The Shadow That Devours the Clan
Contrary to my expectation that the ability would fizzle out—
Destiny Observation
The scenery of the abandoned warehouse warped, and snow pouring from an ashen sky filled my vision. Pure white flakes were settling in thick drifts over the rubble of collapsed buildings.
And at the center of it all, a woman stood alone.
Jin Seohyun.
The black hair she wore now was gone. She had reclaimed the pure white hair and striking purple eyes I'd seen on the wanted poster, and the pitch-black mana coiling around her entire body, writhing like a living thing, was on a completely different level from the woman I had met today.
Countless corpses lay scattered around her. And among that heap of bodies, I found a face I knew.
The Jin Clan Head.
The old man who looked more monk than martial artist was sprawled on the ground in a wretched state. A gaping hole had been punched through his chest, and his right arm had been ripped off at the shoulder.
...Even the Clan Head went down?
It was extremely rare for figures of a Clan Head's stature to enter a gate in person, and the Jin Clan Head was no exception. Between the merits of his youth and the weight of the family's accomplishments, his official rank sat at Lv.7 — but he had scarcely fought anyone himself since then. The true measure of his strength was not precisely known.
One thing, however, was certain.
He's far stronger than an ordinary Lv.7.
That a man like that had been reduced to this was more than enough to guess how powerful the future Jin Seohyun would become.
She's gotten far stronger than she ever was at Lv.8.
What Destiny Observation showed was the peak its subject would one day reach. Which meant the Jin Seohyun standing before me had blown past merely reclaiming her old reputation.
That was when I heard it.
"...Seohyun."
The dying old man's voice. The Jin Clan Head. The fact that he still had breath in him in that condition was proof enough of his monstrous vitality.
Jin Seohyun walked toward him. Crunch, crunch. Every time she took a step, bloody footprints stamped themselves into the snow.
The Clan Head turned his head with difficulty.
"In the end... you've come back."
Jin Seohyun said nothing.
"No matter how hard you struggle... what flows in your blood belongs to the Jin Clan."
Her expression twisted at those words — a face full of naked disgust.
"That line."
She stopped in front of him.
"I've been hearing it since I was a child. I'm thoroughly sick of it."
"..."
"Live for the family. Die for the family. For the family... haha."
A dry laugh spilled from her lips.
"Tiresome right to the very end."
The Clan Head's eyelid twitched.
That old man... is he scared?
"Do you... have any idea what you've done."
"I do."
"After today, the Jin Clan is finished. A family that lasted a thousand years is over...!"
For the first time, a bright smile spread across Jin Seohyun's face. It was so radiant it circled all the way around to chilling. The Clan Head seemed to share the thought; his expression froze.
After a stretch of silence, the mana wrapped around her body began to swell.
KUUUUUNG—!!
Black mana raced across the ground in every direction. Building wreckage crumpled. The scattered corpses were flattened under the pressure. Witnessing that, the Clan Head's face went deathly white.
"S-Seohyun."
It was a voice I had never heard from him. What little dignity he had left was gone, and a stain spread down his trouser leg.
Jin Seohyun looked at him with something like interest.
"What's the matter?"
"..."
"Are you afraid?"
The Clan Head's body trembled like a frightened child's. No answer came. Jin Seohyun's smile deepened, as if the silence satisfied her.
"That's a relief."
Wuuung—!
Mana surged and bucked around her.
Jin Seohyun flicked a finger.
Then—
CRACK!
A jet-black spear punched through the Clan Head's body.
"Guh...!"
The shadow at her feet writhed like a living thing and crawled up over him.
"..."
Without even leaving a scream behind, his body was sucked into the shadow and vanished without a trace.
And then my field of view began to rise, slowly, into empty air.
What?
Tens of meters. Hundreds. The ruined buildings shrank beneath an endlessly climbing vantage until the view punched up through the clouds. And when I took in what lay spread below, I couldn't stop the shock from hitting me.
All of this...?
Chungcheong Province. The entire vast region I had only ever seen on a map was submerged in shadow, and at its center stood Jin Seohyun.
That was the last of it. My vision warped, and the abandoned warehouse returned.
I couldn't speak for a while. The scene I had just witnessed was still burned into my mind, and Jin Seohyun's forehead was still pressed to my palm.
They're really the same person?
Pale skin. A face without a drop of color in it. She looked sickly now, but no matter how I turned it over, she was the same woman I had seen in the future.
"Haa..."
My head was a mess. Still, one thing was certain. This woman's prime had not yet arrived.
I was still turning that over when I sensed a presence outside the warehouse.
They're here again.
The bounty hunters who had been showing up relentlessly for days.
"This the place?"
"Should be. They said they saw the whores going in here."
"Quiet. Don't get careless. Target's a Lv.6."
Looked like I was going to be a little late getting home.
I got home about an hour after that. It took a bit longer than I'd expected.
These ones were pretty decent.
Their movements were different from the bounty hunters who had come so far.
Ex-military, maybe.
Twenty years ago — the year 2000. After gates became known to the world, the military took in ability users on a massive scale, and that produced guys like these. Ability users dishonorably discharged for causing incidents or disobeying orders. Some of them naturally drifted into the underworld: mercenary work, illegal gate raids, bounty hunting.
The bounty really does bring out every kind of weirdo.
This was starting to get old.
"Hoo."
I set Jin Seohyun, who had been on my back, down on the living room sofa. Her face was still pale, but her breathing was stable. The medicine seemed to be working properly.
"Hmm..."
Would it be all right to leave her like this? After a moment's thought, I headed for the storage room. She might have been unconscious, but this was a woman who had been trying to kill me until a few hours ago. I still felt uneasy leaving her as she was.
What if she suddenly comes at me.
On top of that, I had used Destiny Observation and then fought, so I was exhausted. Better safe than sorry.
I bound her wrists and ankles with wire from the storage room, then firmly secured her torso to the sofa as well. I yanked it a few times; no sign it would come loose.
That should do it.
My tying was clumsy, so she looked a little ridiculous. Well. As long as it works.
I nodded in satisfaction and set my laptop on the living room table.
Now for this.
The scene from Destiny Observation came back to me. Jin Seohyun restored to her original appearance. The Jin Clan Head dying a wretched death. And the black shadow that had swallowed Chungcheong Province.
What the hell happened.
I typed Jin Seohyun's name into the search bar. Several articles came up.
Direct descendant?
I clicked the second article. A photo of a younger Jin Seohyun filled the screen — pure white hair, purple eyes — and the article continued below.
Jin Seohyun is known to be the paternal granddaughter of the current Jin Clan Head, and to have received her education at the Main Estate from early childhood.
She began training in the family's martial arts at the age of five, and in both swordsmanship and footwork she displayed achievements unmatched among the direct descendants of her generation.
"..."
I decided to just skip the last comment. The important part was elsewhere.
Paternal granddaughter, and she started learning the family's martial arts at the Main Estate from the age of five.
At that point, the Jin Clan's martial arts would have been soaked into her bones. I dug through old records and found that her main weapon had been a one-handed sword. A few gate-raid videos were still up.
On screen, Jin Seohyun moved through a pack of magic beasts with a single blade in hand. Every step closed the distance; every cut of the sword split a beast open.
She's really good.
This was before her body had been wrecked, and it showed — her movement was far sharper than what I had seen today. But no matter how many clips I ran through, there was no sign of the black power I had witnessed in the warehouse.
I typed into the search bar again.
Jin Clan shadow martial arts
A handful of results came up, most of them novels or game lore.
Jin Clan black mana
Same thing. I even followed the related searches down the rabbit hole and came up with nothing worth keeping.
So it isn't a power the Jin Clan taught her?
The future Clan Head's words still snagged at me, though.
With a line like that, it was hard to write the Jin Clan off as unrelated.
I scrolled further down the results. Then one article caught my eye, and I clicked it.
On the 17th, the raid team of Hunter Jin Seohyun — deployed to a gate in Gyeonggi Province — was found wiped out. The sole survivor was Hunter Jin Seohyun herself. The Association, arriving on scene, urgently arrested her as the prime suspect in the incident.
The comments were split down the middle — one camp certain Jin Seohyun was the killer, the other arguing it was strange to pin it on her without any real evidence. What stood out most, though, was the Jin Clan's response.
Their own granddaughter gets picked up on a murder charge and they don't say a word?
I skimmed a few more comments, then took my hand off the mouse.
Yeah. That's weird.
Jin Seohyun was the current Jin Clan Head's paternal granddaughter. A person like that had been arrested on suspicion of murdering her entire team, and the Jin Clan had barely stirred. Her trail after the incident was just as blurry. There was a record of the arrest, and after that, nothing.
And now she's like this.
I looked at Jin Seohyun lying on the sofa. A hunter who had once climbed all the way to Lv.8 was now rolling around as a bounty hunter with her mana circuits wrecked — and carrying a black power that had never shown up in the old videos.
I don't know.
There was only so much I was going to learn from the internet. I closed the laptop and glanced toward the sofa. She was still asleep.
"...Sleeping pretty well, huh."
Being able to pass out that peacefully in the house of the person who had kidnapped her was a talent in its own right.
Some time after that — around when the sun had fully gone down outside the window — Jin Seohyun's eyes opened. Dark irises stared blankly at the ceiling for a while.
"...!"
A moment later her mind seemed to catch up, and she tried to take in her surroundings, but she was bound, so all she managed was a strained grunt. I raised a hand in greeting.
"Good morning."
Jin Seohyun answered in a hoarse voice.
"...It's night."
I looked out the window. It had gotten completely dark without my noticing.
"Then good night."
"Could you untie me first?"
"Yeah. No."
Jin Seohyun's brow furrowed.
And why would I trust you.