'What individual is it? Is that a Phantasm too?'
There is no way they used an Otherworld Creature, which is hard to control, during class time. And even if they did, they would not thrust it out of nowhere at unprepared kids the way they did this time.
'Pitch-black body, white hair. Human-type.'
So that had to be a Phantasm. Just an individual I did not know.
'A dokkaebi? A giant? The Great Bandit of the Underground Realm? No, each of them misses at one point.'
A muscular naked body whose skin color held an unpleasant turbidity and whose surface even rippled, so that despite being bare it did not feel bare. Something on the crown of its head, whether hair or something else, hanging down in a row.
Even with such a distinctive appearance, the fact that not only a fan book or original individual but not even a related tale came to mind made it certain. This was a strange being from a story I had never encountered.
❝Haah.❞
The fellow spread an unusually thick breath. Seeing steam that thick, its body temperature seemed higher than a human's.
And a high body temperature is proof that the metabolism runs smoothly, so.
'I suppose I can take it as not being a ghost.'
If it is not of the ghost family it can be struck physically. Bracing the Twin Dragon Swords bundle on my arm with familiarity, I barely got my pounding heart in hand.
"Ah, the kids again......!"
But the tension that had already surged was affecting everything around. The allies' Phantasms went dead as a group.
Thud.
The enemy that had appeared in front of me was not like that.
The fellow twitched one of its barely visible eyebrows and took one step toward me. It was certain it was not affected by my damned constitution.
"Commander!"
In that case there is one option.
"Retreat! To a point where I have no effect!"
The best would be for me to drag this enemy far away. But whether that enemy would move as I intended was anyone's guess.
Considering the difference in build, my dragging it by force made no sense either.
"Hwi!"
"Go!"
So I hold it. As it happened, I had a partner that would be of help.
"I'll buy time!"
❝Hmm?❞
The place I had taken watch over is the east. And right now it is first and second period, morning hours.
The sun is still in the east, meaning that where there is an obstacle the shadow stretches west.
Naturally the target's shadow also stretched toward me. For me it was a distance reachable by stretching out a foot slightly.
CRUNCH!
My foot trod on the opponent's shadow. A weight incomparable to the man-eating dog was felt beneath my foot.
❝Ha——❞
Realizing that its body had been bound by a formless power, the opponent began to jerk about.
'This is harder than I thought......!'
The sensation of holding an opponent with Shadow-Stepping was much like standing with your foot on the solar plexus of a thrashing opponent.
I have the advantage, but that does not make it all-powerful. The larger and stronger the opponent, the harder it is to endure. And the opponent was incomparably stronger than the man-eating dogs.
"......Everyone, maintain formation and retreat! Move!"
"Commander......!"
"Retreat!"
Still, it was fortunate that Seong-gwon's judgment was fast and firm.
I lifted my foot first, before Shadow-Stepping's ability broke. Rather than have the binding come undone at an unexpected moment and take an attack, it was better to move at a timing I wanted even if a little early.
WHAM!
Sure enough, no sooner had the halt been released than the opponent swung its right arm. I hurriedly bent my waist downward and ran out to the left.
The arm the opponent swung passed narrowly above me.
Clunk.
Half a beat late, the Twin Dragon Swords came away from my back. The released buckle and strap slid past my shoulder and, swept along by the Twin Dragon Swords' weight, fell straight down.
"Twin Dragon Swords, keep the promise!"
『A promise is gold.』
『We do not break it.』
Originally the Twin Dragon Swords could not tolerate being separated from me outside.
But realistically a weapon you do not use is nothing but baggage, and 2m of baggage blocked or restricted a great many movements. In ordinary times it is fine, but in combat training like this it becomes far too disadvantageous for me.
So ever since the class began I had been negotiating with the Twin Dragon Swords whenever I had a moment. Discarding the Twin Dragon Swords now was the fruit of that.
Now, limited to subjects that involve moving the body, temporarily setting the Twin Dragon Swords aside — and becoming separated from them in the process for unforeseen reasons — was permitted.
Tadak.
With over 10kg falling away, my body grew light. The moment I left the radius of the arm I changed direction.
To buy the kids time to evacuate I had to tread on the shadow and bind it as much as possible or else draw its attention, and for that, maintaining close range as far as possible was advantageous.
My feet scraped the leaf-strewn ground to a stop, then dashed forward again. The smell of cigarettes brushed the tip of my nose.
The monster retrieved the arm that had cut the air, and the moment it saw me approaching it stretched out its other arm. It seemed to be trying to seize me.
SLIIIDE!
In that moment I slid using the fallen leaves and trod on the monster's shadow. The monster halted once more.
'The resistance is unbelievable......!'
Stopping an opponent that had merely been walking quietly and stopping an opponent performing a dynamic posture such as swinging an arm differed in the intensity of the burden.
Exactly as much momentum as the binding deleted, exactly that much load came down on me. Overcome it and the opponent halts; fail to overcome it and the binding does not take.
Halt.
❝Ho.❞
Still, momentum on the level of stretching out an arm was stoppable. Whether because it really is a class for cadets, it was thanks to the arm having been stretched at only a moderate speed.
Rustle.
During the time bought by the temporary binding I raised the body that had slid.
I lifted the upper body, which had fallen back as though lying down, with the strength of my waist, and by putting force into my legs I went forward as if springing out.
The moment my legs left the opponent's shadow the halt came undone.
The monster retrieved the arm it had stretched, and I came to a stop outside the arm's range.
I was a little out of breath. Shadow-Stepping's first ability, used in actual combat, drained more stamina than I had expected.
'I have to hold out longer.'
However urgent the retreat, they would not have put on speed to the point of breaking formation. Because if they took an additional ambush with the formation broken, the damage would be enormous.
So the time I had to buy was a little longer. I met the monster turning to look my way head-on.
In that moment more force went into the monster's thick thighs.
"......!"
A speed not so fast that I could not respond, but fast enough to bring a sense of danger.
My feet followed my instincts' advice and jumped low and long. To an onlooker it might have looked like a jump meant to fall flat on the ground.
Right after, an arm — of a speed too perfunctory to call an attack, yet whose weight from sheer mass was truly chilling — struck the spot where I had been.
CRACK!
Following that, the monster tried to move toward the side I had jumped. What blocked it was a tree. The arm and the back of the hand the monster swung struck the tree.
"Hh......!"
Meanwhile I rolled once along the ground. It was a means of maintaining speed as much as possible.
Whether my body was struck by stones and tree roots on the ground or not, I raised myself as smoothly as flowing water and dashed up to another tree.
Tak. Wrapping a hand around the tree to wrench my direction around, my body checked the monster.
Its movement speed not being on the fast side, the monster was only now rounding the first tree.
The hideous face twisted into a form that could be either laughing or angry.
CRUNCH.
The monster's hand clawed and crushed the bark of the tree it braced on. It was evidence that if you were caught in that hand not even your bones would be recovered.
❝Hahat!❞
Just then the monster turned its body toward somewhere that was not my direction. It was the direction the kids had retreated.
The thought of dodging this way and that using the trees to buy time was scrapped at once.
My body leapt out toward the monster.
WHOOSH!
As if it had been waiting for that, the monster's arm was swung at me. Stomp. My foot touched the shadow, and the tips of the monster's fingers stopped near my neck.
Trembling, trembling.
It stopped. I made it stop...... but in the process of dodging the attack I lost my balance and fell over. The hand that had been coming had stopped by a hair's breadth and now trembled so violently it seemed about to come loose at any moment.
I cannot hold long. At the very least, the moment I dodge that fist and stand up the binding will come undone.
Such a certainty came to me.
'In that case——'
I threw open the second power Shadow-Stepping held. Splash. Right after, a sensation like falling into water covered my whole body.
『......』
A confession to make at this point.
From what tale on earth does Shadow-Stepping derive, that it possesses the ability to halt an opponent by treading on their shadow?
『......is it?』
To understand that, you first have to know the meanings the world has attached to shadows.
『......returning?』
A shadow is a person's soul and their other self. A shadow is one face of the unconscious and an aspect the ego cannot identify. A shadow is a negative fragment of oneself. A shadow is the domain of darkness and the boundary where ghosts dwell.
『Are you returning? At last?』
Yes. Shadow-Stepping was not a Phantasm derived from a particular tale.
This was nothing more than a thin residue reflecting one of the images held about shadows. That was why the power it held was so faint as to be classified at the very lowest of Folktale-Grade.
『Into this embrace of death.......』
Shadow-Stepping was a Phantasm with no definite tale, with no origin.
"......No."
And because of that, Shadow-Stepping could manifest new functions when it met talent beyond a certain degree.
"I still want to live."
By treading on another's soul, halt them. And further, set foot into the boundary of darkness, where ghosts dwell.
I gazed at a sky that was entirely black, and at a horizon where there was no boundary between sky and earth.
That place was the underworld. Beyond there was the land you cross over to after death.
『......Then so be it.』
All at once, something was visible within that pitch black.
『Go.』
They were those clad in black robes, holding black banners in their hands and mounted upon black horses¹, and they were people wrapped in five-colored clothes and armor, leading horses of every kind and gripping swords and binding ropes.
『For we shall always be waiting in this place.』
And in the midst of them was one man, his limbs bound tightly.
Between the veil covering his face, a single color was just barely visible. It was an extremely familiar hue.
"Khh."
But before I could chase that hue any further, my breath choked. Since there is no air in the underworld there was nothing to be done.
I hurriedly turned my steps toward the world of the living.
There was no need to go far. If the passage from the living world to the underworld was a shadow, then the passage from the underworld to the living world ought to be a shadow as well.
I threw myself into the 'shadow of the living world,' which was reflecting the scenery of reality.
❝......What the!❞
The sensation of bursting out of a shadow was similar to bursting out of water, and at the same time seemed its opposite.
It was a fall and a rise, a soaring and a descent.
Until a moment ago it felt like dropping downward, and at some point the sensation of refusing gravity and raising the body pressed down on me.
That was why I ended up behaving like a person who staggers while standing up without bracing a hand on the ground. It seemed I would have to build up my core strength going forward.
STOMP!
But I did succeed in presenting the enemy with unexpected bewilderment.
The moment I popped out I trod on the monster's shadow and halted it.
Whether it had been considerably flustered by my vanishing in an instant, the monster's position was not much different from before. Put another way, it was not mid-action, so its kinetic energy was not large.
After buying time to catch my breath with the momentary halt, I immediately backed away.
After all, unnecessary binding only eats stamina. If I am in a state where I can dodge an attack, binding is not strictly necessary.
'In the original he could pop out from another place too, limited to connected shadows.......'
Meanwhile I continued my exploration of Shadow-Stepping. Since it is an ability that could become my greatest variable if used well, that was only natural.
'Is it possible for me now too?'
The underworld Shadow-Stepping provides operated on the basis of the shade cast in reality. The shade being a kind of door, and a permitted space.
That was why moving from shade A to an independent shade B was impossible. If they were separated from each other, that is.
If the two shadows were connected, the story was different.
Whether shadow A and B partly overlap, or a C intervenes to connect the two. As long as the shadows are connected, appearing at changed coordinates is possible as well.
Although, since the underworld moved to by Shadow-Stepping and this reality have the same flow of time, calling it teleportation is somewhat of a stretch.
CRASH!
Just then the enemy made a surprise attack on me as I retreated. The moment I confirmed that my shadow overlapped a tree's shadow, I overturned the world.
It was my second entry into the underworld.
'......They're not here.'
The ones who had spoken to me earlier were no longer visible. I snuffed out my musings about them with a single blink.
Agonizing over that could wait until after class.
My legs trod the many-colored shadows cast on the black earth and ran. The shape of that shadow was identical to the shadow of the tree I had used to enter the underworld.
The moment I took position at the top part of the tree, the world reflected like a puddle became reality again.
After confirming that the distance between the monster and me had opened to more than 5m, I ran off in the direction of maintaining this distance.
My breathing had settled more than before at some point. It was thanks to going back and forth to the underworld being less of a burden on stamina than halting.
This was why Shadow-Stepping was broken.
❝Have you ever seen such an out-of-order son of a bitch.......❞
More to the point, hasn't it been speaking this whole time? Is it a Phantasm with intelligence?
"Kyaaaaah!!"
"Aaaaagh!!"
Just then screams rang out one after another from over there. It was the direction the kids had retreated. My head reflexively turned that way.
❝Want to go? But I can't let you.❞
I had to help. But how?
That monster was still in fine shape, and even if I broke through that monster, problems abounded. There was the monster following after me, and the moment I joined them the cadets' Phantasms would go on strike too.
❝If you want to go that badly, knock me down and go.❞
In that case, is holding out here the best? But why on earth are the kids screaming? What has appeared?
'......If they ran into Phantasms while still not out of my area of effect.'
How far do they have to be from me for the Phantasms to be fine. That I did not know either. Not knowing made my chest lurch all the more.
In case that might be because of me. In case, as Pyo Do-hyeok said, I was being a burden.
『Do you wish to guard them?』
『Is it that you wish to protect?』
After all, wanting to live doing what I want did not mean wanting to live while heaping harm on others.
『Then take us up.』
『Take hold of us and swing.』
My legs ran toward the Twin Dragon Swords I had flung away earlier. It was fortunate they were not far.
Swiish. The leaves pushed aside by my feet played their music, and my hand seized and lifted the bundle of cloth wrapped around the Twin Dragon Swords.
❝Oh. What's this. You want to try using the Twin Dragon Swords?❞
The problem was...... the problem was from here.
Can I swing a sword? And even if I can swing it, may I?
I have not yet received permission to undo the Twin Dragon Swords' seal. In that state, is it all right to rip this open and swing it as I please?
❝Use it if you can.❞
As if it had read that hesitation of mine, the enemy chuckled.
❝Sim Jae-gyeong, instructor in charge of Live Combat, gives permission. I'll take responsibility, so give it a go.❞
That statement — is it all right to believe it?
"Aaaaagh!!"
Just as I was about to hesitate over whether it was all right to believe the permission the monster had suddenly handed out, a scream burst out as if urging me on.
I ended up biting my lip hard.
『Both are still beyond you.』
『Take hold of White Fang alone.』
The moment my hand peeled off the outermost cloth, the Twin Dragon Swords expressed a savage power as if they had been waiting. The talisman cords and the silk were torn to shreds by that power, shortening the time.
"The instructor gave permission."
❝......Right you are.❞
Of the two Twin Dragon Swords I grasped White Fang, whose hilt and scabbard were dazzlingly white. The blade, reaching 1.37m counting only the edge, came out more easily than expected.
In a posture close to a cheer, holding the scabbard with one hand and the hilt with the other and spreading both arms as far as they would go, the rest took care of itself.
An enormous sword reaching 5kg was seized in both my hands and soared toward the sky.
『By a three-foot blade I swear to heaven.』
And the savage dragon the Twin Dragon Swords hold formed on the blade and raised golden flames. ❝Oh dear.❞ Someone's bewildered voice was buried in that ferocity and could not be properly heard.
『The mountains and rivers tremble.』
For me as I am now, merely enduring the Twin Dragon Swords' power was hard labor.
Unable to hold out any longer, I drew the sword downward.
Without a word of exaggeration, all under heaven trembled.
─────
¹those clad in black robes, holding black banners in their hands and mounted upon black horses
▷ Zangchuan. 『(Scripture on the Ten Kings)』. Translator unknown. Publisher unknown. Year unknown.
▷ Reference site: Samcheon Segye. (2017.05.17.).. Hwangnyongsan Hwangnyongsa (https://cafe.daum.net/sangwonsa/QecG/25)
Tab 20