Episode 23: A Walk
Zwart had been feeling strange these days.
Of course, he was glad that his brother had returned. That much was true. Just thinking of his brother put his heart at ease and lifted his mood.
Yet at the same time…
He felt small and disgraceful.
Whenever those thoughts arose, Zwart climbed the back hill and swung his sword.
After working up a good sweat, stray thoughts would subside and his mind would settle.
But today, even that did not work.
Am I… totally useless?
Since the Viscount Felix incident, that thought gnawed at him ever more strongly.
What had he done then?
Nothing at all.
Like an idiot he had been pinned to the ground beneath Felix’s cavalry blade.
So when Perseta appeared and settled everything… Zwart had simply sat there.
While his family hugged each other in relief, he had stood apart and stared blankly.
Because he was ashamed of himself.
Magic looked overwhelmingly powerful.
Yet it was far too late to start learning magic.
All he knew was swordsmanship, and even that seemed of no use.
If only I had a Gift, things might be different…
He remembered his academy days.
Back then his nickname was “perpetual second place.”
From entrance exam to graduation, he had never once taken first.
Effort?
He believed he had worked harder than anyone.
Talent?
In swordsmanship and aura, he thought he was second to none.
But the reason he could never be top— that was the Gift. A blessing only chosen knights possessed, or a supernatural power that could be forced to bloom by spending enough money to buy a few castles.
A Gift.
The fellow who always took first was heir to a foremost house of the Empire and of course had undergone the grand method to awaken a Gift.
Poor, insignificant Zwart, second son of a barony, naturally had no such thing.
That was what split their destinies.
Zwart sometimes imagined:
If I’d had a Gift and graduated first in the Empire’s academy…, would I still have come home?
The treatment of valedictorians differs everywhere, and when the presence or absence of a Gift is added, the comparison becomes meaningless.
After all, everyone who stands at the summit possesses a Gift.
If he had stood in such a place… he doubted he would have forsaken riches and glory to return home.
That was Zwart’s honest feeling.
And yet here he was.
Even in his home, to which he had returned resolved to make his mark, there was nothing he could do.
Again…
A second time…
Without realizing, Zwart muttered, “Maybe I should just leave…”
Joining a respectable knight-order now to build skill and a career—might that not be better even for his family?
“Don’t go.”
The sudden voice startled him.
He turned to see Perseta climbing the slope.
“Zwart.”
“Uh… b-brother…”
He was acutely flustered, feeling his heart had been exposed. It was almost infuriating.
Meeting Zwart’s eyes, Perseta said,
“You can’t leave. We need you.”
The words sounded somehow maddeningly sweet.
“No need… to comfort me.”
Holding back a scream that wanted to burst out, Zwart squeezed out an answer.
“Shall we walk?”
Perseta took the lead.
Right. Walking would be better than talking.
Thinking so, Zwart trudged after him.
Perseta did not say a single word the whole way.
Zwart, relieved, kept his gaze on the ground.
They crossed the ridge, started down a slope, kept going down, farther and farther…
What?
Only belatedly did Zwart notice something odd.
Why is this slope endless?
The back hill was not tall. They should have reached level ground five times over, yet somehow, they were still on a descent.
“Uh…?”
Lifting his head to look around, Zwart gasped.
“Where… are we…?”
They were in a deep forest.
What was more, it was pitch-dark night.
Only moments ago, it had been broad daylight. When had it grown so dark?
And their barony has no forest this dense!
Zwart forgot even his gloom, stunned out of his wits.
Perseta, however, answered calmly.
“This is the Forest of Ties in the Illusion Realm.”
“The Illusion Realm? We’re… in the Illusion Realm?”
Perseta shook his head with a smile.
“Not fully across. Think of it as overlapping the boundary of the planes. Fairies appear in our domain, remember? This time, we’re like fairies in the Illusion Realm.”
He offered some explanation, but Zwart had no way to understand.
“So at any rate, this is the Illusion Realm?”
“If you’re asking whether what you see is the Illusion Realm, then yes.”
“Crazy…”
Though a knight, Zwart was still son of a mage house; he grasped well how impossible this was.
Reality was that the Mystic Worlds had drifted so far even summoning one yokai 1was difficult and this was no summoning. He had crossed to the Illusion Realm?
What manner of being was his brother? He did not even feel bitter; he was simply overwhelmed.
Perseta regarded his cowed brother and spoke gently.
“Zwart.”
“Y-yeah?”
“A Gift. Don’t you want one?”
A Gift? Did he not want one?
His fingers trembled, his jaw quivered.
Barely, Zwart shaped a voice and pushed the words out.
“That… I want it… Could I… have it…?”
“It’s possible. Some are born with one, but most Gifts gained later come from taking something out of a Mystic World or receiving it through a contract.”
Perseta seemed to know everything, while Zwart shivered at this new knowledge he had never heard.
“Brother… You mean… I can… get a Gift? Here, in the Illusion Realm…?”
“Mm-hmm. Today you’ll obtain a Gift. And then you must guard our house.”
Gulp.
Zwart swallowed dryly.
The tremor that shook him gradually subsided.
His eyes grew deep and still.
At last, with all quivering stilled, Zwart looked Perseta squarely in the face for the first time and asked,
“What do I have to do?”
“Prove yourself.”
“Prove…?”
“Yes. Prove yourself to an Illusion-Realm yokai so that it feels you’re worth investing its magic in.”
Wheee-ee-ee-ee—
A sinister breeze of the Illusion Realm brushed between them.
Zwart walked the Forest of Ties in the Illusion Realm.
Perseta followed a few paces behind.
The forest’s outer edge had seemed nothing but a dense, empty black wood, but entering the core revealed a wholly different scene.
Rustle, rustle…
Between the trees rose wooden buildings large and small, and countless yokai of every shape swept by, robes fluttering.
It was a kind of marketplace, a shopping street.
“Hey! How can you demand that much soul-energy for one paltry trick? You’re mad!”
“Hah. If you don’t like it, don’t buy! Go on! I’m not selling!”
“No, wait, let’s not be hasty…”
Everywhere yokai raised their voices, haggling.
In the Forest of Ties, the goods traded were yokai’s inherent powers. It was their magic arts.
One yokai sold wind-commanding art, another transformation art, another the art of moving through earth.
Zwart’s way to gain a Gift would be the same.
Buy a magic art here and obtain the seed of a power.
Once that seed was his, he could by his own effort grow or alter the art further.
But what Perseta had suggested was not ordinary trade.
He said to gain an investment…
That was what “prove yourself” meant.
Demonstrate a potential to grow a magic faster and stronger than anyone.
To such a human, yokai would “invest,” slicing off a chunk of their own vital energy and granting a powerful art. In return, when that human nurtured and magnified the art, the yokai would share in the increase, enlarging its own power.
That was the yokai’s investment style.
Therefore, even Perseta could not help here.
An “investment” was a contract strictly between the yokai giving the art and the human receiving it.
Only by his own strength could Zwart prove himself.
That fact ignited him all the more.
I will prove my worth.
Worth he had lately doubted even himself.
It felt like a place to have that worth judged objectively.
While he steeled his resolve and moved on, Perseta, following silently, suddenly asked,
“So, have you decided what kind of power you want?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Flame. The strongest flame here.”
At those words,
Perseta looked slightly troubled.
“Flame? As I said before, I recommend super-strength…”
“I thought hard, but I still want flame.”
“But in the Illusion Realm we can’t find a flame that suits you. As I said, flames here are less searing and mighty and more wavering, beguiling, deceiving. You rely on power-based swordsmanship. To get a flame that fits you, we’d have to go to the Myth Realm or the Beast Realm, but beings there are beyond your current ability to handle.”
Zwart nodded.
“I understand, Brother. Still, I want flame. If I start with flame, when we reach the Myth or Beast Realm someday, I can take another flame and strengthen it further.”
“Well… true, but instead you could take super-strength now and later add flame, handling both…”
“No. I’ve thought about this for a very long time… What Gift I would use if I had one… Flame. Any flame is fine, as long as it’s flame.”
Since Zwart insisted so far, Perseta gave up opposing him.
“If that’s your decision… then let’s decide whom to receive the flame from.”
“The being that holds the strongest flame.”
Zwart answered without a breath.
Perseta’s eyes deepened.
“It won’t be easy. There is one such being, but he is not generous. If you disappoint him, you may suffer greatly.”
“I don’t care.”
Perseta looked into Zwart’s eyes… and understood.
This is not stubbornness or desperation.
This is the gaze of one who has set his will utterly.
For some reason, Perseta felt glad.
With a bright grin, he stepped ahead of Zwart and guided him.
“Very well. Then let’s go.”
“Where to?”
Walking a few steps before answering, Perseta let the words fall casually.
“To the gumiho2, lord of Flaming-Night Castle.”
- Yōkai, 妖怪, are strange, supernatural creatures and phenomena from Japanese folklore. The word is a combination of the characters 妖 (yō–attractive, bewitching, calamity) and 怪 (kai–mystery, wonder).
Yōkai can be translated as monster, demon, spirit, or goblin, but it encompasses all of that and more. The world of yōkai also includes ghosts, gods, transformed humans and animals, spirit possession, urban legends, and other strange phenomena. ↩︎ - A gumiho is a creature from Korean mythology, specifically a nine-tailed fox ↩︎
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