The Price of Compliance
“What do you mean, ‘well done’? You shameless thing.”
Dinok’s voice was laced with disgust, deep anger, and helplessness all at once.
“If you hadn’t, I would have killed him.”
“Of course. If the Hero had found out, the plan would have fallen apart. Your lover’s life is something I can use as I please.”
The voice was low and gloomy, barely audible, yet it carried an unpleasant intent to mock. Dinok did not bother to hide her hostility and fury.
“If Grandfather were still alive, someone like you would never have set foot on this island.”
She raised her right hand and touched her fingertips to her forehead in a gesture of respect for the deceased, but the motion looked hollow and pitiful.
“I suppose so. Savio Untu was an exceptional shaman. But you are not him.”
“How dare you…!”
A white haze briefly rose along Dinok’s arm, only to vanish moments later.
“Don’t bother with pointless displays. You can’t kill me, and the price would be paid not by you, but by your lover.”
“Coward!”
“I don’t discriminate between means when pursuing an end. It’s hardly a novel sentiment.”
Dinok glared at her opponent with killing intent, yet she could feel the unseen eyes behind the curtain of hair calmly brushing the gaze aside.
“…If I do as you want, you’ll really just leave?”
“Of course. Once the task is complete, you may return to your ordinary life.”
She knew how naïve it was to believe that promise, but she had no other choice. She had held a faint hope when the Hero’s party visited, yet under constant surveillance she had no way to convey her situation, and now that they had departed, receiving help was impossible.
All she could do was believe the uncertain promise and comply.
“So please hurry, Lady Dinok. The sooner you finish, the sooner this will end.”
“…I know.”
At the unpleasant urging, she rose from her chair and walked deeper into the temple, passing through the dark corridor and stairs beyond the altar as though being pushed. The woman followed without a sound. Dinok felt nausea rise several times, a mixture of disgust and fear, but she knew it would only please her captor.
The long stairs ended at a stone gate studded with crystals. As she stood before it, the gate opened of its own accord, revealing a vast altar and a massive crystal pillar at the center of the chamber.
Dinok clasped her hands and raised them above her head in salute to the altar, then lowered her body as though sitting on the floor.
“The vast forest began from a single sprout. The fruits that ripen today are the harvest of flowers that once bloomed and fell.”
Her soft voice echoed through the room, and in response the crystal pillar began to tremble faintly.
“I offer my sincere gratitude to the ancestors who made today possible. When this soul returns after the flesh has run its course, I thank the forebears who will welcome it with open arms.”
She lifted her head and slowly rose. Her movements and voice flowed like a dance and a song, gradually filling the chamber with an invisible energy.
“With the utmost reverence, I prostrate myself from the lowest place. Ancestors, hear me. Answer this unworthy descendant’s call and lend your strength.”
A bright light settled into the crystal pillar and the faint trembling ceased. The energy transmitted through the crystal filled the entire room, and the candles on the altar turned blue.
At that moment, Dinok’s gestures and voice changed.
“Connect. Connect. Weave voices, weave souls. Forge the path, build the bridge, and reach that place.”
Her voice sounded as though multiple voices were chanting at once—heavy and alien, utterly different from before. Her movements grew rougher, and the crystal gradually turned red in response.
Dark, bizarre symbols rose one by one from the previously empty floor, linking together until they formed a single large pattern—the sigil of the demon realm and the passage that symbolized it.
“Now.”
The woman with hair covering her face approached Dinok and extended her right hand. Resting in her palm was a strange black fragment: a round body with four curled tentacles at the tip.
Dinok accepted the fragment. The moment it touched her hand, a red light began to dwell within it. Snake-like incantations slipped from her lips. The crystal pillar, the symbols on the floor, and the black fragment resonated, emitting an increasingly intense red glow.
When the light reached its peak and the entire room was bathed in crimson, it vanished as abruptly as a candle snuffed by wind. The symbols on the floor and the glowing pillar lost their light, and Dinok collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Another failure, I see.”
Dinok lay prone, breathing heavily, while the woman addressed her with cold reproach.
“…You already know it isn’t easy.”
“Even so, do you know how many times this has been? It isn’t even the ancient seal of Cturiet, yet you’re struggling this much with a mere seal. The title of Savio is wasted on you.”
“This place was originally a sanctuary for communing with the gods of the underworld. Even if we borrow the ancestors’ power to forcibly connect with the demon realm, whether they will respond is another matter entirely—”
She never finished. A portion of the woman’s hair shot out like a blade and embedded itself in the floor right in front of Dinok’s supporting hand. Had it been even slightly off, her fingers would have been severed.
“That is precisely what you are supposed to handle.”
The voice overflowed with anger and irritation. Dinok understood this was no mere threat or attempt to hurry her—it was genuine. The woman’s hair seemed to lengthen further, and like tentacles it carefully lifted the fragment from Dinok’s hand.
“The first seal has already been broken, and for some reason the second seal has also been partially damaged. We must release Lord Isog Negtaru as soon as possible!”
Isog Negtaru. Dinok had not known who or what he was until this moment—the being she had been trying to unseal for the past several weeks.
Only days after the funeral of the previous Savio, her grandfather, this alien existence had appeared before her.
While the priests and guards were still steeped in mourning and the island’s barriers were weakened ahead of the succession ceremony, the strange woman had used that opening to stand before Dinok.
It was obvious she was not human. Not only her face, but her grotesque appearance—hair that completely covered her down to the waist, hiding what lay beneath—radiated a fishy, unpleasant aura that could never belong to a human.
Dinok had fought. Though not as skilled as her grandfather, she was still a capable shaman and the new Savio who would shoulder the island. Unfortunately, her abilities were ill-suited for combat.
Before she could create an opening to call for help, the woman’s hair bound her limbs and sealed her mouth. In the moment she prepared for death, the name that slipped from the intruder’s lips was Neikalsin’s.
‘Cooperate. Otherwise, both you and he will suffer far worse than death.’
The woman’s power was formidable, yet clearly not enough to face every capable fighter on the island, including Sinebletu. Moreover, since she had demanded cooperation rather than immediate killing, there had been some room to maneuver. Dinok could have pretended to comply while watching for an opportunity.
But at the mere mention of Neikalsin’s name, she abandoned every thought of resistance. Capturing or eliminating this intruder might have been possible, but not without casualties.
If only one person had to become a victim, and if that victim had to be Neikalsin, then Dinok was willing to give the woman whatever she wanted.
“Do not forget. As I said, if you dawdle and miss the timing, I will not simply leave. I will take that man’s head as a souvenir—!”
And at that very moment, two massive squid-like tentacles burst from the floor and wrapped around the woman’s body.
* * *
“……?”
Unable to comprehend the sudden turn of events, Dinok noticed a translucent red wall had formed around her as well. She could tell at a glance it was a protective barrier, yet the energy contained within was anything but ordinary. And that was not all.
She had noticed it late, but the entire chamber had been completely isolated from the outside by this energy.
“Judging by the way you speak and your level, I didn’t think you were a curse or spell user, but caution is still wise.”
As a man gradually materialized from thin air, as though the surface of water were rippling, Dinok’s mind descended into utter chaos.
“Ah, you needn’t worry. Savio Dinok. Just in case, I’ve also checked on Neikalsin.”
At the mention of Neikalsin’s name and the reassuring tone, Dinok finally regained her senses. She still struggled to understand the situation and lacked any basis to trust his words, yet even that small reassurance eased her anxiety considerably.
“Who are you?”
Completely restrained by the black tentacles, the woman turned toward the man’s voice and asked with surprising composure, as though the tentacles binding her did not exist.
The man did not answer. Instead, he waved his hand, and faint yellow symbols appeared on the ceiling.
“Given the circumstances, you wouldn’t mind if I asked first, would you?”
He had not taken a single step closer.
“Who are you? And who is Isog Negtaru? Why must his seal be broken?”