No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 81

Taking out my staff from my pocket dimension, I spoke.

“Listen, will you step aside if you’re going to interfere like an idiot? I have things to do.”

“Shut up! Do you want to die!”

But Ryuseong seemed even more pissed off than I expected. Is it because of his past living with the black fog since he was a baby? Seeing his muscles and veins standing out on his bulging arms, I naturally calmed down. If I get hit by Ryuseong in that state, I’ll be in trouble. There’s a chance I could get one-punched to the afterlife.

Still, trying not to show fear, I said,

“Won’t you calm down? Even if it’s the black fog, you won’t immediately become an enemy of humanity just by drinking a little. You should know that too.”

“It’s not good enough for the body to drink it deliberately either. You should know that too! Cut the crap and turn on the barrier. Stop going crazy like a lunatic!”

My feeling after hearing harsh words from the original protagonist was ‘You saw the person properly.’ However, unfortunately, the shock therapy was completely derailed, so Ryuseong’s effort to make me come to my senses by cursing was in vain.

But it’s not like I turned off the barrier because I wanted to inhale the black fog. Shaking my head, I cut my forearm with the end of my staff. Regardless of what Ryuseong said, I layered mana and cut my skin.  

To activate blood magic.

‘Gosh, every time I use blood magic, it feels like self-harm…’

Still, wouldn’t it be foolish not to choose it if I could derail the original plot just by shedding a few drops of blood?

The original plot has changed so much that it now seems foolish to even look at it. The fact that I’m standing here is also like that. But there were still parts where I could guess the future based on the original plot, and I came all the way to Siberia to take advantage of that.  

In the original story I know, they tried to resolve the black fox incident with arson. Since the forest was holding the black fog, they burned the whole thing down with flames infused with malice. However, that was the wrong choice. As everyone knows, that forest was home to an ancient forest spirit that had been living and breathing there since antiquity, and until now, she had been preventing the spread of the black fog by burning her own life. But when the forest burned down due to the arson, the forest spirit’s power to suppress the black fog disappeared before it could disappear completely. In the end, the black fog that had been suppressed for hundreds of years erupted at once, causing an even greater disaster. 

Ryuseong solves that. That was the development of the original story.

‘So, if I do well here, the spirit will join the war!’  

It’s an old forest that has been around for hundreds and thousands of years. What could a spirit of such a forest have watched over and what could it accomplish? My vile and wicked brain was already devising unimaginable schemes with the forest spirit.  

By the way, to summon the spirit, you had to reveal your free soul, unfiltered by anything magical. In terms of the body, it means you have to be naked, and in a spiritual sense, it means you have to delete all magical defenses.

‘It’s not for nothing that I drank a little black fog.’

It means that I didn’t turn off the barrier because I wasn’t thinking.

Ah, how am I going to cover up to the regressor that Cassice Demillang is aware of the forest spirit’s existence at this point? That’s easy too. Since the original Cassice Demillang did not participate in the black fox extermination, Ryuseong has no way of knowing whether he guessed the existence of the forest spirit or not.

In short, it has become an environment where I can freely commit fraud.

Blood drips down to the ground. Reciting a few verses in my mouth and chanting the incantation in a clear voice, I guided the magic to make the blood that seeped into the ground find pure roots. I intended to locate the spirit’s position.  

But I’m pondering how much blood I need to shed to be appropriate. As I watched the dripping blood, Ryuseong approached closely and started hemostasis by gripping my upper arm muscles.

Somehow, he didn’t look angry. Rather, he’s scary? When Ryuseong gets so angry that he becomes calm instead, no one can stop him. As someone who knows this too well, I felt a chill down my spine for a moment.  

“Would it relieve my anger to beat you unconscious?”

“What kind of ruffian…”

“That would be safer. Definitely.”

“And you will be forever despised by me. Well, it’s not a meaningful thing to say…”

“…”

“Besides, is it possible? For you to knock me down, that is.”

When people are tense, they should straighten their back and stiffen their chin. If the body shrinks, the mind also shrinks. You have to stretch your body to create space for your mind to stand.

It was at that moment when we were coldly glaring at each other. A strangely vast and lonely air flowed with the wind. I turned my head in the direction the wind was blowing. The wind blowing from inside the forest shrouded in black fog stretched out a strange singing voice like crying between the leaves, then fluttered wildly, shaking the branches. It was a suspicious and unnatural phenomenon. It was enough to be on guard, but Ryuseong didn’t react because he knew what I was doing, and so did I.

‘Quick to notice? It must have smelled the blood.’

The wind howled like a gloomy song. Whoosh, whoosh… Then suddenly, a strong gust of wind swirled, scattering the black fog that had been gathering in the shaded areas, blowing away the fallen leaves. Rustle… The long-fallen leaves crumbled, giving off the smell of rotten grass. Following the intense change stimulating the five senses, the sound of a foreign stringed instrument being plucked once.

In an instant, the sound of the wind stopped and I smiled. A pure white wind, sharpened like an arrowhead, was sticking up right in front of my pupils. 

‘Shit, that startled me. I almost fainted.’

Try sticking something pointy in front of someone’s open eyes. Of course, they’ll blink. But I suppressed my body’s natural response entirely to maintain my composure. I was truly a tearful concept slave.

[Fa mil iar… You have no scent.]

The next moment, I was sucker punched by the forest spirit who entrusted her voice to the wind.

‘What nonsense is this?’

Since we were camping, I didn’t have time to spray perfume like usual. But being familiar… what? What is she saying? Is she saying she’s used to humans with no scent?

But it’s not like I have no scent.

‘I ate jerky in the morning too.’

Then what is familiar? Shit, damn it. I got caught up in the nonsense. Nonsense is originally meant to be thrown at the other person to understand, not to make them confused, but I, the master of nonsense, was the one getting caught instead.

I must have been properly entangled. Of course, anyone would be startled if the wind that was about to poke their eyes out also spoke… I need to seek cooperation. 

“O spirit of the forest, we need help…”

[Al right. I will help you. That is my joy… Fol low me.] 

…Ah shoot. My chance was taken again. I was going to tell her to remove the wind arrow if she wanted to be friendly, but it was swiftly removed before I could say it. Then the wind moved as if guiding us deep into the forest. Feeling empty, I stared blankly into the air for a moment, and Ryuseong, who tapped me to make me look at him, spoke to me with the same cold face as before.

“Set up the barrier first.”

“Ah.” 

I almost forgot. I finally gestured to the forest spirit and set up the barrier again. The spirit did not leave, and an intangible air current covered my skin.

Only then did I realize that the air I had been breathing was wrong and unclean, and my tainted lungs appealed with nausea, but I couldn’t show it.

Smiling nonchalantly, I started running, following the spirit’s guidance.

“You have other things to forget… If you keep using your body recklessly like that, you’ll die. Humans are not machines. Repairing parts is not enough.”

His nagging didn’t stop. I don’t know how he can speak so clearly and articulate while running this fast. Ryuseong only poured out his nagging like a flood after carefully observing that I looked okay. As someone who was playing it cool despite not feeling very well, it was painful to have to run through the dark and eerie forest while also suffering the ordeal of hearing his words. It’s not like I’m feeling terribly unwell, just the level of having a severe hangover the day after drinking…

I needed hangover soup. I exaggeratedly covered my ears, expressing my fed-up state to the world.

“You are well aware of the advantages we can gain by seeking the cooperation of spirits in such an ‘unnatural’ field, aren’t you? It’s all the result of calculating utility and efficiency, so cut the additional remarks and just express your gratitude.”  

“Utility… efficiency. You’re wrong. You’re spouting sophistry.”

“You must be the one who is not practical.”

As we continued our parallel argument, the spirit turned the arrowhead towards us as if glaring at us. I tapped Ryuseong to make him look ahead, and he made a face like a rebellious student caught in the wrong by the principal’s lecture, but eventually obediently accepted the silence.

Spirits of nature are capricious, with many things they dislike and like, and among them, they extremely avoid conflicts caused by others. There are thousands of records in old books of them running away or hiding after seeing the fights of others. They happily participate in conflicts they start themselves, so they are very selfish and self-centered folks! But what can we do. Nice me will have to put up with it!

‘Oh? But I’ve heard this evaluation a lot somewhere.’

The realm of hypocrisy…

Isn’t it Cassice Demillang himself? 

‘Except me. Excluding me.’

Jeong Ian is not included in this.

Yep, that’s right.

***

When we reached the center of the forest after running for a while, we couldn’t say anything for a moment. 

On a tree stump, presumably from a large tree that had been struck by lightning and broken, a spirit trapped by rotten sedge and thorn bushes was leaning. Although she had a pure energy, perhaps because she had used up her last remaining strength to hide our presence, an inescapable death was engulfing her.

It was when we paused at her miserable appearance.

[Dear one, may my weak touch be able to lift the veil covering your eyes…]

She whispered with an ecstatic look in her eyes. I couldn’t understand what she meant.

But she reached out her hand, and at that moment-.

“–!”

A strange shock engulfed me. My mind went blank. I reflexively drew up magical power and assumed a battle stance, but a strangely cozy sensation, as if entering my skull and touching my brain…

[Go and come back. That is your…]

The rest of the sentence was long and difficult to interpret. What followed was a distant darkness. When my vision returned, I immediately faced Ryuseong. 

I tried to quickly talk to him, but his expression was strange.

‘Like someone who saw something they shouldn’t have…’

I instinctively knew that I shouldn’t see that. But I couldn’t help but turn my head. I turned my gaze with difficulty, like a creaking hinge.

There, a child was smiling innocently.

Only then did I realize what the forest spirit had said to me.

-That is your past. 

It was the moment of confronting the past of my true self that even I didn’t know about.

…And with Ryuseong too.