[727] Face Off (4)
One second repeated, and the lucky slot began cycling into a new card.
'I have to decide fast.'
He couldn't spin the roulette forever; thinking took time.
'This is harder than Scramble Royal.'
Back then he only had to pick one from black or white, but WhiteBlack had many more card types.
'There's only one chance.'
Even if a resuscitation card appeared, inertia could make him trigger Si-Bulsang-Pokmae and waste everything.
'That's it!'
As the card's glow peeled away, the characters for resuscitation blurred into view beside an S-rank card.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!"
He slammed the brakes on his racing thought, and an electric shock ran up his spine into his brain.
"Puuuuuuuu!"
That was the second.
"Th-This can't be…."
In that short instant, what the White participants saw was Shirone's card flashing like it had gone mad.
"How did he do that?"
The resuscitation card in Shirone's hand steamed like freshly baked bread.
Breeze swallowed.
'It actually came out.'
He didn't know what magic it was, but it was clearly something that could manipulate probability.
"Okay, take the rest of the cards back."
When Shirone held the cards out, the four participants flinched as if about to leap, then glanced at one another.
Even Ballad, who would normally have acted instantly, couldn't move in front of Shirone.
'He's not just any mage.'
Like the true essence of magic, there seemed to be nothing impossible for him.
"Distribute them as you see fit."
Shirone handed the cards to Breeze.
"M-me?"
She'd been the only one to show gratitude when, representing the White zone, the Harmony of Law had been invoked.
"They're cards I don't need. By the way—can this resuscitation card be used here?"
Atria shook her head.
"I don't know. I've only heard about it—never seen one. We weren't trained like the Black zone…."
Breeze cut in.
"Weapon cards have fixed activation ranges. It's probably a circle about two meters across centered on the card."
If cards had no activation area, there would've been a bizarre battle spanning the ridges of Anaki Mountain fought only with cards.
"Then we'll have to go back to Kai."
Just as Shirone turned, Breeze spoke.
"Can't I come with you?"
While the other three participants looked puzzled, Shirone said,
"I'm Black. As long as Kai is in Black, I'm not changing the Law. In the end you'll have to fight me, won't you?"
"It's not about the survival test. I need one more resuscitation card. If you delay saving Kai until the end, I'll try to find a way. I'll get a card that can be duplicated somehow…."
Marco frowned.
"Hey, what are you saying? A resuscitation? And he's Black. Do you seriously think he'd do that?"
"How would you know?"
"Ugh!"
At the cutting look, Marco hunched, and Shirone turned back to Breeze.
"Why do you need a resuscitation card?"
To someone who had already seen the contradiction of WhiteBlack, sorting people by Law meant nothing.
"That I can't reveal."
Judging by the card's effect it must be a matter of life and death, yet Breeze bit her lip and shook her head.
'Is this a secret she'd risk her life to keep?'
If she wouldn't explain, Shirone couldn't help her.
"I can't accept that. Sorry."
He ignored the sight of Breeze bowing sadly and firmly teleported away.
'I have no choice. Saving Kai comes first.'
Arriving at the place he had memorized, Shirone went straight to the tree where Kai's corpse had been laid.
"What the—?"
The body had vanished without a trace.
'It was definitely here.'
If his teleport had been cast correctly, there was no way he'd mistaken the place.
"Looking for Kai?"
A voice from the bushes made Shirone whirl, photon cannon raised.
"Come out."
"Wait! Calm down! I'm not here to fight!"
The figure who stepped out was a short man in his mid-thirties with large glasses.
'A weapon card's effect?'
Otherwise there was no reason he hadn't been detected through the Spirit Zone until now.
"I know what you're thinking."
The man said, "I'm a detective. Special ability: Ambush. When I don't move, no one can sense me."
"…Where is Kai?"
"I want to make a deal."
The man drew a weapon card.
Punggakjaengi (Function).
Description: The better the performance, the longer its aftertaste lingers.
Effect: Can replay sounds that occurred in a designated area within the last two hours.
"A detective-appropriate card. I found Kai's body and used Punggakjaengi. I heard what happened here. I know you met with the White participants. You came here, so you must've gotten the resuscitation, right?"
"What do you want?"
"For now we're on the same side. You're Black. But you're a Seeker; you might side with them at any time."
It was already a foregone conclusion that Shirone's side would win WhiteBlack.
"So here's my offer. Give me all the White participants' cards. I'll give Kai back."
He wanted to tell them to all die, but pushing too hard would backfire.
"You know the cards have activation ranges. If I don't tell you where I hid Kai… ugh!"
Shirone's eyes chilled.
"Why should I accept that? I can ask you right here."
No weapon card could restrain Shirone.
"You should make a smart choice. Kai is—"
As Shirone's eyes widened, the man pulled out another weapon card.
"Stupid bastard! You'll regret this!"
Old Position (Consumable)
Description: Everyone has moments when they think, 'Why did I do that back then?'
Effect: Return to your position from one hour ago.
"Activate! Old Position!"
The man's shout echoed through the mountain valley.
"...."
He stared at his now-empty hand, pupils shaking with shock.
'H-How—?'
All he'd seen was a flash.
"Not anyone can do that."
When the man turned dazedly, Shirone was already holding the Old Position card he'd snatched from him.
Snatching a card mid-teleport is a technique only high-ranked mages can pull off.
"You have to concentrate until your head feels like it'll split. So yeah, I feel awful right now."
Faced with Shirone's most terrifying threat, the man forced an awkward smile and backed away.
"Ha ha, well…."
"Kai, where are you?"
"Damn it!"
He had grasped the definition of a mage: someone who stands outside WhiteBlack's Law.
* * *
Labyrinth Andre.
In the otherworld landscape where structures resembling living hearts hung connected like fruit….
"Fuuuu."
Shirone sat cross-legged.
'Still not there yet?'
Maintaining the Wheel of the Void required unbroken focus; his mind couldn't wander.
'I think about six days have passed.'
The moment Kido's guarded entrance into Andre opened, Shirone had activated his concealment and slipped into the otherworld.
'Has the fight ended?'
He was currently ten meters below Andre's surface by real-world measurement.
Outside sounds were muffled as if submerged, and now even those had faded.
'I'll go crazy from this claustrophobia.'
He couldn't know what the nineteen thousand Shirones scattered across different worlds felt.
But intuitions beyond logic kept pressing in through his circuits of insight.
'I'll lose my mind if I stay like this.'
Undefined, tangled emotions only increased his frustration.
'I've never felt this trapped before.'
Even when he developed God's Punishment, it hadn't felt this suffocating—and he'd broken through that.
"Is this Andre? Not much to it, actually."
At the voice from above, Shirone snapped his head up.
'Who is that? Kido?'
He rose and followed the otherworld's uphill path to the surface, where unfamiliar figures came into view.
'Easterners?'
From their looks and dress they were people of the East, dozens of soldiers trailing a woman.
'Incredible. That stride…'
Through a mage's sight, the leader's spacing and posture were flawless to the inch.
"Your Highness, I sense no human presence. Perhaps Shirone has already finished exploring the labyrinth?"
'They know me.'
At the words of a clearly skilled man, Shirone climbed the mound of the otherworld.
As reality and surface vision aligned, he could study their faces clearly.
"Foolish, Mungyeong."
They had yanked space in an extreme pull to cross instantly from Jessica to Andre—this was Seongeum's party.
Seongeum's large pupils moved slowly; even twenty meters away Shirone could see them clearly.
"Not registering doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Assassins exploit blind spots in instinct, don't they?"
Mungyeong knew assassins could hide presence with Assimilation, Equalizing.
But that was within the human realm; for a guardian protecting the Jincheon Empire's princess, such a claim was absurd.
"Your Highness, that Mungyeong is not so dull."
How many assassins could deceive the senses of someone allowed three paces by the greatest sorceress, Jin Seongeum?
Seongeum sneered. "Then tell me—what color is my heart right now? Guess it and I'll reward you."
A reward she truly wanted, but Mungyeong could only tilt his head.
"I don't understand what you mean."
"Is that so? I'll show you myself."
Seongeum turned and slowly raised her hand.
"Reveal yourself, dweller in the heart."
As her arm swept from left to right, reality itself peeled away like a cuboctahedron.
"Th-That's…!"
Not only Sambo but even Jixma, watching from the rear, wore looks of shock.
Where reality had been cut away, a completely new landscape unfolded, like the cross-section of a fruit.
"Who are you! Reveal yourself!"
Sambo's members who had spotted Shirone drew their swords and assumed fighting stances.
But their expressions were still blank with incomprehension.
'No way. How can someone be in there…'
If the blond boy had been an assassin, anyone but Sambo would have been helplessly deceived.
"Choeni Bardo, one who walks the threshold between life and death."
Jin Seongeum immediately grasped the esoteric meaning woven into Shirone's technique.
"Are you Arian Shirone?"
Seongeum's voice, unusually tense, shocked Mungyeong the most.
'Her Highness—getting nervous?'
Shirone's smiling lips trembled thinly.
'I see. This is the level of an Ivory Tower candidate.'
Without any further explanation, simply separating reality and the otherworld was enough to identify him.
"Jin Seongeum."
It was the first meeting between Ivory Tower candidates.