These Are the End Times
The plane arrived at Honolulu International Airport.
"Please remove your mask."
"I'm a phantom thief. I can't take it off."
"...If you refuse to cooperate, we won't have a choice either."
A petty squabble broke out at immigration, but one look at Dan Miryu's face—black as a dead man's—and I took the mask off anyway.
They had been just as fussy back in Korea. Thorough, to a fault.
"...Will this do? You aren't a hero."
"What harm is there in recognizing a phantom thief as well?"
Dan Miryu's sigh went deep.
Sigh or no sigh, we had arrived in Hawaii at last.
"Mmm. My first time on an airplane, and I never knew it could be so agreeable."
"You liked it?"
"The people were kind, and the food was delicious. Best of all, they let Lord San-gun wander about."
"Of course they did. Do you have any idea how much I paid?"
Hong Yumin and Mi Soryeong chatted warmly while they waited for the luggage. Freed at last from that cramped cabin, San-gun groomed himself on Hong Yumin's shoulder.
"Do tigers even groom?"
Same family as cats. Maybe it didn't matter.
At a distance, foreigners murmured as they watched San-gun. A full debate had opened over whether he was a tiger or a cat.
We collected the bags and stepped outside.
The bright, brilliant air of Oahu welcomed us.
"Hawaii! The greatest resort in the world!"
Me, setting foot in Hawaii. In the world I used to live in, I could never have dreamed of it.
"Here it is."
"Yes."
Dan Miryu brought the rental car around. An affable middle-aged man bowed his head to him.
"Then I hope you have a pleasant journey."
"Thank you for your trouble. We're grateful."
When a man who was unmistakably Korean appeared, I turned to Dan Miryu.
"Is there a Dan clan here too?"
"No. He's simply someone I was introduced to through an acquaintance."
"And who is that acquaintance?"
"Someone who is no longer with us."
Dan Miryu smiled, thin and sharp.
"He tried a joke, so I tried one in return."
So that was why the man had glittered beneath the beautiful sun, sweat pouring off him in sheets.
"Miryu, the luggage is all loaded."
"Dad, hurry up, let's go."
"Let's."
"Yes."
Dan Miryu moved to climb behind the wheel, but Mi Soryeong stopped him.
"You rest. I'll drive."
"No. I'll do it."
"You can't. You're still tired."
She shoved him into the passenger seat by force.
"No, that's—"
"Enough. Just sit there."
Before Dan Miryu could get another word out, Mi Soryeong started the engine.
"Wait. Why is Mom driving...?"
Dan Chuyeon, who had been texting a friend, broke into a cold sweat.
"What is the matter with Soryeong at the wheel?"
"Master. You traveled with Mom. You really don't know?"
"It was swift, and I liked it. What of it?"
"Ah..."
Chuyeon's face hardened. Dan Miryu seized the safety handle.
"Then we'll be off. Our destination is an ultra-luxury hotel with a spectacular view of Waikiki."
"We depart!"
"Let's go!!!"
Vroooom!
The car pulled away.
And I understood why father and son had looked so uneasy.
She was drift-driving on pure inertia.
Whump.
Hot pavement met my cheek. The heat scorched my face as if flames were roasting it, but even that was nothing beside the relief of having escaped hell.
"Uuugh!"
Dan Chuyeon, apparently at his limit, sprinted for the restroom.
"Hurry up and come back!"
"Tsk, tsk. A man, and that frail."
Mi Soryeong and Hong Yumin headed for the lobby with perfectly fresh faces.
San-gun, Dan Miryu, and I collapsed against the lobby sofa and sprawled there.
"I'm dying."
"..."
"Krek."
Dan Miryu didn't even have the strength left to speak; his eyes had gone dead, and San-gun panted with his tongue hanging out.
Someone far off found the sight of San-gun cute enough to take a photograph.
Time passed, and our minds came back to us.
Hong Yumin and Mi Soryeong left the room keys on our side of things, kidnapped San-gun, and made for a café. Dan Chuyeon was still locked in mortal combat with a toilet.
Life returned to Dan Miryu's dead eyes.
"Where are we?"
"Hell."
A bit of nonsense, but I let it pass.
We spent a while staring blankly at nothing.
"There are an unusual number of heroes and guards."
Dan Miryu looked around the lobby.
The guards protecting the hotel prowled with guns in hand, and far off along the beach a hero was out on patrol.
"That isn't all."
Among the people coming and going through the hotel, some wore uneasy looks—restless eyes on the move, families and solitary travelers alike, their numbers all different. The languages drifting from them were no less varied. German, French, Italian, English...
Dan Miryu counted them on his fingers.
"Politicians, executives of major corporations, mere nouveau riche, famous entertainers..."
He clicked his tongue.
"There's even a hero."
A hero who ought to have been fighting on the front lines, right here.
"These are the end times."
"These are the end times."
I had never expected to see the fallout of Ilshikgyo in a shape like this.
"I thought the vacation season would mean the place was empty... It isn't."
"So it seems."
I watched them a moment longer, then stood. Dan Chuyeon came staggering over.
"Ugh. I thought I was going to die."
"I knew it the moment you ate instant ramen on the plane."
"What was I supposed to do? It was delicious..."
Dan Miryu patted his son's back.
"You can't go anywhere in that state. It isn't every day we travel. You want to waste it?"
"...Dad, you take the wheel."
"All right. First we collect your mother, then we head up."
"Okay."
I quietly followed father and son.
All at once, in the press of the crowd, a sense of déjà vu came over me.
Looks like it isn't only the heroes who ran.
Well, war never did confine its harm to the good alone.
I tossed the room key and caught it.
An ultra-luxury suite was waiting for me.
Somewhere on the island of Oahu.
In an Ilshikgyo safe house, the Saintess studied a map of Hawaii.
Tap. Tap.
She was pondering how to bring the great work to the most effective success.
If one thought of Hawaii's fire in the simplest terms, it would be the volcanoes.
Hawaii's dormant volcanoes, and its living ones. The terrestrial qi and the fire those mountains held were vast beyond imagining. Power that nature had cradled across long ages would surpass every offering ever laid before the Eclipse God.
But was that truly all? Would Hawaii's fire end with volcanoes?
No. It could not. A mere handful of volcanoes could never fill the Eclipse God's belly. More fire was needed—beautiful fire, to adorn His wings.
She drew circles around Hawaii's volcanoes. Kilauea. Mauna Loa. Lōʻihi. Haleakalā. Diamond Head. Mauna Kea. Hualālai.
And after that, every island of Hawaii, and—
"Every human in Hawaii."
Only then could it be called the fire of Hawaii. The impious, who did not believe in the Eclipse God. Those lecherous pigs stuffing their bellies, and the worthless wretches who turned their faces from the truth and spent each day doing nothing but shit. Far too low in rank to offer the Eclipse God. Still, gathered and gathered as they were, they would serve their purpose.
"Good. Good."
The Saintess was satisfied. What joy could compare to rendering so great a service to the Eclipse God?
Even so, she had to be careful. To offer up every human all at once, she had neither the time nor the hands. And if, in the midst of a holy war, she turned the United States into an enemy as well, the headaches would not stop at one or two.
Priority belonged to the comparatively easy volcanoes. Offer them up, grant that power to the Eclipse God, and the strength bestowed upon the faithful would grow with it, so that everything afterward—and the holy war itself—would become that much easier.
This was a revelation the Eclipse God Himself had given. If she failed to carry it out in full, the Saintess might go on breathing, but she would not be alive.
She suffered over the insufficiency of her power, and she loathed the vermin that obstructed the great work. Even now, the thought of the things roaming outside was more than she could endure.
"Just a little. Just a little more, and it ought to be enough."
The filth outside had to be purified. She had choked it down for days. Little by little, it was growing difficult to control.
"Hoo. Hoo."
The Saintess drew a deep breath and made first for the purification room.
"May the Morning Star bless you!"
"May the Morning Star bless you."
The believer standing guard over the purification room greeted her.
"Saintess, what brings you!"
"I wished to see the impious."
"Understood! I'll open the door!"
The door opened.
"Gyaaaaaah!!!"
A sweet sound reached her.
Ah. Pigs were nauseating, but their screams alone were as sweet as a glass of wine. One of the few uses a pig possessed.
"May the Morning Star bless you!"
"May the Morning Star bless you."
The purifiers who had been cleansing the pig snapped to attention as one.
"Saintess, what brings you!"
"Ah. I have come to punish this stupid pig with my own hands."
The purifiers' faces melted with rapture.
"The Saintess's own punishment! What an honor to witness it!"
"Set beside experts such as yourselves, I am sorely lacking."
"Country bumpkins like us are nothing beside the Saintess!"
"Hehe. There is no need to belittle yourselves so."
The Saintess wore a gentle expression.
"Your work is nobler than anyone's. Take pride in it."
"Yes, Saintess!"
"Now, that's enough of that. Shall we look at the pig first?"
She approached the figure at the center of the room.
Every toe had been torn out. One eye was gone as well. The man shook.
"The noble hero of Germany, are you not?"
The Saintess stroked his shoulder.
"S-save me... S-save me..."
"Hehe."
She draped an arm over the hero's shoulders.
"Where has that proud figure from the television gone, leaving only a coward behind?"
"S-save me. P-please."
"Hmm. From the moment a hero forgot his duty and came running, those were no longer righteous words."
"Eeeeeeek!!!"
The hero drove his head down. The pool made of his own blood splashed.
"I'll do anything! Anything! So please, just my life..."
"Haa."
The Saintess stroked the blood that had spattered her cheek.
Filthy. Truly.
"Anything?"
"Yes!"
"Then die."
Crunch.
The hero's head was driven into the floor and shattered.
"Hmm. Not enough."
The Saintess pointed to the purifiers.
"Brother. Summon every brother in the safe house."
"Understood!"
The purifiers scattered at once.
The Saintess looked coldly down at the dead pig.
"This corpse ought to be of some help as well."
She chanted a spell, offered the body up to the Eclipse God, and turned her steps away.
"I thirst."
She needed blood. Blood to wet this throat.
"Just once. I really must do it only once."
She would rampage a single time, and gather the power the volcano rite required while she was at it.
"After all, I mustn't let myself grow emotional."
Only this once. Then she would work with a cool head.
"Hm. Hm."
The Saintess's steps were light. She thought of the festival still to come.
It would be very entertaining.