Where the Mermaid's Tears Flow [5]

"Wang Lingguan! Watch over Momo."

Grrooooooar!

After entrusting Tsukumo Momo to the newly manifested Wang Lingguan, I scooped up the sodden Soda and pulled her into my arms.

"Whew... good thing I studied up."

I let out a sigh of relief as I looked down at my feet resting atop the water's surface.

The Daoist equivalent of the world-transcending footwork or water-skimming arts you'd find in any martial arts novel. When I'd heard I was headed to an island, I'd learned it just in case — you know, better to have it and not need it. I never dreamed I'd actually end up using it like this.

So which is it? Should I sigh with relief that a thin sheet of paper turned out to be enough to carry the load, or lament that my uneasy premonitions have never once missed their mark?

Setting that aside, though...

"Have you lost your mind?"

"What!? Who are you calling crazy—!?"

"If you hadn't, then instead of leaping into the water you'd have called for someone else, wouldn't you!?"

If I-haram hadn't been watching Soda's stream at that exact moment, who knows how badly this could have ended.

"Th-that's hilarious, really! I didn't exactly have time to weigh my options then, did I!? Shouldn't the decent thing to do right now be to offer praise first instead of criticism!?"

"Whew... I can't in good conscience praise a play where you nearly got yourself killed chasing a one-plus-one... but still. Thank you. For saving Momo."

"F-fine, as long as you know."

Just then, the water ghosts that had ringed us began lifting their heads above the surface one by one.

Terrified, Soda clung to my face like a leech. The massive body blocked nearly everything from view.

"Aaaahhh! Water ghosts! Water ghosts! They're trying to drag us under and drown us! Qu-quickly! Exorcise every last one of them right now!!"

"It's all right. These people have no intention of harming us."

I patted Soda on the back — partly to tell her to stop blocking my view — and explained. Professor Park Do-jun, who had been investigating the island, had told us: the water ghosts that appeared on the western shore had only ever tried to frighten people into halting the Mermaid Offering Festival. Not once had they ever taken a life.

"No intention of harming us... but they're water ghosts, aren't they?"

"They're water ghosts, but before that, they're victims of human sacrifice — offered up as living offerings, just like Momo was."

"H-human sacrifice!?"

Buooooooo—

Then a cry — like a whale's song crudely mashed together with a ship's horn — shook heaven and earth. The bloated, bloated faces of the water ghosts, hard enough to recognize as faces at all, twisted with terror.

That alone was enough to tell me whose cry it was.

"...Seems he's in a hurry."

The outer entity that had been a fair distance from the island even while the sun was still up had somehow closed in until it loomed right off the coast. Giant didn't begin to cover it — it was as if a high-rise building had stood up and started walking, and for a moment I was simply overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the thing.

And then, the next instant—

FWOOOOSH!

From beneath the surface, a thick, enormous tentacle erupted skyward and lashed out toward us.

"Holy—!"

The tentacle, thick as a decent-sized building, was studded here and there with octopus-like mouths, all singing an incomprehensible, unnatural song. Gritting my teeth against that warped melody clawing at my brain, I sprinted for the shore.

But for all its size, the tentacle moved as fast as I did — as fast as a man who covered a hundred meters in six seconds.

"Holy—!"

Goosebumps raced down my spine at the colossal presence bearing down on me from behind. Just before it caught up—

countless water ghosts threw themselves onto the tentacle. Their swollen bodies clung to it as if they'd been dipped in glue, and their tangled, disheveled hair knotted together and dragged the limb back down toward the sea. The tentacle's speed dropped sharply.

And then—

"Safe!"

Grroooooo!

I made it back to the beach in one piece. The tentacle, unable to climb onto the shore itself, slunk back to its master.

-Buooooooo!

The outer entity roared again, as if enraged at the offering it had lost right before its eyes. And in that instant, that sensation I could never grow used to, no matter how many times I'd felt it, swept through my entire body.

The Inner Space.

"You mean to see this through to the end, don't you?"

I glared at the thing through clenched teeth. Whether because our physical distance had shrunk, or because falling into its Inner Space had closed the spiritual gap, its form was clearer now than ever.

Its shape resembled a human. That is to say, it had limbs and a face. But every one of those limbs and that face was made of the tangled mass of tentacles it had just hurled at us. In other words: a grotesque heap of tentacles, clumsily mimicking the silhouette of a man.

"God, it's disgusting. Ugh."

I spat out a curse that meant nothing and forced my shaking heart to settle. And then I thought.

That thing should have come tomorrow — after the Mermaid Offering Festival was over. So why had it appeared a day early?

"...Was the offering that tempting? Tempting enough that it couldn't even wait for mealtime?"

I turned to look at Tsukumo Momo, still cradled in Wang Lingguan's arms. Whether from the backlash of that monster's fascination or something else, she still hadn't come to.

It was only then that I noticed the coat she was wearing.

Tsukumo Momo, whose fashion sense ran in a dead straight line toward landmine-girl aesthetic, always wore pink-and-black. She would never — not under any circumstances — have worn a tacky coat that looked to be made of fish scales.

"...So this is how they've been offering up fakes, huh."

It wasn't hard to guess what this coat was for. But there was no time to follow the thought any further.

-Buooooooo

Robbed of its offering, the thing began closing in on Yeoindo Island fast.

"Ha-haha... what is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that...?"

Between the water ghosts and the way the outer entity had driven the spiritual density to an extreme, Soda could now see it too. She burst into a hollow, addled laugh and raised her selfie stick to capture it.

"...Let's head back to the hotel for now."

I gathered up Soda and Tsukumo Momo and made for the hotel. My plan was to hand the two of them off to the rest of the crew and then go find Kang So-hwa.

Kang So-hwa had been preparing to kill that thing for a very long time. If I joined forces with her, there was a chance we could break through this situation.

But when we reached the hotel, it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠became clear things were not exactly smoothing over.

"Unbelievable. One thing after another."

The island's residents had swarmed up in front of the hotel carrying torches, shovels, hoes — farm implements.

"Where's that woman in the strange clothes!?"

"Hand over the one with the purple-streaked hair!"

The film crew flinched at the bellowing of the furious mob, glancing around wildly. Then one of the staff spotted us.

"There!"

At that, every head in the mob snapped toward us at once.

Wow. I'd faced down all manner of anomalies and high-grade demons lately, even fairies — but this was the first time I'd felt this kind of visceral, gut-level revulsion. The eyes of the villagers — no, of the mob — glistened with a mineral sheen, less human than piscine.

Then the village chief leading the mob stepped forward.

"The Dragon King is angered."

"If that thing looks like a Dragon King to you, I'd recommend having your eyes gouged out and disinfected with ethanol."

Undeterred by my barb, the chief pressed on with that same mineral face.

"At this rate, the Dragon King will land on the island. And then it's all over! I know how bitter it is to sacrifice one of our own, but there are times you must slaughter an ox for the sake of the herd."

"That's right! That's right!"

"It can't be helped!"

"The offering! The offering!"

Over the chants of the enraged mob, the chief carried on.

"We never wished for things to come to this. But now that the Dragon King has chosen that child, what can be done? Can mortal men defy the law of the gods? You're a psychic yourself — surely you understand what I'm saying."

"Pfft. Pwahahahahahaha!"

"...What?"

"What's wrong with him!?"

"He's laughing?!"

"Well, why wouldn't I laugh? It's called the Mermaid Offering Festival, isn't it?"

"······."

Mermaid Offering Festival. Not a festival of offerings made to the mermaid — a festival of offerings made of the mermaid. So who, exactly, was the "mermaid" in question here?

Obvious, really.

"The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠original offerings of the Mermaid Offering Festival were the households who carried mermaid blood, weren't they?"

"······."

Just as my overseas fan had advised — I looked at things exactly as they were, and I understood. Even within the lie there was a truth, and that truth turned out to be simple to the point of being almost disappointing.

"I can't say exactly when it started, but it was probably before that monster settled into these waters. There really were mermaids living around Yeoindo, and the villagers had children with them. The chief's household is exactly that — the people of Yeoindo Island truly do carry mermaid blood."

And that blood was the true culprit behind every tragedy here.

The outer entity that had once dwelt in Hwanghae-do had descended into the waters near Yeoindo. It tormented and harried the people with storms and winds and that ominous singing, until at last they were driven to make offerings. The problem was that the people of Yeoindo were simply too valuable as offerings.

I'd asked Fey and confirmed it: the life of a mystery-species being like a mermaid carried far greater spiritual worth than the life of an ordinary human. Naturally, the lives of Yeoindo's people — their blood mingled with mermaid's — weren't worth quite as much as a pure mermaid's, but they far outstripped any common person's.

And once the outer entity caught on to this, it settled into Yeoindo for good. The result: the islanders found themselves bound, like it or not, to surrender a living sacrifice every single year.

"But even that had its limits, didn't it."

"······."

In the old days, people had plenty of children, so picking one out of the bunch to hand over wasn't much of a problem. Not anymore, though. With birthrates cratering and a rural island bleeding population, they must have run short of people to offer up.

The proof was Yeoindo's sex ratio. After all, the default offering in these rituals isn't a man — it's a woman. A young woman, at that. And how rigorously does this country manage ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠its population statistics? If the island lost one resident per festival, the government couldn't help but notice before long.

"So they started playing games — hence the Mermaid Offering Festival."

A festival built around Yeoindo's unique scenery and its mystical legends drew crowds of tourists.

"And among those tourists..."

Flap!

I snatched up the coat made of fish skin and hurled it at the villagers.

"They picked out the spiritually gifted ones, wrapped them in fish-skin cloaks to fool that monster's eyes, and offered them up instead. All that squawking about the Dragon King — you've got some nerve committing fraud on top of it all, don't you?"

Granted, even that monster Dragon King apparently had no interest in being a picky eater — when the wrong dish came out of the kitchen, he'd dug in anyway on the principle that tasty was tasty.

"I looked into it, and there's a fair number of people who came to Yeoindo for the Mermaid Offering Festival and never went home. Tourists, who come in bulk and leave in bulk over a short window, are a far cleaner cover than the islanders themselves, after all."

They'd even doctored the ferry schedules to disguise the missing tourists as people who'd departed the island. And it went without saying that the shipping company and the local police must have known the truth of the festival. But in the cramped social structure of the countryside, the police and the ferry operators were almost certainly bound to the villagers by blood, school ties, and hometown connections. Everyone lied in concert, so no one ever noticed the wrongness of it.

That's what a closed society does to you.

Scritch. Scritch.

Under my interrogation, the chief began scratching at his arm. And it wasn't just the chief. Exposed, the villagers grew restless and started scratching at some part of their bodies too. I'd wager the spots they were clawing at were the places where they'd scraped off mermaid scales to make those fish-skin cloaks.

And then—

----------

"Ugh!?"

"Guhk!"

"Wh-what is that!?"

The villagers staggered under an unfamiliar shock none of them had ever felt in their lives. It wasn't hard to guess what this spiritual tremor was.

'It's starting — now!?'

And the monster Dragon King had already closed to precisely the right killing distance from the island. In other words: the optimal timing for Kang So-hwa to trigger her grand ritual.

But a ritual of that scale and power was far beyond what Kang So-hwa's personal spiritual power could fuel on its own. So she had prepared the ritual ground in advance and set it to siphon earth-power from the island and the surrounding waters — and now, it had begun.

"What is that...!?"

"The waves? The waves are climbing up the mountain!?"

The Inner Space conjured by the false Dragon King's manifestation — and under the influence of a grand ritual touching upon myth itself, the earth-power began to take physical form, defying gravity and gathering toward the highest point on Yeoindo. The colossal energy that collected there gave shape, through sorcery, to the feat of the divine archer of legend: the god who shot down nine suns and killed the water god who demanded human sacrifice.

Blinding white light gathered in the hands of Kang So-hwa, who stood upon the ritual ground at the mountain's summit.

Creeeeeeak—!

Kang So-hwa drew back an arrow made of light, nocked on a bow of crimson.

And then—

------------

The snow-white meteor loosed on a horizontal arc streaked toward the false Dragon King of massive tentacles. It looked, truly, like a falling star — and it tore straight through the false Dragon King's Inner Space, grinding the whole of it to nothing as it ran.

The false Dragon King raised its hand — the one woven from bundles of tentacles — to meet it.

Buooooooooo!

An arm thick as an apartment building, formed of countless tentacle strands, converged into a single point the size of an awl — and from it, the thing fired a black meteor to meet the white one.

Beneath the dark night sky, a white line and a black line flew toward each other without so much as a millimeter's deviation.

And then—

-------------------

The white meteor and the black meteor collided above the sea.

KUGUGUGUGUGUGUGUNG!

"Aaaarrrggghhh!"

"Wh-what the hell is thisss!?"

Even the enraged mob was sprawled across the ground clutching their heads — while I alone stayed on my feet, watching the clash of the white meteor and the black.

"Wh-what's happening?! The white one's on our side, right? It's winning, right? Please tell me it is!"

Soda, clinging to my sleeve like a baby koala, begged. But—

"······Damn it!"

The white meteor wavered. And in that briefest of openings, the black meteor punched straight through it and flew on.

FWAAAAAAANG!

With a sonic boom like a jet breaking the sound barrier, the black meteor struck the white one's point of origin at the mountain's summit — and pierced, precisely, Kang So-hwa.

"At this rate it's a total wipe..."

KUGUGUGUGUGUGU!

A shockwave detonated in its wake, and half the mountaintop evaporated, leaving behind a bald peak. But the worst was only beginning.

-Buooooooooo

The false Dragon King roared once more. But this roar was nothing like its earlier displays of raw emotion. It was a signal — a call to its 'worshippers.' And in answer to that signal, the people who had once carried mermaid blood and now served the false Dragon King from beyond began to transform.

"A-aaaah! AAAAAAH!"

"Please! Please! Pl-please! We'll give the offering, we'll g-g-g-give—!"

"No no no no no!"

The places the villagers had been scratching swelled up, and from there scales spread across their entire bodies. Their old mermaid blood, devoured by the false Dragon King's power, was warping into something monstrous.

The sight reminded me of the people who had transformed into anomalies back at Seonhwa High. Back then, the condition for transformation was being anything other than a student. This time—

'It's being a worshipper of the thing itself?'

Either way, it was the worst possible outcome. Just as I moved to deal with the transforming villagers before they finished—

"Migi. Hidari."

At a familiar voice, two colossal monstrous dogs appeared and swept through the mutating villagers.

Crunch! Crack!

CRUNCH-KRAK!

Villagers with some part of their bodies torn, twisted, or snapped went flying like bowling pins — and I blinked.

"Huh? My overseas fan!?"

My Japanese fan had made her appearance.

"We meet again, Kim Do-sa. Come to think of it, we never properly introduced ourselves at the beach, did we? I'm Sugawara Ryuko."

"...So you were a psychic? Back then you said you weren't... were you lying to me?"

Shin-chan, did your papa lie to you?

Sugawara Ryuko tilted her head and pressed a hand to her own cheek.

"I never said I wasn't one. You only asked if it was a pickup line."

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

"······."

Still — what was this woman? The way she'd completely hidden the fact that she was a psychic, those monstrous dogs that had just appeared out of nowhere — she was absolutely not beneath me. (Baek Gong-ju and Gong No-sa don't count; they never hid it in the first place.)

"I'm sure you have plenty of questions, but I can state one thing with certainty."

"And that is?"

"That I am your fan."

"······Proof?"

"I subscribe, I like, I have notifications on, and I rewatch your newest videos twenty times."

"You pass."

Then you're my fan. Hmm.

"So — what do we do about that now?"

Sugawara Ryuko pointed at the false Dragon King bearing down on the island. It had sacrificed one arm forging the black meteor, but its majesty showed little difference. The lost arm would no doubt regenerate quickly.

"I have confidence in my own skill, but... of the abilities I possess, none of them can handle something that far outside spec."

Sugawara Ryuko smiled thinly and murmured something cryptic — something about 'if I'd brought the ones barred from leaving the country, maybe I could at least have given it a fight.' Then she looked at me again and asked:

"Do you have a plan?"

"······What kind of grand plan do you take me for?"

I looked up at the mountain — now a bare stump where the black meteor had punched through.

"If one shot doesn't do it, then two. Three. We keep firing until that thing dies."

The ritual Kang So-hwa had prepared was not wrong. Hadn't the white meteor matched the black one blow for blow? The problem wasn't the ritual — it was Kang So-hwa herself. She'd overlooked one fact: that she, too, was a native of this island.

In that case, someone else simply had to take up the bow and fire.

The Sun-Shooting ritual — the sorcery that once shot down nine suns and slew the water god who fed on human sacrifice.