While Victoria was sleeping, I quietly sat down and looked out through the small window.
A ship was moving along the coast, so I wasn’t bored watching the distant shore.
Just because I was on a ship doesn’t mean we were heading to an island or another continent.
Victoria’s school and home are on the same continent. But in between, there’s just an impenetrably dense jungle.
So, for Victoria to get home from school, she either has to take a ship along the coast or take a long detour by train.
Victoria simply chose the easy and quick method. Taking the train really takes forever.
From the small window, I could occasionally see flashes of light in the distant forest.
No matter how I looked, it seemed to be fire, yet there was no sign of a blaze.
It was the light of the indigenous creatures of this world.
Monsters, or beasts, roam in the jungle.
That’s why it’s an area where humans don’t wander.
The jungle itself rejects human presence.
Often, even when civilization advances, jungles can remain for a surprisingly long time. Unless there’s a special resource, even if one has the technology to conquer the jungle, the cost of clearing it is typically too great compared to the potential benefit.
That’s how it is in a world that doesn’t use magic or qi.
In a world with creatures that harness magic or qi, the danger increases by hundreds of times.
So, while the outlines of this world are sketched, the insides remain unfilled.
That’s the kind of world it is.
“Uh, uh. Huh? Who’s there?”
With a disheveled expression, Victoria woke up. She startledly clutched the blanket around her as she stared at me with a blank look.
Maybe she hadn’t fully woken up yet and couldn’t seem to collect her thoughts.
“I’m still in a nightmare.”
I replied half-jokingly. With that answer, filled with half-truths, she looked around the room with an alarmed expression.
“Ah! Hello. Good morning!”
“Strictly speaking, it’s night.”
I pointed to the window. It’s a small window that can’t be opened because we’re on a ship, but you can see the star-filled night sky outside.
Blinked slowly, Victoria swung her legs down from the bed.
When she glanced down at her clothes, she gasped in surprise.
“My, my clothes! What the heck! I don’t remember changing!”
“I put them in your travel bag. Now that you’re awake, wash up first.”
Still in a daze, or maybe just trying to grasp the situation, Victoria looked around until she seemed to organize her thoughts and finally got up.
Then, with a shuddering expression, she flipped her clothes inside out to check her underwear and said one line.
“Changing everything, even my underwear, is too much, don’t you think?”
“You’ll catch a disease.”
“Are you my mom or something?”
Hygiene is important, especially in a world that’s rather underdeveloped.
Of course, this world has both magical and physical healing methods, and antibiotics can be administered through injections.
However, shamanistic methods are more common. As long as there’s magic, it’s not entirely ineffective.
But it has a somewhat transitional impression.
While losing limbs can be regenerated, it’s less effective against fatal plagues or diseases caused by pollution.
Anyway, as long as I’m careful within my limits, it should be fine.
As I waited, Victoria called out to me from where she had gone to wash up.
“Hey! Can you come in!”
“Yes.”
When I entered, Victoria was floating in a droplet of water, completely naked, admiring herself in the mirror.
It was quite a peculiar sight from the side.
A huge droplet of water was floating in the air with Victoria right in the middle, her head just poking out.
And though it was hard to see, the water was swirling inside, washing her like a washing machine.
Psychic ability. She handles it well.
While washing in front of the mirror, Victoria spoke to me.
“I didn’t expect my hair color to turn completely purple. The fact that my skin turned pale is nice, but what happened?”
She asked while striking a rather revealing pose.
“If you contract with me, it changes like that. Unless you’re dying, your hair turns purple, and your skin becomes white. If you have any wounds, they heal up, your body becomes robust, your mind sharpens, and you sometimes gain abilities.”
I suspect that it’s awakened when there’s a reality you can’t escape from, even with an improved physique, but I didn’t mention that.
As Victoria keenly examined her body, she reached out to me.
Then the droplet split and flew towards me, submerging me except for my head.
At first glance, it looked like an attack, but it wasn’t.
The droplet washed over me like a cleaning machine and fell off. I must’ve been quite dirty, as the droplet turned black.
And that droplet promptly went down the sewer.
I wasn’t wet at all, but I was clean.
“Your ability is impressive.”
“It moves as naturally as if I’m moving my hands and feet, which feels weird. But are you really not a god? It sounds pretty great just hearing what you said. Especially this ability. If this isn’t something a god gave you, then what is it?”
It implies that the loss is much greater, but I don’t say that part.
Instead, I said something else.
“Just so you know, the contract is only once. Don’t think you can heal from getting hurt again through a contract.”
“Being able to keep coming back to life is scarier. What else?”
There isn’t anything else.
I thought that while shaking my head, but then I stopped.
There’s one thing.
“If a creature that’s in danger of losing its life contracts with me, its skin turns blue.”
“Blue? I think my skin looks a bit blue too. Is that it?”
That’s because her skin turned pale. Pale skin can sometimes be described as ghostly, but it’s not like that blue.
I pointed to a bright blue painting on the side of the bathroom.
“This color.”
Victoria was startled.
“That looks like a corpse’s color. People might mistake it for something made by a necromancer. But if it’s only once, then it’s irrelevant to me, right?”
Right now, yes.
But when someone suffers a major injury, a person with psychic abilities who can heal any wound is next to them.
Accidents truly come without warning, and those scars last a lifetime.
So I drew a line in advance to avoid any blame when she ends up calling me later.
“I’m not a god; just a simple monster, so keep that in mind.”
Victoria seemed to sense something from my words and nodded seriously.
Then she went down and dumped all the water down the sewer.
There wasn’t even a drop of moisture left in the washing area.
That’s quite a powerful ability she’s obtained.
I thought that she could probably dry someone like jerky or manipulate the blood inside.
Though it’s fiction, there was a time when water bending turned into blood bending.
But instead of saying that, I said this.
“Quickly put on some clothes before you catch a cold.”
Victoria gave a wry smile.
“It’s a bit ridiculous for you to say that while introducing yourself as a monster.”
“I have a principle of not lying. Now, I’ll wait outside.”
I stepped outside and waited for her to finish dressing.
As soon as Victoria walked out, I reached to fix her hair but realized she had no moisture on her at all and pulled my hand back.
The psychic ability is indeed amazing.
Then we sat across from each other, and a strangely awkward atmosphere settled over us.
BANG BANG BANG
The sound of a horn and an announcement signaling our arrival reverberated. After the loud announcement ended, Victoria opened her mouth as if she’d been waiting for it.
“We’re not getting off here. We’ll remember to get off two stops later.”
I already knew, but I nodded as if I didn’t. I don’t intend to tell anyone that I am gaining memories of the harvesting period. Not now, nor in the future.
Victoria stared at me intently, her gaze scrutinizing me from head to toe with a strangely glassy look.
“Speaking of which, your name. You asked me to decide earlier.”
Since she’s asking that, it means she already picked a name.
“Is the holdout over?”
“Yeah. Overthinking it would take too long, so I decided to keep it simple.”
As she waved her finger, the humidity in the room decreased, and a droplet appeared before her.
She moved it to form letters.
“Bell.”
It’s a simple name. Well, something casually made suits me. After all, it’s just a nickname.
“Bell, then I’ll use this as my name from now on.”
“Isn’t it too simple?”
“I like it that way.”
With that, Victoria let out a small sigh of relief.
In fact, knowing Victoria’s naming sense, I think I’m lucky to get such a name.
She’s the kind of person who assigns names like “Ver1.2 of Standard Intake Synthetic Structure for Inventions.”
If you take that as a reference, you’ll realize what her naming sense is like.
“Pokarak,” by the way.
Now you can somewhat guess what her naming sense is like.
“So, Bell? A beauty? Do I look pretty to you?”
“Ah.”
A sound like something was caught came out. Looking at Victoria, she averted her gaze with an apologetic expression. Searching through her memories of Victoria, I found no one with the name Bell.
“What’s that about?”
“No, well… please don’t get mad?”
“I’m not angry.”
As I answered, I subtly reached my hand out. Then a figure of a monster appeared in mid-air.
It’s the first form of this body.
“This was truly horrifying, so let’s approach it ironically?”
It’s an impressive face. White and murky eyes. Sharp teeth like needles crammed together, and the face looks like a grotesque mix of fish and human.
By the standards of Daegon’s original race, it’s handsome!
“That’s someone to get scolded.”
“You said you weren’t mad!”
“I’m not mad.”
It may seem heartless to name a person like that. But it’s not that I can’t understand the concept of naming a hideous creature as pretty.
“I’m hungry, so buy me some food. This body needs to start eating soon.”
“You really have a strange way of talking. But, sure. There should be a restaurant, so let’s go there.”
Victoria has the money, after all.
We left our bags and headed to the restaurant together.
