Chapter 97
Chapter 97
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: Answerer XI
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Cheon Yohwa.
天寥化.
――Long ago, when I first laid eyes on those characters in her name, I might have already sensed the omen.
Sky heaven. Desolate yo. Become hwa.
Taken at face value, it simply means “to become desolate.”
Isn't it rather peculiar for a name given to a beloved child?
Still, yo (寥) didn't just carry the meaning of “desolation.” It also meant “emptiness,” “the void sky,” and “stillness.”
Have you ever seen writers who, in passages where “quiet” would suffice, go out of their way to embellish it with “desolate stillness”?
That desolate stillness (寂寥)—the yo in it was the very character in this girl's name. If interpreted as “to become still” rather than “to become desolate,” it wouldn't seem all that strange.
Right. If that's how you interpret it.
Attention.
From here on, it's a secret I haven't even told Cheon Yohwa—a piece of information known only to me in this world, a postscript-level TMI.
Feel free to take it with a grain of salt, since it's purely my personal speculation. I'm just piecing together the fragments I've gathered across various rounds.
First fragment.
Everyone probably knows that in the 108th round, I went to China with the Sword Marquis geezer.
While he was busy planting red flowers on Mount Hua, I took a brief trip around the area.
Here's an exact excerpt from what I described back then.
――――――――――
The range of my yokai hunts had gradually expanded. It now covered not just Shaanxi Province but Henan Province as well.
The “Tutorial Dungeon” phenomenon occurred worldwide, not just on the Korean Peninsula—and wouldn't you know it, a top-tier dungeon popped up in a place called Yingyang Town in Henan.
To top it off, it got tangled up with some Daoist cultist terrorists, making it feel like the end of the world.
――――――――――
There's a place called Dengfeng in Henan Province. It's famous for being home to the Shaolin Temple.
A bit further west from there lies a town called Yingyang Town.
The Yingyang Cheon clan.
Cheon Yohwa's family origin.
Second fragment.
The Korean Yingyang Cheon clan originally descends from a Ming Dynasty general dispatched to Joseon during the Imjin War.
The general didn't come alone; he brought his entire clan and naturalized in Joseon.
Most of his descendants fully assimilated into local society without issue, but according to my hypothesis, a tiny fraction of the clan clung to their “traditional faith.”
China's orthodox faith is Taoism.
Laozi, considered the founder of Taoism, hailed from Luyi County in Henan Province. He worked in Luoyang in Henan and is said to have written the Tao Te Ching at Hangu Pass in Henan.
Yingyang Town—the ancestral home of the Cheon clan—lies along the route from Luyi County to Hangu Pass.
The birthplace of Taoism. A region long drawn into the pull of faith.
But at some point, among the Cheon clan members who crossed over to the Korean Peninsula, only Yohwa's branch saw their faith warp.
Whether it was always that way or changed later is unknown. No records exist.
They built a massive estate spanning 14,990 square meters in Sejong City. Hidden underground were religious facilities. They founded Baekhwa Girls' High School to enroll the faithful's children.
Cheon Yohwa's father—the cult's de facto leader—changed his daughter's surname from Cheon (千) to Cheon (天). To this clan, their roots meant nothing anymore.
They called upon their own god.
No telling what deity they hoped would descend. It might've just been a shallow scam by a cult leader.
But in the apocalyptic void, spells were no mere illusions—they were real. Especially one performed by hundreds sacrificing hundreds of children.
Some entity beyond the void heard their prayers. Responded.
And thus, Avīci descended.
Third fragment.
Ji xi liao xi (寂兮寥兮).
The Tao Te Ching has such a passage.
Before humans distinguished all things, before forms and names of myriad objects were made, before heaven and earth were even divided, the world existed.
Laozi called that world “desolate stillness.”
The following passage continues:
Wu bu zhi qi ming (吾不知其名).
“I do not know its name.”
That desolate, still world—that desolation of the world—is something before all phenomena took form, hence “nameless.”
Now, let's look again at the student council president before us: Cheon Yohwa.
On the surface, it parses to “become still,” so you could nod along like, “Ah, her parents must've hoped she'd grow up to be a hikikomori.”
But her parents—especially her father—was the high priest of a heretical cult twisted from Daoism. He couldn't possibly be ignorant of one of the Tao Te Ching's most famous passages.
So, interpreting the name Cheon Yohwa after grasping the origin of yo (寥)… it becomes profoundly strange.
To become desolate.
To become still.
The sky. Emptied.
Names erased.
Anonymous. Nameless. Into that desolate sky without form or name. Abandoning self and true name, ascending to a world undistinguished.
A linguistic play on the name.
…What vicious sorcery is this?
Cheon Yohwa (天寥化). An ill-omened resonance. Hardly a name for a cherished child.
Better suited for a mountain offering to a malevolent god.
The crueler truth: the spell succeeded.
Far beyond the caster's expectations.
An estranged god filled with all forms yet none—a non-interval, a parade of hundred ghosts. Baekhwa.
…Or perhaps, Cheon Yohwa.
She was the mountain offering, and Baekhwa Girls' High School was the altar. Baekhwa Girls' High School was the offering for her alone, and she was the altar for the god.
This is the answer I've pieced together so far.
A regressor's commentary on why the estranged god Avīci had no choice but to descend upon Baekhwa Girls' High School.
But.
This story's conclusion wasn't mine.
“Thank you, Mister.”
Cheon Yohwa said.
“I definitely couldn't have won on my own. Ngh, even if I had, I would've surely lost myself in the process.”
Even so, you saved your sixteen friends. Every time. From the 1st round to the 117th.
Cheon Yohwa said.
“Even if it was an illusion, thank you for letting me see Mom again. I got to say the words I couldn't before. The plane was fun. Thank you for showing me the sunset. The coffee you brewed, Mister. It was delicious.”
The awakener once called the Korean Peninsula's sole necromancer. The Baekhwa Girls' High School student council president—who she had been. The girl who started basketball out of rebellion against her family but grew to truly love it. The one who, upon escaping the prison of the void, wouldn't even remember her original name or past—so from the 1st to the 117th round, never once called by name. The living offering and altar of this Avīci hell.
And she liked her cream lattes just a little bitter, a little sweet.
Cheon Yohwa said.
“――So I can't hand myself over to a yokai like you.”
-…….
“You're not me. You don't know the clouds I flew through. You don't know the name of the sunset I saw. You don't know the feel of the coffee I like. You don't know me. I've gone, I'm going, and I'll go to places you can't know.”
-…….
“I'm Cheon Yohwa (千謠話). I'll sing a thousand tales. You think I'll settle for a mere hundred stories for my life? I'll live with ten times your capacity, your size, your colors. Because—I'm not alone. Yeah. There are people who helped me. There are people I'll help. So――get lost into your narrow glass sky. Cheon Yohwa (天寥化).”
Flick. Jolt.
A blizzard struck. There was no glass window. The table, the electric kettle on it, the coffee cup—all swallowed in white snow.
The wheels of time turned.
From other shore to carriage.
Forward, 0 steps.
-Ah.
Estranged god, Avīci, Baekhwa.
In the white world, Cheon Yohwa (天寥化) smiled. Though her lips didn't move, the blizzard shattered, giving voice.
-How, so beautiful――.
The blizzard surged toward me like a tidal wave.
The moment I was certain this was its final struggle, I drew my staff sword.
A longsword forged in a dwarf forge that had long vanished. Do-ha.
One Stroke.
My inky wave cleaved through Avīci's white blizzard.
To Avīci, which had collected nearly all the world's data, this “sword” alone was an unforeseen irregularity.
Because Do-ha was a piece crafted for me by the workshop master in another round, not this one.
A masterpiece by Korea's greatest smith, who learned from the world's finest blacksmith. A divine weapon monstrous in itself.
My strongest weapon, yet unused even once in this round. Not even drawn from its sheath—I'd saved it.
Solely for this moment.
-――――.
The blizzard split and split again.
The being called Avīci, unable to finish its words, was imprisoned in a glass cage.
The world's white turned entirely to blizzard. The blizzard became white sand grains.
The desert sands swirled and swirled, soon gathering in Cheon Yohwa's palm.
An hourglass.
A glass-walled world filled only with white sand, held in Cheon Yohwa's hand. A transparent film glimmered. Two glass chambers forming wheels.
Avīci was confined by time.
“Ah.”
Cheon Yohwa looked up.
No fog. No crimson sky of school ghost stories. No thorn-birch forest, no shadow-shrouded other shore hills of spider lilies.
The sky was red.
Not yokai red, but reality's red. The hue of the sun striking Earth's cornea. Sunset. Proof this world still lived and bled.
Center of the sports field. Around Cheon Yohwa gazing at the sky lay 98 hourglasses like scattered petals. That was her parade of hundred ghosts.
(Pass) Seo■ University 2 spots accepted! (Congrats)
Flutter.
A tattered banner swayed at the school gate. Beneath the flag that once heralded civilization, the echo of wind resounded.
“Yohwaaaa!”
“Guard uncleiii!”
Baekhwa Girls' High School students. The kids spotted us and waved. Their gestures splashed in the sunset.
It looked quite distant.
Yet not as far as from other shore to carriage.
“…Mister.”
I turned to Cheon Yohwa's profile. Sunset light slipped through, combing her crimson hair.
“By the way, I forgot to ask.”
“Ask away.”
“Why did you come to save us?”
It was probably the final moment.
The moment I could decisively brainwash Cheon Yohwa, who was born with brainwashing powers. The moment she received her name. A rest stop to set her life's direction.
Absurdly, if I'd said here, “I received an oracle to help you,” she'd have become a fervent believer. If “Because the nation hasn't abandoned you,” an unparalleled patriot.
She was ready to hear any answer, prepared to accept any path.
I pondered for a second, then gave the answers I'd long prepared.
“Because you'd be useful to me.”
“…….”
“Avīci was a yokai I could never beat alone. I needed the aid of a human selected as its shrine maiden. The reason you could command the parade of hundred ghosts is that the entity ‘Cheon Yohwa’ was partially identified with Avīci. Recruiting you to subjugate Avīci—that was my best, and practically only, strategy.”
“…I see.”
Cheon Yohwa's expression somehow cleared. She'd likely accepted my answer as “setting” for her life's path.
“Yes, then――.”
“And I was curious how the Korean Peninsula's worst Tutorial Dungeon ever was made.”
“……?”
“And I wanted to track the true nature of those fairies I'd seen ad nauseam, all the way to the end. And to test if an estranged god-class yokai could truly be defeated. Oh, and purely out of curiosity about what kind of person the lunatic who emerged from Baekhwa Girls' High School after total self-brainwashing originally was.”
“Um, Mister? What do you……”
“Yohwa.”
I smiled.
“It's good to seek reasons to live in the world. That's admirable in itself. But I hope you'll live not just for one reason, but as many as possible.”
“…….”
“If a single raindrop can make one resolve to die, then surely a single strain of music can become reason to live. Even when helping others, make not one reason but many. Profit. Goals. Curiosity. Self-testing. Simple amusement. That thousand reasons can be reasons to kill—and reasons to keep living.”
It was exactly what Cheon Yohwa had declared to Avīci.
No matter how true one's words, people always need another to echo them back identically yet differently to truly convince themselves.
Rattle.
I opened the trunk and pulled out a document folder I'd kept pristine.
“What's……”
“A gift. You could call it the dungeon clear reward. Normally the Tutorial Fairy handles it, but I took out the local handler. Here.”
Fine paper rare in this era bore neat handwriting. Mine.
I took out a brush pen, added a few characters, and handed it to Cheon Yohwa.
――――――――――
[Diploma]
Name: Cheon Yohwa (千謠話)
The above individual has completed the full three years of high school and demonstrated outstanding learning ability, and is hereby awarded this diploma.
――――――――――
“…….”
Cheon Yohwa took the diploma in both hands and gazed down at it. Her shadow sank into the sports field ground.
The name field, left blank until now filled, gleamed like bright shade.
“Congrats on graduating, Yohwa.”
Describing Cheon Yohwa's reaction in detail here would be rather ungentlemanly.
Just know that a high schooler crying at graduation is an utterly ordinary sight.
Boss Battle.
Yokai Avīci (無間).
Alias: Avīci Hell, School Ghost Stories, Parade of Hundred Ghosts, Baekhwa (百話), Baekhwa (白化), Four-Character Enigma, Heraclitus's Wreath, Backrooms, Cheon Yohwa (天寥化)
Threat Level: Lv. 5 Alien God-class (Alienation)
Subjugation complete.
20
There's an epilogue.
Actually, many epilogues. Stories related to Avīci aren't just one or two. But those can wait.
Today, I'll briefly describe something that happened shortly after the “graduation ceremony” ended.
I was walking down a hallway in National Highway Management Corps HQ.
“Ah! Teacher!”
A lively voice from behind, followed by patter-patter-patter—
I turned. The former basketball ace closed the distance in an instant, screeched to a halt, and playfully saluted.
“Yohwa. What brings you to Management Corps HQ?”
“Ahaha— I figured it's about time Sejong City acknowledged our guild's exclusive dominance. Just came from a meeting with the Corps Commander!”
“I see.”
For reference, Cheon Yohwa was still in her white sailor uniform. Not just her—the entire group of Baekhwa Guild… Baekhwa Girls' High School graduates.
Well, uniforms have long been effective for fostering unity among members. No reason to abandon the strong “Baekhwa Girls' High School” identity now.
Or maybe No Do-ha's just hooked on uniform cosplay like Dang Seo-rin on witch cosplay. Magic-types tend to have strong fetishes.
I tilted my head.
“But teacher? Why not stick to Mister like before?”
“Hehe…… You're born earlier than me, experienced more—shouldn't I call you Teacher out of respect? Why? Don't like it?”
“No, not at all. Just feels odd switching from security guard to teacher so suddenly.”
“Ahaha. What're you talking about? You gave me my diploma!”
Cheon Yohwa clasped her hands behind her back and looked up at me sideways. The smile etched on her face was starkly different from the expressions “Cheon Yohwa” wore before the 117th round.
A vibrant, lively smile.
“Please take care of me from now on!”
I couldn't object to Cheon Yohwa's change in address. Because, as I mentioned at the start of this episode.
“――My teacher!”
This was a story about the time it took for the title of senior to become teacher.
- Answerer. End.