The Next Story
You did not yield to the strengthened yokai nature.
Limit surpassed — acknowledged. You have won the Dokkaebi Bet against yourself!
A reward will be granted!
Notifications kept surfacing, one after another. Amid them, Bihyung sensed a change taking hold in his yokai core.
The yokai power born of devouring the anomaly. It's being drawn into the core.
When he looked it up, he found it was a four-character idiom meaning there wasn't a single crack for water to leak through. Was that the cause? Not a speck of yokai power could be felt in his flesh.
Even I have to concentrate completely before I can sense the power in the core.
And if that was true of his own body, he couldn't imagine anyone else detecting it.
Good. I definitely received a fine reward.
He had. And yet—
"Haa... Why does it feel like I'm drifting further and further from human...?"
The deadline. He could still make it, couldn't he?
Day broke. Bihyung, who had spent the night wide-eyed and sleepless, changed his clothes and set off for the academy.
"Yikes. The top student looks like he's in a foul mood. Let's not meet his eyes."
Students he passed on the street muttered at the hollow cast of his face, but Bihyung didn't hear a word of it. His mind was elsewhere.
It said I digested the anomaly. Does that mean my yokai power will grow every time I exorcise one from now on?
From what he'd checked the night before, the yokai nature itself hadn't been strengthened any further. But if the power kept accumulating little by little, there was no telling where it would end. Even so, he couldn't simply stop exorcising — not while he was enrolled at an academy built to raise exorcists.
...Don't get tense. It isn't something I need to worry about yet.
That was thanks to the yokai core's special property, Not a Drop Escapes. Its concealment was so complete that even the professors he occasionally passed on the way to class couldn't sense a thing.
What if I turn the idea around? The core might actually let me grow stronger.
He'd already confirmed, on his own, that he could wield both yokai power and spiritual power.
The core formed at the very bottom of my lower dantian. It pools there like a shadow.
And above it, there was clearly empty space.
Then I ought to be able to set a human cultivation method in that space.
What if he could use yokai power and spiritual power at the same time? He didn't know whether it was possible, but if it was, he would wield a strength on an entirely different plane from an ordinary exorcist. That was how it went in martial arts novels, wasn't it — combine the orthodox arts with the demonic, and you became the greatest under heaven.
...He'd just think of it that way.
Once I get a cultivation method from the library, I'll be able to suppress the yokai nature and the yokai power both.
Lost in the thought, he walked on until, before he knew it, he had arrived at Class Gap. The classroom was already full. From the look of things, he was the last to arrive.
"Hey, you. The top student, of all people, showing up late."
Worse, he had arrived even later than the homeroom professor, who wore his irritation across every inch of his body. Bihyung bent at the waist and apologized.
"I'm sorry. I slept poorly last night."
"......"
The professor studied him, then nodded without a word. His expression suggested he had something he wanted to say.
"Sit down. There's an announcement."
Bihyung took his seat without another word. Once every student was seated, the professor went on.
"Student Geum Taehyung withdrew as of yesterday. Tsk. Falling apart just because a single bloodline became unusable."
Bihyung nodded inwardly. He hadn't known about the withdrawal, but he'd already known the bloodline would be beyond use.
It's completely finished.
Unable to sleep the night before, he had taken stock of the bloodline he'd obtained — Geumtaeyang. And he had learned one thing. The bloodline was finer than he had expected.
Uncontrollable yang energy. Covet the Great Net.
Together, the two formed the single bloodline called Geumtaeyang.
Uncontrollable yang energy alone is already a fine ability.
But the true flavor of Geumtaeyang lay in Covet the Great Net.
Wielded in order to covet a greater net.
At its foundation it was an ability aimed at the binding arts, yet its target had never been clearly fixed.
An undefined target means that much greater potential.
In other words, the true worth of the ability lay in how he defined it.
A growth type. Depending on how I wield it, and how I define it, the ability will keep evolving.
With a power like that, it was no wonder Geum Taehyung had been able to enter Class Gap. Not anymore.
Off you go.
He didn't particularly feel sorry. The guy had been trash from the start. By the time Bihyung had let Geum Taehyung slip entirely from his mind, the professor was speaking again.
"A bloodline can feel like a blessing at a glance. But he was only half right, and half wrong."
The homeroom professor looked over all of them and cut the matter short.
"A unique ability that sets you apart is something to envy, but if you get drunk on it and put no effort into anything else, you're better off without it. What will make exorcists of you is the sweat you'll shed from here on."
A smile like spring sunlight touched the corners of his mouth.
"So don't belittle yourselves for lacking one, and don't grow complacent because you have one. The right to climb high belongs to everyone."
Having said it, the professor scratched his head, looking thoroughly awkward.
"Good grief... Saying something so unlike me, I feel hives coming on. Anyway, let's go. Today's event ought to serve as at least a foothold to lift you higher."
The students rose and followed him. They left the academy grounds and walked only a short while before they reached a broad clearing, the land carved away as if by hand. Every first-year was gathered there. Surveying the crowd, the faculty pointed to a single spot.
"An anomaly the academy has subjugated lies over there. They call it the Old Relic. Strangely enough, leave a weapon in that place and time seems to pass faster."
"...Isn't that a bad thing?"
One student shot a hand up as he asked. The professor who had been explaining laughed, as if it were a fair point.
"Ordinarily, yes. An object left untended rusts and slowly rots away. But the domain of that anomaly holds a secret."
The professors each drew their own armaments and held them out for the students to see.
"Perhaps because the resentment of discarded, aged things has settled there, the older a tool is inside that space, the more its original ability is strengthened."
"And because it spent time in the domain, that strengthening holds even after you bring it out. Keep using it, and the power inherent in the weapon itself will keep growing."
"All right, all right. That's the rough of it, so go in and learn the rest yourselves. For the record, you'd do well to find a weapon that matches your own level. There's a trial involved in claiming an armament."
Tak.
One of the professors flicked his fingers, and a dark entrance opened across the clearing. The anomaly's domain. A vastness washed over them, on an entirely different scale from the subway anomaly. While everyone else instinctively hesitated, Bihyung stepped toward it as if it were nothing at all.
"Bihyung, let's go together!"
Mina followed him in.
Grrrr...... A low rumble, chilling as a beast's growl sounding right beside the ear. Mina trembled at it.
It's been a while.
Bihyung, on the contrary, felt a cozy ease in the scenery shifting around them. Something about it loosened his heart, as if he had come home.
The anomaly. The Old Relic.
Counting only the times he had entered this place, the number ran into the hundreds. Only someone who had played the Exorcist — and specifically run the Yeongwol route — would ever reach a count like that.
"Bihyung, you're not scared?"
"Mm. Not really?"
"Whoa... So this is the top student? Look at that composure."
This girl, honestly!
As if trying to shake the fear off, Mina patted his shoulder with exaggerated vigor. He rather wished she would ease up on the more violent motions...
"More importantly, Mina — what kind of weapon are you going to pick?"
"Hmm. I don't really know. Nothing's hitting me with that this is the one feeling."
Anything that suited her aptitude would do, or so she seemed to mean. Watching her mutter, Bihyung let out a dry laugh.
"The worries of a genius?"
Mina flustered at the mischievous question.
"Wh-what! How could I call myself a genius in front of you..."
She seemed to mean it with perfect sincerity, but in Bihyung's view she really was a genius.
Second place isn't something just anyone can take.
She had only stopped at second because he had caught the anomaly on the strength of being half-yokai. Left to the proper order of things, she would have seized the top. Yeongwol Academy drew students from across the country, and from foreign nations besides. Mina's talent ranked first among entrants of that caliber.
The newbie shredder hasn't gone anywhere.
Don't know? Then you die. Her difficulty, which seemed to prove those words in the flesh, had made even Bihyung want to quit the game in the early days.
She didn't grow strong by becoming a villain. She was strong because the talent was already hers.
Looking at her, Bihyung considered for a moment.
Her favorability doesn't seem bad... so helping her should be fine, right?
Someone with talent like that could join his party in the late game. Done deliberating, he moved at once.
"What's your primary attribute?"
"I'm pretty sure it was Fire, Wood, Earth, and Metal."
A quadruple attribute. Talent on a staggering scale. An exorcist could fundamentally handle every attribute, but any attribute that wasn't gifted or specialized produced only default-level power.
A specialized primary attribute, on the other hand, can show power above one's rank.
Just like Geum Taehyung's bloodline-boosted arts the other day.
If I help Mina obtain Water later, she'll complete the five attributes?
Her late-game potential looked downright absurd.
Decided. Mina goes in the party, no matter what.
He liked her enough that, if he could, he would have drafted a contract on the spot.
In that case, something that suits her.
Bihyung indicated a place.
"See that ridge over there? Cross it and there'll be a river. Near it you'll spot a rock — dig underneath, and there's a fan."
"It'll suit you."
The moment he said it, Mina's cheeks flushed red. It lasted only a moment. Then she picked out the contradiction in what he had told her.
"But Bihyung, how can you be so sure when you tell me that?"
Bihyung flinched.
I got so caught up in recruiting her that I didn't think it through.
What excuse was he supposed to make? In the instant he was worrying over it—
"W-wait. Bihyung, are you... a regressor?"
They were still the only ones who had stepped inside, and Mina leaned in to whisper it by his ear, just in case.
No — what... No. No. How could that even be a thing? If I were going to regress, I wouldn't have played the game in the first place.
Bihyung shook his head and produced a hastily improvised excuse.
"One of my bloodlines can observe information. That's how."
"Ah... r-right?"
Embarrassed, Mina scratched the back of her head. She looked like the outgoing type who would rather be outside having fun, but apparently she was into subculture after all. She smiled awkwardly and clenched both fists.
"Got it! I'll look hard!"
With that, she immediately ran off in the direction he had indicated. Bihyung glanced after her, then turned.
All right, then.
Time to farm the hidden piece!
The anomaly, the Old Relic. The hidden piece obtainable here was information so widely known that most players already had it.
"The Refined Water of Waning Transcendence."
A treasure the academy had deliberately hidden. Bihyung smiled down at the small bottle in his hand.
"Found it more easily than I thought."
Now that the game had become reality, he had braced himself for a good deal of fruitless digging, but he had found it within two hours of starting the search.
"Now I just need an armament to use this on."
The place held quite a variety of weapons. Brushes and inkstones meant to assist spellcraft. Firearms that made one wonder whether they even counted as an exorcist's arm. Even colossal weapons that looked made for cracking an anomaly's skull. There were countless kinds, and just as many choices, but Bihyung had already decided his path.
I'm not suited to spellcraft.
He had learned as much while sparring with Geum Taehyung. He didn't particularly have a talent for the arts.
Because I have no primary attribute at all.
Whatever art he unfolded, it was ordinary. The Path of the Apex had opened possibilities, and calling on the principle of mutual generation had covered for the lacking power, but it still wasn't enough to dig deep into spellcraft.
My body is good, too. If I commit to the physical arts, I think I'll see decent results.
Above all, he had an interface. When others unfolded an art, they used a talisman or recited a formula. He could do it with a thought alone — a click.
What if an art detonates in the middle of a swing?
That alone could become a feint, and if those feints piled up, the shape of the battle would be his to take. Just imagining it set his mouth watering.
"Then the choice splits in two."
One was a sword called the Demon Blade. The other was a spear — absurdly tough, with an advantage in reach.
"Which should I take."
Just as he sank into serious deliberation, a familiar chime rang out. Ding! An interface flooded his vision, and within it a line of text was written.