Climbing to the Highest — 5
For several days, the Heavenly Demon did not come. And it was not as if anyone else arrived to fill the empty hours. No one came at all.
Wow. Honestly. After all that advertising!
They must be busy watching the promotion tournament. It only happens once a year, doesn't it? I can understand that. This time there is even someone who started at the very bottom and climbed by defeating every person in his path. Oh Myung-sung. He even decided to challenge the Heavenly Demon.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult has caught fire with bets over just how far he will rise. At first I thought the excitement amounted to only that, but when I really think about it, this world has very little in the way of entertainment. When something this provocative happens, of course people lose themselves in the watching.
I can spectate through both fighters' eyes, and through the eyes of the harvesters watching from the crowd besides. Soo can't, though. If she means to grow stronger, she needs to see matches of a high caliber too.
So on the final day of the promotion tournament — the day Oh Myung-sung would fight the Heavenly Demon — I took Soo's hand and set out for the village.
The moment we stepped in, the entrance was already seething with people. There were so many of them in the streets that I found myself wondering where they had all been until now. There even seem to be more than last year.
"Whoa."
Beside me, Soo breathes it out in wonder. Has she never experienced a crowd before? No. If I rummage through her memories, she has. When she worked in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, she was gathered together with a number of children her own age. She lived through being bullied there, so a mere crowd seems to be all right for her. I had heard that someone with almost no social sense can be frightened by nothing more than a mass of people, but she does not appear to be that far gone.
We had not been inside long before In Sim-won came straight up to us.
"You have come."
"It isn't strange for me to come today, is it?"
At my question, In Sim-won nodded. The duel between the Heavenly Demon and Oh Myung-sung. He knows this is not simply the Heavenly Demon fighting a challenger. This is a contest between harvesters — a fight among those who use me as a weapon. I have seen something similar before, of course, but that was people using their own abilities. It was not them drawing me forth and wielding me as a weapon.
"Allow me to show you to a good seat."
"Let's go."
I had wondered whether we would be watching from far off, but when he said he would take us somewhere with a clear view, I nodded at once, pleased. This is what connections are for. Hehe.
And so Soo and I made for the arena.
Calling it an arena is generous. It is not a proper venue with spectator seats — just a plaza with a broad open ground at its center. The good seats are the tall buildings standing around that plaza. They are normally where the high-ranking believers live, but on a day like this, people simply seize them. Yes. They do not rent them. They shove their way in with strength and authority.
I like it immensely. Places like this are exactly where I shine. In a society that puts violence first, one can obtain overwhelming power at once. An attractive lure. So shouldn't they come find me and become harvesters as soon as they can?
I turned that over as we climbed to the highest floor, then stepped into a room whose windows opened onto the plaza.
"Whoa, Choseol. This place is amazing."
Soo seems more fascinated by the interior than by the people down below. Hasn't she seen rooms finer than this while she was working? Or perhaps she was so tense in those days that she never had the leisure to take them in. That was a place where a child died at the slightest misstep. Fail to adapt, and you die. Make a mistake, and you die. If a high-ranking believer is in a foul mood, they kill you for fun.
It is not a world where such things are natural — but in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, they are. Born and raised in a world like that, Soo is likely to grow up much the same way. Things learned in childhood are hard to forget, aren't they? Just as someone raised under abuse so often passes the violence they suffered on to their own child, the people of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult will hand that way of thinking down to theirs.
Of course, it is not as if no one, having been abused themselves, refuses to do the same to a child. But which kind is more common? There are more people who are not aware of it than people who are. One or two peculiar souls, at most. Malice spreads more easily, and it travels farther. Those who learned that way do not even realize they are doing wrong, because to them it is simply how things are. And that is how you break a person easily, and then control them.
Why do vicious customs take root in an army? Customs that once vanished spring up again. Even in places that have never seen a barracks, people begin tormenting one another the way soldiers do. It is because doing so is enjoyable and fun, of course — and because a person broken that way comes to obey you easily. Power is sweet. I like that sweetness. It is the force that drives the harvest of my warmth. If the majority of people were morally upright, I would have to take warmth from the living more aggressively. But most people live swept along by instinct and impulse.
Heehee.
A world in which many people find this fact itself uncomfortable is a good world. I wish every world were like that.
"Choseol, let's put one of these in our house too!"
Just then Soo shouted it from atop a plush bed.
"It won't fit in the house."
"Ah. Yeah. That's true."
The house is a rectangle, and its shorter side is shorter than the shortest edge of the bed. I could speak to the Heavenly Demon and have it changed, of course, but I have no particular wish to. If she wants it, she ought to tell the Heavenly Demon herself. Once a desire is born and then fulfilled, it is quite pleasant. It would be good for her to experience that once — and also the sort of case where you receive something without thinking, find it does not suit you, and have to throw it away.
"It's about to start."
I said it while looking out the window. People had gathered in a ring around the plaza, and at the center stood a blue-skinned woman in black robes and a white-robed man with purple hair. An announcer introduced the challenger first, his voice booming, and then introduced the Heavenly Demon. Where the crowd had only cheered for Oh Myung-sung, they now cried out a thousand years and bowed. Startled by the Heavenly Demon's stature, Soo stares at the scene as if spellbound.
The two sides exchanged greetings, drew their swords, and the fight began.
Boom!
A sound erupted that was hard to believe had come from sword meeting sword, and a shockwave burst outward, flinging the people ringing the plaza into the air.
"Good heavens..."
In Sim-won, standing beside me, lets out a breath thick with awe. And as if that first clash had been nothing but a greeting, the Heavenly Demon's sword and Oh Myung-sung's begin to move swiftly, striking one another. Every time the blades meet, a roar bursts out without fail, and when edge grinds against edge, sparks spray like a chainsaw.
First exchange. Second. Third. Little by little the Heavenly Demon and Oh Myung-sung pick up speed, and by about the second exchange I can no longer follow them with my eyes. But I still have my senses, so I know how many times they rebound off each other. Now and then Oh Myung-sung's arm rebounds twice while the Heavenly Demon rebounds only once. What is that? I remember how fighting is done, but I do not understand it, so I cannot tell how well they are fighting. I cannot see it with my eyes in the first place.
Sixth exchange. Seventh. Eighth. Soo watches as if being pulled in. No — it is not only Soo. Gapjae watches from atop a sentry post, and Byeongil from a spot about fifty degrees clockwise of where I stand, both of them staring at the fight as if entranced.
And the tenth exchange. As if flung apart, the Heavenly Demon and Oh Myung-sung sprang a good distance from each other. Then a dark violet light surged up from both their swords.
But there is one strange thing. The place Soo's focus is fixed on sits a little higher than the tip of the sword I can see. It is not only Soo. Gapjae, Byeongil, and In Sim-won are the same. There is something larger than what I see. Which means I am incapable of seeing qi at all. Was that also why magic looked somehow flat in the first world? And perhaps that is why I could not properly use Rebecca's body, either.
While I am thinking that, the two of them clash again. From my distant vantage they are already invisible to me, of course. I can feel it only through the senses of those who can see, or through the fighters themselves. It does not sound like two people fighting. From the center of the plaza comes a noise like two enormous pieces of heavy machinery colliding.
By now there is almost no one left ringing the plaza. From the moment the dark violet light rose and they clashed once, most of the crowd lost consciousness and collapsed. Then the continuous shockwaves send them tumbling, rolling all the way to the far side of the plaza.
But some are still awake. Judging by the fact that I have seen them through the Heavenly Demon's eyes before, they must all be people of real skill. Now the sound of blades meeting is almost a continuous vibration — a fight in which the slightest mistake would not merely send a limb flying, but feel as if the whole body would evaporate.
Unexpectedly, though, the fight itself ended cleanly. When, by the Heavenly Demon's count, the two hundred and seventy-ninth exchange had passed, they drew well apart. I thought the fight might begin again, but Oh Myung-sung brought his hands together.
"This is my defeat. I am grateful for the instruction."
Unlike when it began, the surroundings were utterly still, so his voice carried all the way up here. The Heavenly Demon then granted him the post of Right Emissary of Light and praised his skill. At the same time, cries acclaiming the Heavenly Demon rang out in every direction, and I could no longer hear what the two of them were saying.
I had seen all there was to see. I tapped the back of Soo, who was still staring blankly out the window.
"Let's go home."
"I wanna go see Martial Uncle!"
The objection came flying back at once. Soo wears a look that says she is dying to run to the Heavenly Demon this instant and tell him everything that just happened. Beside us, In Sim-won smiles wryly. There he goes, acting as if it is none of his affair.
"If you mean to approach someone who is exhausted, then you may go."
At my words, Soo falls into deep thought. Is there really that much to ponder? I said it so she would understand what choice she was making. In other words, I told her to consider the other person. But given Soo's nature, ignoring me would be the obvious thing. Lately her rebellious streak has grown, and since we are family, it would not be strange for her to start pressing her own self forward.
"Mm. Not today. Let's go back."
How strange. Soo did not ignore what I said. Instead she took my hand. Her hand is trembling to an odd degree.
Thinking that the Soo of this moment is hard to understand, I went home with her.