Chapter 3 — The Sorcerer And The Priest (3)

Flame-tail would not be glad to hear it, but Hweein had foreseen Hoa’s betrayal in some measure from the very beginning.

From the start she had hidden her true identity, and she had been excessively kind to Shin Hweein besides.
The very incident that first brought her into contact with him had carried a faintly unaccountable air.

As far as Shin Hweein knew, Eul was a creature of vile tastes but perfectly sound intelligence.
That such a one would chase blindly after Hoa, who plainly outmatched him, and go so far as to try to force her, a yokai herself, into a pairing with Shin Hweein, had nagged at him as wrong from the first.
And in the middle of their fight, Eul’s eyes had changed all at once; he had been on the verge of saying something when Hoa cut him off.

There had been plenty about Hoa herself that struck him as suspicious.
Above all, she knew far too much about the world outside the Specter Realm, bringing up manhwa and the affairs of modern people of her own accord.

None of this, of course, guaranteed that she would turn against Shin Hweein.
But from the moment he formed his contract with Flame-tail, her words had grown noticeably fewer.
Perhaps she had judged that, with Flame-tail at his side, bending Shin Hweein to her own pleasure would prove difficult.

And now, here she was, striking at Flame-tail before his very eyes.

“Flame-tail, are you all right?”

— Damn, it… all…!

“My, you’ve still strength enough to speak. A moment, please, my lord. Let me deal with this creature first, and then the two of us can talk.”

Astonishingly, even now, a knife drawn from inside her robes, she still meant to call Shin Hweein my lord.

Shin Hweein snorted under his breath.

“If he dies, I die as well. You do this knowing that.”

“I won’t kill him. There’s no need to provoke his original master, and I haven’t the slightest intention of killing my lord. I will, however, need him a little quieter. A modest sealing would do nicely, don’t you think?”

“That I cannot allow. Flame-tail is my shikigami.”

Shin Hweein poured spiritual power into his staff, struck the ground, and whispered something under his breath.
A wooden vine surged up from beneath Flame-tail’s feet, caught the creature, and bore him back behind Shin Hweein, coiling into a shape that shielded him from Hoa.

With her powers she could easily have intercepted it, and yet she did not.
It was as though she had some clear purpose where he was concerned, and yet, at the very last, hesitated to lay a hand on him directly.

“Heavens, you’ve already grown so adept at the dokkaebi’s power….”

“All thanks to you. It was you who brought me the staff, you who taught me the incantation.”

The gulf between their powers was vast enough that she might simply have been at ease, of course.
But how could anyone hear those words and imagine they came from someone who wished him ill?

And yet that was precisely the case.
It was why Shin Hweein had never lowered his guard against Hoa.

…Astonishingly, he had exactly one other such tie in his life.

“How could it be by this maiden’s doing? Were the dokkaebi’s powers so easy to wield, that race would long since have perished and been reduced to materials for sorcerous implements.”

“It is not only for that I must thank you. Since matters have come to this, I had best say it all.”

“Hoho. You wouldn’t be buying time for some little scheme, would you?”

Yet even as she said it, Hoa made no move to stop him.
Shin Hweein nodded and went on.

“First, I am grateful that you healed me, again and again.”

“Healed you? It was the myodusa who healed my lord, not I.”

“That is precisely my point. The myodusa is your shikigami, is it not? Or perhaps I should say, your thrall.”

“…What? What nonsense are you—!”

“I know. By now, my eyes can see such things.”

“…”

Perhaps she had not heard his exchange with Flame-tail; or perhaps it had simply never occurred to her that he might discern others’ contractual bonds.
Hoa only opened and closed her mouth, unable to refute him.
Shin Hweein himself would never have known such a thing was possible without the fortunate encounter he had been granted today, so her astonishment was only to be expected.

But once one knew the myodusa was Hoa’s thrall, one mystery resolved itself cleanly.
The Self-Severance Path-of-Living art had carried only Hoa and Shin Hweein away, so how had the myodusa managed to follow?
If the myodusa was bound to Hoa and could be summoned by her at any moment, the question answered itself.

“That is not the only thing I owe you thanks for.”

“Y-yes?”

“You set the myodusa to find me, and lured me into what you called ‘a fitting taste of real combat.’”

“No, that was—”

“The method was rather rough, but you taught me what true combat is, and made me see how dangerous my own power can be.”

“It was only that I—”

“It was the same with the incantations you taught me. They suited me so well, it was almost as if someone who knew me intimately had crafted them.”

“That only means this maiden and my lord are well suited to one another. There is no other meaning to it….”

“Say what you will, but I’d wager Flame-tail becoming my shikigami was no small part of your doing either.”

“That, at least, is not so! That mongrel took my young master’s baptism of flame and lost his mind, and bound himself of his own accord!”

Behind his bandages, where no one could see, Shin Hweein could not help the faint smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“And finally. That, in my mother’s stead, you raised me all this while.”

“What do you…. Ah.”

Hoa, Geum Moa, realized she had been the first to slip, and shut her mouth.

The change came at once.
Her pitch-black hair flared into a dazzling gold and fell about her with a far more sensual sweep; her eyes turned to a beautiful jade, and her once-blurred features resolved into the face of a peerless beauty in whom Eastern and Western grace seemed perfectly fused.
At the same time, the body of the tiny, frail girl swelled and stretched upward until she was, once again, the lady Shin Hweein knew so well.

He asked,

“So, Moa. Have you had your fill of the game?”

“…Since when?”

Meeting Geum Moa’s somewhat awkward expression, Shin Hweein snorted.

“I suspected from the start. But I was certain only after I made the contract with Flame-tail.”

“You truly are my young master. You see straight into my heart.”

“Do you really think I can see into your heart?”

“Of course. From long ago, how else would you have known my heart and looked after me so? Were my young master ever set loose outside the Shin House, he’d have left a string of weeping women in his wake.”

It was no jest; Geum Moa meant it in earnest.
Even his own birth mother had been known to start in horror at how thoroughly Geum Moa’s eyes glazed over where Shin Hweein was concerned.

Shin Hweein let out a light sigh and spoke.

“So that is why you mean to make certain I never have cause to step outside. By sealing the shikigami I have only just barely won, and breaking my limbs?”

“Ahaha… Yes. About halfway, anyway?”

It was a matter of ruining a person’s life, and still Geum Moa only smiled with the air of someone caught out, as though her one trouble were that she had been seen through.
The look of her was, indeed, closer to a yokai’s than a human’s.

“But somehow it isn’t easy. The mere thought of laying a hand on my young master is too dreadful, truly.”

“You’ve been agonizing over it all along. When you came into the Specter Realm and met me again; when Eul made his preposterous proposal; when the flame-hound came hunting for me; when I collapsed at the end of my strength…. In every one of those moments you were torn, yet plainly measuring my weaknesses. Were you not?”

In truth, it was not as though Geum Moa had only come to covet his body upon entering the Specter Realm.
From their first meeting and on through every moment they had lived side by side, right up to this one,
Geum Moa had carried both monstrous depths of goodwill toward Shin Hweein and monstrous depths of ill-will.
It was why the young Shin Hweein had been so wary of her, a girl who, by appearance alone, was as lovely as an angel.

Now that he laid the matter bare, Geum Moa was purely impressed.

“To think you’d realized so early. And still you didn’t cast me out.”

“One can only cast a person aside when there are others ready to take their place. There was no one I could rely on but you. It wasn’t out of foolishness that I held on to you, keeping you near even though you hated me.”

“That’s a lie. My young master is fond of me. That’s why you couldn’t cast me out, isn’t it?”

“…Yes.”

To Geum Moa’s bright little smile, Shin Hweein, resigned, answered honestly.

“You are right. You have already become half of me; what does it matter if I am hated? If you were to kill me, that should not be called murder, but a suicide of my own.”

“How romantic…. I’m the same. No, half is not enough. Kill you? Don’t be absurd. My young master is everything to me. Which is why I will never, ever let you go out into the world.”

Geum Moa’s expression transformed; with a face overflowing with limitless hate, she glared at Shin Hweein’s chest.
Within lay the Indulgence he had received from his stepmother the day before.

“How dared anyone, when I had won my young master all for my own, how dared other bonds form again. I won’t have it. No matter how it pained me, I should have broken my young master’s arms and legs long ago and shut him away somewhere only I knew.”

“You knew the Indulgence’s power from the start, then.”

“Mm, the moment I laid eyes on it. I should have torn it up at once.”

So Geum Moa’s fury at the sight of the Indulgence had not been at some piece of nonsense talisman.
It had been the very reverse: now there was a chance for Shin Hweein, who had spent his life confined and barely able to walk, to win his freedom.

Shin Hweein sighed.

“You, too, then. The same as that burning bird. Bound to me by some… past tie whose origin I no longer remember?”

The moment he said it, a number of ash-colored scenes flickered through his mind.
He thought, perhaps, he had even seen her face in a dream not long ago….
But the instant he tried to remember what dream it had been, his head throbbed, and he gave it up.

“A very little bit, perhaps. But I am not the same as that chick. I have walked through this life of yours with you. We are not equals at all. I am, by far, the superior.”

Hating even the comparison of herself to anyone else, Geum Moa drew herself up sharply and spat out each word for emphasis; then, leaning in close, she whispered quickly,

“Couldn’t we still set this right, my young master? Tear up the talisman now, and the two of us live quietly, just the two of us. There will be no discomfort for my young master. I will do everything for you—”

“I will not.”

“Even if, hearing that answer, I lose my temper and do something rather dreadful to my young master?”

“Even so. I will not.”

Shin Hweein said it without flinching.

“You say you have walked through this life with me, but your eyes are still fixed on the past.”

“…The past included, my young master is mine.”

“You are wrong. Whatever it is, it will not be as you imagine. Even if it is my own former life, I have not the slightest intention of going on through this one carrying the weight of sins I have no memory of committing.”

“If you go that far…”

Geum Moa let out a low, mournful sigh and lifted her head.
By now, dozens of flames the color of pure gold had risen and were drifting around her,
and each one of them held a power that did not even bear comparison with the little flames Shin Hweein had been able to conjure.

“There’s nothing for it, then. It will hurt a little, but bear with it. Ah, and don’t go forcing your spiritual power to run wild like you did during the last fight. If you do, I really shall be cross!”

She meant to keep him alive only just enough to draw breath, and yet she turned truly angry the moment he risked his life in earnest.
Could it be that even this was not her full strength?

Very well, then.
In this moment, while she still wavered in attack even as she vowed to break him, only in this moment, now, was there any chance of cracking her open.

“Flame-tail!”

— Hraah!

While Shin Hweein and Geum Moa had been talking, Flame-tail had been recovering under his protection.
Now, with a roar of fury, he came leaping out from behind his master and charged.

It was meant as a surprise attack, but Hoa, Geum Moa, had clearly expected at least this much.
She concentrated her flames upon him in one mass.

— I’ll devour the lot of you!

“Ha. In that little puppy shape?”

If it had been Shin Hweein, she might have shown mercy; toward Flame-tail she had none, and brought her full strength down on him without restraint.
In a single instant, the flames that had filled the air above came crashing down on him in unison.

But Flame-tail did not give ground.
Taking every flame upon himself, he charged.
The flame-hound’s power of devouring fire was no longer whole, so the flames wounded him; yet even so, he turned each one he absorbed into bodily restoration and reinforcement, and his frame grew larger with every step.

— I’m only a little smaller than I was! I’ll land at least one blow on you, woman, no matter what!

“Even at your true scale, it would be impossible!”

Geum Moa snorted lightly and sprang back.
Vast amounts of spiritual power were gathering in both her hands; whatever she meant to do, one thing was certain: the moment that art was unleashed, Flame-tail would fall.

There was only now.

Drawing on every drop of spiritual power he could still command, Shin Hweein raised his voice.

“Upon the foe who has taken what is mine for his own, and stained it with my blood, I shall pronounce a fitting punishment.”

“Ah—!”

“Fire-blood. The art of the Hell of Crimson-Blood Flames!”

It was a makeshift art he had pieced together on the spot, drawn from the laws he had inferred from the various flame-incantations Geum Moa, in Hoa’s guise, had shown him.
The greatest influence had been the Self-Severance Path-of-Living art.

He had no intention of throwing away his already-feeble body every time he cast a spell.
Taking his cue from how Geum Moa had offered up the staff in her own body’s stead, he had concluded that the deeper a meaning an object held for him, the denser the thought-residue clinging to it, and the better a material it made for sorcery.

— Whoooosh.

“Kyaaaaaaah!”

The Shin House sorcerer’s emblem-coat, which as of today would lose all meaning for him, made for a most splendid material in that sense.
All the more so since Shin Hweein had been seizing every chance to burst his own blood near her and steep her coat in it.

— Die!

“Kuhk!”

The coat Geum Moa wore became a grand burning prison of flame and shut her in; the very next moment, Flame-tail, with all his charging momentum, struck her full-on with his body and sent her flying.
The creature possessed the power to amplify flame as well, so it would be fair to say she had taken a proper hit.

Was it providential, that the creature never took off the coat I had given her?

Watching the sight, Shin Hweein, spiritual power utterly spent, barely propping up his trembling body on his staff, thought as much, and then clicked his tongue, mocking himself.

In truth, he had been certain she would never take off any garment he had worn and given to her.
Since the death of his mother, the only person ever to have loved him, and he had used that woman’s heart, neatly, to his advantage.

But he had wanted what came next, even at that cost.
He had wanted a day to come when he would no longer have to sigh at the thought of tomorrow.

— I’ll grind you to dust where you lie!

“Flame-tail. That is enough.”

Even after smashing into and hurling away the burning Geum Moa, Flame-tail was not satisfied and meant to press on after her; when Shin Hweein checked him, the creature bared his teeth and growled.

— Don’t talk nonsense! You think a great yokai like this is subdued by that? Right now, we have to land every blow we can to do real damage. Ah, come on! You rotten bastard!

But growl as he might, the Shin House’s shikigami arts were absolute; he was no longer permitted to attack Geum Moa.
Once he had restrained Flame-tail, Shin Hweein dragged his swaying body until he stood just before her, then bent slightly to look at her condition.

As he had thought, she had been frantic to protect the burnt coat that had become the medium of his sorcery, even at the cost of her own injury.
That was the only reason a hastily improvised, half-formed art had been able to lay her low so completely.
The moment she failed to save the coat she had received from him, the blow had been fatal.

“Moa. It is already too late. It has all burned away.”

“My young master….”

To Geum Moa, who looked up at him with eyes that brimmed and threatened to spill over, he spoke coldly.

“It was something destined to be burned in the end. Think of it as having been left in your keeping for a little while.”

His curse, and certainly his past, were the same.
Things he had to throw away in the end; clinging to them would only burn him and bring him pain.

She must have understood his meaning.
Now wholly free of the art’s effects, and free, were she so inclined, to crush Shin Hweein flat on the spot, Geum Moa nonetheless only stayed crouched, cradling the ashes of the burnt coat,
as though they were Shin Hweein himself.

“Even so… it was something I had received from my young master….”

“Later, I’ll buy you something far better. As many as you like.”

“It isn’t the same. It isn’t the same….”

“If it isn’t the same, perhaps that means it will be better still.”

“…”

To Geum Moa, who still wore the look of one who refused to be convinced, Shin Hweein held out a hand.

Flame-tail let out a wary, growling whine, she’s dangerous, but he did not withdraw it.

“Let us do it like this.”

“Like how?”

Geum Moa did not take the offered hand, but at least she turned her head to face him, and answered.

“From now on, I mean to live, doing my utmost. I had thought death was at my very door, but it seems that was only a delusion of mine.”

“As if I would ever let my young master die.”

That much was obvious from the very fact that Geum Moa had kept the myodusa, with its healing arts, by her side.
Judging by what she had let slip, she had intended to manage things so that Shin Hweein could never engage in outside activity, yet would never, on any account, die either.
In fact, she might well have been doing so all along.

But with the Indulgence and the other anomalies coming one after another, Shin Hweein’s bodily condition had improved considerably.
He had reached, at the very least, the point where he could attempt to make his own way in life without the myodusa’s aid.

“So, during that time, you are to keep watch on me from the closest place of all, and judge for yourself.”

“…Just now, you said ‘the closest place of all.’ Plainly.”

“And if you decide that the man you see is no better than the one in your past memories, then, at that point, you may do with me as you please.”

“Then right now, this very—”

“Three years. Let us set a minimum term.”

“Tch.”

She had never once clicked her tongue in his presence while she played the part of his handmaid; with her true yokai nature laid bare, she was franker about her desires, and far looser in manner, than he had imagined possible.
In truth, he preferred this Geum Moa to the one who had kept everything locked away inside her.

“Well, then. What shall it be?”

“If I were to say I shall do as I please, my young master would be quite unable to stop me. The truth is, I’m a truly, truly fearsome great yokai. Even today, I was being so very gentle, for fear that my young master or that mongrel might happen to die.”

So saying, Geum Moa made her own aura that much more plainly known.
Indeed, if even a fraction of the yokai aura that flowed off her took on a killing edge and rushed him, Shin Hweein, to say nothing of Flame-tail in his current state, would last not an instant before being turned to a puddle of blood.

But here was no place to crumple, undignified.
However heavy it was, if this was Geum Moa’s true heart, he had to bear it now.

“I know full…”

He bore down on the staff planted against the ground and, by main force, held himself upright.

“I know full well.”

“Do you? Then, well, in that case….”

The pressure of her aura eased and a flicker of relief crossed her face, and Shin Hweein did not miss it.
She, too, no doubt had had no idea how far she ought to go, where she ought to stop.

“Mmm. Yes. Yes, then.”

It had always been so.
Geum Moa was capable of a maturity beyond what he could imagine, and yet at times became a child with nowhere to lean, and would cling to him.

“Just this once, very specially, I shall do as my young master wishes.”

At last, slowly, she nodded.

“For just three years to come, I’ll keep my young master company in his little game of pretend, as Geum Moa, a handmaid with some little skill in sorcery.”

“Is that so…. Thank you.”

“There’s no retainer more loyal than me, is there?”

Geum Moa stretched out her own hand to clasp his and pull herself to her feet, and gave a small “Hee” of laughter.
He could not, for the life of him, see what she was so pleased about; and yet, drawn along by her, Shin Hweein in the end found himself laughing with her.

After meeting Geum Moa in his childhood, ten long years had passed before, only now, at last,
at last, Shin Hweein felt that he was meeting her with her own face uncovered.

Behind him, the flame-hound was barking that they had to settle the score with that one too, so really it ought to be five years and not three; but for now, he chose to ignore him.