The Pillar (2)

"I'm going in."

Bihyung stepped into the warehouse on hardened resolve, and what met him was a malicious sprawl of empty space. He had climbed to 3rd Rank; his eyesight ought to have sharpened with it. And still the gaps between the objects were filthy far apart.

"Oh, come on."

Why, on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the very last run, was there so little generosity in the place? He kicked off the floor at once and tore through the warehouse.

Even so, he was better off than the first time he had entered. Back then he had been a mere 2nd Rank. Now he was 3rd. A single step up, nothing more, and yet his baseline physique had risen with it, and the moment he worked his energy his speed doubled.

Ssshhk!

When he folded the basic wind art into his body, his speed climbed again.

...What? This feels different from the first time I used it.

Was it because he had gone all-out with the wind while catching Yu Gyeongsu? Something about it... the power itself felt greater.

Come to think of it, I never checked my spell proficiency.

The warehouse came first. He would look once he was out. Once he was out.

Most of it's junk. No point letting that stuff eat up space.

His kinetic vision, grown alongside the rest of his body, let him pick out every item he wanted even at this speed.

And so, in under twenty minutes, he had circled every reach of the warehouse and come back to the entrance. His face, however, was anything but pleased.

What?

The pillar wasn't there.

Why isn't it here?

A pillar he had forged by grinding through countless runs. That magnificent pillar of his was gone. Mm... put like that, the phrasing was a little unfortunate. Anyway!

"My pillar!"

Bihyung swept the whole of the warehouse again, desperate to find it. Ten minutes, this time, to return to the entrance. He was looking for one pillar and nothing else, so he didn't have to spare a glance for anything else. And still, staring down at his pathetic empty hands, he couldn't hide the hollowness.

"...What is going on? It can't be outside the warehouse."

He didn't mean the world that served as the backdrop of Dokja Jeon-gi. He meant outside the warehouse, literally. Crossing it, he had learned one fact. At the warehouse's end there was a transparent wall. His body couldn't force its way in, but throw an object through and it passed and vanished.

Is the pillar beyond that wall? Then I can't get it back.

He had tried to break the wall. He had failed. Even with the Play-Spirit Art unleashed at full power, the transparent wall hadn't so much as trembled.

Or did I miss something?

Rather than ransack the place again, Bihyung slowly replayed what he knew of the space. The transparent wall. A region the body couldn't enter. And the arrangement of objects he had seen the last time he came.

After the junk came the Heaven-Blessed Soil, and the spirit stones were buried in it.

Mid-thought—

Huh?

Something snagged.

Where did the Heaven-Blessed Soil go?

He got up and ran the warehouse again to check. When he returned to the entrance and looked at the time, the circuit had taken a mere eight minutes.

"...The Heaven-Blessed Soil is gone, and the time to circle keeps dropping?"

He had taken it for speed. Growth. ...But this latest drop was too fast to call growth.

"The space is shrinking?"

Nothing else explained it. He sprinted at full power to confirm, and the result came back. Six minutes. It had shrunk again.

"I'm sure. The space is shrinking."

More precisely—

"The transparent wall. It's more like it's coming closer."

Damn it. Things ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that slipped past the boundary couldn't be recovered as it was, and now it was a race against time.

These are all things I gathered. Who hands something over and then snatches it back...

...Wait.

Can't be recovered? Snatched?

Snatched what?

All that's left in here is junk.

Had they already taken the pillar?

Then why hasn't the shrinking stopped?

He thought it through. If it were him, trying to steal something—would he take it in secret, or mock the owner to their face?

...Honestly, if anonymity were guaranteed, it'd be the second one.

He couldn't stand being petty— no. That wasn't the point.

They brought me here because they want something from me.

And why pick a fight, why mock, someone you still needed? Thought of that way, the first option was the one without risk. If they had already recovered the goods, they could have stopped the space from shrinking. Then he never would have noticed.

The fact that it keeps shrinking means they still haven't taken it.

By his memory, all that remained was a heap of junk and one pillar. They wouldn't take the junk if you handed it to them, so by elimination only the pillar was left. Which meant the pillar was still inside the warehouse.

Where.

If they were thrashing this hard to take it, it had to be that precious. Bihyung searched with his eyes on fire.

I turned the place inside out and didn't find it. So it isn't in any ordinary space.

He looked up into the empty air. Of course it wasn't there. That left the floor...

"...No way."

On the off chance, he stamped the floor with everything he had.

Boom!

Force enough to shatter a decent boulder, and then some. And the warehouse floor didn't take so much as a crack. Oh, it really wasn't, was it?

"...Just in case."

No. It wasn't "just in case." He simply didn't want to believe it.

"Roots."

Bihyung sent his Roots down into the earth. As when he had obtained the Heaven-Blessed Soil before, they sank a little—then, as if blocked by some vast rock, they stopped and could go no farther. A hollow laugh escaped him before he knew it.

"Ha. Hahaha..."

So.

"This thing I thought was the floor... is the pillar I was looking for?"

No, what— who set the size?

"......"

Five minutes since he had found the pillar he had waited and waited for. Bihyung stared at the floor in silence. Then a sigh slipped out of him.

"Haa... I found it. Now how am I supposed to carry this?"

Finding the pillar was fine. They could at least have made it possible to take.

"The bat... yeah, right. As if it'd fit."

He had already swept up every good thing in the warehouse. That alone had filled the bat's capacity, so how was he supposed to store a floor that looked several times larger than everything he had already packed away?

"Is there a way?"

Bihyung looked at the time he had left.

Long, if you wanted to call it long— like hell. It was hopelessly short. He rubbed his temples against the climbing headache and swallowed the nausea rising in his throat.

...No. There has to be a way.

Otherwise they never would have put it in the warehouse to begin with. This wasn't some torture of false hope. Why show it if they weren't going to give it?

But there isn't time to find the method right now.

Then the only card he had left was the bat.

Can I?

Bihyung called the bat forth. Concentric rings rippled in the air. He dragged them down and pressed them to the floor—

As expected, the failure message rose.

What if I dump everything else and take only the pillar?

He emptied every item from the bat and tried Asim Jeojang again. The result was the same. At its present grade, the bat could not swallow this pillar.

And raising the grade on the spot is out of the question...

In that moment, a scene surfaced in his mind.

—Eolssu!

Dueogsi's subordinates, hips swinging to the rhythm as they manifested their bats. Their bats had definitely possessed a form.

Then... could I make use of that?

The Dokkaebi King's bat was of the Bloodline as well, and he had meant to leave it in a bloodstone so it could be inherited.

If a form exists, I can use enhancement stones.

Once the thought reached that far, Bihyung sucked every item he had spat onto the ground back into the bat and decomposed them. And—

The bloodstone fragment the Dokkaebi King left. Decompose that too.

Crimson smoke rose between the rippling concentric rings. At the same time the clear, cool scent unique to spirit stones steeped in the energy of the earth-veins mingled with it.

Ding!

A swarm of notification windows blocked his vision. He dismissed them all and packed every decomposed remnant into the bat. Then—

"Yes!"

Drunk on the thrill, Bihyung affirmed the message at once.

But the message that followed sobered him in an instant.

Oh, right. Enhancement was probability-based, wasn't it? E had become D. He registered, in his head, that Asim Jeojang's capacity had grown. Still not enough.

"Keep going. Enhance!"

How many times had he enhanced it? He turned his head to check the time. Ten seconds left. And his Dokkaebi Bat—

By the measure of Rank, it had reached the equivalent of 7th Rank—a grade that belonged, without question, among the high ranks—and it blazed with brilliant light.

"Store it!"

Bihyung pressed the bat to the floor at once and unleashed Asim Jeojang.

Whooosh!

The once-calm concentric rings were gone. A storm rose, and a savage suction tore toward the floor. Time remaining: two seconds!

Done!

"Eldest..."

Eodugi paced before the door Bihyung had entered, unable to keep still.

Whenever do you mean to come out...

He still didn't know what this door was, nor what the Eldest had gone in to do. Only this: he had called it his last chance, which meant it was a moment precious beyond anything else to the Eldest. So Eodugi fretted, hoping Bihyung would get what he wanted and come back out.

Dueogsi regarded the door differently, brow furrowed.

"...This is no ordinary space."

"Yes! I think so too, I do!"

"Even if one pushed the art of Emptiness to its limit, one could not make a space like this. Just what is the Boss...?"

While Dueogsi was turning that over, the door began to blur.

"Eeeek! The Eldest still hasn't come out!"

"I know! But why would it suddenly—"

As the two yokai panicked at the sudden turn, a small shadow began to fall beyond the fading door.

"Ah, Eldest!"

At last the shadow resolved into a clear figure and stepped through. Bihyung's brow was knotted to the extreme.

"A-are you all right, Eldest!?"

"Boss!"

Eodugi bounced frantically at Bihyung's side, and Dueogsi moved in to check on him—until Bihyung raised a hand and stopped them both.

"Don't... come closer. Not now."

"...Yes? What do you—"

"Ghk—! I still can't... control it."

So saying, Bihyung wrung out every last scrap of strength he had and took a single step.

Boom!

He hadn't even thrown a seismic stamp, and yet a violent tremor rose as if an earthquake had struck. If the dormitory hadn't had a separate art laid over it to absorb impact, it would have come down.

"Eeeek! It's an earthquake!"

"...No. The shock came from the Boss's footstep."

"I didn't see any energy move, I didn't! Then... you're saying he made a tremor like that just by walking!?"

"Yes. Even I can hardly believe it, and I saw it."

Sweat pouring, his expression grave, Dueogsi stared at Bihyung's scowling face. A bent back. Legs trembling as if they might give out at any moment. Both hands braced above his knees, breath coming ragged and short.

He looks like a man bearing some enormous weight.

And Dueogsi's guess was dead right.

Ugh... I feel like I'm going to die.

Bihyung clenched his teeth and forced strength into his body. The unidentified pillar. From the instant he had stored it in the bat, it was as if a massive boulder were crushing him.

Put strength into it and the weight grows. Circulate energy and it grows again.

As if it were testing where his limit lay, and loading on only just enough weight to reach that limit. What in the world was this thing, to be like this?

...It definitely said Divine Artifact.

Bihyung had heard that name before. Among the items the Hyeopte's overseers had put up for claim.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

No wonder they were trying to recover it.

He had stopped them. And a thing called a Divine Artifact was now in his hands. On that alone, he had milked the warehouse for all it was worth. But—

Nngh...!

Where was he supposed to use something this heavy?

I don't think I can even get through a day like this.

There would be a way. No—there had to be. He had to find it. With that single fixation he poured sweat and strained to recall any clue about the pillar. And in the midst of it, one thing surfaced.

...Incomplete. That modifier was definitely attached.

The shadow that had portioned out its Lore to him had said as much. Learn the Divine Artifact's true name, and at his present level his brain might be destroyed. And yet the word incomplete had been perfectly clear. So that wasn't the artifact's true name. It was its present state.

Could it be... missing a piece?

As it happened, he had the spear that had made this pillar. Bihyung immediately told Eodugi to bring it, and the moment he received it he put it into the bat. The result—

Ptoo—

With a sound like something being spat out, the spear bounced free of the bat on its own.

"......"

Ptoo? Did it just say ptoo?

What the hell...

Ah. His blood pressure. For an instant the back of his skull pulled tight, and Bihyung even forgot to keep strength in his body.

Crash!

As if it had been waiting, his body slammed into the floor.

"Eeeek! E-Eldest! Are you all right!?"

"...No. I'm not."

Grrrind—!

The sound of teeth grinding, cold and sharp, carried through the room.

"Eeeek...!!"

Eodugi and Dueogsi took a step back before they knew it. From the whole of Bihyung's body, a vast presence had begun to surge.

"Fine. Let's see who wins. You, or me."

He didn't know why it was tormenting him like this, but either its momentum broke, or he broke first. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠One of them was going to break. With that thought he focused his presence inward, into the bat—

"...Huh?"

The weight vanished all at once.

"...What."

What? Why did it suddenly disappear?

It already broke? That can't be.

Puzzled, Bihyung released his presence, and the weight crashed back over him.

Ah. Don't tell me...

Use his presence, and it behaves?

What kind of thing is this?

The first Divine Artifact he had ever obtained, and this was the shape of it.