Chapter 186
Rise blushed at the excessively close distance.
Feeling the heat filling her body, she trembled slightly, and when she felt Jinseong's hand pulling her closer, she relaxed her muscles and leaned in.
Rise's body pressed against Jinseong's shoulder, and she assumed a posture similar to someone dozing off on a subway, leaning on the person next to them. In this position, Rise discreetly moved her eyes to look up at Jinseong, and she could see his eyes looking down at her.
In this situation, Jinseong whispered softly to Rise.
"Come closer."
Someone was coming.
At that whisper, Rise felt a sense of confusion settling among the heat filling her face, and when she sensed a discordant presence approaching the tent amidst the divine power filling the outside, her expression hardened.
Jinseong smirked at Rise, who had grasped the situation, and flicked his hand again to put the light escaping from the Moai back inside. He then levitated the halved clay lump in the air and covered the Moai keychain, sealing the Moai and mana back into the dark, dirty clay.
However, the mana seemed to try to escape again, emitting a faint light and crawling out through the cracks in the clay. Jinseong, as if not intending to watch the mana crawl out, lit Samadhi fire at his fingertips and gently blew it like dandelion seeds, pushing the sparks into the sphere to burn the mana.
The Samadhi fire's flames, which burn non-material things, began to flicker using the mana as fuel, and though not large, they provided enough light to illuminate the inside of the tent as they danced.
* * *
"Ah. How nice."
The female martial artist who had drawn the short straw for patrol sighed as she looked at the tent.
"Some people are flirting while I..."
Light emanated from the tent as if a lamp had been turned on, and shadows were visible.
The shadows of what appeared to be a man and a woman, leaning on each other and overlapping.
It looked like a posture of exchanging glances to kiss the woman leaning against him. Moreover, with the martial artist's keen Qi sense, she could feel that the two were actually overlapping their bodies, using the already cramped tent even more tightly while exchanging body heat.
The martial artist looked at the tent enviously from just in front of the sacred rope, and couldn't help but sigh deeply at having to wander through the terribly bizarre forest where rumors of ghosts were rampant, while someone else was nurturing feelings of love with their partner.
A cursed Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, really...
The martial artist sighed, remembering her senior who had gone on patrol the other night and returned claiming to have cut down Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
The story of the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva ghost is creepy enough...
As she turned her eyes to the forest, she saw numerous trees, and an equal number of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva faces. The Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva faces seemed to smile as if inviting her to step into the forest, wearing compassion like a mask. Perhaps it was her imagination, but due to the densely packed trees, the smiles seemed to change shape along with the flickering of darkness that was gloomy even during the day.
Faces as numerous as the trees.
Faces smiling compassionately.
Faces smiling in the same color as the darkness.
Faces where only the color of the tree surface remained as lines and dots between the darkness.
Those faces that looked even more eerie as if only faces were floating in the dense darkness, reflecting the faint light!
She didn't want to enter that forest.
Never! Absolutely not!
But...
Why do we have to patrol even during the day? If they've brought in experts who can solve the problem, we should just leave it to them.
She looked at the contrasting atmosphere of the temporary shrine and the shadows of the future chief priest and shaman cuddling in the tent, wearing a regretful expression.
How nice it would be if I had a lover and could do that.
No, I don't even wish for a lover, just how nice it would be to laze around like that in the dormitory.
No, I don't even wish for rest. Training would be fine.
Just how nice it would be if I didn't have to patrol this forest.
She lingered in front of the sacred rope, lamenting.
But only for a moment.
She finally decided to accept her fate and moved away from the sacred rope, taking heavy steps into the forest one by one.
I'm the sinner for drawing the winning lot. My luck is the sin...
How could she draw the winning lot out of dozens in just one try?
How could she, going first, draw the winning lot on the first try!
She lamented her luck, recalled her senior's Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva story that came to mind every time she entered the forest, and felt the creepiness and fear she had experienced when she had sneaked a look at the 'composite sketch' drawn by her senior.
But every time, she told herself that this was something she had to do, that if she didn't do it, the master would make a fuss, yelling that she didn't have the proper spirit of Jigen-ryu, and that being scared now was better than the terrible pain and physical hardship.
She hypnotized herself like this and patrolled the forest.
However, unlike usual patrols, her patrol was perfunctory, focusing on quickly escaping the forest after roughly checking only the important parts.
As a result, she was able to finish her patrol significantly faster than usual, and she spent time standing near the sacred rope. She stared blankly at the tent where the shadows were no longer visible as the light had gone out, and when she thought, 'I've probably spent about the same amount of time as usual,' she returned to the training ground.
"Patrol completed. Except for the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva faces on every tree, there was nothing unusual."
"Is that so? What about the people from the shrine?"
"They seemed to be resting in the tent now."
"Both of them?"
"Yes. They were both inside the tent."
"Ah. Is that so? Well. They said they're getting married soon, so... Alright. I understand."
She roughly reported what she had seen to the master, and the master smirked at hearing that both were in the tent and dismissed her. Then, out of 'goodwill' towards the two people holding the key to solving the problem, he abandoned the idea of sending regular patrols to find any anomalies and canceled all patrols to allow the two to spend time intimately.
Of course, he couldn't directly say that he was showing 'goodwill' to let the two spend time intimately...
"The future chief priest and shaman from the shrine are now stationed in the forest. They are focusing their minds to solve this problem, and I have judged that our patrols might disturb or interfere with that. Therefore, I am canceling all planned patrols and replacing them with training instead!"
"Woohoo!"
The master glossed over the reason for canceling the patrols.
"And the reason for canceling is not just to avoid disturbing the two. It's because you're all unnecessarily scared! No matter how ghosts are specialized in being bizarre and frightening people, you're fearing them more than necessary! Even if you've seen something incredibly bizarre, you should just stay alert and swing your swords to defeat it, but you're already showing signs of hesitation!"
"We're sorry!"
"Of course, I understand! You're just diligently training and it's too early for you to experience real combat! Also, you might be scared because you're dealing with something formless rather than something with a body! Isn't that right?!"
"No, sir!"
"N-no, sir!"
The master gathered the martial artists and shouted loudly.
At the end, when the master asked his question, some foolish martial artist almost answered 'Yes,' but the martial artist standing next to them moved their hand like lightning to strike their side, preventing them from acting like an interrogator and changing their answer to 'No.'
"That's right! Of course! That's how it should be! I don't know about martial artists from other schools, but our Jigen-ryu martial artists shouldn't be like that! Whether it has form or not, no matter how dangerous, even if the King of Hell himself appears before us, we must not be afraid! Understand?!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Fortunately, there's no fool who answered 'yes' to my question just now! But why can't you put into practice what you know so well in your heads? Isn't it because your bodies are too comfortable that you're getting scared?!"
"That's right, sir!"
"Right! When the body is comfortable, other thoughts creep in, and all sorts of useless thoughts seep into the body like poison! From now on, instead of taking turns patrolling, you'll be undergoing hellish training! Are you ready?!"
"Yes, sir!"
The master chose the method of maintaining morale by exhausting them to the point where they couldn't think of anything else, as he had done until now.
But the martial artists were positive even at the master's prediction of hellish training.
It was because simply doing slightly harder training than usual was much safer and more comfortable than entering a 'forest where there might be evil spirits or something similar that the people from the shrine have to deal with directly.'
And the female martial artist who had just returned from patrol felt the same way.
Yeah, this is better.
She breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that it was better to have her body ache from training rather than testing her luck again in another draw.
* * *
"They're gone."
"Y-yes..."
For some reason, the martial artist who had been staring intently at the tent left.
And as the martial artist left, the two who had been sticking close together to deceive them naturally separated.
Rise, who had been almost embraced in Jinseong's arms, raised her body while lowering her flushed red face, and moved her fair hands up and down like a fan to try to calm the burning sensation on her cheeks.
But even so, the heat didn't easily subside, and she breathed hot breaths thinking the tent was hot. And she glanced at Jinseong from time to time.
Jinseong looked at the clay that had stopped emitting mana and had become a deformed sphere. Then he picked up a few scattered feathers from the ground, placed them on his palm, and blew on them with a "whoo-" The feathers moved gently and spread in all directions.
And as the feathers fell to the ground, they created a pattern that seemed to resemble a lock.
"Now no one else will come."
Jinseong muttered this as he opened the zipper and came out of the tent.
Huuup.
As he came out of the tent, the smell of the mountain filled the air.
The scent emitted by the trees.
The smell emitted by the damp earth.
The smell of beasts felt here and there.
The smell of insects and animal secretions carried by the wind.
And.
The incredibly musty smell of mold from the talismans and sacred ropes.
Jinseong took out a camping metal cup from his luggage, placed it on his hand, and while creating condensation using cold energy and Samadhi fire, he muttered,
"Robigus, Robigus! Great god of mold!"