The Great Saintess Has Appeared!!
It began in the nose — a cool, cleansing fragrance. The lingering afterglow of supreme purity, riding on a wind that had begun to blow from somewhere. The scent alone set their mana raging and their hearts blazing, heating the blood with a fever as if a drug had been taken.
No flower in existence. No fruit in existence. Nothing in this world had ever carried a fragrance so beautiful, so nobly serene — such pure-white aroma simply did not exist.
And so —
"Neigh, ne-eigh-igh."
"Ne-e-eigh…!"
Impossible. Such a thing cannot exist. Yet drowning in exactly that astonishment and confusion, the unicorns of the lake pressed their heads to the ground and desperately traced the trail of the scent toward its source.
The species called unicorn. A unicorn could dwell only where nature's mana, raised in perfect purity, drifted through the air. The reason was simple: they could eat nothing but what grew in the great wilds where natural mana ran rich. Fruits and dew formed there held not a single fleck of negative-mana residue — and a unicorn raised on nothing but such fruit, drinking nothing but such serene dew, came to possess a mana-body purer than that of any other living creature.
Which meant this: across the innumerable otherworlds, no sentient being guarded its purity as absolutely as a unicorn.
No — not only sentient beings. They received the serene mana of great nature itself and filtered it, purified it once more within their own bodies. Sentient being, landscape, or mere object alike… no guardian of pure white in existence stood above a unicorn…!
That was the pride at the very root of their race. And yet.
"Ne-e-e-e-eigh…!!!"
The unicorns found themselves bursting into cries not of shattered pride, but of excitement and awe. The lingering scent of supreme purity. Merely breathing it in had made the mana within their bodies cleaner. If the merest afterglow carried this much power, how supremely pure must the source itself be!
So they circled the whole lake, chasing the tail end of that afterglow — until at last, one unicorn ran the scent of supreme purity down to its origin. And… among the sentient beings known as humans, filthy beyond redemption as a rule, there did appear on rare occasions those whose purity could stand beside a unicorn's. The cluster of humans this unicorn had found. And within it, a girl with white hair and pale blue eyes.
Hair white as the legendary pure-white unicorn of myth. A mind and soul pure enough to be a unicorn's friend. Above all, the afterglow of supreme purity clung to her more thickly than to anyone. Thinking found it, at last, the unicorn drew near — and then.
"Ne-e-e-eigh……!!!"
The unicorn had to recoil in horror. Deceived! Because she had met every other condition, it had let down its guard!
The mana flowing through the girl's body. Alien, repulsive — the mere approach of it invited contamination. An impure aura that seemed scraped together from every trace of wickedness sentient beings possessed! That alien mana was, to a unicorn, nothing less than a natural predator!
The purer and clearer a mana, the more easily it drowned in black. Their serene mana was what gave the unicorn race its mighty bodies and splendid magic — and at the same time, it had burdened them with a sensitivity as fragile as a blank white page. Touch something filthy carelessly, and the serene mana forming their very foundation would be stained in an instant. And that meant fall — or death.
Physical contact alone might have been survivable. But direct contact with the aura running through the girl's veins? It was dangerous beyond all measure — enough to be corrupted at a stroke into the wretched steed of a fallen unicorn, the beast commonly called a Bicorn!
At the appearance of its natural predator, the unicorn wheeled to flee. And in that instant — from directly behind the predator came a surge of pure-white fragrance so overwhelming that a single breath seemed to drop the soul into paradise. Simply standing near it cleansed the soul; mana that had believed itself incapable of growing any cleaner was turning serene before its very eyes.
On trembling hooves, it approached that place.
"Eh?"
A human girl with black hair and crimson eyes, her blood-red pupils gone perfectly round. The sentient being unicorns despised above all others. No — "sentient being" was far too kind a word for a vector of contamination and plague. The badge of the filthy Ratmen… the color black!
Meanwhile the true predator, reeking of that repulsive mana, wore the pure-white coat that was the very emblem of unicornkind — while the girl, though she bore black fur reminiscent of a Ratman, wore it as nothing more than an outer shell. She simply happened to have the shape of a human. Her soul and mind… and even her body, the most corruption-prone part of all!
She outstripped a unicorn without effort — and set beside a newborn infant, she held a purity more beautiful still…!
And the aura circulating through the girl's body. It drank in nature's mana and dyed even the faint contaminants hidden within it pure white. Worse — the food at her lips, that lump of contamination fouled with firy heat called human cuisine… the moment it was absorbed into her flesh, it too was purified into the aura of supreme purity!
No unicorn alive could hope to rival it. No — even the pure-white mana-body of legend, the pure-white unicorn itself, could not stand comparison. She was the very incarnation of purity.
"Ne-e-e-e-e-eigh─!!!"
A foreleg flung high, a cry bellowed so roughly it rang across the entire lake. The unicorn proclaimed it to everyone at once. A true saintess of unicornkind… no!
A Great Saintess had appeared…!!
Shock. Terror. Confusion. Bonjwa could manage exactly one sentence.
"Wh-what… is this…?"
Bukgung Seol glowered sulkily at the unicorn's horn. Namgung Yurin, darting her gaze between the two of them, had gone sheet-white and stood on the verge of fainting. Neither of those two was sane to begin with, so Bonjwa let them pass. But now… this situation…
The homeroom teacher and the rest of the class stood hollow-eyed, utterly unable to accept reality.
"Ne-e-e-e-eigh…!!!"
"Neigh, ne-eigh─!"
Bonjwa — Cheon Yujin, the Blood Demon. The Hegemon King's star who had opened a world of blood across the realm and brought ten thousand demons groveling to their knees; the sovereign who had reigned over the martial world. And that… bringing ten thousand demons to their knees had only ever meant becoming the master of demonkind. It absolutely, ABSOLUTELY had not meant becoming the master of ten thousand horses — the high roller of the racetracks…!!!
"Ne-e-e-e-eigh…!!!"
"Hrrrn, ne-eigh─!"
"Ne-e-e-e-e-e-e-eigh!"
Amid cries of jubilation, a herd of dozens… no, perhaps hundreds — a swarm too vast to count — had come thronging before Bonjwa.
"U-um, excuse me…"
"Ne-e-e-e-e-eigh!!!"
The instant Bonjwa hesitantly, tentatively, reached out a hand, the unicorn that happened to be singled out by that finger burst into tears… and somersaulted its entire equine body through the air, executing a mid-flight, full five-point prostration…!
That immaculate somersault forced Bonjwa to remember a dearly missed face.
"Ma-noe… how I miss… him…"
The somersault-prostration had been Ma-noe's specialty among specialties… cou… could Ma-noe… have been, all along, not a man at all… but a unicorn…?
"…So it has come to this."
The unicorns quivered and squirmed, glowing with gratitude at Bonjwa's every gesture. They were the very image of Ma-noe in the old days….
So this was what a mass drug den looked like. Surrounded by unicorns kicking up dust, rolling this way and flipping that way in ecstasy, Bonjwa felt like the disco ball of a nightclub.
"Th-this is impossible…"
The homeroom teacher — the most sensible person present — had murmured it, and Bonjwa wanted nothing more than to somersault in agreement!
Yes. Impossible. This was not reality. Bonjwa is Cheon Yujin, the Blood Demon — cast down into the Central Plains' murim, forced to survive among cutpurses and fist gangs, dragged onto battlefields to wrestle for bare life, and in the end the one and only who reigned over the realm as the incarnation of terror. And a being like that had passed the unicorn's… th-that… vir… virgi… whatever that vetting was! Passing that screening — did that make sense to anyone?!
True, the body was, to outward appearances, a tiny brat. But the mind and soul belonged to an adult already rotten through — a cold-blooded martial artist, no less. Naturally, Bonjwa was not pure in the lea—
"Impossible… they say even a devout nun who spent her whole life in asceticism without once knowing the flesh could only ever be a unicorn's friend… but a Unicorn Tamer! Yujin, this is a historic achievement─!!!"
"……Eh?"
What… what tamer?
Bonjwa could only stare at the homeroom teacher, dumbfounded. She had clasped both hands together, eyes shining. If that was shining, it had sailed clean past confusion and was now spinning in circles. Bonjwa had figured anyone on the receiving end of Namgung Yurin had to be a sensible adult… but confronted with this absurdity, even the homeroom teacher had broken!
"U-Unicorn Tamer?"
"Is, is that a big deal…?"
"It's a huge deal, but…"
"This is straight-up legendary — the first ev—"
"Hey!"
"—er in recorded history, a Unicorn Tamer! Come on, come on! I'm telling you it's amazing, come on!"
Judging by the reactions, it was apparently some monumental accomplishment. Bonjwa was not happy in the slightest…!!!
"Ne-e-e-e-eigh!"
Then — what Bonjwa's qi-sense caught hold of was a concentration of serene mana so exceptional it bordered on the singular. Out of the herd came one unicorn whose horn was the longest and thickest by far, its coat bleached a shade whiter than any of the others, striding over with haughty, unhurried steps.
Haughty steps they were — though for some reason, the closer it drew, the hotter its eyes burned with some feverish rapture and the rougher its breath came, and Bonjwa found it deeply unpleasant….
Frozen stiff by a scenario far beyond all expectation, Bonjwa failed to stop that unicorn from touching the tip of its horn, gently, to her forehead. Where horn met brow, serene mana welled out and was drawn, quite naturally, into the flow of the Forged Blood Art.
"…Owie!"
A sharp sting pricked her forehead. And then.
"Ne-e-e-e-eigh!!!"
"Ne-e-e-eigh!!!"
At the sight of Bonjwa, the unicorns suddenly began hammering their hooves in joy and rapture, berserk beyond even their earlier frenzy. These horse-meat shabu-shabu bastards — how dare they hurt Bonjwa's forehead…!
Wondering whether the sharp horn had drawn blood, Bonjwa touched her forehead — and in that instant —
"……Eh?"
Something hard, and long, and… something….
"H-hey, Jjin… Y-you…"
And then Namgung Yurin, face drained white, pointed at my forehead and stammered out the rest.
"You… you've grown a horn."
"Eh?"
Hard. Long. A horn. What had sprouted from Bonjwa's forehead… was a single horn in precisely the same shape as a unicorn's!
The unicorns' rejection of Bukgung Seol, their ecstasy and glowing devotion, the Unicorn Tamer — and now, topping it all, a horn from Bonjwa's own forehead.
"Teach… what on earth… is happening right now…?"
"Don't ask, because your teacher doesn't know either…!!! There are things in this world even a teacher doesn't know… got that?!"
"What is this. Am I dreaming?"
They had endured a pileup of surrealist phenomena that soared far beyond a reality already warped into fantasy by the Gates. In the end… every last one of them had broken.
"'The Last Maiden' means… becoming a unicorn yourself…?"
"Th-that tracks… does that track…?"
"Yes… Cheon Yujin… she is the unicorn!"
And with a rising wAAAAAH —
Thunderous applause. Cheering. Eyes of respect and awe.
"S-stop iit…."
"Unicorn! Unicorn! Unicorn!"
"That's enouugh…."
"Unicorn Punch! Unicorn Punch!"
"Staaaahp iiiiiit……."
Bonjwa — Cheon Yujin, the Blood Demon.
Not the Blood Demon….
The Blood Horse…?
The exact opposite shore of the Lake of Holy Water. Having heard its kin's cries and set off in pursuit of the pure fragrance, a unicorn had been ambushed and captured by a band of humans — and was now wracked with dreadful terror.
Humans in black coats. The mana pressing against its senses — a thick reek of corruption and death. Crude, contaminated… the scent of its natural predator…!
"Injection."
"Administering the demonic qi now."
A syringe closing in on the nape of its neck. Inside the glass, a black lump of contamination writhed — as though shadows had been kneaded together and crammed in by force.
"Neigh, ne-eigh…."
If that thing… was injected…!
Eyes trembling, the unicorn shrieked a wretched scream of absolute terror. And then — the prick.
"KHUOOOOOH…!!!"
The instant the needle sank in, that scream became a cry steeped in rage and killing intent. Snow-white fur drowned in black. Innocent eyes lit crimson. The single horn cracked and fell away, and from the stub sprouted a blunt pair of horns like a goat's.
The steed of a fallen unicorn. Commonly known as — the Bicorn.
"Fall to Bicorn confirmed. The moment it makes contact with another unicorn, the demonic qi injected into its body will spread through touch and trigger a chain of Bicorn transformations."
Among the black coats, one figure alone wore dark hooded robes, face hidden — a shadow that spoke in a voice stripped of every rise and fall of emotion.
"While the Bicorns sow chaos, the demon troop will complete the securing of the target."
The robed shadow extended a hand, and a hologram flickered into being. Rising within it: the white-haired, blue-eyed girl — Bukgung Seol.
Bukgung Seol