The Mirror (2)
"Bihyung!"
It was the hour he had set aside to meet Mina on their own. When he reached the place, she was already there waiting, and she looked freshly washed—the scent of shampoo still lingered at the tip of his nose.
Did she train? Tch. If she did, her stamina's going to dip.
They were about to step into a yokai's domain. Just to be safe, he asked how she was feeling.
"I'm fine. I ran through a little training before I came."
She insisted she was perfectly fresh, bent her arm, and flexed with a sharp little hup. The bicep that popped up was almost comically cute.
"All right. If you say you're fine."
With that, Bihyung drew a panacea pill from inside his robes and held it out to her.
"Take it. It's what I told you about in the text."
Her hands trembled as she accepted it. Her eyes brimmed, as if one more breath would spill them over into tears. And sure enough—
"Bihyuuung!"
Just as she had when she'd received the training method before, she burst into tears and threw her arms tight around him.
Whoa. I've been through this once and I still can't get used to it. Do I have no resistance at all?
While Bihyung stood frozen stiff as a statue, Mina sniffled and spoke.
"I... actually, my mom is lying sick in bed."
He already knew her circumstances. Hearing them from her own mouth, though, was a first, so he listened without a word.
"The academy's support got her into a hospital, but... they say she isn't getting any better. So I was worried... hic...!"
"Thank you. Thank you so much...!"
She was forcing the words out, but there was no hiding the tremor in her voice.
...Exorcists. A line of work that looks strong at a glance. In the end, though, they're people too. They have families, acquaintances, people they have to protect. When those people fall, even an exorcist of the highest rank feels their heart shake. That's why they risk themselves to exorcise yokai—because the threat might still be coming, because they might lose everyone around them.
Bihyung said nothing. He only patted her head.
A short while later Mina sniffled and drew back.
"...Thank you. If this works out... I'll give you everything I am, Bihyung."
There was not a shred of falsehood in her eyes—only sincerity, through and through. Bihyung felt the weight of that resolve.
Thwack!
He flicked her square on the forehead.
"Ack!"
"Hey. You don't just say things like that. Give me everything? What are you even giving?"
"B-but...!"
"If you're really that grateful, join my party someday."
"...Could I even get into your party? When I'm this lacking..."
Thwack!
He flicked her again, and she clutched her forehead and crouched. Ah. He'd gone and hit the same spot twice. Anyway.
"Mina. Your talent is the real thing. So don't talk like that."
"...Okay."
"And no matter what happens, trust me. That's enough."
Bihyung smiled and held out his hand.
"If you understand, let's get going."
"......"
Mina stared blankly up at him—at that bright smile, at the hand offered to her. Her heart pounded. It isn't hammering hard enough to break, the way it did when we first met... Light, but quick. This pit-a-pat heart, and the feeling inside it—she thought she could finally name it.
I... I like him. Bihyung.
The cause was probably their first meeting: that reliable back, stepping forward to help her. The spark had been the stage where he stood up for her sake—getting angry as if it were his own affair, and in the end tearing Geum Taehyung's scheme down to the roots. And the final crest of it...
Was this smile in front of her now, without a single selfish thought in it.
Color rose in Mina's cheeks as she took his hand.
"Mm... I-I'll work hard and attend you from your side..."
Was it just his imagination that those words sounded a little like something else? Bihyung tilted his head and let it pass. Watching him, Eodugi heaved a deep sigh.
"Lord. Lord."
What?
"I ask only because I am truly worried, but you don't... actually prefer men, do you......"
You want to get thrown out of the Baekgwi?
"Eeeek...!!"
On the way to where the yokai's domain lay, Bihyung casually ignored the nonsense. Why did that thing keep trying to make him out as someone who liked men? He very clearly preferred women.
I just haven't had the presence of mind to think about it. He had to see things through to the half-yokai ending. He had to watch for the occasional sabotage that cropped up. And then there was the future—what his actions might become, what variables they might turn into. He never let it show, but his nerves were always drawn tight.
In that sense, I'm hoping this outing comes with no sabotage at all.
The domain he and Mina were heading for belonged to a mental-interference yokai. It burrowed into a person's mind, showed them the thing they wanted most, and shattered it. If their mentality shattered along with it—crash—the yokai ate them. That was the sort of domain it was.
In exchange, you get a buff to proficiency gains inside the domain. A desired form was an ideal form. The same applied to technique, so just like the library yokai before, one could rack up a massive amount of proficiency.
It isn't a threat to anyone of 2nd Rank or higher. The academy tamed it because it knew that. As one's own rank rose, the wall guarding the soul grew thicker with it. Even if the mind wavered and broke, the yokai would not devour the body.
He explained as much to Mina while they walked, and she nodded.
"I reached 2nd Rank this time too. So I should be fine."
He knew. A half-yokai's keen senses had already delivered her rank to him, whole and unmistakable.
That talent, seriously... Once again he nearly felt sorry for himself—having rolled an EX-grade half-yokai and still only barely keeping pace with her. Still, she's a future party member. Her growing stronger was, in the end, the same as him growing stronger. He was walking along, taking the generous view of it, when—
"By the way, Bihyung."
Mina suddenly tilted her head.
"If it's this easy to walk in, isn't it way too dangerous for the other cadets?"
She looked around. They had passed through dense forest, and somewhere along the way the mountain trail had become a maintained road. Far off, a building that did not belong on a mountain came into view.
"There wasn't even a no-entry sign on the way here. If it isn't dangerous for 2nd Rank... isn't it dangerous for new students?"
"Right. So normally there's a barrier over it, and you can only enter with an access permit."
But not this place. The spot where the villain was pulling his scheme. Originally it would have shown up as a side quest. Which was why no barrier had been laid over the area.
"Yeah? Then did you get an access permit?"
"......"
At Mina's question, Bihyung shut his mouth. Uneasy for no clear reason, she stared straight at him, and under that gaze he turned his head and muttered.
"Mina. Listen carefully."
"Yeah."
"Starting now, we're on a date."
"A d-date!?"
The corners of her mouth twitched and crept upward, but Bihyung didn't see it. He went on.
"We were on a date, and we happened to get caught up in this place. We just say we had no choice but to exorcise it."
Right. A cadet had happened to fall into a yokai's domain, and as it turned out, there was no barrier there. Whose fault would that be? The academy's, obviously. ...Can't be helped. We're going in to exorcise a tamed yokai. New cadets weren't yet assigned missions to exorcise yokai out in the field. But Bihyung had to kill yokai if he was going to fix his severed meridians. What else could he do? Even an academy yokai had to die.
It's good for the academy, too. They'll be able to answer the villain's scheme early. That incident produced casualties. With bad luck, a major NPC could die. Looked at that way, he was doing them a favor. ...A self-consolation with my conscience completely blown out, but what can I do. I have to survive first.
Telling himself he'd make it up to the academy somehow next time, he walked a little farther, and an abandoned building appeared. On the barricade standing at its entrance, the words were written like this.
P-please... come... in......
He could see the yokai's beckoning hand. Blatant as could be. Bihyung grinned and explained the rules of the space to Mina.
"We'll go in holding hands. That way we can start in the same place."
That place was a dream.
"Our two dreams will come out in turns and mix together. Toward whatever's most ideal."
"A d-dream?"
"Why?"
At his question Mina flushed, then quickly shook her head.
"Ah, it's nothing. Keep explaining."
He sensed something odd, but let it pass. A girl was allowed a secret or two she couldn't say aloud.
"First, inside the dream, you have to look at a mirror every so often."
"Why?"
"To check whether a change has happened to you."
If you got drunk on the pleasure of the dream and failed to notice yourself changing, there would come a moment when you had been replaced by someone else.
"If a change happens, smash the mirror immediately. That alone will be enough of a defense."
"And the second?"
"It starts when you break the mirror. Deciding the dream won't work on you, it shows you a hopeless situation."
From the sweetest moment to the most horrific. That plunge in feeling was more than enough to rattle a mind.
"If your emotions get thrown into turmoil, it'll try to wedge its way in through the gap."
Even so, Bihyung's face was full of ease.
"But the countermeasure is simple. You just have to go in as two or more."
The dreams were mixed, so the emotional drop each of them suffered would differ. Even in the same situation, one person might be fine while the other fell into despair.
"When that happens, if the one who's fine pours in spiritual power, you can snap out of it."
"So it's a yokai without a real body?"
"Yeah. It has no physical form until you yourself are trapped in the mirror and replaced."
So there was no need to worry. Saying so, Bihyung took Mina's hand and started forward.
...Hehe.
In the difference between her hand and the large one covering it, Mina felt her heart flutter all over again. What if he saw her smiling? She walked at his side for a little while, fretting over it.
And then—
"...!"
Just like what she had felt in the mindscape before, she had the sense of being watched, though she couldn't have said why.
"...Is it because of the yokai's domain?"
A bleak wind blew. An eerie air clung to the place, and her senses, already out of joint, felt ready to bolt.
...Calm down, Hwang Mina. Bihyung said so. If you're 2nd Rank, it's fine.
Trusting her own rank, Mina soothed her heart. At last the two of them set foot inside the yokai's domain.
Fog lay so thick she could not tell front from back. Within it, she watched a bright light gradually spread. Taking that light as her guide, she pushed through the fog—and startled.
"...Bihyung?"
Somewhere along the way, the Bihyung who had been holding her hand was gone.
"What."
Her expression turned grave. She snapped Shinsuseon open at once and honed her senses to a knife's edge. In that instant, an unfamiliar presence caught against them.
She whirled, then kicked off the ground and opened the distance. What came into her eyes was an object.
A mirror?
The mirror Bihyung had just told her about. In other words, the law laid over this domain.
...So even that law hasn't changed?
He had said to break it if her reflection changed. He had also said the yokai had no physical form until the switch. That part seems to be holding. Perhaps that was only natural. For the foundation itself to be overturned would mean the master of this domain had become some other being.
Even so, Mina focused and studied the mirror, in case her own image had already been switched. In that instant, the her inside the mirror lifted her head. The corners of that mouth were smiling, bewitching.
Then—
Step.
The her inside the mirror took one step forward.
"...What. How?"
The mirror shattered. The prison that had been reflecting her—that had otherwise kept her confined inside the domain. Cracks ran through it, it broke, and through the gap "she" walked out.
"Ah... so you've finally become aware of me?"
The face, the body, the voice—all of them identical. Even so, that voice reached her as something strangely, deeply seductive.
"What... are you. Did you change this space?"
"That's right. I did."
The moment Mina heard the answer, her brow tightened.
"What did you do to Bihyung!?"
Oppressive killing intent boiled through her whole body, like an enraged beast baring its teeth. But the Mina in the mirror regarded it as nothing more than a puppy showing off.
"Don't be so angry. I prepared this place because I wanted to talk with you."
"I asked. What you did."
The syllables broke off one by one. Her eyes were stretched so wide the capillaries threatened to burst red. Looking at her, the figure in the mirror laughed as if delighted, a bright ringing trill. Then, little by little, a change came over her.
"...Ears?"
Fox ears sprouted above her head, and at the small of her back two tails swayed. She resembled Mina, and she was not the same.
The moment those words landed—
Thump!
Mina's heart slammed.