Chapter 152

Chapter 152

Kwaaang!

“……Huu.”

Exhaling softly, I confirmed the exploded wooden fragments and dusted off my hands. The formation axis shattered into pieces by lightning because I’d used hand techniques without a sword.

“One left.”

I waved away the thick dust cloud and gauged the direction. Though the remaining formation axis was in the completely opposite direction, it seemed I could reach it quickly.

‘I wonder if they’re doing well.’

It had been three shichen since Seohwa disappeared after hearing my message.

Since I confirmed her returning after destroying one formation axis, she’d probably arrived at the village in the center by now. Not a far distance, but avoiding yokai while returning, she’d probably arrive around this time.

Given how cautious Seohwa was, she’d have safely avoided danger to return to the village. Once back at the village, organizing personnel to destroy the remaining formation axes and sending them outside appropriately wouldn’t be difficult either.

Right. What was truly worrying was something else.

About the seed.

“A divine beast.”

Divine beast.

In his letter, my elder brother called that existence so. A kind of creature similar to yokai, but on a different trajectory from yokai.

If yokai grow by consuming fear, divine beasts grow by consuming reverence, respect, affection and such. If yokai are humanity’s natural enemy, divine beasts are humanity’s guardian deities.

That’s what was written in my elder brother’s letter.

Of course, I myself had never heard of divine beasts before.

“……Better not to move rashly.”

In other words, this formation was no different from a breeding ground to turn a divine beast into a yokai. The essence of the plan was to drive humans into extreme circumstances to make them fanatically worship the divine beast, then corrupt the divine beast into a yokai in that environment.

If carelessly touching the formation axes, at least there might be a chance to reverse it depending on how one responds. However, if harm comes to the divine beast that serves as the formation’s axis, the yokai inside the formation would immediately start rampaging.

That would be the end. Without me there, my disciples aren’t strong enough to handle thousands of yokai.

“……Well, it’s probably fine.”

Unconsciously voicing worries, I shook my head and chuckled. From what I heard, divine beasts generally have gentle personalities, don’t they?

Unless completely corrupted into yokai, they supposedly don’t show yokai characteristics besides having different-colored eyes, so it should be fine. No matter what happens, Seohwa or Wangpal will stop it.

Right now, the formation axis is more urgent. The external formation axes that are easy to destroy would be hidden difficultly like this one, so I should find them.

‘I must trust them.’

I have no choice but to trust them. Right now, the only way I can intervene from outside is to the extent of entrusting the Uicheongeom to Seohwa.

Entrusting the sect’s sacred object means temporarily entrusting the role of acting Sect Leader.

Trusting the judgment Seohwa showed during the bandit subjugation, I kicked off the ground again.

Hoping Seohwa would make the best response.

It bears repeating, but opinions expressed by a sect’s head disciple are generally quite respected.

That’s natural. The head disciple is essentially the person with the highest seniority in that generation, excluding higher generations. It’s not strange for anyone to listen respectfully to a high-ranking person’s words.

Seohwa was also the head disciple, though young. Therefore, not only Wangpal and Seonwoo Gang, but also Baek Risan and Seomun Cheok, who hadn’t yet entered Uicheonmun, generally respected Seohwa’s opinions.

This was the first time Seohwa’s and others’ opinions directly collided.

“A way for everyone to survive?”

“……Yes.”

For the still-young Seohwa, that came as quite significant pressure.

“Huuuu.”

Her heart pounded.

Seohwa, somehow calming her racing heart with deep breaths, gripped the edge of Baek Riyun’s robe tightly to steady her mind. Eventually, Seohwa spoke again.

“First, that we can’t trust the yokai.”

“I’ll acknowledge that. We don’t know about all yokai, but all the yokai we’ve seen and heard about until now were yokai that attacked humans.”

Don’t be prejudiced. There might be exceptions. There might be yokai that don’t attack humans?

Such talk is merely idealism. Like bandits who don’t rob, assassins who don’t kill people—not impossible but cases rarely found by common sense.

To push such idealism now, neither the situation nor justification was good. So even if she thought that way, she shouldn’t voice it.

Of course, even setting that aside, nothing would change.

“Even if we can’t trust her, we mustn’t rashly kill her.”

“Why.”

“Because we don’t know what might happen.”

Seohwa, declaring decisively, gestured toward the Uicheongeom embedded in the ground and continued.

“You know I went out scouting and returned, right?”

“……You went out with that assassin. Does bringing the Uicheongeom mean you met Sect Leader-nim?”

“I met him, but I didn’t meet him.”

“What does that mean?”

“There’s a formation laid throughout this entire area, including this village. A formation that blocks going out from inside and entering from outside.”

Watching Seomun Cheok’s eyes widen, realizing the seriousness of the situation, Seohwa added an explanation.

“Sect Leader-nim is outside the formation. Only the sword and robe could pass through.”

“……I see.”

“Anyway, that’s not what’s important.”

After a brief pause, Seohwa brought back the original topic.

“As I just said, what surrounds this village is a formation.”

“Hmm. What about it?”

“As you know, yokai may be able to use magic arts, but they can’t use formations. You understand what this means, don’t you?”

“It means this catastrophe wasn’t created by yokai in the first place.”

Who? How? Why?

Baek Riyun hadn’t conveyed such stories. He just conveyed the formation axes’ locations and the word entrust, then handed over the Uicheongeom.

Then she had to fill the gaps herself. She had to prepare the information to persuade her companions herself.

For Seohwa, who shared Baek Riyun’s perspective, that was easier than anything.

“This village’s artificial environment, the formation, and the yokai suddenly appearing from somewhere…… it’s hard to see as this child’s doing. If she had that much power, would there be a need to consume fear by borrowing the form of rituals one by one? Wouldn’t that be inefficient?”

“……Hmm.”

“For that reason, I think we mustn’t kill this child. Because it’s not work this child did.”

Listening to Seohwa’s words, Seomun Cheok, who’d been contemplating, closed his eyes to think, then nodded. Immediately, Seomun Cheok spoke.

“You’re right about that part. I certainly agree that the outside yokai and such probably aren’t that yokai’s doing.”

“……But it seems your mind hasn’t changed yet.”

“Right. Even so, it can’t be a reason not to kill her.”

Seomun Cheok, raising an objection, immediately glanced at the girl and looked directly at Seohwa again.

“Even if that yokai didn’t create this situation, even if she didn’t bewitch the village people, a yokai is a yokai. When we must fight yokai, there’s no more foolish act than leaving a yokai behind us. Isn’t that right?”

Sound logic.

At Seomun Cheok’s expected counterargument, Seohwa clenched her fists and immediately responded.

“That would be true. Normally.”

“Normally?”

“Yes. Normally. In this case, it’s not normal. Did you forget why there was a ritual in the first place?”

“To prevent yokai from entering the village. The village chief said that, didn’t he?”

Seohwa, looking at the village chief tied up in the distance, continued.

“If the village chief’s words are true, this child might actually be using her ability to prevent yokai from entering the village.”

“She didn’t prevent it. Yokai already entered the village…….”

“No. She’s still preventing them. I can be certain about that part.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because the number of yokai I saw coming and going was at least several hundred.”

“……Is that true?”

“Yes. The number I directly saw was several hundred, so at least several thousand.”

Yokai don’t necessarily only consume human fear, but yokai are crazy about human fear. Human fear, with superior intelligence, is concrete, detailed, and simultaneously delicate.

In other words, to yokai, humans are like rare delicacies hard to taste. If such delicacies were scattered all over the ground, they’d naturally swarm to taste them.

“That they don’t means some kind of power is at work. Whether this child wants it or not.”

Persuaded by Seohwa’s logical explanation, Seomun Cheok quietly fell silent. But Seohwa’s words weren’t finished.

“Finally, there’s one reason we must keep her alive. That this child is extremely heterogeneous for a yokai. And unlike other yokai, she’s inside the village.”

“……Why does that become a reason to keep her alive?”

“It’s simple. Because there’s a high probability this child is their objective.”

“Hmm?”

“Everyone probably guesses it, but right now we’re caught up in an unknown scheme.”

Right now, who the enemy was and what they wanted was completely unknown. What was known was that they’d blocked the path with a formation and were artificially creating the current situation.

“This formation’s purpose is obvious to anyone. To prevent village personnel from going outside.”

“Then we must find peculiarities in the village. Start from there—that this village has what they want.”

Inferring the whole from a fragment. By knowing the village is imprisoned, limit the location to the village, and collect peculiarities from the village to raise as information.

“What’s peculiar about this village?”

“That it’s large for a slash-and-burn village.”

“Though large, it’s not different compared to other slash-and-burn villages. It naturally grew large because this kind of environment was created anyway. What else?”

“That we came…….”

“Our coming is unrelated. From what I heard, this formation needed at least over a year to prepare. They wouldn’t have known a year ago that we’d come, right?”

“Excluding all that, one thing remains. This child.”

A girl who, despite being a yokai, doesn’t crave humans and lives mixed with humans. A girl revered and worshipped by village people as a Divine Maiden.

“This child is their objective.”

“Hmm.”

At Seohwa’s assertion, Seomun Cheok contemplated and agreed. But Baek Risan, seemingly unconvinced, interjected from the side.

“Isn’t that strange? If the enemy wants to do something with this kid, to stop their plan, we should deal with this kid, right?”

“From the perspective of stopping the plan, yes.”

“But?”

“From the perspective of us needing to survive?”

“……Huh?”

“The plan went awry because of us, so would they stay still? A group capable of deploying a formation of this scale?”

That can’t be.

The opponent who confirmed the ruined plan would rampage, and that rampage would obviously surge to a level Seohwa and her companions absolutely couldn’t handle. Wasn’t it reality that even if just some of the yokai roaming outside entered the village, they’d struggle to handle it?

“In other words, she’s a hostage. A hostage we’ve taken toward the opponent, one we absolutely mustn’t kill.”

She didn’t want to rashly kill a child who committed no crime.

Though such a reason might underlie her feelings, what came to mind most urgently right now wasn’t that. When inferring the whole from fragments, wasn’t an all-too-clear fact visible?

“We can’t kill this child. We mustn’t kill her.”

Seohwa, slowly looking around, quietly finished.

“The moment we kill this child, we’ll all die.”