Chapter 1 — First Entry Into The Specter Realm (3)

One fortunate thing was that even the rat-tail-sized flames Shin Hweein could conjure were enough to deal a low spirit a heavy blow.

— Gyaaah! This flame… it purifies…!

A low spirit mistook him for a bite-sized morsel and lunged, and the feebly-drifting flame caught it. In a heartbeat the fire ran across its whole body, devoured every trace of its foul aura, and snuffed it out altogether.

The result startled even Shin Hweein, who had conjured the flame himself, and he gaped.

What mattered to him, after all, was only that his inflammation had eased a little. The flame was a side-effect, nothing more.

The form of the burning bird that surfaced in my mind the moment I gripped the Indulgence… this is most likely that bird’s power. My guess is that part of the curse I have borne since birth was laid upon me by it, and that in the lifting of some part of it, I turned the curse back upon it and, as recompense, drew away a portion of its power.

But then, why?

A yokai whose power was so vast that a mere sliver could purify a low spirit in a single stroke. What grudge could she possibly have held against a newborn babe, to lay a curse upon him?

Was it possible, even, that the rest of his sicknesses were the work of other yokai’s curses as well?

What sin could a child only just born have committed, so deep that all of them together had laid their curses upon him?

Was it truly so, that he had a past life dyed black with evil deeds, and that its karma had reached into this present one?

— Watch out, looks like he’s a sorcerer!
— All of you, jump him at once!
— You go first!
— No, YOU go first!

The shrieks of the low spirits, falling over one another, dragged him back from his reverie.

He drew out his spiritual power again on reflex, conjured a flame, and looked ahead. The sight of them squabbling over who would not be the one in front was, frankly, a spectacle.

Why were low spirits called low spirits?

Because not one of them possessed an ability or an origin notable enough to earn it a name. Even so, if they survived long enough, they could undergo transformation. Most of them lacked the wit for it, though, and let their appetites run ahead of their actions, so they tended to be put down in short order.

Even now, having grasped that their prey had fangs sharp enough to be dangerous, they ought to have closed ranks, backed him steadily into a corner, drawn out those fangs, and overpowered him. Instead, one of them edged timidly backward in fright while another snapped in fury at its fellows to take the lead. A circus.

What use is there in looking back on a past life I cannot even remember? For now, it is enough that I have the strength to subdue these creatures.

With a sigh, Shin Hweein shook off the lingering distractions, took calm and precise aim at only those at the head of the evil mob, and began to loose flame after flame.

— He, he’s coming!
— YOU block him!
— He’s coming after us!

At first his accuracy was such that he should have been grateful the flames hit the things at all, never mind aimed shots. But once he could make out the faint yokai force the spirits gave off and bend his flames toward it, from that moment on every shot found its mark, exactly where he wanted it. A hundred from a hundred.

Some of this was Shin Hweein’s natural skill in handling spiritual power, of course. More than that, though, it was as if the flames themselves possessed an innate capacity to seek out and burn whatever was unclean.

How many more can I wring out? Ten? Twelve?

The problem, as ever, was Shin Hweein’s usable reserve of spiritual power.

The Indulgence had raised the amount he could call upon by some measure, true, but it was no better than pissing on a frostbitten foot.

Had there been anyone proposing to make a career of sorcery with this much spiritual power, Shin Hweein would have been the first to talk him out of it.

For the moment, the low spirits were too terrified of his flame to rush in carelessly. But the moment his limits became readable, that would be the moment they…

— Meow.

“Hush, it’s dangerous. Do not put your head out.”

— Meow.

The myodusa, poking its head out from inside his coat, jerked its chin abruptly toward the sky.

When Shin Hweein raised his eyes without thinking, he saw raindrops beginning to fall, one or two at a time, out of a sky that had darkened until one could doubt there had ever truly been a sky there at all.

They were stained the rust-red of something corroded.

— Mya!

He was just thinking how unpleasant the very color of the Specter Realm’s rain was when the myodusa, with another of its odd cries, made some demand of him.

A thought struck him then, and he traced a line through the air with his flame-tipped finger. Heat bloomed along the path and burned away the raindrop that had been about to fall upon him.

The low spirits could not block the rain, most of them spectral bodies no less, and where it touched them they began to melt, all of them shrieking in anguish at once.

— Gyaaaaaah!
— I knew it, I KNEW this would happen!
— Before my body melts, I have to swallow that thing!

— Shaaaaak!

Those low spirits that had sheltered beneath others of their kind, using them as roofs against the rain, hurled themselves all at once at Shin Hweein.

He gripped his staff and retreated in haste, kindling one flame after another. But at this rate his usable spiritual power would soon run dry, and either the raindrops would catch him or the low spirits would.

That his first true battle had gone too well, up until now, came back against him as its own enemy and pressed in on his thinking.

Warding off the falling rain, driving back the closing spirits, he felt his spiritual power dwindling faster and faster.

The bottom of it would show itself any moment now.

— Meow!

The myodusa caught hold of the sleeve of the arm not gripping his staff and shook it furiously.

His arm shook in answer, and the flame at his fingertips wavered like a heat-haze.

And beyond it, clear as day, he saw the meadow where he had been only moments before, and, astonishingly, the campfire still burning in its place.

No rain was falling there.

“What…?”

Gazing at a scene that could not have been more out of place, Shin Hweein barely recovered his wits, and felt a connection between the flame burning at his own fingertips and the bonfire on the far side.

Still backing away, he scattered the flame wide, driving off both rain and low spirits in a single sweep. And then, the next instant.

Shin Hweein gave himself over to instinct and, following the lead of the fire, hurled himself forward with everything he had.

“Kkh—!”

A membrane like a barrier stopped him for a moment, then burned away and was gone.

The next instant he had landed face-first in a meadow that smelled of earth.

No rain. No low spirits. A peaceful place.

The space he had been standing in only moments before had, in all likelihood, already undergone an Other-Realm shift and become impossible to enter at will.

He had heard there were many roads within the Specter Realm leading through to other spaces. He had not expected it to actually be true.

For all he knew, those who met an Other Realm on their very first trial were few indeed.

And without this mysterious flame’s power, he could hardly have come back alive.

— Shaa!

The myodusa, which had tumbled into the meadow along with him, tucked in his coat, voiced its displeasure in an angry cry and slithered out from inside.

And who do you think it was that dragged me into the Other Realm in the first place? For all that your shape is a monster’s, you are every bit as fickle as a cat.

Grumbling inwardly, he lifted his head. But the creature, it seemed, had already hidden itself somewhere in the underbrush, and was nowhere to be seen.

“What a thing…”

A wry laugh escaped him.

His diseased body, pushed so hard, ached all over, and his head throbbed on top of it. Yet his heart, for all that, felt quite content.

Whatever else, hadn’t he accomplished what he set out to do?

He hoped the myodusa had not gone far. Even so, if it was a creature that recognized the kindness of one who had saved it, he might yet find it again and take it as a shikigami.

“Hah. And where in the world has my staff rolled off to.”

“It is here, my lord.”

“Ah, Moa, that’s good of you. …Hm?”

The instant Shin Hweein received the staff held out to him, along with the sound of a woman’s voice, his body stiffened.

In his usual life it was only Geum Moa who looked after him, so he had answered without thinking, and only then realized it was not her voice.

Leaning on his staff, he rose to his feet, examined the figure across from him in haste, and asked.

“You… who are you?”

“This maiden’s name is Hoa, my lord.”

By all appearances she resembled an ordinary girl of the East. But the demure jeogori she wore¹, so far removed from the dress of any modern person, made her look as though she had stepped out of an old tale. It was a hallmark of the gentler yokai who had spent long centuries hidden away within the Specter Realm and never ventured out.

“This maiden, a creature so lowly as a mere low spirit, fears she may have disturbed my lord’s rest.”

The yokai’s manner of speech was so courteous, for a yokai, that Shin Hweein’s wariness only grew.

The girl had called herself a low spirit, but as he had learned only moments before, low spirits did not address human beings with any such courtesy.

“The one who comes in good faith does not approach; the one who approaches does not come in good faith. For what reason have you come before me?”

“Forgive me! I saw a sacred flame burning in this place, and the thought came to me — if perchance my lord were the master of this flame, might I dare to ask his aid — and so I —!”

“Absurd. If this were truly a sacred flame, the mere nearness of a low spirit such as yourself would have burned you to nothing.”

“That, that is because this maiden too commands a flicker of fire’s power!”

The yokai who had named herself Hoa lowered her head, as though contrite at Shin Hweein’s sharp manner, and offered her excuse.

The power a yokai wielded was, of course, tied directly to its origin, so he could hardly accept the maiden’s confession at face value just like that. Yet Shin Hweein let the point go, and asked something else instead.

“And so — by aid, you mean?”

“In truth, this maiden is at this very moment being hunted by an evil yokai. While I fled in a daze, I caught sight of my lord, and though I knew it a sin worthy of death, I yet begged that this lowly life be spared, and so I dared to address you.”

Having only just returned from rescuing the myodusa from another yokai, he found nothing particularly surprising in hearing that Hoa too had been pursued by one of her own kind.

But if she had spotted him while fleeing and then approached, well, there was no further need for her to ask his help. She had already, in effect, dragged him into the matter.

Is this the kind of fortune today is to be? Or is it my fate, perhaps, to keep drawing in pitiful yokai?

Faced with the maiden, who flushed a bright crimson with shame and remorse, apparently aware herself that what she had done was a sin, Shin Hweein heaved an inward sigh.

Was he angry? In truth he was not. Not in the least.

For if Hoa had spotted him while fleeing, then the yokai pursuing her could find him just as readily, and in any case he had not the means to outrun it.

He had escaped one Other Realm only to run straight into another yokai.

Now he could see exactly why the Specter Realm was such a dangerous place.

“Hoa, was it? You have had ill luck. I have not the power to help you.”

“Such a thing — even the noble lord I have at last managed to find, should you forsake me, what am I to —”

“You have misheard me. I mean that I have not the power to flee this place either.”

Having said as much, Shin Hweein took stock of his body’s condition and released a long, heavy sigh.

Spiritual power grew in proportion to the magnitude of the soul, and the greater one’s spiritual power, the faster the spent portion of it recovered.

In Shin Hweein’s case, while his usable reserve was small, his total spiritual power was vast, and as a small mercy in the midst of misfortune, more than half of what he had spent earlier had already filled itself back in.

“In which case, I have no choice but to fight.”

“My lord!”

Hoa brightened at his words, plainly no mere low spirit as she claimed. A yokai pursuing one such as her would surely be Rank Seven or above without strain.

With the myodusa hidden from sight, this meant a fresh candidate for a shikigami had presented itself.

How fortunate, really. The target was coming to him of its own accord, even as he stood here doing nothing.

It was, of course, a far more dangerous situation than tracking down the myodusa and forging a contract. But since the situation left him no choice in any case, he might as well dwell on the good points.

“Low spirit Hoa, flee from here at once. I do not know how long I can hold its feet.”

“My, my lord — with your aid, it would be as though I had ten thousand horsemen at my side!”

At his words the maiden shook her head vigorously and cried out.

But at her exaggerated rejoicing he, inwardly, gave a cold smile.

Ten thousand horsemen indeed.

Did yokai have a poorer faculty of perception than men, then, that she could not properly take in the state of his appearance?

Or perhaps she was simply registering the immensity of his spiritual power and mistaking him for someone formidable.

In truth, the bulk of that spiritual power was being spent on holding together a body on the very brink of collapse…

“With my lord’s aid, this maiden too, modest though her strength is, shall stand and fight beside you!”

“Yes. I had thought you might say so.”

“Have, have you been reading this maiden’s heart…?”

Drawing a man into a crisis without an instant’s hesitation, and now playing at modesty. This was Hoa.

Shin Hweein sighed at this signature shamelessness of yokai-kind and raised his head.

For somewhere off in the distance he could now feel a vast yokai aura bearing down on them in a straight line, and fast.

Ah. Once again, laughter came up in him.

With the death he had long expected hovering scarcely a hand’s breadth away, paradoxical as it was, Shin Hweein was at this very moment feeling his life with unprecedented intensity.

“There it is, my lord — the monstrous thing, its whole body covered in hair, with that horrible black skin!”

“Such yokai are many. Among them, however, that one is…”

His body would not move freely, and he had no spiritual power he could handle at will, so Shin Hweein had never been able to learn sorcery properly. Nevertheless, as a member of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, he had not been idle in his studies from a young age.

Of the Shin House’s unique sorcery, and most especially of its shikigami arts, he had learned enough under his mother’s severe tutelage to know it nearly by heart. And the Aeshin Bestiary of Marvels, which catalogued every monster and spirit that appeared across all Aeshin Korea, had served, for the child he had been, in place of any storybook.

Put another way: he was tolerably well-versed in the yokai of the East Asian cultural sphere, but vulnerable, by contrast, against yokai of Western origin. That was his weakness. Mercifully, the creature now approaching was an Eastern yokai Shin Hweein knew well.

No. In fact, that was not particularly merciful at all.

— At last I have found you! It was not flight you were making — you were going to find yourself a mate!

A giant, as tall as one gil (roughly three meters).

Of monsters of grand stature alone, the Aeshin Bestiary of Marvels contained no shortage. Broaden the scope to the East, or to the world entire, and the number grew greater still.

But a monster whose body was wholly covered in hair, whose locks reached to the very ground, and whose skin was black: of such a creature, as far as Shin Hweein knew, there was only one.

— Splendid! My body and my heart both unsullied, I had been wandering in search of a virgin man and woman — what fortune!

Looking up at the black-skinned monster, who spoke in the manner of certain elder men in the family who could never free themselves of an antique cast of mind, Shin Hweein released a quiet sigh.

Body and heart both unsullied? As ever, yokai were plainly incapable of properly perceiving a person’s appearance.

And Shin Hweein was at least a human being. The Hoa before him was a yokai, and yet this monster was, in all seriousness…

— My reason for pursuing this maiden was no other than to find for her a suitable bridegroom and arrange her marriage; and since the maiden has gone and found her own match, the two of you shall, without further talk, enter the bridal chamber this very night.

“My!”

While Hoa, as though she had known nothing of any of it, raised a hand to her mouth and let out an exclamation, Shin Hweein’s countenance, half-hidden behind his bandages, twisted in horror.

“What are we to do, my lord. To survive this, it would seem we must do as the monster commands…”

— There is no right of refusal! Disobey me, and I shall beat you both to death on the spot!

The monster’s name was Eul.

Its kind possessed only males and so could not couple among themselves, and it took an inordinate interest in the coupling of man and woman. After forcibly bringing a man and a woman together to mate, and watching the act intently, it would use the essence it had gathered to impregnate the woman and have her lay an egg. That was how its kind reproduced.

Which is to say, this mad creature was not only trying to force Shin Hweein and Hoa together, but to play the cuckoo on top of it.

“M-my lord — if you would but consent, this maiden would be —”

“Sooner kill me!”

No longer able to bear the humiliation, Shin Hweein drew up his spiritual power, conjured a flame, and with all his strength hurled it at Eul as he cried out.

More terrifying than the monster trying to slake its warped desires of lust and breeding was the yokai before his very eyes, a creature he had only just met, who proposed without the least hesitation to lie with him.

— Very well then! I shall kill you and find some other virgin man!

“My lord — why —!”

…The thought that this might prove his final battle made the bitterness of it impossible to bear.