The Library (2)
He had stepped at last into the library of his dreams.
"That was a razor-thin margin."
He wanted every last scrap of credit for this to go to Mina. This year's G.O.A.T. The one and only—the Great Mina.
"Th-that's enough already..."
Perhaps the praise embarrassed her; Mina could not quite bring herself to meet his eyes. ...A moment ago Bihyung had me flattened under him. I wasn't heavy, was I? But that was not the truth of it. Bihyung's chest... was so broad. She simply could not look at his face, too busy recalling the feel of his arms from when they had fallen.
Bihyung, knowing none of this, was busy smiling at the character of the library itself.
"Haaah. Yeah. This is the stuff."
The smell peculiar to old books. The slick smoothness of an oiled floor. And the hush born of there being no one else around. All of it was exactly the timing, and the backdrop, that Bihyung had wanted.
"Let's go, Mina."
He took the lead and walked, drawing her with him—past the space at the very entrance, and on toward the second floor, the one expanded through spellcraft.
His stride looked so assured, so familiar, that Mina followed without a word. As far as she knew, Bihyung belonged to a bloodline that made its business of gathering information.
The moment they reached the second floor, a bleak chill the entrance had never held came rolling over them.
This was the place.
Where the forbidden books lay hidden behind a barrier.
Bihyung glanced around, then drew one volume halfway free of the shelf.
So long as I don't open it all the way, the barrier won't take any damage.
Even so, the library anomaly would still activate exactly as it should. The perfect crime the veterans had uncovered.
Bihyung read the title of the book in his hand.
Sealed Forbidden Book
Disguised, on the shelf, as an ordinary xianxia novel.
On the surface, a perfectly ordinary xianxia novel. In truth, it was a forbidden book, its anomaly sealed away behind the barrier.
In the same fashion, Bihyung drew out several more.
After the xianxia comes the Daoist scripture, no question. And after that, the alchemy manual.
Thinking it over again, the one who had found this was no ordinary obsessive. The library held hundreds of books. To check every last one, and then carry the work even further than that? It was no different from a stroke of heaven's own luck, punched through odds too vast to count. Either that, or the finder had a line to the developers.
Whichever it is, I'll put it to good use.
Veterans of the world, thank you. Because you drove all that time into the ground, I get to live another day.
From here, add the books I'll need for drawing, the coloring workbooks, the great encyclopedia of anomalies, and the one where the protagonist doesn't hide his power...
And, for reasons no one could explain, a dirty comic besides.
Bihyung was just about to pull the doujin free when—
"Kyaa—mph!"
Mina nearly screamed, then clapped a hand over her own mouth and laughed, awkward.
Right. Mina was here. He had been so locked onto this that he had forgotten her for a second.
"Mina, I wasn't actually going to look at that..."
At his excuse, Mina smiled, soft and knowing, and nodded.
"It's all right. I understand."
Understand what, Mina, oh Mina. It really was a misunderstanding...
...Hah.
Bihyung let out a long sigh and dropped onto the floor where he stood. A glance at his phone told him it was still 11:55. Mina settled down beside him and turned to look at him.
"You're not doing any more?"
"Nope. All we have to do is wait."
"For what?"
"Midnight."
Twelve o'clock. Otherwise called the zenith of the Rat.
There was an old saying everyone knew: from midnight until three in the morning, ghosts were at their strongest. In this world, that ghost story was law.
"Between midnight and three. Until then, an anomaly's power grows."
The hour when human fear reached its peak. These days neon and streetlamps lit the small hours, but in the distant past that stretch of time had held nothing but darkness and silence. The dread had been branded into the blood, and it had even given rise to a steadfast faith that ghosts came out at night. That faith was the ghost story. That faith was the anomaly.
"But the opposite is true when the sun comes up. They weaken."
"They do?"
"Yeah. You'll learn it later, but most anomalies of this kind are like that."
"...But if the anomaly gets stronger, won't it be dangerous?"
Mina's face trembled, just a little. Fear of the anomaly. He had braced himself for that, to a point, but what she truly feared was something else.
What if I become a burden to Bihyung?
Bihyung already had the skill to take down an anomaly; he had proved it in the entrance test. If her own shortcomings were to catch at his ankles...
Such thoughts were still circling in Mina's head when his voice came, quiet.
"It could be dangerous."
Dangerous, no question. But—
"Remember what I said a minute ago? They grow strong at midnight, and weak at sunrise."
Know the countermeasure, and these things called anomalies were not so dangerous after all.
"Why would they go out of their way to bind themselves with a rule that they weaken at sunrise? Simple. Through that restraint, they make their own power even more solid."
And that same restraint had become a way to answer them. A thin smile slipped from the corner of Bihyung's mouth. On Mina's eyes, that warm smile was etched with perfect clarity.
"If the two of us put our strength together, we can clear it just fine. So don't worry so much."
A hidden piece, posted by a veteran. After it went public, Bihyung had cleared it dozens of times over. Unless some sudden butterfly effect reared up, there was no chance he would fail to clear it.
...The fact that I'm a half-yokai. That alone has already spawned countless variables.
He had taken first place in the entrance exam, and during the weapon selection he had met a Dokkaebi. He could not simply declare that this time, too, everything would unfold exactly as he planned.
But this time, I'm moving with even that taken into account.
For an instant, Bihyung's eyes flashed cold.
Dang—.
Dang—.
A bell rang that had no business existing in the library.
"...It's midnight."
A bleak mist began to seep through the stacks. Dang— da-da-dang— daaang—. The tolling stretched long, as if someone had seized the note and drawn it out on purpose.
Midnight had come. This was its hour. The melody rang as if the anomaly itself were making the proclamation.
And at the same moment—
Rattle. Thud!
The library's bookshelves began to move. Mina stared at him, eyes wide.
"What is this... it feels alive."
Bihyung agreed.
"It is."
The library was alive.
The library anomaly. A thing that moved only at midnight, and an aggregate of every anomaly bound inside the forbidden books. Because of that, it had no fixed shape. Through the contents of the forbidden books one drew, it wrought countless transformations. Which meant that his being a half-yokai might not even apply here.
"It's coming."
The change began.
Rustle!
The forbidden books he had drawn halfway free opened of their own accord, and letters burst from their pages to dance in a dizzy whirl through the empty air. The sight seemed to beckon: come this way.
"...Bihyung."
Somewhere along the way, he felt a small pressure settle into his hand. Mina had caught it and was squeezing tight. Bihyung soothed her without the slightest change in his expression.
"It's all right. You'll understand once we're there."
With those words, the world of the two of them turned over.
Mountains stood sheer as swords, and the clouds they had pierced scattered rain as if spitting blood. Within that downpour, Bihyung and Mina looked upon a world made new.
"This place is..."
"A xianxia world."
A world where immortals existed, and where cultivators existed in order to become them.
"It's the scenery from the novel I pulled first. More precisely, a domain the anomaly built using that novel as its motif."
And from this moment on—
"We have to find a cultivation method inside this space."
Why was a forbidden book forbidden? Because it was a book that devoured people. It bewitched them with endless pages and would not let their feet turn back. An anomaly, however, was not absolute.
"The power of an anomaly's domain isn't always to the anomaly's advantage."
It had to offer a price in kind. Just as the subway anomaly would let you leave if you stepped onto the proper station.
"To bewitch a person, it needs an object worthy of the bewitchment. So the anomaly has no choice but to make one."
And this was xianxia. A world in which immortals existed. An aggregate of forbidden books had forged a world like that.
"So what 'reward' would be enough to keep someone from ever turning their feet away from a world like this?"
"...Ah!"
"A cultivation method."
A cultivation method by which one could become an immortal. The methods obtained here guaranteed, at minimum, the 7th Rank. Learn one, and train it properly, and you could reach a rank that people would call high.
"Then what are you aiming for, Bihyung?"
At Mina's question, Bihyung smiled.
"The best of the rewards in this world. No—the best of the rewards this anomaly made."
A cultivation method that guaranteed as high as the 9th Rank, one that would rank among the finest even in the Reader's Chronicle. That was what he meant to take.
"Shall we go? Staying in one place too long is dangerous."
"...Ah. Because it's the anomaly's domain?"
"Yeah. Every cultivator in this world is an anomaly, too."
Of course, it could not have fully reproduced a xianxia world where the power inflation had gone completely mad, so the cultivators' strength would differ somewhat from the original tales. But Bihyung knew. Even cultivators like these could bring to bear a power close to that of a mid-rank exorcist.
"Run."
Bihyung and Mina broke from the great tree where they had been sheltering from the rain and ran. They crossed the fields, passed mountains with no names, and left the domain of the storm clouds behind.
"Mina. See the cave on that mountain?"
Bihyung pointed.
"We'll make that our base camp for now."
"We're not looking for the cultivation method right away?"
"We don't know how long it'll take. So we need a separate place where we can rest."
"...But if that takes a long time, what about outside?"
"It's fine. Time should flow slowly in here."
Hadn't they heard it from a staff member in the administrative office before—that time moved slowly inside an anomaly's domain?
In the last test, a whole day of mine was swapped for barely three minutes. I'll have to hope the same law holds here.
If too much time passed, Mina might grow afraid.
Her hand is shaking. I need to find it as fast as I can.
The hand clasped in his trembled in small, fine shivers. Bihyung only held it tighter. What he did not know was this.
W-we're going to live together for days? I might not even get to wash... I-I don't smell, do I?!
The reason Mina was shaking was not the anomaly.
"B-by the way, Bihyung. Is there a reason that cave is our base camp?"
Mina steered the talk elsewhere, desperate not to let him hear her heart hammering harder than usual. Bihyung nodded.
"Yeah. It's a place the cultivators can't enter."
"Why?"
"From what I heard, it's where a dragon ascended to heaven. So they can't even approach."
He had gone through it once, thinking there might be some hidden piece, and found nothing worth the name. Nothing but a hollow about the size of a baseball stadium.
"We need to use that place as a foothold and buy some time. Even setting our real goal aside, if we want the extra gains."
"Extra gains?"
"There's something like that."
He did not tell her outright. And for good reason. If he did, Mina's fear would only grow. Even without a proper explanation, Mina nodded, firm, as if she trusted him anyway. And so the two of them started toward the cave.
They passed the foot of the mountain and reached somewhere around the mid-slope. In that instant, it happened.
Kuurung!
The sound of lightning lashing down rolled from the sky. They had already left the storm clouds behind, so the peal was fiercely artificial.
"...Bihyung?"
Before her question could finish, Bihyung hauled her up onto his shoulder and set his feet moving at once.
"It's the cultivators."
"You said they couldn't come around here!"
"The plan just broke!"
Why was this damned butterfly effect acting up again?
What is it this time?!
Bihyung drove his feet as hard as he could and turned an ear toward what lay behind them. A half-yokai's keen senses caught the voices cleanly, though they came through like noise.
"Demonic yokai sighted! Do not let it escape!"
"Aye!"
That was what the band of cultivators had said.
Oh, come on. Half-yokai, you again?!
Ever since he had become a half-yokai, he seemed to have turned into a living butterfly effect. Was he the butterfly, or was the butterfly him? There was no need for a separate dream of being one.
Damn it!
He ground his teeth and kicked off the earth.
Still, it's fine. I already planned for a situation like this.
Get into the cave like this and buy time. After that, hunt the cultivators.
They wear human shapes, but they're anomalies. Take them down, and it'll raise technique proficiency and touch my own rank besides.
That was the true shape of the extra gain he had not told Mina about.
Every last one of you is dead!
Kureung!
In that instant he barely twisted clear of the lightning hurled his way.
...No. Not right now. In a little while. Did they not know it was an iron rule to wait while someone was transforming?