Chapter 92 - The Trailblazer VI

10

Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

More precisely, there had been plenty of signs that School Ghost Stories was Gapless’s nest.

First, the school’s scenery was decisive evidence. The hell of ceaseless suffering I had glimpsed when my consciousness briefly touched the Fairy Monarch in run eighty-nine had looked like this.

[The school was an abandoned wooden building. Its name, Baekhwa—Hundred Tales—wavered.]

[The sky was blood-red. Through broken windows, birches thrust their heads into the school corridors, slashing their white skin against the shards of glass. Impaled on white skewers, the school was battered all over.]

No matter how I looked at it, it was identical to School Ghost Stories.

Of course, there were differences. The school’s name, for instance.

Originally, the baekhwa in Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School meant “white flowers.” The characters for “white” and “hundred” looked somewhat similar, but they were unmistakably different.

But as I had already stressed, wordplay—playing tricks on the world with words—was the foundation of spells.

My reasoning went as follows.

Baek, the “white” in baekhwa, had manifested as white-skinned trees. In other words, birches. Whether we walked through the new school building or the old one, white birches jutted through broken windows everywhere along the corridors. They embodied the concept of “white” in its entirety.

Once “white” had turned into birches and vacated its place, its homophone, “hundred,” crept into the empty slot.

Simple wordplay.

Then what about hwa, the “flower” in baekhwa?

That was simple, too. Despite our having defeated no fewer than ninety-nine anomalies, exactly two things at Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School had failed to return to normal.

The birches rising like prison bars. And the red spider lilies blooming profusely in every direction.

Those blood-red spider lilies had stolen “flower.”

The anomaly had robbed reality of its words. “White flowers” had been corrupted into “red flowers,” and the void had occupied the world.

That was why, no matter how many anomalies we defeated, the name “Baekhwa” itself... the anomaly’s final spell, remained intact.

“That’s my interpretation.”

“Woooow... I-I never thought of that. I did wonder why the birches and spider lilies were still untouched when all the other buildings went back to how they used to be...”

TAP. TAP.

We were walking through an empty hospital. A space with ceilings, pillars, and floors all bleached pure white stretched on endlessly.

Where I was. When it was.

Unable to anchor any coordinates, our consciousnesses were losing their definition. Cheon Yohwa and I kept them from slipping away by talking to each other.

“We keep walking, but it’s just the same corridor over and over. Is there no exit...?”

“Hold on a little longer.”

This was why working in pairs mattered. Even if Cheon Yohwa was far below me in combat strength, two people had an overwhelming advantage over one inside a void.

Because the fundamental unit of the world called a human being was not an atom, but a pair: “someone else and me.”

“Hmm. Oh, right! Mister. How do we get rid of the birches and spider lilies, then? Can we just chop them all down?”

“I tried. They grew back.”

“Ugh...”

“They only look like trees and flowers. What they really are is anomalies. Most anomalies can be defeated with brute force, but plenty of them are immune to physical force. For those, you have to properly exploit their void spots.”

“Void spots...”

In fact, that was also why I had gone out of my way to use school desks and the like as firewood for the victims’ funerals instead of birches.

Cremating the dead by burning an anomaly’s body? Nothing could be more ill-omened. The toxic substances in ordinary smoke were far less harmful.

“Hmm. But if that’s the case... isn’t this ‘Baekhwa’ anomaly’s void spot a complete mystery? It doesn’t move around like the other ghosts, and we don’t even know what it is. Oh. Is its void spot hidden on basement level four?”

“Something like that.”

A footstep. Following my own, a slightly lighter footstep sounded.

Just as I had cautioned her when we entered, Cheon Yohwa was moving in perfect time with my footsteps.

“We stop here.”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“You can move freely for only ten more steps. If you’re uncomfortable, find a comfortable position now. Make sure you use all ten steps.”

“...? Um, what does that mean?”

“Ten more steps from here will bring us to exactly our 4,444th step.”

“...”

I opened my suitcase. Taking out candles one by one, I arranged them around us.

Before long, exactly one hundred candles stood along the corridor like a birch forest. I sat in their midst and had Cheon Yohwa sit opposite me.

SNAP.

At a snap of my fingers, all one hundred candles flared to life together. It was an application of aura.

“Mister, what is this...”

“Yohwa. We’re going to perform a ritual now.”

“...”

“Have you used all ten steps?”

“Yes.”

“You asked earlier what the birches’ and spider lilies’ void spot was, didn’t you? The ritual we’re about to focus on will become that void spot. It’s simple. Have you ever told ghost stories with your friends on a summer trip?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Good. It’s exactly like that. The ghosts you and I have exorcised so far, and the ghosts the other students defeated. Ninety-nine anomalies altogether. You and I will take turns telling stories about them.”

“...”

“Why don’t you begin?”

“Oh, okay. Um. So, this is a ghost I saw myself. A little while ago, I was walking along the school’s fourth floor when I heard a thump-thump-thump sound in the distance. Very faintly...”

Quietly.

The ghost story flowed in a low voice. The hundred candle flames flickered and swayed, while the lights in the white hospital corridor hummed.

Between the red flames on the floor and the white lights overhead, Cheon Yohwa gazed blankly at me.

“... And that’s the end of my story.”

“Good.”

SNAP.

At a snap of my fingers, one candle went out. A thin thread of gray smoke rose toward the ceiling.

“Oh...”

“Now it’s my turn. This is something I experienced myself. Hanako of the Toilet lives in the third stall of the boys’ restroom at Hundred Flowers Girls’ High School. If you enter that stall and turn around thirteen times...”

One. Two. Three. Four.

The candles went out one by one. Each time, a little smoke was offered up to the heavens, and the shriveled wick gave off a blackened stench. Cheon Yohwa’s shoulders twitched.

A flicker.

It was around the time the fortieth flame went out that Cheon Yohwa noticed something strange.

“... Mister, look. The corridor lights.”

“I know. Don’t worry.”

The hospital corridor’s lights were going out.

Far away. Starting from the end of the corridor, one by one. One meter at a time.

The hell on basement level four had neither exits nor windows. Once its lights went out, the hospital corridor that had seemed to repeat infinitely became pitch-black darkness.

“Let’s continue. Your turn.”

“... Okay.”

A flicker.

The darkness in the corridor was breathing as it closed in. From both sides. Like footsteps following footsteps, every breath we took brought its breathing another handspan closer.

“This is a story I heard from a friend. There’s a ghost called Krasue, with no torso, just a head with its guts hanging from it...”

Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker.

We picked up the pace of our stories. The darkness’s footsteps quickened a little, too. Every time a light went out, Cheon Yohwa flinched.

“And that’s... the end of my story.”

Our surroundings had grown chilly.

Before the ritual, the hospital corridor had repeated without end, stretching on forever. Now barely a single stretch of it remained.

“...”

“...”

A flicker.

Only one light illuminated the corridor.

Ninety-nine candles had likewise been eaten away by the darkness. Only the last one remained, groaning under the strain.

“Good. Now it’s my turn...”

“Mister...”

Cheon Yohwa suddenly spoke.

“You’re not actually our school’s security guard, are you?”

“...”

“It felt a little strange. I’ve been living in the dorms all this time, and I know most of the security guards’ faces. But I’d never seen yours before. When we first met, I was so overwhelmed, and you were wearing the uniform and carrying a flashlight, so I just assumed you were a recently hired guard... But I secretly asked the other kids, and none of them knew you either. Still, you kept helping us...”

After a moment’s thought, I nodded.

“That’s right. I’m not.”

Basement level four wasn’t a school anyway. It took the form of a hospital. There was no longer any need to keep role-playing as a school security guard.

“I knew it. Then... why did you help us?”

“To defeat the void that settled over this place. School Ghost Stories. The hell of ceaseless suffering.”

“The hell of ceaseless suffering...”

“But I’ll tell you who I am tomorrow. For now, let’s focus on defeating the anomaly that drove you all toward death. Will you trust me?”

“...”

Cheon Yohwa’s orange ponytail bobbed like a candle flame.

“Yes. Of course.”

“Good. Then it’s time for the final story. This is a ghost story from Japan. Have you ever heard of the Hundred Tales?”

“The Hundred Tales?”

One hundred tales.

It was a horror legend called Hyakumonogatari in Japanese, meaning “One Hundred Tales.”

“The method of summoning this ghost is simple. People gather and light one hundred candles. Then they take turns telling ghost stories, releasing them into the flames and smoke, one by one.”

“...”

“Yes. Just like we’re doing now.”

The last candle flame swayed.

“According to the legend, once all one hundred candles go out, the person who told the final, hundredth story dies.”

“Dies...”

“Or a ghost appears. We’re already in the underworld on basement level four. Someone in the underworld can’t die a second time, so a ghost has no choice but to appear.”

“...”

“But this is where it gets interesting. In the original legend, the ghost that appears at the end of the Hundred Tales is called Aoandon, the Blue Lantern. They say it only appears if you light a blue lamp.”

A flicker.

I pressed the flashlight’s button. A blue LED beam swept through the darkness.

“But the ghost that will descend here isn’t Aoandon.”

“Then what is it...?”

“This school’s name is Baekhwa. It means ‘white flowers.’ But remember what I told you? When School Ghost Stories arrived, the characters for ‘white flowers’ were stolen.”

I took out a brush pen and wrote on the corridor’s white floor.

“A void is an empty place. It steals the place where the world once existed, turns it into a gap, then engraves its own existence there. The new characters for Baekhwa that entered the place of the stolen ones are...”

Hundred Tales.

One hundred tales.

“...”

“The usage of Chinese characters differs subtly from country to country. In Japan, the concept of a ‘tale’ is expressed with the two characters monogatari.”

I moved the brush pen.

“For instance, the collection famous as the Arabian Nights is translated in Japan as Senya Ichiya Monogatari—‘A Thousand and One Nights’ Tales.’ In Korea, meanwhile, we simply call it Cheonil Yahwa—‘A Thousand and One Nights’ Tales’—using hwa for ‘tales.’ In short, the concept expressed by the two characters monogatari in Japan corresponds to the single character hwa in Korea.”

“Then... if you expressed the ghost story ‘One Hundred Tales’ using the Korean convention...”

“It would be Baekhwa. Hundred Tales.”

Quite literally.

The anomaly that had devoured Baekhwa Girls’ High School.

The true name of the anomaly we had called School Ghost Stories until now.

Another identity of the God of Alienation-class anomaly I had once named Gapless.

“The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, entrenched here with ninety-nine ghosts under its command. The leader encompassing all ninety-nine, and a single whole. A great void that stole this school’s original name and thereby encroached upon a portion of the world. Hundred Tales is the final ghost of this hell.”

SNAP.

The candle died.

The light went out.

The darkness laughed. The unfathomable scent of smoke was the scent of its body, spilling from the darkness’s endless maw.

A flick-er.

An instant moved within the darkness. Since the universe had originally been darkness, that was the color of time and space in their primordial workings.

The hundred extinguished candles grew in an instant into a pure-white forest. A forest of birches.

The trees’ white skin caught fire, and the flames soon became red spider lilies in full bloom. The blood-red flames turned into fairy faces, and one hundred fairies cackled. Their laughter went like this.

Tales bloom into flowers, and flowers blaze into fire. Blaze, blaze. All things in the world are equal beyond measure. Then why should a hundred tales not become a hundred flowers, and a hundred streams of flame...?

Coordinates. Time. Space. As they were hollowed into empty shells, existence warped.

“Mis—”

“It’s all right.”

I seized the back of Cheon Yohwa’s hand.

“I’m here.”

“...”

Cheon Yohwa gripped my hand tightly in return.

With that, our coordinates were anchored.

At that instant, the universe’s multicolored flames halted, and the fairies fell silent. A Milky Way flowed. A hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred million eyes—as countless as the sands of the Ganges—turned toward us all at once.

And so I called its name.

“Gapless.”

All creation convulsed.

-Unexpected contact.

-A possibility never calculated before.

-Gapless.

-The hell of ceaseless suffering.

-It is the correct name.

-It is an incorrect name.

-This, too, is a random number.

Colors breathed. Starlight danced in a circle.

-What are you?

-An excessively large variable.

-How did you perceive our existence? How did you ascertain our identity? How did you pinpoint our location?

The God of Alienation asked its questions. It regarded this world as nothing more than a vast laboratory, and so had created terminals called fairies and dispatched them to its tutorial testing grounds.

I lifted my head.

“Are you all right, Yohwa?”

“... Yes. I’m a little dizzy, but I’m surprisingly okay. Actually, if anything...”

Cheon Yohwa disentangled her fingers from mine and bent at the waist. She pulled the laces of her red-and-black basketball shoes taut.

“I’m in top form. I could sprint flat out for forty minutes right now. Anyway, that weird Milky Way is the mastermind that killed the kids at our school, right? I’m going to beat it to death.”

“Excellent. Then allow me to demonstrate a former school security guard’s combat strength.”

Boss battle.

God of Alienation-class threat level.

Gapless.

Combat begins.