Burdensome Goodwill
"Good work, everyone. That said, it looks like you have quite a bit more equipment than personnel..."
The people who appeared to be workers gave off an aura of ki, making them seem like Awakened at first glance, but those people knew nothing. Instead, I turned to the ordinary civilian among them—the camera director.
"Nice to meet you! My name is Lee Jong-seo, and I'll be handling today's shoot. I'm working as a camera director, but I also specialize in psychic footage."
"...Psychic footage?"
What we were about to do wasn't exactly psychic footage... though in a sense, it actually was.
"I'm Ha Dowol. I'll be in your care. By any chance, have you prepared any countermeasures against mana noise..."
"Hahaha, no need to worry. I've made thorough preparations."
Lee Jong-seo answered with confidence, patting his camera. But that wasn't the answer that matched the question I had asked.
"I was asking about measures for people, not equipment. Mr. Lee Jong-seo, have you prepared any mana noise countermeasures for yourself?"
"...Ah."
There was no answer. Still, the fact that he had at least equipped his gear against mana noise showed some degree of preparedness, so the filming itself shouldn't have any major problems.
I pressed a single talisman onto Lee Jong-seo's forearm and walked out across Baengnokdam to begin the work in earnest.
"Eh? Whoa! Is that a spell too?"
"No. If we're being precise, it's more of a trick. I learned it from someone I know, so I'm still clumsy at it. There will be individual differences, but anyone should be able to manage it."
In truth, I could have ridden a metal plate like a boat, but since I was still inexperienced, I chose this method both to practice and to kill two birds with one stone.
With every step came a splashing sound as my foot sank halfway into the water. Separate from the ripples, bubbles slowly rose from the surface like water just before it boils. Yet this too was practice—training. It had become part of my life, part of my very existence, so I was both unfamiliar and intimately familiar with it.
The metal plate with the talisman attached followed obediently behind me. Every time I saw things like this, I found myself weighing how convenient it was against how it diminished basic physical ability, never quite sure if it was a loss or a gain.
Before long I had reached the center of Baengnokdam, so I let out a quiet sigh of self-pity.
Because I possessed the Yin-Cold Body, this task would be completed, and it would be a benefit to me. Only to me.
My poor Dohwa. Seeing her suffer from an illness she should never have caught because of her worthless, idiotic older brother made my bones feel as if they were boiling, melting, and seeping into my muscles.
But at this moment, such thoughts were merely idle musings. In sorcery, emotion served as excellent fuel and a catalyst, but idle thoughts were nothing more than idle thoughts. Only by walking the tightrope between composure and emotion could a proper spell be completed.
...That wasn't my own philosophy, but a line from the game's illustration collection and setting book.
I sat cross-legged on the metal plate floating in the middle of Baengnokdam and took a deep breath. Following the instructions in the setting book, I carefully guided the ki residing in my lower dantian, connecting it to the middle dantian and then to the upper dantian.
I knew how dangerous this was. It was only the width of a single thread, yet I understood the risk. But that was the concern of a novice. In this body, the pathways between the three dantians had already been open.
And it seemed I possessed a talent for such things, which was why it had come so readily. To be honest, it wasn't all that different from psyching myself up to take a sword strike... but I had to do it.
"The distant child born from the womb of the dark heavens"
"wishes to meet the highest, farthest, closest, and lowest mother."
⟨ CALLING THE ABYSS ⟩
-Thump.
"Khuhup!"
My heart sank. A colossal presence rode the ki rising from my upper dantian. It was as if a plug had been jammed into an outlet called "me," sending an intense wave of ki tearing through my upper dantian only to be barely halted at the middle one.
The price was violent. I barely kept my eyes from bulging out of their sockets, but bloody tears still leaked free. The same happened with my nose—blood sprayed when I coughed.
It wasn't the price of a transaction. Simply making the connection had delivered this much shock to my body. My already cold form grew so frigid that sensation began to vanish entirely.
"Oh! Oooooh!"
And over there, Lee Jong-seo was making a commotion as he worked the camera. That was understandable. The midday sky was darkening with Baengnokdam at its center, and the lake itself was freezing solid.
Separate from that, Yu Seong and the workers had frozen in place. Some had fallen to their knees, covering their ears, faces pressed to the ground as they trembled.
...The only one enjoying this situation was Lee Jong-seo, who had fulfilled his long-cherished wish of capturing the true form of a spiritual entity—not a physical monster—with both his own eyes and his camera.
Darkness lifted its head between the light. It had not been driven out by the light; rather, because a place had been yielded, it heard my call from within all things and came.
⟨ PRAYER OF DARKNESS ⟩
"Please, grant me a small inspiration."
Darkness and cold invaded through my elbows, down my forearms, and all the way to my fingertips. My arm was dyed black, as though being filled with ink. But this was what I desired.
At the tips of those dark hands, ki resembling all creation began to play and dance. Having my body moved by another was an unpleasant experience, yet right now every part of this process was being perceived by me, flowing into me.
-Creeeak, creeeeak!
The thread that had compressed ki to its utmost limit ravaged the metal plate, beginning to draw the most basic Bagua of the formation.
I had to memorize it. With no teacher and no prospect of finding one, I had been forced to learn it secondhand through this very performance.
Sensation in my arm had grown faint, yet at the same time I could feel everything. And I understood—the fundamentals of formations.
"Khup, ptooey!"
In exchange, I vomited a mouthful of blood, but where it fell there was only the completed formation upon the metal plate. Along with the feeling of a small, cherishing kiss brushing past, the darkness lifted, and Yu Seong came running across the now-frozen surface of Baengnokdam.
"Masteeeeer!!!"
That kid. Seeing him sprint over even though it had only been a brief moment, he showed promise. Although he was shedding tears and snot, it was still within acceptable bounds.
"I'm not dying. I'm not dying."
"...But blood is flowing from every hole in your face!? And your body is freezing cold!"
"...I'll explain later."
I stood, steadying my trembling legs. Yu Seong tried to support me, but I was already upright.
"A-amazing! When I first heard about it I was half skeptical, but I never imagined it actually existed!!!"
Lee Jong-seo, leaning on a staff-like piece of filming equipment, approached while shouting with joy. I wondered if he was truly an ordinary person. More to the point—how was he still standing?
"Are you all right? How?"
Although we were quite far from the source, I hadn't expected a regular person equipped with protective talismans to remain conscious.
...When I lowered my gaze slightly, I noticed the color of his pants had darkened considerably. Still, since he seemed so delighted, I decided to let it be.
"If I place this right here... it's complete."
I set the inner dan of the Scaly-foot Gastropod at the exact center of the formation. Water began to surge forth with terrifying force.
"Master, what exactly was that?"
That curious kid, Yu Seong. The moment he sensed I was recovering, he began asking about the earlier phenomenon. This time, however, his expression was one of worry.
"A god."
"Aha... it was a... g-god...?"
Yu Seong's pupils trembled. Yes, that was the normal reaction. If he hadn't been separated from Lee Jong-seo due to their contract, he would have charged at this topic like a pervert.
"Not the Yahweh from the Bible. You know those polytheistic gods from the game."
If the real Yahweh descended, saved the world, and cured Dohwa, I would kneel and pray without hesitation.
...Though if it followed Old Testament standards and only saved the Jews, that would be another matter entirely.
"......Even beings like that crossed over?"
"Yes. But they don't come directly to this land. As the game setting dictates, direct descent would destroy the world."
I gathered ki at the tip of my index finger and drew on the ground—an image of the Earth beside several ill-tempered demon heads.
"Think about it. Where do magic and sorcery come from? From them. Simple things can be mimicked using the lingering echoes left in the body, but stronger effects still require proper know-how."
"So you made a deal with it?"
Yu Seong's eyes sank into calm stillness. It was the face of a disciple who had glimpsed his master's dark side... or rather, exactly that.
"Youkai and those entities are different."
"But! Because of them, we—!"
"From the beginning, it wasn't a transaction. That being came to me."
It takes interest in conspicuous existences. Like discovering a trail of ants and spitting out the candy it was eating to share with them. Yet the carelessly tossed candy would crush several ants beneath it, and even before noticing the ants, it had already stepped on and killed countless others.
"What did you feel from it?"
"Fear. Vastness. And cold."
"I felt goodwill. It was like a dog happily retrieving the ball I had thrown without much thought. ...Well, what it brought back wasn't a ball but a bomb-like terror right on the verge of exploding. To say it again, there is no deal between us. I simply call upon it, and it finds my response endearing and gives me what I want."
Yu Seong lowered his head. He already understood that complaining to me wouldn't solve anything. Or perhaps he no longer held any expectations of me. I couldn't tell which.
That was only natural. We were all still first-month beginners. No matter the differences in talent or circumstances, our starting lines had been the same.
And so, a disappointing experience formed between us far sooner than expected.