Chapter 3 — The Sorcerer And The Priest (5)

When the Specter Realm Gate swung open and he stepped out, the place beyond was, to his surprise, the interior of a room that felt remarkably familiar.

That an opening into the Specter Realm could form inside a building had been beyond Shin Hweein’s reckoning.
Only midway through looking the place over did he understand why it felt so familiar.
The building was laid out in the same hanok style¹ as the one he himself had grown up in.

“The finish work and the materials don’t quite match the traditional patterns, either. There’s no decorative motif… this place is probably in Zone 2.”

Shin Hweein gave the room a quick sweep and nodded at Geum Moa’s verdict.

Seoul, the capital of Aeshin Korea, has at its heart the area around Jongno, Zone 0, where the palace stands and the Aeshin Great Gate is warded by the Royal House.
Around that lies Zone 1, where three of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses based in Seoul reside and ward their respective Gates.
Around that again, Zone 2, where the wealthy classes settle.
And finally, beyond all of it, Zone 3.

It is the capital of a nation, after all, so the outer zones suffer no grave disparity in public order or standard of living.

What is true is that Zone 0 houses members of the Royal House and the state sorcerers attached to the royal household, while Zone 1 stations the sorcerers of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses at all hours.
The closer one lives to the center of the Capital, the easier it is to call on a sorcerer in a crisis.

The one drawback is that if something erupts at the Gates warded by the Royal House or the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, Zones 0 and 1 sit too close at hand to escape the catastrophe.
But by then the nation itself would be facing dissolution, so it scarcely matters.

“If it belonged to the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, it would bear their decorative motif. And a house not of those Eight cannot have a hanok built in Zone 1.”

“Permission is granted to those of high office, but only within Zone 1, and only with the royal motif inlaid on the build. So this place is, without doubt, Zone 2.”

Setting aside whether hanok living is comfortable or not, the style had become a thing the whole nation aspired to, because Aeshin’s uppermost ranks all dwelt in hanok.

So even a household with no ties to the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, and no office to its name, was bound sooner or later to build itself a hanok in Zone 2, provided it had money enough.

And there it was: the question of why an opening into the Specter Realm had formed inside a building in Zone 2, inside the home of a household of some considerable means.

In all likelihood, the mission Father Lucas had been assigned would prove tied to this household…

“Brother! Thankfully, you’ve come in time!”

Just then the door slid aside and Father Lucas came in.
The moment he caught sight of Shin Hweein, he called out brightly.

His voice was a child’s, untouched by any stain, and at that something occurred to Shin Hweein.
He studied the priest’s face closely.
Both eyes were a radiantly shining sapphire blue.

“Is something the matter, Brother?”

“…It is nothing. More to the point, Father Lucas, have you nothing else to say to me?”

“Ah! You’ve come at the perfect time. This is the home of my parishioner, Mr. Kim Hyeonwoo, in Zone 2 of Seoul. Mr. Kim is a newlywed and lives here with his wife and his sister-in-law…”

“That isn’t it.”

Shin Hweein shook his head at the priest, who had been about to launch into an account of the mission he’d been given, fixed him with a hard sidelong look, and said:

“You fool. I asked you to keep my involvement a secret, did I not. Then you should have warned me in advance to come out by some other door, or some such thing. What were you thinking, pulling me straight into the house like this?”

“Ah. So that’s…”
“So that’s?”
“No!”

The priest frantically waved both his hands and hurried to set Shin Hweein’s mind at ease.

“As I mentioned before, I myself don’t quite know how I came to be flung into the Specter Realm. Even so, the moment I stepped out on this end, I realized at once and had everyone cleared from the premises. So there’s nothing for you to be concerned about, Brother.”

“Hmm. Not very thorough, is he. A house of this much wealth couldn’t possibly be without devices to detect anyone coming or going.”

“Of course, I’ve already dealt with all of tha— ah, wait. Could it be that you’re the devil from earlier?”

“Tch.”

The priest had been replying with his chest puffed out at Geum Moa’s barb, but now he took fresh note of her form and started, his eyes flying open wide.

“The soul is unmistakably the same, but now you’re a complete human! How marvelous. Was it a human transforming into a devil, or a devil transforming into a human? Or perhaps I’m still wandering the Specter Realm, and all of this, Brother included, is the temptation of Satan?”

“Tsk. Just as I thought. I do not like him.”

For her own part, Geum Moa, uncomfortable that Father Lucas had seen through her in an instant, drew her body in behind Shin Hweein’s back.

While she had been playing Hoa she had let some portion of her yokai presence leak through, but once she had undone the disguise she had been carrying herself entirely as a human.
The priest had pierced through that in a single glance, so of course it would unsettle her.

“Now that I look properly, your features have changed considerably as well, Brother! The mask is splendid.”
“You recognized me at once?”
“Of course! I have eyes that see the light and shadow of the soul. The teacher who taught me as a child praised me often for it. Eyes that are not deceived by a person’s outward appearance, but see to the essence.”

That, he meant, was how he had known at once that Hoa and Geum Moa were the same being.

“Brother, you are no different. Whether at our first meeting or now, you possess a soul both very clean and very good!”
“Is that so.”

Shin Hweein could not help a wry little laugh.

That Lucas had been wary of him at their first meeting, that he would let pass.

But Flame-tail, for one, had taken a single look at him and gone on and on about the sin-karma of his past lives, and now here was Father Lucas praising him for the cleanliness of his soul…

Unless East and West differed entirely in how they viewed the soul, how could the two of them possibly be speaking of the same man?

“Was I meant to have been born in the West, then, rather than the East?”
“Young master?!”
“It was a jest.”

Shin Hweein soothed the now-ashen Geum Moa, turned back to Father Lucas, and said:

“Father Lucas, from now on you may call me Shin Hae².”

It had originally been styled Shin Hae, in the sense of having been liberated from the Shin House.
But the character, meaning ember-spark, was one only members of the Shin House were permitted to use anywhere in Aeshin.

So in its place he had reworked it into Shin Hae, the name now carrying the will to be liberated from his stifling station and from this useless, malformed body.

“Shin Hae. A splendid name.”
“Are you mocking me, knowing it’s an alias?”
“How could I? I myself go by a baptismal name. The Exorcist Priesthood and the Exorcist Sisterhood are forbidden from giving out their true names.”

Shin Hweein, unversed in Western matters, hadn’t even known that Lucas was a baptismal name.

“That is… wise. There are no few curses one can lay, knowing only a name.”
“Isn’t there? So if you, Brother, are presenting yourself as a sorcerer, an alias is essential. Shin Hae. I find it a fine name. I shall introduce you to Mr. Kim Hyeonwoo by it.”

Father Lucas turned the alias over a few times in his mouth, nodded, and gestured for him to come along.

But Shin Hweein shook his head and stopped the priest.

“Father, where are you lodging now?”

“At a nearby hotel… would you like me to take a room for you as well? But before that, surely we ought first to see Mr. Kim and hear the matter explained—”

“No. I am sorry to ask, but.”

Shin Hweein bore down hard, his grip white-knuckled on the staff, and went on:

“My limit of activity is, long since, past. To the hotel. Guide me. Make haste.”

“Young master used an English word directly…!”
“L-limit of activity?”
“Quickly.”
“Follow me for now!”

Seeing that Shin Hweein did not look to be jesting, the priest threw open the door in a rush and led them out.

That he had cleared the people from the premises was, evidently, the truth.
Not a single soul could be seen inside the broad hanok.
By the time they had stepped down from the floored corridor, crossed the courtyard, and left the house entirely behind, Geum Moa had at last let down the stance she’d been holding, ready to loose a sorcery at a moment’s notice, just in case.

“Father… you didn’t have everyone cleared away, did you?”

His sight had already gone hazy, and from inside his head came a sound like kindling catching, something charring away.

Even so, Shin Hweein had somehow not let go of the Flame-tail he held in his arms.
Propped up by Geum Moa, he managed to straighten his back as best he could to feign composure, leaned on his staff with each step forward, and even kept up a conversation with the priest.

Walking ahead with his phone in hand, hurriedly contacting someone somewhere, Father Lucas flinched at the question and nodded.

“You are correct. Since matters have come to this, I’ll explain the mission as we go. To begin with: the assignment is to safeguard Mr. Kim Hyeonwoo’s wife, Sister Do Yuna.”
“The person lying still, in the inner room… was the wife.”
“Yes, but at present she cannot move, so she likely doesn’t know you ever came in. She is presently under a truly dreadful… curse.”

As he said this, Father Lucas’s face turned full of indignation.

Shin Hweein, watching that profile, had been thinking idly that handsome fellows must have it nice, that even angry their faces stay handsome, when he caught his own thoughts becoming childish, and laughed.

It meant, truly, that he was near his limit.

The countless curses he carried inflicted themselves upon his very thoughts and feelings, so that the moment his spiritual power slackened in attending to them, even briefly, the result could outstrip anything one might imagine.

“Young master, if it’s too hard, just lean into me. Be at ease.”
“I can, still bear it. Father, is it not yet, the lodging?”
“This time he didn’t even say ‘hotel’…!”
“Right there!”

The place the priest pointed to was a top-class hotel that rose so high one could hardly take in its summit even with one’s head tilted all the way back.

That it stood in the very heart of the downtown only made its imposing presence the more apparent.

“Not just within Zone 2. Even counting hotels in Zone 1, this one would be among the top three. I’d guessed as much, but that man clearly has a great deal of money.”

“Priests of the Catholic Church, they take a vow of poverty… or so I thought I had heard.”

“Nowadays only the priests who enter monasteries take vows of poverty. No, that isn’t to say I indulge in luxury! It’s that the Vatican covers operating expenses!”

Father Lucas led the two of them, without hesitation, into the hotel lobby.

The man was Western to begin with, and handsome as a film star.
He was clothed in the splendid habit of the Exorcist Priesthood.
And trailing behind him came a limping man in a strange-looking mask and a woman of dazzling beauty.
Naturally, every set of eyes in the hotel turned upon them.

But before any unwelcome interference could come flying from elsewhere, a woman at the front desk darted forward, her eyes sparkling as though she might take flight.

“Father Lucas! You reserved one additional room, yes?”
“That’s right, Sister. I’ll show the two of them up myself. Could you just hand me the key?”
“But I’m the one who… ah, ack, very well…!”

It was, no doubt, that she wanted a little more time in Father Lucas’s company.
The staffer’s voice trailed off in disappointment, then crumpled briefly at the sight of Geum Moa’s beauty, and finally, upon finding Shin Hweein, stiffened where she stood like wood.

Had she somehow seen Shin Hweein in his bandaged state, even this would not have been the end of it.

— At last, a human I recognize. That’s how a human ought to be. Repulsive enough to make me want to burn her up.

“Hush.”

Shin Hweein handed the key to the priest, watched the staffer turn back with stiff, marionette-like movements, and stoppered Flame-tail’s mouth.

The hotel staffer plainly had no spiritual power to speak of, so she would not have understood Flame-tail’s words to begin with.

“Father, have you learned Korean?”

“A-ah, no. I have a sacred relic that makes interpretation possible. Every exorcist priest assigned to outside duties is given one. It’s a Replica (Replica, a copy), though.”

A device that enabled two-way interpretation across any region and any language would be, replica or no, a treasure of preposterous value.
That every member of the order carried one was a fresh reminder of just what it meant that Father Lucas truly was an exorcist priest.

“Then I shall finish the explanation.”

Having ushered two humans and one beast into the elevator, the priest pressed a high-floor button and went on in a lowered voice.

“As you’ve already gathered, my final aim is to undo Sister Do Yuna’s curse. The trouble is… that I’m currently being obstructed in it.”
“Father, is that. Connected, with how you came to be flung into the Specter Realm?”
“That’s right. Some time ago a letter arrived from the very person who laid the curse on the Sister. It said that unless she severed ties with Brother Kim Hyeonwoo at once, they would see to it she could never again meet anyone, for all eternity.”
“Forever, anyone… she would never meet.”
“Naturally, Brother Kim Hyeonwoo read that as a threat to kill his wife by curse. That is also why he sought the Vatican’s aid.”

But it seemed that, beyond curses, the perpetrator had means of tormenting the new bride.

The elevator stopped and the doors slid open.

Father Lucas checked the key and led them on as he completed his explanation.

“Disappearances. At first it was small objects from around the house going missing, one by one. The two of them brushed it off as nothing, but in truth that was the perpetrator’s warning.”
“I see…”

It had crossed his mind that, for so luxurious a house, the household furnishings were not particularly conspicuous.

But to think they had been vanishing.

“…And people?”
“Until now, they had been spared. But just yesterday, one of the servants who helped with the household.”

The instant he heard those words, Shin Hweein’s brow twitched.

That curses were laid over matters of love and entanglement was something that had existed since ancient times, nothing in itself to be newly surprised by.

But for that, for that, a mere mortal had made use of the Specter Realm?

Had even dragged the innocent into it?

To Shin Hweein, who, though cast out of the family, had nevertheless resolved with all sincerity to take up the karma-burden of a Gatekeeper of the Specter Realm, this was something he could in no way forgive.

“And so, until that point, you had… not so much as suspected that the Specter Realm might be involved… and were searching for the missing person, when you were flung. Into the Specter Realm, the way you were.”
“That’s right. So now, no, forgive me. This is hardly something I can resolve by hurrying alone. You suffered more in the Specter Realm than I did, Brother. Please, rest, for now.”
“That you would even think of me, is, thanks enough.”

When they reached the room, the priest touched the card-shaped key to the door, and a chamber as wide as a palace opened up to view.

However impressive the Exorcist Priesthood might be, he had to wonder whether they would truly underwrite operating costs to this extent.
But this was not the moment to be asking after such things.

Shin Hweein stepped inside the room, and the instant the certainty settled in him that no outsider could now see him… he collapsed into the arms of Geum Moa, who had been standing close at the ready.

Flame-tail, startled, pricked his ears up and landed on the floor, a faintly comical sight.

“Brother!”
“It is, all right… If I rest, I will mend. Much more so than before. So, wait.”
“Yes, yes, young master. Don’t speak any further, and rest. This way.”

— To have made a contract with such a weakling, what a sad lot is mine. Sad, sad indeed.

Even as Geum Moa helped him along to the bed, the words Father Lucas had told him went on whirling through Shin Hweein’s grinding head.

Even from what little he’d heard, there were any number of things that caught at his mind, but the one that caught the most was this:

Opened and closed a Specter Realm Gate as they pleased…?

A person not of the Royal House or of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses?

Or else.

One of them?

He was just about to laugh at the absurdity of such a possibility.

And then his consciousness, no longer able to bear it, snapped clean away.