The Third
Cliché though it was, a familiar ceiling hung over him.
Or was it a little off?
It's the dorms, sure… but it doesn't feel like my room.
A faintly sweet scent hung thick in the air. No—this wasn't his room.
Hm?
He turned his head. Beside the bed lay Mina, asleep with an arm folded under her head.
…Don't tell him this was Mina's dorm room.
Yeah. Not a place I ought to linger.
Bihyung hurried to get up.
In that instant—
…What's this?
A headache crashed over him without warning. In the blink of an eye the pain was gone, and a voice he didn't recognize began to speak at his ear.
Every way out was sealed.
All there was to see was darkness. And oppression.
"Agh! I can't stand this!"
"Just let me out. I'll smash the skulls of every bastard who locked me in!"
And the telling ended.
…Huh?
More precisely, the voice went on muttering after that—but strangely, he couldn't make out a word of it.
Does that mean I don't have the qualifications?
Bihyung guessed this was the Transmission the Shade had handed down to him.
And yet—
What even is this? What am I supposed to use it for?
This was the reward?
Even those beings above the sky had been shocked, hadn't they?
And this is the end of it? Nothing I can actually use right now?
All he could do was stare, at a loss.
Nothing's even changed… hm?
In that moment he felt a presence budding inside him. Little by little it grew, until it had already surpassed the limit he knew—and grown denser besides.
A chill prickled over his skin.
It was his own presence, and still it raised the hair on his arms.
…The price of accepting the Transmission?
He had a feeling this wasn't the end of it. The voice he couldn't understand went on and on. If he gained the qualifications and took the rest in, his presence would climb higher still.
…Is this a good thing, or a bad one?
He had to live among exorcists. Was this really all right?
Haa… Still, they even opened the negotiation table for me. It can't be all bad.
Holding to that belief, Bihyung opened his system for the first time in a long while.
A new entry was waiting.
Huh?
An entry he had never seen before. Unlike his stats, his techniques, and his bloodline, this one was painted deep—and it kept flaring, for all the world as if it were shouting, Look. Look at me! There was no way his eyes weren't drawn to it.
Should I press it?
The moment he did, a voice rang at his ear. The second time he had heard it, and already a little familiar.
Ah, ah. Mic check.
Shade.
The other party to the negotiation—the one who had yielded him a single passage of his Transmission. It was his voice.
"What… I can talk through this…!"
He forgot, for a moment, that Mina was asleep. The words burst out of him before he knew it, and he flinched—but the Shade's voice went on.
If you're asking whether we can actually communicate, the answer's no. Sorry. I guessed what you'd be thinking and recorded this ahead of time.
Heh heh!
Whatever was so funny, the Shade kept chuckling as he went on.
Can't get a feel for what a Transmission is, can you? I wanted to explain it right there on the spot, but… junior, you saw them too. All those stuck-up old fossils. So I recorded this separately and sent it along.
All right, then…
Shall I explain the parts my dear junior is dying to know?
The cheerful voice kept going.
A Transmission. If I had to put it simply, it's the story each of us has built up.
A story?
Hmm. Is that too hard, explained like that? Put more simply, you could call it a footprint.
The voice turned serious without warning.
The things a person, or a yokai, lives through. The realizations. The deeds. All of it becomes a single story, and that story becomes the Transmission that proves the being exists.
Therefore a Transmission is that existence itself. Beings like us do not die unless every Transmission circulating in the world is severed. You could call it immortality.
Junior. You have inherited a portion of this body's Transmission. You don't yet have the qualifications of the true body, so you couldn't take all of it—but even standing at the first threshold will be a great help on the road ahead.
Because, when someone tries to suppress you, it will make a miracle for you.
The voice turned cheerful again.
Congratulations, junior. You've obtained a passage of this body's Transmission, so your growth from here on ought to pick up speed. This body was a genius among geniuses, you see.
And, just in case you're fretting—you're not feeling gloomy because your Dokkaebi presence got stronger, are you? Going on about how you have to live among humans.
Bihyung stared at the message in silence.
…This guy wasn't lying about being unable to communicate, then peeping on him right now, was he?
The very next words showed him just how irreverent that thought had been.
Ahem! If that's what you're worried about, don't. This senior, thinking of his junior, went and adjusted your presence a little. That ghostlike presence of yours can be spread in front of people now without raising suspicion. You might even be worshipped.
Ah…
So that was the deeper meaning.
My presence grew, but I don't have to worry about people finding me out—and there are two extra effects on top of that?
One was conditional, triggered only when he was suppressed. The other was as good as a permanent experience boost. Add the Reverse Scale he had received from the dragon, and that made two of them.
Holy shit…
This was insane.
He'd handed him everything.
Maybe choosing the Transmission really was the right call?
Bihyung was smiling, satisfied, when he realized the voice still hadn't cut off.
Oh, right. Now that you've taken this, there won't be any more performance rewards.
What?
What does that even…
I explained it a moment ago, didn't I? A Transmission is you yourself—the story you've built.
That's… true enough, but still.
Originally it would only open after a predetermined story had ended… oops. From here on, a prohibition keeps me from speaking. Anyway, you've stepped into that kind of content ahead of everyone else. You'll accumulate more than the others, so don't feel cheated.
The performance rewards you used to receive will become the foundation of your Transmission from now on.
With that, the voice cut off clean.
Bihyung only blinked.
Was he supposed to be glad about this, or not?
…It is a good thing. If the hint is right, a Transmission is something that normally can't even begin until a set story is over.
Which meant there was a difference between the ending he had in mind and the ending they had spoken of. Now he knew. Now he could prepare. Thought of that way, it was actually welcome.
Whatever comes, it means I can get a step ahead of it.
Building a Transmission. He still couldn't quite grasp what that meant, but if they spoke of it like that, it had to be something good.
And also—
Did he say immortality?
Until the Transmissions existing in the world were severed, the being would not die?
If I'm going to prepare for what's ahead, I'll need that.
He had taken one step toward the material for it. A Transmission. That alone made the negotiation table a harvest and then some.
Bihyung steadied himself and looked away from the Transmission entry.
In that moment, a notification rose.
Ah, I forgot. If you can't get performance rewards anymore, you can't use storage either, right? So I'll throw in one use as a courtesy.
This time the voice really did cut off.
Uh… well…
A key had appeared under the storage entry. Bihyung nodded at the sight of it.
He really did take care of everything.
Good.
Whoever you are, you're off the hook. No knife in the back.
Reasonably satisfied with the reward, Bihyung figured it was time he left Mina's room. Lingering in a lady's room wasn't exactly polite.
He was just about to push himself up from the bed.
Ghk!
Without warning, a pain beyond words tore up out of his lower abdomen.
Nngh…
He swallowed the groan fighting its way out and turned his senses inward. His meridians were a wreck.
…The Yin-Yang Intersection. The backlash?
Well. It had been tremendous power. For a single instant, he had nearly been swept under by the violence of the surge. If he had to define that force, it felt as though one's rank climbed a full step the moment it was used. He had been able to unleash power on that scale. That was the Yin-Yang Intersection he had been developing—a finishing blow that could overturn the gap between him and an opponent in a heartbeat.
…Looking at this, forcing it doesn't seem wise.
If he truly needed it, then once. Only once. A joker to flip the board when things turned truly desperate.
For now, anyway. Once I grow further, it'll be a different story.
The higher one's rank, the sturdier one became, inside and out. Which meant the limit of what the meridians could bear rose with it. And his body was that of a half-yokai. Muscle, bone, the toughness of his meridians—none of it could be compared to an exorcist of the same rank.
God, everything hurts.
That was one thing. Pain, right now, was another.
Careful not to wake Mina, Bihyung stepped out of the room and quietly settled into cultivation in the living room. The yang of his spiritual power stirred his whole body and soothed the damaged meridians, and the yin of his yokai power that followed roused a half-yokai's recovery. Beneath the flow of the Heaven-Sight Scripture, the two energies circulated and raced through him, and his meridians settled further than they had at the start.
Still hurts, though. The backlash must be serious.
If he measured the recovery as a portion of the whole, maybe twenty percent. Even that was extremely fast. Treating an internal injury usually took a month at the short end, and years at the long one.
Faster than if I'd taken a top-grade yokai restorative.
He offered the half-yokai constitution his endless thanks and was about to rise when something caught.
Hm?
Something had snagged in his dantian. More precisely, in the yokai core seated inside his lower dantian.
What is this?
Puzzled, he sank into a deeper observation, and there within the core sat a pale, whitish shape.
…Don't tell him this bastard of a core had eaten their souls.
You little…
His brow twisted, and anger rose of its own accord. But something about it was wrong.
…Why are the children's souls silent?
If they had been digested, a pale shape like that would not have remained. His yokai power hadn't increased, either. It only felt as if something had taken a seat. Which meant one thing.
The hon passed on, and the baek is what's left?
People spoke of the honbaek as one, but in truth it divided into hon and baek. If the hon was mind, or will, then the baek was flesh, or life-force. The two together, he had been told, were what manifested a being. And he had heard that the hon passed on, while the baek remained on the earth and returned as nourishment.
So the children passed on, and the life-force left in the baek stayed in the core?
Life-force was energy. The fundamental force that moved a person—or, to borrow his professor's phrasing, primordial true qi.
…A gift from those children?
Bitterness touched his mouth. But in the next moment—
Smack!
Bihyung struck his own face hard and set his mind straight.
"Don't think of it sadly. Be grateful. Be thankful."
"Thank you. The gift you left behind—I won't waste it."
He made the vow, and opened his eyes.
"…Bihyung?"
A voice from the bedroom. Then a crash, the sound of someone scrambling down the stairs, and Mina came running.
"Are you okay? You're not hurt anywhere, are you!?"
"Huh? Y-yeah. Why?"
"Haa… thank goodness. You didn't wake up for three days."
What?
Not three hours—three days?
"…So today's Monday?"
"Yeah."
"Class?"
"I told them you probably couldn't make it. I said your meridians got a little tangled while we were training together, and they told you to rest up for about a week."
Only then did Bihyung relax.
Whew.
He couldn't just skip without leave.
…Keep missing class unexcused, and the Academy flags you as a person of interest.
Once that happened, he wouldn't be able to ask the Academy for help when something went wrong. In the worst case, the slightest suspicion and the Inspection Division might even be sent out.
…What the one who gave me the Transmission hid was only my presence. The half-yokai constitution can still be found out.
Careful. He promised himself that again, and looked at Mina.
Worry still sat on her face.
"…You really are okay, right?"
"Yeah. Aside from a bit of internal injury, I'm fine. And even that should heal soon."
"That's a relief, but…"
"More importantly, they said to rest a week?"
"Yeah. The professor in charge gave special permission."
Bihyung nodded.
Then I'll use the time to get my body under control, and also…
Maybe collect some overdue rewards while he was at it.
Saving the kids was a matter of the heart. Even so, what's owed is still owed.
He had just made up his mind to check the reward for the branch story whose name he hadn't even confirmed.
Thump!
A sudden pulse from his lower dantian.
And with it—
…Already, a third Unique Story had begun to sprout.