Hell by the Name of School [3]
Aaah, this chill, this crawling, unpleasant sensation...
I'd fallen into the Inner Space again.
"No matter how many times I go through this, I never get used to it..."
I shoved aside the irritation and fury — emotions that wouldn't help me one bit — and reclaimed my composure first. Checking my own condition came before anything else.
"...No problems."
Nothing had gone wrong with my identity the way it had with the suppression team and Deva's sorcerers.
"So it really was the identity you carried in that mattered."
Next, a check of my surroundings. A quick look around told me I was standing in Class 1-2 — the room where I'd recorded the student roster.
But the state of the classroom was strange. Barricades of desks and chairs blocked both entrances, and bread and snacks — apparently looted from the school store — lay scattered everywhere in disarray.
"Did they hole up in here?"
Yet for all the traces of a siege, the students who'd mounted it were nowhere to be seen. Judging by how hastily the barricade at the front door had been cleared away, they'd left the classroom in a rush — for what reason, I couldn't say.
"...Don't tell me they heard our fight and thought rescue had arrived."
A complete miscommunication, then. No — stay calm. Don't get rattled. This was my first encounter with an anomaly that might rank among the gifted-tier. Anxiety and confusion helped nobody.
At least I managed to write Kang In-hyuk, Yoon Soo-ah, and Faye Merlion's names into the student register.
Those three, at least, were safe from turning into anomalies.
"...Ahk!"
Just then, a human voice echoed from the corridor. When I stepped out into the hall, I saw a girl sprinting toward me from the far end — and behind her, a towering giant with the head of a bull.
"The bull statue legend, huh?"
Seonhwa High's athletic field was home to a bull-shaped statue. And an ominous statue like that was bound to spawn its own ghost story sooner or later. Something like: at night, the bull statue on the field comes to life and tramples to death any student who drags down the class average.
"How fitting for a specialized academy."
Had the bull become a bull-headed minotaur because of something mixed into the legend? Judging by the story itself, there were no special rules or gimmicks, so narrative compulsion wasn't a concern.
"Chulho-beop — the Guardian Summoning Art."
At my invocation, a three-meter-tall armored warrior with a crimson tiger's head and three eyes manifested before me. Wang Lingguan.
"Swiftly, swiftly, in accordance with the Law — Geup-geup-yeo-yul-ryeong!"
With the incantation of urgency, Wang Lingguan slammed his foot into the ground.
WHUUUUM!
The floor buckled into a shallow crater. In the same instant, Wang Lingguan closed the distance to the bull giant and lashed out with the golden whip in his left hand.
FWISHHHH!
The whip coiled around the bull giant's neck, and the moment it did, Wang Lingguan's arm flexed.
FWUK!
The bull giant — smaller than Wang Lingguan, but still well over two meters tall — was hauled off its feet like a fish snagged on a line.
BUK!
No questions asked, no quarter given — Wang Lingguan swung the sword in his right hand and cleaved the bull-man clean in two.
"Wow...!"
I'd known Wang Lingguan was powerful, but I hadn't realized it was to this degree. From the presence I could feel, the bull giant's grade sat somewhere between Yeongnan and the lower reaches of Yeongha. And Wang Lingguan had exorcised it in a single strike.
"Nice."
I walked over to Wang Lingguan, who stood silently amid the bisected remains, and extended my hand. He stared at it blankly for a moment before giving me a high-five.
Clap!
"Aigo, watch the strength, will you...!"
I shook out my stinging hand and approached Yu Min-seo [I had confirmed her name tag], who had been watching the fight in a daze.
"Are you all ri—"
"Mr. Kim Dosa!"
"You know me? How—"
"Yes! I'm from SIGISIGI!"
I hadn't expected to run into her the moment I entered the Inner Space. At first I was startled by the coincidence; afterward, I felt a pang of pity for her. Yu Min-seo was injured all over, bandages and adhesive strips stuck across her body here and there. I didn't need to hear a word to know what a hellish week she'd endured.
"You survived well. By the way — how did you get a signal out?"
"That's the thing, there was this strange Wi-Fi..."
"Strange Wi-Fi? What do you mean by—"
Before I could finish the question, thunderous footsteps erupted from both ends of the corridor. Bull-men came surging in from either side.
"There was more than one?"
Come to think of it, if every ghost story produced only a single entity, the advance team wouldn't have been wiped out so easily.
"I-I'm sorry! Those bull monsters followed me here...!"
Tears brimming, Yu Min-seo bowed her head in apology.
"Wang Lingguan, the right side is yours. Geup-geup-yeo-yul-ryeong."
Thud.
Then the left side was mine.
"Wait — hold on, Mr. Kim Dosa, it's danger—!"
Yu Min-seo reached out to grab me.
She knew the giant Mr. Kim Dosa commanded was strong. But Mr. Kim Dosa himself was different — an ordinary human being. The bull monsters had the strength to shatter concrete walls with their bare hands. She'd watched again and again as the third-year seniors were caught by those things and torn apart. Mr. Kim Dosa was fairly well built, but no one could handle that bare-handed.
"Catch."
"Huh?"
Kim Yi-yeon tossed his phone to Yu Min-seo.
""From this moment, I hereby appoint you temporary camerawoman for the channel Kim Dosa.""
At the strangely resonant timbre of Kim Yi-yeon's voice, Yu Min-seo's fear washed away as if it had never been.
"Y-yes, sir!"
And just as instructed, Yu Min-seo raised the camera and began filming Kim Yi-yeon's back — the man she had admired so dearly, the man she had entrusted her last, final hope to.
Six — exactly the right number.
Neither too many nor too few to verify the results of my training. I drew the Post-it talismans — the exclusive specialty of Kim Dosa — from my coat and scattered them into the air, then activated the Environment Conversion Art. The talismans fluttering in midair took flight like swallows, streaking toward the bull monsters.
Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak!
Five talismans slapped onto the bull-men's bodies at once.
"Jeok."
BOOOOOOM!
Five detonations overlapped into a single rolling roar. The Heaven-Shaking Talismans (Jincheon-bu) clinging to the bull monsters had exploded in unison at the incantation's command. An blast rivaling a modern fragmentation grenade tore all five bull-men apart simultaneously.
"Stronger than I expected."
Well — considering that ordinary talismans take me a minute each, and these took a full five minutes apiece to craft, this much power was only fair.
In the meantime, the last surviving bull-man came barreling down the corridor and lunged at me. I met it, drawing the peachwood sword and charging forward. The bull-man was fast — but faster than Wang Lingguan? It didn't even come close to me.
FWOOSH!
I bent my knees slightly to slip under its wild, mindless haymaker, then swept the peachwood sword upward from below.
SHWAK!
The bull-man's body parted like butter and crumbled to the floor. My first real engagement since training had ended. The results were extremely satisfying.
"Like they say — learning never goes to waste!"
My elation lasted only a moment before it settled back down. According to the intel the advance team had sent, these anomalies had most likely been human once. Even if they had turned and come at me to kill me, there was something unseemly about celebrating that.
"Rest in peace."
I pressed my palms together and offered a prayer for their souls.
"Looks like that side's finished too."
Wang Lingguan's battle on the opposite end was already over. The sight of the once-bull-men rolling around the corridor in pieces told the whole story of how one-sided it had been.
"Th-that's incredible! Wh-what did you just do!? The yellow papers went flying and the bull monsters just went BOOM and exploded, and then, and then...!"
"Min-seo, I appreciate the compliments, but could you answer my questions first?"
"Yes! Ask me anything!"
I put several questions to Yu Min-seo.
"How many survivors would you say are left?"
"Probably fewer than twenty..."
"How have you survived until now?"
"There are safe zones scattered around the school. Class 1-2 is one of them — that's where we've been holding out."
"Tell me about the anomalies that appeared in the school — the types and numbers of the monsters."
"The types are so varied, I don't even know them all... And there are so many. At first there weren't that many, but people started turning into monsters one by one. For some reason, only the staff turned — the students were fine."
"Do you know where the boss-tier anomaly commanding all of them might be?"
"I don't know about a boss... but the monsters get more dangerous the higher up you go... And on the very top floor of the school, there's the principal's office."
That was enough to sketch the general situation inside. And weighing everything together, the first thing I needed to do was clear.
I have to join up with the three names I wrote into the student register.
If the real-world situation mapped directly onto the Inner Space...
"There they are."
On the athletic field, I could see the temporary base camp erected by the Paranormal Administration Bureau and Deva. The anomaly had swallowed new people into the Inner Space, and the environmental data must have refreshed accordingly.
"What are those people walking around the field?"
Tall figures in Burberry coats with disheveled hair were prowling the grounds.
"They're knife-wielding, mad cannibal women."
Apparently, years ago, a knife-wielding Burberry man had broken into Seonhwa High. A rumor had sprung up that every dawn, the Burberry man with the knife appeared on the athletic field. Those anomalies were the twisted product of that legend. More than ten of them were roaming the field.
"We're heading to the field."
"What?"
"If you're scared, you can hide in a safe zone. I'll come back for you later."
"...No! I'm coming with you! The channel Kim Dosa needs a camerawoman!"
"What? ...I like that nerve of yours. Excuse me for a second."
"Kyah!"
I scooped Yu Min-seo up in a princess carry and leapt out the window onto the field below.
"Geup-geup-yeo-yul-ryeong."
FWOOOM!
While I landed lightly, Wang Lingguan — empowered by the incantation — nearly blew the window frame apart as he plummeted down into the center of the field.
"Go, Wang Lingguan-mon! Body Slam!"
As if it understood my command, Wang Lingguan landed on the field and whipped his left arm in a vicious arc.
SHSHSHSHSHSHSH!
With a sound like the air itself being shredded, the knife-wielding cannibal women were diced into pieces mid-charge and sent tumbling across the field. Truly terrifying power.
Ho-heck, Wang Lingguan, you're way too cool! You're so reassuring! Forget gifted-tier — aren't you just carving up this whole place by yourself?
"Good work. High-five."
Clap!
This time, Wang Lingguan had mercifully held back his strength. With the field secured, we headed straight for the Administration Bureau's temporary command tent.
Inside were Bureau staff groaning in torment, and among them, a helpless Yoon Soo-ah — and Kang In-hyuk, hands joined in an unfamiliar mudra, chanting a mantra. Fortunately, perhaps because both their names had been entered in the student register, neither showed any sign of transformation.
From here on out, it was a race against the clock. Some of the weaker spiritual constitutions had already begun to twist and contort.
"Kang In-hyuk! Yoon Soo-ah!"
"K-Kim Yi-yeon, sir!"
"Mr. Kim Yi-yeon! You're safe!?"
There was no time for leisurely greetings.
"The sacred rope! Did you bring the sacred rope!?"
"Yes!? Yes! We have it! It's — it's definitely in here!"
Yoon Soo-ah was ordinarily a little scattered and slow on the uptake, but given the circumstances, she moved with sharp efficiency. She opened the supply crate in the command tent and pulled out the braided rope.
"Mark it with peok and encircle the command tent with the rope — quickly!"
"Yes, sir!"
While Yoon Soo-ah ringed the tent with the sacred rope, I dug through the supply crate and unearthed flower petals. As expected of the Paranormal Administration Bureau — they'd packed ritual sorcery supplies for every contingency.
While she worked, I raised the Gadogi mantra over the petals.
"All done, sir!"
"Excellent! Kang In-hyuk, you're Esoteric Buddhism as well, aren't you? I need you to support the mantra."
"U-understood!"
In the breakneck swirl of the situation, Kang In-hyuk followed my instructions without a word of protest.
"The Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Sutra — you have it memorized?"
"Don't insult me. Of course I know it."
"Yoon Soo-ah, scatter the petals."
"Yes!"
As Yoon Soo-ah flung the petals into the air and Kang In-hyuk lent his voice, I chanted the Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Mudra. And from here was the part that mattered.
In its original form, the Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Mudra was an Esoteric Buddhist barrier art — a protective prayer seeking the peace and well-being of all sentient beings, in the spirit of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva's great vow. When I guided Yoon Si-woo to his rest, I had maximized its power to grant peace to the departed; this time, the emphasis had to fall on protection.
Simply casting it as-is wouldn't produce enough output, so I needed to amplify its force through covenant conditions.
First: restrict the sorcery's range to the interior of the roped-off command tent.
It was the same method I'd used for the Vairocana Mantra Barrier, but unlike the peachwood sword, the range hadn't shrunk drastically enough — the barrier's output had fallen short.
Second: bind it with a covenant never to cast this barrier art again within this Inner Space, further raising its sustaining power and performance.
Only after layering the second covenant did the output finally suffice.
"Om bhara mani dadne svaha, om bhara mani dadne svaha, om bhara mani dadne svaha."
The petals Yoon Soo-ah had scattered swirled into a vortex within the rope's perimeter, dissolving the warped spiritual currents unique to the Inner Space.
"Jijang Daeseong Wishing-nyeok, Hanghasa-geop Seollan-jin — O great sage Ksitigarbha, whose majestic divine power ten thousand trillion kalpas could scarce exhaust in telling—"
With the linked mantra, serenity returned to the faces of the Bureau staff who had been writhing in the agony of transformation.
"Geomun Jeomrye Illyeom-gan, Iik Incheon Muryang-sa — to behold, to hear, to bow but once brings boundless benefit to gods and men alike—"
At the next mantra, the bodies of those already twisted began to revert to their original forms.
"Goa Ilsim Gwimyeong Jeongrye — therefore I, with single mind, take refuge and prostrate in devotion."
And with the final mantra, a true safe zone was born — not the flimsy makeshift refuges Yu Min-seo and the other students had been clinging to, but a real one.
"Phew — that's one less thing to worry about."
Just as I let out a sigh of relief—
"GWAAAAAHHH!"
Kang In-hyuk vomited blood like a waterfall.
"Ar-are you alright!?"
I rushed over in alarm, but he waved his hands dismissively.
"I'm... I'm quite all right, sir. My skill simply fell short of matching a master's rite, and the strain caught up with my body. A sparrow who chases the crane ends up with its legs torn apart, as they say."
A master? Is he talking about me?
"I have met countless sorcerers in my time... but never once have I seen an Esoteric practitioner as accomplished as you, Mr. Kim Dosa."
"Ah — yes. Thank you for the compliment."
"From the very first moment I saw you, I knew you were no ordinary man... And now, I am certain."
I had no idea what he was about to say, but that certainty of his seemed mistaken, didn't it?
"A barrier art capable of neutralizing the Inner Space of a gifted-tier anomaly. It is beyond doubt. Mr. Kim Dosa — you are the Vajrayana, the Diamond Vehicle of Esoteric Buddhism!"
Um... I'm Kim Dosa. Kim, Dosa.
What on earth was this man suddenly talking about?
"A humble, untrained disciple of Esoteric Buddhism greets the great Vajrayana Master!"
"We — we greet the Master!"
At Kang In-hyuk's sudden display, the other Bureau staff in the tent exchanged glances before bowing their heads as well. I stared blankly at the absurd spectacle, closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
"First of all... let's start with a briefing on the situation."
If I couldn't avoid it, I'd simply enjoy it. At the very least, as long as this misunderstanding lasted, I could wield the Bureau's people however I pleased — hardly a bad arrangement.
...So I'd decided to roll with it.