Chapter 36
I gave the gourd flask in my hand a light shake.
‘Hmm. It went in fine.’
That was a relief.
I had rushed the finishing touches because I’d made it in a hurry yesterday, so it was a bit rough, but it seemed to be working properly.
I could feel a faint vibration, as if the curse spirit inside the flask were thrashing around.
This is kind of fun.
It even felt a little like fishing.
I lifted my head.
But then.
……?
The lecture hall was as quiet as death.
The students, and the woman standing at the front, were all staring at the flask in my hand.
They must have been thoroughly shocked by the curse spirit that had suddenly escaped.
“H-How did you just…….
The woman who looked like the assistant who had just told me not to come in was staring at me blankly.
How did I do what?
Wasn't this sealing studies class?
You've never seen a gourd flask before?
Then the guide beside her spoke up.
“Ahaha…… this is Master Do, the artisan. We came to see Professor Goo, but the professor is currently….
―Kyaaah!
Suddenly, someone in the student crowd let out a short scream.
Startled by their own cry, they hurriedly clapped both hands over their mouth.
That was the spark, and the students started murmuring.
“Why is he the Blade Artisan?”
“They say he’s the Blade Artisan?”
“Huh? Seriously?”
“Who? Who?”
“You know, that E-rank artisan. The Blade Emperor who caused such a stir……!”
“Wow, damn. He’s insanely handsome.”
“That’s the Blade Emperor……?”
Back on Goblinfire, everyone had been going on and on about the Blade Emperor, so hearing it in person was awkward.
It was embarrassing, and it made my skin crawl a little.
Before the students’ whispering had even died down,
끼이이익―
the back door of the lecture hall opened, and someone came rushing in with hurried steps.
A man in a black suit, with slicked-back hair and glasses, had a somewhat decadent air about him.
“P-Professor Goo!”
The assistant ran over to him.
The professor kept scanning the lecture hall over and over.
“Was something wrong? I could have sworn the seal was broken―
His words trailed off.
……?
The man looked around the lecture hall, unable to make sense of the situation.
So that’s Professor Goo.
He must have sensed the curse spirit breaking loose on the way here.
But the one that had broken free was already inside my flask.
“Miss Siyeon, what exactly happened here?”
He asked the assistant.
The female assistant stammered out an explanation of the situation.
During the practical, the sacred cord had snapped and the practice curse spirit had gotten loose, and I had sealed it.
“……You sealed it? Master Blade Artisan?”
He looked at the guide once, then at me standing beside him.
The guide quickly jumped in to introduce me.
“This is the Blade Artisan who came for this commission.”
The professor looked surprised for a moment, then held out his hand to me.
“……My apologies for the late introduction. I’m Goo Do-gyeom, professor of sealing studies at Korea Exorcism University.”
“Ah, yes.”
I lightly shook his hand.
Even as we shook hands, the professor still looked dazed.
“……But did you really seal the Heuksan-gwi, Master?”
“Yes. I had just happened to make one.”
I held up the flask in my hand.
“……Then who did the weakening?”
Goo Do-gyeom turned his head toward the assistant and the guide.
But both of them kept shaking their heads.
“Could it be…… did you do the weakening yourself, Master?”
Weakening?
Was there even such a step?
Since this was the first sealing vessel I had ever made, I had no way of knowing about rituals or steps like that.
‘You just seal it. What procedure is there to it?’
“……No. I didn’t do anything like that.”
“……Pardon?”
Professor Goo’s eyes widened behind his glasses.
“Th, then what you’re saying is…… you sealed the Heuksan-gwi directly, without even weakening it?”
“……Something like that.”
I tilted my head, wondering what the problem was, and Goo Do-gyeom’s expression grew even more peculiar.
He looked like he had just seen something terribly wrong.
“Hah…….”
After staring at me in silence for a long while, he seemed to come to his senses and spoke again.
“……For now, please come to my laboratory.”
***
On the way to the laboratory with the professor.
I quietly took out my phone from my pocket.
‘What the heck are Heuksan-gwi and weakening, anyway?’
At a glance, Heuksan-gwi was clearly the name of a curse spirit.
I had looked it up before, but there were so many kinds of curse spirits that I couldn’t memorize them all one by one.
I felt like I had once seen a post on Goblinfire that roughly sorted curse spirits by type.
The moment I opened the Goblinfire app to look up some information.
One post title on the main banner caught my eye.
[HOT] Heard the Blade Emperor showed up at the Exorcism University?
‘……What the hell is this.’
└ Stop lying, lol
└ It’s real. Go to the Exorcism University tab.
Without thinking, I tapped the thing called the Exorcism University tab.
[HOT] Blade Emperor spotted at the school right now!
└ Comments 68
[Live] Accident in Sealing Studies just now, damn ㄷㄷ
└ A Grade 2 curse spirit almost got out. They say the sacred cord snapped.
└ Wow, that was close. So what happened?
└ The Blade Emperor solved it.
└ ??? Why is the Blade Emperor suddenly here?
└ No idea. Looks like he came by request.
└ He was about to be screwed, but he just stuffed it into a gourd flask without even weakening it?
└ What? How is that possible?
└ Because he’s the Blade Emperor.
└ Only the Blade Emperor.
‘Hmm.’
The reaction wasn’t bad.
As I absentmindedly clicked the next best post, I froze.
[HOT] Breaking) The Blade Emperor is seriously handsome.
└ Don’t bullshit me. No way.
└ For real. He looked really young. He was insanely handsome.
└ Damn, what doesn’t he have, honestly...
└ No, this is making me feel deprived….
…….
I turned off the screen and stared at the face reflected in my phone.
Come to think of it, that apothecary father and daughter really are amazing at what they do.
It was definitely worth the money.
Honestly, I’d been a little nervous when I first changed into this face.
I was worried about what I’d do if someone noticed I had changed my face.
But no.
Not a single person thought that.
It turned out there was a good reason for that.
A spell that could completely change a face had, in the first place, never been known to the world.
According to Seo Ji-an, it was that old apothecary’s own secret technique.
And for some reason, the father and daughter were keeping that technique completely hidden and only taking in a tiny number of customers through word of mouth.
Even Seo Ji-an didn’t seem to know the exact reason.
‘……Well, it’s convenient for me, so that’s good.’
It’s ridiculously expensive, though.
Still, now that I had plenty of money, I could buy and use something like that whenever I wanted.
‘Kya, there really is nothing money can’t do.’
Feeling satisfied, I put my phone back in my pocket.
“Please, come in.”
***
The laboratory was neat and tidy.
Like a laboratory, one wall was lined with rows of preserved specimens in glass jars.
Professor Goo led me to a sofa.
"Please have a seat. ……Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"No. I’m fine."
"I see…… Then let’s get straight to the point."
He sat down opposite me and picked up the tablet on the desk.
“First, would you look at this?”
After tapping the screen a few times, he turned it toward me.
A video was playing.
Deep in the mountains.
Beyond the layered barriers, something enormous was writhing.
At first I thought it was some kind of big deer.
It had the shape of a white beast, with deer-like antlers growing from its head, and blue spiritual energy rose from its whole body like mist.
A spirit beast?
No, it looked more like one of those divine beasts you only see in anime.
But then.
Kraaaaaaah―
The divine beast was ramming itself madly into the barrier with bloodshot red eyes.
It didn’t care at all that it was hurting itself.
Every time it hit the barrier, dark red blood splattered everywhere.
"……This is a restricted zone that recently appeared on the slopes of Unhak Mountain in Gangwon Province."
Professor Goo spoke with a hard expression.
Watching the screen and listening to the explanation, I understood the situation at once.
In short, it was this: that rampaging beast had originally been a benevolent local deity that had protected the residents of the area for ages.
But one day, it had suddenly gone mad and turned ferocious.
The problem was that a powerful clan rooted in that region revered the guardian deity with terrifying devotion.
"Because of that, the higher-ups want us to avoid exterminating it if possible. They say it’s only gone berserk after being possessed by something for a while, so we should find a way to capture it and calm it down."
So they couldn’t just kill it as they pleased.
According to Professor Goo, even if a high-ranking sorcerer made up his mind and went after it, he couldn’t say for certain that he’d be able to exterminate it.
They were asking him not to kill such a monster, but to subdue it peacefully.
It was an absurd demand, to say the least.
“But…… the problem is that we can’t trap that thing with an existing sealing vessel.”
"It looks like it has formed a spirit body."
“……Yes. That’s right. How did you know?”
In fact, after hearing this was a sealing-vessel request, I had studied up a bit in advance yesterday.
I still don’t know much about exorcism.
But come to think of it, I had made something similar in the game before.
That was the inventory bag!
The quintessential item for handling subspace.
After digging through my Secret Friend Apprentice Diary to study it.
As expected, my guess was right.
The basic formula of a sealing vessel was nothing more than adding a barrier to an inventory to prevent leakage to the outside.
So last night, I tried making one on a whim, and this flask was the result.
Once you understood the basic principle, the shape didn’t matter—whether it was a bottle or whatever.
‘……Well, it was pretty useful.’
It had just sucked up whatever that Heuksan-gwi was a moment ago.
However.
‘The problem is, it won’t take objects.’
It was when I made that portable forge kit last time.
Even after making it as light as possible, it was still rather cumbersome to carry around.
So I tried making an inventory...
But it failed.
I couldn’t tell why, but the subspace never opened.
It seemed not all of the game’s theories carried over intact.
But I had found a related passage in the apprentice diary I searched through for the sealing vessel.
―Things made of spiritual power, grudges, and vengeful spirits can be sealed. However, once they grow too powerful and gain a physical body, that is, a spirit body, they can no longer be trapped by a normal sealing vessel. The master said that in such cases……
And just then, it seemed the next page contained the answer.
I turned the page.
“……?”
It was blank.
The flow clearly continued, but the very next page was completely empty.
As if someone had deliberately erased it.
Well, that meant I still hadn’t succeeded in making an inventory.
"......."
The divine beast in the video was still rampaging wildly.
“……In short, you want me to make an artifact that can seal yokai or monsters with spirit bodies. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Professor Goo gave an embarrassed smile.
“It’s embarrassing to say even after explaining it. I do pride myself on being something of an authority in this field, but…… even I have absolutely no way to handle it.”
“…….”
“The technique for sealing spirit bodies…… has gone extinct by now.”
He adjusted his glasses slightly.
“But your reputation as a master artisan has been incredible lately. And that rechargeable spirit stone too. So I thought maybe you might have a way to solve this problem, and came to you like a drowning man grasping at straws.”
“…….”
He glanced at me cautiously.
“……Of course, you may refuse.”
Refusal, huh.
I looked down at the flask I had been fiddling with in my hands.
A flask that swallowed curse spirits.
Come to think of it, this was the first time I had ever made something like this.
Even if a sealing vessel and an inventory were fundamentally based on the same principle, there were still differences.
The inventory was just a pouch for storing items, but this flask swallowed living things that struggled and thrashed.
It was rather interesting how the same subspace could be put to such different uses.
And on top of that, this time it was a vessel for sealing something with a physical body.
My heart started pounding.
I was already excited to see what kind of thing would come out of it.
"Sounds good."
I nodded and tucked the flask back into my arms.
"I’ll make it for you."
"Pardon?"
Professor Goo blinked.
“R-Really? Do you perhaps know some method?”
"No."
I answered casually.
"I’ll start making it now."