The Library (1)

While Bihyung was awakening to the essence of the dokkaebi, Mina was deep in training of her own, and going at it hard.

"Hoo. This is harder than it looks."

The Spirit Fan.

She was trying to learn the fan Bihyung had given her. Between rests she spent her energy on it whenever she could, and the thing refused to come easily to her hand.

"It's simple enough to swing for an attack. Try to use it for anything else, and it just won't cooperate."

Of course it wouldn't. To lay a buff on someone, that energy had to be made to settle into the target's very flesh.

...I want to be of help to Bihyung.

The thought had barely formed when she remembered how he had looked inside the anomaly's domain. Broad shoulders, and that height. A heavy weapon that looked weighty at a glance, slung across his back, and not a flicker of strain on his face. If that was the outside of him, then how extraordinary must the body underneath be?

She swallowed before she realized she was doing it. His body rose in her mind all on its own.

And in that instant—

Wind born from the fan lingered at her fingertips, then settled inside her. She felt the art take up residence in her flesh, its effect shifting with the attribute she had poured into it.

"Ah!"

But Mina couldn't even be honestly glad of it.

"Haa... Why? Why does this work the moment I start thinking about Bihyung's body..."

Wasn't this a little too indecent of her? The thought came unbidden.

"Ugh... That's enough for today."

Waving a hand to cool her thoroughly flushed face, she showered and stepped out. Her reflection met her in the large mirror set in the bathroom: a firm line without an ounce to spare, slender shoulders, and, set against them, a figure that was frankly glamorous. The face in the glass, though, was anything but bright.

"...Why is time moving so slowly?"

It had been a week since weapon selection ended. Ordinarily, they said, real classes didn't begin until about two weeks had passed.

...I won't even get to see Bihyung before then.

The thought slipped out on its own. Mina startled at herself and flapped her arms.

"Hiek!?"

Why am I actually like this!?

Think of Bihyung, and her heart started pounding. Her blood ran faster. Stand beside him and she was sure the nerves would have her breaking into a cold sweat. Never once in her life had she been like this.

"...Was I always this easy?"

She wasn't, was she? At the orientation, Geum Taehyung's little scheme hadn't moved her, and neither had the other boys when they made their approaches.

"Augh... I'm losing my mind."

Mina left the bathroom and threw herself onto her bed. She buried her face in the pillow and kicked her legs for a good long while before finally lifting her head to look at her phone.

"I wonder if any of them have made it through."

A full week had passed. She wanted to know how many people had cleared it. With that in mind, she opened Everytime — and there it was.

"Wh-what!?"

Her eyes went perfectly round. Her finger, entirely separate from the rest of her, had already tapped it.

"Wh-what is this?"

Upperclassmen from the other years must have seen her and Bihyung and started all of it. And the worst part was that she didn't exactly hate it.

...Augh.

Her heart thumped, loud and quick.

...Should I ask him to meet?

For nearly a week, Bihyung had focused on nothing but mastering the Gamtu.

Dokkaebi Gamtu.

His blood heated until it scorched. The instant he drew out the Gamtu's power swimming through that blood, the world before his eyes changed.

The Spiritual Realm. He walked a place where, not long ago, even a single step had been nearly impossible. One step. Two. With every footfall a sensation swept over him, as if his very existence were being crushed out of shape. He endured it. Three steps, then four.

The moment he passed six—

Ghk...

The feeling left his hand. He looked down, and everything below his shoulders was turning translucent, blending into the scenery as if it meant to become part of it. A penalty. The price of setting foot in a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠realm he was not yet meant to reach. Attaining the 2nd Rank had made his body far more capable, but the Spiritual Realm was a domain even most high-rank exorcists could not enter. To face the essence of the world, Bihyung was still nowhere near ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough.

Even so, he took another step. He had already confirmed that shoulders turned translucent in training would recover if he rested. So he would focus on nothing but surpassing the limit.

Inward Rooting.

Not sinking his roots outward, but winding them inward, through his own flesh — so his form would stop disappearing, and so he could endure the pressure grinding his existence flat. Seven steps. Then eight.

"Aaah—!!"

At last, he reached the point he had been aiming for.

"My lord! You've done it, haven't you!?"

The moment he dismissed the Gamtu and stepped back out, Eodugi bounced with pure delight. Bihyung, soaked through with sweat, dropped where he stood. Even so, a smile he couldn't hide tugged at his mouth.

"Yeah. I did it."

That was it. He had finally met the conditions for slipping into the library.

"Now I just have to get that cultivation method."

"But, my lord — what in the world is that cultivation method, that you should expect so very much of it!?"

Eodugi simply could not understand. How was one mere cultivation method supposed to suppress the nature of a yokai? And his lord's caliber stood higher than that of any yokai he had ever seen.

Bihyung smiled at the guileless question.

"The one I'm after is special."

It could be obtained from the early game, and it stayed useful all the way to the ending. The reason was simple. It was a growth-type cultivation method.

"And no ordinary growth-type, either."

"......?"

"It's a cultivation method that lets me choose, myself, the ability I want."

"...Pardon? Is such a thing even possible, my lord!?"

Eodugi's eyes flew wide.

"My knowledge of exorcists may be short, but I know full well a cultivation method does no such thing, I do!"

"Right. That's the limit of an ordinary one."

But the cultivation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠method he would obtain this time was made through an anomaly.

"The anomaly that lives in the library is a rather special breed."

The library at Yeongwol gathered forbidden books from every corner of the country, and from the rest of the world besides. And every single one of those forbidden books was an anomaly.

"The library's anomaly is an aggregate of those anomalies. The sort of thing that kidnaps people into the contents of a book."

"Th-then isn't that dangerous, my lord!?"

"It's fine. So long as I don't touch the library anomaly as a whole."

A collection, in the end, only meant that things had gathered in one place. Turn the idea inside out, and it meant he could pick out only what he wanted and compose the contents of a book himself.

The first one to exploit this was a genuine eccentric.

No interest in seeing the ending. All his joy lay in exploring the Academy Library, and in discovering the anomaly inside it. After hundreds of playthroughs, that old veteran had posted that he'd found a single hidden piece.

With nothing but that hidden piece, even a raw newbie could reach the edge of the ending.

Before then, a newbie had only to reach the midgame to earn the veterans' head-pats and a you've got talent, keep going. Set beside that, it was a genuinely monumental discovery.

...Come to think of it, Mina didn't really have a cultivation method either, did she?

He'd been thinking ahead to the method he would obtain when she came to mind. A future party member (?), so it would be better to look after her. There was no cap on how many could enter, and no limit on how many could obtain it. Better, then, to go together.

Turning the thought over, he picked up his phone — and found the screen flashing with light.

"Look at that timing."

Didn't they say even a tiger comes when you speak of it? The old sayings never got it wrong.

And the call ended.

"Mm. That ought to bump my future party member's strength up again."

While Bihyung nodded, thoroughly satisfied, Eodugi gazed at him in a blank sort of way, then blurted it out without thinking.

"My lord has no interest in women, does he not!?"

"What?"

What is this kid even saying.

Time passed, and the weekend came.

Bihyung left the dorm at the hour he'd set with Mina.

"Moon's up."

Of course it was. The time they'd agreed on was eleven at night. When he had first named the hour, Mina had made a strange little hieek...! — but they had managed to fix the meeting all the same.

"Ah, Bihyung!"

He'd been walking with his eyes on his phone. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠When he looked up, Mina was standing in the park set apart within the Academy grounds.

...But why does her outfit look like she went to war over it?

"...Bihyung?"

Mina, for her part, tilted her head at his clothes. Why a tracksuit?

"Mina?"

"Um... Bihyung? What exactly are we doing, from here?"

Only then did she read the situation. Ah. So it hadn't been him asking her out.

Watching her shoulders sink in a strangely deflated way, Bihyung realized she had misunderstood him.

She thought we were going out to have fun. But if you were going out, didn't you usually meet in the morning? Not at night?

Either way. I owe her an apology.

This had happened because he hadn't explained things properly. Bihyung scratched his head and offered it.

"Sorry. I didn't explain it right."

"N-no! I'm fine."

"Next time, let's actually go out. I'll do whatever you want then."

At that, Mina's face flushed a deep red.

Is she that angry?

Still — once she hears what we're getting today, she won't be able to keep a face like that.

As if laying down a trump card, Bihyung explained what they would be doing, and the reward waiting at the end of it. As expected, Mina's eyes flew wide in shock.

"...There's something like that inside the Academy?"

"Yeah. Want to go change into something comfortable? We'll have to enter an anomaly's domain."

"Got it."

Mina scurried back to the dorm and returned in easy casual clothes. Only then did Bihyung set off with her toward the library.

"But sneaking into the library — isn't that grounds for disciplinary action?"

"......"

"Bihyung?"

Hear it, and pretend I didn't. No. I simply didn't hear it. Easier on the conscience that way.

If we aren't caught, that's the end of it.

Making her an accomplice did prick at him a little, now that he thought about it. Still. If they weren't caught, it was fine. Hadn't he practiced the Dokkaebi Gamtu so hard for this very day?

The Gamtu's power extends to anyone I'm in contact with.

He'd learned that from Eodugi while practicing. Bihyung strode on as if he had every right to be there, and Mina followed behind.

Before long, the two of them reached the library's edge.

"It starts here."

"...You're going to use that bloodline realm you showed me last time?"

"Yeah. So, excuse me for a second."

Bihyung caught her beneath the shoulders and behind the knees and lifted. The princess carry happened in an instant, and Mina's panic was plain on her face.

"B-Bihyung?"

"We'll be there in a moment. Just bear with me."

With that, he donned the Gamtu.

Blue flame gathered into small horns, and his body was led into a translucent spiritual world. Bihyung walked. One step. Two. He pressed on by will alone, and at last came the seventh. He managed, at least, to set a foot across the library's threshold.

Good. Just one more step...

In that moment, something foreign entered his eyes — something he had never been able to see before, now that he stood in the Spiritual Realm.

...Wait. That looks like a spell.

Sensors stood watch around the library, and inside them there was spellcraft.

...They disguised it as machinery, but I can see it. The shape of a jangseung — a village guardian totem. The Great General Under Heaven.

Where a Great General Under Heaven stood, a Female General Beneath the Earth was never far. There would be a paired spell.

Where.

Glaring into the translucent spiritual world, Bihyung searched his surroundings, and at last he saw where the Female General Beneath the Earth was. Inside the library.

Damn!

The eight steps he had calculated were the margin for slipping past the sensors and getting into the library. No further. Go on like this, and the Female General would notice him.

What do I do?

A thread of cold sweat was running down his cheek when—

"Bihyung."

Mina, watching him, gently wiped the sweat away with her sleeve.

"I'll help too."

Then she drew the fan from her clothes and gave it a soft wave.

A bell chimed, and in the same moment wind settled into Bihyung's body. The energy of Wood stroked his exhausted flesh, gentle as a hand. For an instant, the fatigue of the Spiritual Realm's pressure seemed to lessen.

Like this, I can take three more steps. But that's the limit.

He had barely judged it so when the bell chimed again, and the energy of Fire seeped into his flesh.

Flame took the Wood energy occupying his body as kindling and climbed. It grew, and it gifted his flesh an explosive propulsion.

His foot came down with a crack. Bihyung's next step leapt farther than any step before it. One. Two. Three. As if he were jumping for distance, his body not only made it inside the library — it cleared the Female General's entire range of detection.

He hit the floor with a thud the moment he released the Gamtu, toppling backward. Even so, Mina held him tight against her, so he wouldn't be hurt.

...Bringing Mina was a stroke of genius!

A laugh escaped him before he knew it. He had finally set foot in the library.

One single step from the hidden piece!

Just you wait. Here I come!