Breaking the Heavens: Tail-Chasing with the Cats
The game of Pacheon—or tail-chasing, as I like to call it—is incredibly useful when you want to play with cats. All you need is something that can catch their interest. Wave it around a little, and they’ll lose their minds trying to catch it.
Shwaaaat—!
A pitch-black shadow suddenly surges forward right in front of me. Two black horns are aiming straight for the outer robe in my hand. But just before they can snatch it, I twist my arm slightly and dodge the grab.
“Hak!”
Ester lets out a frustrated little cry, clearly thinking she had it that time. In response, I gently swish the robe back and forth as if to say, I’m right here.
Shashat—!
Once again, Ester’s presence vanishes from my sight. As the Poison Hero, her greatest weapon is, of course, poison. But to use that poison effectively, she needs to be agile and stealthy. Add in her demonic race trait of melting into shadows, and even I would have a hard time finding her if she truly wanted to hide.
…Ah. Aah. Just thinking about Master is making my face heat up again. Damn it.
“Hak!”
If this weren’t a game of tail-chasing but actual sparring, Ester wouldn’t have made a single sound or left any trace when she reached out. But right now it’s purely play, nothing more and nothing less, so my disciple is just hopping around with pure enjoyment.
That’s why I didn’t bother pointing it out. Once real combat begins, she’ll handle it perfectly on her own anyway.
“Uuuu!”
Maybe she’s annoyed at missing again. Ester puffs her cheeks a little and stares intently at the robe in my hand. I shake it gently once more, as if to say, Try a little harder.
Like a cat that had been successfully provoked, Ester immediately crouches low.
“Hiyaaaak!”
This time she seems to have given up on stealth entirely, focusing only on speed. She lets out a full-powered cry and launches herself forward. I don’t dodge her hand this time. Instead, I time my reaction just right and let her fingers barely catch the edge of the robe.
“Ah! Haaaaat! I-I got it! Master! I caught it! Kyaaa!”
Thanks to that, Ester is absolutely overjoyed. She flaps both arms wildly. Since she’s normally so reserved, it might look like she’s only moving her arms, but in reality she’s practically jumping for joy, completely beside herself with happiness.
“Master, Master, Master! Look! I caught it!”
“Yes, yes. Well done, Ester. You’ve really become quite the nimble one now.”
Now it’s time to give her the reward she’s been waiting for. For a regular cat you’d give churu, but for Ester, all it takes is a gentle head pat. Not a quick one—very slowly and carefully.
“Uuuung…”
Ester clasps both hands together tightly, completely focused on the feeling of my hand. When a child does this it’s cute, but when a grown woman does it… it feels a bit different. Plus, she’s secretly quite curvy, which makes it even more awkward.
“What are you doing, Master?”
“Haaak!”
When I turn my head, I see Iris approaching, drenched in sweat. From the looks of it, she must have been sprinting at full speed for at least an hour. More importantly—why is Ester suddenly hiding behind me again?
“Senior. We agreed you wouldn’t do that with me anymore.”
“S-sorry. But I just want to hide whenever someone approaches.”
“Are you going to keep upsetting your youngest like this?”
“N-no! S-sorry. I won’t do it again.”
It seems that while Master and I were… doing that kind of thing, these two had their own secret conversations. I knew Ester was extremely shy around strangers, but I never expected them to grow this close.
“You two seem to have gotten a lot closer than I thought.”
“Ugh! Don’t even get me started, Master. She’s so shy. Yesterday I didn’t even sleep right next to her—I slept really far away! And yet she still couldn’t sleep and kept watching me the whole time.”
“S-sorry, youngest. But… but I’ve never done that before. Sleeping together…”
“You slept with Master though! What about that?!”
“T-that’s different!”
Oh, this is the first time I’ve seen Ester raise her voice like that. Even Iris seems a little flustered by it and lets out a small “Ha?” of surprise.
“You should stay nervous tonight, Senior. Because I’m definitely going to sleep right next to you.”
“D-don’t come! I don’t like having anyone next to me!”
“Just pretend it’s Master!”
“I can’t!”
This isn’t even a childish argument between kids anymore—I have no idea what I’m watching. As I quietly observe my two disciples’ adorable little quarrel, Iris, who had been talking to Ester, suddenly looks around and turns her gaze toward me.
“Where’s Grandmaster?”
“She said she was a little tired and wanted to rest.”
“…Tired? Grandmaster said she’s tired?”
“Yeah. She was really excited yesterday because it had been a while since she last visited the sea.”
“…”
The look in Iris’s eyes as she stares at me is anything but ordinary. She couldn’t possibly know what happened yesterday… right? I made sure both Ester and Iris were sound asleep before I chased after Master. If she really saw that scene, it would be more horrifying than I can imagine.
“…You two didn’t do anything weird yesterday, did you?”
“I don’t know what kind of absurd imagination you’re having, but absolutely not.”
“Really? Can I actually believe that?”
“What exactly are you imagining that makes you ask like that, Iris?”
Right? Whatever you’re thinking right now. No matter how much of a joke it is, it can’t be what I’m thinking.
“Can I really say it?”
“Huh?”
“Ester Senior might get embarrassed.”
“…Hey, you don’t mean—”
“Two people went in… and three came out… Kkek—!”
After playing in the water for a while, Ester and Iris were now building sandcastles. Maybe it’s because she’s a regressor, but Iris handles Ester incredibly well. The other disciples still seem a bit awkward around her, yet Iris has grown so close that I’m actually starting to worry people might get suspicious.
“…”
Today is the last day they can play and rest like this without a care. Starting tomorrow, we won’t be staying by the sea anymore. We’ll be in the forest and fields instead. And I won’t be holding back—I’m going to push them hard.
Iris is lacking in overall combat ability. She hasn’t learned much yet, and she doesn’t have much experience. Even though she has plenty of mental experience as a regressor, without the physical body to match, it’s only half an experience at best.
That’s why I plan to focus on training Iris intensively this time. I already know she’s mentally stronger than most Heroes. That’s exactly why I can push her even harder than before.
She’ll probably cough up blood once she realizes what I have in mind, though.
Next is Ester.
So far, the enemies we’ve faced have been ones Ester could handle alone. Even against Demonic Humans, it’s hard to say they could easily win in a one-on-one fight. But if the opponent is a Fragment of the Demon God, no matter how stealthy, lethal, or poison-using a Hero Ester may be, the chances of her being seen through and caught in the enemy’s grasp are high.
So now she needs to get used to fighting in cooperation with others.
Originally, I was going to take charge of training Ester while asking Master to handle Iris. I can be tough, but even I can’t keep up with Master’s intensity.
But…
“Huu.”
I let out a sigh and glanced toward the tent. Honestly, I thought she would come out after some time pretending nothing had happened. But even after the morning passed, the afternoon passed, and evening was almost here, Master still hadn’t taken a single step outside the tent.
I feel guilty for doing something so sudden. She must have been very surprised and flustered. Still, I already knew from the way she looked at me that it wasn’t simply the gaze of a master toward her disciple. I had known for a while that she felt something more.
That’s why I gathered my courage and made a move. I never expected her to be this shocked.
Should I go apologize right now?
…No. Even if I apologize now, what would change? And if I beg like that, the resolve I barely managed to steel will probably crumble again.
Until now, I had deliberately thought of this world as a game and everyone else as characters. It was a stupid idea that maybe that was the only way I could return. I wanted to go back quickly, see my parents’ faces, and tell them I loved them.
Even as time passed and both my conviction and my parents’ faces grew blurry, I forced myself to believe it and endured. But now it was time to accept reality.
Only by living a real ‘life’—not just aiming for ‘Clear’—could I truly reach them.
So I absolutely cannot back down now.
Anyway, I’ll have to go into the tent soon. I’ll talk to her properly then.
Just as I was thinking that and about to tell my disciples to wrap things up and start preparing dinner—
“Hyeon-ah.”
“Master?”
At some point she had come out of the tent and was now standing beside me. Master looked at me for a moment, then called out to Iris. She asked how long it would take to prepare dinner.
“Dinner? Um… probably about forty minutes?”
“Then would it be all right if I borrowed your senior for a short talk?”
“With Master? Ah… yes. Go ahead, Grandmaster.”
“Thank you.”
“No need for thanks—just hurry up and go.”
After finishing her conversation with Iris, Master turned her gaze back to me.
“What are you standing there for?”
“Yes?”
“Follow me. I have something to say.”
“Ah, yes!”
I answered energetically without meaning to and followed after Master. It must be something truly important, because we walked quite a distance away from the disciples. Not only that, but Master expanded her senses and thoroughly scanned the entire area. After confirming no one was around to eavesdrop, she finally spoke.
“Hyeon-ah.”
“You said it before.”
“Yes?”
“That you would do it. That you could do it.”
“…Yes. That’s what I said.”
“Then make me one promise. Promise me you’ll take good care of your body.”
“Of course. You know me, right? I’m secretly quite cunning.”
“Yes. I know. I know very well. Still, it’s only natural for a master to worry.”
“…Right. That’s very like you, Master.”
“Yes. It is. And…”
Master hesitated for a moment, but in the end she didn’t finish that sentence. Instead, she told me about the very ‘path’ she had shaken her head at and refused before.
“You said it once before. That this world seems to reject outsiders like you or me. That’s why you can’t even reach those things called the Enemy’s Will.”
“Yes. That’s what I told you.”
“It truly bothered me. Laws, the world—whatever they are. I hated being bound by such things. So I wanted to surpass them, and if that was impossible, I planned to use another method.”
“Another method…?”
“To break them.”
Sssss…
A terrifying aura gathers around Master. Even though she is the kindest and most beautiful master to me…
“Neither laws nor the world can stop one’s will. If the heavens block the way, you simply need to shatter them.”
She is the Heavenly Demon. Anything that stands in her way, she will sweep aside.
“Pacheon.”
That existence declares boldly.
“That is the path I will teach you.”