Fireflies of Katon
When they returned to the mansion, dinner was already prepared and waiting.
This time Hwanin tried to bring Isilite to the table as well.
"How is a maid supposed to sit with Master in front of the guests?"
"There's no need for you to act as a maid toward anyone but me."
"I'm doing it precisely because I am Master's maid. And it would be pitiful to leave Emergency Food eating all alone."
She had joined them for last night's banquet, yet she insisted that sharing an ordinary meal at the same table with her master was improper, and so she withdrew.
"……"
He could have forced the issue, but Hwanin chose to respect her decision.
Thus he attended the evening meal alone and, for the first time, met Kantwi's wives.
"Please forgive them. They are terribly shy and almost never come down from the third floor when guests are present."
The twin sisters, whose pupils were slit horizontally like a sheep's and who looked to be in their late teens, proved every bit as bashful as Kantwi claimed. The moment dinner ended they offered a quick bow to the guests and fled upstairs to the third floor of the main house—the floor reserved exclusively for Kantwi's family.
The banquet that had begun as the sun slowly sank westward finished just as the first blush of sunset colored the sky. Luararda, seeking both digestion and a chance to test himself, challenged Isilite to a spar.
He had a strong feeling that if he challenged Hwanin again he would not last even a minute this time.
"In the spirit of friendship, what do you say? Shall we cross weapons?"
He spoke of camaraderie, yet the glint in his eye made it clear he wanted to gauge the skill of the woman Hwanin had trained.
"I would be honored to receive your instruction."
Isilite accepted with a face that allowed no refusal.
Thud-thud-crack!
"Guh-haahk!"
For the first five minutes after the opening clash Isilite fought purely on the defensive. Then her eyes flashed. She slammed a shoulder tackle into the opening left by a spinning roundhouse kick, shattered his stance, and followed with a descending cut, a diagonal rising slash, and a whirling horizontal strike—three clean blows that sent Luararda crashing to the ground.
Only the blunted practice greatsword made such an attack possible without drawing blood.
"Well done. Any injuries?"
When he asked about the shoulder that had taken the hit, Isilite merely rolled her arm as if nothing had happened.
"I think all the times Master has struck me have toughened me up. Something like this barely registers now. Emergency Food's kicks were actually heavier and more troublesome."
"Kh……ugh. I-I see. Now I understand what Lord Hwanin meant. At this rate I cannot leave without testing myself against Emergency Food as well!"
Clutching his midsection and groaning, Luararda insisted on sparring the bird next. The bout with Emergency Food stretched past ten minutes of fierce, scrambling combat.
Watching from Hwanin's side, Isilite's expression grew complicated for a moment before she carefully spoke.
"Um…… Master. About Emergency Food…… Am I right in what I'm thinking?"
"Yes. He's stealing Luararda's techniques."
When Emergency Food first faced Luararda he had stared in fascination at the bird-kin who, despite having two extra legs, resembled him in so many ways. Once the spar began he showed intense interest in every attack pattern……
"Kraah! Hyeot!"
Kueet! Etkkyung!
Before long he was openly mimicking some of Luararda's kicks.
Fluttering flying kicks, reverse roundhouses, leaping stomps, high jumps into downward axes, even spinning whirlwind kicks—all converted to suit a Kue's frame, yet the angles were so sharp that even Luararda, who had practiced kicking for decades, could only dodge rather than meet them head-on.
Of course, if the attacks had been limited to feet alone Luararda would not have been pressed so hard. Between those log-hard legs came sudden elbow-like strikes from the folded wing joints, short wing-beats that produced instantaneous evasive bursts, and—whenever anyone closed too near—a barrage of beak pecks powerful enough to crumple iron plate……
Thud-thud-crack—
"Guaaahk!!?"
Two descending stomps and one wing smash landed in the blink of an eye; Luararda screamed as he was sent flying. The sight seemed to overlap with her own past self, for Isilite's brows knit tightly.
"Master. Emergency Food is seriously weird. I don't think he's a normal Kue."
Her half-jealous grumble, born of the instinctive realization that the bird was growing stronger faster than she was, drew a quiet snort of laughter from Hwanin.
Looking at it that way, it truly was strange. A creature not yet fully grown was matching third- and fourth-class professionals blow for blow, even if only in a spar.
"Perhaps royal blood of the Kue, or something close to it."
Charging a blue-flame tiger would then be less the madness of a fearless sparrow and more the fighting spirit and pride of a king's lineage—a plausible explanation.
"If it's Emergency Food it would be a queen, not a king. Ugh……"
Just as Isilite resolved to train with gritted teeth so she would never lose to the bird—
Pababak!
"Grrk."
Three lightning-fast beak pecks to the head sent Luararda sprawling flat on his back. The match ended in Emergency Food's victory.
Deep into the night.
"Master. Everything is ready."
"Good. Emergency Food, stay home and rest."
Kue.
Clad in a white hooded robe, Hwanin slipped quietly out of the annex with Isilite and began walking the village streets, gathering the souls he had marked earlier in the day.
There were only nine of them—an astonishingly small number for a town of several thousand, even tens of thousands. Their lingering regrets were ordinary: a few words they wished to pass on to family or lovers.
"Please keep my visit to the village a secret."
"But…… at least allow us to prepare a proper welcome for the Soul Master. Simply letting you leave like this would be far too shameless of us."
"What I desire is the silence and peace in which souls may find rest. I ask this of you."
"If the Soul Master…… insists so strongly……"
Thus Hwanin linked the nine souls to their surviving kin, collected the droplets of light left behind as they attained release, and extracted a firm promise of secrecy from every family.
Unlike the flimsy walls of Wayford's back-alley slums, the houses here were solid, and the pacification itself had been conducted without noise. They had walked only deserted paths; no one had seen them. Word of a Soul Master's visit would not spread.
Afterward, in a secluded corner of the village beyond any prying eyes, Hwanin removed his robe and found himself face-to-face with a small white spirit that had drifted near.
A lump of pure white light like a dandelion seed. When he tapped it lightly it rippled as though ticklish and slowly drifted away.
Isilite, packing both their robes into the subspace pouch, noticed him gesturing at empty air and asked,
"Master? Is something there?"
"A tiny spirit."
"Ah…… So spirits really are everywhere."
"I call them spirits for convenience. Whether they truly are spirits, I don't know."
As they stepped back onto the road Isilite followed, curiosity bright in her voice.
"But you said you can borrow power from them the same way you do from souls. Doesn't that mean they really are spirits?"
"Who can say. If we meet a Pleu who is a true Spirit Master, we'll find out."
Among the Pleu, some were born able to see spirits and draw power from them. Ielkata had never commanded spirits, so she could not tell him, yet many Pleu were said to gather for the great festival in Parhist. Perhaps a Spirit Master among them would appear.
Or I could simply post a request at the administrative office looking for a Pleu Spirit Master.
"Waaah~."
As they reached the riverside, dozens of green fireflies danced through the air, weaving a dreamlike haze that caught both Hwanin's and Isilite's eyes.
Quite a few people were already there. Some, like Isilite, gasped in wonder at the fireflies' dance; others sought the deeper shadows for more intimate pursuits.
Travelers, most likely. This firefly dance may be one of Katon's few tourist attractions.
A peaceful scene.
Walking beside Hwanin along the bank, Isilite pricked up her ears at a conversation drifting past.
"Did you hear? If a man and woman are holding hands on a bench and a firefly lands on them, they'll live happily together for a hundred years."
"Ah, so that's why there's not a single empty bench."
"Ha~. I don't even need a hundred years—I'd settle for a man whose hand I could hold……"
"Why not try your luck at Parhist?"
"No way. You know Yansi? Last year at the festival she went hunting for a man and came back having given away every hole for free."
"There's no return without risk. You have to try if you want any chance of getting a man."
"Still…… if I catch something the medical bills……"
"You have to factor that in…… …still, the temple…… treatment……"
The women's voices faded into the distance and no longer reached Isilite's ears.
A hundred years of happiness…… A hundred years……
The tale was unbearably sweet, yet the chance of it ever coming true for her was less than one percent. With a small sigh she let the sweetness slip away.
A firefly had to land on their joined hands? First she would have to figure out how to take Master's hand at all.
They would need to sit on a bench, and even that felt impossible. It wasn't as though empty benches were plentiful.
Just then Hwanin stopped dead. Right beside them stood a bench, and a couple who looked like lovers had only moments earlier risen and walked away.
Huh? Could it be—? A tiny bud of hope sprouted in Isilite's chest. When Hwanin actually began walking toward the bench, the bud burst into full bloom.
Is he really going to sit? For real?
With every step closer her heart hammered harder; when he truly sat down her pulse thundered so loudly she felt dizzy.
Isilite quietly took the seat beside him. As if on cue, several fireflies drifted nearer, flickering.
A moment later one of them fluttered around their hands as if to say, Hurry and hold hands! Then I'll land right on top!
Isilite's fingers, resting on the bench, inched closer and closer to Hwanin's.
When only a few centimeters remained she swallowed hard, preparing for the decisive act, and stole a glance at his face—
"……"
She froze, breath caught, and snatched her hand back.
Hwanin was staring toward the river, brows faintly furrowed. Had she been so tactless as to seize his hand just then, she would have received a gaze cold enough to tear her heart out.
Muttering silent thanks for her narrow escape, she asked in a careful whisper,
"Master. Is something in the river?"
"……A soul that wasn't visible during the day. Standing waist-deep in the middle of the current."
"Master…… Could that be……"
"Quiet."
He silenced her uneasy question and studied the soul carefully, sensing its emotions.
Tattered leather clothing, torn in places.
Hair tangled into a hopeless snarl, as though she had suffered some terrible ordeal.
A lifeless expression and a gloomy blue-black spiritual body.
And emotions that registered as absolute nothingness.
Murdered and secretly dumped at the bottom of the river, perhaps.
Hwanin swept his gaze around. Roughly fifty people strolled the banks or sat on benches; among them were members of the village patrol.
A clandestine burial in the water source of a town with this much traffic—was it even possible?
They might have done it on a night of heavy rain or storm.
He sent a thought toward the soul standing motionless in mid-river. Come here.
Her head twisted with a sickening crack of bone, and a thick, sticky dark aura began to pour from her body. An instant later the female soul appeared before him as if by teleportation.
「Kiiiiiieeeee—!!」
Hair thrashing in every direction, her face transformed into a hellish void where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been, she pressed right up against him and unleashed a banshee wail.
Any ordinary person would have suffered a heart attack or recoiled in terror; Hwanin merely regarded her with a blank face and exerted his force of command.
Withdraw.
「Kyaaaaaah—!!」
At the order laced with compulsion the woman-soul, now little more than an akryung, flailed her withered tree-branch arms and was hurled back some thirty meters.
"Wh-what? Why do I suddenly feel so cold……?"
"……Hey. Did you just hear something weird?"
"What sound?"
"A woman screaming. You didn't hear it?"
The peaceful riverside erupted into sudden unease.
Isilite sensed at once that something had gone wrong and looked to Hwanin; seeing his expressionless face she immediately drew his Soul Stick from the subspace pouch and held it out.
"Master, here."
Hwanin took the stick and fixed his gaze on the female soul thrashing in mid-air as though drowning.
「Kiiiiiieeeek—!!」
The screaming figure was the very image of an evil spirit from a horror film—fingers long and pointed, limbs shriveled like ancient wood, eyes reduced to empty black holes, mouth split wide like a crocodile's, the head itself losing human shape.
In an exorcism movie the priests would already be performing rites; in a standard horror film the cast would be screaming and fleeing.
"Hey. Look over there. What the hell is that?"
"Uh……"
Worse, the malice was beginning to affect reality. People along the bank could now see a black miasma writhing and spreading from a single point in the river.
The green fireflies vanished all at once, and the night grew a shade darker.
Whoooosh—not a cool evening breeze but a black, cutting wind that coiled around bodies and stoked every buried fear.
Those without resistance to the uncanny clutched their chests and began backing away; those who possessed aura or were somewhat accustomed to such phenomena scanned the surroundings with wary eyes.
In an instant the atmosphere turned ominous, yet Hwanin paid it no mind. With a calm face he quietly commanded the soul that was sliding toward full akryung transformation.
I am not the one who killed you. Calm yourself.
「Kiiiieee……」
At that moment the female soul, who had been spewing black haze and raging as though no words could reach her, began to quiet as if by magic.
Hair that had thrashing wildly in every direction settled under gravity; the grotesquely twisted, hideous face slowly regained human contours.
Calm yourself. I will not harm you.
「Kiiuuu… huuuu……」
I am not your enemy. Calm yourself.
「……uuuu… huuuuu……. Hic……」
With each repetition of Hwanin's command the woman-soul shed more of the akryung form and recovered her human appearance. The banshee wail became ordinary human sobbing.
When she had fully returned to a woman's shape, Hwanin spoke quietly.
It's all right. No one here will harm you.
The dimming surroundings regained their ordinary night scenery; the bone-chilling black wind withdrew.
The fireflies once more glowed green and drifted gently over the river.
"……What the hell was that?"
"What just happened?"
"It felt like the precursor to an akryung manifestation……"
Some people understood nothing of the phenomenon that had just occurred; others grasped the truth almost at once.
Yet not a single person noticed that the man and woman who had occupied one particular bench had vanished.