is Cheon Gaeul-ssi.”

“Oh, I’ll do it. I’m actress-”

“She’s the new face of our Azure Syndicate.”

“What?”