I Forgot
"The Shrine Priest got in touch?"
"Yes... He spoke straight into my mind."
Kana said it in a voice no bigger than a mosquito.
"He's been quiet for a while. The Shrine must be more or less in order by now. Can you tell him we're free to talk?"
"One moment..."
Kana closed her eyes. With her yellow hair tied back and her hands clasped, she sat so still that she looked, all at once, like a priestess truly in service to the gods.
Yeah. She definitely didn't win the shrine maiden's seat at mahjong.
I waited a few minutes on that thought. Kana's eyelids fluttered, and her eyes opened a crack.
"Eek!"
Maybe I had been staring too hard. The color drained from her face as if she had just seen a cockroach.
Contempt and fear were tangled together in that look, and it stung. For what it was worth, someone had even asked me on a date...
"Did you pass it on?"
"I-I did..."
"What did he say?"
"He asked if you could prepare a laptop, like last time..."
"A laptop. Pele ought to have one around..."
"Looking for this?"
"Eep!"
Pele dropped out of the ceiling with a laptop in hand and gave it a shake.
"How long have you been up there?"
"Since that child tried to chase me out."
"I didn't chase you out..."
Pele turned a circle in midair and came down in a superhero landing. There wasn't a flaw in it, and I answered with applause.
"Perfect. You could go active as a hero this very moment."
"Save the nonsense. Let's see the child of the Three Gods."
Pele set the laptop open on the table. On the screen, a handsome alien who stopped time and a celebrity by the name of A Thousand Flowers were in the middle of being extremely famous.
"This drama's good, right? At the end..."
"Finish that sentence and I'll kill you."
"...Let's connect with the Shrine Priest. Quickly."
I tipped my chin at Kana. She crept over, hesitant, and laid a hand on the laptop.
The screen went black. A moment later the Shrine Priest was there, seated in lotus beneath a torii.
"It's been a while, Shrine Priest Tsukumi."
The Shrine Priest bowed his head. I answered with a brief nod of my own.
"Is the purification finished?"
The light in his eyes was no longer the dull wear of a hard life. It was bright, and alive.
"That couldn't have been easy. You've worked hard."
The Shrine Priest gave a bitter smile.
"Have you caught the former prime minister?"
He went utterly still. The Shrine Priest's breathing vanished.
"I only know the surface of it. Nothing more."
In the original, the Great Shrine Maiden's fall was mentioned only in passing, and even I hadn't known the inner roster down to the last name.
The Shrine Priest's eyes blazed. The killing intent of a god's proxy reached all the way through the screen.
"Pace yourself. The world is yours now, isn't it, Shrine Priest?"
Gratitude lay under his voice.
"Don't sell yourself short. You would have succeeded anyway."
"Shameless how?"
He said it with such resolve that question marks rose over our heads.
"You know what he's talking about?"
"Nothing much comes to mind..."
It was hard to picture the righteous, upright Shrine Priest committing a sin at all.
"...Ah!"
He had definitely said he would come. He had even promised to arrive by some means no one could imagine...
"Forgot."
"I forgot."
Our attention had been so fixed on the Heavenly Punishment that we never spared a thought for the Great Shrine Maiden's side of things. She had gone and fought and died on her own, so there hadn't even been anything worth mentioning.
The Shrine Priest drooped, wounded by a slight that no one even remembered.
He drew a small notebook from his robes. The look he gave it went soft and far away.
"Just come next time. And when you do, don't come for work. Come to have fun."
Pele offered it as comfort.
"When?"
So he had come almost at once.
"What did you do?"
"Ah. I did think they vanished at some point."
I had assumed that rabble had simply scattered.
"That's already something. You were there. You could have at least dropped by."
"Nothing to be ashamed of. You did something big."
Pele praised him in earnest.
"When you got there, Seoul was already a complete wreck because of that dragon. If those half-baked shrine maidens had piled on, the whole country would have been in even worse chaos."
She was right.
Unlike Dan Miryong, who was one man, the shrine maidens were a group—and elites of the elite, enough for the Shrine Priest himself to vouch for them. If they had run wild as villains in the name of avenging the Great Shrine Maiden, they would have been an enormous headache.
The Shrine Priest, who had cut that problem down in a single stroke, was another benefactor of Korea.
Perhaps the sincere words gave him confidence. His expression brightened.
"Small talk's over, then?"
At that, the mood grew grave.
"Mr. Dan Miryu's power?"
Does the Shrine know about the Stone of Resurrection?
"Is it because of your successor?"
The Shrine Priest clenched his fist until it seemed it might shatter.
"But why are you looking for Mr. Dan Miryu?"
He seemed fairly certain of it. Certain that the Dan Clan had the power to heal his successor.
It would be stranger if they didn't know.
The two sides must have been thickly tangled through history. Could there really not have been a single line about the Stone of Resurrection?
Even gathering the stories of Dan Miryu running all over, healing people before he faced Sword, would have been enough to reach the answer.
"He isn't. Everyone here now is all of us."
The Shrine Priest clicked his tongue, plainly disappointed.
"Does Mr. Dan Miryu have to come to Japan in person?"
"Then I'm afraid that will be difficult."
He seemed to know it was an unreasonable request. He worked his fingers over his upper lip.
"I'd have to ask Mr. Dan Miryu to be sure, but he's tangled in one incident after another these days. I don't think he can move freely."
The Shrine Priest's face turned bitter.
"But, Shrine Priest. I have a way to resolve it."
"Yes. It will be fine even without Mr. Dan Miryu's power."
"I'll save that for later."
I grinned at the Shrine Priest.
"Your successor will be perfectly fine. Don't worry, and wait for me. I'll come to you soon."
At the last, the Shrine Priest turned his gaze to Kana, who stood there fidgeting.
"Hai!"
Kana snapped to attention like a raw recruit.
"Yes? Y-yeeees!?"
Shrine Maiden Kana tore at her hair and shrieked.
"M-me?! You mean me...?! Why?! There are people who would do it far better than I can!"
The Shrine Priest laughed, easy and unbothered.
"I don't know anything! I don't know the layout of the Shrine, and I don't know a single famous sight in Japan!"
Kana was desperate. Going to Japan alone was one thing, but going with the Phantom?! She would rather take a bolt from heaven!
The Shrine Priest refused her refusal.
I cut Kana's wail off at a suitable point and bid him farewell.
"Let's meet in Japan."
And so the talk with the Shrine Priest ended.
When the black screen returned, the life went out of Kana's face.
"No..."
Noooooo!!!
She screamed herself raw, and then, at the end of it—
"Urk."
She fainted.
"At this rate, I'll have to go alone, won't I?"
"Handle it yourself. I don't know anything about it."
Pele picked up the laptop and ambled off.
"First I'll send Mr. Dan Miryu a text..."
If he came in person, or if he called, I would have to explain what this was about.
"...And that's how I ended up going to Japan alone."
"...Haa."
Dan Miryu let out a long, heavy sigh.
"That will not do."
"I'll have it finished within two days."
"That will not do."
"If it really has to be, then a day trip..."
"That will not do."
Against Dan Miryu's iron wall, the Phantom pleaded.
"Am I a child?!"
"That will not do. If you are going, you will go as three or more. No exceptions."
"...I don't waaant to!!! I don't want to gooooo!!!"
Kana lost her mind.
"...And that includes her."
"Then just me, alone..."
"I said no!"
For a while the squabbling between the Phantom and Dan Miryu, and Kana's screams, went circling through the house.