Role (4)
Night had come.
All through the daylight the first-year cadets had kept themselves busy, throwing together simple shelters and managing to lay in a little food besides.
The top student and the runner-up might be monsters, but the rest of them were members of Yeongwol Academy all the same—talents who could hold their own anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world.
…Of course, standing beside a top student and a runner-up who were quite literally in another league had been chipping away at that pride of late.
Even so, here was their chance to prove what they could do and win their self-respect back.
"Where should I stack the dry firewood?"
"Just dump it over there. We'll be feeding the fire all night anyway."
"Hah! Makeshift or not, we built one hell of a base camp."
Just as they said, the cadets had split into parties of every sort and raised base camps of their own. Some claimed caves along the river, others beaches with a view of the sea, still others the crowns of enormous trees deep in the woods. Having built what could pass for strongholds, they found themselves thinking it.
Huh. This is more doable than I expected.
And they weren't entirely wrong.
Every one of them was an exorcist of the 2nd Rank or higher, and the standouts among them had even reached the 3rd Rank. Banded together, they were more than capable of exorcising the average lesser yokai. Their confidence showed no sign of breaking, and they were certain they would place well up the rankings on the regular exam.
Right up until night arrived.
Whoooosh…….
A grotesque wind blew through. It sounded, almost, like a cat crying.
And in the instant that wind raked past, the base camps they had labored over were torn to shreds and gone.
"What the—!?"
"…Everyone, check your gear. See if anything else took a hit!"
"For now… the talismans, the weapons we brought in, the clothes—they're fine."
"…Huh? Wait a second."
Someone's voice came out sharp with panic.
"The water we purified earlier, and the jerky—they're gone! The drinking water and the food are completely wiped out!"
"…And the stuff we carried in?"
"All of it, rotten straight through!"
This was bad.
Food rotting away to nothing was a bolt from a clear sky all by itself, but the loss of the drinking water was worse by far.
…This is yokai territory. Of course there's no drinking water.
Even if they summoned water with water arts, that would only waste spiritual power. There was no telling what might happen next. For the two weeks ahead, they would have to endure their thirst as best they could.
Even so, they forced the agitation down. They were entrants of Yeongwol, aspiring exorcists. They couldn't make a disgrace of themselves over something like this.
"It's probably that wind that just blew through."
"Has anyone felt a wind like that before?"
"No. If it had come through earlier, the food would've vanished in broad daylight too."
"Then what you're saying is we have to be careful at night."
They settled their nerves and took stock of where they stood.
"All right. Then we only make as much food as we'll actually eat. And we eat it before night falls, if we can."
"Sounds good."
With the situation put neatly in order, they stood the night watch.
There was one fact they had overlooked.
It was still only the first day.
"Aaaagh!"
At the scream, the eyes of those who had fallen asleep flew open.
"Wh-what!?"
"That scream just now… that was Taejun, wasn't it?"
Taejun was the name of the classmate standing watch. He had a real knack for metal arts and for sensing both, so they had put him on the first shift. Even after he fell asleep, the arts he had set would keep sensing the surroundings on their own and sound an alarm.
Every gaze turned toward where Taejun had been.
The arts he had laid were clearly still working, perfectly intact. And yet one person had vanished along with a scream.
They had barely slept before being thrown into a sudden, inexplicable mess. Plain bewilderment seeped into the cadets' eyes.
"…We have to go after him, right?"
How bad did things have to get for words like that to slip from the mouths of people who aspired to be exorcists?
Even so, they composed themselves and started toward the direction the scream had come from.
"…How far did this guy even go?"
"And why would the one on watch move all the way out here in the first place?"
They had walked a fair distance from the place they had made their stronghold, and still there was no sign of Taejun anywhere.
"…What in the world happened."
"Right? …Huh? Everyone, hold up a second!"
At someone's voice, every foot stopped at once.
Heads turned, and the cadet who had drawn their attention pointed at a single spot.
"That tree over there. Doesn't the shape look a little strange to you?"
"…Don't tell me that's all you stopped us for."
"Of course not. I was going to say the shape looks familiar."
"……Familiar?"
"Yeah. The thick branches split into exactly two, left and right. Like a signpost. I'm telling you, I saw a tree like this earlier."
"I've got a bad feeling about this. Is it just me?"
"…Me too."
"So Taejun didn't go far at all. We've been walking in circles around the same place?"
"That's the most reasonable explanation, but… we ought to check to be sure."
"Let's head back toward the stronghold."
And so they started back down the path they had climbed.
Step. Step.
It was still spring—by the weather alone, the season when summer was only beginning to draw near. Even so, the fallen leaves on the mountain were unnaturally dry, and they shrieked underfoot.
Shhhk….
The sound had begun to grate on the ears, and the cadet at the front was just furrowing his brow when—
"……!"
Hup!
His breath caught all at once.
The tree before his eyes. A tree whose thick branches stretched out to either side.
They had come right back to where they started.
And the night was not over yet.
"……So what do we do now?"
"There has to be a rule. Something like showing us illusions so we keep circling the same path."
"Right. They wouldn't just lock us in here for no reason. What anomalous phenomena are there that feel like this?"
"Isn't the Labyrinth that showed up in England something like this?"
"If we're being precise, the Fog Forest from America fits even better."
"…Hansel and Gretel."
At those words, confusion crossed every face.
"Isn't that a fairy tale?"
"…No. Wait. I've heard of this. There was an anomalous phenomenon in France a while back that was similar, wasn't there? I'm sure that wasn't the official name, but……."
"Then it really does… sound a lot like our situation? Can you explain it in a bit more detail?"
"At first, people got trapped in a forest and couldn't get out no matter what they tried. As time went on, their hunger and thirst got worse and worse, and in the end… they tried to eat each other."
"…Hunger and thirst. Same as us."
"So how was that one cleared?"
"Someone noticed there wasn't a single animal in a whole forest and dropped pieces of bread to mark the path. And strangely enough, a road lined itself up."
"And the ending?"
"That's as far as I remember……."
The cadet who had spoken scratched his head, sheepish. Still, it was a hundred times better than coming away with nothing at all.
"All right. Then let's do something that can mark the path too."
Taking the old record as their lesson, they immediately gathered stones from nearby and began to move while dropping them on the ground.
It was uncanny. Fog rolled in all at once, and then a single path yawned open, as if to guide them.
At first, they thought they had found the way. The thought lifted them.
But it did not take long to realize how naive that hope had been.
Far off, a black silhouette stood with the mountain ridge at its back. At its feet a cadet lay collapsed, and when they looked closely at the face, it was Taejun—one of their own party.
The cadets moved at once to answer with their arts.
But.
"……!"
In the space of a blink the black figure was before them, and the moment they met those indifferent eyes, the word fear crawled up their spines like a snake.
They could not win.
No. Before that even—
…Who is that?
It was a terror so chilling it seemed they would only die in peace if they killed themselves on the spot. Fear of that order wrecked the calm of the heart and the quiet of the mind. Their teeth chattered. Skin seized with spasms, and they raked it with their nails. A raw sting rose along their forearms, and the heat of blood welled up in pulses—and still their heads remained in fear's grip.
And so.
"Ghrk……."
What they chose was to turn their faces from reality.
The night was still not over.
"Oh. And what's all this."
When he returned to where the faculty were staying, Professor Shinhoo—the one in charge of them—was there to greet him.
Bihyung laid the cadets he had carried in out in a row before the professor.
"Looks like they were clumsily trying to follow the Hansel and Gretel clear."
"Then if you'd left 'em to it, they'd be neck-deep in debuffs by now—senses numbed, sense of time gone, the whole mess. They ought to have gotten a look at the witch at least once, too."
"The ending looked like it would take too long, so I just stepped in partway."
"Yeah, well…."
Shinhoo turned his head. Watching the cadets still foaming at the mouth and twitching, he spoke.
"Couldn't you have gone a little easier on 'em……."
"You're the one who told me to scare them."
When Bihyung pulled a face of pure disbelief, Shinhoo let out a short laugh.
"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Honestly? You did good. It takes about this much before they start thinking, Huh. Maybe yokai aren't something you can afford to take lightly."
The shock might linger hard enough to leave some of them with PTSD. Those ones should not become exorcists. A single judgment of theirs, a single strand of their effort, was enough to decide whether comrades and civilians lived or died.
Shinhoo liked the work of Bihyung's hands.
"Attaboy. Get going, Number One! Go spread the fear of yokai to the kids!"
Watching Shinhoo say it with a strangely excited smile, Bihyung once again wore a look of sheer disbelief. Even so, he trudged off without another word.
Haa….
The sigh came of its own accord.
He would say it again.
The night was still long.