Chapter 207

Turning back the clock a little, to before Lee Yeon-woo stepped outside the hotel and witnessed the child collapsed in the 'Fox Den'—to the tale of when he was still lodged in the hotel.

The process of naming No. 14 was by no means smooth.

"No, memory and soul are steeped in the blood to begin with. This being's blood, born through blood magic, is likewise a medium recording high-density information, so we must first grasp its essence—"

"Even so, we can't ignore the providence of the cosmos. First we clarify the movements of the heavenly bodies and the darkness filling the space between them, and only then can the concepts of blood and soul be established—"

"Is there any reason to drag in such grandiose theory merely to name a small clot of blood? My friend is water to begin with, so digging into that composition first would be far more efficient—"

Because all three of them had opinions going off in different directions.

"……."

"Hello."

"This is admittedly bewildering."

"Yes…."

"Yes."

Had the professors at the university I paid tuition to been like this, I'd have dropped out on the spot. It became a touch regrettable that these three were the only beings from whom he could gain knowledge right now.

'Still, to control myself, I'll have to learn more.'

He couldn't loose a hazardous substance that couldn't even manage itself out into society. Even for the sake of going out, and even while pondering No. 14's name, he mustn't harm others.

"Ing."

"But I do get the gist of it."

The 'Guest Without Taste' interpreted the world through blood magic,

the 'Lover of Dawn' through black magic,

the 'Drenched One' through nature.

Thanks to which Lee Yeon-woo could newly recognize that this discipline called magic was a rather vague and highly variable field of study. More precisely, one might call it a field whose logical framework was not yet fully established.

"Take it apart piece by piece and each shows itself as a concrete concept—curious, that."

"Isn't the way humans view the world similar to this too?"

The vampire said it without so much as a change of expression, as if it were nothing.

"Take the concept of 'love,' for instance—"

"Some define it as the result of a spiritual communion, and some dismiss it as the trickery of hormones. Just as the Manager told me before."

Serenely cutting in on the 'Guest Without Taste's' words, the 'Lover of Dawn' presently curled her lips up shyly and went on.

"You could think of it as the difference between viewing love through psychology or through biology. If you first decide which of the two to base the 'name' on, wouldn't it be a good deal easier to grant mercy to that little clot of blood?"

At the woman's manner, the 'Drenched One,' who had taken the form of a young child, clicked its tongue.

"What a display of false modesty."

"And who knew Nature could be so talkative."

"To think that impudent wraith is truly parasitizing my friend's wings."

"If you're envious, just say you're envious."

The 'Lover of Dawn' haughtily lifted the bridge of her nose.

Yes. The place the second contractor, the 'Lover of Dawn,' had settled into was Lee Yeon-woo's back. More precisely, near the left shoulder blade. It was the conclusion reached from wanting the position closest to the brain and heart.

"After kicking up all manner of uproar in my haven and raising the most god-awful hell against my friend, how brazen. How is that a woman fallen in love—she's nothing but a wraith soaked through with blood."

The 'Drenched One,' forced to take in a most preposterous housemate, seemed to have many complaints.

"Might I not drive her out?"

"She's already received a formal appointment as this hotel's gardener."

Lee Yeon-woo added in a flat tone,

"It's in much the same vein as your arbitrarily occupying one of my lungs and the Aqua Park's space."

The water-demon shot back.

"How can refined water be the same as that noisy bundle of feathers? They aren't things to set on the same line and compare."

"Don't act as though you've been betrayed. Do you suppose the size of the trespass you committed early on was any smaller?"

"I gave a great deal of leeway—I followed the hotel's rules."

"For that part, I'm deeply grateful even now."

It was a state of affairs where all three Monster Guests that had posed a real threat in this hotel were gathered together, and two of them were ex-offenders who had openly flouted the hotel's rules. Acknowledging that, Lee Yeon-woo nodded.

"But as for why that so-called refined water is pooled in the inner wall of my friend's lung—a clear explanation seems in order."

"They do say more than half the human body is made of water."

"Setting aside the clinical common sense that an ordinary human's moisture isn't pooled inside the lungs—doesn't your conscience prick you, treating me as a standard person only when it suits you?"

"Where would a fish keep a conscience?"

"More than you'd have, I'd wager."

Lee Yeon-woo continued in an even tone.

"In the end, you knew it would turn out this way, didn't you."

Everything, right down to the fact that the party in question—himself—would bear no grudge whatsoever.

"You're such an unstable person that I couldn't help but give you a 'home.' As with all those starved for love, the closer a trusted being is, the fewer foolish thoughts you'll have."

"To my eye it looks less like love and more like a hunger for blood, but—well, who's to say."

The vampire stroked his jaw and returned to the main point.

"But there's reason in what the 'Lover of Dawn' says. In the end, the key will be which discipline one uses to understand the act of 'giving a name.'"

"You'd recommend blood magic, wouldn't you?"

"Whatever's most comfortable for the Manager—what would my opinion matter?"

At that brazen reply, the 'Lover of Dawn' and the 'Drenched One' denounced him in unison.

"For Velmareth, the 'comfortable method' is blood magic in the end, isn't it?"

"That venomous thing—true to being a clinging clot of blood."

Lee Yeon-woo thought inwardly, 'It's only at times like this they get along so well.'

"…Hm…."

Pondering hard, he opened his mouth.

"Since I've taken the 'Lover of Dawn' in as this hotel's employee, I too ought to know something of black magic. The manager can't be ignorant of what an employee knows."

"As splendid as ever…!"

"There's one part that worries me, though."

Lee Yeon-woo looked at the 'Lover of Dawn,' who had shyly covered her mouth with both hands, and asked,

"Black magic is fundamentally a discipline of the sort that inflicts harm on others and on the ecosystem, is it not?"

At that question, the 'Lover of Dawn' smoothed her hair softly, like a bird preening its feathers, and answered.

"Everyone thinks so, and in truth it is a magic founded on that. But not everyone who mastered black magic was wicked. There were plenty of scholars, too, who devoted their whole lives merely to understanding the discipline of black magic itself."

"That's certainly intriguing. Would you tell me about what you've seen?"

Having said that, Lee Yeon-woo fell briefly silent, then corrected his manner of speaking.

"…I'd be grateful if you'd tell me."

"For you, Manager, as much as you like."

The woman smiled brightly and continued her explanation.

"There were those who called themselves 'the Cosmos's Cleaners.' Ones who, paradoxically, mastered black magic in order to clear away the causal debt piled up by black magic. They would offer themselves as sacrifices to settle that debt…."

"Now that's a novel sort of insubordination."

"Ah, no! I only meant that, extreme cases like that existing at all, there is a way to approach black magic indirectly, without harming others, Manager."

Hurriedly denying it, even waving her hands, the 'Lover of Dawn' added,

"The first black mages sought to hitch a ride on the miracles worked by the cosmos, the stars, the heavenly bodies, and the darkness. To lay themselves upon the great current of power already existing in the cosmos, then erase the traces of the mere human and hide away. That was the beginning."

That was a tale of black magic.

"The arrangement of stars and heavenly bodies is the pulse of the cosmos and the trajectory of fate. You seize the gaps in that providence and minutely twist the causality flowing through them. The second stage was to carve into one's own soul the exact coordinates and time of where the river of fate warps and a door opens."

"……."

"Above all, only by understanding that arrangement perfectly can one break free of the cosmos's providence, become a 'nonexistent being,' and evade the price of magic. The darkness spoken of in black magic means the vessel of pure power the primordium holds—that is, the 'Void.' You salvage the materials for miracles from there and put them to use."

Listening quietly, Lee Yeon-woo summarized the 'Lover of Dawn's' words.

"So then—'Star Memory' and 'Causal Weaving.'"

"That's right!"

Having once synchronized with her and shared those memories, Lee Yeon-woo had some knowledge of black magic. 'Star Memory' referred to the arrangement of heavenly bodies, and 'Causal Weaving' to the act of making miracles with dark energy.

Rejoicing that he still shared memories with her, the woman said,

"That's why black magic is also classified as celestial magic. So long as you pay a price you can withstand from the outset and enjoy the 'miracle,' the problems you fear don't arise."

"Celestial magic…."

Lee Yeon-woo looked over at the 'Drenched One' and the 'Guest Without Taste.'

"Is there such a thing?"

"There's no way it's possible."

"It isn't nonexistent, but it's literally in the realm of academic study."

The two shook their heads.

"There's no way mere slabs of meat could withstand the cosmos."

The vampire sneered rather firmly.

"These days, with various sorts of magic having advanced, those who study the heavens aren't few, but it amounts to nothing more than observing. At most it's barely reading the future while pouring out blood."

"You mean future sight?"

"Far below that. If anything, there is a field called 'atmospheric magic' that uses the 'sky,' but the only thing that can connect directly to the cosmos and the heavenly bodies is black magic. It's the work of twisting causality."

"It certainly doesn't look easy."

"And the 'miracle' one can enjoy for it is correspondingly considerable, but…."

The old vampire shrugged as if displeased.

"Even vampires like us don't look favorably on black magic. Black mages all the more so. Who would like a discipline that treats the formulas I've calculated as a fool's work?"

"I can understand that to some degree."

It was a sly, sponging discipline.

"But…."

"No? No?"

"I can withstand it, can't I?"

Deliberately ignoring Coco's worry, Lee Yeon-woo pondered, then asked,

"If, as you all say, I really am Velmareth?"

He was, after all, the blood god in name.

"The domain I can withstand would be larger than an ordinary person's."

"You can, of course."

The old vampire jeered.

"It's simply poor cost-efficiency."

"You do expect my core to be greatly damaged, then."

"In that case we really would have to call it 'celestial magic' rather than 'black magic.' Though to the base eyes of slabs of meat, it'd be no different from black magic."

"Slabs of meat—do you intend to call the human guests who come to our restaurant that as well?"

"If they eat the food I've prepared, I'd treat them more kindly than that. Whether or not I can eat the other party, it's a virtue a chef ought to have."

"A cook is a cook, indeed."

Strangely, when it came to cooking, his manners were good. The 'Guest Without Taste' continued.

"But is it worth squandering that precious core just to give out a single name? A name would be carved into that subject's blood even if you merely tossed it off without a second thought."

"Never occurred to you that it's all the nobler for that, I suppose?"

"I'm not a coward like a black mage."

Listening quietly to the two, Lee Yeon-woo looked over at the 'Drenched One.' At some point it had taken the form of an adult woman and was bent over the table, picking up and eating cream puffs one after another.

"What do you think?"

"You could convert that 'debt' into 'Nightmare.'"

Apparently pleased with the cream loaded with vanilla bean, the 'Drenched One' was outright sucking the cream out like a drink—and the middle-aged man Lee Yeon-woo felt his stomach turn greasy just watching.

"Or, if not that, you could store it as this hotel's 'data' and leave it be. Isn't this place's 'dead space' more than plentiful, and the vast system of the central control room still sound…."

"You don't tell me to withstand the price myself, I notice."

"I agree that the cost-efficiency is poor."

Black magic wasn't a discipline made for that in the first place, and using his precious core—each drop of which was 'Lee Yeon-woo'—merely to give a 'name' struck the water-demon as a 'why bother?'

"With such grandiose-talking fellows for teachers, it seems you're thinking grandiosely, but, my friend—giving a name is not as hard as you think. Even the base living, with no power at all, name one another, don't they."

It mouthed the outer shell of a puff whose filling had been sucked clean out. The top was coated with syrup and white chocolate, and that seemed rather to its liking.

"Even the name a newborn receives holds power. Those without ability can't detect or make use of the power held within, but those who know it don't lightly speak their true name aloud."

"So a name given by an ordinary person is that formidable."

"Because much is contained within it."

The water-demon carried off the whole plate of cream puffs and sat back down.

"Name it with blood and it'll reek of blood; name it by plucking a star and the burden on you is great. I believe you, my friend, can give this clot a fitting name with the power of your words and soul alone."

"That doesn't seem to be something you're saying because I'm 'Velmareth.'"

"That's right—you, I mean. Lee Yeon-woo."

With its cheeks stuffed round, the water ghost pointed a finger at the black cat perched on his shoulder.

"Why do you think that one doesn't call your name?"

"Aha."

Coco had called Lee Yeon-woo's name exactly once—when it had seen his 'rampage.'

"For the clot set before you, that much is just right. Borrowing the power of a star is far too much, and using the power of blood… that thing is a curse of blood and flesh congealed, so it would grow far too subordinate to you."

When its gaze fell on it, No. 14, which had been looking up at the mountain-high heap of cream puffs, gave a start and leapt down beneath the table. After bouncing a few times on the floor, it climbed onto the hand Lee Yeon-woo held out.

Biting the tip of the white cotton glove on his other hand and pulling it off with his teeth, he gently cupped No. 14 with his bare hand.

"……."

When he opened his hand again, No. 14 had already been reabsorbed into Lee Yeon-woo. Gazing quietly into his empty palm, Lee Yeon-woo pulled the glove back on and said to the 'Drenched One,'

"Certainly, the monster of Room 14 is already a being too close to blood."

"Name a thing like that with blood and it'll never escape being your servant its whole life, will it. And you wouldn't much like that either. Well? Am I right? Hm? Right?"

"You're right, my friend."

But,

"So long as I'm Velmareth, isn't it also hard to give a name with blood excluded?"

"Which is exactly why I think it must be done through blood magic."

The old vampire slyly cut in.

"You're not even skilled at blood magic, and that clot of blood was congealed through blood magic and its self is far too small and humble. How do you propose to name a being so exceedingly sensitive and fragile to blood magic while excluding your power as Velmareth?"

His argument ran thus.

"So take this chance to properly master blood magic and try it on that little thing. It's become the honored first subject a young god names, so surely it too will be glad."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your vampire streak in check."

"Wasn't this treatment merciful enough? Why the scolding again?"

"I'll have to study a bit more."

Just what in the world this thing called a 'name' was.

***

Lee Yeon-woo hoped the monster of Room 14 would recall its own name.

"……."

Even if it had come too far, and could now recall nothing at all.

***

After that, Lee Yeon-woo asked the hotel's people about 'names' too. Seome—who had once become an Artist in a mage's body, then come to use her mage younger brother's body—answered thus.

"For starters, it'd be identity…?"

The white owl's round head tilted.

"It's true for others too, but for mages especially, a name is important. Since we're clumps of spiritual energy that leave no corpse when we die, without a name we really don't even leave a hide behind."

"Mages leave no corpse?"

"Whether we're even living creatures to begin with is still unclear."

Seome, perched on her dedicated roost, spread her wings a little to preen her feathers.

"That's all the more why we cling to meaning. A mage's funeral is substituted with flowers they bloomed or dolls they made before dying. And a gravestone with the name planted large on it is prized highest."

"So there's such a custom."

"And this is a special case, but perhaps because mages are clumps of spiritual energy, especially frail children scatter away at once if their family doesn't give them a name."

A water-attribute child becomes water; a child born with a wind attribute becomes a faint breeze and vanishes. Tree-attribute children, whose whole bodies become the tree or grass or flower suited to their nature, are the better-off cases, if anything.

"One child turned into a dried-up branch, I saw."

Having lived as a mercenary, Seome added, she had now and then seen the deaths of infant mages.

"It wasn't a custom in my village, but at least the funerals had a similar aspect. We bade farewell with the rice a person had cooked or the clothes they'd worn while alive."

"Aha…."

"And naming a child even before it's born, too. My village was quite closed off, and yet it had a culture similar to the other Gaps villages outside, which tells you how important a name is to a mage."

"I see."

Lee Yeon-woo nodded.

"Speaking of which—have you no thought of going back to your hometown?"

"I knew you'd ask that someday."

"I'm aware it might sound rude, but it seemed that unless I brought it up, you wouldn't say such a thing even if you wanted to, Ms. Seome."

"You saw exactly right."

The white owl let out a short 'hoo.' A sound you couldn't tell was a sigh or a bird's cry.

"I still don't know what feelings I hold toward the village."

"Affection, or hatred?"

"It doesn't even seem to be love-hate, if anything."

The owl staff said flatly,

"But whatever it turns out to be, I think it'd be a bit funny and absurd, so I've been vaguely putting it off. It feels like the moment I arrive at the village, I'll end up able to define the feeling I felt."

"Then you may go on putting it off vaguely."

"It's cowardly, but for now I'll have to."

"No one thinks it cowardly."

Lee Yeon-woo added,

"Your own thoughts matter more, but at the very least, I—"

"I find myself hoping you, Mr. Lee Yeon-woo, stay forever just as you are now."

"Shouldn't I become better than I am now?"

"Even so."

"Oh dear."

Blinking at that, Lee Yeon-woo asked,

"Is that a curse?"

Pondering, Seome answered,

"Seems to be something like one."

"You don't seem sure yourself."

"A bit not, yes."

Seome fluttered her wings and refolded them.

"Only, I worry you might need a guide. There's a good chance the 'Fox Den' will take fright of its own accord and open a path, but perhaps because I've such bad memories of it… it comes to my mind as a rather cunning Labyrinth."

"A guide."

Lee Yeon-woo looked down at his own shadow.

"Would these little friends not do?"

"Ah, the Inari foxes."

Seome blinked in assent.

"They'll do nicely, I'd say."

"Because they're foxes, after all?"

"Yes. Since it's a Labyrinth that sprang from the tale of a fox that fed on corpses, those foxes can melt into the 'Fox Den' as part of it. Without any sense of wrongness."

"That won't mean they're being Offered, I trust."

"It's not an Offering. It only means that, so long as those foxes bear you on their backs, the 'Fox Den' won't dig in its heels and will give you all a 'role.' Because a Labyrinth is, in the end…."

One with a stage, actors, and a script.

"a play, isn't it?"

***

"Fox God."

Turning the viewpoint back once more to the original—

"Fox God, one who lost the way has returned to the god."

"……."

"Bestow upon me the grace of the right path."

Lee Yeon-woo, who'd had no intention of going far, only rehearsing, had been caught up in the aura of the 'Fox Den' encroaching near the hotel and came face to face with a child collapsed in the sunlit, thickly wooded mountains.

When he first came upon it, he'd never dreamed it was a real child, and had frozen stiff.

'To think that strolling a bit farther—complacently figuring I could dissolve my body and return to the hotel any time—would flow this way….'

"Bestow upon me the grace of the right path."

"……."

Lee Yeon-woo was once again at a loss for words.

'Does the child even realize that's the slogan of that cult-like criminal collective, the Foundation, as it says it?'

Surely not.

Watching the child, dressed in something like a hanbok, offer a respectful bow, Lee Yeon-woo felt like vomiting blood. His taxidermied circuits really did snarl, and blood rose to his throat and sank again.

The reason he only watched was that when he tried to seize and stop the child, the child took such fright it nearly died.

'In the special situation of being inside the Fox Den, and cast in this role, I don't know what problem might arise if I clumsily restrict the child's actions.'

He did have the awareness that he was a hazardous substance.

"One who lost the way has returned to the god. To this shabby being that dwells within your belly, bestow the grace of the right path."

Above all, the most galling part of this present situation was,

'that I can't speak right now.'

"Yes."

'This is maddening.'

He'd never guessed that 'role' would be the 'Fox God.'

'How does one even conceive of this?'

I ask because I don't really know—do Labyrinths just go foisting their own identity onto others?

'Is that even allowed??'

"Kong."

"Kong-kong."

The Inari foxes, as if it were all just fine—as if delighted that the god of abundance and wealth they served was being revered—circled round and round Lee Yeon-woo at the center, as though dancing.

Of course, Lee Yeon-woo soon sat them down quietly. He could add no further grounds to his role than this.