At the End of the Hidden Greenery - Chapter 286

“What do you mean?”

“Well… strictly speaking, my eyesight has become too good. I can see far too much now, so unless I block some of it out like this, everything is unbearably bright and dizzying. Powers like yours are especially difficult because they overlap with what I normally see.”

Reed tipped his head toward Jiwoo as he spoke.

“In other words, I can see both you and Akarna’s power layered over you.”

Her power resembled a field of snow spread beneath the sun. It shone with the same brilliant whiteness as an Ellandos, so dazzling that staring at it for too long felt as though it might blind him.

Jiwoo could only look bewildered by the explanation.

“Why? Why did that suddenly happen?”

“It should have developed gradually, but the illness held it back all this time. Now it’s come flooding in all at once. It’s driving me insane.”

In that case, keeping his eyes covered probably was better. At least it shut out one layer of what he could see.

“…So you really meant it when you said I was dazzling?”

“You’re dazzling in more ways than one.”

Reed shrugged with an easy, shameless smile.

“So if this isn’t technically an injury or an illness, can you even treat it?”

“I’m not sure…”

“I refused because I was afraid your power might improve it even further. If that happened, I’d truly be in trouble.”

His eyesight had always been exceptionally sharp.

After he fell ill, his body had never fully returned to what it once was, no matter how much Jiwoo treated him. She had heard several times that Tevon had surpassed him in hunting because of it.

But this meant Reed was finally recovering the abilities he had lost. More than that, they were becoming even stronger than before.

“…Then will it settle down on its own?”

“It should become easier once I adjust. Ultimately, this is happening because our tree’s power has grown far stronger than it used to be.”

Jiwoo could hardly suggest testing whether her power might improve or worsen it when he already seemed to be suffering so much.

“You understand now?”

“Hehe, yes. Then I’m relieved.”

She was still confused, but at least one worry had been resolved. Jiwoo smiled as she let out a breath of relief.

“…”

Even through the blindfold, Reed seemed to stare fixedly at her before clicking his tongue.

“Now I want to kiss you. Should I just do it, dizziness be damned?”

“I think this time I should be the one refusing…”

“Aw. Tch.”

“Darling, would you like to hear my hypothesis?”

Mel, who had been watching their exchange, smoothly inserted himself into the conversation.

“What is it?”

“The Akarna’s power eliminates external threats, doesn’t it? Do you know exactly how it determines what to remove?”

“I know that illnesses and physical harm that would damage my body usually don’t affect me. I can also extend that protection to people I consider to be on my side.”

When she had come to think of herself as no different from a tree, she had been able to heal trees as well.

And when she had recognized a bodiless being from another world as another dimensional traveler like herself, she had been able to ease its pain too.

The second case had consumed an enormous amount of strength. There was also the issue that the incarnation’s reconstructed body had ended up resembling Jiwoo far too closely…

“That’s right. Exactly… And yet your body can still become intoxicated, and medicines meant to manage illnesses such as colds can still affect you. As you know, however, both alcohol and medicine can become poison when taken in excess.”

That was true.

If her body rejected every external force that tried to alter it, medicine should not have worked either. The Akarna’s power selectively accepted or rejected outside influences.

“Now that you mention it… I think the strength of it does change depending on how I feel.”

When Jiwoo felt happy, her power often worked more strongly. When her mental state deteriorated too far, her ability to recover sometimes vanished altogether.

Excessive stress could weaken an Akarna.

“But, darling.”

“Yes?”

“If it were merely a question of mood, then it would be far more efficient to flood you with drugs that made you feel good, destroy your reason, and harvest your blood afterward.”

“…”

The words shocked her.

But once he said it, Jiwoo realized he was right.

Whenever the Temple had exploited an Akarna, they had always insisted upon duty toward the gods and humanity. They had gone through the trouble of indoctrinating her first.

“So it appears that the power requires not only emotion, but a certain degree of conscious will.”

Mel continued his explanation.

“The reason your blood carried that effect was probably because bloodshed touched upon the instinctive part of the human mind, the desire for pain to stop, the desire to become safe again. All living creatures are like that. When injured, they feel danger and immediately wish to escape that condition.”

The process of drawing blood had likely made it easier to stir those primal instincts.

“Now then…”

When Jiwoo began sinking too deeply into thought, Mel raised his voice as though to draw her back.

“There is no reason it must be blood.”

That was already evident in what she did now.

When Jiwoo communed with a tree and became attuned to it, she felt its pain. In that process, the tree’s illness would simply disappear.

It was accomplished through little more than her desire to live alongside it, or her wish to heal it. She had already been doing it without ever considering the underlying mechanism.

“Why are you only telling me this now?”

“Because you  might not have wanted to know. What right did I have to force that knowledge upon you?”

Mel was right.

In the past, Jiwoo truly had not wanted to know.

Everyone who spoke of the unfamiliar concept of an Akarna had only wanted to use it as an excuse to manipulate and control her.

But that had changed after she realized that the Akarna was not something separate from her.

It was Jiwoo herself.

And Akarna’s power belonged to her alone.