Registering the Hundred Demons
"Wake up."
The next morning, I stirred from my bed at Aria's insistent shaking.
I'd slept in a little, digging through my past-life memories, but I hadn't expected the oversleeping to come back to bite me like this.
Rubbing the fatigue from my eyes, I forced my sluggish body upright.
"Well, I'll be. You actually slept in for once."
"……"
"Every night it's me who falls asleep first, and yet here you are. What have you been up to in secret, I wonder?"
She was at an age now where the word "girl" finally suited her, but I shook my head all the same.
I don't hold any strange feelings toward my sister.
"We're half-siblings anyway."
That's pure projection on her part. Half-siblings still share half their blood—nobody thinks like that. And if I truly were that kind of person, I'd have had plenty of opportunities already.
"You certainly have a silver tongue when it suits you."
Aria turned away and settled in front of her vanity, tidying her hair. Watching her, I rose from the bed, crossed the room to her side, and reached out with both hands.
Instantly, Aria threw her arms up in a reflexive act of self-defense.
I quietly caught her wrists, told her to hold still, and then carefully set about fixing the platinum-blonde hair she had clumsily gathered up.
"You're still hopeless at tying your own hair."
It felt slightly wasteful to spend the power of my words on small talk like this, but I had to admit—this kind of sibling bickering wasn't so bad to enjoy.
"Pointing out other people's flaws to their face…… you're still the worst."
"I've heard that line so many times it doesn't even register anymore."
With a faint smile, I ate breakfast and started my daily routine.
Truth be told, once I'd blossomed into a jack-of-all-trades with all manner of talents, my progress in my studies had been remarkably swift—so despite the exhaustion, the lessons were actually enjoyable.
Once the day's education ended, I trained my body, and when night finally fell, I waited until Aria was asleep before slipping down into the garden to inscribe names into the Hundred Demons' Night Parade.
Dueoksini has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
'Could you tell me a bit about its abilities?'
In the surviving records of legend, Dueoksini is documented as the spirit that presses down upon one's head. From this, it derives the ability to induce severe mental affliction. As it is depicted as the king of the dokkaebi—a being that neither man's understanding nor man's resistance can hope to touch—it also possesses the power of Gweryeonnansin, the Irrational Divine.
'Gweryeonnansin?'
That word drew nothing from my past-life memories. Nothing at all.
In the user's past life, the people of the distant past believed that natural phenomena beyond their comprehension originated chiefly from spirits and demons. One might call it the wellspring of the word's etymology. Thus, Gweryeonnansin denotes a form or existence that rational reason cannot comprehend.
'Explaining it that way doesn't help me understand it.'
Gweryeonnansin allows Dueoksini to break, once, any law that the humans of this world understand.
By way of example: it may disregard the commonly accepted truth that a man stabbed by a blade dies.
Furthermore, the records credit Dueoksini with considerable divine power, and in keeping with the beliefs of its era, it holds the ability to grant the conception of a son. A trifling matter, but it is also said to wield dokkaebi fire.
Listening to the System's explanation, I moved on to the next inscription.
Bulgasari has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
The surviving records of Bulgasari contain both a passage declaring it can never be killed and a passage declaring it can be killed by fire alone. The former tradition is not reflected.
Bulgasari is a devourer of iron. Any object containing iron, without discrimination, may be absorbed into its body. The more iron it consumes, the more Bulgasari grows—expanding in size and hardening in flesh with each feeding.
For all its verbosity, the description sounded surprisingly modest in practice.
Its most useful quality was, without question, being an invincible-under-conditions immortal. Touch fire and it died—but set fire aside, and it could not die at all.
'Just in case, I have to ask—would the Great Sage Equal to Heaven work too?'
Sun Wukong, as he was commonly known.
Before he was worshipped by the people and attained divinity, he had reigned as king of the monkey yokai under the name Monkey King. So I asked the System, half hoping, whether inscribing the Great Sage Equal to Heaven was possible.
It is not possible.
In the surviving records, the fact that he was worshipped by the people means he held faith—making him a being of divine rank. The power of words cannot reach that far. Moreover, such an existence runs contrary to the very essence of the Hundred Demons' Night Parade. Please bear this in mind.
I nodded along to the System's counsel.
If that was the case, then the Four Guardian Deities long venerated in the East were likely out of reach as well.
'Then what about the monsters of mythology? Can their names be inscribed?'
They can.
So the range was broad. I decided that counted as a blessing.
My past-life memories included even my subconscious—everything a person has once seen, they say, never truly fades; it only sinks down where it can no longer be recalled.
Thanks to that, my past-life memories held a considerable wealth of knowledge, though anything I had never read or seen remained a blank.
Fortunately, legends and myths were things I had picked up in childhood and through my studies, so they lingered in my memory.
Jormungandr has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
Jormungandr is a monster of Norse mythology. Cast into the sea at the moment of its birth, it is said to have grown and grown until it became vast enough to clasp its own tail between its jaws.
Truthfully, any serpent can manage that regardless of size, but no matter.
Jormungandr can multiply its body's growth whenever it is in a river, the sea, or falling rain. According to the surviving records, it slew Thor, who was counted among the gods of Norse myth—and for that reason, its god-slaying power cannot be reflected.
The records state that Thor, poisoned by Jormungandr's venom, took nine steps and died.
A target struck directly by Jormungandr's venom will die upon taking exactly nine steps.
The duration of Jormungandr's venom is nine seconds.
'In other words—if the target takes nine steps within nine seconds, they die?'
That is correct.
Additionally, in accordance with the surviving records, Jormungandr's head is reflected as a weakness.
It becomes vulnerable to attacks involving electrical current.
The records tell that Jormungandr's skull was shattered by Thor's Mjölnir. That, presumably, was where the weakness came from.
Being able to grow its body in rivers, seas, and rainfall while carrying electricity as a weakness made for a far bigger double-edged sword than I'd expected.
For now, I inscribed Jormungandr's name and moved on to the next.
Hel has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
The addition of Hel is not possible.
Hel is a monster of Norse mythology who, like Jormungandr, was cast out at birth—but the surviving records identify her as a goddess presiding over death in Niflheim, the realm of the dead.
What couldn't be helped, couldn't be helped.
It was a shame, really—her name was only one syllable, so I'd thought it would save a tidy sum of consonants and vowels.
Fenrir has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
Like Jormungandr, Fenrir was abandoned by his father at the moment of his birth. But the gods of Norse myth feared Fenrir's monstrous strength and bound him with Gleipnir. The user may unbind Fenrir's Gleipnir, allowing him to unleash his full power.
In legend, Fenrir slew Odin, a god—and thus his god-slaying power cannot be reflected.
The records state that he met his end at the hands of Vidar, the Avenger. Therefore, against any foe who comes seeking vengeance upon him, all of Fenrir's abilities are nullified. Please take care regarding this point.
By now, my consonants and vowels were nearly spent.
With what remained, there was room for only a single name more.
Medusa has been added to the register of the Hundred Demons.
Medusa is a monster originating from Greco-Roman myth.
She carries the tradition of the Petrifying Gaze. Those who meet Medusa's eyes find their bodies hardening slowly, beginning at the feet. However, if they close their eyes and break the gaze midway, the petrification gradually recedes.
Her battle with Perseus has passed into legend, and as a result, meeting her own reflected face and eyes subjects Medusa herself to the Petrifying Gaze. Regarding this gaze, there also exists a tradition claiming that victims petrify simply because she is so breathtakingly beautiful.
For that reason, Medusa wields a second ability beyond the Petrifying Gaze: the Mystic Eyes of Charm.
It seemed the crucial factor was how widely a legend had spread—how many times it had been told, passed down, and distorted along the way.
The Gumiho was a perfect example, holding a considerable arsenal of abilities.
But judging by the System's continuing explanation, Medusa was no less richly endowed.
In the legend, the blood that streamed from Medusa's severed neck turned to foam, and from it Pegasus was born. Medusa therefore possesses the ability to summon Pegasus from her own spilled blood.
After her death, her head became the material for the Aegis, the armament of the gods.
Should Medusa perish, only her head will remain. If that head is mounted upon a shield, the shield gains the power to nullify an opponent's attack—once per day.
Nothing remained of my consonants and vowels now.
"Hundred Demons' Night Parade."
A bone-white mist swallowed the garden whole.
And then they emerged—the Gumiho, the Dullahan, Dueoksini, Bulgasari, Jormungandr, Fenrir, and Medusa.
The moment the Gumiho appeared before me, she shifted into the form of a human woman and slunk alluringly to my side, sinking to her knees.
Dueoksini looked every inch the towering dokkaebi king he was said to be, yet with a grace that ill-suited his fearsome figure, he bowed his head to me.
Bulgasari, surprisingly, had no fixed shape at all.
How should I put it—a sluggish, sprawling slime made of metal?
Metal that slithered and flowed was a contradiction in itself, but that was precisely what it was.
As for Jormungandr and Fenrir, their true power only manifested under specific conditions, so standing before me they looked like nothing more than an adorable little snake and wolf.
That slender cord suppressing the whole of Fenrir's body was, I gathered, Gleipnir.
They all had their peculiar charms, but the most striking presence by far was Medusa.
Legend claimed she was a beauty so radiant that even Poseidon had fallen for her, and it was clearly no exaggeration.
The surprise, perhaps, was that her hair wasn't made of snakes?
When I stared at her in fascination, Medusa walked to my side and knelt.
"I have come before my master."
Forgive me for asking the moment we meet, but—your hair isn't snakes?
"When I wield my true power, I become a hideous woman."
Ah—now that I thought of it, she had only gained her powers as Medusa after Athena's curse. Her current form must be the beautiful woman she once was, before everything.
Truthfully, I had no particular desire to burn that hideous image into my mind either, so I simply nodded.
"You already have your girl, and yet you needed another woman, I see."
At Medusa's side, the Gumiho strolled over with unhurried steps and looked up at me. Her tails swayed lazily as she smiled a seductive smile—but in her eyes, I could see it plainly: possessiveness.
Well, of course. Among the traditions attached to her was that of Daki, the beloved consort of King Zhou of Zhou—a woman who, to secure her own power, put every rival concubine and even the queen to death. I needn't have wondered where the jealousy came from.
"Hiding your hideous true form beneath a mask—how laughable."
"A mere fox attempting to share affection with a human—is that not the more amusing farce?"
Medusa gave as good as she got, firing back at the Gumiho without an ounce of retreat.
If I left them like this, a fight might actually break out—though surely not in front of me.
In any case, I had only summoned them today to see the newly added Hundred Demons with my own eyes, so I gathered the Night Parade back in.
I hadn't realized how steep the drain on my consonants and vowels would be.
As for the empty slots remaining, I intended to fill them with the seventy-two demons of Solomon—but that was a question for after I'd learned more consonants and vowels.
First, I need to acquire words that can strengthen the Hundred Demons' Night Parade itself.
Each of them carried decent unique abilities, but if they died, that was the end—and none of them were invincible. They each had definite weaknesses too, which meant I would have to redouble my efforts at coaxing out new words.
The first thing that came to mind was the Thousand Soldiers, Ten Thousand Horses—but my body simply couldn't endure that breakneck pace of work, so perhaps I ought to get some sleep, and quickly.
Once this matter was more or less settled, the next step would be pooling my funds using the words I'd mastered before the Initialization.