[sfx: tchzzzz—]
Fingertips crumbling into pitch-black dust.
A venomous pain pours in from the fingertips. A burst of rapid aging spreads from fingers to the back of the hand, then the wrist.
Not so much aging as rot, or weathering.
“......”
Heo Sanghyun swallowed a low sound and drew his hand back.
[sfx: chzzzzk—]
His wrist and the back of his hand, then the fingertips, regenerate as they drink in the darkness and reeking yin energy inside Jangmyeongsan.
No.
Heo Sanghyun opened and closed his left hand, now back to its original state, and mouthed the words soundlessly.
Regeneration is the wrong term.
Isn’t it just a corpse that ought to be dead putting on a human act and walking around?
Remembering the dictionary sense of “regeneration” as “reprocessing an old thing to use it again,” Heo Sanghyun let out a self-mocking smile.
— Stop the nonsense and go back. Now would be best.
— Come back. You can’t get out in that body.
Voices of the dead drifted from the grim forest deeper in Jangmyeongsan.
As expected, he could not leave Jangmyeongsan.
A life permitted only within this wicked forbidden ground that Heo Joo stacked up and Kim Sinhwa inherited and refined.
“......”
Heo Sanghyun knew well there was no profit in chewing over how grotesque a being he was.
“It’s better if I head back.”
He turned and walked the forest of Jangmyeongsan with footfalls that made no sound.
Moonlight, uncanny and foxlike, seeped through, piercing the violet mist.
[sfx: kyareul—]
Small spirits darted between the trees.
Black little bodies with white faces. Instead of features, talisman-like markings drawn on.
[sfx: chzzzz—]
From the darkness of the branches, shadows like slime oozed down. Silver-gray eyes glimmered between the shadows and whispered toward Heo Sanghyun.
— Did Kim Sinhwa die? Or is he wandering as a monster?
— Either way, it doesn’t matter. He won’t be coming back.
— Then you’ll be the master of this mansion.
“Enough.”
Heo Sanghyun sent a light warning to the spirits who had probably once been his kin.
He didn’t know what relations they’d originally had with him.
Likely they didn’t remember either. Souls whose individuality was lost—crushed by Heo Joo and kneaded together like clay.
And Heo Sanghyun had been precisely that Heo Joo’s diligent assistant and trusted partner.
“Well... I could do it, but I’d rather you helped me, Sanghyun. Yes, I want it to operate in a way that can’t be canceled.”
Words Kim Sinhwa had said to Heo Sanghyun not long ago.
An outrageous request to implant a shoggoth seed. Madness enough to shock even Heo Sanghyun, who had been a cultist.
In the past, the Elder Thing that ruled this land created shoggoths using a portion of [Great Source].
They considered shoggoths mindless monsters and used them as slaves, but shoggoths slipped their control.
So even though the Elder Thing’s civilization perished, the shoggoths they made still remain on this land.
Anyone competent believes they, at least, can subjugate a shoggoth, but that belief always circles back as a fatal betrayal.
Leaving aside the stability of the rite, the moment a shoggoth wakes, control will be impossible.
“It’s fine. I’m not thinking of controlling it. Just assign this condition. Look at this paper. Ugh, don’t pronounce it out loud. Right. Set it to trigger the instant that beast bites me.”
Why on earth...
“I think the enemy did something to my mind. So right now, I can’t even trust myself. My choices and thoughts—and even my desires—are suspect.”
A contradictory logic.
If that’s true, then the decision to plant a shoggoth in his hand could itself be the enemy’s trap. Even ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) if not a trap, it could be a misjudgment born of distorted cognition, couldn’t it?
No, even in a whole mind, it would be unacceptable.
This was truly insane.
“The only person I can trust right now is you, Sanghyun.”
In the end, Heo Sanghyun picked up the sinful needle that had pierced the flesh of hundreds and stitched Kim Sinhwa’s left hand.
And two days ago.
Heo Sanghyun realized the magic he’d set had triggered.
A shoggoth had started to move—meaning there was a problem with Kim Sinhwa.
Or—
Or—
Eyes widening, Heo Sanghyun gazed over the forest of Jangmyeongsan flooded with violet mist and thought:
It might mean there was a problem with his own rite.
[sfx: fuddududuk—]
Part of a tangle of souls’ shadows turned into a two-headed bluebird and flew to the tip of Heo Sanghyun’s finger.
— If you’re that curious, use Heo Joo’s method.
— Contract with a fitting denizen of the Abyss and take new power.
— Lure in humans and steal their bodies.
A textbook temptation.
Heo Sanghyun was about to answer when the phone he was carrying rang first.
A call.
He checked the name on the screen, narrowed his eyes, and shook his head.
“There’s someone who can go out in my stead. It’s fine.”
With that, he sent the bird off. It slipped away into the forest laid over with violet darkness without another word.
“Hyundeok. How did it go?”
— I found the wizard!
Heo Sanghyun drew a sharp breath, eyes opening wide.
“Where is he? Is he all right?”
— Uh... sorry. I should’ve said ‘it looks like we almost found him.’
The other party couldn’t see his face, but Heo Sanghyun shaped a calm smile and asked gently, as if soothing a child.
“So that means you acquired strong intel from somewhere, correct?”
— Ah, right. Right! You know there’s a lake park in Unjeong-dong?
Heo Sanghyun summoned up a mental map of Paju.
A park in the city center—about four kilometers southeast of Jangmyeongsan. Close.
“Yes. Not as far as I expected.”
— A fixer I know said he heard somebody saw a madman in a mask over there.
The moment he agreed with Jang Hyundeok’s words, he’d be confessing that the phrase “madman in a mask” made him think of Kim Sinhwa too—but Heo Sanghyun had no choice except to answer.
“We’ll have to check the lake park. I’m counting on you. If you need magical support, tell me anytime.”
Contrary to Kim Sinhwa’s opinion, Jang Hyundeok was no fool.
He could guess that the “magical support” Heo Sanghyun offered would come with grim wraiths, bizarre screams, and the smell of death.
So he carefully gathered sociable words, declined them as hard as he could, and hung up.
“Aaah...”
He tapped his forehead with index and middle fingers and flung a V into the air.
“Considerate, well-mannered Jang Hyundeok. Crushed it again today.”
In truth, he hadn’t used particularly considerate or well-mannered words, so Heo Sanghyun felt a little hurt—but Jang Hyundeok didn’t realize that much.
“Mm, the lake park.”
Easy.
[sfx: vwoooooom—]
A 2021 mana-stone engine let out its thrilling growl.
A streamlined body sculpted to minimize drag.
A steering wheel that spun light and lively, and seats as comfortable as could be.
Reaching the park area in no time, Jang Hyundeok eased off the speed and scanned around.
“Hm? What’s that?”
Because he’d spotted something odd.
[sfx: myoong—]
A small shadow swaying under the grim light of a streetlamp.
[sfx: meow— meeyow—]
A languid cry from the dark.
“Cats?”
Jang Hyundeok tugged a lock of hair poking from between his bandages and frowned; a faint bluish sheen gathered in his eyes.
Even with [Truth Eye], nothing else showed.
Just ordinary cats.
And yet it was a truly peculiar sight.
[sfx: weoong— meow—]
One or two cats trotting along the wall wasn’t much of an event.
If it were three or four?
Depending on taste, you might smile with delight.
Five or six?
That’s unusual. Snap a photo and upload it and you might get a nice response.
But what about around twenty cats all moving in the same direction?
[sfx: meow— mee-ow—]
[sfx: weoong— miyang— bweeng—]
A feline host, flowing all at once in a single direction.
“Wait, that’s over twenty, isn’t it?”
An anomalous phenomenon.
The direction was plain as day.
A huge number of cats were moving toward Unjeong Lake Park.
As if they were entranced by something.
[sfx: meow— iyaow—]
In a sense, it was a chilling sight.
“Uuuuuh— Wizard?”
He’d heard that someone had [seen] a masked madman—and he’d [heard] that from someone else.
Intel that had passed through two mouths and was therefore shaky had just been joined by a new keyword: [anomalous phenomenon].
“Did the wizard do something?”
Driving as far as he could while following the cats, Jang Hyundeok hesitated instead of moving right away.
Mm. This is kinda scary...
A forest set inside the park.
To go farther, he had to get out of the car. Into a dark forest where who knew what would happen.
Hard for a driving specialist to accept.
But after a deep breath, Jang Hyundeok climbed out with firm resolve.
Right. They’re just cats anyway. Think they’re cute. Ah— cute, so cute...
There’s a saying that cats are uncanny. Ghost stories and legends bubbled up in Jang Hyundeok’s head. When you work as a driving specialist, you end up hearing all kinds of things whether you want to or not. Three years ago, was it? He’d seen a fixer’s corpse torn up and eaten by something that looked like a cat. In Japan there’s a cat yokai called nekomata. Some cultists use small animals like cats to work bizarre sorcery. Are these even really cats?
Caw! Caw! Caaaw!
Crows shrieked, startled by the cats’ flocking behavior and launching into the air.
Trees grown any which way, untended.
An atmosphere grim enough to bring Tanhyeon to mind.
“Uuugh... why a trial like this for me...”
Groaning in awful fear—Jang Hyundeok followed the cats ahead into the dark woods.
I slowly extended my right hand, palm slightly open.
[sfx: meow—]
A damp pink nose approached my fingertips.
After a brief sniff, the little thing drew back with that special primness.
Oh, that’s how it is?
I opened my right hand and raised a light touch of mana.
A tiny fireworks show bloomed in my palm. Pearls of light scattered in all directions.
Black eyes, full of curiosity and starlight, widened into round globes and sparkled.
Whiskers flared; the tail swayed.
In the end, it raked my palm with a white, cotton-ball paw.
“Cute. Come here.”
I scratched its chin, then cupped the whiskered cheek—passed the shoulder, the back, and stroked the hips and tail.
A low purr.
Before I knew it, it had relaxed and crawled into my arms.
“Yeah, yeah.”
[sfx: meow— meeyow—]
I already had an armful of cats. Others clung to my back and shoulders as I sat right on the dirt.
Another one crept toward me, cautious.
This takes a while. But we’re nearly done.
“Wizard?”
A familiar, dopey voice.
I kept my eyes fixed on the newcomer and answered. This one was in a tuxedo.
“You’re here?”
“Eh? ‘You’re here’—that’s it?”
Only three socks? Where’d you lose the other?
[sfx: meow—]
Petting the tuxedo-patterned cat, I answered.
“Looks like more time passed than I thought.”
“......It’s been two days.”
Two days?
Only then did I lift my head and look at Jang Hyundeok.
“Sanghyun must’ve been worried.”
What’s with that face?
“Can I yell? I want to be mad.”
“No. The cats will run. Be mad quietly.”
Jang Hyundeok wore a thinking face for a moment, then spoke in a small voice.
“What are these cats?”
“I lured them with magic.”
[sfx: meow—]
You’re cute, you. Come closer.
“You’re not going home?”
“We’re almost done. This one makes ninety-five. No—ninety-seven. Ah, thanks, Nile. He says it’s ninety-seven. Three left.”
“Three? Ninety-seven plus... So if you pet around a hundred cats, I guess something special happens?”
A sarcastic tone.
Probably a joke—but—
“Right.”
At my answer, Jang Hyundeok went slack-faced.
“Right?”
“Yeah. There’s an achievement for petting a hundred cats. The reward is fantastic.”
“Eh? An achievement?”
Ah, poor wording.
“Mm. It’s a kind of rite. It matters, so wait just a little. Ah, that’s ninety-eight now. Hey. It’s risky, so put a mask on too. I’ll lend you one.”
Jang Hyundeok looked at me like he was staring at the saddest person in the world—or just a masked madman.
“You’ll be okay, Wizard. You can get better.”
Mm, looks like I owe an explanation.
