The Dragon's Shrine Maiden

In the early dawn, before the sun had risen, Tsubaki quietly stepped inside the shrine. The morning air was crisp, and a reverent hush lay over the grounds.

She wore the shrine maiden's traditional dress, a kimono of white and crimson, with the shrine's formal vestments laid neatly over it. Within, the silence seemed to thrum with a sacred presence. The old shrine still bore the marks of the years it had weathered, while off to one side trees decades old shook their green leaves, as if holding a quiet conversation with the wind.

Tsubaki sat at the ancient oracle dais, a small box of sacred bells beside her.

"O God. The shrine maiden Shiraishi Tsubaki has taken her place before You."

She spoke softly, pressing her palms together at her chest. Her voice was no mere echo ringing through the shrine. It carried a prayer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠meant to reach a being infinitely holy, and impossibly far away.

Tools of ancient bronze rested on the dais, and chief among them was an old wooden tablet. With care, Tsubaki opened the board etched with patterns. When the god gave a prophecy, the words inscribed themselves upon the wood.

She closed her eyes, stilled her heart, and offered a quiet prayer. Within, she grew perfectly calm, opening herself to the god's voice in the air of the shrine — and then, like a whisper, that voice seeped into her heart.

Tsubaki listened.

The god's prophecies were always brief, and always heavy with meaning. She still could not tell what this red dragon was. But if the god spoke of it in such terms, it had to be something of tremendous importance.

She carved the oracle's message deep into her heart and studied the picture drawn upon the wooden tablet. A vast cavern — and within it a red dragon, teeth bared, furious at something she could not name.

The god's voice, graven into the wood, was offering her a new road, and she resolved to follow it. The shrine remained as silent as it had ever been, but Tsubaki's heart was ready now to move according to the divine will. She left the shrine to prepare herself for the path that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would carry the oracle's words into the world.

"Why did I come back to the Gate?"

I turned the tangle in my head over and over, and still no clear answer came. I couldn't make sense of it at all. If I had returned to a Gate, I ought to have ended up back in Hyeonmu's cavern — so why was I here, in my own Gate, so far from that place?

Had forcing the Gate to twist thrown something out of joint and flung me back? Or had I, the boss of the Gate, stepped outside before a Gate Break and triggered some error in the System? Too many reasons crowded in at once. I couldn't settle on a single one.

Irritation surged, and before I knew it I was slamming my tail against the floor again and again. The thought that I might have to smash the Gate apart and force my way out once more twisted my face of its own accord.

No. Going to see for myself would be fastest.

I stepped out of the cavern at once, and the moment I did, I couldn't hide my shock. Where a dense forest should have stood in the yard before the cavern, an enormous lake I had never seen now lay. And it was not only the lake. A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠marsh of staggering size stretched all around the water.

"What is this place...?"

What in the world was going on? The headache that had only throbbed now and then pounded all the harder.

First I would fly to the boundary of the space, measure the distance properly, then cast my mana and take a proper look at this place. I launched myself forward and rose into the air. It had not been an illusion after all. This body, unnaturally swift and strong, reached the spatial boundary in no time.

On the way, once I left the lake behind and looked down, the view was unmistakably the landscape I knew. I set what I wasn't sure of aside for later. First, the Gate.

I found it sooner than I expected — or rather, it was impossible to miss. Last time it had been only just large enough for my body to pass through. The Gate before my eyes now had widened to roughly twice that size.

I stood before it at once. Much as before, blue mana flowed through the oval pattern engraved upon it. Carefully, I reached out and pushed a hand in. I had expected a repulsive force to fling it back. The hand passed through without resistance.

"What...?"

As if to prove it was no trick, I slid my arm in up to the forearm. Why was the Gate letting me through? The terrain inside had changed without warning, and now I could step outside as I pleased. So many changes struck at once that I couldn't sort them. Then, abruptly, Hyeonmu's words flickered through my mind.

Was that it? By devouring Hyeonmu, had I become the master of his Gate? If so, the knots came undone. His Gate had merged with mine, and a marsh and a lake that had never existed had appeared. The Gate itself had grown. Was this what it meant to devour an origin — not merely the power a Gate boss possessed, but the Gate along with it?

I was clearly no ordinary boss. But why? I turned the question over, found no plausible clue, and once it began to feel like wasted effort, I rose and stepped into the Gate.

I remembered something I had heard long ago. There were only two kinds of worries worth considering. Decide whether a worry can be solved, or whether it cannot. If it can, it will be solved anyway, so there is no need to worry. If it cannot, it will never be solved, and there is still no need to worry.

Perhaps this was simply the sort of question whose answer would come with time. All I had to do was spend the present with as few regrets as I could.

Blue mana wrapped around my body, and I passed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out of the Gate.

If I was right, I would emerge in one of two places — Mount Baekdu, or the spot where I had first come out of a Gate — or else wherever my original Gate had been linked. Which was to say, I had no idea where.

But wasn't that all the more entertaining? I've always thought a journey is just as good when you don't know the destination and simply set out.

I stepped through with a thread of anticipation. What met me on the other side was dozens of armed hunters.

They were not startled in the least, as if they had been waiting for me to appear. If anything, their eyes were thick with killing intent, and they poured out the pressure of men facing a traitor they meant to tear apart on the spot.

"All units, focus! It's the dragon that wiped out Team Leader Kang In-ho and our comrades. Everyone, move according to the plan!"

The shout came from the hunter who carried the greatest mana, and in the same instant the hunters thrusting great shields forward hurled something with their free hands. Objects about the size of a human head flew toward me, burst, and spread a purple smoke.

The moment it entered my nose, I analyzed it within my body. More than ten poisons and hallucinogens were mixed together, along with a considerable amount of a substance that paralyzed the immune system. It was a weapon steeped in the will to end a life by any means necessary.

Meaningless against me, of course.

"Mana rounds on target! All personnel, check your masks! Suppression team, commence the takedown!"

Once the man confirmed the hit, lightly geared hunters rushed me through the shields as they opened in lockstep. Black liquid dripped from the daggers they held reversed in both hands. Poison as well, no doubt. The purple smoke they had fired first and the black liquid running off the blades gave off much the same smell.

Watching them charge, I felt no irritation. If anything, they looked commendable. They told no useless lies. They thrashed with nothing but the pure intent to kill me, and I liked that. So I decided to reward them.

I spread my wings wide, hauled them far back, and beat them. A shockwave burst as if a bomb made of sheer air had detonated, and a great vortex was born. A whirlwind the size of my own body blew the purple smoke away at once and sucked the charging hunters in.

"AAAAAGH...!!!"

"Ghk— aaagh, air's getting in through the gas mask...! Khk..."

"S-save me...!"

Dragged into the vortex mid-scream, they suffered a second agony from the gas churning inside it.

In a single instant, the commanding hunter saw every hunter but himself wiped out by the vortex and by the gas they themselves had fired, and his knees hit the ground.

He should never have challenged it. The unit he had scraped together from A-Rank and B-Rank hunters, under the banner of revenge for his friend, Team Leader Kang In-ho, had been annihilated before they could take that revenge at all. A mere B-Rank like him had no right even to pick a fight with an opponent such as this.

Guilt stole his breath, and nausea climbed his throat. If only he had known his place, those young hunters would not have had to die. He wanted to clamp his hands over his ears against the screams. But this was his doing. He must not look away from them, and he must not stop his ears. He had to pay for his sin.

He drew the sword at his waist. He knew he was no match. But if he stopped here, did nothing, and simply died, he would have no right to apologize to those kids even after he reached the underworld.

Faced with the death before him, his mind was calmer than it had ever been. He flooded his body with mana past the limit it was permitted to hold, until he felt he might burst, and he ran.

If I don't leave even a single scratch on those scales—!

In that instant his breath caught, and his body was lifted. A tail moving too fast to perceive had snatched him and cinched tight. He could not even scream. The force was such that he felt his body might rupture at any moment.

The red dragon raised its tail, bringing him level with its eyes, and stared at him with pupils redder than blood. The body that had been resisting, his breath, his heart — before that overwhelming terror, everything seemed to stop.

With only those words, the dragon swept a hand once and erased the enormous vortex. It caught the falling hunters in a formless force, set them gently upon the ground, and departed.

Only after he had checked that every one of them was still breathing, driven antidotes into them, and seen them sent off to the hospital was he able to let go of consciousness.

Whether it was chance or the dragon's mercy, he could not say. But no one had died.