Chapter 233

"So how did you come to seek me out?"

"As I said a moment ago, something has come up on which I must ask your help."

Lee Yeon-woo went on.

"I am thinking of hanging an eye or two in the Fox Den's sky."

At that the 'Lover of Dawn's' red eyes grew bright as petals holding water.

"You're going to use stars?"

"It seems it will come to something similar."

"It isn't similar, it just is that."

The woman set her watering can softly down.

"Theen… shall I teach you about the sky?"

"Yes, if you would."

"Mm…."

Rolling her eyes about, the 'Lover of Dawn' drew Lee Yeon-woo toward the bench and asked.

"Do you know what a star is used for?"

Hearing that, Coco opened its eyes round.

"Sorry?"

"It is used to find the way."

"Sorry? Yes."

Ah, I see, and Coco nodded. It was one of the expressions it had learned from watching Lee Yeon-woo's gestures.

"Do they not say that a seaman looks at the stars and comes to know where he himself is?"

"That's right, and there are stars in a sky like that one, too."

The woman pointed at a sky where nothing could be seen, since it was daytime.

"So handling a star means, in the end, deciding the place of something."

Lee Yeon-woo listened to that with considerable interest.

'Certainly… knowing the content of Black Magic that lies in the lady's memory and hearing a lecture on it are entirely different sensations.'

It felt exactly like being at a seminar. The woman went on.

"Position, shape, name — all of it is a place."

"Memory as well."

"That too."

"It does sting a little after all."

Lee Yeon-woo laughed faintly.

Lee Yeon-woo had lifted the village out of the Sensitivity Bureau people's memories and filled the place with something else. He had called that a measure and settled it as the lesser evil.

Within the technique called Black Magic, that came out as having moved a person.

"And so?"

"Would you know why a star becomes a standard, as well?"

"Because it moves, and moves in a way that can be predicted."

A standard was always that sort of article.

"Not a thing that does not sway, but a thing whose way of swaying is known."

That must exist before coordinates can stand, and coordinates must stand before you can say what is where.

"And what has no coordinates does not enter the calculation."

"That's why it was a story about the sky."

"Yes. I was curious whether it was permitted to hang them there."

"The sky belongs to nobody, you know."

"That is why I chose it."

"Even though that makes it a frightening place?"

The hem of the woman's nightdress, as she sat on the bench, touched the earth, and yet did not get dirty.

"When you hang something in a place that belongs to nobody, from then on that place becomes the property of whoever hung the thing. That's why Black Magic is also called the study of egoism."

"The study of egoism. An amusing way to put it."

"And even so you'll leave the mountain and take only the sky?"

She tilted her head.

"Then again, Milady never passes the price on to anyone, so taking even the top of the mountain would be a burden."

"How high will the price come out?"

"About how many stars were you thinking of hanging?"

"As things stand I am considering two."

"That much and you'll be a little heavy every night. About this much."

The woman brought her thumb and forefinger together to make a narrow gap.

"Until you set it down."

"That much is not bad."

Lee Yeon-woo said with a smile.

"Might I ask one more favor of you?"

"As many as you like."

"If I should try to pass that price on to somebody else, stop me then."

"Even though I don't remember that sort of thing well?"

"The attempt alone will do."

These were the things Lee Yeon-woo had lately been asking of others.

"How have your children been getting on of late?"

"Ah, now that you mention it."

The woman spoke, blinking.

"Lately there are people who keep counting my children."

"Dear me."

"How many there are, and where they are."

"Do you remember when it began?"

"I don't remember."

"Is that so?"

That was enough.

***

The Central Control Room.

[Response Protocol Set]

[Facility Automation (S) — exhausted]

[Resource Storage Organization (A) — exhausted]

"……."

[Surveillance Circuit Reallocation (B) ×5]

Watching that monitor, Lee Yeon-woo went over the list without a word.

"Coco confirms."

"At times like this you may say 'what Coco knows.'"

"What Coco knows."

"That is right."

It was the box he had received on finishing the tutorial.

At the time he had known what the thing was but had no immediate use for it. Ever since he had obtained control of the Central Control Room, business inside the hotel had been sensed entirely through his own body anyway.

"Back then I could not have imagined an occasion would arise to look outside."

That was because the very concept of an 'outside' could not have come into being.

"But since matters have come to this, there is no help for it."

"No help for it."

"I have already looked out the places. Here and here, one sheet each."

Two sheets in all.

"Would you help me?"

"Coco help!"

Having sprung up on its feet full of confidence, Coco faltered a moment.

"Village excluded?"

"Yes. The village is excluded."

"Why?"

"Because hanging an eye where children live is a different matter."

Even as it stood it felt like fitting CCTV on someone else's private land, and to install it in a village where only children lived. To Lee Yeon-woo it felt like a criminal act past all measure.

"Then I shall ask it of you."

"Coco confirms!"

At that, the 'Drenched One,' who had been wetting the floor sodden, glanced over and asked.

"Will a mere two do, my friend? When that mountain is so wide."

"Certainly, it might be another matter in 'General Manager Mode,' but for me as I am now the breadth is too much."

In the white sky on the monitor a faint light glimmered.

"But that will be enough."

When night came there would be two things up there that looked like stars.

"With one you know only direction,"

"With two, the distance comes out."

"You know how to read a sky."

"The sea is a thing that touches the sky, after all."

The Water Wraith laid a hand on Lee Yeon-woo's shoulder and gazed deep into the screen showing the sky.

"Will you not use more?"

"I intend to keep three back."

"That three more chances remain is a surprise, but wherefore?"

"Would it not be awkward to have none when the need is urgent?"

Coco tilted its head to one side.

"Iiing?"

"Even I do not find this arrangement perfect."

Lee Yeon-woo ran a hand once over the back of his neck.

'Nothing yet.'

It would exert its proper effect once night fell, but a mere two made no showing at all. Not merely the weight on his own shoulders — in other people's eyes as well.

'From three on it will probably show.'

So for the moment it was two.

'Since I could not remove the danger, replacing it with surveillance for the time being is the right course.'

He knew as well that the act of surveillance was improper to begin with. Only, if there was a price to be paid by one who had chosen to save others while living in a Labyrinth like this, it was generally of this shape.

At that the Water Wraith laughed low.

"You will manage well enough, but take care."

"Might I hear the reason?"

"When you go about deciding places for others, you see."

The Water Ghost melted slowly down.

"There are those who forget their own place."

Presently, silence came.

"……."

"The Drenched One, escape!"

"I should think that is closer to going home."

"Going home!"

"Splendid."

Lee Yeon-woo switched off the screen and presently closed his eyes.

"This is quite tiring…."

Starlight pooled behind his eyes.

"It is time for the round now."

"That is right!"

"After I stop by the village, I shall have to go about the Fox Den."

"Guests? New guests?"

"Perhaps."

Lee Yeon-woo opened his eyes.

"For the moment I have no other recourse than that."

He had to find the ones said to be wandering with an expensive talisman in hand.

***

The slope was steep.

"Er, Boss."

"No, idiot."

"I haven't even said anything yet."

"You've got the face of a man about to ask if he can't sit down and rest."

"Wow, how did you work that out…?"

"This little bastard."

If he could sit and get up again it would be one thing, but looking at that thoroughly worn face, sit now and he would drop off. The human body being what it is, there was all the more reason to stop him.

The Boss rummaged in the bag.

'One genuine talisman, one chocolate bar….'

A great deal had been used up getting this far. He started to work out how many more words he could speak, then stopped. On this mountain a night was three hours long, and the one who counted things went mad first.

"……."

He was about to become that, before long.

'It feels as though my body is already half steeped in the Fox Den's mystery.'

A mage being in the end a spiritual article, steeped in a greater mystery his judgment goes slack, and past a certain point he forgets the very fact that he judged. So it was now.

About then the second spoke.

"Boss, we came here yesterday. That rock."

Unlike him, it was calm — the voice of a man who had given it all up.

"Be quiet."

"What are we saving talismans for?"

"Ah, for God's sake."

Thunk. He clipped the back of the bastard's head, not hard.

"We can get out. Stop whining."

And with that he finished the arithmetic.

'Me, about half a day. And that's being generous.'

The youngest had been silent for a while now and the second looked to have just given up. Neither could hold out more than half a day. That being so, in the end there was only one answer.

'I hold on to it, and find a way to send those two down alone.'

At the thought, his steps grew lighter instead.

"Hey."

It was as he opened his mouth.

"That's enough now…."

"……."

"…?"

The mountain stopped.

Not that the sound stopped — this mountain being fickle by nature, the sound often stopped. But what had stopped now was some… flow of air.

The weight that had lain on the nape of his neck all this while lifted entire.

"Quiet."

The Boss slowly turned to look behind him.

'The sound is still there.'

The prayer went on, but its direction was strangely different. The shapes that had covered one whole ridge had raised their heads and were looking up.

They spoke toward the sky.

"The Fox God."

"Is watching."

"Is watching. Is watching."

Far as they had come, it rang clear at his ear.

"…Fuck…."

The beat began to line up. The things that had been out of step all along fell together with a precision that made the skin crawl. What sort of upheaval that stood for, the Boss could not yet know.

He raised his head and looked at the sky, but it was merely noon and nothing was to be seen.

"……."

And yet his spine went cold as though he had come face to face with a Water Ghost.

'…Two, or so….'

One to a ridge, something with a gap opened between them.

'They aren't just there.'

That was an interval somebody had opened out in order to measure something.

"B-Boss. Boss."

"Fuck, can't you keep still?"

"No, look at that."

The youngest nudged him and pointed at something. The rock the second had said he stumbled at was behind them by exactly as far as they had walked. It was a matter of course, but that matter of course had happened for the first time since they entered this place.

"Huh?"

What it meant was plain.

'It let us go?'

The mountain had let them go. No — to be exact, it had lost them, because something up there had caught its attention more.

'It's found something to look at besides us.'

The Boss took hope in that for a moment and then went white again. Once he had grasped the whole chain of cause, he could not call it a way to live.

'It means something bigger than the Fox Den.'

Fumbling, he hurriedly pulled the chocolate bar out of the bag.

"Hey, hey, this. This, quick."

"S-suddenly? This is the last one we have left…."

"Ah, shut it! Take it and eat! Split it in half between you!"

"Wh-what about you, Boss?"

"I can still run!"

He tore the bar open, broke it in half and handed it out, then shoved the wrapper roughly into his pocket. He had no wish to leave a trace of themselves on this mountain that ran mad.

"Eaten?"

"Y-yes."

"Then we run."

He ran at the head of them.

"Boss…?!"

"B-Boss!!"

"Ah, for real…!"

The other two came to themselves before long and ran with him. They ran with no sense at all of how much further they had run. And with that, for the first time since entering this mountain, the scenery kept changing.

The trees thickened, and fog rose to their knees.

"Haah, huh, hhh…."

There was no making out any direction.

"C-cord. Get the cord out. The cord, quick."

"I'm tying it. We're all tying it."

"Bunch up here, you bastards, where I can see your faces."

"I'm here…!"

"M-me too, over here."

In fog thickening until they could barely see ahead, they tried to tie themselves to one another with the sturdy cord they had prepared before entering the Fox Den. But their hands shook and it would not come easily.

And the fog parted, from the front.

"……."

"…Uh…."

The mountain was laying a road for something.

"…Boss."

At the end of that road, a black thing was standing.

The Boss clamped a hand over his boy's mouth, killing the sound of his own breath. The boy seemed to have found some sense in the face of death, for he bit his lips shut and froze as he was told. Confirming that, the Boss looked to the front again.

'Roughly, a shape like a person's….'

It was a fox wearing black clothes.

***

Meanwhile, Lee Yeon-woo found himself in a somewhat awkward situation.

'I have found them, at least.'

There were three in all.

One young man who looked to be in his late twenties, and two who looked some years younger than him. Their clothes were worn through for want of a change, their lips were cracked, and the skin beneath their eyes was dark.

At a glance they were at their limit.

'That they have held out days in that state is impressive in itself.'

The problem was what came next.

"……."

How, exactly, was he to speak to them…?

'Coming in a hurry, I did not think of this.'

Inside the Fox Den, Lee Yeon-woo's vocal cords were generally melted.