53. A Shadow Cast Upon the Wind (1)
The first-year students had finished their phenomenon analysis cautiously and were just about to begin the clear—
but Ryuderik opened his mouth, making that impossible.
“Something’s coming.”
Ryuderik and Ban Diyeon, who had already completed their own phenomenon analysis, quietly stepped backward.
‘My own analysis rate is around 79%.’
That was already a very high level of analytical precision.
Once one reached even 50% or more, it became possible to receive the Gate’s “Guide Line Message,” and the success rate of clearing it rose exponentially.
The two second-years, now a step withdrawn, did not take their eyes off the first-years.
A ripple of magical power swept through the area, interrupting most of the students’ phenomenon analyses, but as befitted elite Class A students, three of them kept analyzing while the others divided up roles and kept watch around them.
‘And in the middle of that, Baek Yuseol……’
Ryuderik furrowed his brow.
‘What is he doing?’
Had he even done any phenomenon analysis at all? For a while now he had done nothing but stare blankly into empty space.
“Uh? T-That……!”
At that moment, one student cried out and pointed into the air with her staff.
Hihihihiiing……!
A blue figure, half-transparent like a ghost, crossed over the road ahead and vanished somewhere in the distance.
“A ghost……?”
“Don’t tell me the theme is ghost hunting?”
“N-No way! What do I do?”
“Get a grip! We already learned more than enough about how to deal with ghost-type monsters!”
Schools of magic taught quite thoroughly how to deal with summoned undead such as skeletons or zombies, and there was even some practical training for that.
But ghost-type monsters, which had no real physical body at all, were scarcely ever used in practice.
The technology to reproduce them simply did not exist.
Ghost-type monsters, beings of a spiritual nature, were still not even fully understood in terms of how they came into being, making them little different from the natural enemy of mages, who had to calculate everything mathematically.
Long ago, it was said that dosa and shamans had once hunted ghosts.
But in the modern age, where ghosts had nearly disappeared, the dosa and shamans had vanished with them, so whenever a ghost did appear, it was not unusual for an entire city to be thrown into chaos.
It was understandable that the students would be horrified at the appearance of something from the ghost family.
But from the back, Ryuderik only let out a scoff.
‘Idiotic freshmen. The real thing isn’t that.’
Soon after, even the students still doing phenomenon analysis seemed to realize something, and one of them widened his eyes and said,
“Wait! Hold on. This place’s theme isn’t ghost hunting at all……!”
And then, from far away, the cry of a fox rang out.
The students all hurriedly retreated and looked up at the sky.
A pitch-black sky.
A single giant silver full moon hanging there like a platter.
And against that moon, a nine-tailed gumiho was letting out a cry toward the heavens.
“Damn it, I thought it was a wolf……”
“It’s worse than a wolf, it’s a gumiho! Get it together!”
“H-How are we supposed to fight a gumiho?”
“I don’t know. But it’s classified as a yōmul, so strengthen your mental resistance!”
“A gumiho’s cry has the effect of scattering your concentration. Focus!”
At last, the students who had completed their phenomenon analysis stood up from their places and sent magic circles swirling through the air.
Then the Guide Line Message appeared, finally revealing the true theme of this place.
[Shadow Cast on the Wind]
[The Pung Empire is tangled through and through with countless folktales and legends.]
[Some stories are so famous that everyone knows them.]
[And some stories, no one knows at all.]
[Here, there is one sad story that no one in the world remembers.]
[Please find the one story forgotten by the world, and release its resentment.]
At the Guide Line Message, the students stared blankly into the air for a moment, wearing stunned expressions.
“A folktale……?”
“Yes. A folktale.”
For the first time, Hong Biyeon joined the conversation and spoke.
“The entire capital of the Pung Empire has been transformed into one giant stage set of folktales. It looks like each district has its own assigned tale. That rooftop over there is probably something like the gumiho legend. We need to split up and search for the stories.”
“W-Wait. Split up? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Dangerous? Moving together is even more dangerous. The longer we stay here and the deeper we’re assimilated by the Persona, the more disadvantageous it becomes for us mages. The only answer is to finish this as quickly as possible.”
Ryuderik nodded in agreement with her words.
“She’s right. The city is extremely large, so moving as one group is inefficient. We’re twelve in total, so we’ll divide into three groups of four.”
But Hong Biyeon shook her head.
“No. Two groups of five. I’ll move with the commoner alone.”
“What? Wait a second! No matter how strong you two are, going with just two people is dangerous.”
“Right. And we still don’t even know the exact target yet. At least until we figure out the true ending, we should all move together—”
When the students protested, Hong Biyeon silenced them simply by glaring at them.
Those red eyes of hers should have burned hotter than the sun, and yet for some reason they felt colder than ice.
“A-All right.”
“Not sure who the real gumiho is anymore……”
“Shh. She’ll hear you.”
In the end, the students grumbled, but they still divided into three groups according to Hong Biyeon’s plan.
“Ryuderik. I’ll follow Team One. Which side are you going with?”
Ban Diyeon spoke while pointing at the five students, and Ryuderik looked back and forth between them and Baek Yuseol’s pair.
“I’ll follow Baek Yuseol’s team from behind. It makes more sense to support the smaller side.”
“All right, then. See you later.”
At Ryuderik’s decision, Hong Biyeon shot him a sharp look, but she did not go so far as to interfere with the choice of a second-year senior.
Within Stella, the upperclassman-underclassman relationship was a strict hierarchy.
“So we’re really going with just the two of us?”
“Yes. Do you hate that?”
Having ended up separated from the rest, Baek Yuseol wore a deeply uneasy expression as he looked back at the other students.
Not because there were only two of them left.
Because he was worried about the others.
“I wonder if they’ll really be okay.”
“Commoner.”
“Hm?”
“They’re not children. They’re not beings you need to protect forever—each one of them is a magic warrior cadet in their own right.”
“Uh…… sure, I know that……?”
Hong Biyeon kept walking, eyes fixed straight ahead instead of looking at Baek Yuseol’s face.
“Those children, we, I—we are not people you have to protect. I wish you would remember that.”
“Oh, uh…… right.”
Because she had said it so seriously, Baek Yuseol did not joke back the way he normally would, only mumbled a response instead.
‘Did something happen?’
Was it because of her manner of speaking? Or her personality?
Hong Biyeon always seemed gloomy all 365 days of the year, so it was incredibly difficult to tell what kind of mood she was actually in.
‘Well, she doesn’t look like she’s in a bad mood or anything……’
After watching Hong Biyeon for half a year, if anything, he would have said she looked to be in a rather good mood right now.
“I’m in a bad mood.”
Apparently not.
“About what?”
“That senior following behind us.”
Baek Yuseol glanced at Ryuderik, who was trailing them from around thirty steps away.
“He’s a teaching aide. There’s nothing we can do about that. Besides, he’s covering our rear too, right? That’s reassuring.”
As befitted a second-year senior, Ryuderik had indeed already drawn out his staff and vanished from sight, keeping watch on all directions.
From Baek Yuseol’s perspective, he was only grateful for the way Ryuderik was blocking danger from the rear, but apparently Hong Biyeon did not see it that way.
“It’s just……”
Unusually for her, she fidgeted with her lips and seemed to struggle over whether to say something, when all at once a chilling sensation washed over them.
Baek Yuseol stopped walking.
“Wait.”
He pulled out the Teryphon Sword and released light from it.
Its beautiful white blade was revealed, casting a soft glow around them.
Hong Biyeon also floated a pure white flame into the air, but suddenly a blue flame appeared, swallowed it whole, and vanished.
“……What was that?”
Hong Biyeon bit her lip when her flame went out.
“That’s a will-o’-the-wisp. It’s a troublesome monster because the flame itself has a will. It’s better to avoid it and take a detour.”
At his words, Hong Biyeon nodded.
“This way.”
When they left the main road cutting across the city center and entered an alleyway, translucent pumpkin-like things came bobbing through the air, spreading orange light all around.
“That is……?”
“Ignore it. There’s a Pumpkin Ghost nearby. The little ones don’t hurt people, so it’s fine to pass by.”
Baek Yuseol grabbed one of Hong Biyeon’s hands and led her onward.
“W-Wait…… why are we in such a hurry?”
“If the big one shows up, it’s dangerous. Have you ever heard of the pumpkin-headed killer ghost Wally?”
“……When I was little.”
“It’s the kind that goes for your neck with a sickle. If you let your attention slip for even a moment, you could die, so it’s better to get out fast.”
Dragging Hong Biyeon along in haste, they left the alley and found themselves in a slum where dark shadows had settled heavily.
“Let’s stop here for a moment, decide on a direction, and then move.”
When he scanned the surroundings with the Jikbakguri Glasses, there was not a single area that looked particularly low-risk.
“Let’s wait here for a bit. Once the folktale moves, we’ll move then.”
“Hey, Princess?”
“Ah, right. I’m listening.”
Perhaps because he had pulled her along too quickly, Hong Biyeon was absentmindedly rubbing the wrist Baek Yuseol had been holding.
“Folktales move?”
“Looks like it. They move around without crossing into each other’s territory. I don’t know what the target folktale is supposed to be, but this is going to be a pain to find.”
As Baek Yuseol spoke casually, narrowing his eyes and opening his field of vision as far as possible, she asked,
“……Commoner. Have you been here before?”
“Hm? No. Of course not.”
“Then how do you know so much?”
“I did phenomenon analysis.”
“Right…….”
Hong Biyeon had done phenomenon analysis too.
She just could not see as much as Baek Yuseol could.
‘More importantly, where in the world is that thing?’
The Jikbakguri Glasses continued detecting waves from the Wraith’s Vengeful Spirit Talisman, but he could not pinpoint its exact location no matter what.
“Let’s move over there first. A gap just opened up.”
He had already finished the phenomenon analysis of this Persona long ago, and he more or less had a sense for how it should be cleared—
but for Baek Yuseol, finding the talisman’s whereabouts was even more urgent than that.
‘If I lose that, I can’t turn Anella back into a human.’
And with barely anyone left watching, Baek Yuseol moved quickly, faster and faster, taking the shortest route without hesitation.
If some pointless folktale appeared, he skipped past it lightly.
If he found a shortcut, he cut straight across.
Even when dangerous legends appeared, he chose to ignore them rather than deal with them.
“Wait, aren’t you hurrying too much?”
“Why?”
“We haven’t even properly checked the stories.”
“This is the folktale of Janghwa and Hongryeon. The resentment of the older and younger sisters who drowned in the pond……”
“……Not that.”
Hong Biyeon bit her lip slightly and forced out the words like someone saying something they did not want to say.
“Just go a little slower…… a little more carefully. We can do that, right?”
Her words gave Baek Yuseol a rather odd feeling.
For someone like Hong Biyeon, who lived in a frenzy for grades and scores, it ought to have been better to take shortcuts like this and reach the goal quickly.
If they cleared the Persona Gate quickly, they would earn bonus points too.
Words like carefully, slowly did not suit her very well.
That was why he could not help being puzzled.
“There’s no downside to hurrying. If you just trust me, there won’t be any danger. You know that too.”
By now, Baek Yuseol had already shown Hong Biyeon enough of himself that he no longer intended to hide knowledge like the Jikbakguri Glasses from her.
He trusted her.
Like always, all she had to do was trust him and follow, and he was confident he could place whatever she wanted into her hands.
“……There’s no reason.”
“What? Then isn’t faster better?”
“No. You know nothing.”
After saying that, Hong Biyeon’s expression went cold……
and the look on her face was so unfamiliar that Baek Yuseol could not immediately respond.
As if her spirit had drooped.
As if all her energy had drained away.
Faced with a side of her completely unlike the confident self from earlier, Baek Yuseol had no choice but to approach her and say,
“All right. We’ll go slowly. Carefully.”
“If there’s a stone bridge, we’ll tap it before we cross. If there’s a door, we’ll even knock first.”
At that, Hong Biyeon looked at him as though he were being ridiculous.
“There’s no need to go that far.”
And yet her mood seemed much better than before. From her expression, a bright and clear aura could be felt.
It was strange.
Before, it had always been so hard to distinguish that face of hers, which looked the same all the time as if she were wearing a mask.
Now, just from the atmosphere coming off her expression alone, it had become easy to tell how she was feeling.
“Let’s go. Slowly. Carefully.”
— Read only on MugenCodex —
