The Raid (2)
A Contamination alert, out of nowhere.
It reached him through the system they had seeded when he enrolled at the Academy.
We repeat: this is a real incident.
Contamination has broken out in the anomaly Bermuda Triangle.
All cadets currently sitting the exam are to move at once under their professors' escort.
Bihyung read that last line and nodded.
"Figures. If it wasn't bastards like them, who else would pull something like this?"
Contamination. A mutation that formed when two or more anomalous phenomena fused. It looked simple enough. In truth it was filthy work — difficult, and viciously hard to control.
An anomaly's domain generated a fixed phenomenon, and to exorcise it you had to find the rules inside and break them. Contamination, though, was a state in which two or more anomalies had already merged. Naturally the rules multiplied with them, and those rules interacted until they germinated into something else entirely.
And once that happens, the rules you worked so hard to find turn useless more often than not.
That was why Contamination was so dangerous. The grade of the phenomenon itself rose, and if anyone was trapped inside, their life could be hanging by a thread. Yes. Exactly like his, right now.
"Wow. How is the timing this bad?"
It felt as if some unseen thing had taken a personal dislike to his existence and was griefing him on purpose. Otherwise this simply could not be happening.
"Boss."
In that moment Dueogsi called to him. The creature's voice trembled, if only a little.
"The way out… is gone."
Just as he said, the door of the place Bihyung had entered was shut fast. It was no metaphor. When he turned, the exit had vanished, and the energy wrapping the area had clumped back together and hardened solid, as if the place meant to forbid both entry and escape. Which was precisely why Bihyung was howling about being griefed.
"Why is it that the moment I try to do anything, there's never a quiet day?"
He let out a long sigh and started to raise his phone, then stopped. The energy, swollen by the overlapping phenomena, had killed every function of his electronics. Instead he drew up his authority and called the members of the Baekgwi Yahaeng.
The voice rang low and even. Unlike a transmission art, it felt as though it drove straight into the soul. Everyone who heard the boss flinched — Dueogsi and Eodugi nearby, and the Committee Chair and Mina far off as well. A moment later, one answer came.
"Oh? What matter is this?"
Lilith. The other half of Senior Eunha's life, dwelling in her body alongside her. In the voice of a yokai who had raised a myth in her own right, a keen curiosity surfaced.
"Judging by the feeling in that voice, this is as a summons. What has broken loose?"
It was not a warning meant only for those who had stepped into this domain. It was also for the Committee Chair and Senior Eunha, sitting a separate exam back at the Academy.
"Nnngh… I don't think so. Something's hiding your location, Bihyung. It feels really vicious… but strangely warm, too. I can't tell."
Bihyung let his authority settle and turned the pieces over again.
So my location can't be searched…….
That meant one thing. This space he was standing in had split off from the Bermuda Triangle.
"Wow. Legendary."
Every incident, he managed to step square in it at least once. Had some curse latched onto him?
"Is it something bad?"
"Mm. Half and half?"
"Half and half?"
"Yeah. There's an upside, and a downside."
The upside, first: because his space had broken away, the Contamination was lighter.
No sign yet of the rules shifting, or of something starting to make demands.
The downside was that he had to find a way out all over again. And even if he got out, he could not swear the exit would still lie inside the Bermuda Triangle.
Location's easy enough. I picture Eunha's shadow and follow it.
Getting out, too — if he and Dueogsi simply shoved with raw force, wouldn't it give somehow?
Then what I need to focus on is what the Villains want.
Why crash the Academy's regular exam at all? Petty chaos for its own sake?
No.
They were not that idle, and they were nowhere near decent enough for it to end at mere disruption. So there was something bigger.
"Dueogsi. When you surveyed the Bermuda Triangle, you didn't see anything special, did you?"
"That is… yes. Aside from this place, there was no space of note."
On the boss's order he had torn through every corner of the island, and this place was the only thing he had found. Hearing that certainty, Bihyung nodded.
"Then they're after the anomaly itself."
What was here that they wanted?
…Treasure?
The only thing worth taking from the Bermuda Triangle was the treasure sunk in this place. And he had been standing in the very spot where it was all gathered. That spot had now been torn clean out of the anomaly's domain.
If this goes wrong, aren't they all going to converge on me?
These were people who had invaded the Academy — committed what amounted to terrorism. An act that would turn the entire Exorcist Association against them. Their strength was not likely to be slight.
Villains have already turned their backs on society, sure.
Even so, there was a vast difference between poking the Association directly and not. It was an association made of gathered people, and if you touched it outright, those people grew angry. The result of that anger, more often than not, was the annihilation of whoever stood opposite them.
"Caught by people with nothing left to lose… this is seriously annoying."
Annoying, and dangerous besides. The professors' level was already famous out in the world. That these people had charged in anyway meant they were confident they could handle professors. And bastards like that were coming this way in a pack? Ugh. The mere thought turned his stomach.
This is different from Yu Gyeongsu at the root.
They had taken Yu Gyeongsu with a joint assault — Mina, Dueogsi, and Eodugi together. On top of that, the man had accepted an anomaly into himself, so his presence had been nothing short of their natural enemy. However wide the gap in rank, victory over him could be called an obvious result. But were the other Villains all like Yu Gyeongsu?
No.
Among the Villains he remembered, some had honed their spiritual power to the absolute limit. Their rank, of course, sat in the upper reaches even of the high ranks. If one of those came looking… well, he'd just have to die. What else was there? That was only talk, of course. He had no intention of dying for anyone.
Therefore.
"Let's find a way."
"Yes."
"Thinking it through, the space splitting off is a boon. They've already invaded the area where the exam was being held."
Which meant there was still time before they headed this way. In that interval, Bihyung meant to seize whatever they were after and get out of this domain. Show it to the professors, and they would handle the rest. That was what they drew an Academy stipend for.
"Let's go."
With that, he hauled his presence up to full force.
Hoooooo—!!
The breath of a dokkaebi, deliberately smothered until now, began to roll through the cave — low, and long.
……!!!!
At the same instant the anomaly's domain screamed and started to writhe. The moment Bihyung took a step, the walls of the cave opened wide of their own accord, as if stepping aside to let him pass.
"So this is… the Bermuda Triangle."
The Villains who had seized the anomaly and contaminated it on purpose. The one who looked to be their leader, the Bishop, lifted the corner of his mouth.
"Truly atrocious, and ominous besides. Easily the finest anomaly I have beheld of late."
To think the Association Head had exorcised a place like this alone.
As expected. Not a man one can dismiss.
But it did not matter. The man was bound even now for a distant foreign land, and the duplicate left in his place would never stop the thing they had brought. Savoring a satisfaction without equal, the Bishop ground his foot down upon the chest of the man writhing beneath him.
Crunch……!
The slowly crushing weight broke the breastbone by degrees and mashed the lungs flat. The Academy professor coughed blood, his face draining paler by the moment.
What… are these people…….
The instant he saw the Villains he had moved to answer them, and it had been useless. The anomaly they led — as if it were alive — wrapped around them and nullified every formation the professors had prepared. It felt like facing an enemy against whom resistance itself was impossible. And then there was the pendant in the grip of the one who seemed to lead them. More precisely, the small glass bottle at its center. It held only what one might call a single drop of liquid. Yet the moment he faced it, terror seized him, as if everything he was would be sucked inside.
What in the world was that? And what did they want?
Even as the thought ran on, the last voice of his life rang in his ear — calm, and perfectly clear.
"You shall be the cornerstone of His great return. Know it for glory."
With those words, the Villains' boss brought the bottle to the professor.
"Kkh… kyaaaagh!"
At once the professor's body began to wither dry, as if every drop of blood in him were being drawn into the bottle.
A soft slosh.
Gazing at the vessel, its measure grown if only a little, the Villain smiled.
"Now… once we obtain that, the cornerstone can be laid. Come."
The Villains turned as one.
"The treasure vault that split from the Bermuda Triangle. We go to claim the Orb that waits there."