Chapter 8 — The Sorcerer Lost In A Dream (1)

“A wretched operation. Most disappointing.”

That was the first thing Lt. General Yun said, the moment he called the operation to an end himself and assembled every survivor.

More than half of the would-be sorcerers had been killed in the very instant the operation opened, and nearly half of the rest had died waging hopeless combat against vampires beyond their strength.
For those left standing, it took no small effort to keep the murder out of their eyes at his words.

It was hardly to be wondered at.
Every one of them had just watched the colossal sorcery the Lt. General unleashed at the end.
Why, the same thought must have been running through every man there: rather than let us die, why did you not simply handle the whole thing yourself?

Shin Hweein understood otherwise, naturally.
He had stood face to face with Leon, the master of the Other Realm, and he knew it was precisely because Leon had been disposed of that the Lt. General could cast so audacious a sorcery.
Yet it remained a fact that the man had driven the examinees into a death-pit and then stood back with his hands behind his back, watching the casualties pile up.

‘That this operation was no fit trial for Rank-3 and Rank-4 sorcerers is obvious enough. But to begin with, it was not an operation that warranted the personal involvement of a man of Lt. General rank. For a figure of his station to be sent into actual combat, the vampires would have had to occupy Zone 2 at the least, not merely Zone 3. Most likely his appearing here today was meant to test and season his own special detachment… and, under the pretext of a supplementary trial, because there was an examinee he wished to observe.’

Even now, feeling the Lt. General’s gaze flick toward him, Shin Hweein resigned himself entirely and admitted that he was indeed the examinee the man was watching.

He could only trust that, since he had let slip no proof of being Shin Hweein, the worst would not come to pass.

“Commander. Lt. Colonel Yun.”
“Yes, sir!”

Among the sorcerer detachment itself there were, naturally, no dead, though a good number bore wounds.
All of them stood with their heads bowed low, as though they could not bring themselves to face their general.

The one chosen to be flayed by the Lt. General on behalf of them all was the bespectacled officer, now confirmed beyond doubt to be a direct-line member of Yun House.

Even granting that this was a special detachment under a general’s personal command, Shin Hweein had assumed the commander of a force the size of a platoon would, at the very most, hold the rank of captain.
That the man’s station ran so far above that expectation made it plain: the special treatment he received as a direct-line scion of one of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses was no small thing.

“There ought to have been no room for me to step in personally on this operation. Your strength alone was more than enough to handle it. So the prior analysis said, and so the enemy’s actual strength and scale proved. Or am I wrong?”
“N… no, sir.”
“And yet at the slightest deviation from what was foreseen, you fell into a panic. Worse, the squad-leaders shepherding the examinees could not even rendezvous at the designated points; they only wandered the forward half of the Other Realm. The outside collaborators were, frankly, of more use than you.”
“Ngh… my apologies.”
“You could not even protect what you were told to protect. And you call yourself a man? Could you stand before your woman, chest out, and tell her you would shield her?”
“Uncle, that is —!”
“Who’s your uncle!”

It was the very same Lt. General who had first dragged the matter into the personal.
And the instant a personal address came back at him, he fell upon the bespectacled officer, Lt. Colonel Yun, as though he had been waiting for the cue.

The remark about failing to protect was, in all likelihood, an allusion to the fact that Shin Myeongin had been near Shin Hweein when the Other-Realm shift came undone.
As ever, it was a blessing the man had removed himself from the scene so quickly.

Watching the performance, the detachment members kept their eyes screwed shut, plainly bracing for the impartial hell that would in time descend upon each of them too.

“I shall now announce the results of the trial.”

Only after he had cowed his own nephew so thoroughly that the man could not so much as whimper did the Lt. General’s temper seem to ease enough for him to turn back to the examinees and open his mouth again.

“You all pass. The offer of military induction, however, is rescinded. Not one of you displayed an ability or judgment that set you apart from the rest. You stood near enough to my squad to see them work, so you know it well. To be made part of the army, one needs a talent set apart from other sorcerers.”

It was a result he had readily foreseen.

If anything, Shin Hweein had half-entertained the notion that they might all be failed outright; that it had not gone that far was surely a mercy.

The other survivors who had passed wore identical looks of relief, palms pressed to their chests, as though they had never harbored the faintest hope of induction to begin with.

“Examinee.”
“Yes, sir.”

And at last the moment he had braced himself for arrived.

The Lt. General strode up and laid a hand on Shin Hweein’s shoulder.

“Excellent work. Not only do you possess a fine shikigami, but your own combat capacity, your reading of the battlefield, and your responsiveness all lie plainly outside the territory of an ordinary Rank-3 sorcerer. The one point against you is that you were caught up in the vampire’s sorcery at the end. But I am told you were single-handedly engaging two upper-class vampires.”
“You are too generous, sir. Whether they were upper-class I cannot say, but they were certainly opponents beyond Rank-6 yokai.”
“To return with such merit while shackled to the rest of those deadweights, and without so much as a scratch — far from a deduction, even a bonus would not suffice. I gather there was some trouble with your paperwork and you were entered as Rank-4, but I shall of course see that you are issued a Rank-3 certificate. I could just as easily make it Rank-2, but for a Rank-2 to come out of a Rank-3 trial would invite, shall we say, certain complications.”
“…You speak too kindly, sir. My thanks.”

So it had come to this after all.

Inwardly Shin Hweein sighed, bracing for what would surely follow.
Yet astonishingly, what the Lt. General produced for him was not an offer of military induction.

“Take this, if you would.”

A business card emerged from the breast of the man’s coat.

A Lt. General’s calling card was a thing one would, in any ordinary circumstance, never lay eyes on, and so every gaze in the gathering swung toward him at once.

“If ever you have need, contact me. A personal call would be welcome too.”
“…May I truly accept this, sir?”
“Of course. I do not begrudge my time to those of true talent. We may yet have cause for close communication in the days ahead, so do not throw it away on any account. Keep it on your person.”
“Understood. …Then I shall accept it with gratitude.”
“Good.”

With a satisfied nod, the Lt. General withdrew.

Half of the examinees were staring at him with the look of men who suspected a dual personality; the other half were glaring at Shin Hweein, their faces saying they would kill him to seize that card.

As for the men of the special detachment, the Lt. General’s direct subordinates, that went without saying.

— That bastard makes trouble to the very end. Shall we kill him after all, young master?
— Restrain yourself.

Half-suspecting the Lt. General had planted something untoward in the card, Shin Hweein examined it; but even with eyes that grew keener by the day, the most he could detect was something on the order of a communication-sorcery.

In other words, without bothering with phones, they could exchange messages directly through the card.

He hurried the card, which had drawn such excessive interest upon him from every quarter, into his breast and sighed.

‘We may yet have cause for close communication in the days ahead… well. Perhaps the wiser course is, after all, to ask the Father to find me a route of escape abroad.’

There was nothing in his present appearance or conduct to betray his Shin lineage.

At most, the clues were that he handled his shikigami well, and that, being a cripple, he went about leaning on a staff.

Even the first of these could not mark him as Shin Hweein, for Shin Hweein himself had, in the past, lacked the spiritual power to handle a shikigami at all.

…And yet the world hid all manner of strange cursed objects and sorceries away, and just as Ham Seoyeon had recognized him outright, it was possible the Lt. General too had divined Shin Hweein’s identity by some such means.

‘It is a station I shall reveal again one day in any case. If I cannot weather the storm, I hide myself for the time being; if I can, I act boldly and build power swiftly. That is all there is to it.’

Rank-3. Only Rank-3, at last.

Considering that Ham Seoyeon, his contemporary and a direct-line scion of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, already held the Rank-2 qualification, he was still very far behind.

And yet it was equally true that he was growing at a speed beyond comparison with the rest.

He trusted that before long he would surely catch up.

‘Once I am a First-Rank sorcerer, revealing my true station will pose no real problem. The trouble, in the end, is Shin Uin and little mother — but so long as they themselves do not attain Special-Grade, they cannot mount any persecution against a First-Rank sorcerer such as I shall be.’

Shin Uin was the Shin House’s most promising heir, yet he was still no more than Rank-2.

There was a rumor he would soon be promoted to Rank-1, but for the moment he remained Rank-2 in any case.

It was for this very reason that, fond as he was of Geum Moa, he had been unable to approach her with confidence.

Could Shin Hweein catch up to him? Without fail, he would.

“Your compensation for this operation will be paid out at a later date along with the certification, so do not let yourselves fall out of contact. That is all. Dismissed.”

The instant the Lt. General’s words fell, Shin Hweein, who had been ordering his thoughts, pulled the mask back over his face and withdrew.

A glance toward the priest’s party showed Sister Barbara hoisting an unconscious Father Lucas onto her back; the moment she caught sight of him in his mask, she twisted her face into a fierce scowl and lifted one hand to flip him the middle finger.

It seemed Father Lucas had, in the chaos, ended up taking the field in Zer’s persona after all.

Ham Seoyeon wore an expression somewhere between relief and regret.
She gave a wry smile as she looked after Shin Myeongin, who kept glancing about beside her as though searching for something, and tended to her.

Do Yumi, fortunately, bore no wounds on her body, yet her face was vacant, as though she were caught in some dream.

Surely the shock of her first real combat had struck her.

Her temperament and bearing were not to his liking, but at her root she was not a wicked person, and her talents as a shaman were outstanding besides.
He could only hope the Father and Ham Seoyeon would guide her well from here on.

— Uncle, I’m glad.

At Taeju Doryeong’s voice whispering by his ear, Shin Hweein answered the boy with a soft smile of his own.

— It is thanks to our little one that I survived.
— Really?
— Indeed. Had you kept retreating behind me the whole time, I would surely have died. By saving another, you saved yourself too.
— Uncle, you’re a sweetheart. I tried hard too.
— Yes, you did very well. Look after your auntie kindly from now on as well.
— Mm. Auntie seems awfully sleepy. I’m sleepy too.
— Then rest easy. You played to your heart’s content; it is time now for the child to sleep.
— Mm. Can I come find you later?
— Of course.

His farewell finished, Shin Hweein made to leave the spot, and Geum Moa appeared quietly from behind to fall in at his side.

Her gaze stayed fixed, as before, in disapproval upon the strengthened staff.
But before she could speak, Leon sprang up out of Shin Hweein’s shadow and hijacked the moment entirely.

“Allow me to greet you once more. I am Leon Blade. I pledge that from this day forth I shall serve as your faithful retainer.”
“Shin Hweein. That is my true name — one even your former lord did not know.”
“I shall engrave it upon my mind.”

Leon straightened his posture and bowed his head as he made his greeting, and, owing in part to his gentlemanly attire, he looked very much like a butler.

It seemed he had healed his wounds and put himself in order within the shadow, for he stood in the same clean suit he had worn at their first meeting.
The only flaw in the picture was that his expression remained, still, a pitiable one.

“Tch. Because of that damnable mosquito, all manner of unnecessary things have come trailing along…”

Geum Moa glanced at Leon with the kind of look she might give a staff sullied by another’s traces, and he turned to Shin Hweein with a question.

“Master. Since we are on the same side now in any case, let me ask you frankly — what on earth is this monster? I drew you into my barrier to avoid being made to fight this creature, but now that I see it… she could have broken into the barrier just as easily anyway, could she not?”
“That is so.”
“Then why on earth did she not step forward, why did she leave you alone until a hole had been bored through Master’s chest — kuhek!”

Geum Moa’s blow struck like lightning, and Shin Hweein stretched out a tree-branch to catch Leon as he toppled.

“There are complicated reasons. Reasons not unlike those between you and your former lord.”
“They’re completely different! I am vastly superior!”
“Did you hear? Roughly so.”
“…Most vampires are mad to begin with, but this monster more so. Special-Grade, no less — oh dear.”

That he had not lost his fighting spirit after a single blow, but stoutly carried on saying his piece, pleased Shin Hweein.

Geum Moa looked eager to nail down the hierarchy beyond all doubt, but he extended his arm to bar her, as though shielding his thrall, and spoke.

“First we ought to return to my lodgings, where I shall explain my present circumstances. …By the way, where was it you used to stay? You can hardly have been holed up inside the Other Realm the entire time.”
“I keep all that matters on my person, so for the moment it is no trouble. Of course, if Master is amenable, I could conduct you to the building I have taken over in Zone 3.”
“No need.”

Shin Hweein cut the offer off as flatly as if it were not even worth weighing.

Leon smacked his lips in disappointment, but soon enough acquiesced.

“True enough. With my underlings all wiped out, it is as good as saying I have lost dominion over the area in any case. A pity. Of late there has been such a steady run of good fortune that, played right, I could even have made a real bid for Zone 2.”
“Good fortune?”
“Yes — a plague. A peculiar plague. Most likely something with the mystical involved.”

Shin Hweein’s brow knit at the notion of a plague being good fortune.

Just then they reached the van stop, and, setting that talk aside, he was on the point of stepping forward with his staff to board the van that was just then drawing in…

— Skreeeeeeeeeek!

The van abruptly lost its balance and slid straight across the road, hurling itself into the wall of the building opposite with a hideous crashing roar.

To Shin Hweein, frozen by the sudden disaster, Leon’s voice came at his ear.

“A disease of sudden sleep. It appears that bus driver, too, has been struck by it.”