Shadow Stepping (5)

What species even is that? Is that thing a phantasm too?

No instructor would bring an uncontrollable otherworldly creature into a class in the first place. And even if they did, they certainly wouldn't shove it at a batch of unprepared cadets without warning, the way this had just happened.

Pitch-black body, white hair. Humanoid.

So it had to be a phantasm. Simply one I didn't know.

A dokkaebi? A daein? The Great Adversary of the Underworld? No—each one misses the mark somewhere.

Its skin held a murky, unpleasant turbidity, the surface rippling faintly; it was a muscled nakedness that, despite being bare, somehow never felt bare. And atop its crown hung something I couldn't tell was hair or something else entirely, drooping in loose, trailing strands.

Even with an appearance this distinctive, no fanbook entry or original-work entity—to say nothing of even a related folktale—came to mind. That settled it. This was a monstrosity from a tale I had never encountered.

"Haah."

The creature exhaled a breath of unusually dense steam. Vapor that thick suggested a body temperature higher than a human's.

And a high body temperature meant a vigorous metabolism.

Then I can probably rule out ghosts.

Anything outside the ghost category could be struck physically. I braced the bundled Twin Dragon Swords on my arm with practiced ease and barely managed to master my pounding heart.

"Oh no, the kids——!"

But the tension I had already built up was radiating outward in every direction. The allied phantasms had all gone collectively haywire.

Thud.

The enemy that now stood before me was not affected.

The thing quirked an eyebrow barely visible beneath its hanging hair and took a single step toward me. It was definitely immune to my godforsaken constitution.

"Commander!"

Then there was only one option.

"Fall back! Get to a point where my influence doesn't reach!"

The best outcome would be me luring that enemy far away. But whether it would move as I intended was anyone's guess.

Given the difference in build, physically dragging it off wasn't realistic either.

"Hup!"

"Go!"

So I hold it down. And as it happened, I had a partner who could help with that.

"I'll buy you time!"

"Hm?"

The sector I had been guarding was the east. And it was first and second period—morning class.

The sun was still in the east, which meant that wherever an obstacle stood, its shadow stretched westward.

Naturally, the target's shadow stretched toward me as well. From where I stood, it was within reach of a slight extension of the leg.

Crunch!

My foot came down on the creature's shadow. A weight utterly incomparable to the man-eating hound's pressed up against my sole.

"Haaah——"

The moment it realized its body was bound by an unseen force, the creature began to thrash.

This is harder than I thought……!

Pin someone down with Shadow Stepping and it felt like grinding your heel into a struggling opponent's solar plexus.

I had the advantage, but it wasn't omnipotent. The bigger and stronger the opponent, the harder it was to endure. And this thing was incomparably stronger than the man-eating hound.

"……Everyone, hold formation and retreat! Move!"

"Commander……!"

"Fall back!"

Thank goodness Seong Gwon's judgment was quick and decisive.

I pulled my foot away before Shadow Stepping's hold could break. Being released at some unpredictable moment and attacked for it would be far worse; even a little early, it was better to move at a timing of my own choosing.

BOOM!

Sure enough, the instant its stillness broke, the creature swung its right arm. I hastily arched backward at the waist and sprinted left.

The arm it had swung passed barely a hair's breadth above me.

Clunk.

Half a beat late, the Twin Dragon Swords dropped away from my back. The released buckles and straps slid down my shoulders, and swept along by their own weight, the swords fell to the ground.

"Twin Dragon Swords, keep your promise!"

"A promise is as good as gold."

"We shall not break it."

By their nature, the Twin Dragon Swords did not tolerate being cast off and separated from me.

But realistically, an unused weapon was nothing but baggage—and two meters of baggage blocked or hampered a great many movements. Normally fine, but in combat training like this it put me at a serious disadvantage.

So, ever since class began, I had negotiated with the Twin Dragon Swords in every gap I could find. What I was doing now—letting them go—was the fruit of those negotiations.

For movement-based classes only, the Twin Dragon Swords would be set aside temporarily; and if they happened to be separated for some unforeseen reason in the course of that, it was permitted.

Tap.

With over ten kilograms of weight falling away, my body felt lighter. The moment I cleared the swords' reach, I changed direction.

To buy the kids time to evacuate, I had to keep pinning its shadow or holding its attention as much as possible—and for that, staying as close as I could manage was the advantage.

My foot scraped across the leaf-strewn ground, halted, then drove forward again. The smell of cigarettes brushed the tip of my nose.

The monster retracted the arm it had sliced through the air, and the moment it saw me coming, it thrust out its other arm. It seemed intent on seizing me.

Whoosh!

In that instant I slid across the fallen leaves and stomped the monster's shadow. The monster froze once more.

What is this resistance……!

Stopping an opponent that had been merely walking, and stopping one executing dynamic motions like swinging its arms—the burden was on entirely different levels.

Exactly as much momentum as the binding erased from the target, and not a whit more, came crashing down onto me. If I overcame it, the opponent stopped; if I couldn't, the binding simply failed to take.

It stood, arrested mid-motion.

"Ho."

Still, momentum on the scale of an outstretched arm was stoppable. It really was a class meant for cadets—considerate enough to extend its arm at only a moderate speed.

Rustle.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

During the seconds the temporary restraint had bought me, I righted the body I'd skidded on.

I raised my reclined upper body with my core and drove power through my legs to spring forward, as if catapulted.

The moment my legs left the creature's shadow, the halt released.

The monster retracted its outstretched arm, and I came to a stop just beyond its reach.

I was a little winded. Shadow Stepping's first ability, applied in actual combat, drained far more stamina than I'd expected.

I have to hold out longer.

No matter how urgent the retreat, they wouldn't have pushed their pace to the point of breaking formation. If the formation collapsed and they were ambushed on top of it, the damage would be catastrophic.

So the time I had to buy was a little longer. I met the monster's gaze as it turned back toward me, head-on.

In that instant, power gathered in the monster's thick thighs.

"……!"

Not fast enough that I couldn't respond—but fast enough that the danger registered.

My legs followed instinct's advice and jumped, low and long. To any observer, it would have looked like a jump meant to sprawl flat against the ground.

An arm moving at a speed far too halfhearted to call a proper attack—but whose sheer mass carried a genuinely chilling weight—smashed down on the spot where I had been standing.

CRUNCH!

Immediately after, the monster tried to move in the direction I'd jumped. What stopped it was a tree. Its swung arm and the back of its hand struck the trunk.

"Ngh……!"

Meanwhile, I rolled a full turn across the ground. It was a way of preserving as much of my speed as possible.

Whether stones and roots dug into my body or not, I rose like flowing water and sprinted to another tree.

Thud. Hooking my hand around the trunk to wrench my direction around, I located the monster.

Its movement speed wasn't especially fast; it had only just rounded the first tree.

Its grotesque face twisted into an expression I couldn't tell was a smile or a snarl.

Crunch.

The monster's hand clawed and crushed the bark of the tree it braced against. Proof that if that hand ever caught me, it would pulp me past the bone.

"Hah-hah!"

Then the monster turned its body—not toward me, but toward the direction the kids had retreated.

My plan to dodge from tree to tree and stall for time was scrapped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on the spot.

My body hurled itself at the monster.

Whuum!

As if it had been waiting for exactly that, the monster's arm swept down at me. Wham. My foot touched its shadow, and the monster's fingertips froze to a stop near my neck.

Trembling.

It stopped. I made it stop… but in dodging the attack I had lost my balance and fallen. The approaching hand had stopped by a hair's breadth—no, it hadn't truly stopped; the trembling was tremendous, as though it would tear free at any moment.

I couldn't hold this for long. The instant I got up to evade that fist, the binding would break.

I was certain of it.

In that case——

I threw open the second power that Shadow Stepping harbored. Splash. Immediately after, a sensation like plunging into deep water washed over my whole body.

"……"

One confession, while we're here.

What folktale could Shadow Stepping possibly have sprung from, that stepping on a shadow would come bundled with the power to freeze its owner in place?

"…back?"

To understand that, you first had to know what meaning the world had attached to shadows.

"…you coming back?"

A shadow is a person's soul, their double. A shadow is one face of the unconscious, an aspect the ego cannot identify. A shadow is the fragment of oneself that negates oneself. A shadow is the domain of darkness, the boundary where ghosts dwell.

"Are you coming back? At last?"

Right. Shadow Stepping was not a phantasm born of any particular folktale.

It was nothing more than a shallow vestige reflecting a single one of the many images humanity had attached to shadows. That was also why its power was so faint—faint enough to rank at the very bottom of even folk-tale-grade entities.

"Into the embrace of this death……"

Shadow Stepping was a phantasm with no clear folktale behind it—rootless.

"……No."

And precisely because of that, Shadow Stepping could manifest new functions when it met talent of sufficient caliber.

"I still want to live."

Stepping on another's soul to freeze it. And beyond that—setting foot into the darkness, the boundary where the dead reside.

I stared up at a sky filled edge to edge with sword-qi, at a horizon where sky and earth knew no border.

That place was the underworld. Beyond it lay the land one crossed after death.

"……Then it is well."

Something came into view amid the jet black.

"Go."

They were figures robed in black, black banners in hand, mounted upon black horses¹; and people wrapped in five-colored garments and armor, leading horses of every kind, gripping swords and rope and the like.

"We will be waiting here, always."

And among them—a single man, his limbs bound fast.

Through the veil hiding his face, a single color flickered, visible and not. A hue I knew all too well.

"Ghk—"

But before I could chase that color to its end, my breath ran out. There was no air in the land of the dead—there was nothing to be done about it.

I hurriedly turned my feet back toward the world of the living.

There was no need to go far. If the passage from the living world to the dead was a shadow, then it followed that the passage from the dead back to the living was a shadow as well.

I dove into the "shadow of the living world" that mirrored the real world's scenery.

"……What the—!"

The sensation of bursting out of a shadow was like breaking the surface of water, and at the same time its exact opposite.

A fall that was an ascent; a flight that was a plunge.

Until a moment ago it had felt like dropping downward, and then all at once a sensation of defying gravity and righting my body pressed down on me.

That was why I ended up staggering like someone rising without pushing off the ground with their hands. Apparently I'd better start training my core.

Wham!

But I succeeded in gifting the enemy a wholly unexpected bewilderment.

The moment I burst out, I stomped the monster's shadow and froze it.

Whether it had been quite thrown off by my momentary disappearance, the monster's position hadn't changed much from before. In other words, it hadn't been in motion—its kinetic energy was low.

I used the temporary stop to catch my breath, then immediately backed away.

After all, unnecessary restraints did nothing but eat my stamina. If I could dodge attacks without one, the binding wasn't strictly required.

In the original, it was possible to emerge somewhere else entirely—as long as the shadows were connected……

I had kept up my research into Shadow Stepping all this while. Naturally—it was an ability that could become the ultimate trump card if wielded well.

Would it work for the current me too?

The underworld that Shadow Stepping provided operated on the basis of shades cast in reality. The shade was, in a sense, a door—and a sanctioned space.

That was why moving from an independent shade A to an independent shade B was impossible. If the two were separate, that was how it worked.

But if the two shadows were connected, the story changed.

Whether shadows A and B partially overlapped, or a third, C, intervened and linked them—as long as the shadows were connected, it was possible to change coordinates and emerge elsewhere.

Though since the underworld reached through Shadow Stepping and this reality shared the same flow of time, calling it teleportation was a bit of a stretch.

BOOM!

Just then the enemy lunged at me as I retreated. The moment I confirmed my shadow overlapping a tree's, I flipped the world over.

My second entry into the underworld.

……They're gone.

The ones who had spoken to me earlier were nowhere to be seen. I blinked once and set thoughts of them aside.

There would be plenty of time to agonize over that after class ended.

My legs ran, stamping across the motley shadows pooled on the black earth. Those shadows bore the exact shape of the tree's shadow I had used to enter the underworld.

The moment I positioned myself at the top of the tree, the world reflected like a puddle became reality again.

After confirming that more than five meters now separated the monster and me, I sprinted to keep that distance.

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And my breathing had somehow settled lower than before. Traversing the underworld back and forth, it turned out, taxed my stamina less than freezing it did.

This was why Shadow Stepping was broken.

"Have you ever seen a bastard with no concept of fair play……"

More importantly—it's been talking this whole time, hasn't it? A sapient phantasm?

"Kyaaaaaak!!"

"Aaaaaaagh!!"

Just then, screams rang out from somewhere beyond. The direction the kids had retreated in. My head snapped toward it reflexively.

"Want to go? Too bad. I'm not sending you."

I had to help. But—how?

That monster was still very much intact, and even if I broke through it, the problems were legion. The monster following at my heels was one thing, but the moment I rejoined the cadets, their phantasms would go on strike too.

"If you want it that badly, knock me down and go."

So was holding my ground here really the best option? But then, why on earth were the kids screaming? What had appeared over there?

……What if they've run into those phantasms while still inside my radius of influence?

How far would they have to get from me before the phantasms returned to normal? I didn't know. Not knowing made my heart lurch all the harder.

What if this really was because of me? What if Pyo Do-hyeok was right, and I was the one being a hindrance?

"Do you seek our protection?"

"Is there something you wish to keep safe?"

Of course—wanting to live doing what I wanted did not mean wanting to live by heaping harm onto others.

"Then seize us."

"Grasp us, and wield us."

My legs bolted toward the Twin Dragon Swords I had flung away earlier. Thank goodness it wasn't far.

Whoosh. The leaves shoved aside by my feet played their music, and my hand caught the cloth bundle wrapping the Twin Dragon Swords and hauled it up.

"Oh. What's this. Want to try the Twin Dragon Swords, do you?"

The problem was… the problem started now.

Could I even swing these swords? And even if I could—was I allowed to?

I hadn't yet received authorization to unseal the Twin Dragon Swords. In that situation, was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I really entitled to unwrap them and start swinging on my own?

"If you can use them, use them."

As if it had read my hesitation, the enemy giggled.

"Practical Combat Instructor Shim Jae-gyeong grants permission. I'll take full responsibility, so go on—try it."

Was I supposed to trust that?

"Aaaaaaagh!!"

Just as I hesitated, wondering whether I could believe this permission granted so abruptly, screams burst out as if to hurry me along.

I bit my lip, hard.

"The two are still beyond you."

"Grasp only the White Swan."

The moment my hand peeled away the outermost layer of cloth, the Twin Dragon Swords unleashed their savage power as if they had been waiting. The talisman cords and silk shredded under that force, shortening the work for me.

"The Instructor gave her permission."

"……Very well."

Of the two blades, I seized the White Swan—the one whose hilt and scabbard shone a blinding white. The blade, 1.37 meters of steel by the cutting edge alone, came free more easily than expected.

In something close to a spread-eagle stance—one hand on the scabbard, one on the hilt, arms spread as wide as they would go—the rest happened on its own.

The great sword, nearly five kilograms of it, rose skyward in my two-handed grip.

"I swear to the heavens upon this three-foot blade."

At the same time, the savage dragon the Twin Dragon Swords harbored gathered on the edge and kindled golden flame. "Oh?" Someone's bewildered voice was buried beneath that ferocity and barely carried.

"The mountains and rivers tremble."

For me as I was now, merely enduring the Twin Dragon Swords' power was an ordeal.

I could hold out no longer and brought the sword sweeping down.

Not one word of exaggeration—the whole world shook.