Chapter 14 — The Sorcerer And The Two Faces Of The Shadow (5)

It had been a bloody battle.

The fight had dragged on long and grueling, too much of it to sum up in any single word.

Even so, the two of them had filled the exact gaps the party had been short of. Ham Seoyeon, who could blanket her allies in blessings to amplify their strength, her own skill and her support arts alike excellent; and Sister Barbara, who never stopped raining silver bullets down from a distance to wear the yokai thin. Their backing pushed the safety of the engagement up a great many notches.

“Seonu!”

— Yup!

He still wasn’t sure why Do Yumi had come into such danger when she hadn’t even formally become a mudang yet.
But drawing purely on the personal skill of her taeju, Seonu, she’d performed quite respectably.

That bought the rest of the party a little breathing room here and there, and somehow, by the time half a day had gone by, they’d managed to drive off every last one of the Dragon King’s soldiers.

“Honestly, this is the first time I’ve fought this long… It’s hot.”

Once she’d confirmed there were no enemies left to fight, Ham Seoyeon flapped open the collar of her clothes and let out a long whew of a sigh.

Shin Hweein watched her a moment, then quietly reached out one hand.

A cool breeze issued from his palm, and Ham Seoyeon laughed her thanks for it.
Then her expression hardened.

“What kind of sorcery is this? You didn’t even recite an incantation just now, did you?”
“It’s something like an innate trait. I only came by it recently.”

The way the flame-hound housed fire inside its body, amplified it, and breathed it back out.
The way the kumiho shifted shape and hid her true form as easily as breathing.
The way the vampire ruled over blood.
The way those born of dragon-blood commanded water, conjured wind, and bent the weather to their will.

All such powers Shin Hweein could now wield himself.

“Other people break their backs just to memorize a single spell, and meanwhile you keep picking up ridiculous powers left and right… And now that I look closer, your spiritual power’s shot up too, all in that little stretch of time. Does that even make sense?”
“There was a bond.”
“…That woman?”

So saying, Ham Seoyeon’s gaze fixed on Miu, the North Sea Dragon Princess, laid down inside the barrier-wall Shin Hweein had guarded all through the battle.

“She doesn’t look human. I can’t feel a living person’s energy on her, either.”
“You see well. When I first met her it was rather worse than this. Though it has all turned out well in the end.”

No. Not merely well.

Miu still hadn’t come back to her senses, yet she clutched at his sleeve and kept murmuring my husband, my husband in her sleep.
Shin Hweein looked down at her and let out a sigh.

But the one who actually looked as though she wanted to sigh was Ham Seoyeon.

“I don’t like you.”
“Why is that?”
“Just. I don’t. I worked myself half to death tracking you down, and now I feel like a complete idiot.”

At that, Shin Hweein abruptly came back to himself.

In the thick of combat the situation had been too pressing for him to think about it, but now it struck him that he had no idea how she’d managed to lead the Father’s party here at all, with the Specter Realm thrown into the chaos it was.

She seemed to have anticipated the question, because she immediately extended one hand toward him.
A long needle rose into view above the back of her hand.

It was the compass-sorcery.

“Ah.”
“Turns out it works if you grind yourself half to death. My ability alone wasn’t enough, so I borrowed a little help from Miss Yumi.”

So she meant Seonu, who had an outstanding gift for handling space and boundaries, had helped her complete the spell.

Gratitude, a swell of pride, and a joy that even those two together couldn’t quite account for, all rose in him at once, and Shin Hweein found himself letting out a laugh.

“Heheh, see? My word wasn’t off the mark, was it?”
“Oh, shut up, idiot.”
“My thanks.”
“…”

Shin Hweein was not unaware that he was unlike other people.

Even with the Gatekeeper’s Brand to her name, for Ham Seoyeon to have acquired the compass-sorcery building on nothing but her memory of a single sorcery he’d once shown her would have been impossible without back-breaking effort.

“Desperate” was no exaggeration.
She must have poured every last scrap of her strength into reaching him.

“Truly, my thanks. Because of you, I am alive.”
“Aaagh, now I’m embarrassed. You’re making it sound like I said all that on purpose just to fish for thanks!”

— Uncle!

Just as Ham Seoyeon was fidgeting in chagrin and Shin Hweein himself was on the verge of becoming no less embarrassed, an apt relief pitcher made his entrance.

“Well done yourself, Seonu. You’ve grown another notch more skilled at handling your power.”

— I worked hard! Auntie did too!

Shin Hweein opened both arms, and Seonu plunged into his embrace, never once forgetting to credit his auntie even so.

Do Yumi shuffled timidly along behind him, and at the sight of it Shin Hweein let out a quiet laugh.

“Are you still so frightened of me? I have no reason to be harsh with someone who’s come to help me.”
“No, it isn’t that I’m scared of you, Big Bro…”
“Big Bro?”
“Big Bro?”

Ham Seoyeon and Geum Moa both turned to her with looks of disbelief.

For a moment she flinched under their twin stares, then squared her shoulders with a well, what of it set to her face.

“That’s how it turned out.”
“Wait, Miss Yumi, how old even are you—?”
“Ha, honestly, I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life…”
“What makes you two so different from me—!”

So this is what women are like. They get along behind men’s backs before a man even notices.

The three women bickered, voices climbing notch by notch, and Shin Hweein watched them, gave a shrug, and turned his head toward Father Lucas.

Behind the Father, Sister Barbara was glaring at him as ever.
She’d only tagged along in Lucas’s wake, but the fact remained that she too had come to help him, and today she didn’t look quite so hateful.

“Father Lucas. My thanks.”
“Haha, think nothing of it. At long last I was able to be of help to you, Brother.”

There had been times when Shin Hweein thought of Father Lucas as little more than a launching tube, a thing that restrained Zer and let him loose at the right moment.
But today’s Lucas was different.

His prayers had poured strength into every ally and sapped it from every enemy; without his abilities the battle would have been at least twice as hard.

“But Father, are you not the sort who shuns yokai? My shikigami included.”
“Of course I am. They are devils, after all. They merely look docile right now because you restrain them, Brother. I see straight through to the foulness of their true natures.”

To say so this boldly while ringed on every side by Shin Hweein’s thralls, some of whom were glaring at the Father with looks of wanting to see straight through him, took either a man with no read of the room or one who simply didn’t care; whichever it was, Lucas showed not the slightest sign of shrinking back.

“Then how is it that the Father’s prayers lend their strength even to them? Should they not be weakened along with the enemy yokai?”
“Ah-ha, are you doubting my faith? How disappointing. The reason is simple. In the end, even devils are beings included in the Lord’s plan.”

He claimed disappointment, but Father Lucas seemed genuinely pleased that Shin Hweein had asked him a question about his faith, and his explanation ran long.

“However hateful they may be, right now they fight alongside us against far worse devils, and so to bolster their strength is, in the end, to follow the Lord’s will. By doing so I may save you, Brother, and save the hearts of many others, and in time save still more people besides.”
“In short, doctrine is whatever you yourself decide it to be?”
“No, that would be heresy.”

Having traded a few jokes with the Father and loosened the mood a little, Shin Hweein settled his face into seriousness once more and spoke.

“You should have heard the circumstances before you came… Could I impose on you for a while?”
“Of course. As it happens, the Cardinal mentioned he had something he wished to ask of you, Brother, so the timing couldn’t be better.”
“He brings me a job almost as if he’d been waiting for one. I shall not refuse, though.”
“As expected of you, Brother!”

Having gone out into the world and lived through a fair share of things, he had come to realize one thing of his own accord.

Whether it was to recover memories tied to his past life, or to accumulate karma so he could use the Indulgence, or to heal his body and grow stronger, the best path, in the end, was to keep himself busy.

Of course, the danger grew in proportion. But without shouldering risk, one couldn’t grow strong faster than others, could one?

‘Especially faster than Shin Uin… By the time I was disowned he was already nearly Rank One. Not much time has passed since then, but that doesn’t mean I can afford to dawdle from here on, either.’

A fresh resentment rose in him at the father who, knowing every part of his circumstances, had nonetheless let him be cast out to run for his life.
But this was the time not to merely pile that anger up, but to burn it all down and turn it into fuel.

As he was mentally sorting out what came next, the Father called to him again.

“Brother, well, then? Will you be heading out at once?”
“What do you mean, Lucas.”

It was then that Sister Barbara, silent until now, jabbed Father Lucas in the ribs and protested.

“Sea on every side, and you’re telling me we’re not even going to splash around a little before we leave?”
“Sister Barbara, this is the Specter Realm.”
“But back in the real world I can’t exactly cut loose in a Sister’s habit, can I!”

Does a person who actually knows that act like that?

“Besides, what, is the Specter Realm’s seawater going to poison us if we get in?”
“It will.”

It was Shin Hweein who answered, not the speechless Father Lucas.

“The Specter Realm’s seas are harmful to humans to begin with, and after more than several thousand yokai died over these waters, simply stepping in would foul body and spirit for a good while yet. On top of that, I used poison in the course of dealing with them.”
“What, seriously… You used poison? When did you pick up that power, too?”
“That said, perhaps this time it might be possible.”
“What might?”
“The water-play.”

There was the matter Father Lucas had raised earlier, and on top of it he rather wished to step off the prickly footing he was on with Sister Barbara.
If he granted her wish to play in the sea, perhaps the relationship would soften a little.

His party was still chattering away in a knot of three; out of it, Shin Hweein called for Ham Seoyeon.

“Bodhisattva of Contradiction. Could you perform a gut, even a simplified one?”
“Gut? A gut for that fallen spirit lying over there, you mean?”

She looked pleased to be asked the favor, and at the same time more than a little put on the spot.

“There’s a lot we don’t have here right now… and no one to help, either. How am I supposed to do a gut in simplified form? An Ogu-gut for the dead, of all things.”
“It is not an Ogu-gut. I am not trying to send Miu, the North Sea Dragon Princess, off to paradise. Cheondo.”
“The North Sea Dragon Princess?! Daughter of the Northern Black Dragon, the King of Vast Marshes?”
“That’s right.”

At the line Shin Hweein had dropped so offhandedly, Ham Seoyeon looked the fallen Miu over with an astonished face.
Then, as if she’d found some proof of the dragon-princess in her, she sighed and shook her head from side to side.

“Then doing a gut this carelessly is going to be a real problem. Won’t I catch hell from the North Sea Dragon King? Honestly, how on earth do you keep getting tangled up, every single time, with the kind of heavyweights ordinary people couldn’t bump into even if they tried?”
“Is there no gut for when one wishes to offer worship to a particular divine spirit? I should like to ask the North Sea Dragon King to take his daughter back.”
“That… is possible?”
“Most likely.”

If he had the sacrifice-rite he’d levied off Do Yuna, then.

“If you’re sure of it… all right, then, let’s try. We can adapt the Dragon-King gut. What matters is the devotion offered up to the divine spirit.”

Faced with words from Shin Hweein her common sense couldn’t keep up with, Ham Seoyeon hesitated a moment, but in the end she nodded.

“You’re going to do it right here? There’s not even an altar.”
“As for an altar, that we have.”

Shin Hweein struck the ground with his staff, and a splendid wooden altar-table promptly rose up out of it.

He’d crafted one a few times before, but as his level climbed, the precision of these altars had grown along with him; by now it had become an outright beautiful table, the kind that looked as though a master craftsman had spent months hunched over it.

“Maybe it really was a Duduri, after all.”

Murmuring to himself as he regarded the altar, magnificent as if a true woodworker had made it, Shin Hweein crossed to the unconscious Miu and, without further ado, gathered her up in both arms.

“Young master, wait a moment!”

Geum Moa, who had been watching off to one side as though it were none of her concern, voiced her objection at exactly that point.

“You shouldn’t be straining yourself like that with your body still in such poor shape!”
“Do you still see me as nothing more than a patient? This much is fine now.”

He set the staff aside in midair and took one step, then another.

At the sight of him forcing his lame leg forward, laboriously, yes, but forward, Geum Moa was stunned.

But by pouring a great deal of spiritual power into reinforcing his legs, he could manage this much.
It was only on reaching the rank of a Rank Two sorcerer that he had finally become able to put on even the show of a man.

“If I’d known he could do that, I’d have asked him to carry me like a princess first…!”

Ignoring Geum Moa’s nonsense, Shin Hweein laid Miu down on the altar.
At that, Ham Seoyeon, who had been watching with much the same look as Geum Moa, shot him a glare and asked,

“Hey, that’s really all right?”
“It’s all right. Trust me.”
“Putting a dragon-princess on the altar is really all right?”
“Yes. With one condition. Let us not mention the three other Dragon Kings, and offer the gut only to the North Sea Dragon King.”
“Tsskk…”

Worrying that, having volunteered to perform the gut in the first place, she might end up sharing in any divine punishment, Ham Seoyeon nonetheless began the Dragon-King gut.

A Dragon-King gut is properly a rite to pray for the safety of seaside villages and a bountiful catch for those who fish the seas.
But today it differed in every respect save for the calling of a Dragon King; most of its standard contents were stripped away, and in their place Ham Seoyeon’s brilliant improvised invocations added passages exalting the North Sea Dragon King and dwelling on the goodness of the North Sea Dragon Princess’s heart.

What surprised Shin Hweein was that, even to his ear, the content was remarkably accurate.

‘There are no concrete details, but the broad outline matches up unexpectedly well.’

Could the goddess of wisdom, Athena, perhaps see into the past as well?
Or if not, then perhaps from the very start she had known at least a part of what had happened on Aeshin soil.

“Shin Hae.”
“Yes.”

A graceful motion like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings; the solemn, beautiful recitation of the invocation, like a sacred hymn.

Her gut ran closer to the seated, stationary kind than to the standing, kinetic kind, and as the company stood transfixed by it, Shin Hweein heard his name called, understood that the time had come to offer the sacrifice, and stepped forward.

“Miu, the North Sea Dragon Princess, has cast off the curse that was never her own and recovered her pure whiteness. Therefore, may the King of Vast Marshes look upon her circumstances and take his own blood back into his keeping.”

There were many other words he had wanted to add, but he forced himself to add none.

It was true that Shin Hweein had lifted the curse from Miu.
But to the North Sea Dragon King, he was nothing more than the enemy who had driven the man’s daughter to her death.

What weight could his praise of the Dragon King’s grace, or his praise of Miu’s nature, truly carry, coming from a man like that?

“Hey… not that. Say something more.”
“This will suffice. Look.”

In the next moment, the sky split open, and an enormous black dragon thrust its face through.

“…Ah.”
“The King of Vast Marshes himself…?”

Of course it could not be.

A spiritual power impossibly vast had simply gathered and begun to move, and so it was taken for the North Sea Dragon King’s true body; in truth it had to be no more than a sliver of the sorcery the Dragon King was channeling from somewhere far away.

The proof was this. When the dragon opened its mouth, a pillar of black light fell in a straight line down onto the altar, and the table shattered in an instant, while Miu, laid demurely upon it, was lifted up into the air.

— Ah…

Miu’s voice reached him.

He watched quietly as she rose, and at last her eyes opened, and she looked down at him from above and spoke.

— Thank you, my husband…

“I’m not your husband.”

At his immediate reply she laughed softly, then shot upward and settled at last into the palm of the black dragon’s outstretched hand.

The black dragon gathered her into its arms just so and made to vanish back through the hole punched in the sky.
But before it did, Miu turned to look at him once more and conveyed her meaning anew.

— Just as I promised, I will come back, without fail. No matter how long it takes…!

And with that, her figure was gone beyond the sky.

But the black dragon seemed to have business of its own still to settle; it raised one finger and took aim at Shin Hweein.

— KRRA-KOOM!

A bolt of black lightning crashed down and struck him.

“Young master! That black worm of a—!”
“Brother!”
“Sh— Shin Hae…?”
“Big Bro—!”

The party let out cries of alarm and came running, each of them calling for Shin Hweein, but before they could reach him he raised one hand and stopped them.

“It wasn’t an attack.”
“That sure looked like an attack to me!”
“The curse he’d laid on me before. That’s all this was, being undone.”

Unlike the three Dragon Kings who had cursed Miu, the North Sea Dragon King had, it seemed, laid his curse directly on Hweein’s past-life self.

The measure of how much the Dragon King had hated him was that the curse had been roughly as strong as the other three Dragon Kings’ curses combined; and now that it had broken, in chain after chain, every curse bound to his blood and his blood-vessels was dissolving, and his authority over water grew another notch stronger.

Of course, even with all of that, he remained Rank Two.

“Young master, are you really all right…?”
“Look. Has my complexion not improved a little?”
“You’re wearing a mask, what am I supposed to be looking at—… Ah.”

All at once, Geum Moa raised her head and looked up at the sky.
A drop of rain fell plip onto her forehead.

“It’s raining.”
“Hm? Could this be…”
“A rain of purification.”

Never falling hard, but rather gently gathering up those who had toiled through the battle, the tender rain slowly soaked the sandy beach.

The seawater of the Specter Realm, the kind a human ought never to set foot in, gave off a faint shimmer wherever a raindrop met it and was purified; even from a distance, simply gazing at the glowing water felt deeply beautiful.

“Wow…”
“It’s pretty.”
“Then does that mean we can splash around now?”

At Sister Barbara’s somewhat childish question, Shin Hweein chuckled and answered her.

“Yes. The Dragon King has shown us his kindness.”

No. Perhaps it was the North Sea Dragon Princess herself.

A rain that falls in fine, fine drops, softly soaking the world to a quiet glow.
For that is what people call miu, fine rain.