Heavenly Secrets

Just in time. Shin Yuyu's face was the only thing I couldn't erase from my mind.

No matter how I thought about it, she was the only person on Earth who would act according to my wishes. I welcomed her, helped her to her feet, and seated her in the chair across from me.

"Your hand……."

"It's fine. It'll heal soon."

"That obviously isn't an injury that's going to heal soon."

"You'll see if you wait a little. More importantly, what brings you here at this hour?"

"Hmph, do you think I came because I wanted to?"

That answer said it all. The Heavenly Record had sent her here again.

Unlike the Association's hunters, who were busy traveling between Earth and the Empire to operate the Pamagok hunting grounds, Shin Yuyu had been staying here almost constantly lately. In truth, the reason was rather amusing.

Shin Yuyu had originally been hired to guard the Association employees. However, once they had paid tribute to the Empire and secured permission to hunt, and the base camp established near Pamagok had stabilized, there was no longer any reason to maintain her contract.

From the Association's perspective, continuing to spend hundreds of millions of won to employ an S-rank hunter when there was no danger was a burden. They were already spending astronomical sums purchasing mana stones from the hunters.

Even so, they couldn't simply cast aside someone who had helped them, so someone at Headquarters came up with a good solution. They changed the screening regulations by setting fairly lax standards so that she could enter Pamagok like the other parties, but…….

"Did you fail again?"

"……Yeah."

"I heard you only had to avoid failing any one section."

Apparently, even that wasn't enough to get her accepted.

According to Moon Seoyeong, there were far too many grounds for disqualification. She had a history of destroying several guilds and half-destroying a city while fighting an S-rank hunter, and she had failed the aptitude and personality test six times. Apparently, she had neither teammates nor anyone willing to form a party with her.

Fortunately, under the regulations, the Association was prohibited from bringing her into Pamagok; it didn't have to evict someone who was already staying there. So she was living inside relatively freely.

She seemed dissatisfied with that.

"You could make an exception and let just me come and go!"

"Order is maintained by rules. If you use the Association's resources to come and go here whenever you please, how would the other hunters regard its authority?"

"You're noisy. I didn't come here to listen to a lecture. Anyway, you must be happy."

"Happy about what?"

"Unlike some people, you have everyone fawning over you right at your side."

Was she talking about me? Shin Yuyu ostentatiously grabbed and shook the stack of papers on the writing desk.

They were the posts from the gallery that Moon Seoyeong had reported to me that morning.

"They really are making a spectacle of themselves, thanking you for teaching the Seven Great Powers a lesson and begging you to come over to Earth already."

"They know little about me, so they must merely be flattering me excessively."

"Your subordinates are the same, aren't they? Especially this one: 'The only true consort of Great General Yoo Hyun is the single maidservant Yeonri at his side.' There's also something about…… what is this?"

"Hm?"

I didn't know what the last one meant either.

Anyway, Shin Yuyu looked dejected, as though she had been upset by not being acknowledged. But then she changed her expression and sat down with her arms folded and legs crossed, as if she had already known everything and come prepared.

"You have something you want to ask, don't you? I heard it all from the old men in the book."

"That's right."

"Let me make this clear: I don't usually move for money. This time, I only made an exception and granted the request because I felt sorry for the Association's people and, in any case, it was for the sake of the country."

"Then what do you want?"

If she wanted mana stones, there were enough rotting in the government warehouses. But she could simply buy them on Earth, so she probably didn't need any.

The reason she had come here in the first place must have been because her ancestors had ordered her to. As I listened intently, Shin Yuyu swallowed hard and spoke.

"I'll grant your request if you bow your head to me personally."

"All right."

"You can't, can you? You, who always look down on me arrogantly and call me a barbarian and all—what!?"

It wasn't difficult at all. I could make use of an S-rank hunter practically for free? Weighing Shin Yuyu's strength and value, it was an extraordinarily favorable condition.

When I was a constable, I had even bowed my head to Jangmu. Before she could change her mind, I immediately started to rise, and she was so startled that she threw herself across the writing desk. Her two pale hands, filled with magical power, pressed down on my shoulders.

"Wait, wait! What if you actually do it!?"

"You told me to."

"Even so, a man shouldn't casually bow from the waist in front of a maiden!"

Perhaps it was the influence of her clothes or abilities. At times, Shin Yuyu seemed more patriarchal than even me, despite my being from a premodern era.

"M-more importantly, you're the Great General of a nation!"

"Yuyu, you seem to have misunderstood something about me."

"Hm?"

She had intended to take revenge for being forced to prostrate herself so humiliatingly when we first met, but apparently she had never expected me to accept so readily.

Looking at her trembling pupils from close range, I corrected her misunderstanding.

"It is not because I am the Great General that my subordinates and subjects serve me. Rather, I sit in this position because I serve them, just as I devote myself to His Majesty the Celestial Emperor."

I had not personally carried out anything decided at the council of war. Finding the enemies and driving the magical beasts toward them had all been achievements of my subordinates.

"Do you think I make you prostrate yourselves because I am intoxicated by my own authority? I do it simply to fulfill my role. Conversely, if bowing serves that role, there is no reason I cannot bow my own head. It is simple logic."

"What is your role?"

"To protect this place. Just as you did when you followed the Association here."

"I……."

"Whether barbarian or magical beast, I have a duty to protect those precious to me from every threat beyond those walls."

"……."

Shin Yuyu fell into thought. It would be troublesome if she demanded another payment now. Should I have bowed sooner? As I was pondering that, she spoke in a trembling voice.

"I'm in your castle right now, too. Does that mean I'm included among those you say you have to protect?"

"That's……."

"Forget it. You'd just call me a barbarian or something again, wouldn't you?"

"No. You, Yuyu, are……."

The book in her possession writhed. What was I supposed to say?

It felt as though I had to choose my words carefully to persuade her. Then a word came to me.

"A belo……."

"What?"

"An attached barbarian."

"?"

"Let's leave it at that for now. Ahem, you're something very special."

There was no need for formal etiquette, and she did not mind me speaking casually. I remembered how my subordinates had half-jokingly asked whether she was my concubine, since the Heavenly Record occasionally had me seat her beside me. Shin Yuyu was the only barbarian who could wander freely around the military camp without anyone stopping her.

Fortunately, I had changed my words quickly, but I wasn't sure how she—or, more precisely, the ancestral spirits she served—would take the replacement. Honestly, if I had a granddaughter or daughter, I doubt I would be pleased at all.

"Attached……."

She did not make important decisions on her own. I guessed that dodging the Staff of God outside the door had been the second divination. To prevent her from seeing the remaining one, I reached toward the Heavenly Record on the table as Shin Yuyu rose.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Have you made your decision?"

"More or less."

Her lower lip was sticking out, but her cheeks were strangely flushed. As she straightened her collar, she finally noticed that I was holding her Heavenly Record. I had expected her to shout at me to hand it over immediately, but instead, as if she had no great attachment to it, she simply gestured at the broken door and opened it.

"I'm coming back, so hold on to it."

"You don't need it? This is your……."

"It's fine."

"Why?"

"Because you aren't in danger."

Even without the Heavenly Record, I was not in danger. With those words, she flew away into the night sky.

*

Shin Yuyu crossed over to Earth through a rift and headed for the East Sea.

The ship carrying the Ignis Guild had left the harbor several hours earlier and was headed for America with a cargo of mana stones. A torrential downpour that had begun at sunset soaked the deck.

"Mr. Lee, it seems one of our hunters has boarded the ship."

"Who on earth is it?"

"We're checking now. You'll see them on the screen in a moment."

"Is that…… Shin Yuyu?"

An alarm sounded aboard the ship as it detected the magical power she was emitting. Lee Dowon, who had been in the captain's room, hurried up onto the deck, but Shin Yuyu paid him no attention and muttered to herself.

"They said you were someone I was supposed to serve, but did they send me here just to humor some man like that?"

"Boarding our ship is illegal! If you don't leave immediately, we'll file a formal complaint with the Association!"

"It's not that I dislike him. No, I would dislike him if you took away his words, actions, status, and appearance, but this is nothing like what I expected."

In truth, she had already consulted all three divinations. Once the reason for her being in Pamagok had disappeared, she had not known what to do next.

At first, she had naturally assumed it meant she should remain at Yoo Hyun's side to help South Korea, which was being gnawed away by the great powers.

《We_want_Yuyu_to_be_happy.》

"I thought my ancestors were pillar gods, but were they actually matchmakers?"

"Hey! Hunter Shin Yuyu! You know perfectly well that you can't lay a hand on us!"

Well, at least it was better than a high-school-girl VTuber. Muttering that, she slipped on her jangsam and took out her bells and fan.

The ancestors wanted only the happiness of the last surviving descendant of their bloodline, not the prosperity of their country. From the moment Shin Yuyu chose Yoo Hyun, the restriction on her unique ability no longer mattered.

"Even now, don't cause any unnecessary trouble and return to Korea……."

"There are people like that sometimes, I tell you."

"Hunter Shin Yuyu?"

"Fools who think a divination is nothing more than a prediction of a fixed future written in a book."

Spirit Invocation. The sky opened amid the wind and rain, and countless streams of magical power poured down from above, winding around Shin Yuyu's body.

"Child like a floating weed, whose ancestors' hands tore out your roots and whose own hands even disgorged your ancestral home."

Only then did Lee Dowon realize what she was about to do and shout to the subordinates on deck. Most of the Korean guild members had failed to return after Yoo Hyun's attack, so the merchant vessel carried only American hunters from the guild's headquarters.

They did not properly understand what Lee Dowon was saying.

"S-stop her……! She's going to reveal the heavenly secrets!"

"Pardon?"

"Heavenly secrets? What does that mean, Mr. Lee?"

"Fuck, is that what matters right now!? If you don't want to die, shut that woman's mouth by any means necessary!"

Spirit Transmission. With a snap, she folded her fan, hooked one of the strands of magical power, and began chanting as if wielding a spear.

"Unaware that an elder sat upon the threshold you crossed beyond the boundary, you strode in without even removing your shoes."

The hunters realized something was wrong too late and unleashed a coordinated attack on her. Countless spells and concealed weapons bounced off the blue barrier raised before Shin Yuyu.

She closed her eyes and did not retaliate as she endured every attack. She merely continued reading the heavenly secrets.

"Even after being driven out, the one who stubbornly returned to steal even the family's heirlooms is the worst kind of shamelessness."

"Bring every magical tool we have!"

Lee Dowon tore open the container swaying in the fierce waves and fired the remaining Staff of God at Shin Yuyu.

With a boom, an explosion erupted and the barrier shattered, but it did no more than singe her clothes slightly. Even so, an opening had appeared, and just as they were about to attack through it and finish her off—

Spirit Sight.

"The sky sank low, the wind turned back on itself, and the water rose like a mountain, unaware that it would come crashing down upon your head, hastening your end."

"Damn it, damn it!!"

"Ah, even if you pray to the heavens a thousand times, it will surely……!"

Your ship is fated to encounter a storm and sink before reaching port-.

With those words, Shin Yuyu turned away without a trace of lingering attachment. She did not even look at the despair on Lee Dowon's face.

And a few days later.

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.

.

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[Breaking News - Seven Great Guilds' Ignis merchant vessel presumed sunk…… Association investigation hampered by signs of undeclared cargo.]

"This is today's news?"

"Yes, Great General!"

The newspaper Moon Seoyeong brought contained a short article stating that the merchant vessel carrying Ignis Guild members had disappeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.