Chapter 16 — Desire And The Blue-Robed Boy (4)

“With just this, my wretched fugitive days are over. I’ll be properly recognized for what I am, and I’ll set foot in Master’s secret enclave too…!”

Until now she had crouched in this place as though she were barely there, holding her breath.
Now she ignored everyone present, loosed a peal of high laughter, and thrust the hand that held the ruby up into the empty air.

The vast spiritual current swarming toward it was unlike any flame Shin Hweein knew, and it carried a preposterous force besides, so her self-satisfaction was not unwarranted.

“My honey, come over here. The contract was between you and that man, wasn’t it? Then there’s no problem if I just kill the brat, is there.”
“…What about my arm, then?”
“Your arm? There are countless ways to fix it later! Are you really thinking of letting these brats walk out of here? They’ll absolutely be a stumbling block for us later, you know!”

So the woman called herself the ruler of these ruins.
And indeed, perhaps because the gem produced through this altar carried some special force, every current of power coiling within the space was being drawn in a great rushing tide toward the ruby in the Gem-Mage’s hand.
She was that deeply caught and absorbed in the Great-Mouth Ghost’s sorcery, Shin Hweein thought.

“Mmm…”

Surely there was something in her words he had not cared for.
Baek Yeongho, who had been letting a deliberately nasal hum slip from his lips as he made a show of weighing her appeal, abruptly spoke.

“Why ’ our stumbling block’?”
“…What?”
“You’re the one who killed those people and made them into materials for that gem. I had no part in it whatsoever.”
“What? What in the world are you saying now? We agreed we’d join forces to make an artifact and win the Baek House’s recognition with it!”
“Artifact? I don’t know anything about that. …And in any case, my arm is far more precious than any magnificent artifact.”

Having said his piece without ornament, and under Shin Hweein’s silent toleration, Baek Yeongho got to his feet and put distance between himself and Shin Hweein, the Gem-Mage too.
Then, gathering up his maimed underlings and falling back, he added,

“There’s been a regrettable misunderstanding and a bit of strife between us, but now that we’ve made a contract there should be no further cause for ill feeling. That one over there is a stranger to me now. Do what you like with her.”
“What?!”

A skill at severing one’s own tail. That, at least, was worthy of an Eight-House heir’s pedigree.

To lean on the name of one’s house, to play the spoiled child before everyone, to act as one’s mood took one, and the moment some little thing displeased one, to fling away even a human being the way one tosses aside a toy one has tired of playing with.
Yes. That was the Baek Yeongho Shin Hweein knew.
It was almost reassuring that the man had not changed in the slightest from his boyhood.

“Hah.”

Shin Hweein breathed out a small laugh of disbelief at the scene, as though watching a farce, and looked toward the Gem-Mage.
She was glaring at Baek Yeongho, her face flushed crimson.

“So your precious person took a little hurt, and now you’re upset? Lacking the skill to do it yourself, you got beaten like a dog by these no-pedigree maggots, scraped along the floor, threw your dignity to the winds, and yet for show you still cling to the name of the Eight Pure-Blood Houses…”

The fury of the swirling fire grew steadily more savage.
The Gem-Mage glared at him, marshalling her power as though she meant to bring the whole of this ruin down on their heads.

“Then I’ll bury you under the ruins along with the rest. We pulled off a great deed together, and because there were ways we suited each other I was even going to share the credit… it seems I was deceiving myself the entire time!”
“It’s I who saw the wrong man. Had I known you for so half-rate a criminal I would never have let you come near—”
“Die!”

Was it that the betrayal of the man she had loved cut deeper even than Shin Hweein’s company?
The Gem-Mage launched a blaze fierce enough to vaporize the tears running down her own face, aiming it straight at Baek Yeongho.
Before Shin Hweein could move, someone else’s swift recitation cut in ahead.

“When the soul of rain strikes upon its storehouses, the angels come and throw the storehouses open. It is sprinkled across the face of the parched earth, mingling with the water upon the dry land until the two are made one.”

A cold dew rapped against Shin Hweein’s brow, and immediately after:

“—Water is the gift for those who stand upon the dry earth, the sustenance that the Most High in Heaven gives unto the land.”

— Krooooosh.

A torrential rain poured down inside the Other Realm.
The flames that would have burned Baek Yeongho and the dross around him to ash could not withstand the holy-power-laden baptism of water; they melted away into nothing.

“What, the…?”
“To produce this much water in a place where the qi of fire reigns…”

With one sweep of his hand Shin Hweein gathered the falling water around him, then turned to Zer, who had murmured the prayer, and spoke in a tone of disbelief.
Throughout, not a drop touched his body, because he had drawn into himself at least a portion of the Four Seas Dragon Kings’ authority; even were he to fling himself deliberately into the sea, he would not be wetted.

“Zer. If you could handle water, would it have killed you to say so beforehand?”
“If you could just pour it down whenever you wanted, that wouldn’t be prayer, that’d be magic. It’s not as if I wanted to lean on Heaven either, but you said don’t kill them, didn’t you.”
“That demon-bastard offered up a prayer of his own accord because of what a sorcerer said…?”

Sister Barbara, for her part, seemed thoroughly aghast at Zer’s behavior.
The one most stunned, of course, would be the Gem-Mage, whose all-out flame had been blown into nothing without leaving a trace.

“How could… this draws on the full power of the ruin… it is my master’s secret art.”
“Have you still not understood?”

Without wasting any of the water of Heaven that Zer had called forth, Shin Hweein gathered every last drop and lifted it into the air.
Then, gazing quietly at the Gem-Mage, he spoke.

“It is all lies. It is all illusion. However grand the true secret art may be, it makes no difference. That is not a proper gem. It could never have been forged that way in the first place.”

That was the secret of this Other Realm.
At first, Shin Hweein too had been wholly taken in, but having twice overcome the Great-Mouth Ghost’s sorcery he had come to understand it.

Just as the pando and the pond he had encountered were lies.
Just as the Geum Moa and Ham Seoyeon who tempted him had been, in fact, only a young nun who loved her elder brother.
So too the people who had died here had all been lies.

‘In the original telling, the Great-Mouth Ghost was never a malevolent yokai who killed people. It only tested them through fear. …Even now it is the same. The thing has only been testing us, with desire in place of fear.’

And yet, amid all that was false, there was one thing that was true: karma.
Even were the deaths themselves an illusion, the heart of one who performed them remained intact. To believe oneself to be killing a person while killing them was, in good earnest, the work of murder.
Unlike Zer, who from the start had seen through the falsehood of this space and had meant to sweep all of it away, the woman before him had piled up the karma of slaughter, over and over, for the sake of an illusion.
And Baek Yeongho too, with his complicity, surely had not earned a karma whose weight was light this day.
Not that a man who could not even reckon properly with the weight of his own house would seriously consider karma at all.

“Don’t talk such nonsense! I’ve put the alchemical method to use hundreds, thousands of times. The blood of ordinary people, the blood of sorcerers brimming with spirit-power, all of it I have gathered together and worked into shape by the orthodox method, and how on earth can that be called a lie—!”

Plainly mistaking the meaning of the word orthodox, the Gem-Mage, together with her rage, set off another great explosion in the gem.
A momentum heedless even of her own body.
A momentum that did not care if she died here together with them.
Perhaps, on some instinctive level, it was precisely because she had grasped that what Shin Hweein said was true that she now acted this way; and if so, all the more foolish.

“Water-body, Dance of the Water-Serpent.”
“Ah.”

Riding the slender thread of spiritual power that stretched out from Shin Hweein’s fingertips, water-droplets rolled along the air, gathering and tapering until they became long and slim, like a whip.
The way it writhed and elongated its body was for all the world like watching a water-serpent swim through water.

“Young master, that’s—!”
“It seemed I only had to change the attribute and apply it. It’s working well.”
“Magnificent! Truly, that is just like the young master!”

Surely it pleased her to see the sorcery she had taught him applied in another field.
Perhaps, too, her antipathy toward the North Sea Dragon Princess had stoked it further.
Breathing out a small laugh at Geum Moa’s praise, Shin Hweein swung his hand sharply, and the water-serpent shivered along its length and coiled itself around the Gem-Mage.

As the serpent spun violently and breathed cool water-qi in every direction, the explosion that had seemed about to swallow the entire chamber began to subside…

“Die, die, die, die——!”
“Wait, that’s…!”

— KRRRRASH!

By rights the water-serpent ought to have wrapped the Gem-Mage within it as well and snuffed her flame out entirely; but, unable to master her rage, she had drawn forth power beyond her limit and forced it into runaway, and so, trapped at the very center of the coiled water-serpent, she at last set off a violent explosion.

“…”
“Tch…”

So fierce was the force of the explosion that not only did the holy-power-laden water-serpent vaporize in an instant, but a scalding wind rose through the chamber and ruffled Shin Hweein’s hair roughly.
In the place where everything had vanished there did not remain so much as a scrap of the Gem-Mage’s clothing; but presently a red ruby came rolling to a stop at Shin Hweein’s feet.

“Is this perhaps what you meant when you said, my lord, that you might soon come into possession of a gem?”
“It is an illusion.”
“How fleeting.”

Trading the wordplay with Leon, Shin Hweein gave a small laugh and lifted his staff.

“Wh— wait….”

Although he had renounced love, the article itself was clearly still tempting; Baek Yeongho, content merely to watch up to this moment, opened his mouth to speak again.

— Crack.

Without hesitation Shin Hweein brought the lifted staff down and crushed the gem to pieces.

“Hm?”

Strangely, at that moment everything before his eyes melted away like a mirage.
What remained beside Shin Hweein were only the kin-bound, those tied to him by soul.
And what newly appeared before him was a boy clad in jeans and a denim jacket.

“How tacky…”
“What?! This is the latest trend!”

When Geum Moa let the comment slip without thinking, the boy decked head-to-toe in blue waved his hand and protested that no way, and she turned to Shin Hweein to ask,

“Is that the truth of it?”
“How should I know? Unlike you, who eats Western pastries with yakgwa stuck inside them, I am a strict traditionalist who eats nothing but pure yakgwa. I know nothing of the latest trend.”
“From a nobleman of the night’s standpoint, it does look folksy and approachable.”

— And all of it blue, like a corpse, no less.

“It’s just that you’re all outdated!”

Come to think of it, in this present company there was not a single person dressed in the latest fashion.
The boy, by comparison the most up-to-date in attire among them, drew near with a smug air, and then, comically enough, shifted his bearing to one of proper deference and dropped to a deep prostration before Shin Hweein.

“The world calls me the Great-Mouth Ghost, or also the Blue-Robed Boy. Wandering the world in search of a master fit to wield me, I have come at last to appear before you.”
“I know.”

The tale of the Great-Mouth Ghost ranked among the better-known of the yokai-tales of those who had survived Aeshin’s tigers.
And likewise renowned was the tale of the promising young man who, undaunted by terror, walked straight through the Great-Mouth Ghost’s mouth, only for the Blue-Robed Boy to appear before him afterward and, with his loyalty and devotion, set him upon the road to glory.
Which is to say, Shin Hweein had half expected that overcoming the Great-Mouth Ghost would bring the Blue-Robed Boy before him.
He had not, mind you, expected that the Blue-Robed Boy would appear in jeans and a denim jacket.

“Just as you say. Then surely you already understand: in the old days I tested men through fear, but the world having changed, and false terrors having spread thick across it, men no longer know even the worth of overcoming fear… and for more than a century I had been unable to find a master who suited me.”
“And so you decided to suit the changed world by testing not fear but desire.”
“Just so. In all my long life I have never seen anyone so unmoved by desire as you. If you will permit it, I should like to serve you from the closest place at hand.”
“You misunderstand. Anyone is vulnerable to desire. I was only able to overcome it because I knew it for an illusion.”
“That you would answer me this way at this very moment is itself proof of your fitness. My heart will not change. Pray, take me in.”

Shin Hweein looked steadily at the Blue-Robed Boy, who remained prostrated before him without raising his head.
He had anticipated the Blue-Robed Boy’s appearance, and so the answer he meant to give had been more or less prepared.
Lately his spiritual power had been climbing rapidly, and just as he had begun to weigh whether to seek out a new shikigami, the thought came: if he could take into his service a Blue-Robed Boy whose loyalty and ability alike were of such renown, there was no reason to refuse.

“Before that, one thing I would like to ask. The people who died in this place, what has actually become of them?”
“That too you no doubt already foresee. They are all entirely alive. When the Other Realm is closed I will send them out together. With one exception.”
“One exception?”
“The woman who died last is the exception. Knowing it was all illusion, she nevertheless offered up her very soul to perform her sorcery. If you would have even her brought back, it would be a most difficult undertaking, but somehow I—”
“No.”

Shin Hweein shook his head firmly.

“I was the one who meant to kill her in any case. There is no meaning in killing an illusion, so I merely held my hand. Now. You — this is your last chance. I am not someone who refuses to take life, nor am I someone incapable of desire. Even so, you will follow me?”
“Of course, my lord. How could one know in advance the hearts of all the world, of all men, and so settle one’s own heart? One can only believe and follow what one has seen for oneself.”

At last the Blue-Robed Boy rose to his feet and bowed deeply.

“It is the same with me. Until the end of my lord’s days I shall be loyal and devoted to him. Take me as your servant, and entrust to me whatever task you will.”
“Then I shall give you a new name.”
“I have been waiting for it.”

The Blue-Robed Boy’s eyes shone with delight.
He had said he merely believed and followed what he had seen, but plainly he saw beyond what ordinary men could see; he must surely know Shin Hweein’s origins and the shikigami arts he wielded.

“You. Yes, Eulha will do.”
“Drawn from the autumn sky. I like it very much. From this day on my name is Eulha. A servant in attendance upon his lord.”

— A better name than the one I got, somehow!

The contract was made.
As his soul was tightly bound to Shin Hweein’s, Eulha let out a whew of relief and lifted his head.

“The contract’s done, so I can talk normal now, right, my lord?”
“So long as you observe the courtesies, that is fine.”
“That’s my lord! And on that note, here. A present.”

As Eulha presumed to drop his formal speech with Shin Hweein, the eyes of Leon, Geum Moa, and Flame-tail thrown in for good measure, all sharpened murderously at once; and undaunted under the seniors’ glares, Eulha came up to Shin Hweein and drew from his breast a red gem, which he held out.

It looked, no matter how he turned it over, very like the gem Shin Hweein had crushed earlier, and when Shin Hweein wore a blank look the boy chuckled and said,

“Seems like that woman’s master, whoever he was, had set some sort of trick on it. It got compressed like this through the process of her dying, you see?”
“Indeed.”

So the secret art the Gem-Mage’s master left to her was the kind that could only be seen at the moment of her death.
He breathed out a laugh at the speechless thought that master and disciple were, in their way, much alike, and this time he did not break it but tucked it into his breast.
If using this should pile up evil karma, well, that was the very thing Shin Hweein had been waiting for.