Deepening With Every Stroke
Of the three who had fallen asleep, Arang was the first to wake.
She had been the least exhausted, and so she was the quickest to sense that something was wrong and drag her mind back to clarity.
The air is foul. I need to open the door…
She was more worn out than she had thought; her body refused to answer her. Arang forced her eyes open in irritation—and understood at once.
It was not merely foul.
The room was filling with smoke.
"!?"
Arang tried to shove herself upright and collapsed face-first onto the floor when her limbs gave out. A cough tore from her throat.
There was no time to spare the house owner's furnishings. Arang seized whatever came to hand and hurled it at the door. The piece of furniture smashed through the wood and burst out into the open air.
"Khack—khack!"
This was no ordinary smoke. Poison rode within it. Blood welled at the corner of her mouth. Clean air rushed in through the shattered hole, but they still had to get out—now.
"Hoeyeon! Gayul! Wake up! Quickly!!"
Arang staggered to her feet and shouted at the two still on the bed.
"Huh? Cough!"
Hoeyeon clawed her way back to consciousness, coughed hard, and her eyes flew wide. She scooped up Gayul—who had not yet come around—into her arms.
They tumbled out of the room after Arang. Hoeyeon collapsed onto the ground and gulped for breath. The outside air felt not merely clean but sweet.
This poison—I've tasted it somewh—
Hoeyeon rolled hard to the side. A lump of iron came crashing down where her face had been.
"You—!"
Arang's cry rang out. It was a voice of pure rage, one Hoeyeon had never heard from her before.
"What is the meaning of this?!"
The tool that had tried to crush Hoeyeon's skull was no proper weapon—it was a shovel. And the one gripping it was the house's owner.
"Why… why aren't you dead? Th-they said it was deadly poison…"
Hands shaking violently, the woman raised the shovel again—this time aiming for Gayul's head. Before the blow could fall, Hoeyeon drove her palm into the woman's knee.
"Kyaaaaah!! Ghk—kyaaaaaaaaaah!!!"
The joint and bone of one knee shattered. The woman lost her balance and went down. She stabbed the shovel into the earth trying to catch herself, but Hoeyeon smashed the other leg as well, and she had no choice but to crumple.
"Aaaagh! Hhk—ngh—m-my leeeeeeeegs!!!!!"
When Arang stepped closer, the woman flinched and trembled even as she writhed on the ground.
"…You knew nothing of gratitude, and betrayed your benefactors."
Arang's voice had passed beyond the point of trembling with fury. Rage itself was choking the words in her throat, and she was forcing them out anyway.
"Have you already reported us to the authorities? Speak without omission. It will be the last atonement you can make before you die."
"I didn't—report to the—aaagh! My legs!!"
"Is that so."
Arang's hand sharpened into a fox's claws—then returned to a human hand. A flicker of hope crossed the howling house owner's face.
But Arang had not withdrawn her claws out of mercy.
"A filthy life is best taken with a filthy tool."
Arang seized the shovel that had been meant for Hoeyeon and Gayul. The moment she raised it high, Hoeyeon cried out.
"Arang!"
"Hoeyeon—surely you do not mean to show mercy to this filth—"
"It's not that. This poison. I remember where I've tasted it before! That snake!"
"Snake…?"
For an instant Arang only looked puzzled. Then the image of the enormous white serpent Hoeyeon had fought and cut down rose clear in her mind.
"…."
And this time, rage stripped the power of speech from her entirely.
Arang had helped this woman, grown weak because of it, and on the road home had been ambushed by that band obsessed with the magic beast's core.
And this woman had been in league with them?
"From the very beginning… you lured this one into a trap."
Arang's voice came slow and measured.
"F-forgive me…"
The house owner shook as she begged.
"My son… he has a terminal illness… I just wanted to save him somehow…"
If the medicinal herbs Arang had brought restored him, well and good. If he died anyway, she would sell Arang and use the price to bring him back. That had been the plan.
Arang lifted the shovel and brought it down twice.
The first blow drove into the mouth. The second punched through the belly and pinned her to the earth.
"…Hoeyeon. Can you stand?"
"Yeah. I've recovered a little."
"And Gayul?"
"Her insides took some damage, but she'll heal if we give her time."
"We will need to go to ground inside the city. Entrust Gayul to me, and gather our belongings."
"Okay."
"This one… m-my sin—"
"That can wait until Gayul wakes up too. The three of us made a promise, remember?"
Hoeyeon cut across Arang's words, which kept breaking under the tremor in her voice. Arang let out a long, slow breath.
"…As you say."
And so the three of them left the empty house behind.
Only one remained—unable even to scream, waiting for death. She did not wait long.
The underworld.
A place too deep for the power of the state or the authorities to reach directly—where other people built their own society and set their own rules.
A place where revelry and the flesh trade thrived, and where plants that delivered pleasures far beyond liquor or tobacco—and, in equal measure, the blackest despair—changed hands.
It was the perfect place to hide from the law. But when someone with an obvious story suddenly arrived seeking a place to disappear, being charged an outrageous sum was only natural.
The room Arang had barely managed to secure was cramped, filthy, and open to every stench rising from the street below.
In a space that filled completely the moment two people lay side by side, Arang settled Gayul down, sat Hoeyeon up, and curled herself into the smallest shape she could manage.
"…Arang."
"This one was a fool."
Arms wrapped around her knees, face buried against them, Arang spoke.
"I do not even know how I ought to apologize. Because this one was a fool… to my benefactors… I…"
"Arang."
"This one—I… what am I… I should not be drowning in these feelings. I should be finding a way to make amends……"
"Arang."
In the room that would be packed full if two of them stretched out, Hoeyeon spoke to Arang sitting across from her.
"It was a mistake. I forgive you. Gayul will too."
"…I… myself…"
"There are three of us. The three of us. So if two of us forgive you and you can't forgive yourself, what then?"
"……I—this one…"
The sound of Arang sniffling filled the quiet. It was a small sound, but in a room this narrow there was nowhere to hide it.
And because the room was so narrow, they could also tell from the change in Gayul's breathing that she had woken.
"Hoeyeon is right."
Gayul opened her eyes and slowly rested one hand against her own forehead.
"Gayul! Are you okay?"
"Well enough. Fortunately, that woman was clumsy with poison. Almost none of it seems to have reached the inner room where I was."
More importantly—Gayul pushed herself upright.
"I heard most of what happened. And Hoeyeon is right. This time it was your mistake, Arang—but there will be times ahead when Hoeyeon or I make mistakes of our own. That is all there is to it."
Arang sniffled once more and scrubbed hard at the corners of her eyes, as if she meant to wipe every last tear away by force.
"……Wait just a little longer."
"For what? Take all the time you need."
"And Hoeyeon. Gayul."
"Hm?"
"What is it?"
"This one offers you her gratitude."
"Don't mention it."
Hoeyeon said it with a crooked grin. Gayul smiled quietly and inclined her head.
Because Gayul had sat up, she and Hoeyeon now leaned side by side against the wall, while Arang sat facing them.
In that stillness, Gayul kept her gaze fixed on her own knees as she spoke.
"Hoeyeon."
At the low call of her name, Hoeyeon swallowed.
"…Y-yeah."
Gayul did not move. Her eyes stayed on her knees for a long while.
Neither Hoeyeon nor Arang dared break the silence.
At last Gayul shook her head slightly to one side.
"It is nothing. Arang—how long have we rented this place?"
"Until morning. Until the seventh hour."
"And the time now?"
"Around the fourth hour of dawn."
"Then shall we rest one more hour before we flee?"
"Can you manage it? The poison aside, the expenditure of magic was enormous to begin with."
"Somehow."
"If that is your word, this one agrees. This is no place we can trust as shelter."
"M-me too."
"Then for one more hour, let us close our eyes."
Gayul leaned back against the wall and shut her eyes.
…She's avoiding looking at me, isn't she?
Hoeyeon thought. And no matter how she turned it over, that seemed to be exactly right.
She glanced sidelong at Arang. Arang looked away with an awkward twist of her mouth.
Do not ask this one.
Hoeyeon could almost hear her say it.
Hoeyeon tried to rest her eyes as well, but sleep had already fled.
Then something caught her eye—the sword thrust among her belongings. The blade Eunha had used at the end.
Hm?
Something looked strange.
Hoeyeon drew the sword from her pack and examined it. The shape and form were ordinary. What had snagged her attention was the pattern etched into the hilt.
"What is this?"
The only light was what leaked in from the pleasure quarter outside, so she had to squint and bring the blade close to make out the design.
A circle. But broken in one place.
No—not merely broken… a triangle?
In Hoeyeon's mind rose a crest she had once seen in a book from her grandfather's study.
"……A snake devouring its own tail…?"
The serpent's body had been simplified to a line, its head to a triangle—but it was that symbol.
If her memory served, it stood for immortality, deathlessness, eternity, everlasting life.
The magic beast's core. The thing that had made Arang young again. The thing that had brought her master back. And once more, a magic beast's core.
"…That's the right symbol. And probably the intent behind using it, too."
Hoeyeon studied the blade carefully, then thought further. There was likely something of the same kind on the clothes Eunha had worn.
"…."
As Hoeyeon pulled Eunha's sword from her pack and then searched out Eunha's clothes to examine them, Gayul cast a glance her way.
No—it was more accurate to say that eyes which had wanted to keep looking at Hoeyeon the entire time, forced again and again to look elsewhere, had finally failed.
"Hoeyeon."
Gayul's gaze touched Hoeyeon's lips.
And the words, too—words she had wanted to speak all along, held back by force—finally broke free.
Once they had spilled out, there was no cutting them short.
"Will you not do the same for me?"
Gayul's fingertips rested against her own lips.
As if she meant to hide them in shame—or as if she were hoping for something to touch them.