Chapter 23 — The Sorcerer And The Cursed Mask (1)

“Y-you. Hm? His power is gone from you…!”
“Can you say his name?”
“You — you know him?! Tell me too, tell me his name!”

So, for the moment, it seemed the man did not know the name of Honwondorae’s leader.
Shin Hweein had done nothing but let the words that one fall from his mouth, and now he watched, chill-faced, as the man clung to him in that sickening way.

He’d assumed this much was possible, of course. But to find that no sorcery compelled their obedience at all, that the man believed in them wholly and followed of his own will…

“What have you done for him, that you dare ask his name?”

Babbling whatever came to mind, Shin Hweein threw up a barrier around the two of them.
The man’s reaction, though, caught him off guard.

“S-so you really were one of the executive officers! I have done a great many things for the faith all this time! I beg you, grant me your grace once again!”

The fellow seemed to take him not for an enemy but for a senior member of the cult.
The mask, the formal suit, even the staff in his grip: his present figure did look more suited to the shadows than to the light of day.

That the man should mistake him for one of them, when only moments ago he’d been moving with Yun Jubaek’s party, was strange.
But it seemed that simply laying a hand on his shoulder and snuffing out the aura the man carried inside him had been enough to mark him as one of Honwondorae’s own.

In truth, that was only possible because of the Indulgence… hm, what to do.

Shin Hweein hesitated a moment, but the conclusion came quickly.
He thickened the barrier by another fold, and, weighting his voice still further, spoke.

“In that case, report to me, in full, everything you have done. He already knows all about you. Only by being honest can you receive his grace again.”
“Ngh… Of course I did, well, allow myself a little — but for me to be punished like this, I, ah, I understand! I shall tell you everything!”

It was very simple.
For Shin Hweein, who needed to wring out as much as he could, as fast as he could, before the enemy noticed a single watchman had gone missing, this was a stroke of good fortune.

“My missionary work, I was earnest in it indeed! I shared his grace with those I was proselytizing, and until it took proper root in their bodies I never once breathed the name of the faith — truly! In the district I oversaw, several of the chosen even emerged!”
“The chosen.”
“Yes, yes! For myself I do not even dare to dream of it — but they enter, before us, the primordial chaos that he governs, do they not. If I, too, cast off every lingering attachment to this side, then someday in the far future I, too, might be chosen… no, never mind. Whatever the higher-ups think to do, I shall act accordingly, yes!”

The phrasing they use to summon their sacrifices, no doubt. Pathetic.

It was a method common to most who practiced human sacrifice.
However complete the brainwashing, a person still clung by instinct to his own life; even those who’d laid down property and family and standing would feel their hearts shake at the order to lay down their lives, and could yet break free.
So they invariably built in an intermediate stage, the guarantee of an afterlife, a paradise or a new body.

They give the believer a finer reason to cast off the present flesh. Furnish that one psychological reassurance, and these people, simply, ridiculously simply, come to believe and lay down their lives.

But the man before him, though his brainwashing was perfect, had by instinct perhaps seen through to the truth that this was a real death, and was excusing himself with the word attachments, wishing to remain in this world.
If one who’d suddenly gained the power called grace still had attachments to this world…
the use he’d put that power to was easy enough to guess.

“Go on.”
“My study of doctrine, too, I pursued earnestly! I memorized the prayers offered up to him, and prayed together with the other believers for the coming of the primordial chaos.”
“Tell me what you have not yet told me.”
“That… since he knows already, do I have to say it with my own mouth?”
“Your chance is at an end.”
“Wait! I will speak!”

What followed was a thoroughly familiar tale of criminal conduct.
When he let his power out, those without immunity would faint or lose the clarity of their wits and obey whatever he told them, and so he had used it to take women who caught his eye, or to steal. Story after story of brazen, lawless behavior.

“Of c-course, I was careful that no trace would surface! Always in places no onmyoji’s eye would fall — yes. The police won’t know either! Those I did it to have only the haziest memory of it; and what I stole was nothing so very grand… I avoided the locals and targeted only tourists, so there are no aftereffects! It was certainly not because of me that the Honwondorae name became known — please, believe me!”

Shin Hweein’s heart was freezing over, by degrees.
The urge to force the man to his knees and punish him on the spot was overwhelming, but there was information yet to be had.

So Shin Hweein told him that atoning for such sins would require still greater deeds for the faith, and drew out in fine detail every act the man had performed on the cult’s behalf.
Most of it was work aimed at swelling the power vested in the very word Honwondorae, and at extending the organization’s reach across the whole of Gyeongdo.

And yet not a single clue toward pursuing them. He’s only rank-and-file, so this is the ceiling, I suppose. The places he names as meeting grounds are mostly marked on the map already…

But perhaps the man had sensed Shin Hweein’s growing disappointment, because now, his face more desperate than ever, he cried out.

“It was I — I myself who delivered up quite a number of offerings! He must surely have been pleased, yes! Those I led, with my own hands, to the gate of the primordial chaos — that is to say, the gate of Fushimi Inari Taisha¹ — !”

In that instant, a thunderbolt fell from the sky.
Shin Hweein flung out a hand and warded it off in time, but as though something above had been enraged by his interference, fiercer thunderbolts poured down upon him in unbroken succession.

“Hiieeek!”

Aware perhaps that he’d escaped death by a hair, the man pressed himself flat to the ground in terror and screamed shrilly.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I dared to defy his will and offered up those who were not yet believers! I’m sorry!”
“Shut your mouth and stay as you are!”

Shin Hweein layered Fire-blood several folds thick atop the barrier to ward off the lightning and barked the order at him. But in his mind he was turning the man’s words over.

Fushimi Inari Taisha was a Shinto shrine famed throughout Gyeongdo, indeed throughout all of Hwa, for enshrining Inari, the god of grain and abundance.
It had originated when the Hata clan, descendants of Yuzuki no Kimi², one of the toraijin³ who had crossed over from ancient Aeshin and settled in Hwa in the distant past, held rites to their clan deity. And the fox, the messenger of Inari, was particularly famous as the shrine’s emblem.
That the kumiho, a fox-yokai of Aeshin, had in ancient times been recorded as a symbol of abundance was alone enough to make plain the connection between the god Inari and Aeshin.

If anyone from outside Aeshin meant to work their schemes directly upon the country, of course the place would be one tied to Aeshin somehow. And yet, because the Specter Realm Gate the mother-body of the kudan was bound to stood in a place wholly unrelated to Aeshin, I let my guard slip. Tsk. They performed the work at Fushimi Inari and hid the result far from there.

While he reproached himself for not thinking of this possibility sooner, on the other hand Shin Hweein also found Geum Moa rather provoking.
That the fox-spirits attending the god Inari and the kumiho should share no point of contact between them: that would be the lie.

If it was her, then surely from the very moment she heard the sorcery had been worked in Gyeongdo, she would already have surmised the connection with Fushimi Inari Taisha. And yet she’d kept her mouth firmly shut all this while. Provoking, exceedingly so.
Of course, even that, no doubt, had been only to keep faith with the pact between them. But at the thought of how far he still had to go before he could catch up with her, only a sigh escaped him.

“S-spare me! Forgive my sin, just this once!”
“I told you not to rise!”

Having got hold of a decisive clue concerning Honwondorae was a good thing, but the problem was here and now.
It was not that he wished the man to live. It was that the desire to drag him, by whatever means, before the public, to have him bear witness again and be properly punished, was overwhelming.

To judge by the way the lightning grew steadily fiercer, the moment when it would be hard to ward off with Shin Hweein’s own strength alone seemed to be drawing near.
He had certainly wiped out every trace of yokai aura that remained in the man himself. Was it that a sorcery lay there which not even the Indulgence could resolve, or had the measures been taken not on the man’s body but somewhere else entirely?

Shall I borrow the shikigami’s power? Or hastily inscribe a sorcerous array? Or else snatch this man up at once and open a Specter Realm Gate… no, Honwondorae uses sorceries that work through the Specter Realm Gate too. That could be suicide.

— Krrr-rmm…

“Ah.”

In the midst of casting about for some way out, a low breath sounded close by his ear, and Shin Hweein snapped back to himself.
Without needing to think any further, he flung open the subspace storage on the instant, and Neuldam, who had slept through the whole thing, smelled the lightning and came clambering out, rubbing its eyes.

— Krrm.

A coat now of a deeper blue-black than before; a bulk fully three times what it had been when first captured; and, in step with that, a presence incomparably stronger than before.
That said, its two eyes still glittered round and cute, and it was still small enough to come up and perch atop its master’s head.
By the Samshin Halmi sorcery-pattern on its body, by now almost entirely faded, one could tell it had nearly reached its full-grown form.

— Krrr… Krrr-rmm!

After rubbing its eyes a couple more times, the creature flared its nostrils and, without anyone bidding it, leapt straight into the air.
The lightning that had been pouring down on the man at once concentrated on Neuldam’s small body, but the creature only let out a delighted cry and rose higher and higher.
At that, as if to say let us see who wins, the black clouds blanketing the sky swelled further and further, until at last rain too began to fall.

“Th-that is…”
“Pay no heed to the affairs of a god, and say what you must say. You — you said you had offered up the wrong sort of people. Was the place too, perhaps, mistaken?”
“N-no! That alone, no — I most certainly led them to the appointed place, and saw with my own eyes that they passed through the gate!”
“The gate? The gate of Fushimi Inari Taisha… ah.”

The instant he grasped its meaning by instinct, Shin Hweein’s first impulse was to deny the reality of it.
One of the symbols of Fushimi Inari Taisha was the path of red torii running unbroken from the shrine’s honden (the main hall) up to the summit of the mountain, the Senbon Torii.⁴
By their original nature, the torii erected at the entrance of a shrine marked the boundary dividing the realm of the god from the present world. That is to say, they bore the meaning of gates.
Fushimi Inari Taisha, it was said, had followed since the Edo period the practice that whoever wished a wish granted, or whose wish had been granted, donated to the shrine, and a torii was erected in keeping with the sum.
They had gone on increasing ever since, until by now the number reached no less than…

“One of more than ten thousand torii is the gate.”
“Hm? Ah no, just past Ichinomine, nearer the summit of the mountain⁵…”

Even as he shot a doubtful look at Shin Hweein, who was muttering in a voice that conveyed something close to despair, the man went on obediently laying out the specifics of the place.
And then.

— Bang!

This time something came flying at a speed Shin Hweein could not even react to, pierced his barrier, and tore a hole clean through the man’s skull.
What was more, the thing, having punched through the skull and out the back, now aimed at Shin Hweein, was swallowed up by Arong, who reared up clothed in flame.

“Well now, I got a bit nervous and dithered, so I’m a little late.”
“…”

The one who’d stolen from the criminal his chance to be punished fairly soon made his appearance before Shin Hweein.
He was a white man in black leathers, a cloak thrown over them to conceal his body; on his head sat a dashing cowboy hat, and from the muzzle of the heavy revolver gripped in one hand, smoke was curling.

“Come from the American Wild West, have you?”
“The Japanese seem to love it — Korea must be a bit different, then?”
“Well, I do know that aiming a gun at someone isn’t manners.”
“Oh dear, and snooping around behind people’s backs is mannerly, is it?”
“When you investigate a criminal organization, it isn’t snooping. It’s called investigation.”

Shin Hweein, keeping the man at bay while he gauged his rank, sensed by instinct that this would not be the end of it.
In truth, he’d begun to expect as much from the moment the lightning started falling from the sky with such terrifying force.
It was simply because he’d thought he could not afford to let slip the lead he had at last secured, and so had tried, however he could, to wring more out of it, that things had come to this.

What was worse, the blue bird that ought to have been aloft in the sky could no longer make out his location properly.
This meant one thing.

“An Other Realm, is it.”
“Correct. From the moment that he summoned the lightning, this place has already been his domain.”

This time a woman’s voice came from behind Shin Hweein.
When the talisman that flew in with her, as if in greeting, was again swallowed by Arong, the woman, seeing Arong perfectly unaffected even after consuming it, cried out in startled tones.

“That is no ordinary sorcery! Is it a shikigami?”
“It couldn’t swallow the lightning. There’ll be a limit.”

The man, Rank Two. The woman, Rank Two.
And further still, the presence he could faintly feel even now from far off was, very likely, Rank One.

It would be well if he could call on his companions for support, but if this was an Other Realm, they might not even have noticed; or even if they had, they might have run into other enemies outside and be locked in battle of their own.

If we’re already inside an Other Realm, opening a Specter Realm Gate is meaningless. The best route of escape is closed off from the outset. Not that I’d have brought myself to use it anyway.

Besides the ability-users with their weighty presences, he could feel yokai aura coming, one wave after another, into the Other Realm.
To judge by the fact that they all carried the same energy, no doubt these were believers bearing the grace bestowed on them by Honwondorae’s leader.
To kill them out of hand was something Shin Hweein, for all that, was loath to do; but to let the enemy catch wind of such tender thinking was even more unwelcome.

“There’s nothing for it but to wrap these up quickly and then deal with whoever comes after.”

— Careful. These fellows — their limit in spiritual power is plain, and yet they’re amplifying that strength beyond it. Just like those believer-fellows.

“Well caught. The source will be the same.”

Leon and Flame-tail took up battle stances and appeared on his left and right.
The woman, an Eastern sorceress as he’d guessed from the moment she threw the talisman, wore an interested look at the sight of him calling out his shikigami, and was herself calling out several shikigami of her own in turn.

“That’s a Korean dog-yokai, isn’t it? Just my luck — I’ve been wanting for ages to pit him against an Inugami⁶ and see which is the stronger!”

— Mine, obviously, by far!

“Don’t fall for the goading, Flame-tail.”

Which is stronger. As if. Whichever was stronger was always, simply, the one that was stronger.

Shin Hweein looked up at the sky and tried to gauge when the rain of lightning would cease, but it seemed perhaps the object of punishment had changed, for the sky still rumbled noisily and flashed, and Neuldam only let out cries of joy at a feast that would not end.

— Shall we use it? The mask.
— Not yet… not yet. Let me try first with the strength I’ve raised myself.

To Geum Moa’s voice, which sounded almost as if she were enjoying the situation, Shin Hweein answered with a sigh. Then, putting strength into the hand that held the staff, he struck the ground with it.

The crack of a gunshot, and the sorceress’s voice, sounded together.
With the hundreds of branching boughs that burst up from the ground, Shin Hweein, too, set himself in motion.