Chapter 153

Chapter 153

In the end, the group accepted Seohwa’s opinion to save the girl.

“I apologize.”

“Yes? For what?”

“Isn’t this insubordination, in a way?”

After returning from repairing the collapsed wooden fence, Seomun Cheok spoke up to Seohwa, who blinked as if asking what he meant. Seomun Cheok watched her reaction for a moment, then spoke quietly after keeping his mouth firmly shut.

“The fact that you’re holding the Uicheongeom means the sect master has delegated full authority to you in this situation. Isn’t that right?”

“Ah, well…”

“Even if I had doubts about your opinion and wanted to raise objections, I shouldn’t have raised them in front of others. That would undermine your authority.”

It’s not that subordinates must always follow their superiors’ opinions. However, there’s a time and place for raising objections.

When exchanging opinions, it should take the form of subordinates proposing to superiors, not superiors convincing subordinates. Having once lived as a nangin and spent a long time with soldiers, Seomun Cheok was quite sensitive to such matters, which made him particularly aware of his mistake.

“I’ll make absolutely sure this never happens again.”

“Hmm. I don’t really mind that much…”

“It’s a matter related to discipline. I’ll handle it myself, so don’t worry about it.”

“Alright. If that makes you more comfortable.”

Seohwa smiled bitterly, nodded, and looked at the girl Choil was keeping with her. The girl was just chatting with Choil without even realizing what had happened to her.

“…She looks so human, yet she’s a yokai. It’s hard to believe. I haven’t seen many, but all the yokai I’ve seen looked terrifying.”

“No matter how human-like, a yokai is still a yokai. We must never let our guard down.”

“I’m not letting my guard down. It’s just…”

“Just?”

“I wonder if there really aren’t any yokai that can get along well with humans.”

Seomun Cheok sighed and shook his head at Seohwa’s eyes filled with compassion, silent for a moment. He could clearly see what she was thinking.

“You know this, but keeping that yokai alive is temporary.”

“Once this situation is resolved, we’ll have to deal with that yokai too. Even if we don’t deal with it, we can’t take it out of here. We can’t just release a yokai into a village.”

“I know.”

“I’m telling you not to get attached. And anyway, there’s no possibility that yokai is a good yokai.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there are no exceptions.”

A yokai’s desire to receive offerings of fear from living beings is a kind of instinct. An instinct to become stronger and survive. An instinct to live.

“Even if it’s a desire that can be suppressed, an instinctual desire is quite strong. Even if we educate that little one not to kill people, the desire will remain. You must not kill people. But you want to kill them. She’ll continue to struggle with that conflict.”

“Let’s say she’s truly exceptionally educated and suppresses that desire. But how long do you think she can maintain that state? A month? A year? Ten years?”

Ten years—she might be able to endure that long. The will of an intelligent being is more remarkable than you’d think.

But ultimately, it will end in catastrophe. Because it would be forcing patience on the girl.

“A relationship where one side must unilaterally endure can never be sustained permanently.”

“Don’t think that your goodwill will necessarily work as goodwill for the other party.”

It would be nice if actions produced results as intended, but the world is too complex to live simply with one-dimensional thinking.

“We have some time left before the meeting, so I’ll go on patrol for a bit.”

After finishing what he had to say, Seomun Cheok waved his hand and disappeared. Seohwa watched his retreating figure intently, then stood up with a complicated expression.

“…I know. I do too.”

That it’s merely a reprieve.

How could she not know? In the end, nothing fundamental has been resolved.

Yokai cannot mix with humans. As long as that fact doesn’t change, this situation won’t change. Even if it were Baek Riyun here instead of Seohwa, there would be no other way.

But even so.

“Being forced to live that way just because you were born that way… it’s too unfair.”

Seohwa quietly closed her eyes, recalling the sensation at her fingertips that once stung painfully.

It was time to start planning to dismantle the formation.

Village meeting hall.

“First, let me quickly summarize what’s been decided.”

At Seohwa’s words, those sitting in their seats with visibly exhausted expressions turned their gazes to her. Confirming their attention, Seohwa cleared her throat and spoke quickly.

“Choil’s younger sister. For convenience, I’ll call her the Divine Maiden for now. As I said earlier, we’ve decided to postpone the Divine Maiden’s disposition. Does anyone object?”

The group remained silent.

“No objections. Let’s move on to the next agenda item.”

Confirming that no one was arguing about the already-decided matter, Seohwa nodded and immediately continued. There wasn’t much time.

“The next agenda item is the task we’re facing. Specifically, dismantling the formation.”

“Dismantling the formation?”

“Yes. The formation that has brought the darkness surrounding this village and the forest area.”

Thunk!

Seohwa drew a circle with her hand and placed the Uicheongeom in front. Her words continued.

“According to the sect master’s message, to destroy this formation, we need to break three formation axes. One in the northeast. One in the west-southwest. One in the south-southeast.”

Among the three formation axes that needed to be destroyed, the one located northeast of the village had already been destroyed by Seohwa and Jangil. That left two.

“One in the west-southwest. One in the south-southeast. If we destroy these two formation axes, the formation will be dismantled. So we need to destroy these formation axes, but…”

“But?”

“There’s a problem.”

Seohwa sighed and continued.

“Jangil can destroy the second formation axis alone. But the third formation axis is the problem.”

“What problem?”

“Apparently, there’s a high probability that concealment techniques won’t work from the moment we destroy the second formation axis.”

“…Is that really true?”

“It’s true.”

When Baek Risan asked with a serious expression at Seohwa’s words, Jangil spoke up instead of Seohwa. All eyes turned to Jangil.

“When we broke the first formation axis, I confirmed that the surrounding internal energy was distorted. And when we returned, the attack came much faster than the previous one. The timing of that attack coincided exactly with when we broke the formation axis. Is that a coincidence?”

“I’d like it to be a coincidence, but it’s hard to be that optimistic. It’s right to think that phenomenon occurred because we broke the formation axis.”

When the formation axis breaks, yokai run wild and internal energy becomes distorted.

Given this situation, there’s a high probability that Jangil’s concealment technique won’t work anymore. If they collide with rampaging yokai, the concealment technique will be immediately canceled, and even if they don’t collide, there’s a high probability it won’t function anymore due to the constantly distorting internal energy.

“How about destroying two formation axes simultaneously? If the problem is that they go berserk when we break just one, wouldn’t breaking two at the same time work?”

“Hmm. Not a bad idea. However.”

Jangil shook his head at Seonwoo Gang’s words and continued.

“With me gone, it’s hard to maintain concealment, and even if you could maintain concealment, it’s still a problem. If the formation is dismantled, can you guarantee the yokai will disappear?”

“If the yokai don’t disappear, at least the two who went out will definitely die. I have no desire to go to a place where I’ll definitely die.”

“This is frustrating.”

Baek Risan sighed as if his head hurt at Jangil’s assertion and pressed his forehead firmly. A situation with no visible answer.

“We have to protect the village, but if we send out just one or two people to destroy the formation axes, they’ll definitely die…”

“Even if we split up the personnel, the village’s defenses will weaken, so that’s a problem too.”

A dilemma.

Everyone frowned and fell into deep contemplation at Baek Risan’s words. And then.

“Isn’t there some good method? Can’t manpower just drop from the sky or something?”

Around the time Baek Risan vented his frustration again at the invisible solution.

“Manpower dropping from the sky…?”

Something flashed in Seohwa’s mind as she heard Baek Risan’s words.

“That’s it!”

“Huh? What is.”

“Manpower dropping from the sky!”

“No, what on earth are you…”

Baek Risan showed a troubled expression at Seohwa’s suddenly nonsensical words. But Seohwa looked around with a firm expression.

“In the end, we just need to hold out until all the formation axes are destroyed, right?”

“Well, that’s…”

“Then there’s a way.”

Screech! Thud thud thud!

As soon as she finished speaking, Seohwa drew the small knife that had been placed on the table and drew a circle on the table, marking points where the formation axes might be located. The positions of the formation axes were instantly carved into the wooden table.

“This is a guess, but these three are the formation axis positions, and the center here is our current position. Of these, we’ve already destroyed the northeast formation axis.”

“We destroyed it on the way here.”

“Yes. It took us roughly two shichen to destroy the formation axis and reach the village.”

Assuming they used concealment techniques, that’s four shichen round trip. About two shichen one way. Not exactly short, but not exactly long either.

“But the formation axes located in the west-southwest and south-southeast aren’t that far from each other. Distance-wise, roughly one and a half shichen. It’ll be faster if we don’t use concealment techniques.”

“Shouldn’t we consider the rampaging yokai?”

“The yokai are mostly distributed inside. If we go around the perimeter, there won’t be that many. It’ll delay us a bit, but…”

If they can deploy enough forces, the possibility of destroying the remaining formation axes within two shichen increases significantly. They just need to hold out for two shichen to dismantle the formation axes.

“…Okay. That’s all well and good.”

After hearing Seohwa’s explanation, Baek Risan moved his lips and sighed.

“Even if it only takes two shichen, it’s still a problem. If we send more than half our manpower outside, the defenses inside will be neglected. Unless we’re planning to let all the villagers die, we can’t divide our forces. What method do you have?”

“There is a method.”

“What method?”

“You said it yourself. We just need manpower to drop from the sky.”

“Where on earth is there manpower that will drop from the sky…”

“There’s no manpower that will drop from the sky, but there is manpower we can add. Two shichen’s worth of manpower.”

“Two shichen’s worth of manpower?”

“We’ve done it once before, haven’t we?”

“…What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this.”

Seohwa glanced at the lantern hanging on the wall and smiled faintly. Then came her statement.

“Wooden fences are made of wood, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

“Then, wood burns well, right?”

“…Huh?”

“In other words, we just need to block the yokai so they can only enter from one place. Even if just for a while.”

The answer is simple.

“Gather the villagers in the center and set fire to it. To the entire village.”