Chapter 22 — Four Men And Gyeongdo (1)

“Father truly sent this to me? Without a thought for the reckoning afterward?”

For all that Shin Hweein turned the thing over in his head, a frightful curse clung to it, and mishandled it seemed liable to make casualties on a city-wide scale.
And this, of all things?

He stared at it with an expression of utter revulsion, but the butler only nodded firmly, his eyes alight.

“Had this been held out to the eldest young master, he would have snatched it up at once, with no thought for what came before or after. To the second young master, he would have laid the side-effects aside and devised some scheme to bring his enemies down with it. The youngest young master, on the other hand, knows full well the measure of its power, and so he shrinks from it.”

“It is because power of that scale and danger of that scale dwell within it together. I was there at the place where Ushi-gozen was put down. I know her stature is not something I could withstand.”

“He who grips a vast power ought, by rights, to fear it. Only then can the power be wielded rightly. Is that not the very reason his lordship has bestowed this on no one but the young master?”

Since when had the butler come to understand Shin Hweein so very well?
He reeled the words off shamelessly, with the smooth-flowing ease of a mountain stream.

Glaring at the man in sheer disbelief, Shin Hweein at last let out a long hahh of a sigh.
There was plenty he wanted to fire back at the butler himself, but at the moment merely thinking about his father was as much as he could manage.

“I simply cannot understand it. He has left me to my own devices all this time. I cannot grasp why, now of all times, he is interfering with me.”
“Do you truly think he left you to your own devices?”
“Enough, enough. I have neither the mind to understand father at this point nor the will to look into the reasons behind his actions. Father was not at my side when I, still a child, had need of him. That is all.”

Biting his lip as he spat the words out, Shin Hweein rose from his seat and took up Ushi-gozen’s mask.
The moment it met his hand, it gave the feeling of cleaving fast to his skin, as though the mask possessed a will of its own and was welcoming him, and a shiver crawled over him in spite of himself.

“An outrageous yokai-thing… For the time being, I shall keep it in my charge. Tell him that when he wishes for it, he may come and fetch it himself.”
“No. The mask is unmistakably the young master’s. The young master, of all people, would be able to handle it, his lordship vouched.”
“It seems his dotage has come on him remarkably quickly.”
“Surely the day will come when you understand him.”
“A laughable notion.”
“I am certain of it.”

The butler too rose to his feet and bowed his head deeply to Shin Hweein.

“In all my life, I have never seen anyone who took after his lordship as closely as the youngest young master. In talent, in disposition, in every single respect.”
“If your business is done, leave off the curses and take yourself home, butler.”
“I shall come again. Until then, pray be in good health.”

Bowing his head once more in farewell, the butler also paid his respects to the priest and the sister, who were still frozen against one wall, and then took his leave.

Once the trace of him had vanished entirely, Shin Hweein let out a pointed sigh, and the priest was the first to speak.

“That gentleman just now, he was a butler? He carried a spirit stronger than any half-decent exorcist priest I know of.”
“He is a First-Rank sorcerer. And among them, he belongs to the strong.”
“Truly remarkable…”
“He is merely an irksome old man.”
“No, no. No no no no.”

As the two of them carried on a conversation with no particular substance, Sister Barbara could endure it no longer and cut in.
Lacking in manners as ever, she even jabbed her finger at Shin Hweein as she raised her voice.

“You. You, I knew you had connections with the Great Houses, but the Shin House? And the head of the house’s son? Direct line?!”
“For a Westerner you know remarkably well.”
“We know the Shin House too! We may not know all of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, but we know the Shin House, and even more so the head, Shin Yuhyeon!”

When Shin Hweein turned his head toward the priest, he nodded as though that much were only to be expected.

“We belong to the Exorcist Priesthood, do we not, dispatched to one country or another. Knowing the well-known awakened and great houses of the country in question is essential. Shin Yuhyeon in particular is famous. The sorcerers of Korea are famous for never stepping outside their own domain, yet he wields tremendous power even when he ventures abroad, does he not?”
“Is that so.”
“Wow. You were from the most prestigious house in all of Aeshin, and yet what on earth are you doing here?!”
“Father, do see to your sister’s mouth.”
“Leave it to me.”

While Sister Barbara had been silenced, Shin Hweein took a closer look at the mask in his hand.
The longer he looked, the more it gave off an aura that bewitched him; he wanted to fling it away that very instant, and the fact that he could not do so was an irritation in itself.
If he were to judge by his spirit-eye, there ought to be no great problem in actually wearing it, and it was precisely because of that that he found it all the more suspect.
It was the byproduct left behind by a great yokai who had carried untold vicissitudes in her, from birth to death to the bearing of a kudan, processed just as it was. There was no possibility it could be without flaws.

“Moa.”
“No matter what answer I give you, I would be in breach of the Three-Year Pact.”
“That is as good as saying there is a problem. Enough. I shall enter my dreams and look into it.”
“Ah, but I have just thought of a way to help you without running afoul of the promise.”

It was as though Geum Moa, jealous that he meant to rely on Lyl, had blurted it out.

When Shin Hweein looked at her with a puzzled expression, she lifted one finger and said:

“Young master, you have the horn of another Gyuki in your possession, do you not?”
“Ah.”

Come to think of it, the horn that had come from the Gyuki Yun Jinseong once dispatched was indeed in Shin Hweein’s keeping.
He had wanted, originally, to hand it over to Geum Moa to be made into a piece of Lyl, but until now she had refused him outright with such finality that he could not get so much as a toothhold.

“Could the Gyuki’s horn be used to suppress this thing?”
“I believe it can. The two of them are alike, and yet opposed.”
“Let us see.”

When Shin Hweein drew the Gyuki’s horn out of the subspace storage, he blinked to find it had grown far blacker than before, giving off a transparent black light not unlike obsidian.

“How has this come about…?”
“It seems the energy Neuldam could not absorb has been taken in by this horn.”
“Just as I thought. Even so, however could a single shikigami swallow that whole yokai-orb on his own.”

The volume of his digestion remained astonishing, of course; but the reason the interior of the subspace storage was clean, without a wisp of yokai aura, stood revealed only now as the Gyuki’s horn.
In any case, was it because the Gyuki’s horn, though it belonged to a Rank Three yokai, had been strengthened by the yokai-orb to a degree on par with Ushi-gozen’s mask?

When Shin Hweein brought it close to the mask, the horn and the mask quivered as one and began to resonate.
The yokai aura flowing out from the horn was suppressing the yokai aura the mask gave off.

“You spoke truly. Then what is to be done. Would it suffice to fix the horn to the mask?”
“That would only be to ruin a fine sorcerous implement. It would be better to handle the mask and the horn together.”
“Together…”

Wear the mask, and use the horn as a weapon?

The horn was large enough that holding it in one hand was a burden. How could it best be worked?
Staring at it intently, Shin Hweein fell into deep thought.

It was just then that the image of Ushi-gozen wielding a katana flashed through his mind.

“A katana would do nicely.”

As it happened, Geum Moa seemed to be thinking the same thing; that was what she proposed.

Shin Hweein at once put on a stern and grave expression and shook his head with austere finality.

“That cannot be. Even this mask carries too strong a Hwa-guk flavor to it, and now a katana on top of that? I am a sorcerer of Aeshin.”
“To put on the mask is to become not-yourself. If you are only borrowing the power a little while, what does it matter whether the blade be a sword of Hwa-guk or a crescent blade of Jin? So long as it is strong, that is enough. On the contrary, would it not be better to keep the blade as far as possible from the young master’s true appearance, the better to separate the identity?”

Rather than have you put forth the full measure of your ability under the name of Shin Hae, this would be far more stable, said Geum Moa; and Shin Hweein, with nothing to say back to her, shook his head from side to side and brought up another problem.

“There are two more decisive problems. I am not skilled in handling sword or blade. And what is more, I drag one leg. Swordsmanship is out of the question.”
“Neither of those two, in my view, would be a problem. If those problems were to be resolved, would you permit it to be made?”
“They are not, in any case, problems easily resolved…”

Shin Hweein looked at Geum Moa with a thoroughly displeased expression, but she would not yield.
It was only because of the Three-Year Pact that she could not explain it in any depth; yet there was no doubt that some sorcerous meaning lay behind her insistence on making, of all things, a katana.

“…It is not even metal. Could a proper blade truly come out of it?”

He had heard of horn being made into a scabbard, but he had never heard tell of one being made into a blade.

But Geum Moa thumped her chest as though to say trust me alone in this.

“A katana is made out of even the lowliest scrap iron of Hwa-guk. Could it not be made out of horn? Believe in me and leave it to me.”
“Horn is not the sort of thing one can fold and hammer like metal, however.”

Plenty uneasy though he was, in the end Shin Hweein gave her the Gyuki’s horn just as she had wanted.
Sighing that he would have to look elsewhere for the materials to make a statuette of Lyl, he tucked the mask he held in his hand into the breast of his garments.

“I shall set off at once to make the blade, so in the meantime, young master, please prepare the materials for the hilt and the scabbard. Peach-tree wood, or byeokjomok (lightning-struck jujube wood), would be best.”
“That I shall consult with my staff.”

If this staff, which he was inwardly all but certain was the tree-dokkaebi Duduri, were asked, it ought to be able to produce good peach-tree wood imbued with yang energy without much trouble.

“Brother.”
“Ah. Forgive me, the matter has run on. It is all done now.”

The horn taken in hand, Geum Moa at once vanished from sight; and the priest called to Shin Hweein.

“It is about time we went to see the Cardinal.”
“Aha.”

He had not realized the hour had already come round to that.
Shin Hweein sighed and followed him out of the room.

“The Shin House… the Shin House, you say. Ah, if that’s the case, then this is really a problem…”

What in heaven’s name Sister Barbara was brooding on, plunged so deep into her own thoughts, they left her abandoned where she was.

“It would seem the two of you must go to Kyoto.”
“That is a singularly curious thing to hear.”

After they had more or less finished their meal, the words that came out of the Cardinal’s mouth bore a place-name that, astonishingly, was familiar to Shin Hweein’s ear as well.
And no wonder. Had not Shin Hweein, only a short while ago, summoned a monster all the way from Kyoto, that is, from Gyeongdo of Hwa-guk?

“This is a matter that calls for prudence, so I would ask first. Your Eminence, how far are you informed about what is happening in Gyeongdo?”
“Only that a pseudo-religious sect is operating in the shadows there.”

At a reply that ran somewhat off from what he had imagined, his brow gave a twitch.
A pseudo-religion, of all things. What was that supposed to mean… no. Surely not.

“I hope I am wrong, but the name of this pseudo-religious sect, would it not, by any chance, be Honwondorae?”
“Mercy on us. It is.”

Cardinal Mose Oh Unwon, with a face of genuine astonishment, nodded.

“In Hwa-guk too the name has only just begun to spread. However did you come to know? Truly an astonishing thing.”
“Those people are no religious order. They are an organization of awakened. And ones hostile to Aeshin at that.”

The reason the name had only now begun to leak out into the wider world was, of course, that the ju bound up in the name Honwondorae had been undone only a short while before.

“My thanks for the information. A pseudo-religion alone would have been trouble enough, and now there is even a connection to our own country. I scarcely know whether to call this a fortunate match.”

The Cardinal, sighing with a troubled face, gave the rest of the explanation.

The one who had contacted him concerning the Honwondorae affair was, of course, a Catholic figure: Bishop John of Kawaramachi Cathedral, the cathedral of the Kyoto diocese.
At first they had sought help from the Cardinal in Osaka, but he had told them to apply to the Vatican; this time they had requested the Vatican, only to be told that the personnel sent into East Asia were currently staying in Korea, and so at last they had contacted the Archdiocese of Seoul.

“Father, are exorcist priests so very busy?”
“If I were not in a special position myself, I would not have been staying in Korea this long. There are not many of us in total to begin with.”
“Your Eminence, why ever did they go so far as to contact Aeshin to ask for help from exorcist priests? Is the headquarters of the famed Onmyo Bureau not in Gyeongdo?”
“The reason for that is something Master Sorcerer Shin Hae would no doubt have guessed at.”

Shin Hweein wrinkled his face fiercely and replied.

“Don’t tell me. Even there, they are not on good terms with each other.”
“Of course they are not. Hwa-guk in particular is a place where the strength of the Catholic Church is weak and the strength of the onmyoji is great, is it not? The Kyoto diocese can scarcely draw breath beneath the weight of the Onmyo Bureau right on its very doorstep, so even if they were to die and come back again, they would never wish to ask them for help first. Even if it meant going so far as to owe a debt to Aeshin.”
“Hostility that overrides even national feeling, then.”

It made his head ache merely to hear it; Shin Hweein shook his head from side to side.

“The commission itself is simple. To investigate the Honwondorae organization, which is trying to draw expatriates in with its perverse doctrine, and, if possible, to bring them down. Laughably enough, the Onmyo Bureau too, they say, is setting about a similar investigation, so it may be that you can cooperate with them.”
“If they were going to do that, they may as well have asked the Onmyo Bureau for help meekly from the start.”

Muttering at the sheer absurdity of it, Shin Hweein nonetheless nodded.

He had been thinking it over recently in any case, that he ought to pay Gyeongdo at least one visit.
Now that the curse of perception had already been broken, he did not suppose the core forces of Honwondorae were still in Gyeongdo, but they could not have torn themselves out by the roots and fled either; remnants and traces would certainly be there to be found.
There was plainly value in turning the place over.

“I shall go. As it happens, I was looking for an opportunity to go there myself.”
“As ever, Master Sorcerer Shin Hae moves by firm and unwavering justice. For this, my deepest thanks.”
“Kyoto, how exciting. Saint Francis Xavier, whom I revere, risked his very life there to preach to the Japanese of his time who knew nothing yet of the Catholic faith. It can be called the origin point of Asian missionary work, so the place is not without ties to the Catholic Church of Korea either.”

Shin Hweein, watching Father Lucas speak with an expression of moved emotion, narrowed his eyes and asked:

“And he too is the patron saint of something, no doubt?”
“The patron saint of foreign missions.”
“Naturally the priest had reason to be fond of him.”

But just as the meal was drawing to a close, more visitors came to call on Shin Hweein at Myeongdong Cathedral.

One of them was Yun Juna, whom he had been seeing so often of late that he was beginning to wonder whether they ought not to call themselves friends, and the other was…

“Would you not come to Gyeongdo with me? Ah, and this, mind you, is a ‘royal command.’”

Yun Jubaek, with an air of immense self-satisfaction, was holding out to him a proposal that carried an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.