Where the Mermaid's Tears Flow [7]

Nikola's Hyper-Radio Communication

"You're charging money for this!? And it's expensive as hell!"

That came to a hundred million won for four people, by the way.

"God~damn it! When did you get so money-hungry!?"

Just look at my Dongbin-hyung or Solomon-hyung. They don't take a thing — they only ever give.

"No wonder Edison steamrolled you!"

But what could I do? Raging about it wouldn't change anything. When you need something, you pay for it.

I purchased the Temporary Coil Channel plan right away. I had no idea how the underlying mechanism worked, but payment went through with a single touch.

Then I invited four people to the channel.

"Huh!? Teacher, this is—"

"The call went through?"

"Khhk, what the— what is this? How are you doing this from inside the domain...?"

"This is..."

"I'm sure you have plenty of questions, but we're short on time, so let's run a test first."

I deliberately put some distance between myself and the four of them, then activated the voice chat.

"C-can you all hear me?"

Good. Performance test: passed. The audio ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠quality was a little rough, but more than sufficient.

"Sugawara-san, please move the people to the ritual site. Momo, Min-seo — you two take these."

Before sending the villagers off, I'd gathered up talismans and curse nails, and I handed the whole bundle out to Tsukumo Momo and Yu Min-seo. Lee Jin-seol and Sugawara Ryuko were both spiritual adepts who could handle whatever came their way, but these two I had to look after myself.

"Stay careful out there."

"Yes! Don't worry — I've got Pixie with me!"

"Oh? You worry about me? How delightful."

"That wasn't a joke — I mean it, be careful!"

"Then I shall take that as the signal that all is ready... Hidari, Migi, A, B."

With the preparations complete, Sugawara Ryuko summoned her four Inugami.

Hold on. Why are her shikigami named after Enemy Controller commands?

Once the four were dispatched, I tested the Nikola app again, just in case.

Thankfully, even at a distance, the connection held steady.

"If anything dangerous happens on the way to the ritual site, call me."

Listening to those wildly varying replies, I turned my gaze toward the false Dragon King who had lost both his arms.

Soda's song played on. With Tsukumo Momo, the guitarist, absent, Soda was handling guitar and vocals simultaneously — and somehow pulling it off.

For the record, the Houyi Shari ritual was already complete. The song no longer served any purpose.

So why was I letting her keep playing?

Because it simply sounded good. Every boss fight deserves an epic BGM, doesn't it?

Pushing the BGM to the back of my mind, I approached Kang So-hwa where she lay on the ground.

Nothing of her human form remained. It wasn't just the half-mermaid transformation — her body had been physically pulverized, her human shape all but obliterated. Calling her current appearance a slightly over-mashed fish cake wouldn't have been much of an exaggeration.

"Heh heh... this old woman, causing nothing but trouble for a fine young Taoist..."

Even in that state, Kang So-hwa still had the strength to speak. That strength was likely coming from the false Dragon King — which meant the moment he fell, she would too.

"...That fiend has grown, hrmm, terribly weak as well... Why, I wonder, does he refuse to give up, even in such a state... What good is eating humans, truly?"

"Who's to say."

Just as she said, having lost a fifth of his body, the false Dragon King was still lurching toward the island. He was far slower than before, but his obsession had not dulled in the slightest.

"Young Taoist... I know this is a poor time, but could you grant an old woman her final tale — her last words, as it were?"

"Of course. The others won't reach the ritual site for a while yet anyway."

"Hohoho... thank you... Then, where shall I begin?"

With a feeble smile, Kang So-hwa began her story.

Kang So-hwa had been born and raised on Yeoindo. A native through and through, she had never once set foot off the island, and she had lived her whole life without ever once questioning that human sacrifice was wrong.

"Call it an excuse if you like... but right up until then, I believed it was simply how things were. Back then, it was one person every few years, one child taken from a family with many... Considering the dreadful medicine of the age and the infant mortality rate... I honestly thought of it as a reasonable bargain — trading a child who would likely die anyway for the village's prosperity... How foolish I was."

Her common sense finally shattered when her only child — the daughter born between her and a husband lost at sea — was chosen as the next sacrifice.

"Until that year, the sacrifices had been split evenly between festival tourists and villagers. You may have noticed already, but that monster isn't just an open maw. It doesn't accept just anyone, no matter how the flesh is wrapped."

"You needed people with strong spiritual power."

"Sharp eyes as ever."

When the festival's fame was low and tourists were few, the odds of a spiritually potent visitor arriving were correspondingly slim. And the requirements went further still — a young woman, and one of a particular disposition, at that.

So that year's festival found no suitable sacrifice among the visitors, and instead the lot fell to Kang So-hwa's daughter, newly sixteen.

"Young Taoist. Can you guess what this senile old fool said to her trembling daughter, the one who'd just learned she was to be sacrificed?"

"Hmm... that you should run away together?"

"If only. If only I had... then I would not carry this regret... I told her it was an honor. That to give herself for the village was an honor. With this wretched mouth of mine, that is what I spouted... It is the one thing in my whole life I would give anything to take back. What wounds those words must have carved into her... what despair they must have drowned her in..."

Twisted common sense, drilled into her by a closed society. Even after her daughter was given to the sacrifice, Kang So-hwa could not feel grief. She didn't even know she was supposed to feel it. That was the fruit of decades of conditioning by the village chief and its elders.

But no brainwashing, however potent, could deceive ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a mother's heart forever. Some months after her daughter became the sacrifice, something in Kang So-hwa broke, and she wailed.

She wept for her daughter's death. She recoiled in loathing at herself, the one who had called it an honor. And she burned with shame before every soul ever fed to the monster.

For three days and three nights she cried until every drop of moisture had been wrung from her body.

Only then did the world begin to look straight to Kang So-hwa.

The village tradition of kidnapping tourists each year, or sacrificing its own residents. The elders who called it natural — glorious, even. And the villagers who nodded along and forced the sacrifice on their own neighbors.

Every last one of them was insane.

With her eyes opened, Kang So-hwa set out on a journey — to pay for her sins, and to avenge everyone who had been sacrificed before.

It was a long, long road. So long that reaching the destination took forty years.

"...Hohoho. But even when this is over, my daughter will never forgive me... It's nothing but selfish self-gratification, in the end..."

"I don't think that's true."

"Comforting an old woman, are you? You truly are a kind soul... Thank you for hearing out this long final testament — or ranting, rather."

With those words, Kang So-hwa closed her eyes.

She wasn't dead. She was husbanding the last ember of her life so she could witness the moment her vengeance was complete.

I didn't disturb her. Instead, I checked on the others' progress through the Temporary Coil Channel.

Some time still remained. Sitting and staring blankly wasn't my style, so I invited Park Do-jun to the channel.

"Professor Park Do-jun."

"Have there been any problems since I left?"

"...The barrier was breached?"

Damn it. So the makeshift measure had its limits after all?

"That guy did!?"

Why on earth would the least likely man alive do such a thing? Half stunned and half worried, I was in the middle of reassessing PD Choi Ji-hoon when—

"I-I made it!"

Astoundingly, PD Choi Ji-hoon — the same man who'd bolted from the hotel intending to be bait — appeared at the mountaintop. His left eye was torn open and half of his right hand was gone, yet there he stood, hoisting his camera with the one hand he had left.

"...Why are you here?"

"I got to thinking — this is the greatest broadcast footage of all time, isn't it? I'd regret it for the rest of my life if I missed it. So I pushed right through those fish-monsters to get here."

"Ha!"

Wait. So he didn't leave the hotel to serve as bait... he left the hotel to broadcast?

This man is genuinely, certifiably insane.

Just then, the signal I'd been waiting for arrived.

Lee Jin-seol and Sugawara Ryuko had reached the ritual site.

Sensing the four practitioners' spiritual power flowing in from the ritual site, I turned toward Choi Ji-hoon — or rather, toward the camera in his hand.

"Don't tell me that thing is broadcasting live right now?"

"Heh heh heh. Strangely enough, every other electronic device has gone dead — radio, internet, everything — but this camera Cosmos prepared transmits perfectly."

Seriously, Nikola-hyung? Anyone and their grandmother can broadcast from inside an anomaly domain now!?

No, wait. Come to think of it, Nikola-hyung was a man of the twentieth century, and Cosmos is the finest technology company of the twenty-first. I suppose, viewed that way, this was only natural.

In the end, Nikola was merely an also-ran of his era, eclipsed by Edison...!

Whoa, whoa — I take back what I just said. Our Nikola-hyung is crushing the competition on cost-performance.

That said, I was furious that PD Choi Ji-hoon had tried to use me for content, but... whatever else you could say about the man, I had to respect that grit. And precisely because I respected it, I didn't stop the filming.

Ah, but of course—

Not that I was going to let it be a sham — I really had put in half the work of promoting [Night of Blood] at this point. Cosmos, MBB — if you have any gratitude, compensate me later.

Wuuuuuuuuuum!

Through the spirit-siphoning curse, the spiritual power of all four practitioners flowed in, and I fine-tuned every strand of it while offering guidance over the Temporary Coil Channel.

"Min-seo, steady your breathing. You were born with an abundance of spiritual power, so there's no need to throttle it — just think of it as releasing water from a dam!"

"Yes, Teacher!"

"Momo, you've never worked with ritual power before, so don't strain in some weird direction — just surrender to the flow!"

"Got it!"

Yu Min-seo and Tsukumo Momo each had a few harrowing moments, but I talked them through every crisis over the channel. Lee Jin-seol and Sugawara Ryuko controlled the flow of power with practiced ease, so they needed no coaching at all.

The result: the spiritual power required for the Houyi Shari ritual was nearly full.

I considered pouring in my own Do-ryeok to fill the small remainder, then changed my mind.

"Fey."

Her voice was the voice of the dying. Even so, I made my request.

"A simple contract. Carry my voice to the western shore."

"And so you won't do it?"

Tsk. She was going to do it all along. She'd just have to keep me waiting a little longer.

With Fey's power, I shaped water into puppets and sent word to the water ghosts.

"Victims of the human sacrifice, welcome. This is Kim Do-sa. As you can see, we are currently locked in battle with the monster that devoured every last one of you."

Even without filling the shortfall with my own Do-ryeok, the arrow would be complete. But...

"We could very well destroy him ourselves, right here and now. But would that satisfy you? Wouldn't you feel cheated? No — there's no need to even ask. You'd feel cheated. You'd feel infuriated! Isn't that burning resentment the very reason you lingered in this world as water ghosts in the first place — because you could not, would not, forget it?"

So I decided to offer it to them. A chance to avenge their bitter grudges with their own hands.

"If you wish to join this vengeance, throw yourselves into the spirit-siphoning curse and be absorbed. The power drawn from you will become the arrow that kills that monster!"

It amounted to asking the once-dead to die a second time.

And yet—

Haaaaaaaah!

The water ghosts — no, the victims of the sacrifice — threw themselves into the net of spirit-siphoning without a flicker of hesitation.

The moment the curse drew up the power held within their souls, the water ghosts, robbed of the energy that sustained their existence, were forced onward to their rest. And in that same instant, their will was carried through the curse.

Shk.

"I like the audacity!"

Not the tears of pitiful, helpless victims.

The final drop of spiritual power was filled with human wrath — rage that flared when struck, fury that boiled over when beaten.

HAAAAAAAAAAH!

I nocked the completed arrow of light onto the bow and aimed it at the false Dragon King.

Perhaps from lingering so long inside his domain, or perhaps from hearing his song for so long — I could dimly sense what he wanted, what he desired.

He was a being from the Outside.

I didn't know what the Outside was like, but the important thing was this: he had hated it, and he had wanted in.

But the Inside held no concept that could define something like him. To enter, he needed to coat himself in the concepts of the Inside.

After countless trials and failures, he found the concept best suited to cloaking himself.

A mermaid.

That was why the false Dragon King had lingered here for hundreds of years.

I looked at him and asked.

"Was getting inside worth devouring hundreds, thousands of people?"

He roared back, as if that were his answer.

A resounding reply. Splendid.

But—

"Gods that eat people went out of fashion over a thousand years ago."

In that instant, both of the false Dragon King's arms began regenerating explosively.

So that was why his movements had slowed — he'd been conserving everything for this regeneration?

But his arms regrew slower than my release of the bowstring.

The snow-white arrow of light tore through the ominous domain, carving a blazing trail across the sky. The white streak split the night and bridged several kilometers in under a second, then punched straight through the center of the false Dragon King's body.

The final lyric and his final death rattle overlapped in a single moment.

Light spread from his core outward through his whole body, unmaking him. The obscene idol, built from the blood and agony of countless souls in his bid to enter the Inside, collapsed.

"Go back where you came from."

I pronounced his banishment, but he likely wouldn't even make it back to the Outside. Trapped in a crudely fabricated Inside body, he belonged to neither world — condemned to wander forever in the seam between the Inside and the Out.

Behind the crumbling domain and the disintegrating false Dragon King, the dawn of an all-too-belated morning rose.

It was the end of a night that had lasted far too long.

"...How... magnificent..."

Having watched her enemy meet his end, Kang So-hwa gazed in silence at Kim Do-sa, standing tall in the dawn light. In that moment he looked precisely like a hero — like a savior.

"Ha... haha...!"

She laughed. Wasn't it far too lavish a finale for a filthy old crone like her?

Flap.

Then, from a tear in her ruined clothing, a photograph slipped free.

"Ah...!"

Miraculously, it had survived that whole ordeal unscathed.

With her crushed right arm, Kang So-hwa tried to retrieve it. Watching a hero's back in her final moments was not a bad way to go — but if she could be greedy, she wanted to die looking upon her beloved daughter's face.

"...Is this too grand a farewell for the likes of an old wretch like me...?"

But no matter how she strained, her shattered body would not move.

Just as she was forced to give up—

"Here you are."

Kim Do-sa picked the photograph up for her.

"Thank you... Mi-ja... Mom did it... ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I avenged you... I know it's too late for you to forgive me now, but I truly loved you."

"She would have forgiven you."

"What?"

Kim Do-sa looked down at the photograph in his hand. Captured within it was the face of the water ghost woman he had put to rest during the [Psychic Society] broadcast.

"Otherwise, she wouldn't have said she loved you."

"How could you—"

"You didn't watch the [Psychic Society] livestream, did you?"

"Ha... haha!"

Kang So-hwa laughed.

She didn't understand what Kim Do-sa meant. But even without understanding, she believed him.

And so, knowing only that her daughter had forgiven her — that was enough.

Thump.

Across forty long years, she had been forgiven at last. For Kang So-hwa, that alone was enough.

"...Well now. Whatever could have made her smile so, all the way to the end..."

Her form had warped into something hideous, half human and half fish. But the face of Kang So-hwa, smiling as she spoke of her daughter's forgiveness, was — whatever anyone might say — the face of a mother, a true human being who had loved her child.