Chapter 6 — The Sorcerer Qualification Exam (5)

Once all three naty had been struck down, the examiner and his cluster of candidates found them out, exactly as he had expected.
The others had clearly fought their own battles, by the look of them, though none were beaten so far into ruin as this group.
The original plan, he surmised, had been to recycle the same naty pack that had come for them here, loosing it on the divided cohorts in turn.

“The exam is to be halted.”

“What?!”

That the disappearance of all three naty, so far beyond expectation, might be reason enough to halt the exam, Shin Hweein, who saw clean through to the whole of the matter, acknowledged readily enough.
The candidates, of course, did not.

From where they stood, being flung into the Specter Realm with no proper preparation had been discontent enough already.
Then came all that humiliation, cut off from their examiner, the barest survival.
And now, on top of it, the exam was to be halted.

“There is cause that the exam cannot continue. In its stead, those who acquit themselves well in the supplementary examination to follow shall receive additional rewards, including elixir-pills administered by the Aeshin Royal House.”

“Elixir-pills…?”

“Even so—”

An elixir-pill was a spiritual elixir of marvelous efficacy.
Humans took the rare wild ginseng or aged heshouwu root that nature now and again yielded¹, and refined it with their own hands.

It tended toward weaker effect than the natural spiritual elixir it was drawn from, yet families who had studied and refined the art of pill-craft over long ages could sometimes produce one equal to, or even surpassing, a precious natural elixir.

How much the more, then, an elixir-pill administered directly by the Aeshin Royal House.
Its potency was as good as guaranteed; partake of it, and one might raise one’s spiritual power, or cure a grave illness.

They were unlikely to be the rare grade, of course, and in all likelihood would be of the standard sort, but even that much was treasure enough for candidates whose mark was Rank Three or Rank Four sorcerer.

“Naturally, should you forgo the supplementary examination, the exam shall be reckoned as failed. You may prepare for one year and take the exam again.”

“Tch.”

“This is preposterous. However august the Eight Pure-Blood Houses may be, to force such a strong-arm…”

“It is because they hold a practical that was never planned to begin with that this trouble arises.”

“What incompetence.”

The word “elixir-pill” alone was not enough to soothe the candidates’ anger.

The Rank Three and Rank Four qualification examinations were held once every two months, but anyone who sat one and failed could not sit again for a year.
So for those arguing that the supplementary examination was unjust, the offer effectively became Then wait your year, a choice made under coercion.

The examiner, of course, did not so much as twitch a brow at the candidates losing their tempers, justly enough.

“If you cannot endure even this much hardship, you had best give over the trade of sorcerer altogether. The hardship you suffer at the hands of fellow men shall yet rank among the lightest of the hardships you face hereafter.”

Spinning out absurd sophistries to justify his own conduct, the Yun-House examiner opened the door leading out to the present world, then turned at the threshold to block it, and spoke.

“Before returning to the present world, there is one thing I would have confirmed. What manner of yokai did you encounter, such that there were casualties? By what means were they struck down? And further, who in particular was the one to strike them down? Report as honestly as may be.”

“…”

That he thought a proper report could be gotten out of them in this atmosphere was astonishing.

The candidates, finding it past all reason, glared at him in silence for a moment, just as one might have expected.
Then their eyes met one another’s, and they spoke as if by prior arrangement, all at once.

“There were three naty.”
“All together, we recited a spell in the form of a song and drove them off.”
“I was the first… no, just who began it, I cannot quite recall, but I think we all had much the same idea.”
“All three were struck down in much the same way, so it would be hard to say any one of us played the greater part. Though as for that, the Rank Three candidates’ part was the larger.”

“…”

A report full of jealousies, each man frantic to inflate his own share.

The examiner, looking as though he had no wish to let any of them out the door until he was given a proper answer, spoke quietly.

“As I recall, there was among the candidates one who commanded a flame-hound as his shikigami.”

And with that, the examiner fixed Shin Hweein with a steady gaze.

Several candidates clicked their tongues and followed the examiner’s eye round to Shin Hweein.
The startled look that came over every face suggested that, until just then, they really had forgotten he was there.

Geum Moa’s transformation art, beyond merely altering his face, must surely have concealed his presence and his aura as well.

That aside, the candidates who had now registered him were leveling pressure at him with one accord, to the effect, no doubt, of Speak honestly of your part, and we’ll see about it later.

“My flame-hound is yet quite weak, and so was of no great help against the naty.”

This was precisely the direction Shin Hweein himself was hoping for, of course, and so he fell in readily with their account.
To speak frankly, he would have liked to step forward and ask it of them himself.

Of course, this being a state examination held by the Royal House, it would not be strange if they had some means of observing our combat first-hand. But if my reckoning is right, that means was cut off the very moment the children’s song began transforming those creatures.

The naty sorcery had been an operation conducted by the military.
It was not the sort of thing they would wish to expose, that a single nursery-song could deform the creatures and so reveal a grave defect, so even if they had been watching, in all likelihood they had cut their feed at that point.
The truth was that Shin Hweein had risked stepping forward precisely because he placed that probability high.

“If a falsehood is reported, the penalty shall be heavier than disqualification. Knowing this, do you so report?”

“If I am to be unjustly punished on the ground that my abilities are wanting, I have only to seek out those who will see not the abilities I have now but the potential within me. My answer is the same as before.”

Shin Hweein despised falsehood.
But he had come, by now, to know that there are things more precious even than one’s own creed.
He had no thought of running counter to the realization wrung from him at the edge of death; the less so when the man across from him was an examiner who would test a military operation upon candidates for a state license.

If this had truly been done to verify whether the youngest son of the Shin House lay among the candidates, then these were no longer men worth treating as men.

“…Is that so. Your spirit is fair to look upon. Bear in mind that Aeshin does not deal stintingly with those who have potential and aspiration, and be wholly loyal to the Royal House. The Royal House shall reward you in measure as you devote yourself.”

“I shall engrave it upon my bones, and bear it in mind.”

In time the examiner, with a look not wholly satisfied, gave a nod, and ushered every one of the candidates out into the present world.

Feeling the examiner’s gaze fastened to his back to the very last, Shin Hweein could only let out a sigh.

A little while later, the examiner regathered them at the examination grounds and first set apart those who would forgo the exam.
Shin Hweein, already marked in the examiner’s eye, decided that rather than give the man any further pretext he would comply quietly and sit even the supplementary examination.

Better that than wait a year in fear of being unmasked.
Let him watch how matters unfolded, and if the moment came when he sensed he had been found out, only then would he disappear.

Still, dissatisfied with the examiner’s bearing and the unreasonable terms of the exam, fully half of those present declared they would forgo it, just as one might have expected.
The examiner drew up the roster of those who would sit the supplementary examination, and then spoke again.

“The supplementary examination is a state operation to be conducted alongside a military-affiliated sorcerer unit. The details remain classified, but performance in this examination will be entered into the formal record, and one who acquits himself outstandingly shall not only pass the exam but obtain opportunity to be inducted into the military. If you have no wish to take part in the operation, now is your final chance.”

“…!”

It was, in truth, a breathtaking declaration.
To all of those present, perhaps. Except Shin Hweein.

The words no wish to take part did not so much as come up.

“Wai— wait—”

“The military?!”

A military sorcerer post was, for the sorcerers active in Aeshin, the very dream and aim of the vocation.
Set against the irregular work of an independent sorcerer it was overwhelmingly stable, and since many of the military’s sorcerers belonged to the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, the safety of entering the Specter Realm under their banner was beyond compare.

This being the sorcerer corps of Aeshin, the very land called the great sorcerer-nation, the qualifications were not light.
But in equal measure the treatment was excellent, such that one had only to wear the insignia attesting one’s military affiliation to receive courtesy at home, and abroad as well.

Above all, a military sorcerer obtained the right to a home in Zone 1.
A settled, safe environment that bore no comparison with Zone 2 or Zone 3, where, even now, the occasional spiritual incident routinely produced casualties.

Naturally one’s value as a marriage prospect rose accordingly, and so it was understandable enough that the eyes of the candidates listening to the offer went wild.

“W—wait! In that case I, too, will sit the supplementary examination!”

“Examiner, sir, give me only one more chance!”

“I beg you!”

Shin Hweein could now see precisely why the examiner had taken pains to speak of the supplementary examination only while those who had declared they would forgo the exam still remained in the hall.

“You may leave; you cannot return. I did say plainly that additional rewards could be paid out. If you let those words pass you by and lost your chance, that is your own affair. The most essential thing in becoming an excellent sorcerer is the faculty to read the current and judge accordingly. Those of you who let it slip are not qualified.”

It was, quite simply, because the fellow was a twisted, sour-souled old man.

The exam-forfeiting candidates could not so much as raise their voices against an examiner who was a direct-line heir of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, and who now, on top of that, stood revealed as a man of consequence in the military.
There was nothing left for them but to withdraw with hollow looks on their faces.

“No forfeits remain…? Good. Then the rest of you may disperse as well. The precise date and time shall be communicated through your registered contact information, so keep yourselves at ready hour by hour.”

“Understood.”

The candidates now entered for the supplementary examination drifted off one by one with dazed looks, their faces uncertain whether to be pleased or vexed.

Among them were a few who recognized Shin Hweein and made as if to call out to him, but he braced his staff and slipped quickly from the spot, drawing his mask back over his face.

— A military post, then. How about it?

“You jest, surely, Flame-tail. With me striving to make my way out from under the family, what use would there be in burrowing into the heart of Aeshin from the outset?”

Even before this the Shin House had favored rearing its sorcerers in a corps of its own running rather than enlisting them in the state military.
On that account, most of the Shin-House sorcerers presently attached to a state corps rather than to the Shin House itself were of the branch lines, that is, those who had not received the Gatekeeper’s Brand.

Even so, the likelihood of meeting figures connected to the Shin House was in fact the higher; and above all, for one like Shin Hweein who craved freedom, the option of the military, however assured the future it offered, was scarcely an attractive one.

— And yet that old man seemed rather taken with you. Of that I’m sure: ill-will, at any rate, was not in him.

“That I know as well. …Which is why it startles and unsettles me all the more.”

Whatever the case, Shin Hweein could surely read the feelings of another far more sharply than Flame-tail could.
And yet, as Flame-tail had said, in the inward parts of the Yun-House examiner as he faced Shin Hweein there was not a trace of ill-will to be perceived.

It might not be the proper way to put it, but it was almost as though the man were looking upon his own disciple, or his own son…

“I have no recollection of having said or done anything to be taken with.”

— Are you a fool? It’s obviously because you have a shikigami contract with me, with the famed flame-hound!

“Heh. That may yet be so. Flame-tail, you have done well in today’s exam.”

Along the road to the omnibus stop, from which one could ride in a single trip out from Zone 0 to Zone 2, Shin Hweein gathered Flame-tail into his arms and gave him a soothing pat.
The creature wagged his tail back and forth, but cocked his head all the same.

— Hng. That’s not the reaction I’d expected…. Anyway, listen here. Even faced with that fellow, you kept your bearing through it all. Old men have this cranky habit of wanting to push the youngsters down themselves, but the moment a youngster won’t lower his head, they take a liking to him.

“That is a sweeping generalization.”

— Of course, I don’t mean the kind of fellow who looks down on his elders. They only ever like the clever-tongued sort who say things like ‘Truly, all the elder’s words are right, and yet, for the present, I shall do what I can do!’

“I thought I had let fly a fair number of rough words myself?”

— …Generalizations aside, you first of all are in need of taking a rather more objective view of yourself.

Had it been, as Flame-tail said, simply that Shin Hweein’s back-talk had been to the man’s taste?
Or was it that, as ever, the examiner had divined his identity from the start, and on the strength of the tie to his father had been studying him…

Continuing the thread of thought, Shin Hweein was attempting to puzzle out the Yun-House examiner’s inner motive when he noticed that someone was standing at the stop, waiting for him.

“Young master!”

Geum Moa, dressed in a fresh light-pink sundress as though she were headed out that very moment for a flower-viewing, came running brightly toward him with a smile.

Naturally, the eyes of the people gathered at the stop, who had been watching Geum Moa from a distance, shifted as one and followed her, and so came to rest on him.
Among them were mixed those who, only moments before, had been sitting the exam with him.

“Oh, a staff. Could that be the fellow from earlier…?”

“I’d thought I couldn’t quite recall the face. Turns out he’s wearing a mask now. He wasn’t, before, was he?”

“And his bare face, what did it look like? I don’t quite remember…”

“As one might have guessed, he’s no ordinary man. A beauty like that calls him young master.”

Just when he had at last got free of the crowd’s notice, here was Geum Moa drawing it onto him again.
He was looking on her as one looks on a sworn enemy when, having come tripping lightly up, she made to spring into his embrace and missed, and she and Flame-tail, still held to his chest, fixed each other with a long stare.
Then she spoke.

“I thought you might just sail straight off to Zone 2, so I came out to meet you. And this way we’d give off a couple-feeling, I thought.”

“…Set aside the talk of lovers. Given that our lodgings are in Zone 2, would it not be the natural thing, once the exam was finished, to head off to Zone 2?”

“So you really haven’t checked your phone yet.”

“Phone?”

At her words Shin Hweein leaned his staff against the ground for a moment and drew out his phone.
Seeing the messages that had landed all at once from Geum Moa, from Father Lucas, and finally from Ham Seoyeon as well, he knit his brows.

“A joint operation… Has that Shin Myeongin girl truly broached this ‘business matter’?”

“Hard to believe, but so it seems.”

Shin Hweein put his phone away and snatched back the staff, which had been left standing on its own and whirling its head round and round in place, and let out a sigh.

She had finally found a pretext to grow close to the priest.
Could she not simply have moved forward with the priest herself, without needing to summon him…

…No. In truth, that requests for rescue would land from every one of them save Shin Myeongin was, of course, only what could have been expected.