Today, like every other day, was much the same. After finishing his training as usual, he had a little rest before dinner. Yeongwon sat in the chair at his desk, staring at his tablet for a moment while fiddling with the ring.
The silver ring, his sister's keepsake, was the object Yeongwon touched most often.
In the counseling room... what was that?
The latest music video was playing along with its song on the tablet, but somewhere along the way it had slipped out of his attention. Yeongwon absentmindedly slid the ring on and off, over and over, thinking.
There had been a time when the ring grew hot and a strange voice came from it. His head had gone hazy, and he'd seen something strange before his eyes, and it had never happened again after that. But because that incident weighed on his mind, he kept fiddling with the ring, yet the ring never responded again.
“What is this, seriously...?”
Was it my imagination? Was my mind just playing tricks? Yeongwon let out a deep sigh. The tiny crystalline gem in the center of the silver ring glinted. Maybe I'll listen to my sister's voice once and then go eat. Slipping the ring he'd taken off back on, he tried to play his sister's voice the way he always did.
That was the moment. A blue light flashed sharply out of the ring with a crackle. Yeongwon's eyes went wide.
“What... is this?”
This had never happened before.
That little crystal, which normally only sparkled when held up to sunlight, was now blazing bright blue, flaunting its presence. Flustered, he tried to pull the ring off, but it wouldn't come off his hand. He thought he smelled something strange too. A slightly... burning smell.
“Why, why won't it come off...?”
Bzzt.
There was a sound.
It was like radio static. To be precise, it was coming from the ring finger of his own left hand.
Bzzt, bzzt.
The sound went on as if something was trying to speak. Was the Recording Stone trying to speak his sister's voice? Normally he had to grip the ring and tap it lightly to hear his sister's voice. But for it to play on its own like this... it made no sense.
Bzzt.
[Yeongwon.]
A small voice.
Yeongwon froze on the spot.
...It's not my sister.
It wasn't his sister's voice. A little more unfamiliar, a tone that was neither a woman's nor a man's. A tone that had never come from the ring before.
[Where are you? I'll come find you.]
Come find me? Why? Yeongwon's back went rigid. The little crystal inside the ring on his finger glowed even more intensely. He wanted to hear more, to know who it was. He was curious.
Just then, there was a knock-knock at the door.
“Yeongwon, it's dinnertime. Want to head down together?”
It was Cha Taeju's voice.
Yeongwon jerked in surprise and pulled his hand away from the ring. The knuckle of his finger was slightly red and swollen. The moment he let go, the crystal's light died down. The static cut off too, and he heard it no more.
“...O-oh, okay, coming!”
Yeongwon answered as usual and rose from his chair.
Something was strange. He'd just faced a bizarre situation, yet his voice didn't tremble. He wasn't even nervous. Was it because he'd faced this once before? He wasn't afraid either. Yeongwon opened the door as if nothing had happened and greeted Cha Taeju. Hello, Deputy Guild Master! What do you think we're having for dinner tonight?
He smiled brightly and shut the door.
Until the light that had brilliantly illuminated the transmission room went out and the antenna's vibrations settled, neither of them moved their feet from before the pedestal. The crystal killed its glow and sank completely still. Igyeol picked up the crystal and slipped it into his pocket. He couldn't leave it behind. This was Kang Yeong-eum's last... well, when you got down to it, it was now the last remaining thing of Kang Yeong-eum herself. The final remnant of Kang Yeong-eum. So he had to take it. Even though he wouldn't be able to give it to Yeongwon.
“Ki Taeyeon, let's move.”
“...Got it.”
Ki Taeyeon said he'd move but hesitated, then stood there tapping his watch. He tapped it, and tapped it again. The signal was still cut off. Transmission was down, and of course the line to Han Seojin, along with the connection to the backup team, was dead too. Even so, Ki Taeyeon fiddled anxiously with his watch.
Watching him, Igyeol clicked his tongue.
This guy, is he rattled?
A mental-type magic circle was active inside here. Cutting down illusions didn't mean it was all over. Ki Taeyeon wasn't someone used to this side of things, so keeping his composure would be that much harder for him. Getting out of this place quickly was the answer.
The passage they'd come in through was blocked by a lowered shutter. Inside the transmission room, they could see a passage with a blinking light. A helpful guide lamp. A spot lit up to invite them to go deeper inside. Ki Taeyeon worked his watch and mussed his hair in irritation.
“No matter what I try, nothing connects. None of it works. Location tracking, reading the surroundings, all of it. Everything's cut off.”
“Didn't you already try all that earlier? I figured as much.”
“Why are you so calm? It's annoying.”
“Does panicking make a path appear?”
“You see a path?”
At Ki Taeyeon's words, Igyeol pointed toward the inside of the transmission room. Along the outer wall, a bundle of transmission cables ran up to the ceiling, and where that bundle passed, there was one corner of the ceiling that was faintly dark.
“There's a spot where air's escaping. Over there.”
“Air's escaping?”
“It means there's a ventilation duct near there. The whole facility isn't dead.”
Igyeol moved toward it first. Ki Taeyeon snorted as if dumbfounded.
“Why find a path by gut feeling?”
“And why do you always find it by machine, Investigator?”
“Because machines are accurate. I don't like people who trust their instincts.”
“Yeah, yeah. You do that. You've got some nerve saying that while following a guy who moves on instinct.”
Ki Taeyeon clamped his mouth shut. Igyeol smirked and moved ahead.
Igyeol pried off the cover of the ventilation duct at the corner of the ceiling with the tip of his longblade. Where he'd removed it, a hole just barely big enough for one adult to fit through appeared. The inside was dark. The two of them pushed their bodies into it.
Once they came out of the duct, another passage opened up before them.
At some point the emergency lights had vanished. But it wasn't dark. A faint blue glow was seeping out of the walls themselves. That light lit up the tips of the two men's feet.
“Is this... even deeper underground? Doesn't it look like a cave?”
“Doesn't seem like a cave.”
“It's not? Then what is it?”
“...”
“Ah, shit.”
Ki Taeyeon swallowed a curse. They'd crawled out only to arrive somewhere strange. It was a situation where you couldn't not curse. Igyeol surveyed the surroundings.
This wasn't formed naturally.
A smell wafted through the air. An artificial smell.
The place they'd newly arrived at was a wide space. It was broad enough for an entire floor of the transmission station to fit inside, and the ceiling was completely open, gaping. Beyond it was darkness. Nothing could be seen above. It wasn't just an ordinary floor above the transmission station's basement. It was like a cave that stretched endlessly upward.
The walls were all warped and cracked, covered with marks of collision and shattering and patching. And a foul stench that stung the nose... a vicious sulfur smell. Over it, the lingering residue of magic power lay thickly settled. He could feel it through his whole body.
“Ha...”
This was a smell you'd only find in the Demon Realm. Or a smell you'd only find in a dungeon where a demon of the Demon Realm dwelled. An energy that would only waft from a place where a demon was. Ki Taeyeon lightly brushed under his nose and muttered.
“...Sulfur smell.”
At the center of that enormous space stood a huge altar.
Black stone. As tall as a person. One face was smoothly polished, and the other three were rough. The smooth face pointed toward the entrance the two of them had come in through. It was helpfully positioned so that whoever entered would see it head-on.
Bloodstains had dried and caked on the altar, and there was so much of it that it had drenched the altar and then dripped down, hardening as it ran. And over those stains, candle wax had fallen in disarray, and the candles had all burned down and collapsed. There was a spot where incense had been burned too. The incense holder was broken.
On the floor around that altar, a summoning circle had been drawn.
It hadn't been drawn with white stone powder. It was a circle carved by cutting directly into the floor. Not something drawn in one go, but a circle deeply engraved by refining it over and over. The shape of the circle was familiar. Somewhere he'd seen it before.
Igyeol's gaze stopped on that circle.
Too familiar. Not exactly the same circle, though. It resembled one. Someone had copied that circle, and you could see that the one who'd copied it hadn't fully understood the original. The core was missing, and only the peripheral branches were similar. Which meant it was incomplete. A rough imitation at best.
Ki Taeyeon muttered as if dumbstruck.
“Insane, what is this. It's not like we walked into some demon-worshipping cult...”
“Looks like you've seen it before?”
Igyeol asked back calmly. Ki Taeyeon shuddered slightly, as if remembering only belatedly.
“Uh, fuck. I remember now. I once investigated one of those cults. Deep in a forest in Gangwon-do. No, wait, that's not the point.”
“Ho-ho.”
“Is this the time to be intrigued, right now?!”
That was the moment.
Drip.
Somewhere, the sound of a water droplet falling rang out. The two of them turned their heads at the same time.
The summoning circle, which had been a dark blue-black color, suddenly began to redden, as if searing hot. Ki Taeyeon's eyes went wide and he pointed.
“That, that thing's reacting!”
Along the circle's lines, a dark red light began to fully trace out the magic circle. One stream caught and spread to the next line. The whole circle awoke in turn.
Boom.
An unfamiliar sensation pressed down on the entire space once.
“Kh-”
As the whole circle glowed, the air sank heavily. His breathing wouldn't deepen. Even when he inhaled, a heavy energy came into his lungs along with it. It was a familiar sensation. At least to Igyeol. Air heavier by a degree. The pressure of magic power. Igyeol stared at the altar with coldly sunken eyes.
At the very center of the circle, a small shadow rippled. The shadow rose up. Something was trying to appear. The summoning circle had activated.
Igyeol slowly loosed the sheath from his back and gripped it.
Shing.
The blade slid from the sheath.
The sound of the draw was almost inaudible. A blade sliding out of its sheath, yet the friction sound was faint. There was no sound of air splitting either. The sheath remained in his left hand and only the blade in his right. Dark red demonic energy rose like a heat haze over the blade.
The thick darkness at the top of the altar gathered together, then scattered like smoke.
