Nymphs and the Shadow Game # 6
"Treasure that can make anything into cards…! Very excellent it is…! This Illinoi wishes to make this and that into cards with this Ankh…!"
Jingle-jangle—
Illinoi snatched the key necklace right out of the tomb raider Ankh's hands. But the key that ended up in her grip granted no special power, nor did it give off any mystical glow.
Before long, Illinoi was scowling and laying into Ankh with both fists.
"Most disgustingly dishonest liar you are…! You clearly told a lie to this Illinoi…! Call the lawyer right now, I demand…!"
"Everyone, let's beat her together…!"
"This Coris has no idea what's going on, but if it's together with the nymph sisters, anything is bound to be very fun…!"
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—
"Aaaaagh~"
The once-threatened nymphs executed merciless justice, and in the end Ankh curled up like a pill bug and declared her surrender.
"I-I lost…! Stop it, pleeease…!"
I calmed down the wildly excited nymphs, then turned to Ankh, whose wicked heart had been at least somewhat reformed by the barrage of blows.
"Now, hurry up and return the people you captured back to normal!"
Tap—
I snatched the cards out of Ankh's hands. Her deck was a stack of people she had turned into cards using that strange ancient key.
"You need the key to turn people back. Only one who bears a special incantation may wield the Five Treasures of the Seal. Those without the qualification cannot use them…!"
According to Ankh, that bizarre key wasn't something just anyone could handle. I recalled hearing that powerful artifacts sometimes chose their own owners. Just as there was chemistry between people, there was such a thing as compatibility between tools and people too.
"It doesn't seem like she's lying…! If she pulls any funny business, this Oinoi will beat her up plenty again…!"
Oinoi seemed to trust Ankh's words to a reasonable degree.
Swipe—
Ankh took the key back from Illinoi, gripped it, and pushed its base into one of the cards. As if a hole had opened in the card, the key slid smoothly in with a click.
FWOOSH—!
At last, the card emitted light. And when that light faded, there was a familiar face sitting sprawled on the ground.
"I… I survived…!? My body's back to normal! My body's back to normal! That's right — a real man, Kim Dalgun, doesn't die like this!"
He was Kim Dalgun, the missing gang member Lee Jina had mentioned. Apparently not an Awakener, just an ordinary civilian.
After that, Ankh released every person bound to her deck one after another. The number exceeded ten, and everyone expressed their gratitude to me.
"You saved my life!"
"That was an incredible duel!"
"I thought I'd be trapped in a card forever and die in there! There's no air conditioning inside a card, you know — it was sweltering!"
Some of them wept openly. Watching them, I found myself genuinely moved.
What moment could be more satisfying than receiving thanks from the very people you'd saved?
But there was something that caught my attention too.
"You were all... living inside the cards?"
From what the people said, those turned into cards hadn't been frozen in place or taxidermied — they'd been forced to pass the time somewhere, in some kind of space.
"For me, it was a place like a hotel room."
"Mine was like a poolside villa, of all things."
"In my case, it was an open field."
The card itself was a kind of space. Something sparked in my mind at that.
Could this ancient key not be a device that opened or created tiny rifts? Those rifts simply took the form of Duel Stones cards!
It was only my speculation, but it was a theory with some logic to it.
Just then, Illinoi let out a sinister muhehe laugh.
"Muhehe, freedom is not free…! Freedom must come with a price…! Pay for the value of being rescued, everyone…! You shall all press 'like' on the Nymph Foundation's SNS…!"
We handed the rescued people over to the police without a hitch. Amid the settling commotion, I sat down across from Ankh, who was perched on a station bench, and asked her.
"What is it your Tomb Raiders are after? Who exactly are you people?"
"……"
Ankh kept her mouth firmly shut. In response, Oinoi raised both fists high above her head.
"She clearly hasn't had enough yet…! Everyone, let's beat this Egyptian woman plenty more…! The fists of nymphs have the effect of jolting a villain's spirit wide awake…!"
Nymphs generally loved peace and tranquility, but they were utterly merciless toward evildoers. To them, peace wasn't mere amity — it was a state of mutual respect maintained by strong force.
"A-All right…! Fine, I'll talk…! I just needed a moment to collect my thoughts, that's all…!"
Perhaps the nymphs' blows had been effective, because the bronze-skinned Ankh trembled violently, thoroughly terrified. She seemed to be choosing her words, and then she opened her mouth.
"I am... the second daughter of the director of the Cairo Museum. My Sekhmet family has managed Cairo's artifacts for generations, and—"
"Stop the flashback already…!"
"This Coris is getting very sleepy…!"
The nymphs growled like angry squirrels. Illinoi in particular was half out of her mind.
"You're clearly trying to dredge up a tragic childhood to drum up sympathy and smooth over your crimes like a snake slithering over a wall…! This Illinoi will absolutely not stand by and watch…!"
The nymphs took a very negative stance toward the idea of criminals earning sympathy or reduced sentences just because they had a sad story behind them.
Frankly, I didn't want the story dragging on either.
"Just the essentials."
"...After the rifts opened across the world, an ultra-massive pyramid was discovered beneath the Egyptian desert. And as it happened, our Sekhmet family was able to handle the stone slabs and artifacts found inside it!"
Ancient knowledge and spells unearthed from within the pyramid. Through the slabs that sealed this and that, Egypt leapt to the status of an economic powerhouse practically overnight. And the ones who had risen highest there, Ankh said, were the Sekhmet sisters.
Teto Sekhmet. Ankh Sekhmet.
The elder sister was called the S-Rank 4th Ranker, while the younger was an A-Rank Awakener — and a criminal, no less.
"I felt inferior to my sister. She could wield artifacts without bearing this hideous... tattoo-like mark. And then the darkness whispered to me. It said it would give me power."
A demon god.
So went the story: a being called by that name had been sealed within a stone slab found in the underground pyramid. Treasure hunters who had been lying in wait seized it, and to break its seal, they had crashed this very tournament.
"There are so many dangerous ones popping up lately."
Typhon came to mind — the possessing-type monster that had claimed to be both destroyer and god. It had been a powerful and genuinely dangerous existence. And now another one of its kind had appeared, the second in a row.
Could that really be coincidence?
"Preying on people's hearts is a real headache."
Ankh had harbored an inferiority complex about surpassing her sister. The voice within the slab had tempted her, driving her to steal the Tools of the Seal.
"The mana of struggle born from games is the key that unlocks the demon god's seal. And by using a strong human soul as its vessel, it can manifest into the world. As it happens, this tournament is full of strong duelists."
Was this for real?
Just as Typhon had stolen Hex Pascal's body, I could tell that this demon god was also targeting an Awakener's flesh. In Hex's rampage, the damage had been minimized because it happened inside a rift — but if something like that unfolded in Seoul, a city of ten million people?
"...I can still stop it. I can. Please, let me help…! It would be, at the very least, the best atonement someone who was possessed like I was can offer…."
At that point, Ankh spoke up cautiously. It seemed she was ashamed of herself — of how the crack in her heart called inferiority had made her fall for a whisper promising power.
Of course, Illinoi growled "This Illinoi absolutely cannot believe any of it…!" but I could read something like sincerity in her golden eyes.
"Everyone makes mistakes. But not just anyone can repent of them and try to make things right. And for what it's worth, I think your tattoos look pretty cool."
I'd heard that Egyptian Awakeners, much like Korean Awakeners who had chips implanted, inscribed hieroglyphs like the Eye of Horus onto their own bodies. Ankh's left arm was covered in such markings from shoulder to wrist, drawn like sleeves, and to me they looked quite striking.
Ankh herself seemed to regard them as a shameful flaw, wanting to wrap them up and hide them entirely.
"C-Cool, you say…! Don't go saying things like that so carelessly…! Anyway, we need to hurry! The ones who realize Ankh and Atlas have failed could force the ritual through…!"
Ankh gave me the coordinates where the tomb raiders were staying. And I was greatly astonished.
"The basement of the finals venue?"
The special arena where Teto and Seo Yerim had declared the tournament's opening. The tomb raiders had been dwelling beneath it all along.
"Ankh has failed too. The mistake was entrusting such a vital role to a mere twenty-year-old girl. At this point, there is no choice but to decide."
"We break the seal with what we have. We've gathered more than enough souls. Even an imperfect descent — a demon god is still a demon god. We will take hold of the immortality we've long yearned for."
Swipe—
Two robed men each drew from their belts a dagger and a scarab-shaped ruby jewel, and laid them upon the stone slab. There was no time to spare.
Ankh and Atlas. With both of them captured, it was only a matter of time before the secret society Tomb Raiders' hideout was exposed.
"O serpent's dagger—"
"O scarab's orb, we offer unto thee the struggle and souls held within—"
Crack, craaack—
The stone slab etched with a sinister serpent split open, and something like dark gas began seeping out. In an instant it surged over the two men.
Hisssss—!
"Huuuagh…!?"
"O Apophis... wh-why our lives…!?"
Even beneath their robes the two men had looked broad and sturdy, but now they had shriveled up like withered mummies. Before their eyes, the black gas gathered thicker and thicker until at last it took shape as a serpent with a face resembling a shark's.
Sssssss….
Apophis, demon god of night, of darkness, and of serpents.
The serpent keenly realized how pitifully feeble its power was, newly awakened from its seal. It should have released five seals, each filled with life, to be liberated in full — but the tools used this time were merely a dagger and a single scarab jewel.
It didn't matter, though.
The serpent had already marked out someone to serve as its vessel. Once it possessed that vessel, devoured another's fighting spirit, and sowed chaos, its condition would improve as well.
Hissss—!
Like gas slipping through the cracks of the cramped chamber, the serpent escaped and threaded its way between the countless feet of people treading the earth above. And at last, it found the vessel it had marked.
She was a most excellent medium for possession.
To Apophis, she seemed to be darkness itself, a body perfectly suited to dwell within. Perhaps something like a shamaness or a divine maiden of this world.
━Shaaaa—!
Flinch—
The woman convulsed, her neck seized in the serpent's bite.
"……!"
Jingle-jangle— jingle-jangle-jingle—!
The ropes and bells strung across the formation where the woman within the hidden chamber sat began to ring out all at once.
Fwoosh—
When the talismans plastered on every wall caught fire, Teto, the high priestess who had been monitoring everything through the King's Staff — an artifact with the power of clairvoyance — like a bank of CCTV screens, spoke to Seo Yerim before her.
"The imperfectly revived serpent has taken the bait. The serpent has claimed the body of an S-Rank Awakener nearby as its vessel. Up to this point, everything has proceeded exactly as the plan we agreed upon."
"What?"
Seo Yerim's brow furrowed — the situation had diverged from what she knew. She understood, roughly, that the unleashed serpent demon god would seize a nearby S-Rank Ranker as its vessel. That was precisely why Seo Yerim and Teto were sitting face to face: so that if one of the two of them was possessed, it could be suppressed immediately.
"As agreed, you say?"
But neither Seo Yerim herself nor Teto showed any trace of having been struck by a possessing monster. Had Korea's S-Ranker Cha Yura ignored the plan and entered Seoul today?
No — Cha Yura is in Jeju right now. The only S-Rank Awakeners in Seoul at the moment are me and Teto. Then who on earth…
Suddenly, something surfaced in Seo Yerim's mind.
It was the existence of another S-Rank Awakener rumored to possibly exist somewhere in Korea.
Swipe—
Then Teto rose from her seat.
"There is only one way to seal a revived demon god completely. Just as our priests did long, long ago, there is nothing for it but to perform a sacred rite."
Swipe—
A brilliantly glowing rare card had appeared in Teto's hand.
"I sincerely pray this artifact — the Card of God — never has to be used…."