“......You, don’t tell me!”
I felt someone inside there grow extremely flustered.
“To repel the power of the Great Spirit...?”
The room was very cramped.
Everything around us was dark; only a few candles lit the space.
Especially
the far end, shrouded in deep darkness,
hiding the figure of the person within.
‘......But.’
Unlucky for them.
A normal human might not see—
‘but I’m not a normal human anymore.’
A Noble of the Night who lives in the dark.
Sharing part of that trait, I...
had very keen night vision.
I looked straight ahead.
There was a small altar there.
A wooden, East-Asian-style altar.
On it sat foods you’d expect on a funeral table—apples, pears, and the like.
With that altar at her back,
someone was staring me down.
And when I saw who she was...
“Holy—”
Since coming over to this region,
I was more shocked than at any moment yet.
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
Well.
No wonder.
‘Taejun...’
Unlike Sergeant Park Taejun, our unit’s [Astrologer]—
[Han Iseo]
[Job: Intermediate Shaman Lv.27]
‘You were the fake one...’
The woman before my eyes
was a bona fide shaman.
****
Our unit’s “shaman,”
Sergeant Park Taejun—
we called him that,
but his real job wasn’t Shaman.
‘He was an [Astrologer].’
A job that read the flow of the stars wandering this universe
to divine the future and rise and fall.
Honestly, a bit different from what real shamans do.
No gut rituals,
no talking to ghosts.
He couldn’t do any of that.
Because he always gave everything in those vaguely roundabout terms,
I stuck him with the nickname “shaman.”
But now—right before my eyes—
[Han Iseo]
[Job: Intermediate Shaman Lv.27]
the real thing appeared.
“To repel the power of the Great Spirit...!?”
The woman with the actual Shaman job
stared at me in shock.
“So you did come from the Demon Realm. No wonder you’re dangerous....”
[Skill]
[Call Soul, Spirit Descent]
[Read Soul, Discern Truth]
[Send Soul, Kill]
[Trait]
[Spiritual Sight]
[Intermediate-Spirit Affinity]
[Applied Curse Trait]
[Confession]
......
......
Shaman... job or not,
her clothes looked quite ordinary.
If anything stood out, it was the fan in each hand and a big knife.
But.
Something strange showed up among her traits.
[Applied Curse Trait]
[Confession]
“.......”
What the hell.
‘Why is that there?’
When I entered this room,
the “Fear”-type attack that flew at me—
that trait is exactly what you gain upon exposure to that Fear.
Curious for a moment,
but the cause wasn’t hard to figure out.
[Send Soul, Kill]
[Summon a soul tied to a curse and send it at your target.]
[Specter of the Old Interrogator]
[A specter of an old interrogator that existed in another world.]
[With a nature that enjoys interrogation itself, it does not demand much if allowed to interrogate.]
[In return for a modest offering table, it grants its interrogation curse.]
[Caution!]
[This is a curse-type skill.]
[Curse-type skills carry significant risk despite their power.]
[If the target successfully defends against the curse, the curse may rebound upon the caster—be careful!]
“.......”
Reading that skill description, I was speechless.
‘So we’re summoning ghosts now.’
Not long after we descended to the surface,
there was a moment when the unit wondered if we’d have to fight ghosts.
‘Back then the enemy wasn’t actually a ghost—it was a [Droplet of Turmoil]—’
Even then,
I’d thought:
‘In a world of monsters, ghosts could exist too.’
And this shaman—
had a job that handled such ghosts.
On top of that—
[A specter of an old interrogator that existed in another world.]
‘Not even a ghost of Earth?’
So not only monsters flowed in from another world—
ghosts did too, only invisible to us,
and this shaman was using them through her skill.
“I see.”
She had used that specter
to send me a curse that forced me to confess everything.
When I blocked that curse with the effect of “King Slayer,”
the curse rebounded onto her, the caster.
I felt a chill.
‘...Good thing I bounced it.’
If that curse had landed on me...
that would’ve been extremely dangerous.
A curse that makes you answer every question honestly.
If I hadn’t deflected it with [King Slayer]?
And she’d had me introduce myself like that?
—My age is 23! Male! My job is soldier, hobby is cooking. Ah, I’m Sergeant Shin Youngjun of the Iron Legion up in Gangwon!
I would’ve blurted that out.
[If the fact of inter-regional movement becomes known to humans in the destination region,]
[a penalty will be imposed.]
[Penalty — Death]
—Gkk!
Because of that penalty,
I would have died on the spot.
“Tsk.”
She may not have meant to kill me,
but from my side my life had been endangered in real time.
Frankly,
I wasn’t inclined to feel kindly toward her.
However.
The curse had bounced back onto her as-is.
......In that case.
Hrm.
“What’s your name?”
“Han Iseo is my na—mmp!”
Answering naturally to my question,
she flinched and clapped a hand over her mouth.
‘As expected.’
I hadn’t secured cooking ingredients,
and with her wary of me, feeding her my dishes was impossible.
‘But I don’t need to feed her anymore.’
At least, no need to cook a confession dish.
“I heard you called me here to interrogate me.”
“Th-that’s... right....”
“A curse, really... why use something so dangerous. That’s reckless.”
At my question,
she answered with a look of chagrin.
“U-until now... this curse has never... failed to... work... once....”
“Today is your first.”
“.......”
It seems she’d never even imagined
someone might block a mental-type skill.
“Honestly, I found it unpleasant.”
“......The effect of this skill is—only, only to make one speak sincerely... it isn’t a dangerous technique. I... had no intent to harm.”
I almost died here, you know...
“Since it’s come to this, let me ask a few things.”
“A-anything....”
She had meant to interrogate me.
But somehow,
I was the one interrogating her now.
So.
I asked what I’d wondered back in the jail:
‘Is this group really one I can trust?’
Time to check.
“This group... has it ever committed crimes or done anything wrong?”
“Crimes...”
At my question,
she fell silent,
stared blankly, lost in thought for a moment,
then, after a short while,
under the effect of ‘Confession,’
[truly] opened her mouth.
“We have... done such things... many times.”
“!”
At that answer,
I was shocked inside.
‘These bastards!?’
They’d looked normal on the surface,
but underneath it was a den of frequent offenders?
—Master’s master!
—Is it our turn?
From within my shadow,
the voices of the ex-pleasure-killer gods rang out in excitement.
‘I could see that!’
I nearly pulled my shadow forces out
and considered purging these criminals with full force when—
“I-if someone committed a serious crime...”
“......?”
“Originally, we would jail them... and give them a chance at reformation... but we lack the resources to feed them... so we executed them.”
“......Ah. I see.”
Apparently,
it wasn’t the kind of “criminals” I had in mind.
‘That barbarian said the same.’
That criminals were executed.
Not something I like either, honestly.
“If it were me, I’d never do that.”
At minimum I’d turn them into vampires,
or use methods like feeding them ‘cuisine.’
But.
From their standpoint, I could understand it.
“There’s no such thing as... ‘no choice.’”
But her view differed.
“No life... deserves to die just because it committed a crime.”
“.......”
“We killed them only because... it benefited our survival. Even if the world’s gone mad, killing people privately...! That doesn’t stop being a crime.”
I’d been fairly heated, thinking that curse might’ve killed me.
But hearing her out, I thought:
“......Is that so.”
‘This curse makes one speak from the heart.’
Even though they’d executed those who clearly committed crimes,
she considered herself to have sinned.
And since she confessed nothing else beyond that,
it suggested that—even in these times—she’d lived fairly upright otherwise.
In short—
‘At least this woman isn’t a villain.’
Realizing she wasn’t a villain,
but one of the normal survivors I wanted to meet,
I hesitated.
‘If this had been a den of criminals, I’d have happily put her through a counter-interrogation...’
From what she said,
she had a notably ethical mindset.
Even if it was for interrogation,
she launched a curse attack without warning—
you could call that cowardly.
From my side I nearly died because of it, so it wasn’t easy to think kindly,
but—
‘It’s not good to give the first decent group I’ve met too ugly a memory.’
After mulling it over,
I studied her status a bit more.
‘...Mm, this could work.’
I decided,
then opened my mouth.
“Let’s do this.”
“Do... what?”
“You called me to interrogate me, didn’t you? You’ve got a lot you want to ask.”
“That’s... right.”
“Things got tangled and weird, but I was actually planning to be relatively cooperative with the interrogation.”
At my words,
she widened her eyes.
“Are you... serious?”
“So.”
To the woman hiding in the darkness,
I held out my open palm.
“Five.”
“Five...?”
“I’ll answer five of your questions sincerely.”
I hadn’t come here to deceive them anyway.
In return—
“Given the situation, I don’t want this to be one-sided. In exchange for answering your questions, I want you to answer five of mine.”
At that,
she tilted her head, puzzled.
“If you simply asked... in my current state I’d have to answer all ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ your questions...”
“If you were a villain, I’d do exactly that.”
I crossed my arms, keeping an easy tone.
“But from what I’ve heard, you don’t seem that bad.”
“.......”
“I don’t know why you’re treating me as dangerous, but I get the gist. I’m not that kind of threat. I’d like to prove my innocence... and I don’t want to come off as coercive.”
“So, make a deal?”
“Yes.”
She looked dubious,
but soon—
“......I see. Agreed.”
She nodded at my proposal.
****
Shaman Awakener.
Watching the man before her refrain from harming her, Han Iseo
‘Hoo!’
let out a sigh of relief inside.
‘Good. He’s not as aggressive as expected.’
According to the three criminals she’d interrogated earlier,
the man before her was likely quite strong.
When the “Kill” she sent at him rebounded,
she had steeled herself for death.
Interrogation skills shouldn’t take a life,
but still—it was a curse skill.
From his standpoint, it was offensive.
Even so,
the man only asked her a few questions,
and did not inflict harm.
‘...No, don’t let your guard down.’
Her job was Shaman.
She’d had a bit of spiritual sense since childhood,
and for no particular reason—without ever working as a shaman—she’d ended up with this strange job.
But.
From the moment she received it, at least, it was clear she possessed spiritual sense.
And so,
perhaps because she had enough spiritual sense to become a shaman—
when she looked at people,
she could see ‘a little more’ than others could.
Right.
For example...
from the man before her,
she sensed something that made cold sweat bead—
‘an overwhelming smell of blood.’
Blood smells and tastes of iron.
And from that man,
there came a thick, dangerous scent like blood mixed with steel.
His sharply honed impression,
and the way he showed not the slightest unease
even though he’d almost been cursed—
‘This situation isn’t a threat to him.’
Not only were the group’s Awakeners surrounding this building,
he’d been forced into this unfamiliar “shaman’s room” environment.
Yet the man remained relaxed throughout.
She...
was certain he could be far more dangerous than he seemed.
And she thought:
‘Exchanging five questions...’
At first it made no sense.
But after a moment’s thought,
she realized why he’d made that proposal.
‘I’m under [Confession] and must speak the truth... but he isn’t.’
Exchanging five questions sounded fair at a glance,
but unlike her—who had to answer truthfully—
the man could lie.
‘He could just ask what he wants... is he acting to win my trust?’
Even so,
his proposal pleased her.
‘When [Kill] failed, I thought I couldn’t glean any of his information... I judged the interrogation a failure.’
Even if he lied,
if they traded five questions and he answered,
that alone was enough.
She’d sent “Confession” in case he refused to speak at all.
If he spoke willingly,
whether it was truth or not—
that didn’t matter to her.
‘He must have made that proposal because he doesn’t know about this power I have.’
She thought to herself.
This deal to trade five questions
would overwhelmingly favor her.
****
[Ingredient Identification (Enhanced)]
I didn’t know exactly what she was thinking.
But when I made that proposal to her,
my thought was simple.
[Read Soul — Discern Truth]
[You create a special environment in which souls are revealed.]
[The Shaman reads the exposed soul,]
[and discerns truth and falsehood within one’s words.]
This—
looked exploitable.
