Chapter 1 — First Entry Into The Specter Realm (1)

The following dawn.

Ordinarily Shin Hweein, his body too ravaged by sickness for proper movement, would have been washed with Geum Moa’s help.
Today, for the first time since his birth, he washed himself.

To wash the body is to strip away every impurity gathered through contact with others, to set flesh and soul in clean order.
That was why sorcerers, who handle spiritual power, the pure strength of the soul, were by rights never meant to leave their bathing in another’s hands.
The moment another’s touch fell upon them, anything at all could be admixed.

Whether the gift my little mother gave me is truly an Indulgence, or a genuinely sacred relic that merely lifted the curse laid on me, I do not know — but for now I am only grateful.

He still dragged one leg, his stamina was wretched, and the skin disease had not fully gone, so even moving cost him considerable pain.
But that was nothing against the deep satisfaction of washing his own body.

That he had been unable to enjoy so ordinary a thing for so long might have been cause for resentment.
Yet rather than look back and regret a life of nothing but pain, he wished to be content with this moment he had so barely won.

To be able to put my own body in order before the Specter Realm Gatekeeper Rite. Is that not a blessing?

The Specter Realm: the world of the yokai, dangerous beings utterly impulsive, utterly emotional, and possessed of overwhelming power.
Long ago they had burst from the Specter Realm in great numbers and thrown the world into chaos.
Mighty sorcerers stood against them, suppressed them, and sealed every last gate connecting the Specter Realm to the present world of men, and the nation born from that effort was Aeshin Korea.

Regrettably, the sealing had been incomplete.
The royal family and the members of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses took it as their profession to manage the gates scattered throughout the country, and at times to enter them and clear out their immediate surroundings.

“…At last. It’s today.”

To earn, as a member of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, both the right and the responsibility to manage a Specter Realm gate was the privilege granted upon one’s eighteenth birthday, and the first time one entered the gate, one underwent the Gatekeeper Rite.
The interior of the Specter Realm teemed with unknown dangers, so a son of one of the Eight Houses entering it for the first time was naturally given suitable support and a task of no great difficulty.
This was why the coming-of-age gifts of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses were famous enough to be known across the whole country.
It was also why, when he had first received the Indulgence as a gift, Geum Moa had raged on his behalf.

Does my little mother know that the Indulgence she pressed into my hand, meant as fare for my road to the underworld, has truly proven efficacious upon me? I move a little more easily, I can wield a small flame; what such things would change, I cannot say…

The thought of his little mother’s face when she found out was so amusing, and the fact that even so his prospects of survival remained vanishingly thin more amusing still, that Shin Hweein laughed under his breath, soundless.

Whether she had heard him or not, Geum Moa, waiting outside, knocked at the door and raised her voice in worry.

“Young master, are you all right? Young master!”

“I’m fine. I’m done washing, cough — I’ll be out.”

He checked two and three times that no spot had been missed, then limped out of the bathroom.
Geum Moa was waiting, and she came forward at once with a large towel.
Shin Hweein waved off her hand and took only the towel.

“Young master?!”

“Today I’d like to avoid another’s touch. Forgive me.”

“Pardon? Drying your body, fine, but it’s no short distance from this auxiliary residence to the Ember-Blood Gate, and you mean to make the trip without my support?”

Geum Moa had been watching him with a restless, fretful expression, as if even his washing himself alone unsettled her, and his words startled a cry out of her.
Shin Hweein, long since steeled, gave a firm nod.

“As one who today takes up the duty of a gatekeeper for the first time… huff — how could I lean on another’s arm?”

“But young master, the way people look at you won’t change…”

“Huff… The eyes of others do not matter.”

Shin Hweein had taken several times longer to dry himself than when Geum Moa helped him.
He drew labored breaths and answered.

“My own heart matters.”

“What matters to me is your health, young master. Won’t you give up and quietly take my arm?”

“No. Bring me my cane.”

“Young master—!”

He shooed the noisy Geum Moa from the room and wrapped himself in bandages from head to toe.
The bandages had been crafted by the curse-quelling healers, specialists in the sorcerous art of fending off harm to soul and flesh, and infused with spiritual power, and their price was by no means trifling.

This bandage too, I imagine, will no longer be provided to me from now on… But what of it.

That the Indulgence had eased his inflammation enough to reduce the need for the bandage was fortunate.
It was even possible that without the bandage there would be no great trouble at all.
Even so, Shin Hweein wound the bandages until everything but his eyes and nostrils was covered, until not a strip of skin showed.
There was no need whatsoever to let others, least of all the House, know that his body had improved even a little.

Over the bandages he put on undershirt and tunic, and last of all draped a coat over himself, the Shin House crest embroidered across its back.
When he looked into the mirror, it was as if a corpse, or a yokai, had been dressed in a man’s clothes and set to playing at being a man.
Laughable.

“Young master, you even put your clothes on yourself… sniff.”

“Don’t make a fuss.”

“And breakfast? You will have some, won’t you?”

“No.”

Shin Hweein’s stomach was as poor as the rest of him.
It was harder to find a part of his body that worked than a part that did not, so on a day like today, when he had to appear before others, he had no choice but to fast.
Geum Moa, insisting he could not very well go hungry, prepared a thin rice gruel and pressed it on him, but he refused that too.

Realizing that for the whole of today she would not be permitted near him, Geum Moa sought confirmation, her expression frightened.

“Young master… you won’t stop me from following you through the gate, will you?”

“Cough, cough… I will not stop you.”

But she would, in all likelihood, not be allowed to follow.
It was not unheard of for someone undergoing the Gatekeeper Rite to bring along a retainer.
Geum Moa’s particular position was the problem.
As one could tell from the very attitude of the servant who had thrown down the Indulgence yesterday and walked off, she was a being of far greater value than the soon-to-die Shin Hweein.
And given his elder brother, who had long resented that Geum Moa served only Shin Hweein, there was no chance the man would simply stand by and watch her follow Hweein into a death-ground.

“Huff…”

Having finished his preparations with no more ceremony than a quick combing of his hair, Shin Hweein let his gaze drift absently beyond the window.
Seizing her chance, Geum Moa spoke again.

“You’re looking at the garden. Are you, by any chance, remembering our first meeting?”

“…Yes.”

“Oh my! Truly?”

When Shin Hweein had been very small, back when his birth mother was still alive, he had found Geum Moa curled up asleep beneath a tree in the auxiliary residence’s garden.
That was the first meeting between them.
Auxiliary residence or not, it was unquestionably a building of the Shin House, and the moment she had slipped through the warding barrier without a sound, her talent had been all but guaranteed.
Pleased by the sight of the clever, good-natured little girl, Shin Hweein’s mother had taken the small Geum Moa, trembling hand and foot at the prospect of punishment, into her service as a maid.

“Sob, sob. To think the young master who hated me so terribly at first has grown so honest with me now…”

“You, on the other hand, cough — never change at all.”

Sickly, he had rarely been outside, and so his chances to come near others had been few; Shin Hweein had been wary of Geum Moa.
But she had never minded his ugly outward shape, and had tended to him with every fiber of her devotion.
That had held true even after his birth mother died, when the people of the House, having noticed her lovely looks and her spiritual power equal to a First-Rank sorcerer’s, sought to draw her into the main residence.
Young as she was, she had formally sat the family’s examinations, earned a maid’s qualification, and proudly become Shin Hweein’s personal attendant, remaining at his side.
So close that he scarcely felt the absence of his birth mother.

No matter how many times I turn it over, I do not understand. I have no memory of ever treating her with anything particular at all.

Shin Hweein had been standing with his dim eyes sharpened upon the garden; at last he gave up and turned his head away.
She was a person from whom he would soon be parted. What use was it to puzzle such a thing out now?
His one wish was simple: that she, left behind alone, would live a peaceful life.

“Let us go, then. My cane?”

“Here, young master… Really, may I not lend you my arm?”

“No. Walk behind me. Cough — and mind you don’t step on my shadow.”

Had it not been for the Indulgence’s aid, walking to the auxiliary residence’s front gate alone would have left him drenched in sweat.
Taking from Geum Moa the wooden cane worn smooth with the marks of long use, Shin Hweein picked up the Indulgence, which since yesterday had given no response no matter what he tried, tucked it carefully into the breast of his coat, leaned the cane against the ground, and pushed the gate open himself.

“…!”

In that instant, along with the stinging sunlight, countless gazes poured down upon Shin Hweein.
Unlike the interior of the Shin House, which preserved the traditions of the day Aeshin Korea was first founded, the broad, well-paved road beyond was a thoroughly modern one, and upon it had gathered far more people than he had imagined, watching for his exit.

Were there truly so many people in the capital (Seoul) who knew my Gatekeeper Rite would be held today? No… surely not.

In all likelihood the Shin House had spread word of it, to commemorate the day they at last cast off the shackle that had so long festered within them.
Hurling the heir of the line into a death-ground was an act that would smear ink upon their own faces, ink not easily washed off. Were they so pleased that they would do it anyway?
Or… was he so hated as that?

“Whoa, the pics floating around the forums were blurry, so I had no idea. Seeing him in person, he’s way worse.”
“He knows it too, that’s why he’s bundled up like that. Still, he’s taller than I expected.”
“He really is using a cane. The Shin House has piles of money, they can’t fix one bad leg? Wasn’t there supposed to be some incredible woman over at the Vatican?”
“It’s a curse, you know, a curse. They say even the top-grade curse-breakers couldn’t lift it. Though whether it really is a curse, who knows.”
“Oh, the poor thing.”
“What’s to pity? Born into the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, he’d have been living large all this time.”
“Is he really one of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses? Then how does he not have a single guard with him?”
“They say he’s the child they threw out. Guess it’s true… The maid behind him is gorgeous, though. Why on earth, with a cripple like that?”
“Right? Such a waste, really.”

The indifferent gazes, the voices pouring down on him from every side without restraint, jabbed at his body like arrows given form.
The difference in status meant no one dared step forward openly to mock or insult him, but Shin Hweein’s innate spiritual power made even voices whispered at a distance ring at his ear as if shouted there.
His illness had only just eased a little, and merely hearing the voices of strangers rejoicing at his misfortune felt as if it were dragging his body back down again.

“Those gutter rats, how dare they—!”

“Enough. Cough!”

Geum Moa flared up and made to step forward and drive them off, but Shin Hweein shook his head.
That this childish ploy, gathering people to mock him even on the road he walked away, was truly the last gift of the storied Shin House, he wished to remember clearly.
After all, the Indulgence his little mother had thrown at him in mockery had, against all intent, proved efficacious, and for just a moment he had nearly forgotten what sort of people the House were.

He adjusted his coat and lifted his head.

“Let us go. I may be wretched in appearance, but I will not be wretched in bearing.”

“Why should you be wretched, young master? It’s them who are wretched.”

“Cough — so long as you know it, that’s enough.”

Tak. He set the cane before him and began to walk.
His skin disease may have eased a fraction, but the rest of his body still creaked all over, and every step came slow and full of pain.
Yet not for a single moment did he stop, walking on with steady, unbending steps.

Seeing it, some clicked their tongues, some pitied him, some quietly laughed at him, and some surreptitiously drew out a phone to take a picture.
Was he so laughable that an ordinary person, without a scrap of spiritual power, would presume to capture him on a lens?

Krak—

“Ah, my phone—!”
“You idiot, he’s a direct heir of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses. You live in the capital and you don’t even know how much trouble it takes to get a single picture of a sorcerer?”
“If he’d had a guard, you’d really have been hauled off. They told you to watch even how you breathe in Zone 1!”

A sorcerer’s spiritual power shields its master from all manner of harm.
To capture a person’s exact likeness on a screen in a single instant was dangerous, since that likeness could be used as material for a curse or any number of other rites, and a sorcerer’s vast spiritual power could pre-empt it.
That was why the photos of Shin Hweein floating around the markets were always blurry.
That the camera itself would break, however, was something even Shin Hweein had not anticipated.
Perhaps it was the consequence of his spiritual power, freed by the Indulgence’s effect; its resistance too had grown stronger.

“Young master, just now—”

“We should hurry.”

He ignored the crowd and walked in silence for some thirty minutes, passing through the buildings the Shin House owned and turning onto a mountain path, until the throng thinned and in its place came more and more people dressed in coats bearing the same crest as his own.
They were sorcerers active in the field, and other members of the Shin household.

“You’re considerably late, young master.”

“I scarcely need to ask, but did you, perhaps, set the hour of the rite?”

“…No, I did not.”

The sorcerer who had stepped forward, unable to manage a proper reply to Shin Hweein, shook his head and withdrew, and the others glared at him sharply.
They all disliked Shin Hweein the same, but he was, even so, the direct heir of the illustrious Shin House.
Save for another direct heir, or his parents, no one would dare shame him to his face before others.
At least, no one could do so openly.

He could understand wanting to throw a word or two now that an unpleasant superior was going to die in the Specter Realm.
But with his disgrace branded upon him, Shin Hweein would no longer be permitted to function properly within the Shin House.

“You’re late.”

This time, however, even Shin Hweein could not dare ignore or rebuke the speaker.
For it was the heir of the House, the eldest son of the Shin, Shin Uin, barring his way: a man who, without a hint of shame, would shame his own family to their faces before others.

“Late? Yes, Brother. Cough, cough… I had not realized you anticipated the rite so eagerly as to arrive earlier than I.”

“Your speech is as halting as ever. I’m telling you, right now, that you were late to this place.”

Shin Uin glared at him and reached out a hand, plainly determined to humiliate his younger brother before the household.
But before that hand reached Shin Hweein, a discharge of force flared in the air and struck it away.
The advanced defensive sorcery, something Shin Hweein could never have dreamed of casting, was the work of Geum Moa.

“Young master Hweein is shortly to enter the Specter Realm. He cannot be touched by another’s hand. Your understanding, if you would.”

This very morning she had grumbled endlessly that he had refused her on the pretext of cleansing his body, and now she was turning that same pretext into grounds for striking down Shin Uin.
Shin Hweein laughed within himself, where no one could see.

“Moa-ya…”

Had it been anyone else, Shin Uin would have lost his temper, and lost it badly.
But, having looked upon the face of the Geum Moa he admired, he merely swallowed and stepped a half-pace back.

“Your loyalty is straight as ever. It is only a pity that its direction is so fatally mistaken.”

“Whom I choose to serve is my own affair.”

“…You miserable wretch. Clinging with your ugly greed even now, refusing to let Moa go, tormenting her to the end.”

Unable to make headway with Geum Moa, Shin Uin turned his glare back on Shin Hweein and spoke.
Shin Hweein answered calmly.

“Before it grows any later, I should like to perform the rite.”

“Yes. I, too, am sick to death of having to look at you. Hurry up and vanish from my sight. Forever.”

Shin Uin stepped aside with the look of a man who regretted not having had time to spit out something even more vicious before his brother’s death.

Pressing his cane forward once more, Shin Hweein thought.

We were born of the same mother. Why does he hate me so?

Because Mother was weakened, was sickened, by giving birth to me?

He could understand Shin Uin’s resentment, yet he too felt stifled and wronged.
To lose one’s birth mother: Shin Hweein had lost his as well, and since one cannot resent and curse oneself, whom on earth was he supposed to blame?

“You’re late.”

The voice scolding him for tardiness a third time today rose from his stepmother, waiting for him at the Ember-Blood Gate, the gate of the Specter Realm under the Shin House’s stewardship.
Rather than meekly bow his head, Shin Hweein replied in an even tone.

“Cough… The gift you sent me, I received with gratitude, little mother. Please convey my thanks to Father as well.”

“…I see. I am glad it has not been an ingratitude.”

She, too, had likely never imagined that Shin Hweein, already as good as dead in her eyes, would manage a poisoned reply, and she faltered for an instant.
He was, by name at least, the direct heir of the Shin House; she could hardly boast publicly that she had given him an Indulgence as a coming-of-age gift, and how could she have known Shin Hweein had spoken in earnest?

So my little mother does not know, after all. Then is it all simple chance, or did someone who knew me arrange that I would come into possession of the talisman… surely not Father? No, that could not be.

He pushed the deepening thought aside with effort and opened his mouth.
He suppressed the cough rising in him, spending even his spiritual power to do it, and forced an appearance of composure.
He meant to end the rite before his stepmother had time to babble any further nonsense.

“The third son of Shin Yuhyeon of the Shin House, Hweein, in obedience to the will of Aeshin, would shoulder the duty of a gatekeeper. May the gods of heaven and earth look kindly upon this, and grant blessing, and drive evil away.”

“Y— Yeryeong, wife of Yuhyeon, on behalf of the gods of heaven and earth, will pronounce the task.”

Even more flustered by the sight of Shin Hweein speaking smoothly today, without so much as a single cough, the stepmother declared:

“The direct heir of the Shin, Hweein, in order to prove his own bloodline, shall, in the Specter Realm, conclude a shikigami contract with a yokai of Rank Seven or higher, and return.”

“…!”

No one had been told the contents of the task beforehand, it seemed, for at the task pronounced from her own mouth, those around them stirred in murmurs.
The yokai grades fixed by the nation ran from Special-Grade down to Rank Ten, with Rank Ten the lowest, a grade ordinary civilians could in practice put down.
But Rank Seven… given a free hand, a Rank Seven could annihilate a single neighborhood unaided.
To make Shin Hweein, who could not yet command proper sorcery and had spent his life struggling against illness, not merely defeat such a monster but subdue it and bind it in a shikigami contract amounted, in effect, to a death sentence.

“I shall undertake the task.”

Yet Shin Hweein accepted it without a word of rebuttal.
Was it because the ability to wield a small flame had given him confidence?
Hardly. He simply judged it meaningless to refuse a task once it had been given to him.
What good would it do to ask different people for a different task when those people wished only for his death?

What did it matter that he could wield a flame the size of a rat’s tail?
What did it matter that his body had become a fraction more bearable?

He had had quite enough experience of clinging to a thread of hope only to fall, then, into despair.
He was sick of it.

And yet, in the end —

When the rite was finished, the sorcerers standing guard before the Ember-Blood Gate let their spiritual power surge as one, opening a fissure in the severe seals laid upon the gate.
Though called a gate, it in fact took the form of a swirling blue mist hanging in mid-air, and to the sorcerers’ incantations it slowly opened a translucent path.
If the gate widened any further, the wicked things inside would burst out; if it held open too long, the evil yokai aura would seep through. He had no time to delay.

I wanted… to live a little longer.

He crushed underfoot the weak, child-like feeling that had slipped out unbidden.
Gripping tightly with one hand at the breast of his coat where the Indulgence lay, Shin Hweein flung himself through the open Ember-Blood Gate.

After him, Geum Moa came rushing in a sudden leap, a commotion rose behind them, Shin Uin’s voice reached his ear, raised in a shout.
The next instant his vision darkened, and everything around him vanished.

And when, having arrived in the Specter Realm, he opened his eyes again, it was the same.
Beside him, nothing remained.
No one.