Chapter 216

"You there!"

"……."

"Yes, you. I mean you."

Lee Yeon-ho blinked.

Another late walk home. A lane so quiet even the cats that roamed the night roads had gone to sleep. Atop a wall built of concrete, a strikingly tall figure, white all over, was looking down at him and fluttering a hand.

"You've finally deigned to look."

"……."

The man, Lee Yeon-ho, blinked.

'An Artist….'

Artists had been visiting the neighborhood often of late.

"You seem to have called me."

"Just so, just so."

"I'll say it in advance — if you've come to fight, that's a problem."

Lee Yeon-ho adjusted his grip on his briefcase, pointedly.

"I'm tired."

"Haha. I have not come to fight either."

The passerby, pale mauve eyes curved round, crouched atop the wall.

"You there — have you by any chance seen a Dokkaebi around here?"

"You don't look Korean, yet the word Dokkaebi comes naturally to you."

"Not an Anomaly. I mean a native Dokkaebi."

"It's been a while since Korea's divine spirits stopped being born."

Lee Yeon-ho started walking home again.

"You've come to the wrong address."

"You shield it rather well, don't you?"

The passerby walked along the wall, following Lee Yeon-ho.

"Is it because it looks young?"

"I'm told there's nothing so stupid as judging a Disaster by its age."

"Or because it makes you think of your own children?"

"If that was meant as a threat, I'm sorry, but I'm not that good a father."

"That was not particularly my intent…."

The creature whispered.

"Does it not resemble your wife?"

His stride stopped dead.

"Oh, you stopped."

"I don't know how far you've dug, but that's a deeply uncomfortable remark."

"My apologies for that."

"Didn't you say you hadn't come to fight?"

Lee Yeon-ho went on in his characteristic dry voice.

"If you keep this up, then however tired I am, I'll have no choice but to act…."

He was not a good father. But he had wanted to be a good husband.

"What's your reason for doing this."

"I have a great interest in that Dokkaebi."

"Yes, it resembles her. But it didn't look to have any connection with her."

"By my reckoning too, it has no connection with your wife."

"That's a relief."

Lee Yeon-ho started walking again.

"If it had been a being with a connection, my heart would have been heavy."

"Dear me — you don't mean to protect it?"

"Native Dokkaebi or not, a Disaster is a Disaster."

They are more dangerous precisely because they look capable of conversation. Give them affection, and one day they will make a ruin of everything without turning a hair. And then, unable to understand the grieving human, they will not know what to do.

"Meaning it isn't a being I have to answer for."

They are odious divine creatures by birth.

"It's not as though I have information on the thing myself. Only that it's a creature Baeksan and the Sensitivity Bureau are minding. And that for something that seems newly born, its understanding of humans is high."

"And if it were a product of the Foundation?"

"That's rather funny."

Lee Yeon-ho jeered drily.

"I hadn't thought traces of the Foundation still remained on this cramped little patch of land."

"To be precise, it is estimated to have crossed over from Europe five years ago."

"Aha. So that's why Dokkaebi have seemed unusually numerous lately…."

He thought without feeling.

'Should I kill it after all.'

The world holds many beings who are harm itself by their mere 'existence,' bearing no malice at all. The Dokkaebi is the representative example. Thinking so, Lee Yeon-ho abruptly recalled,

'So you are a coward.'

that boy's voice.

"……."

"Oh, that's the face of someone who's remembered something."

"It had a gift for speech."

He went on in a parched voice.

"It was a peculiar Dokkaebi. The energy it held was savage, yet its soul was comparatively transparent, and though we exchanged only a few words, I felt its nature was upright."

"You are a case of a mage who became an Artist, so you would be sensitive to that sort of energy."

"I didn't know you knew that much."

"I am rather good at finding out what I wish to know."

"That's an enviable talent."

Lee Yeon-ho asked,

"Then do you think that Dokkaebi deserves to die?"

"That is not information, it is judgment. You are shifting your own choice onto me."

"I don't want to choose anything anymore."

His children had already gone their own ways. They had become adults and were living their own lives. And there was no reason now for those children to need Lee Yeon-ho, who had not even been a good father.

So he simply wanted to live inside the treadmill.

"As I keep saying, I'm tired."

That was all.

"You said the Dokkaebi has no connection to my wife."

"A complete stranger. It seems that by pure coincidence its appearance and air came out similar. Though your wife was surely far more taciturn than that Dokkaebi?"

"I think I'm about to get annoyed."

"And if it were not a Dokkaebi but a person, what then?"

"I don't know."

Lee Yeon-ho murmured low.

"But my eye would have been drawn to it."

Just as he had not killed that Dokkaebi he met at the school a few days ago.

"Beyond that is none of my concern."

"But here's the thing."

The passerby asked from atop the wall.

"What if that Dokkaebi is a being mixed with 'The Devil'?"

"……."

Lee Yeon-ho, silent a long while, presently opened his mouth.

"Then it would have to be killed."

"Dear me."

"So you did come to fight me after all."

"Not especially so."

"Artist of the medical line. Eleanor Hale."

Lee Yeon-ho stared at the 'passerby.'

"What's your objective?"

For simple provocation, was it not too obvious and too childish?

"You're the one who arranged for me to meet that Dokkaebi at the school the other day, aren't you?"

"I was merely curious. And above all, I truly have no intent to fight."

"Even knowing how I would act the moment 'The Devil's' name came up?"

"I am hoping for it, in fact."

Eleanor smiled with that needlessly handsome face.

"That you might become a little more diligent."

"What a dreadful human being."

Not a type he cared to associate with.

"…Haa…."

Because they make the work troublesome.

***

"So, the reason you've made a whole affair of this."

Lee Yeon-woo looked at 'the Hanged Man,' Hyeon Si-gyeong, seated across from him.

"Comes down to accompanying me on the way back to the hotel."

"I believe I could be of help."

"Dear me, you're looking at something else again. Regrettably, that is not this time frame."

"I'm going to hand in my resignation."

"Not that one either."

SNAP—!

Lee Yeon-woo snapped his fingers before Hyeon Si-gyeong's eyes.

"Please recognize the present date and time clearly."

"……."

Hyeon Si-gyeong, staring into Lee Yeon-woo's eyes, nodded.

"Excuse me."

"Can you focus somewhat now?"

"I can see Mr. Lee Yeon-woo."

"This is truly maddening."

Even had he wanted to restrict the man's 'sight' the way he had during the previous 'General Manager Mode,' the Lee Yeon-woo of now found that degree of control difficult. For lack of capacity, he had failed to back up everything from the time of 'General Manager Mode.'

"At least you seem to see me well enough."

"Is the sun well?"

"At this rate proper conversation will be difficult."

Coco, seated at Lee Yeon-woo's feet, made a show of nodding.

"Hello?"

"I am not sure."

He had sensed it faintly during 'General Manager Mode' as well: a Tarot member comes to possess sight and ability beyond the human bracket. There is too much to see and too much one can do, so the small things are not felt.

"The silver lining is that, perhaps because I am a Tarot member myself, I see 'me' well."

Which was to say the man seemed to understand the present time frame and phenomena with himself at the center.

'His state is more serious than when he was at the hotel.'

"My present state is the average, originally."

"Is daily life not inconvenient?"

Having his thoughts read was no longer even surprising. Hyeon Si-gyeong answered while staring at Lee Yeon-woo.

"I am used to it by now."

"If you come to the hotel, I may be able to help you."

"Thank you."

"So — have you no intention of answering why you want to come along?"

"I believe I could be of help."

"Which is precisely what I cannot understand — help with what."

It was an awkward business.

'It is exactly like watching an old radio that is hard to tune.'

"A radio? Hello?"

"It refers to the technology of sending and receiving voice or music over distance using radio waves that spread through the air without cables. The device that lets one hear such broadcasts is called a 'radio receiver,' though most people call the device itself a radio."

"Coco confirms."

"There are two others in this room besides me, and not one of them respects privacy."

Was mind-reading common in the Gaps? Common or rare, in the present situation it was regrettable in the extreme. Having thought that far, Lee Yeon-woo simply resolved to abandon his existing common sense afresh.

"It is nearly check-out time, so I was about to leave."

"I'll check in."

"So my going to the hotel together with you is a settled matter after all."

Hyeon Si-gyeong's 'sight' also became a kind of foresight. Prophecy, perhaps.

"I do not know what part of our hotel makes your sight easier, Mr. Hyeon Si-gyeong, nor precisely why you wish to check in again. Only that, from where I stand, worry comes first."

Well, of course it did.

"It will be dangerous."

"No?"

"Coco."

"Our hotel safe."

"Coco."

Do not seize the moment to advertise.

"The 'game' matter I asked of Mr. Baek Mu-jin is not yet wrapped up either."

"Congratulations on your official opening."

"This person, really — I said that is not the time frame."

Lee Yeon-woo explained step by step.

"Fortunately, thanks to Baeksan deploying personnel and looking after it, ordinary Human Guests will not be caught up in our hotel for the time being. But there is no means of stopping a guest who walks in with a purpose from the start."

And,

"Once I return to the hotel, the function of refusing a 'guest' disappears for me as well, does it not."

"A function — you are certainly faithful to your intrinsic identity."

"I have no intention of becoming anything more than the game."

"I support it."

"Thank you. So…."

Lee Yeon-woo asked,

"May I refuse your return visit, Mr. Hyeon Si-gyeong?"

"No."

"For a moment I thought you were Coco."

He had not wanted to grow this close.

"……."

He considered leaving the man and fleeing.

"No?"

"Please calm down."

"No! Guest! Our hotel! Guest!"

"Please calm down."

At which Hyeon Si-gyeong says,

"No."

"Excuse me?"

"Security."

"No?"

"Yes."

"No?"

"Yes."

"No?!"

Lee Yeon-woo pressed his forehead.

'Please.'

Please do not do this in the same space as me.

***

And so, after Lee Yeon-woo had checked out, at a quiet café near a certain brand hotel.

"Sorry about that."

Gangwon Director Dan-cheong said with a faint smile.

"Couldn't stop him."

"I am grateful that you at least tried."

"You'll have gathered as much, but that fucker."

Beyond the glass window, Hyeon Si-gyeong was staring fixedly at the two of them. Unconcerned, Dan-cheong went on.

"Stubborn as a bull, that one."

"I shall exercise my right to remain silent."

It amounted to agreeing in a roundabout way.

"Might I learn how we came to face this situation?"

"I hauled him to the gukbap place forty-eight times wanting to know that very thing, and I still can't decipher it."

"When he was at the hotel he spoke so that one could understand him, so I had no idea it was this bad."

"There's a fair bit I agree with there, and it does seem to have got worse lately."

Dan-cheong drew a hissing breath and stroked her chin.

"Still, he's a Tarot member by name — he won't die from going. Raise him well."

"Excuse me, but I will not be raising him."

Lee Yeon-woo shook his head firmly. Right up until he was dragged to the hotel he had been a man on his own; where would he find the devotion, at this late hour, to raise an adult man his own age?

"My partner and my guests alone are more than enough."

"There's no denying I'm partly doing this to fob him off and wrap things up neat, but I'm not lying — I can't stop that bastard. Stopping him takes another Tarot member."

"So a single card received without my knowledge has put me in this position."

"That's the summary, aye."

"Regrettably, nothing has been summarized at all."

"It has for me, just now."

Dan-cheong went on to ask,

"Getting used to life out in the world?"

"No."

Lee Yeon-woo curved a smile.

"Which is why I mean to head back now."

"Well I'll be, look how decisive."

"I believe a person must know clearly when they are not one."

"So now's a time when you're not, is it?"

"Rather than that — the 'psychiatric visit' I had set as my goal is wrapped up for a first pass. And above all."

Presently Lee Yeon-woo's smile took on a sheepish cast.

"People looked far too fragile."

"Well now."

"Theory and practice differ after all, it seems. With Mr. Baek Mu-jin's help I had thought it would be fine, but standing in among them, I felt myself far too harmful."

"So even with no actual harm done, your heart's uncomfortable? Well, all right."

Dan-cheong wore a somewhat relieved expression.

"For our part, your going back to the nest quickly is a hundred times over a thing to be thankful for."

"Dear me. You seem to have been startled."

"You spring it on me that a Dokkaebi this size is in the middle of Seoul — how could I not be startled."

Her expression turned sour.

"I wondered where the Tarot fellow was rushing off to in such a hurry, and it turns out young master Yeon-woo is in some hotel civilians walk in and out of. Baeksan will have handled it their own way, but does that or does that not knock my liver loose."

"I have no excuse."

"Young master Yeon-woo's got nothing to be sorry for."

This, Dan-cheong said, was "a matter for Baeksan and the Sensitivity Bureau to settle between them."

"Public servants like us haven't the power to restrain a being like young master Yeon-woo. Honestly, we haven't the will or the drive either. I'm the one busting my fucking arse because I'm the Director."

Lee Yeon-woo marveled.

"I had thought you would step forward more passionately."

"You thought too well of a pack of civil-service lackeys."

"From the Sensitivity Bureau's standpoint I am a natural calamity one can hold a conversation with, am I not?"

Put simply, a being with whom negotiation is possible.

"The Sensitivity Bureau will have its own thinking, but as I personally feel it, the attitude taken toward me now looks close to Neglect."

"The provincial office has no power, lad. Take it up with head office."

"That you would speak with Baeksan rather than with me also sounds peculiar."

At that, Dan-cheong said firmly that she hoped there was no misunderstanding.

"Going straight to a Dokkaebi in person — that's the hardliners."

"Ah, that kind of standard?"

"The Sensitivity Bureau's motto is 'we do only what we can do.'"

"Considerably realistic."

So from the outset the 'Dokkaebi' was set aside and the matter proceeded between humans.

'Much as ordinary people discuss countermeasures among themselves and never think to get rid of the typhoon directly….'

He had felt it since last time — it was oddly worldly. Not in a bad sense; rather that the genre was fantasy, certainly, but the attitude toward danger held by the people composing it was more familiar than he could have imagined.

'The world people live in really is much the same everywhere.'

In that case he was curious what the Gaps would look like.

'I ought to prepare to visit before long.'

"Yes."

"Well I'll be, fuck, you startled me."

"Ah, dear."

When Coco, who had been diligently playing the role of a coat, snapped its eyes open, Dan-cheong recoiled placidly. In fact, going by the sentence alone, she was not especially placid. She seemed a little startled.

Lee Yeon-woo lightly stroked the shoulder where the round eyes were blinking.

"My partner has been discourteous."

"Running into a Dokkaebi this size in the middle of Seoul, my heart won't survive."

"You seem to have been far more startled than I thought."

"How am I supposed to not be startled??"

Dan-cheong was thoroughly dumbfounded.

"I thought only the lad had come. If it hadn't opened its eyes I'd never have known it was there. Aigo, I nearly drew my sword."

"Is a 'Dokkaebi' generally a target for subjugation?"

"Your Dokkaebi are all subjugation-proof by default, so you've got no feel for it, but leaving Artists aside — a mage who meets a Dokkaebi cuts it, as a matter of course."

"Why not Artists…?"

"Because plenty of them can't be bothered and pretend they didn't see it?"

"……."

It abruptly struck him with certainty that Cha Do-hyeon, that punk, would be much the same, but Lee Yeon-woo did not bother to show it.

"Once again, I have been discourteous."

Lee Yeon-woo bowed politely.

"I do not know when I shall next come out of the hotel, but should I have occasion to come out into outside society, I shall take that point into account and be careful along with it."

"Well I'll be, listen to him talk so prettily. To think I could trade words like this with a newborn Dokkaebi — it's quite moving. Long life really is worth it."

"When on earth will I be able to escape that perception?"

"Native or foreign-bred aside, it's a fact you're young for a Dokkaebi, so there's no helping it. How about accepting your fate before long?"

"I have more than enough to accept, and I must take this on as well."

Truly a strange life.

"If there is anything more you would teach me, please say it. I shall listen closely."

"So kind and so well-mannered. Honestly now — you're not a Dokkaebi, are you."

"To be caught out like this."

"Well, I jest."

Inwardly Lee Yeon-woo thought, 'It was not particularly a jest.' Dan-cheong went on.

"This world runs far more by rule of thumb than young master Yeon-woo imagines, so keep it in mind. I take a kind view because I trust the lad is a human-friendly Dokkaebi, and because I expect the 'hotel' to have the effect of restraining Dokkaebi, but…."

She added,

"Helpful or not, the majority shudder at a thing for the sole reason that it's a 'Dokkaebi.'"

"Indeed. I understand."

"Even now there'll be some at head office grinding their teeth."

Dan-cheong told him the general perception of Dokkaebi held by residents of the Gaps.

"To most of the bastards there, a Dokkaebi is a malignant tumor of a Disaster — one you can't tear limb from limb fast enough the moment it catches your eye. If the hardliner bastards at head office found out I was sitting in the middle of Seoul drinking coffee with the lad while wearing the Director's title — well now. They'd likely blow a gasket."

Having said so, Dan-cheong added without feeling,

"One misstep and an unpleasant situation could arise, so take care."

"I think that is entirely capable of happening."

The perception laid down was fundamentally that of an 'uncommunicable Disaster' or 'a target for subjugation.' That someone like Dan-cheong extended goodwill, however calculated, was miraculous to begin with.

The very fact of being regarded as an object with whom 'conversation' was possible.

"…Mm…."

Thinking of it that way, he grew curious.

"You are generous with me, Director. Is there a reason?"

"I know what you're getting at."

Dan-cheong nodded.

"You're saying I trusted the lad more easily than you'd expect?"

"There must be a great many dangerous conditions overlapping in my case. However much you have seen and heard of me directly, recalling the Foundation's infamy, you might well have thought I was deceiving you all."

"That's a fair point, but, mm…."

Musing a moment, she drew a sword out of empty air.

"This is 'me.'"

"The sword that took the 'Lover of Dawn's' head at the hotel."

"Put another way, it's another 'name' received from an institution called the 'Naming Bureau,' and with that establishment's master's permission I put my authority into it. Can you guess what sort of power that is?"

Rather than wait for Lee Yeon-woo's answer, Dan-cheong told him outright.

"It tells 'me' which beings I must cast out."

"I had thought it might be a power that distinguishes good from evil, but that was not it."

"Every being is grey."

Even a Labyrinth, for that matter, is never wholly white or black.

"My power is composed with myself set as 'sovereign,' and this follows the same logic. If I myself am not upright, then this Four-Tiger Sword likewise cannot warn me of those who are wicked."

At a wave of her hand, the 'sword' vanished from it once more.

"You may think I put blind faith in a single blade named by some other institution, but a name conferred by the Naming Bureau carries great weight. I cannot explain to another what I feel, but I must trust myself."

"I understand what you mean."

Whatever exact structure and principle that 'name' worked by, it seemed to reflect and be bound to its owner's disposition strongly. It was on the ground of that certainty about herself that she had trusted 'Lee Yeon-woo.'

"This is a somewhat separate question, but the 'names' of the 'Naming Bureau' seem to take the form of swords."

"This 'Naming Bureau' is an institution that exists only in Korea."

"Korea's traditional artifacts cannot have been swords alone."

"It's the most universal form, apparently."

Dan-cheong asked,

"Why, are you interested?"

"I have been studying 'names' recently."

"Just don't go grabbing hold of some wheel and making a planet-wide calamity of it."

"I believe I have heard a similar warning."

From the hotel employee who had taken leave of absence entirely as he pleased and was no doubt running the General Manager down at this very moment.

***

"…Dear me."

The old vampire stood before the dining hall's floor-to-ceiling window.

"It seems an uninvited guest has come to the 'Fox Den.'"

"Please tell us what we must do."

"I am sorry to take the work from you, but this does not seem to be one to face carelessly."

Having surveyed the mountain beyond the glass a long while, the 'Guest Without Taste' instructed his disciples.

"Command the disciples hibernating in the vicinity to stay quiet."

"Yes, Teacher."

"And tell them that any who spoils the matter carelessly, I shall punish myself."

"We shall obey."

His eyes narrowed.

'A fairly strong presence.'

Someone had been playing at pointless tricks.

TL Note: The Four-Tiger Sword (四寅劍) is a real Korean royal artifact — a blade forged in the tiger hour of the tiger day of the tiger month of a tiger year, believed to concentrate enough yang energy to repel evil. Its traditional purpose is exactly what Dan-cheong describes: identifying what must be driven out.