Demon Slayer (1)
Yeo Baek could not believe what Jeong Jae-ha had just said.
He flooded the cavity with lava and killed every last orc?
Even Choi Jong-hyeok, a man not easily shaken, wore a blank look.
It could have failed. The rubble might have spilled the wrong way and actually cut the inflow down, or the orcs might have fled to the last one.
She could hardly accept that a strategy like that was possible in the real world.
Just how thick is his nerve?
The idea itself, of course, was workable. Committing to it merely because it seemed as if it might work, though, was far too dangerous. Living people are built to avoid risk. Evolution leaves them no other choice. Make a single mistake and you die without offspring, and so the only ones left are those who prefer low risk and low return to high risk and high return. That was why, in the early days of the gates, everyone who charged out on some naive heroic impulse ended up as dung for the magical beasts. In this brutal world—whether the conviction was ambition, mercy, or a sense of justice—only the transcendent S-ranks could hold to what they believed. And now that notion was being shaken, pleasantly.
The truth is, it isn't so much nerve as familiarity. Building a theory of your own and staking years of your life on it. That's what an athlete does.
Yeo Baek let herself sink, satisfied, into a pleasant sense of defeat. A promising rookie always woke a sense of responsibility in her.
This is good.
It was the sort of thing that could give a life meaning.
"……And deeper inside, I also witnessed a C-rank demon. If you'll permit it, I'd like to attempt the hunt."
Even thinking as she had been, Yeo Baek felt her breath catch hard in her throat when he said he wanted to try taking a C-rank.
"You want to catch a demon? No. You saw one?"
Her attention had scattered somewhere between Jeong Jae-ha and C-rank demon, badly enough that the question came out strange.
"Yes. The status-window ring put up a notification."
"You're D-minus. Even a D-rank demon wouldn't have been an easy fight, and if you meet a C-rank demon you die on the spot."
"Thank you for your concern. I didn't mean to overreach."
Jeong Jae-ha went on with astonishing composure.
"I had to make the report regardless. And if it's a magical beast I'll have to face someday anyway, I wanted to try taking it while the B-rank and A-rank team leaders are with us."
He had given her time enough that Yeo Baek felt she understood what lay under the words.
He was afraid they'd send only his own people in again. If it's that bastard Team Leader Choi, he'd do it without a second thought.
Seen that way, she liked Jeong Jae-ha even more.
This kid's enterprising, isn't he?
He drew a hard line between what he could do and what he could not, and within what he could, he gave everything he had. It was a virtue the finest hunters who had fought in isolated Seoul during the Ruin Era had carried. Before Team Leader Choi could get his mouth open, Yeo Baek cut in and settled it.
"If a C-rank has shown itself, then yes, it has to be put down. It might drag other demons in with it. But a C-rank isn't something you can call a test. It's a real demon."
She turned to one of the awakened team leaders who had come with them.
"Team Leader Yang. Take the rookies out of here."
"Yes."
Jeong Ho-min and the other hunters alike had the light gone from their eyes. The adrenaline that had flooded them was ebbing, and they were surely in the grip of a vicious drain.
"I—I'll stay, sir."
The beauty with wavy hair falling just below her ears shook her head.
"I want to go on the hunt with hyung-nim, sir."
"Hyung-nim?"
Yeo Baek puzzled for a moment over what the two of them were to each other, then nodded.
"Fine. Come along."
What did it matter what they were. A hunter only had to kill magical beasts well.
She was about to start toward the path that skirted the cavity.
"You said you wanted to hunt, did you?"
That was when Choi Jong-hyeok addressed Jeong Jae-ha.
Now what!
Yeo Baek wanted to shout it at the top of her lungs.
"Yes. I do."
I answered, and thought it through. This gamble had paid off even on the piste. Take the wisdom of the life you've lived and the knowledge the moment in front of you gives you, set down a working assumption, and decide by putting reason and intuition together. Do it very fast. That was my specialty.
"Hyung-nim?"
Lee Hae-il jabbed me in the side, as if to ask why I was doing this.
"You want to hunt, do you?"
Choi Jong-hyeok's thick brows twitched.
"A hunter who doesn't hunt isn't much of a hunter, is he?"
I smiled, calm, and pointed deeper into the cavity.
Show me that you are human beings with the right to survive, even if this country had never suffered a misfortune like this.
I understood perfectly what he was trying to say. Don't treat awakening as if it were something special. Call it work. That was the gist, wasn't it.
"It'll be dangerous, of course. But it won't be any safer the day after tomorrow, will it?"
I couldn't accept it. Then and now, I loved the blade. Strength and skill, wealth and honor, tension and thrill, cheers loud enough to split the ears, and the pride of doing the work I had chosen. Those were the things that kept me breathing.
"I'll be facing it soon enough either way. If I can, I'd rather face it while my senior team leaders are here."
Hunter work was not a way to make a living, and it was not some pathetic act of atonement. It was the road to seeing Chae-ha again, and a dream I had chosen anew. The blood-hot blaze of a real contest, and the cold labor of keeping that contest going—that was happiness. I was the one who enjoyed it enough to overwhelm both the gifted and the ones who only grind.
"If I can't take part, then please at least let me observe. I'll follow without getting in the way."
A-rank hunter or not, he could not take from me the way I looked at the world. If this place was the hell of the Demon Realm, then whether I became a demon or an angel, I would have to become something and grow wings before I could get out.
"If you want to, then try."
Choi Jong-hyeok smiled, stiff and cold as an ink-wash painting.
"Over there, sir!"
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The meeting did not take long. The thing was waiting for us, practically, on the far side of the cavity. A C-rank was indeed a C-rank. Four great horns wreathed in flame rose above its head like a crown, and it stood nearly four meters tall. Unlike the lean D-rank demon, it had the build of a hog packed with muscle, forearms thicker than my torso. I couldn't even begin to gauge the strength and force in that body.
"Catch it however you—"
"Even so, we can't just hand that straight to a rookie, you know?"
Choi Jong-hyeok had barely started when Yeo Baek cut him off, urgent.
"I'll take an arm and a leg off for you."
She was, in effect, offering to spoon-feed it to me. From where I stood, I was grateful.
"Didn't he say he would catch it himself? Team Leader Two."
Team Leader Choi Jong-hyeok, once again, would not leave it alone.
"Have him choose one of the two. The arm, or the leg."
But he was underestimating me far too much. An A-rank hunter has the right to do that, and still, no matter how strong you are, look down on the one across from you and the sourness of a loss is waiting.
"I'll take the leg."
If he had truly wanted to make me suffer, he should never have let me choose the leg.
"Good call."
Yeo Baek brought her power to bear at once, as if she had no intention of letting Choi Jong-hyeok torment us any further.
It was the first time I had seen telekinesis. Narrow my eyes, and a faint ripple of force, thin as thread, flowed out of her body. On a pressure that stopped the breath in my throat, that ripple stretched into a hand of impossible size.
Crack.
The C-rank beast's leg was crushed in a single instant. A psychic wave of pain rang out, and lava and flame poured down like a waterfall. Even the Amber Wyrm I had only barely managed to kill would have been nothing in front of her.
"Should I have cut it higher?"
And she was checking on me.
"Thanks to your consideration, Team Leader, this is more than enough."
I took up the estoc with a satisfied heart. Trust, and the expectation that comes with it, are welcome no matter when they arrive. The blood that had cooled while I played that calculated gamble was warming again. I had risen by the sword, a swordsman granted trust by the sword, and now that I had come through the Demon Realm gate, someone was placing that trust in me once more. The translucent blade Hunter Ji In-hwi had forged caught the gate's reddish light and shone as if it had been heated in a forge.
"I'll be rooting for you. If it looks truly dangerous, I'll step in at once, so don't get too tense."
Yeo Baek cheered me on.
"Hyung-nim, you really are completely out of your mind, sir. People have said the same about me, though."
Lee Hae-il stuck close.
Choi Jong-hyeok said nothing. Several glints passed, one after another, through those taciturn, basalt-colored eyes, and though his face made it plain he could not stand the situation, he took a single step to the side.
"……Do it well. Fail, and this place will be your grave."
He was no doubt thinking he would get to watch one reckless greenhorn die.
"Yes. Thank you for the advice."
I could see the sneer laid along the floor of his mind. That young fool is running wild with no idea how frightening the world is. One of these days he'll meet his match, smash his nose, and come to his senses. I agreed completely. Someday I might meet an opponent like that too. I just hadn't met one yet. Honestly, I didn't think I would meet one from here on, either. How could I, when I was looking forward to that day this much? I took a step toward the Flame Demon.
"Come on. Let's have some fun."
The corners of my mouth climbed all the way to my cheekbones, tingling. I tossed out a line worn smooth in my mouth and spun the estoc once for the sheer feel of it. A pleasant tension ran from the crown of my head down the length of my spine. Break the one in front of me, and prove myself to the one behind. It felt like fighting a demonstration bout against the coach, with a new team's new director looking on.
"Ha!"
That was worth a laugh. The tension cinched every muscle in my body, and I laughed out loud. The muggy heat, the killing intent like a razor drawn across the skin, the presence of the demon standing ahead of me—all of it was unbearably sharp. That tingling sense that a single mistake would kill me was what it meant to be alive.
The Flame Demon howled as it regenerated one leg. Lava and flame poured from inside the carapace and built a slender structure like a prosthetic. It could hold its balance for the moment, but it would limp.
Molten Claws anticipated.
Fwoosh.
The metallic claws seemed to lengthen, then caught fire and heated until they glowed. If the claws of the D-rank demon I had seen earlier were daggers, these were short swords. Add the strength of a body nearly four meters tall, and even a body-enhanced frame like mine could be sheared in half in a single stroke. But I had already killed a C+-rank Amber Wyrm, a thing stronger than this. Back when I was F-rank, I had set off an explosion with a Jil-o lantern and driven it to the edge of death. At D-rank, I doubted I would even need the explosion.
Lunge
Tat!
I ran as if folding the ground under me and threw myself at the Flame Demon. It dropped low and swung its right hand.
Skrrrrk.
The long metallic claws, heated red, scraped a shallow line across the basalt floor and threw sparks. They came on nearly as fast as a car.
"Be careful!"
Yeo Baek's shout rang out like a scream.
"Nice, hyung-nim!"
Lee Hae-il's was not a scream.
A blade-binding redirection. Control the blow, and turn its momentum aside.
I unfolded a variation of the technique I had used to stop the Amber Wyrm's tail. Prise de fer is meant for the moment blade meets blade, a push that redirects—but it can be adapted even against a mass far greater than my own.
Skrrrrk.
The estoc's solid edge took the molten claws of the right hand the Flame Demon had swung. I extended wrist and arm together, torqued them upward to scatter the impact, and turned my body through a side step. I converted the force of that swing straight into rotation, spun once, and slipped around its arm.
"Got you."
Just like that, I had the Flame Demon's back. The knee of its intact right leg sat almost as high as my chest. A perfect height to put a point through.
Thuk.
A recoil sharp enough to numb the wrist kicked up through the blade. This was nothing like a D-rank. A true C-rank beast—strong enough to move that fast even in a body nearing four meters. I was certain a standard-issue sword would not have bitten in at all. But the estoc Hunter Ji In-hwi had made for me punched through the heated rock carapace. Flame and lava poured out as if someone had stabbed a hole in a water balloon.
The Flame Demon lurched and pitched forward, planting both hands on the ground.
"……!"
Up ahead, I caught both of Choi Jong-hyeok's eyebrows twitching. It was an expression I had seen dozens of times over a life lived by the sword. Plenty of people had disliked my character. Not one had ever disliked my skill. Fencers, coaches, directors—many of them had looked down on me, and every one of them had ended up wearing that face. A hollow look. The look of someone who has no choice but to admit it. Seeing that same expression as a hunter made me laugh all over again. I was too fired up to hold it in.