The Second Rank

Dokkaebi Gamtu.

Eodugi had explained it as nothing more than turning invisible, but Bihyung, having used it himself, could not agree.

"This isn't simply the power to become invisible. It's something far higher than that... the ability to set foot in the Spiritual Realm."

The Spiritual Realm was a concept that would not appear until the latter half of even the Reader's Chronicle. Beyond the Material Realm, where people lived, lay the place where souls ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and qi remained, and that place was the Spiritual Realm. Through the power of the Gamtu, Bihyung had just set foot in it.

A place I couldn't easily reach, even in the game...

As if spellbound, he took a single step.

In that instant—

"Ghk—!"

A crushing weight bore down, and with it a pain as though his very existence were being ground to pulp. With a soft rustle the Gamtu slipped free of its own accord, and his body returned once more to the Material Realm.

"Bihyung!?"

Mina, catching sight of him, rushed over in alarm.

"Are you okay? Why did you suddenly..."

"...I'm fine. I just used my bloodline clumsily."

He let out a long breath. Once he had steadied himself, the stabbing pain receded.

"Thanks for keeping watch. It doesn't hurt, so you don't have to worry."

Even as he soothed Mina, who still looked uneasy, Bihyung turned his thoughts to the Gamtu.

...The Gamtu itself probably doesn't have an effect like this. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Is it because it rose to EX grade?

While he was still turning it over, the yokai space rippled, and the supervising professors stepped through. They looked puzzled to find Mina and Bihyung so near the entrance, but the moment they saw Mina's fan and Bihyung's spear, their eyes went wide.

"What... you already got them?"

"And the energy coming off them isn't anything low, either. Things like that, in so little time..."

Mina scratched at her cheek, embarrassed. In truth she had only moved exactly as Bihyung advised, yet she could not bring herself to say so. One did not speak carelessly of another person's bloodline.

At that moment Class A's supervising professor strode out, chest thrown forward.

"Hehehe. See that? This right here is the future of Class A, I'm telling you."

A brilliant smile glittered at the corner of his mouth. They were the ones who had obtained the weapons—so why did that man look so delighted? There was no time to puzzle it out. Wearing a mean little smirk, the Class A professor waved at the others.

"I won the bet, didn't I? I told you our students would get here first. What are you standing around for? Pay up already."

So the professors had been gambling among themselves on the students' results. What in the world was this?

That's a professor?

Perhaps reading the thought off Bihyung's face, the man scratched his head with a sheepish look.

"Ahaha! If I don't do at least this much, it's too dull to stay a professor. Our top student can understand, can't he?"

"...Understanding can wait. Could you let us out first?"

"Sure, sure. Of course I'll let you out."

With an exaggerated flourish he produced two talismans.

"Emergency escape talismans. Use one, and you'll be able to get outside."

He handed them over and added a word more.

"On average, it takes incoming students nearly two weeks to finish this exam. Regular classes start after that, so if you've got questions, grab any professor and ask. Understood?"

One might have asked why an academy was not holding class, but this was the academy's own consideration for those who finished selecting their weapons early.

We can't sit here waiting until everyone else is done, and we can't start class ahead of them either. The first-year professors can't leave, so it's impossible.

The meaning, then, was simple enough: spend the leftover time previewing the lessons, and grow familiar with the weapons just obtained.

"Professor."

Before tearing the talisman, Bihyung called to him.

"Hm? What."

"When does the committee chair finish her duty of managing the library?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I want to look inside, but they said the yokai inspection isn't finished yet, so I can't go in."

"Oh, is that so? The library's closed right now? I've been living with a wall between me and books, so I didn't even know. Ahaha."

A sigh escaped Bihyung at the sight of him saying it. Still, the professor seemed to know something of her mission.

"Two weeks at the earliest, I'd say. It's a mission raised with her barrier arts at the head of it."

At those words Bihyung made a firm resolve.

For these next two weeks, I build proficiency with the Dokkaebi Gamtu.

And then he would infiltrate the library.

...If I can't, I'm dead.

They tore the escape talismans and came out into the open. Mina must have been waiting for him; she had not gone back, and was still standing there.

"Ah, Bihyung! You're out?"

"Yeah."

"What were you talking about with the professor?"

"Ah. I've got some business at the library, but the committee chair is out on a mission, so the inspection isn't making any progress. I asked him about the mission."

"I see."

Mina nodded, then tilted her head as a question occurred to her.

"But there are professors, aren't there? Why doesn't the inspection move forward just because the library committee chair is gone?"

"The library holds countless forbidden books, and some of them are kept under barriers the committee chair maintains herself."

"Ah... so they can't tamper with those barriers carelessly, and that's why the inspection is stuck?"

"Right."

Barrier arts lost their potency the moment they were disturbed. Handle them wrong, and the barrier itself might come undone.

"Then couldn't the professors just manage the whole thing themselves?"

"They asked her because they can't cast barriers as fine as hers."

"Whoa... the committee chair is that amazing?"

She was. In barrier arts alone, she was someone whose skill surpassed the professors'.

Which is why the academy currently leaves her with full authority over the forbidden books.

From where Bihyung stood, it looked a great deal like the academy dumping its own work onto her. If the professors had done the job themselves, would there have been any need to wait on the chair?

Forbidden books. What's the big deal.

They were only books with a few yokai sealed inside, books that ate you if you read them. But what could he do? This was reality.

Bihyung said his goodbyes to Mina and returned to the dormitory. There he opened one of the doors at once and stepped inside.

The training ground. A place where one could run mock spars against wooden dummies, surrounded by every sort of weight machine. In that space, Bihyung tried the Gamtu again.

Blue flame flared and gathered into horns. Between them, his sight had already entered the Spiritual Realm, and he beheld the shapes of souls.

Spiritual energy existed in all things of the world—in yokai, in mindless nature, and in people as well. That was why the landscape before him was translucent. He was looking through matter itself, in order to see the souls dwelling inside it.

The Spiritual Realm. Moving here isn't the movement of matter.

It felt like the movement of energy, or of the soul.

Energy and souls are elements that make up this world. Therefore, no one can sense me moving inside the Spiritual Realm.

Not unless they possessed a special eye, or some sense to match it.

Even so.

Master this to any real degree, and it would be tremendous. He could strike from a space his opponent could not see. He could sever an opponent's energy and soul, and land the blow upon them.

I don't hope for that much yet. Just enough to get into the library.

When he had pestered a librarian into checking before, he had learned there were security sensors guarding the place.

About eight steps before I trip a sensor and the alarm goes off.

The time he had left was a mere two weeks. Within it, he had to walk eight steps through the Spiritual Realm.

"Eodugi."

He took off the Gamtu and called. His shadow stretched long and thin, and out of it Eodugi surged up—though the shape of him was a little different from before.

"What? Weren't you huge a moment ago?"

A shadow easily twice Bihyung's height, with a massive build. That had been Eodugi. What stood before him now was... how to put it.

"A ball of fur?"

A small, dainty black puff of fur, no bigger than a palm, with big bright eyes fixed on him from within.

"Don't tell me you're one of those. The cliché where you get weaker the moment you're on the same team?"

"Whatever might that be, Eldest!?"

The fur ball rolled sideways with a tumble. He was probably trying to tilt his head.

"The form from before was an illusion, it was! This is the shape I have at last, now that my tier has risen, it is!"

"Your tier rose?"

"Did the Eldest not bestow a name upon me!? Thanks to that, my tier has risen, it has!"

Eodugi was so delighted he bounced and bounced. Fur went flying everywhere; Bihyung rather wished he would stop. Still, telling someone that happy to quit felt wrong, so he congratulated him on the growth all the same.

"More importantly, I want to build proficiency with the Gamtu. You wouldn't happen to know a way?"

"The Gamtu, you say!?"

"Yeah. You said you'd only heard of it... but you've lived as a dokkaebi longer than I have."

"Hmm... mastering the Gamtu... of that I am not certain, but I do know how yokai grow their arts, I do!"

"Really? How?"

"By understanding their essence, they do!"

"Essence?"

"A yokai's history, the blood flowing through one's body, the footsteps of the ancestors! All of it comes down woven together as story, it does. In the end, all of that becomes the power of the descendants, so merely grasping one's own essence is enough to grow, it is!"

Wait. Wasn't that exactly a bloodline?

...Yokai have bloodlines too. Even I have two right now—the Bet, and the Gamtu.

And that was not the end of it. In the selection menu, setting the Gamtu aside, there had been three entries more.

Which means... I might be able to manifest bloodlines through this?

An astonishing fact. This was a method of training that even Bihyung, a hardened veteran, had never known.

In the game, too, there were cases where a latent bloodline awakened after repeated training.

The odds of it manifesting had been miserably low.

But what if that training itself had been wrong?

What if one took hold of the thread through the stories of ancestors past, and strove to bring it forth?

Wouldn't the odds rise to something abnormal?

A chill ran through him. Goosebumps rose.

...Unless I absolutely have to, I am not telling the exorcists about this.

Right. No need to raise the strength of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠people who could kill him.

In any case, Bihyung told Eodugi what he knew of dokkaebi. Beings who sometimes brought calamity and, according to their mood, bestowed good fortune. A race that lived alongside humans, went wild for wagers, and was mad for ssireum, the old art of wrestling. Eodugi nodded along to most of it. But one point he would not let pass.

"The part about ssireum is a little wrong, it is!"

"Wrong? Where?"

"The ssireum of dokkaebi is not real ssireum, it is not! It was merely the only way they had to play with humans, that is all!"

And even then, they had offered a handicap—severing one of their own legs—for the sake of a human's frail body.

"What dokkaebi lose their minds over is struggle, it is! To a dokkaebi, a fight is no different from play, you see!"

The moment Bihyung heard it, he felt his heart begin to pound. A smile tugged at his mouth, impossible to hide. Seeing his face, Eodugi spoke with deep satisfaction.

"The Eldest is a dokkaebi through and through, it seems! You look delighted, you do!"

Delighted? Him?

When he touched the corner of his mouth without thinking, he found it lifted far higher than usual. Was this the nature of a yokai? Or his own? Whichever it was, he could not deny what Eodugi had said.

"...Anyway. Do you know how to do that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠struggle?"

"A little of the simple grappling arts, I do!"

"Teach me."

"It would be my honor, it would!"

Eodugi, who had been bouncing, put a little distance between them and addressed him.

"Eldest. Do try stepping on me!"

"Huh?"

The little ball of fur was telling him to step on it. A thing about the size of a kitten, at that.

If I step on him and he pops, that'll be a disaster.

As if he had read the worry, Eodugi declared with perfect confidence,

"If you refrain from using yokai power, it will be quite all right, it will!"

He was that sure of himself. Bihyung set his hesitation aside and extended a leg toward him at once.

Something soft gave under his sole for a single instant, and—

"...Huh?"

The next moment, Bihyung's back was meeting the floor. He shot upright.

"How did you do that?"

"I let it flow past with grappling, I did!"

"With a body that small?"

"In the play of dokkaebi, size does not matter, it does not!"

The fur ball proudly stuck out what appeared to be its belly.

"Dokkaebi call this Roots, they do! The most basic technique of play—no. A concept, it is!"

Roots. Having been given the concept, Bihyung sank into thought.

I have to make this mine.

For a dokkaebi, it was fundamental. He played that fleeting instant over and over—the step, the fall, and the gap between them, examined again and again. His focus sharpened. No fight had even begun, and yet every current seemed to slow, as if time itself were dragging. The only thing clear amid it was the working of his mind.

I stepped on him, but no impact reached Eodugi's body. No. Beyond that, there wasn't even a tremor.

Why? He found the answer in a tree.

He called it Roots.

Just as an old tree sends its roots down deep, roots of yokai power had extended beneath Eodugi's body. That was what scattered every impact, and let Bihyung's own force drain away.

That's it.

Then he could do it too, couldn't he? The thought struck him all at once, and the yokai power reaching out from his lower body took root.

"Oooh!"

Eodugi bounced at the sight of him.

"Magnificent, it is! Truly magnificent, you are! To grasp the feel of Roots after hearing it but once!?"

Bihyung did not hear him. In the gap of no-self, he contemplated only Roots, and how they might be used.

I send roots down through the soles of my feet. Then I could add force to a stomping step, couldn't I?

He would test it. He moved at once. A heavy thud rolled through the floor as Roots joined his stomp and drew up the strength of the ground itself. In that state he drove out a straight punch, and the air was shoved aside with a sharp, violent crack.

Bihyung stared blankly at his own fist.

"...Does this make any sense?"

To put it simply, it did. A chime rang.

System windows, lining up one after another, from nothing more than learning Eodugi's technique. And above all—

Little by little, he was getting the feel of it.

Good. At this rate, I'll make the deadline...

In that moment a single message rose to cover his eyes.