Side Story 63. Yi-gang, Cheongho, Ahim (2)

When a predator bites into its prey, there are times when it violently shakes its jaws.
It is to stun the prey and break its bones.
It was an outrageous thing to do to a person, but Ahim wasn’t human.
At least, Cheongho didn’t treat Ahim as a person.
He bit Ahim and shook his head violently.

The sound of bones breaking rang out.
On top of that, electric sparks flew wildly from Cheongho’s mouth.
Sharp teeth tore through skin, and electric shocks burned the body without pause.
If he were human, it would have been enough to kill him a hundred times over…

“Good. Excellent.”

Even in that state, Ahim wouldn’t stop talking.
Cheongho struggled with all his might to kill Ahim.

“You truly may be able to surpass Gumi. Once you have nine tails, you will reach Guihon.”

Cheongho slammed Ahim into the ground, trampled him, smashed his body against the rocks, tore his skin, and bit him.

“But that will be all.”

However, from a certain moment on, the speed at which Ahim’s body regenerated began to surpass the speed at which he was wounded.
Ahim gradually regained his original appearance.
The moment Cheongho swung his foreleg at him.
A tongue shot out from the maw that had sprouted on Ahim’s abdomen.

Peoeok!

That tongue pierced through Cheongho’s foreleg.
Cheongho screamed.
He gritted his teeth and bit the grotesque tongue that had pierced his foreleg.
Then he pulled Ahim in and swung him around like a meteor hammer.

Kwaang! Kwaang!

Ahim’s body was flung in every direction by centrifugal force.
Cracks formed in the rocks, and the cave seemed perilously close to collapsing.
From within that stone dust, Ahim’s figure shot out.
He was completely fine.
Ahim’s fist struck Cheongho’s jaws.

Kwaaaang!

Cheongho’s massive body was sent flying as if it weighed nothing.
Ahim was growing stronger in real time.
At some point, another eye sprouted beside each of his two eyes.
His skin turned ash gray like Guihon’s and gleamed like a hard carapace.

Cheongho felt that his ribs had broken.
The beautiful and noble fox yokai panted as he glared at Ahim.
Ahim, who had been about to finish Cheongho off, flinched and froze.

“…You are crying.”

Tears were flowing from Cheongho’s eyes.
Wondering why the Heavenly Thunder White-Tailed Fox would cry, Ahim asked with a look of disbelief.

“Are you crying out of regret? Because you could not become human?”

Cheongho didn’t answer.
But he didn’t seem to deny it either.
Ahim found it truly absurd.
Ahim found it truly absurd. At the same time, anger surged up within him.

“You were born with a bloodline beyond your station. It is a waste for you to be alive. So die!”

Ahim decided to kill Cheongho.
The sharp tongue protruding from his abdomen rushed toward Cheongho.
Cheongho’s torn clothes.
It was at that moment that the violet talisman attached to those clothes burned, and Dam Hyun burst out.

Tteoeong!

With a single gesture from Dam Hyun, the tongue was deflected.
Ahim was startled, but soon realized that the opponent wasn’t a real person.

“A clone? A great sorcerer, is it?”

The Dam Hyun who appeared was translucent enough that one could faintly see through him.
It was a clone Dam Hyun had made by splitting off part of his soul.
He looked at the collapsed Cheongho with pity.

“So, in the end, you made that choice.”
「Dam Hyun…?」
“How pitiful.”

Dam Hyun’s clone glared at Ahim.

“You’re the one who made Cheongho end up like this!”

Then he began using sorcery.
Astonishingly, despite being a clone, he could use Dam Hyun’s sorcery exactly as it was.
When Dam Hyun took in a deep breath and breathed out, flames like the hellfire of the underworld shot from his mouth.
Ahim screamed as if in pain, then burst out from the flames.

“You, a mere clone. Even if your true body came here, you would not dare harm my body!”

It was as Ahim said.
Facing Ahim, who looked perfectly fine, Dam Hyun laughed.

“I know that, you bastard. What kind of yokai do you think a rotten bastard like you can become! Do you think you were the first one to have that idea!”

Dam Hyun felt self-hatred toward Ahim, as if seeing one of his own kind.
There had once been a time when Dam Hyun, too, found humans disgusting and wanted to become a yokai.
Ahim, who was rushing toward him, was struck by something invisible and spun through the air.

“And even if I cannot kill you, I should have time to save Cheongho.”

Ahim regained his balance, landed, and sneered.

“Do you think you can take him and get out?”

He could handle this cave like his own body.
With Ahim’s gesture, the cave passages were blocked again.
He also spread an Qi Barrier so that sorcery such as teleportation couldn’t be used.

“What is this bastard talking about? Did you think I was going to carry that heavy kid on my back and run out on foot?”

But Dam Hyun had never intended to take Cheongho out in the first place.

“All I need is time. Just time. Until I bring this kid’s dad here.”

Dam Hyun clapped his hands.
At that, several talismans flew out from inside his robes and flew around Cheongho.
When the talismans gave off light, Cheongho’s body also began to glow.

“Stop spouting bullshit!”

In the end, Ahim lost his composure.
He rushed at Dam Hyun’s clone.

Outside the valley.

“Ah.”

Dam Hyun suddenly raised his head.
Wondering what had happened, Jin Li-yeon turned to look, and something astonishing occurred.
Tears rolled down from the corners of Dam Hyun’s eyes.

Dam Hyun hurriedly wiped away his tears.
He sniffed, then grumbled.

“Damn it…”
“What is wrong, Senior Brother?”

Dam Hyun sensed that his talisman had activated.
The fact that his clone had appeared meant…

“Because I feel sorry for Cheongho.”
“What?”
“……”

It meant that Cheongho’s dream had shattered.
And it also meant that Cheongho’s life was in danger.

“I sent them in with him, and those unreliable bastards…”

He had firmly warned Baek Ha-jun and Moyong Jin.
He had clearly told them to protect Cheongho, yet how could something like this happen when they had only just gone in?
Dam Hyun noticed Jin Li-yeon looking at him with worried eyes.
He wiped away his tears once more and stood up.

“Now, let us call Yi-gang.”
“What? Did you not say you couldn’t call him?”
“I can call him now.”

Jin Li-yeon was flustered.
Even throughout the preparation of the offering ritual, Dam Hyun had clearly declared that it was impossible.
Then what was this, changing his words now and suddenly saying it could be done?

“Suddenly?”
“At the price of Cheongho’s dream.”

Dam Hyun said that and clamped his mouth shut.

Jin Li-yeon, who had been about to ask more, also closed her mouth.
Dam Hyun’s expression was so serious that, for some reason, she couldn’t ask.

“Huh.”

Cheongho also opened his eyes.
He had clearly returned to the body of the Heavenly Thunder White-Tailed Fox and had been fighting Ahim.
No, during that fight, he had ultimately lost.
He remembered up to the point where Dam Hyun’s clone had burst out and protected him.
But this place was not the damp cave, and Cheongho’s body was not in the form of the Heavenly Thunder White-Tailed Fox either.

“This place…”

He was in the middle of an endless desert.
The sky was bright blue, but no matter where he looked, north, south, east, or west, a golden desert stretched out.
The sunlight was far more scorching than that of the Central Plains.
He wondered if it was an illusion, but it was far too realistic.

Cheongho looked at his own hand and flinched in surprise.
He had thought he would never be able to return to being human again, yet it was still a human hand.
The only difference was that it was translucent.
Just like Dam Hyun’s clone, Cheongho’s body was also translucent.
It was strange.
When he touched the sand, it slipped down between his fingers. The sensation was realistic.

“Did I die…?”

It was only natural to suspect that.
His last memory had been a moment of certain doom.
The sudden desert and his translucent body brought the afterlife to mind.

If he had truly died, was this place paradise or hell?
He waited, but nothing changed.
No messenger of the afterlife appeared, and no spirits of the dead wandered about.

Apart from his own situation, Cheongho was worried about the situation in Hangzhou.
Ahim was truly terrifying. Could the people gathered there stand against Ahim?
Would So-ryu be all right?
Would his Junior Sisters be safe?

“……”

Since there was nothing he could do, Cheongho decided to walk first.
The desert was vast.
There was nothing visible except sand dunes.
It would be best to go somewhere high first and look around.
Cheongho set his sights on the highest sand dune visible in the distance and walked toward it.

The sand dune did not look very far, but in reality, it was far away.
Cheongho walked for a long while.
Walking under the hot sun made his throat burn.
Judging from that, it also seemed he was not dead.

Cheongho, who had crawled up the sand dune, was startled.
The sand dune had blocked his view, so he had not been able to see them, but beyond it, there were crowds of people.
Not only that, there were several enormous triangular structures.
Cheongho recalled their name.

“Pyramids…”

Yi-gang had told Cheongho stories about all things in the world.
Stories he had told him while saying that someday, once all the work was done, they would travel and see the world.
One of them was that the largest tombs in the world were far to the west.
In the land of Egypt, triangular tombs built by ancient rulers called pharaohs so they could enjoy glory even after death.

“So this is Egypt.”

If those people were not ghosts, the place Cheongho had arrived at was surely the land of Egypt.
According to Yi-gang’s explanation, Egypt had once had kings called pharaohs, and there had existed an empire they ruled.
Yi-gang had said that as time passed, such dynastic ages would have ended and the system of rule would have changed, yet the people gathered here looked like ancient people.

People wearing clothes made of white cloth over brown skin.
Soldiers wearing armor similar to skirts.
A king wearing a mysterious crown, whom the people hailed as “Pharaoh!”
Such people were gathered in great numbers.

Cheongho gathered his courage and went down the hill toward the people.
He worried whether the language of the Central Plains would work.

“Excuse me, may I ask you something?”

He tried hard to speak politely, but no one answered Cheongho’s question.
He wondered if they were ignoring him because he was a foreigner, but that wasn’t it.
No one could sense Cheongho’s existence.
It was the same even when he tapped people on the shoulders.
They turned around with expressions as if wondering who had called them, but they couldn’t see Cheongho standing right in front of them

Cheongho felt troubled, then made up his mind.
First, he was curious why so many people were gathered like this.
Everyone was looking in one direction, but Cheongho, who was a little short, couldn’t see anything.

He pushed his way between the people and moved forward.
Since no one stepped aside for him, it was rather troublesome.
After he had gone some distance, soldiers were standing in a line, blocking the crowd.
Cheongho, invisible to the people, easily slipped through that cordon.

There was the pharaoh.
He was dressed splendidly, with a twisted beard hanging down and golden ornaments worn all over him.
But the king of this Egypt was clenching his fist with an extremely tense expression.
It was not only the pharaoh. The soldiers guarding him were also looking ahead.
The pharaoh muttered something. His voice sounded as if he were praying for someone to succeed.

Cheongho’s gaze was soon captured in the same way.
Ahead of them, there was an enormous beast.
It had the body of a lion that seemed capable of bringing down a five-story pavilion in one stroke of its forepaw.
And, incongruously attached above it, the head of a human.

“…A yokai?”

Cheongho muttered.
He had never heard that such a yokai existed.

“Sphinx!”

Someone shouted that.
Looking closely, there was a person at the feet of that giant yokai.

Cheongho’s mouth opened slightly.
It was someone he knew.
It was surely a face he had missed.

“Yi-gang…”

Yi-gang was standing before the Sphinx.