Becoming One
Arang's mother had sought to increase contact with the outside world.
The previous elder—her grandmother—had opposed it, but she had not actively blocked the effort, and so exchanges had gradually grown.
Then her mother was murdered outside. Grandmother locked the gates more firmly than ever before.
Change only the specific parties involved, and it was the sort of thing that happened all the time in this world.
Arang understood that now.
"If the outside world did not kill them, then what did?"
At the elder's words, Arang shook her head.
"What murdered Mother and Father was malice."
"Malice from the outside."
"Put that way, it isn't wrong."
Arang took another sip of tea.
In a battle of words, the length of one's breath, the timing of speech and of silence—all of it was a weapon.
"But you know full well that isn't what this humble one is trying to say."
"Was the outside world that murdered your mother and father truly so fascinating to you?"
"I was desperately curious what the outside world Mother wanted so badly actually was. So I went out to see it with my own eyes… and."
Arang raised one eyebrow at the elder.
"The idea that if you hide from malice, malice will leave you alone—that's not just naive. It's stupid."
In Arang's eyes lay an understanding of the world and of people—broader and deeper even than that of the elder herself, who had led the clan for so long.
"You who reject eternity! A mere great sinner… eugh!!!!"
Facing an enemy of unknown nature, Yujeong refrained from attacking first, focusing instead on dodging while she observed.
The way it cracked the snakes on its body like whips. The way it tried to bite with the snakes' heads. And the way it spat venom.
None of them are particularly formidable on their own, but if that venom touches me…
Her flesh would melt away. She must not let it touch her even once.
"This servant! Atonement! Death!!!!"
"Eek!?"
The enemy sprayed a great deal of venom at once, forcing Yujeong to hop backward in rapid succession. The grass the venom touched blackened and died on the spot.
Are you two seriously not going to help me!!
She screamed the thought inside her head and glanced toward the shade of the tree where Hoeyeon and Gayul were—only to find Gayul tickling Hoeyeon's ear.
"D-does this do nothing? Even like this, it doesn't affect you at all?"
"Well, it feels kind of nice when you're gentle… but my ears aren't usually that sensitive."
"Th-that can't be…"
You put me up against something like this and you're doing WHAT over there!?!?!?
Dangerous—she nearly shouted it out loud instead of keeping it in her head.
"Blasphemy! Blasphemous thing! The sin of blasphemy!"
"Eyahh!?!?"
Enraged by their indifference toward her, the servant stretched her snakes long and cracked them like whips.
"They got longer!?"
"Authority… Authority!!!"
At her cry, the snakes grew in both length and thickness—from the size of an arm to the size of a thigh.
"Sseeeeh!!"
"Shieeeek!"
Two of them detached completely from her and lunged at Yujeong.
She could dodge them. But even if she did, they would simply attack again.
"Uwaaaaaah! Hup!"
Yujeong swung her sword.
The two snakes were cleanly sliced apart, dissolving into green mist on the ground and vanishing.
"…Huh?"
Yujeong was bewildered.
"Yujeong's biggest weakness is her lack of real combat experience. Especially against enemies that don't use swords or martial arts."
While Yujeong had been absorbed in the fight, Hoeyeon—who had been watching—spoke up.
She was ready to leap in the moment things truly got dangerous. She was being careful not to let Yujeong notice, though.
"And you had been thinking about that from the start, realized the enemy was an appropriate opponent, and let Yujeong gain experience… I say it again—you are an excellent teacher."
"I'm just doing my best to follow Master's example."
"Yu Eunha, is it… But truly, does it not bother you even when I do this to your ears? Even when I touch them like this?"
"Like I said, it feels nice when you're gentle, but I don't start trembling and melting the way you do. Ow—even so, pulling hurts."
"That one just now wasn't a caress. I pulled it to hurt you. What on earth are you saying in broad daylight. Hmph."
"Ow ow ow!"
At Arang's words calling her not merely naive but stupid, the elder gave no answer and kept her silence.
Arang said nothing either. From experience, she had realized something.
Whoever broke the silence first would lose.
So Arang simply closed her eyes. From the rustling of the elder's body, it seemed the unexpected move had thrown her off.
Arang still said nothing.
The silence stretched a while longer before it was finally broken by the elder's sigh.
"I don't know how much you've seen wandering about, but your rhetoric has improved considerably."
At what amounted to a surrender, Arang cracked a grin and opened her eyes.
"I've seen a great deal. But there's still so much more I want to see."
It was time to get to the point.
"Tell me about the dagger this city is protecting. I want to stop those who are after it."
"The dagger. Do you ask knowing that your parents died protecting it?"
"I didn't know."
It was the first she'd heard of it. So Arang nodded honestly.
"But if that's the case, I want to know even more."
"It is not something you can handle alone."
"I'm not alone."
"You mean the owners of those three scents clinging to you."
Arang smiled and nodded.
The elder gazed at her for a long moment, then sighed once more.
"To think that you, of all people, would come to have people you could say that about… So then, what is it you want from this old woman."
"Information about the dagger. And I'd like to offer one piece of advice regarding the city's future."
"Does the way things are now seem so wrong to you? So unpleasant? When it is this peaceful and quiet."
"Until recently, I probably wouldn't have offered any advice either. Too much trouble."
Arang nodded honestly again this time.
"But I saw something recently."
"What did you see?"
"Something rotting away inside of time."
Thinking of the girl who, even at this very moment, was atoning in eternal solitude, Arang spoke.
"If there were no other options, no other paths, that would be one thing—but this place isn't like that."
Arang smiled faintly.
"And as I said earlier, wanting to hide doesn't mean you get to hide. One day the ground might suddenly give way, or the sky might collap—"
Once Yujeong started cutting, the advantage in the fight tilted decisively in her favor.
Venom she absolutely must not touch?
It sounded grand, but that was true of any weapon.
The snakes' lengths were free and unpredictable?
The staff techniques Gayul had demonstrated were far more unpredictable and ever-changing.
Yujeong strode forward step by step, while the enemy edged backward in retreat.
"Grrraaah!!!!! This servant, this servant!!!!!"
The enemy was screaming itself hoarse, but Yujeong, by contrast, was growing calm and cold.
Dodge the venom. Cut down any snake that approaches without thinking. And all the while, close the distance. Until this sword can reach that creature's neck.
This was not a fight that set an Oni-kin's blood boiling.
The enemy was endlessly retreating because it didn't want to die, and it couldn't even do that properly, so the distance kept shrinking.
This was closer to taking out the trash.
Even the magic beasts that had charged in mad with hatred, ready to kill or be killed, had been a tier above this thing as opponents.
"Why do you reject eternal life!!"
To the not-quite-person still screaming, Yujeong—chilled to the very bottom of her heart—spat out the words, laden with the disgust of spitting on garbage.
"Don't you dare speak of eternity so lightly."
Above ground, below ground. A battle of words, a battle of swords.
They were fighting different fights in different places, but by a cruel twist of fate, Arang and Yujeong were thinking of the same being at the same moment.
"The one I met who had touched eternity called herself a great sinner for that very reason."
"H-how dare you!!! To preach, to this servant, to this servant who has received divine grace… Authority! Endless Authority!!!"
Unable to contain her rage any longer, the servant finally charged forward. Her entire body was swallowed in green light and swelled to enormous size, and when the light faded, a gigantic three-headed snake stood in her place.
"How dare—"
"—this servant—"
"insult—"
"Is that all you know how to say?"
Yujeong swung her sword once, and one of the three heads fell.
"Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!"
"Shiiiiiiiiii—"
Yujeong swung her sword again, and another of the remaining heads fell mid-scream.
"What a shame."
Yujeong said with a sneer.
"I thought you'd finally grown a neck that could answer me, but you're alone again."
"Ah… aaaaaaah!!!!!"
The last remaining head could feel death coming.
That terror shattered her mind.
Death, which even ordinary people fear and then accept—for her, who had steeped herself in fanaticism, rehearsed hatred, piled up and nurtured her own terror, and finally offered up even herself—it was a terror she could not endure.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!"
And so she turned her back and tried to flee.
"If you'd done that from the start, you might have gotten away."
Yujeong swung her sword vertically. It was a distance she couldn't reach.
But the sword qi riding the tip of her blade cleaved the giant snake cleanly in two from top to bottom.
And shattered the ground.
"Huh?"
"Eh?"
"What."
The ground broke apart.
The three of them began to fall.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaaah!?!?"
"Kyaaaaaaaaaa!?"
"Uwaaaaaaaaaah!?"
One day the ground might suddenly give way, or the sky might collap—
"—se. Isn't that possible?"
The very moment Arang spoke the words as nothing more than a metaphor, a tremendous roar thundered through the air.
As if the stone ceiling of this city had been smashed open.
The next instant, Arang burst through the window of the office and leapt outside.
Dazzling sunlight was pouring down.
"Good heavens! I never imagined a scale like this!!"
"Stop marveling and do something about the falling!!"
"Eonni!!!!!"
And from the sky, Gayul, Hoeyeon, Yujeong, and the enormous carcass of something dissolving into green mist were plummeting down.
"Just what in the world are you all doing!?!?"
But those in even greater danger than the three were the ordinary Fox-kin in the city.
Massive chunks of stone were falling from the sky. A normal person could die from a mere graze.
The falling three seemed to realize it as well.
Arang leapt high. Hoeyeon and Yujeong gripped their swords. Gayul gathered her magic.
"Eek!?"
"Kyaah!!"
Screams rang out in succession from various parts of the city, but no one was hurt. Anything falling toward people was shattered or knocked aside by Hoeyeon and Yujeong.
⟨ Fated Link ⟩
Gayul pulled Hoeyeon and Yujeong to her with magic and caught each of them in her arms.
"Hup!"
And Arang, who had taken on her fox form in midair, caught the three on her back.
When the dust and noise of Arang's landing settled, the four of them were lying side by side on the ground. Or rather—Arang, back in human form, was face-down, and the three were lying in a row on top of her.
"Knowing there was a space underground, what were you thinking striking the ground! The ground!!"
"I didn't know it would turn out like this! Hwaaang!!"
"I don't care about any of that—get off this humble one already…!!"
"Ow ow… Yujeong, you're going to get a talking-to from Eonni later…"
"Heeung…"
"W-what is it—I've suspected this for a while, but Yujeong, do you perhaps have a preference for…"
"First get off this humble one—my tail!! My taaaaaaaaaaaail!!!!!!"
For the first time in hundreds of years, sunlight illuminating the underground city shone down upon the four of them—laughing, chattering, and shouting.