Chapter 02
The area around me was filled with fir trees, not ginkgo trees.
And the palm mats that should have been laid along the path were nowhere to be seen.
Was this some kind of dream I was having while in a coma? If you realize you’re dreaming, doesn’t it turn into a lucid dream?
I looked up at the sky first.
It felt like the sun would set within an hour or two.
Dream or not, I needed to get down the mountain. A mountain after sunset was dangerous.
“Ugh.”
The moment I put my hand on the ground, pain surged through my back.
Would pain really feel this vivid in a dream? Gritting my teeth as I complained under my breath, I forced myself upright.
While wandering around trying to find a way down, the sun began to set.
Just as I finally found what looked like a path people used and was about to feel relieved—
Something I had never seen in my life came into view.
“…A carriage?”
My clothes were strange enough, and now a carriage too.
They say dreams reflect the subconscious. I must have been reading too many martial arts novels.
It looked expensive. Was someone important riding in it?
Drawn in by the ornate exterior, I approached the carriage.
Something felt off. The carriage had tipped over onto its side. There was no one inside it, and no one around it either.
It looked like everyone had abandoned the carriage and fled.
Maybe I’d run into them if I kept going downhill?
Thinking optimistically, I hurried forward—only to stop dead in my tracks not long after.
Behind the overturned carriage, hidden by its massive bulk, was something I hadn’t seen before.
A pile of bodies.
“—Hk!”
I clapped a hand over my mouth.
If this was a dream, it was far too vividly horrifying.
“Hel… help…”
At the voice coming from the pile, I instinctively turned to run—but the words of a monk caught at my ankles.
‘All living beings fear death and violence. Just as I do, so do others…’
“…Therefore, do not intentionally kill life, nor allow it to die.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
If I hadn’t realized it, maybe I could have fled. But with the monk’s words echoing in my mind, I couldn’t run.
“They’re not even real bodies. It’s a dream, right…?”
…It had to be a dream.
Even so, I didn’t want to face something this horrific, even in a dream.
‘Buddha, please help me.’
Chanting a prayer silently, I approached the mound of bodies.
The sun sank even lower, darkness seeping into the crimson scenery.
The sight became even more terrifying. I wanted to bolt immediately. Just looking at the faces made cold sweat pour down my body.
Sweat stung the wound on my back.
Driven by a desperate desire to get out of here as quickly as possible, I examined the faces.
As I looked at a face with comparatively less blood on it, the cheek twitched slightly.
I flinched, then carefully reached out my hand. When I poked the pale cheek, it reacted, jerking faintly.
The woman’s eyelids trembled with effort before opening.
“Wan… ah?”
The woman who called my name weakly grabbed my arm.
“Y-you… run… away. You…”
Her voice was faint, but her lip movements alone were enough.
At least you.
“Hey—!”
I tried to wake her, but from the slope came a sharp snapping sound—something breaking.
Then came footsteps, unmistakably different from an animal’s.
I knew instinctively.
Meeting whoever that was would not end well.
* * *
Damn it—what the hell is going on?
A curse I’d never spoken aloud slipped from my lips.
I was sitting in the middle of a cave, gasping for breath.
I wanted to lean against the cave wall, but I couldn’t—there was an arrow embedded in my back.
The fact that I’d even managed to carry the woman this far was a miracle.
Should I have just stayed put?
But the footsteps snapping branches had been unnaturally fast.
Fast enough to trigger a primal sense of danger.
My instincts were usually accurate.
You could say it didn’t matter since it was a dream, but I was the kind of person who didn’t want to die even in dreams.
Running alone would have been easy, but I couldn’t leave the woman behind. Leaving her there would have been the same as killing her.
“What do I do now…?”
How am I supposed to wake up back in my dorm room? I have early-morning practice, and more importantly, the evaluation match is coming up soon!
As I clawed at my hair in frustration, something toppled over with a dull thud.
When I looked to the side, the woman—whom I had propped against the wall—had collapsed sideways.
“H-hey!”
I hurriedly sat her back up.
I remembered hearing that wounds should be kept higher than the heart, but it didn’t seem to help much.
A long gash ran deep from her shoulder down across her chest.
Even now, blood was slowly seeping from the wound.
“…What if she dies?”
If she died, I’d feel terrible even after waking up. Even if our connection was brief and only within a dream, I had to save her.
Should I tie it with my clothes?
I looked at my dirty skirt, then took off my under-trousers. But even those weren’t ideal for binding.
As I rummaged through my clothes for something else, my hand caught on something. Clink. An object fell from my clothes and struck the stone floor with a clear sound.
A dagger.
Why would I have something like this on me?
Startled, I quickly picked it up and began cutting fabric.
After finishing a rough emergency dressing, I picked up the dagger I’d set aside.
In the moonlight reflecting off the blade, I saw a thin engraved pattern.
On closer inspection, it was writing.
“Baeksan (白山)?”
That was also the name of the temple where I had grown up—Baeksan Temple (白山寺).
The monk had said it was taken from Baeksan, one of the old names for Mount Baekdu.
When I flipped the blade over, another set of characters appeared. These too were familiar.
Shin-wan (愼薍).
“…So it really is a dream.”
The character registered on my family records was 莞. The head monk had named me with 薍, but said it couldn’t be officially registered.
In other words, it was a name only the two of us knew.
I’d seen somewhere that shocking yourself wakes you up from a dream.
After some hesitation, I poked my finger with the dagger.
“Ow!”
I threw the dagger away and clutched my finger. Instead of waking up, it just hurt.
Rumble!
“Huh?”
Thunder…?
“No—what is that?”
The wall I’d thought was the end of the cave was opening.
Literally—it was moving inward.
Chapter One: White Python
The narrow space was filled with a light far brighter than the moonlight above.
As the blinding glow slowly subsided, the source of the light revealed itself.
On the floor where the dagger had fallen lay a bracelet, shining pure white.
As if bewitched, I stepped closer to it. The bracelet, carved from clear and transparent gemstones, resembled a dragon coiled into a circle.
The moment I picked it up, an exclamation escaped my lips.
“Wow.”
How did they carve out every single scale like this? The jade set where the dragon’s eyes should be gleamed like the eyes of a living creature.
As I ran my fingers over it, the scales suddenly lifted once—then settled back down.
“…Did I imagine that?”
This is unreal enough that it really must be a dream. So why am I not waking up?
Using the faintly glowing bracelet as a light source, I looked around.
Directly in front of me lay a piece of cloth with writing on it. The dark reddish letters, as if written with a rough, dried-up brush, were broken and faded in places.
“Baeksan… Pa?”
“The senior disciple of the Baeksan Sect (白山派), Gwak Jagyu (郭子規), leaves these words for those who come after.”
Many of the characters were blurred, so it took time to read, but I could grasp the meaning.
This place had been sealed so that only disciples of the Baeksan Sect could undo the formation, and the sect’s sacred object—the White Python Bracelet (白蟒釧)—was to be taken back to Baeksan.
“I must’ve read too many martial arts novels.”
Muttering to myself, I lifted the bracelet.
“So this is the sacred obj— Aah!”
I collapsed backward on the spot.
What the bracelet’s light revealed was a skull.
First a corpse, and now a skeleton?!
I swore, called out to the Buddha, and generally made a scene.
Then I remembered that this was a dream and forced myself to calm down.
That was when I realized who the skeleton must be. It was probably Gwak Jagyu.
The former senior disciple of the Baeksan Sect who had left behind a testament along with the White Python Bracelet.
Even in a dream, one should observe proper courtesy.
I knelt in front of Gwak Jagyu and, just like a monk I once saw, paid respects to the deceased.
“…May you be reborn in the Pure Land. Namu Amitabha.”
For a moment, it felt as though a dead soul were gently patting my head. It was probably just the wind.
When I opened my eyes again, the skull no longer seemed as frightening as before.
I spotted the bundle clutched in Gwak Jagyu’s arms and was just reaching out—
Tap.
A footstep sounded, deliberate, as if someone had made it on purpose.
Thinking the woman had woken up, I turned around—and froze.
“So this is where the princess wandered off to.”
At the unfamiliar voice, I turned my head. A man stood there, dressed in clothes that looked ready to melt into the darkness at any moment.
Absolutely not a good person.
My instincts were screaming it at me.
“So it was you.”
I saw the man’s finger twitch ever so slightly. In the next instant, a blue-tinged throwing knife, its edge keen and sharp, appeared in his hand.
“P-please, spare m—”
Just as I clasped my hands together and begged, a deep, resounding voice echoed, shaking my heart.
<Unenlightened mortal (無始凡夫). Will you take my hand once more?>
“…What?”
It wasn’t the man’s voice.
The inhuman voice spoke again.
<Do you wish to live?>
“O-of course I do!”
“Hah. Even a flood dragon (蛟蛇) loses its wits when faced with death, it seems.”
The instant the man swung his hand, my palm turned ice-cold.
<All things are created by the mind alone
At the same time as the voice, light burst forth from my hand and knocked away the man’s throwing knife.
The bracelet I had been holding had transformed into a short, pure-white bow.
An unknown force drew back the string, and a formless arrow pierced straight through the man’s throat.
As I watched his body collapse, my consciousness faded.
Ah… when I open my eyes, please let it be somewhere I recognize
