Chapter 81

Chapter 81, Book

The world where Hwa-ryeon stayed was one built around a Joseon-style palace.

A small village of hanok surrounded the enormous palace at its center.

Unlike Arlin, whom I could meet simply by heading to the building in the middle of the city, getting to Hwa-ryeon was a little more complicated.

It was because Eriel had recreated the palace too well.

The palace she created was closer to something that would appear in a game or fantasy novel than an actual historical palace.

And it wasn't just an ordinary palace.

She had recreated it on the scale of an imperial palace where an emperor would live.

Because of that, reaching the central area where Hwa-ryeon stayed required passing through long and complicated paths.

Fortunately, I had gone on walks with Hwa-ryeon almost every day before visiting the exhibition, so I had already learned the route well enough.

“Oh, Yuhyeon!”

Hwa-ryeon was sitting in a pavilion inside the palace, admiring the scenery.

Perhaps because the current season had been set to spring, plum blossoms were blooming everywhere.

She had been quietly touching one of the blossoms when she noticed me.

Her face immediately brightened, and she ran toward me in a single burst.

Apparently, she even used internal energy.

The moment she kicked off the ground, she vanished from my sight and appeared right in front of me.

As the distance closed, the distinct fragrance of plum blossoms clinging to her body became strong enough for me to notice.

I accepted her hug and greeted her.

“Hwa-ryeon, have you been doing well?”

“Yeah! I've been doing great. But more importantly... Yuhyeon, did you go out somewhere?”

By go out, she meant whether I had gotten involved in some kind of incident.

I nodded.

Hwa-ryeon nodded as well.

“I thought so. You smell like blood.”

At her words, I instinctively looked over my clothes.

There wasn't any blood on them.

That was only natural.

My main weapon was fire hot enough to vaporize blood itself.

My enemies were reduced to ash down to the bone before they could even get blood on my clothes.

So I didn't think there was any reason for the smell of blood to cling to me.

Even Eriel, an angel who had transcended humans, hadn't noticed anything at first.

Then how had Hwa-ryeon noticed?

I decided not to think too deeply about it.

Thanks to various Mysteries and Eriel's blessing, I had entered the realm of superhumans too.

But Hwa-ryeon, who had awakened internal energy, possessed senses far sharper than mine.

Noticing that I had gone out and experienced danger from some faint scent on my clothes probably wasn't impossible for her.

Hwa-ryeon brought her face closer and sniffed me.

I sniffed my own clothes too, but couldn't smell anything.

Hwa-ryeon was different.

“The smell of blood is pretty strong. At this level, it feels like you were caught in some complicated melee. Where exactly did you go?”

“I went to an exhibition with Arlin and Bias. Something happened there.”

I opened my mouth to explain exactly what had happened.

But Hwa-ryeon's expression seemed to grow slightly colder.

Instead of continuing, I looked closely at her face.

There was less energy and brightness in her expression than before.

For some reason, she seemed angry.

I couldn't understand why at first.

Then, after thinking about it, I realized.

Come to think of it, I never told Hwa-ryeon.

Because Arlin had opposed bringing her, I had never even asked Hwa-ryeon whether she wanted to come to the exhibition.

From her perspective, I had gone off somewhere to have fun with everyone except her.

It was more than enough reason for her to feel hurt and disappointed.

I opened my mouth to apologize.

Hwa-ryeon stopped me.

Her finger gently brushed across my lips.

“It's fine. You don't need to apologize. That portable staff probably objected, didn't she? Well... it does annoy me a little that I lost to that staff.”

Her eyes grew cold.

A little strength entered the long, slender finger resting on my lips.

Hwa-ryeon rubbed my lips with her finger, making them move from side to side.

It was somewhat rough, but there was a faint sense of consideration in her touch, so it didn't hurt.

After playing with my lips for several minutes, Hwa-ryeon spoke.

“The exhibition already happened, so there's nothing we can do about that. But Yuhyeon, next time you go anywhere, you have to take me with you.”

“Okay.”

“And leave that portable staff behind.”

“...Okay.”

The moment I agreed, Hwa-ryeon's face brightened again.

With a much livelier expression, she grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

She made me sit in the pavilion where she had been sitting earlier.

The seat was still warm.

“So, Yuhyeon, why did you come here? Did you come to take a walk with me?”

“No. I came because I need something today. We can take a walk next time.”

“Something you need? What? Is it a spar with me? A discussion about swordsmanship? A debate about why swords are better than magic?”

“...You remember that red book the Mimic spat out? The one without a title, only section headings. Do you know where it is?”

Hwa-ryeon thought for a moment, then told me to wait and headed somewhere.

When she returned a little later, she was holding the dark red book.

I took it and opened it.

It was the book I had been looking for.

I thanked her, then returned to the library while Hwa-ryeon saw me off.

The library was currently quiet and still.

It was the perfect environment for reading.

It was also ideal for thinking deeply and concentrating.

Before reading the book, I posted a question about demons in the Gallery.

Then I opened the book.

The section titles I had already seen once came into view.

[1. About Demons.

1. How Demons Speak.

2. How to Make a Contract with a Demon.

3. Types of Demons.

4. How to Summon a Demon.

5. Precautions.

6. Recommendations.

7. 66

※This book is a transcribed copy. The earlier sections are completely identical to the original, but the later sections may differ somewhat from the original, so please exercise caution.]

“A transcription...”

Maybe it was because I had learned that the book I had assumed was a joke might actually be genuine.

The final sentence suddenly felt very different.

The book in my hand was a transcription, and the warning stated that it might differ from the original.

Why had someone deliberately copied it differently from the original?

And why had they gone so far as to write a warning about that on the first page?

To satisfy my curiosity, I turned the page.

The table of contents passed, and the actual contents of the book began.

The second section was filled with information about demons.

Their types, characteristics, preferences, and things like that.

The names of the demons written in the book were exactly the same as the demons that appeared in popular media.

They were identical to the Seventy-Two Demons.

There were exactly seventy-two demons listed, and even all seventy-two names were the same.

Reading it somehow made me feel like a heretic studying a forbidden book.

That feeling became even stronger when I reached the next section, How Demons Speak.

Before long, I had read past the types of demons and reached the section explaining how to summon them.

It read like some fantasy setting guide, which made it surprisingly easy to get through.

“...The summoning methods are really complicated.”

The section titled How to Summon a Demon explained how to perform summoning rituals.

According to the book, every demon required a completely different type of ritual.

And why were the required materials so absurdly specific?

Two kilograms of gold.

And...

The eyeball of someone who died while looking at a demon?

Then there was radium and pure silver.

And those were supposedly among the easier materials to obtain.

The more I read, the more absurd it became.

Even so, I strangely couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't a joke.

Every sentence seemed to carry some kind of weight.

After finishing the section on summoning demons, I turned to the next page.

What greeted me was a completely blank sheet.

Thinking it might be some mistake, I turned another page.

Then another.

Only pure white blank pages appeared.

I kept flipping through them one by one.

From the end of the summoning section all the way to the final page, every single page was blank.

There was no sign of the Precautions or Recommendations sections listed in the table of contents.

The book had said that this transcription differed from the original.

Were those sections written in the original?

I suddenly wanted to obtain the original book.

If I found it, I wanted to savor every single word inside it.

A strange greed rose within me.

The moment I realized it, I took out Fragment of Faith and stabbed it into myself.

With the blade still embedded, I dragged it downward before pulling it back out.

Only then did the greed disappear, and my mind seemed to become clear again.

“...”

What I had cut was greed.

The abnormal greed that made me want to obtain the original, read it, and then go even further by trying the things written inside the book.

It had the same sticky, unpleasant sensation I had felt when affected by mind-control-type Mysteries.

When I had previously checked with Lucy, the dark red book had been confirmed not to be a Mystery.

Then what had that strange greed been?

I checked again.

The book still wasn't a Mystery.

In that case, there was only one explanation.

“The original version of this book must be a Mystery. And probably a fairly high-ranking one.”

If even a mere transcription could interfere with the mind, there was no way the original Mystery was low-ranking.

It felt like I had voluntarily dragged myself into another troublesome situation.