Golden Trajectories
The sound of gunpowder going off snaps people back to their senses, no matter what world they're in.
Is it because the noise is so enormous, or because some kind of magic dwells in the gun itself?
A single shot can kill you.
Any living thing that hears that roar can't help but feel it in its bones. Or perhaps it's the faith that has settled into firearms used that way, year after year.
"Tsk... two buildings... idols... gone...?"
"Huh...? My extra-loaded beef and bok choy mala tang...? Slurp..."
That was enough to jolt the two handlers out of their daze. Hmm. So physical shock really is the thing for people who've checked out of their own heads? Instead of me body-slamming them, that enormous racket did the waking for me.
I'd always figured you ought to keep your wits about you in a crisis. Watching those two clutch each other and tremble the instant they came to, I found myself revising that opinion.
"Hah—there's black fog everywhere... Does that mean we can't even evacuate?"
"There's a barrier app, and I'm sure Miso Cheonsa will protect us, but... ugh, I can't help being scared at a time like this..."
They were never going to be combat assets anyway. Wouldn't it have been kinder to their minds if they'd just stayed zoned out a little longer? Let them watch the illusion the demon had shown them for a bit, and by the time they came around, the whole thing would already be over.
Of course, if that dragged on, they'd end up like the things Helena was putting down right now. Souls held in pawn, reduced to nothing but the demon's servants. If they hadn't followed it of their own will, they'd gotten addicted to the visions it fed them and couldn't claw their way free—twisted into those grotesque shapes, stealing other people's life force, their souls, and trying to drag other humans down with them.
But Helena wasn't going to let that happen. Miso Cheonsa and I were ready to step in if it came to that, too. So it wouldn't. And the ones who'd already become the demon's minions—Helena wouldn't leave them like that, either.
Even now, stitch by stitch, she was drawing golden trajectories straight from the muzzle and blowing their heads apart. You could call that Helena's own kind of mercy. She had infinite rounds to work with; she could have put several bullets through their bodies to finish them. But a single shot through the skull, and they died before they could even feel the pain.
Hmm.
I would have left it at that, once. Remembering my talk with Miso Cheonsa, though, I found myself hesitating over the thought. Wasn't that a little too centered on me?
Did humans want to live in a painful reality? Or, even if they were dying, did they want to be happy at least inside an illusion? When I was human, dying was dying either way. Might as well be as happy as possible, I'd thought. Maybe that was why I'd died before I could taste even more misery.
Ah—was that someone else's life? My memory was a little hazy. I'd watched so many human lives that I couldn't tell which of them had been my own past. No—if that had been me, I think I would have reached for drugs. I didn't remember anyone in those memories spiraling into ruin that way, though...?
But there were plenty of humans like Helena, too. Ones who thrashed about in a cruel reality and never fled from it, who clung stubbornly to life. They said the only ones who wrote their stories were themselves.
"Fuck, nyang. How is this supposed to be happiness, nyang? Anyone can see they're junkies, nyang!"
"A parasite on the human heart, and you talk too much. I'm neither good nor merciful. If I can put a bullet between your disgusting brows, that's enough for me."
The demon kept talking like that, trying to shake the two of them. Nyangnyangbeam and Helena didn't so much as flinch. I liked humans with that kind of spine. If they were cute girls, I liked them even more. So I could watch their backs with a smile.
Yes—I felt sorry for the people the demon had taken. Some of them had simply gone blind with desire, entrusted their souls to demons, and ended up as puppets. Others had sold themselves because the wish was one no one but a demon would ever grant. Losing a lover, a child—someone they loved. Who else but a demon would promise to bring them back?
Even that wasn't real, of course. They were only watching an illusion of living happily with the resurrected. But to them, that place was reality. So even if they died, they would die inside that happiness. That was a scrap of mercy, in its way. If they were going to die anyway, wasn't it better to go in an instant, without ever knowing, than to wake to reality and drown in despair?
Well. That might all have been my own bias talking. There were humans who wanted to die fighting, on a battlefield that belonged to them. Something about not being able to reach Valhalla unless you died with a weapon in your hand.
It wasn't as if bringing them back was impossible. But that, too, had been their choice, and I couldn't put a hand in out of mere pity. I'd already made a promise with Miso Cheonsa. Even if the road led to ruin, I was to respect what Helena—what humans—had chosen. So I only watched. The way I had, at first, in that other world. Quietly, as Nyangnyangbeam and Helena carved their way through.
The minions clawed up out of the earth without end, screaming as if they were reaching for the surface from hell. Some of them split the ground in a single heave, huge things; others were small and came in fast. Helena's bullets laid every last one of them on the dirt with perfect equality. Those golden trajectories punched through flesh steeped in demonic power as if it were nothing.
Unfortunately, Nyangnyangbeam's ray couldn't turn those twisted things into cat-eared cute girls. Maybe that was for the best. I didn't particularly want to watch a cute girl's head get punched through by a bullet. A story weighty enough could make even death feel solemn—but I preferred happy endings to that kind of tragedy. Maybe tragedy was what made happiness feel precious. That was why I'd liked revenge stories, after all. Even so, I knew that for any given person, a plain life was better than one stained with that kind of misery. Which was probably why they weren't waking from the illusion. Even if they realized they weren't in the real world.
Maybe it was because Helena and Nyangnyangbeam were handling its minions too well. The demon kept trying to rattle their minds.
"Fuck, nyang, they just keep coming, nyang. We've gotta hit the main body—how do we do that, nyang?"
"We just kill them all."
"Oh, so there's an end to them, nyang? Then I don't give a shit, nyang!"
Helena was long since inured to that kind of malice and sweet temptation, and Nyangnyangbeam wasn't so much as twitching either. Magical girls made you think of dreams and hope first, after all. Maybe that was why Nyangnyangbeam, armed with those things, wouldn't fall for a lure that cheap. I could see the same fire in her that I saw in Helena, and it made me rather fond. Ah—the foul mouth was a bit of a flaw, but cute girls still looked cute when they swore, so it was forgivable.
While I was watching Nyangnyangbeam and Helena's action movie—
"Mm. It isn't even glancing our way."
"Demons are always like that. They only work at digging into weak hearts. They don't even go near people whose hearts are healthy. Come to think of it, seeing it has no interest in me either—is your flesh also nothing but a shape?"
"Ah, I needed a form that would let me mix with humans."
"Aha."
Our reasons were different, but the result was the same. If I hadn't had a body, I'd still be standing here just watching Helena. I might have made people jump out of their skins every time I reached out with a thought-form, too. But compared to sitting through a movie or a drama, making a character and role-playing inside it, interacting—that was a much more immersive experience. Even if, for the moment, I was only watching from behind.
The demon's minions weren't infinite after all. While we chatted, the rate at which they clawed their way up began to slow. At this pace, no matter how thick the black fog lay, Helena and Nyangnyangbeam would break through that wave of servants and reach the demon itself.
Ah—they might not find the path, though. Then I'd just have to guide them a little with a thought-form.
"Hnh—something just brushed my thigh...!"
"Hah—don't tell me one of that demon's minions made it all the way here...! Miso Cheonsa, please help...!"
"Mm. It's safe here, so you don't need to worry too much."
I'd drawn up the thought-form that had been crushing the demon's minions underground, outside Yegyeong and Suhyeon's range of awareness, so none of them could reach this spot. It just happened to graze Yegyeong's thigh. If I hadn't willed it to have any physical force, she wouldn't have felt a thing. Was she that sensitive?
Anyway, Miso Cheonsa noticed I'd done something and gave me a long, pointed look, so I quietly looked away. I hadn't done anything wrong. I wasn't meddling too much—just offering a tiny bit of help. Yegyeong and Suhyeon were having a hard time, and those two were going to handle that stretch anyway. I only wanted to make it a little easier, to show them the way. When the golden trajectories of the bullets split the black fog, I peeled the mist back a little further and let them glimpse where the demon was hiding. That was all.
"That fucker hiding behind his minions, running his mouth like a coward—he's right over there, nyang!"
Now the two of them would open the path themselves. That was enough. I'd been tempted to just bury every last minion underground and skip straight to the boss fight, but—
"Yeonmin. Didn't we agree to stay out of it?"
"Eheh."
—Miso Cheonsa had somehow caught on, and she poked me in the side and whispered it, so I had to restrain myself, unfortunately. Watching them fight minions that dropped to a single bullet was only fun the first time. Keep looking, and it got boring.