Chapter 5 — The Sorcerer And The Mudang (5)

“Hey, Shin Hae. I’ve been thinking.”

When Ham Seoyeon met him again the next day, same time, same place, her manner toward him had visibly loosened from what it had been before they parted.
No matter how hard one tries to dress oneself up as an adult, in the end one is still only a child.
…And in that, Shin Hweein was not so very different.

“That contract. No matter how I think it over, aren’t I the one getting the short end of it? I signed under my real name, but you signed under a fake one!”

She was bent, it seemed, on picking at the slapdash little contract the two of them had struck before parting ways yesterday.
For a quick-and-dirty thing, neither of them had set down anything fatal in it.
Just a few basic rules. Where matters of helping one another were concerned, neither would lie to the other; they would exchange information at set intervals; they would not breathe a word of its terms to any outsider, and so on.
Naturally, even that much had been raised in weight and credibility by way of a contract sealed in blood.

“How foolish. And if I were to break the contract, what then?”
“You’d just throw away the alias, that’s what!”
“It would mean that, in that very instant, my true identity was laid bare. Does that still seem so light a thing to you?”
“Oh. So that’s how it works. Hmm… Well, I suppose it’s fine, then.”

Her mind apparently eased, Ham Seoyeon took a satisfied sip of her drink.
A caramel macchiato.

“…Did you just laugh, by any chance?”
“At what? Ah, Father. Over here.”

Slipping the question, Shin Hweein raised one hand lightly toward Father Lucas and his companion, who had just stepped into the café.
The Father looked his usual self, but the woman trailing at his heels had a white veil, a mass-veil, drawn over her head, her face half-bowed beneath it.

“It’s been only a day, Brother. And… Sister, a pleasure. To meet you like this is quite the surprise.”

The look in the Father’s eyes as he turned to Ham Seoyeon was not altogether kind.
He must still be remembering yesterday’s stand-off.
Having taken him for nothing but a meek soul, Shin Hweein found himself faintly surprised at how clearly the man drew the line between friend and foe.

Ham Seoyeon was flustered by the hostility, not vivid but unmistakable all the same, so Shin Hweein gave a small clearing of his throat and put in a word on her behalf.

“She and I closed yesterday’s matter on good terms, and even drew up a contract. From here on, she’ll be helping us.”
“…Is that so. Well, anyone who walks with a spirit as impressive as that one of hers would be a great help, I imagine.”
“Hey, how can you tell about our General—!”
“There’s no telling what sort of awakened the world holds, is there?”

It was the same way Shin Hweein, who had thought himself perfectly hidden by Geum Moa’s aid, had had his identity laid bare by the simplest of means before the general-god whom Ham Seoyeon served.

Once Shin Hweein had seated the Father and the mass-veiled woman across from himself, the Father asked,

“Brother, then is this the…?”
“Indeed. A mudang of most promising future.”
“…”

At the word mudang the woman beside the Father lifted her head and glanced at Ham Seoyeon, then turned to look at Shin Hweein and gave a small shudder.

“Father, I’d like to go home… This man is too frightening…”
“Be at ease, Sister. Have you not already repented?”
“…What did you do?”
“For the sins she committed, I gave her a chastisement somewhat in excess of them.”

When Shin Hweein admitted it frankly, the Father gave a stifled little laugh and shook his head.

“In any case, the matter is now wholly resolved. The misunderstanding between us is all cleared away; by the Lord’s mercy we sit gathered like this, sharing the cup of peace. So as for the past, let us forget—”
“Introduce yourself.”
“Ah. Right.”

Cutting off the Father’s idle talk before it could run on, Shin Hweein passed the floor to Ham Seoyeon.
She gave a nod, then drew from her bosom a square card that looked to be an identification.

“National Sorcerer, Mu-gyeok Grade Two, Bodhisattva of Contradiction¹. You want to educate a mudang? Looks to me like she hasn’t even gone through a proper naerimgut.”
“Gut… You mean a rite? Shall I have her sit in on the Mass?”
“…Shin Hae.”

At the Father’s appalling notion of the subject, Ham Seoyeon turned to Shin Hweein with an expression of utter speechlessness.
He had naturally seen as much coming, and only shrugged.

“It’s enough to make one curious what, exactly, you had been intending to teach her, and how.”
“Now, do not slight the Vatican overmuch, Brother. We too have, in our own way, been looking into the matter of mudang and preparing for her education. It’s only that those who serve demons in the guise of gods cannot simply be brought into a sacred place; and so we had thought to extract only the knowledge by what means we could, and give her a fitting instruction.”
“Can I just go now?”
“Surely it is the very mettle of a mudang to bring a negotiation like this one off well from here on, Bodhisattva of Contradiction. …Contradiction?”

How, indeed, could a Bodhisattva-name make use of so outlandish a word, one of no fine meaning at all?
If it were not a name she had taken on herself, then it had likely been bestowed by someone who quite signally did not care for her…
But seeing Ham Seoyeon’s face crumple, Shin Hweein decided not to press the question further.

“Hmph, fine… Then, Father, listen well. By any such method, you’ll never raise a mudang. Rather, you ought to count yourself fortunate if the divine spirit doesn’t take offense and worsen her shinbyeong into the bargain.”
“Hmm… shinbyeong? Shin-byeong, you say. I see.”

Plainly displeased with the word shin-byeong, the Father glanced sidelong at Shin Hweein with a troubled face; Shin Hweein gave him a small nod, and at that the Father accepted it meekly and began, at last, to listen to Ham Seoyeon’s explanation in earnest.
When it came to mudang, Shin Hweein knew no more than the Father did, but the rest was not a matter he need particularly trouble himself with.
While the explanation of Do Yumi’s curriculum went on, his thoughts wandered elsewhere.

‘The application for the Sorcerer’s Examination is filed. Next week’s written paper should give no trouble whatever, and the practical the week after that… Flame-tail has already been exposed, so it would only be right to put him to use. Binding a Rank Seven yokai as shikigami means I may consider passing Grade Four assured… but on the off chance, it would be well to practice some other arts besides. Come to think of it, with everything that’s been thrust upon me so abruptly, I haven’t even managed to make so much as a proper talisman. For one who calls himself a sorcerer, one ought, at the very least, to carry a talisman or two for one’s own protection… Now that I have money in hand, it would be well to set aside a day and make some talismans properly.’

What else would it do well to attend to?
Yes. Until now, having no proper spiritual power to wield, he had not been able to perform even the most basic discipline as other sorcerers did, sitting in jwaseon to refine and slowly grow what he had. Now that it had been so greatly enlarged, the attempt would not be amiss.
The spiritual power lately taken from Do Yuna, in particular, having never been his to begin with, had not been blending readily; a part of it still moved on its own. A few days’ meditation and discipline should make it one well enough.

Yes. And the sacrifice-rite, that ungroomed, wholly-wild thing itself.
To make a study of that, too, would prove of great help later.
Do Yuna’s disposition was trash, yet she carried so absurd a unique sorcery, and Do Yumi too had been born with the talent of a mudang; the parents of those two sisters may well have carried some remarkable bloodline.

— Can you hear me, young master? Right now I am speaking directly into your heart…

While he was arranging in his mind the things to be done before the Sorcerer’s Examination, Geum Moa’s voice came into Shin Hweein’s awareness.
He let out a sigh, even as he studied the technique she had used to carry her meaning to him, and in short order reproduced the same sorcery to answer.

— What is it? Are you bored?
— Oh my, you’ve picked it up in an instant. And this is rather a difficult sorcery.
— Even so, it is only a trifling little mind-speech sorcery.
— No, no. It is a most remarkable mind-speech sorcery — one that can deceive even a girl with a divine spirit standing at her side, a spirit who has seen straight through to your true identity.

At that he flicked a glance at Ham Seoyeon beside him, and sure enough she sat with not the faintest notion that Shin Hweein was holding a conversation by mind-speech, prattling on at the Father and Do Yumi.
The Father, even as he frowned now and then in the manner of a man for whom the mudang creed and the Catholic frame of thought were colliding, listened meekly enough; persuasion would soon succeed.

— So, then. Did you really call on me only because you were bored? Or were you meaning to teach me mind-speech?
— Truth is, I had been meaning to tell you that the Shin girl is heading this way, but I was so surprised by your sorcery skill, young master, that for a moment I quite forgot.
— Shin Myeongin? Looking for Ham Seoyeon, is she. Well, the two seem to have grown reasonably close after all. That should do—
— Ah, she’s come into the café just now!

“Hm.”

When Shin Hweein let the sound slip out aloud, Ham Seoyeon, in the very thick of her explanation, turned to him as if to ask what the matter was, then, evidently sensing something herself, came to a sudden halt.

The storm broke directly upon them.

“Sis, I finally found you! Of all times, my sorcery’s been on the fritz so I’ve spent ages… Huh? Handsome Father!”

Just as anticipated, the moment Shin Myeongin came through the café door and spotted Ham Seoyeon and Father Lucas, she let out a cry, her voice raised as though the place were her own private parlour, and came rushing over.

“Sis, that’s low! Were you off on a date with the Father all by yourself?”
“That’s not it, Myeongin. Sis was in the middle of business just now.”
“Huh, business? Like a deal? Ah, that jerk from yesterday—”

The thunderclap of a voice, all but advertising to the room that a person of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses was present, drew stares from every direction and pricked the four of them with unwelcome attention.
In the same instant, the Father’s face crumpled.

Truthfully, Shin Hweein had thought from the outset there was a fair likelihood of its turning out like this.
He had even advised that if the Father wished not to be interfered with, it would be best to meet inside the cathedral, where outside eyes could not reach. The Father, saying it did not sit well with him to bring a mudang into a sanctified place, had appointed an outside venue. That karma, then, was the Father’s to bear.

“Looking at it the right way, it has kept the rabble from charging into the cathedral. Surely that, too, is by the Lord’s care?”
“It’s a pity the Lord’s care doesn’t quite stretch as far as this tea-house.”

In the end, they were all reduced to rising from their seats together.
The one mercy was that, this time, astonishingly, Shin Myeongin had been aware she was an imposition and had quietly booked a place with a private room where they could speak in peace.

“By the way, that’s a talk I can sit in on too, right?”
“You may not.”
“Wh— no, even after I went to all this trouble?”
“You may not.”

Even though Shin Hweein had personally stepped in and spoken on Ham Seoyeon’s behalf, Shin Myeongin was another matter entirely; across yesterday and today she had been accumulating the Father’s loathing in real time as the chief perpetrator of every commotion, and now he treated her with something halfway between his bearing toward a demon and his bearing toward an ordinary mortal.
Seeing Father Lucas’s flintiness, Ham Seoyeon judged she had best calm the girl before things grew really loud, and set to mollifying her.

“Myeongin-ah, Sis will tell you about it later. For now, let’s wait outside, hm?”
“Oh come on, the content of the talk isn’t important at all! I just want a sense of belonging, that’s what! Well, if it sounds interesting once I’ve heard a bit, I could even pitch in a little!”
“There shall be no occasion, hereafter, to act alongside you.”

As Ham Seoyeon strained to manage the tantrum-throwing Shin Myeongin and Father Lucas began, by stages, to weigh whether to draw out his sealed dark personality, Shin Hweein cut in.

“Then bring us a different bit of business that you, too, may have a part in. With proper warrant, mind.”
“What? I don’t want to do anything together with you— No, wait.”

Shin Myeongin, on the very brink of unloading every scrap of her irritation at the suddenly-interposing Shin Hweein, saw the instant he stepped in how Ham Seoyeon’s and Father Lucas’s expressions changed, and at last set the brains born of an illustrious house to work.
It was a truly slim possibility, but perhaps, just perhaps, the central figure of this gathering was Shin Hweein.
His spiritual power was negligible next to her own, yet for all that he was master of the flame-hound; he stood in a cooperative relation with Father Lucas; and somehow, she could not have said how, over the course of a single day he seemed to have struck up a friendship of sorts with Ham Seoyeon too.
She did not, in particular, know exactly what sort of man he was, but the realization came to her at last: if she went on treating him badly, it might well grow difficult to see again, face to face, the handsome Father she had at such pains been reunited with.

“A talk. A different talk, you said. Fine, just you all wait. I’m Shin Myeongin, the next-generation leader of the most illustrious house in the Capital!”

Having banged her drum, the girl snorted a stream of air from her nostrils and dashed outside, whereupon the remaining party turned, in one motion, to look at Shin Hweein.
He gave a small snort of his own and said,

“How easy it is to handle an impulsive little brat who has nothing but power behind her.”
“Brother Shin Hae? Partner or no, to force an unwelcome encounter upon me is rather another matter, I should think.”
“Is it not a Father’s calling to lead the stray and wandering lambs back unto the Lord?”
“Brother, there are also goats, sometimes, who deliberately break the road and lead the other sheep over the cliff’s edge. Had I been able, like Christ Jesus, to redeem all mankind, I would gladly have done so; but unhappily my bosom is too narrow to gather even the goats.”
“There is no guarantee a cliff waits at the end of every strayed path. What if Shin Myeongin, having gained the Shin House’s leave, were truly to come to us with a matter that could benefit all of us?”

At those words Father Lucas closed his mouth and sank into serious thought.
To grasp that in this great Capital, merely meeting with one of the inner circle of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses was no easy thing, and that depending on how one steered it the encounter could be of help not only to him but to the Catholic Church as well, was not so difficult a thing to grasp.

“Of course, that talk only holds if that one really does come bearing some decent bit of business.”
“That’s true. …In that case, until then, I would ask you to handle her, Sister.”
“Yes. …Ah.”

Only when she nodded in answer to the Father’s words did Ham Seoyeon realize that perhaps this, too, might be an opportunity for her.
Seeing her eyes light up, Shin Hweein nodded in satisfaction.

— Are you truly minded to entangle yourself once more with the Shin House for the sake of that Ham girl, young master?
— I, you say? No such thing. That would be far too early. Even should Shin Myeongin truly come with a passable commission, naturally I will stand aside. That one would likely prefer it that way too.
— I should hope it goes as the young master plans…

While Shin Hweein and Geum Moa were exchanging words this way, the conversation between Ham Seoyeon and Father Lucas had wound itself wholly up.
The only one wearing an unhappy expression was Do Yumi; both Father and shaman bore reasonably satisfied looks, so it seemed the matter of the mudang-instruction had been brought to a tidy close.

“A good meeting. Then, by way of Brother Shin Hae, I shall convey to you the precise date. Next time, do come to Myeongdong Cathedral.”
“The one nearest Zone 0, that… I understand.”
“Brother, then by your leave, we shall take ours first today.”

When Father Lucas rose from his seat, Do Yumi hesitantly rose to follow.
He had thought she would simply leave thus, but Do Yumi dawdled, and addressed Shin Hweein in a voice as small as a creeping ant.

“The child… says he wants to meet again.”
“…So be it. Whenever the child wishes.”
“Yes. Then. Thank you.”

Bending her head a fraction, Do Yumi followed the Father out.

Shin Hweein watched their retreating backs in silence and made to rise slowly himself, and Ham Seoyeon poked at him.

“What is it?”
“Just, thank you, for the consideration. Even if it does feel a bit lousy of me to be holding the Father hostage like that.”
“Father Lucas is no fool, and the matter of how to grow the connection is for you to manage. Then, I will take my leave.”
“Hey, hey. Before that, just a moment.”

Men and women being properly distinguished, what was he to do with Ham Seoyeon, who kept on poking him with her finger?
And more than that, what was he to do about Geum Moa, who was kindling a murderous intent against Ham Seoyeon?

“There’s something I want to check. The number you gave me yesterday, that’s your phone number, right?”
“It is. What of it?”

When Shin Hweein gave a nod, Ham Seoyeon narrowed her eyes and pressed him.

“Then why doesn’t your name come up on the app? The messenger app, I mean.”
“Messen—ger app…?”
“…You can’t possibly not know what a messenger app is, can you?”
“??”

In the end Shin Hweein, with Ham Seoyeon’s help on the spot, managed to find and install the app and even complete a friend-registration.

“So, like this— ah.”

Ham Seoyeon, who had taken out her own phone to demonstrate, all at once held Shin Hweein’s phone up against hers and let out a small, low exclamation.

“…AI Phone.”
“And as for you, indeed.”

Having confirmed the make of her phone, Shin Hweein recalled the matter at the shop yesterday and gave a wry smile.
He had known she lived without giving things a thought, but she was a sister in whom one could truly find not a scrap of consideration.

“Why is your knowledge from the Joseon era, but your phone alone has to follow the latest trend?”
“Just as I thought. I find yours the more to my liking. It’s home-grown, besides.”
“Our grandfather unified all the children’s phones to this one. From today, your nickname is Grandpa.”
“At least that is the better of the nicknames going around…”
“What?”

Having met this new artifact, the messenger app, and successfully registered Ham Seoyeon as a friend, Shin Hweein saw upon her profile the stiff phrase Mu-gyeok Grade Two, Bodhisattva of Contradiction, and on the off chance asked,

“Might I ask what manner of general-god it is that you serve?”
“Uh, uh? Kuh, well, it’s not exactly a secret. It’s a fairly well-known story, and it’s been passed around quite a bit in the community as it is…”
“As I thought. You must serve a remarkable one. Even so, all things being equal, hearing it from your own mouth would be the more accurate.”
“…Mine…”
“Hm?”
“Athena.”
“…”
“It’s not a lie, really — Athena! The very same Athena who appears in Greek mythology — she is the divine spirit I serve!”

So that was why the name Bodhisattva of Contradiction had been hung on her. Contradiction (spear-and-shield), then, was meant in its literal sense after all.²
If it was Athena, then her stringency about law and justice made perfect sense.
Goddess of reason and wisdom besides, so it was only natural she had seen straight through to Shin Hweein’s true identity.

But still. Athena…

“How about giving up on the post of head of house?”
“I’m not giving up — absolutely not!”
“But Athena is no general-god, she is—”
“I know that!”

She is no general-god, she is simply a war-god…