Chapter 15 — The Sorcerer And The Great-Mouth Ruins (3)

Just before dawn, Shin Hweein opened his eyes to a sound like a gourd cracking somewhere nearby.
Half-wondering whether he’d once nursed a sparrow with a broken leg, he looked toward it, and found Father Lucas clutching his head and groaning.

In front of the priest stood Geum Moa, her fist still clenched.
The chain of cause and effect was clear enough.

“Moa, your alarm clock is rather loud.”
“Oh my, young master. You woke so suddenly, yet you aren’t even frowning. I rather liked how you used to scrunch up your face every morning. It was cute.”
“Quiet.”

But hearing her say it, he had to admit she was right.

He checked the time. Still six in the morning.
He hadn’t slept more than a few hours, and yet he felt perfectly fine.
Ordinarily, short on sleep, his head wouldn’t turn properly and the dizziness left him good for nothing.

“It seems my low blood pressure has been cured as well.”
“I’ve heard low blood pressure can spoil one’s kidneys, young master, but I’ve never once heard that mending one’s kidneys does away with low blood pressure.”
“Does water not flow? So too does blood. Now that I have gained the power of water, the blood in my body has come to flow as it should.”

Even as he spoke, it occurred to Shin Hweein that the water-authority he’d newly obtained could finish his face-washing in an instant, and that he might just as well bathe himself where he sat.
But before he could put the thought into practice, Geum Moa had already darted in and set a basin of water before his eyes.

After a brief staring contest with her, Shin Hweein settled for the compromise of working the water in the basin to finish his ablutions.

“So then. Why has the Father come into my room and gotten himself struck by Moa?”
“Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I was about to speak of.”

It must have hurt rather a lot.
The Father, a tear still pricking the corner of his eye, rubbed the stricken spot as he opened his mouth.

“I came in some haste, having urgent news to deliver, and the moment I opened the door I was set upon by a devil-maid, if you can believe it.”
“Moa is not a maid. She is my personal handmaid.”

Correcting him with a sigh, Shin Hweein rose from the bed and submitted obediently as Geum Moa dressed him.

He had bothered to correct it because he still couldn’t forget the moment years ago when she’d come home wreathed in smiles, having studied and drilled her sorcery in earnest to qualify, acknowledged at last by the main house.
Of course, now that he knew her true identity, the memory had lost a little of its shine.
That fox-of-flame, veteran of battles waged across land and sea and air, had been playing the part of a struggling child, barely scraping through the qualifying, all along…

“All the same, striking him was excessive.”
“Only I am permitted to see your sleeping face, young master. He came without sending word ahead and threw the door open as he pleased. That, I cannot allow.”
“And you, Moa. You ought not to be watching a person while he sleeps either.”

But then it struck him that his own face was at present overlaid with transformation-art, and Shin Hweein understood why she’d bothered to make a point of the face at all.
Having failed to head off Father Lucas’s intrusion in time, Geum Moa had presumably knocked him flat to buy a moment, then thrown the transformation-art over Hweein’s features.
Though it ought to matter little if the Father saw his true face now…

Even so, dressed and with his mask in place, Shin Hweein turned back to the Father to confirm.

“If it’s an urgent matter, it must be about the ruins at the Suwon military base?”
“Indeed it is. Word seems to have leaked. Barely an hour ago, sorcerers of the Baek House entered the ruins. It seems they tried to forcibly put everyone to sleep with sorcery, but an alarm set against that very sorcery went off; the military base learned of it, bungled its initial response, and as a result even the civilian sorcerers in the city of Suwon have gotten wind of the whole affair.”
“I had a feeling it would come to this. The worst has happened.”

He’d already been uneasy on hearing that an insider in the Suwon Diocese was the one who’d brought the matter to the Cardinal.
It meant the secret had not been kept tightly from the very start.

It would have been better, surely, to inform the military base from the outset and split the ruins with the Spell Army.
But because they’d grasped at too much, now not only the Baek House but every civilian sorcerer in the area was eyeing the prize.
The clashes would only grow worse, and far from rescuing the civilians who’d fallen into the ruins, even the sorcerers would end up dying in droves.

“And the Cardinal?”
“He bids us hurry. Said to do our utmost, at the least, to keep civilian casualties from worsening.”
“Very well, then let us go at once.”

Even as he answered and quickened his pace, Shin Hweein was nursing thoughts not unlike Geum Moa’s from the day before.

To sorcerers, and especially to sorcerers of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses, civilians were no more than vermin.
Even Yun Jubaek, whom Shin Hweein had counted as comparatively decent in temperament, had taken the attitude during the sorcerer examination that as long as the operation succeeded, it hardly mattered whether the examinees, never mind civilians, lived or died.
And it wasn’t that some flaw in Yun Jubaek’s upbringing had warped his character.
It was simply that, from the moment of birth, they were naturally aware they were the higher beings, the great beings who guarded the nation, and so the deaths of a few common folk were a matter they could take in stride.
The lives of common people and their own lives could never be of equal worth; sacrificing a few commoners so that they themselves might profit was, in the end, in service of the nation. Of this they were firmly convinced.

“It’s a difficult question.”
“Brother, what do you think?”

His muttered remark drew a sudden question from Father Lucas.
For an instant Shin Hweein started, thinking his mind had been read, then realized the Father was asking about the Cardinal’s request.

“I said it was difficult. Of course we’ll do our utmost, but the people who have already fallen into the ruins must be presumed dead. What we have to do is close the ruins as quickly as possible, so no further harm is done.”
“Further harm…? What do you mean by that?”
“Unlike the Specter Realm or an Other Realm, the traps within a ruin have limits. The Specter Realm shifts its environment in real time, pressing fresh peril on you with every turn; an Other Realm bends a thousandfold to its master’s will, the very space itself attacking you. But a ruin is a mystery that, once discovered, does not greatly change.”
“I see. Honestly, I hadn’t even known the difference between Other Realms and ruins. Then unlike an Other Realm, there’s no such thing as a, a ruler entity in a ruin?”
“There may not be one, but then again there may.”

It was simply, he explained, that in an Other Realm the master created the space directly, whereas in a ruin it was the mystery-imbued space itself that held the initiative, and that space, in turn, employed an entity in the manner of a ruler.

The Father, having received the explanation, wore an expression that said he’d understood none of it.

“Honestly, I don’t quite see what difference that makes.”
“It’s an enormous difference. If you really can’t grasp it, I’ll put it more simply.”

At the far end of the corridor Shin Hweein spotted Sister Barbara, sleep clinging to her face in heavy smudges as she adjusted her headdress.
He raised a hand to wave her over.

“Hm? Ah, we said we were going there yesterday… wait, that guy is summoning a person with a flick of his hand!”

After ordering Sister Barbara to lead them to the Specter Realm Gate they’d come through the day before, he finished his explanation.

“In an Other Realm, people are ground up to break yokai. You experienced that once, did you not?”
“It was an exceedingly unpleasant experience.”
“In a ruin, people are ground up to break the space. That unchanging mystery, that trap which, once collapsed, cannot be restored.”
“…”

Realizing at last what Shin Hweein was afraid of, the Father went pale and murmured.

“Surely it can’t be…”
“Ruins are easier for ordinary people to wander into than the Specter Realm or an Other Realm. Which is to say, easier for sorcerers to use ordinary people as bait.”
“How do you come to know all this, brother?”
“I read a few books on ruin-excavation.”

Having answered guilelessly, Shin Hweein caught the implication behind the question and shot Father Lucas a sidelong look.

“Are you suspecting me now, too?”
“No, of course I trust you, brother. Only, those books don’t strike me as the sort one comes across easily.”

That was a fair point.
The volumes in question were compilations: reports on ruins excavated by the Shin House directly, plus written accounts submitted by those seconded to other houses’ excavations as members of joint parties, all gathered and arranged into a single set.

Shin Hweein cursed at the Father with his eyes for needling that particular point, and grumbled.

“You get the gist. Don’t pry into the details.”
“Hah. I’m only glad to see you regard me as enough of a partner to share even that much, brother.”

While they bickered they reached the chamber where the Specter Realm Gate was kept and managed.
The Father, wholly absorbed in his exchange with Shin Hweein, only then blinked and realized where they were.

“There’s a vehicle prepared outside.”
“Send it back, and find out the exact location of the military base. We’ll search out a Gate nearby and move there directly.”
“Truly, brother, you are something else. You went through such an ordeal in the Specter Realm only yesterday, and yet here you go stepping into it again.”

Shin Hweein thought much the same himself.
But there were moments when, knowing the danger, one had to shoulder it all the same.

“I’m all right this time. I have someone to share the hardship with.”
“As your partner, you mean? Well, there’s nothing for it. I shall accompany you.”

Once the Father had finished his call and named the location of the base, Shin Hweein nodded, activated the Gatekeeper’s Brand, and flung open the Specter Realm Gate at once.

“Let’s be off, then. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Yesterday, as I recall, the journey took some considerable time.”
“I took what I learned yesterday and refined and improved on it.”
“…Within a single night?”
“In my dreams, I can build Rome in a single morning.”

Shin Hweein shoved the bewildered Father through the Specter Realm Gate.

“Heave-ho.”
“Eek?!”

As if on cue, Geum Moa shoved Sister Barbara through alongside him.

“A practiced husband-and-wife sort of timing, wasn’t it?”

— A practiced bandit-gang sort of timing, more like.

“Let’s go too, at once.”
“Young master, a moment.”

Geum Moa caught Shin Hweein by the arm as he made to step into the Gate.

“You’re not going to be swayed by the likes of them, are you? Young master, you must not be hurt in the process of trying to save people.”
“After tossing the Sister in alongside him, leaving just us two, I did wonder what you might be about to say…”
“You have a tendency to fling yourself into danger far too lightly, young master. This ruin, however I look at it, is nothing to take lightly… civilians, the Baek House, whatever else there is, it can all go however it goes. You must look after yourself, young master, and only yourself.”

If the people of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses looked down on ordinary folk as their inferiors, then for Geum Moa it was plain that everyone other than Shin Hweein was a worm so far beneath him as to be beyond comparison.

And as for Shin Hweein himself.

“Rest easy. I, too, am precious to myself above all. To be precise, I and all of you are most precious to me.”
“It’s because the scope of that ‘all of you’ keeps expanding without limit that we have a problem, you know.”
“You’re speaking of my past-life self, are you not? Moa, you mustn’t mistake him for me.”

After all that had happened, the encounters, and especially having directly experienced the memories shared between the North Sea Dragon Princess Miu and his past-life self this time around, he too was beginning to form a clearer picture of what his past-life self had been.

A man with overreaching kindness and no real ability to follow it through. A loser.
How easy his life must have been, for him to have taken the affairs of the world so lightly.
To Shin Hweein, who had hit rock bottom and only now caught a breath at last, his past-life self was the very picture of a spoiled child.

“What is precious to me is firmly fixed. It does not increase so easily.”
“If you really mean that, then well and good… but if you go off again, striking poses and saying my heart will not permit it and overdoing yourself, I’ll truly lose my temper this time.”
“That, we shall consider when the time comes.”
“Young master?”

What state his heart would be in then was something only the moment itself could reveal; he could hardly give her a firm answer now.

The instant Shin Hweein flung himself through the Specter Realm Gate, Geum Moa sighed and followed after.

“Goodness me.”

Less than ten minutes after they had truly stepped into the Specter Realm, the Father opened the Specter Realm Gate that emerged at their destination, the city of Suwon, more precisely the mountainous patch that held the military base where the ruins had been found.
Stepping out, he refused to believe his own eyes.

“The travel time really has been cut down to nothing!”
“I told you I’d improved on it. And it isn’t even in its final form yet.”

The compass had much of its spellwork simplified, the cost of distance-shortening now drawn down from the Specter Realm itself, the burden on the caster shrunk still further.
But Shin Hweein’s ultimate aim, as he’d conceived it before, was for the caster to enter one Specter Realm Gate and pop out from another at the targeted destination instantly.
Even at this stage it was already a vast leap beyond the sorcery the Onmyo Bureau had developed, and once completed, it could just as well be packaged as a high-order teleportation art usable only by those bearing the Gatekeeper’s Brand.
It would in fact end up being exactly that.

“Then let’s move. …I can already tell where it is.”

For all that it was supposed to have been kept secret, he could feel them clearly enough: a dense swarm of beings carrying spiritual power, gathered at a single point.
Not that Shin Hweein had room to talk, given that he too was at present inside a military base whose ordinary civilian access was strictly forbidden.

“Father Lucas, are the certificates prepared?”
“Of course. The priests, at the very least, will have no choice but to obey the Cardinal’s word.”
“Good. Let’s go.”

They moved under stealth, careful not to draw the soldiers’ eyes.
Soon a rundown chapel building and a wide clearing came into view, and around the clearing, the figures of people surrounding it.

The Spell Army had not yet arrived, it seemed; ordinary soldiers formed the first ring around the clearing.
Priests in full vestments, faces flushed with anger, were squared off against them while also keeping a watchful eye on outsiders, and beyond them sundry sorcerers had massed together.

“All of you, halt.”

The moment the party dropped their stealth and stepped forward, every eye snapped to them.
For a brief instant exclamations of admiration went up at the beautiful silver-haired, handsome priest, and then voices began rising on every side to challenge his sudden appearance.

“A, an exorcist priest?! Surely you don’t mean someone has come directly from the Vatican?”

A man who appeared to be a priest had recognized the ash-grey belt at Lucas’s waist and cried out in shock.
There was another priest present too, and he openly clicked his tongue and regarded Father Lucas with wariness.

“Indeed. As well as one who comes bearing word from Cardinal Mose Oh Unwon.”
“Vatican or Cardinal, this is a military base! Do you think the army of Aeshin Korea is a thing to be trifled with?!”
“Of course we don’t. We understand your position well.”

Even as Father Lucas answered the officer leading the soldiers in that manner, he was striding straight through the crowd, parting it as he went.
Some, pushed aside by the singular air he gave off, willingly made way; others tried to block him outright, and the outcome was the same. Every last one of them was simply nudged aside to either flank.

“But it seems to me it is you who are trifling with the situation.”
“You step in muck-booted onto a clearly demarcated military area on the pretext that a ruin’s been found, and what?”
“What indeed. This is the domain of the Lord.”

Reaching the very edge of the hollow that gave off the golden light, Father Lucas smiled and raised his Bible high.

In that instant.

From the cross atop the roof of the rundown chapel building, dazzling light burst forth and shone upon the Bible.
The Bible slowly turned white, scattering a subtle aura, and holy power welled up across the clearing, until a translucent, dome-shaped barrier formed around the hollow.

“All of you. I have heard that civilians have entered the ruins. We who hold power, instead of striving to save them, are quarrelling with our eyes fixed on plunder. Are we truly fit to wield the abilities given to us?”

Having succeeded in shutting every mouth, the Father slipped the Bible back into his vestments and drew out, this time, the Cardinal’s certificate.

“The ruins must be destroyed without further delay, and our aim must be people, not plunder. In the name of Mose Oh Unwon I declare it: in the Lord’s land, all who oppress the weak and covet plunder shall be cast out.”

The certificate flared brightly, and in the next instant, everyone but Shin Hweein and his party was hurled bodily out of the barrier that had only just formed.
That, of course, included the priests dispatched from the Suwon Diocese and the Military Ordinariate alike.

“In particular, that you have, blinded by greed, brought ordinary servicemen along to this place is something that can never be forgiven. You have surely heard that civilians, unable to resist the ruins, have already been swallowed up.”
“That is a matter within the army’s purview—!”
“No. It is a matter within the Lord’s purview.”

— Cha-rrrk.

Many iron chains clashed one against another.
At some point Lucas’s eyes had bloomed red. No, it was Zer now, laughing fearlessly as he hefted the chains aloft.

“The earth shall be sunken, and all upon it shall be destroyed, and judgment passed upon every man… From this moment, anything that comes inside here won’t need to bother with purgatory. I’ll send it straight down to hell.”