Chapter 61
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 61
Chapter Title: Library Committee Chair (6)
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Four months had passed.
Originally, the day when the committee chair, Eun-ha, was supposed to be kidnapped was drawing near.
"Today is a full moon, huh."
The brilliantly risen full moon was utterly serene.
Impossible to even imagine that anything might happen.
Nevertheless,
Bi-hyeong's face was rigidly tense.
"Today."
That foreign magic teacher had announced that tonight, at midnight, new lessons would begin.
He'd said that the narrower field of vision at night meant less reliance on hearing in the quiet.
And so, they could advance to the next stage of tactile and qi-sensing training.
What utter nonsense.
"If he's accumulated that much qi and made them feel it, even a clueless child should be able to sense yin qi to some degree."
Right now,
in Eun-yu's body, Bi-hyeong could feel the chilling yin qi flowing through the surroundings right on his skin.
Yet despite that—or precisely because of it—Bi-hyeong stood silently before the door, steadying his breath without a word.
The young committee chair standing beside him fidgeted with her fingers before grabbing his hand with a slap!
"If you're s-scared, just tell this big sis anytime!"
The two of them had often wandered the night garden together,
but this was their first time answering a summons from the adults.
Her face was filled with fear of the unfamiliar.
Yet even in that moment, she was speaking up out of worry for her little brother's safety and feelings.
She truly didn't seem like a bad person.
A faint smile tugged at Bi-hyeong's lips.
The committee chair caught sight of it and pouted, narrowing her eyes.
"What? You don't trust this sis?"
"...No. I trust you."
Now that he had some sense of her temperament,
Bi-hyeong genuinely wanted to help her.
"Someone like her would be more than reliable to entrust the future to."
So he would find a way.
As that single resolve filled Bi-hyeong's eyes, the outline of someone else began to take shape within them.
"Eun-yu. Eun-ha. Come over here."
A middle-aged man stood watching them, hands clasped behind his back.
He wore a modified hanbok that somehow incorporated Western styling.
"...The Family Head."
He knew it instinctively.
This was the Family Head, who had never once shown his face before.
"What kind of parent would leave their child so neglected?"
No, not neglected.
"Kept locked away" was more accurate.
"Like treating beasts raised in a pen."
There wasn't the slightest trace of paternal love, or even basic affection.
Could someone like that truly be called a parent?
"Even the orphanage director with no blood ties would've been warmer."
The man who had taken him in after his parents abandoned him in the modern world.
Of course, that guy hadn't exactly been a saint,
but hadn't he at least sheltered him from freezing to death in winter?
That alone earned him half a point.
At that moment, the Family Head's gaze, fixed on him, twitched.
His mood had soured, just a little.
"Whoops."
Bi-hyeong hurriedly pulled the committee chair along by the hand and arrived before the Family Head.
"Greetings, Family Head."
"G-Greetings, Family Head."
Bi-hyeong first placed both hands on his navel and bowed neatly, and the committee chair followed suit.
Only then did the Family Head's expression soften slightly.
"It seems you've at least learned basic etiquette. Good. You must never forget your manners amid the events to come."
Who are you to lecture about manners?
The words nearly rose to his throat, but he swallowed them down and forced an awkward smile.
"Yes."
"Excellent. It seems you're prepared."
The moment he said it,
"...It's coming."
Bi-hyeong sensed it instinctively.
The corridor scenery that blurred even within the household.
The single room within it that shone with light and retained a clear form.
The place where the committee chair had fainted and then awakened—
that's where they were heading.
Pew!
To prove it, a finger wind shot toward them.
The senses engraved in his mind registered it, making his body twitch, but he endured.
"Still, a bit of defense."
As he gently drew up his qi, Bi-hyeong accepted the finger wind.
His two eyes gradually succumbed to the sleep demon.
Soon enough,
"...Sigh."
"...Sigh."
The only sounds echoing intermittently in the corridor were the two's even breaths.
"It's done."
The Family Head gazed down at them impassively before flicking his finger through the air!
Float.
The committee chair and Bi-hyeong's bodies rose drifting into the air.
The Family Head gave them an indifferent glance before taking a step.
Step.
—Step.
The corridor Bi-hyeong had seen before.
And the path that existed only as a faint fragment in the committee chair's memories.
He advanced deeper into its heart.
Thud.
Upon entering the room, the Family Head immediately set the two children down on the floor.
Right before his eyes.
The foreign teacher who had instructed Bi-hyeong and the committee chair until now was smiling brightly.
"You're here. An important day."
"Indeed. Today, the 'wish' will be fulfilled."
Unlike when facing his children earlier, the Family Head now revealed clear emotion.
The foreign teacher watched him for a moment before wiping away his smile and speaking.
"'Our' wish, that is."
"Yes. My slip of the tongue. Today, our wish will be fulfilled."
Once the Family Head corrected himself, the foreigner regained his smile and turned his gaze to Bi-hyeong and the committee chair, lying collapsed.
"Eun-yu's qi was beyond expectations. At this level, she could suffice for the remaining sacrifices on her own."
"A stabilizer is needed. Use Eun-ha as a sacrifice as well."
"Haha. Truly emotionless. Well, that's why you named your daughter Eun-ha."
Suffering (慇) kept distant (遐).
Not a name fit for a child.
"You planned to use her as a sacrifice from the start."
Suffering as the life of a sacrifice—or the pain of that moment.
And keeping it distant meant ultimately offering her up and sending her far from the household, didn't it?
The foreign teacher found the impassive Family Head endlessly amusing.
But at that moment.
"They're nothing but discarded children we picked up, after all. If the two of them aid our House of Blissful Vessels, wouldn't that be them repaying the favor?"
The foreign teacher couldn't help but burst out laughing at the words from the Family Head's wife, who had appeared.
"Hahaha! What truly amusing people!"
"Enough. Let's begin the ritual."
"Understood."
As the foreign teacher spoke, he activated the pentagram drawn on the floor.
At the same moment, the surroundings transformed, just like that dim dawn room bathed in light before.
Amid it all,
"Teleporting. Space transfer magic? Known for being notoriously difficult."
Bi-hyeong had come to his senses at that very instant.
The brilliant glow faded, leaving silence in its wake.
At the same time, the surroundings were dyed in darkness, as if color itself had shifted.
Pitch black arrived in an instant.
Within it, Bi-hyeong closed his eyes and flung his senses wide open.
Rustle.
The sound of insects crawling across the floor reached him.
At the same time, the distinctive hardness of stone pressed against his cheek.
"Chilly. A cave with no light?"
As that thought crossed his mind,
"Awaken."
With those words, the Family Head's qi that had invaded his body fully dissipated.
"Umm..."
The committee chair let out a groan, struggling to clear her hazy mind.
Bi-hyeong matched her, staggering to his feet as if dizzy.
Three pairs of eyes stared down at them intently—even in the pitch-black cave, they stood out with unnatural clarity.
"Eun-yu."
At the sound of the Family Head calling his name, he swallowed dryly without thinking.
"...Yes."
"Have you heard what happens today?"
It had arrived.
"I've endured until now to gauge what would happen on this day."
Bi-hyeong steadied his mind and put on the face of an innocent child.
"I heard it's a lesson... but where is this place?"
After glancing around briefly while yielding to Eun-yu's habitual movements,
the foreign teacher spoke up with a gentle smile.
"I'm a foreigner, so I'm not sure of the exact name, but the Family Head calls it the Palace of Delight."
"The first step toward a paradise of bliss and the place to serve Them. A palace is only fitting."
The Family Head's follow-up words jolted Bi-hyeong's mind awake.
"Palace of Delight... but who are the 'Them' that even the Family Head reveres?"
Not yokai, it seemed.
A Family Head from an exorcist lineage with accomplishments wouldn't defer to a daytime yokai.
At that moment, as if answering his doubt, the Family Head continued in a voice thick with fervor.
"You will return to Their embrace. Live and savor the myriad joys of existence, become Their flesh, and bring ecstasy to all the world!"
The foreign teacher, listening to the Family Head, smiled and stroked the heads of the trembling committee chair and Bi-hyeong.
"It's complicated, right? Why does he have to speak so obscurely? Let me explain simply."
For a fleeting instant, his eyes seemed to gleam red and eerie.
"You two will become 'sacrifices.' Sacrifices to open the Demon Subduing Hall."
Demon Subduing Hall?
What the hell was that?
"Not even in the game. Which means... yokai!"
Bi-hyeong's eyes flashed.
"Demon Subduing Hall or whatever—they sacrificed the committee chair and her sister to summon it. The result... failure? She survived, after all."
Either way, some 'incident' had occurred in the committee chair's body during the process.
"Accepting a yokai into a living human body. Rejection was inevitable."
Half-yokai were congenital.
But this was forcibly injecting yin nature into a human brimming with yang—postnatally.
"And into children, no less."
Sheer madness.
They had abandoned even the bare minimum of human decency.
"Then the curse is likely the yokai's doing. The change in presence... maybe my own suppressed the yokai?"
Either way, it was good news.
His very existence held the potential to heal the committee chair.
"I've learned enough."
Any longer, and he'd just witness the committee chair suffering as a sacrifice.
Bi-hyeong decided it was time to shatter this world.
"Lucid dream."
He called it forth.
His true self.
Ruuuumble—!
Suddenly, Bi-hyeong's body cracked and crunch-ed, twisting and transforming.
Along with it came a presence that crushed the surroundings.
"What!?"
"Has it already arrived!?"
The foreigner panicked, while the Family Head seemed filled with ecstasy.
Utterly unaware that it was the calamity about to engulf them.
"Time to end this."
The moment Bi-hyeong willed form into that presence to strike at the Library Yokai's true body—
"...Wait. Hold on."
Suddenly, with that voice,
everything stopped.