Chapter 04 …
I went on at length, but to sum it up, it seemed he didn’t actually need the ring. Whether that was bravado or the truth was impossible to tell.
Since I’d even been warned not to use my voice, I sat back down again. I’d shown my goodwill in my own way, so there was no reason to press the matter further.
At that moment, there was another loud noise, and the door slowly slid open on its own. I glanced over, found nothing, and lowered my gaze again.
Then, all of a sudden, a chill ran straight down my spine. Even though my eyes were pointed downward, my senses were being dragged inexorably toward the door.
It wasn’t an emotional reaction—it was a literal cold. My feet began to ache from the chill, as if I were standing outside on a freezing winter day wearing thin summer shoes. My hands and feet went numb with cold.
It was far colder than what common sense would allow. Frowning, I drew my legs up, climbed onto the computer chair, hugged my knees to my chest—and still, my whole body shook uncontrollably.
Before doing anything else, I decided to think calmly. To be honest, this entire situation might be part of the old spirit’s scheme. A ploy to make me feel a sense of crisis so I’d follow his words. It was possible.
Still, based on the past few days of living alongside him, I wanted to believe he wasn’t an evil spirit. Self-help books say that truly malicious people are the most adept at deceiving others and making themselves appear charming, but at least the spirit I’d experienced so far seemed honest and sincere.
What should I even call that hard-to-describe trust?
Of course, I would continue to observe for a while before making any judgment—but once I did reach a conclusion, the responsibility for it would rest entirely on me. So I had to be careful. At the same time, in a discussion with no objective criteria, I also had to consider where “caution” was even supposed to begin. I was standing at the crossroads of trust and distrust. In that sense, this situation was highly suspicious.
And yet, separate from the situation itself, I couldn’t help feeling that I was being oddly calm.
Tilting my head at an angle, I thought, Isn’t there something wrong with me?
Resting my chin on the computer desk, I sat quietly and looked toward the deeper part of the computer room, where the sound of something breaking still echoed.
With the lights completely out, I couldn’t see anything clearly. All I could sense was the presence of something writhing in the darkness, and from near its shadowed feet came a low, turbid voice that fell like the growl of a beast.
It wasn’t a language I could understand. The spirit seemed to be replying to it, but that, too, was in an unfamiliar tongue. I tilted my head in confusion, then suddenly slipped the ring onto my finger.
“I know your name.”
From deep within the darkness came the old spirit’s whisper. It was different from the voice I knew. At times it sounded like a low murmur, yet at others it was clear and resonant, like glass beads chiming. If I had to describe it, it was strangely similar to the voice of an angel I might have heard in childhood.
This time, I could clearly understand what he was saying. The language itself was still unfamiliar, but the meaning came through. Only then did I begin to vaguely grasp what the ring of promise was meant to do. Hadn’t he always said it translated the languages of all living beings?
But separate from that, a new question arose.
Why was I still this composed?
Objectively speaking, wasn’t this the kind of situation where a normal person would be much more frightened?
Could this also be the ring’s power?
“Even if the dead wander like this, there is nothing to be gained. Are you not one of the followers of the necromancer Murmur?”
The instant his words ended, there was a loud bang and a chair toppled over. I was knocked backward as well, but recalling the spirit’s words, I swallowed my scream and crawled back to my feet.
It was as if the entire room had shaken. Several computers had fallen to the floor, cables were torn loose, and sparks flew here and there.
I decided my first priority was my own safety. Relying on the faint glow of a few computer screens, I roughly surveyed the darkness and slowly crawled toward an area that seemed safe, free of obvious hazards. Sitting there quietly, I looked around.
The noise had vanished. Everything was eerily silent.
Come to think of it, what does it actually mean to “seal” a demon? If you lock it in a jar, what does the demon do inside for thousands of years? Or does sealing mean gradual annihilation? And if so, what about low-ranking demons that aren’t sealed—like the one the spirit had just been dealing with…?
“Where is Murmur?”
The moment the spirit whispered in a cold voice, the lights suddenly flicked on with a click.
Under the bright lights, the computer room was revealed to be total chaos—far worse than I’d thought when I checked earlier in the dark.
Spotting shards of broken glass scattered everywhere, I immediately checked my palms and legs. Miraculously, I was completely unharmed. Only after confirming my own safety did I look toward the door.
Aseli stood there, apparently the one who had flipped the switch, wearing a stunned expression. When our eyes met, his face twisted into even greater confusion—and it was no wonder, given the state of the room.
“Solaya? What happened?”
He spoke with concern, but I wasn’t sure yet whether it was safe for me to speak. After all, I’d been told not to use my voice. I tried to find the spirit to get his consent first—but he was nowhere to be seen.
Still, nothing dangerous seemed to remain. I hesitated.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
Aseli hurried over and placed a hand on my shoulder. He spoke normally, and it didn’t seem like anything bad would happen if I replied. Soon after, someone came running in, and a teacher arrived, letting out a cry of shock—but even then, nothing unusual occurred.
Only after they’d begun moving around the room and talking did I take Aseli’s hand and stand up.
“I’m not sure. The room suddenly started shaking.”
“The room shook?”
Aseli’s eyes widened. When I nodded, he tilted his head in puzzlement.
“I was in the library next door and didn’t really feel anything. I just heard a loud noise and came running….”
“Mm. Thanks. It startled me.”
“Maybe you should go to the infirmary? What if your leg’s injured?”
Only then did I notice that when I’d fallen backward from the chair, I must have hit the desk or computer—my stockings were torn at the knee. It didn’t seem like I was injured, but I nodded anyway. The only question lingering in my mind was where the spirit had disappeared to.
“Hey, Asel. Did you see anything strange on your way here?”
“Strange?”
“There were weird sounds when the room shook.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t notice anything like that.”
Tilting his head, Aseli suggested again that we go to the infirmary. There was no reason to refuse, so I followed him down the hallway.
As expected, my leg was perfectly fine—the only damage was to my stockings. They were a new pair I’d bought when I entered high school, so it felt like a regrettable waste of resources. Fiddling with the torn fabric at my knee, I resolved to throw them away later and withdrew my hand.
The teacher and Aseli speculated about whether it might have been a localized earthquake. They seemed to want a more detailed explanation from me, but I had no way to explain the bizarre phenomenon in the computer room myself.
How was I even supposed to begin?
“Actually, a strange spirit claiming to be Solomon’s soul has been hanging around lately, said he’d defeat a demon, flew into the corner of the room, and then everything got freezing cold and shook violently”?
No one would believe that—I wouldn’t believe it.
Before that, even I didn’t fully understand what had happened. My thoughts leaned toward the idea that this had all been part of the old spirit’s scheme to persuade me.
However, the spirit didn’t appear again for quite some time. Days passed after that strange, unreal incident, and only then did he quietly reappear by my bedside. Before I could even ask about what had happened, he spoke first, his expression serious.
“Solaya. That boy you often spend time with—the one whose name carries joy.”
“Aseli?”
“Is he, by any chance, a magician?”
“No way. He has nothing to do with anything like that. He’s a pastor’s nephew.”
“A pastor’s nephew? So he has ties to a church?”
“Ah—yes. That’s how it is. I joined the choir because of him, too.”
“I see. Then it may be an innate ability….”
The spirit muttered to himself. I cut him off and asked directly.
“Sir, you didn’t stage all that just to persuade me, did you?”
“What kind of thing is that to say?”
He looked openly hurt.
“The timing was just too perfect. Wasn’t it some kind of suspense where you dramatically swoop in to save me?”
“What do you take me for? Besides, if anyone saved you dramatically, it wasn’t me—it was that boy. There was a magical barrier, however weak, yet he broke through it. I don’t know how he managed it, but his spiritual power must be exceptional. Simply turning on the lights became a kind of exorcism ritual.”
“Aseli?”
When I asked with wide eyes, the spirit rested his chin on his hand, thinking seriously, then frowned slightly.
“What’s strange is that it was closer to annihilation than salvation of the soul….”
He trailed off, sinking into thought. But I had no intention of waiting for him to finish pondering.
“More importantly, sir—where did you go?”
“Ah, that.”
He smiled awkwardly.
“I thought I’d recovered quite a bit of strength from following you around and listening to good words and good songs, but apparently not. I only shouted with a bit of power, and afterward I struggled just to reconstruct this spirit body.”
“So that body is something you create using your power?”
“Yes. Compared to forming a visible physical body, it requires very little energy—but right after forming one, trying to create this temporary spirit body again put a bit too much strain on me.”
“A physical body? Is that why your voice changed that day? Is that even possible?”
“It’s not a material body. Just enough to be visible even to ordinary people with no talent. If I gather my strength again, I might manage it—but for now, it’s difficult.”
After that, he seemed lost in thought. Arms crossed, brow furrowed, he suddenly lifted his head toward me a beat later.
“Girl.”
“Yes, sir?”
“What do you think about asking that boy Aseli for help? With his level of ability, if he polished it just a little, the things you’re worried about probably wouldn’t happen.”
“I don’t really want to drag other people into danger. That doesn’t mean I’m saying I’ll handle everything myself, either.”
“Sharp as a blade. I think the same, honestly. Hm….”
After swallowing his hesitation, the spirit asked carefully.
“Solaya. Do you truly not want to do this? If it’s really, truly too much—could you lend me the ring for a short while? From what I’ve learned following you, it seems I might be able to recover some spiritual power by visiting places akin to sanctuaries in this era. If I repeat that process, perhaps I could manage something with just the ring.”
He spoke haltingly, and when our eyes met, he panicked slightly and hurried to add,
“Of course, it’s a precious item your parents left behind, so I’ll resolve everything as quickly as possible and return it. It used to take quite a long time, but since it’s not my first time, I should be able to do it fairly quickly.”
“But it looks like the time you need to recover is already quite long. You clearly said it was a ‘low-ranking evil spirit,’ yet dealing with it alone consumed all the power you’d recovered over an entire month.”
“Well… I’ll do my best. If I offer prayers or advice to Gabriel to bless the sanctuaries, perhaps my spirituality would recover faster….”
But even as he spoke, his shoulders drooped. I studied his face for a moment, then frowned. Perhaps because it was the first time he’d seen me frown, the spirit’s eyes widened.
Despite his strange appearance—a young man’s face with a beard gone completely white—there was something childlike in his eyes. His silver irises, bright and gentle, examined me closely. Suddenly, a hymn seemed to echo near my ears, as if softly pushing me forward.
I didn’t think this spirit was evil. Everything about his behavior so far suggested as much. What he was saying now did, too.
Of course, I couldn’t be certain. There was too little evidence to speak of validity in the first place.
With no evidence at all, no judgment could be fully rational. That meant there was only one question I could decide on: whether or not to spend time on something that offered little benefit.
After all, this wasn’t something I could write in a personal statement, résumé, or school record. “Saved the world by defeating demons”—it was a credential I could never use anywhere.
Rationally speaking, there was no merit. And without merit, there was even less reason to invest time. And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about the spirit—Solomon.
“To weigh on one’s mind” is a strange thing. If something bothers you, you should be able to ignore it. But if you can’t, there must be a reason buried beneath that feeling. And what was that reason? Pity? No. Sympathy? Unfortunately, no.
Then what?
The ring? Or maybe the hymn.
Either way, there was no logic that truly made sense. With even the most basic clues missing, I was trapped in endless armchair theorizing. In the end, I simply felt as though I’d been gently pushed forward.
Still frowning, I looked at him, crossed my arms, and finally made up my mind.
“This ring is very precious to me.”
“Yes, your parents’ keepsake, I know—damn it, Gabriel, your handling of things—so of course it’s precious. Hm. This is troublesome….”
“To be honest, I don’t even remember my parents’ faces, and I don’t know whether I loved them. I’ve never strongly loved or hated anything. And sometimes I think I’m excessively calm. I rarely get shaken. But even if I have emotions that don’t waver easily, I think it’s not a bad thing to let my parents be an exception. You could say I’m trying to pursue a ‘human’ kind of life.”
My grandfather had tried to raise me that way. Now, that “human” and “ordinary” life had become my teacher, guardian, and guide in his place.
Because of that, I have an obligation to live a stable life—without attracting blame, without standing out. Even if I’m not deeply connected to others or society, I need to act as though I am. At the very least, instead of ignoring the affection given by others, I should respect it and think about it.
Even if I can’t match other people’s emotions beat for beat, I shouldn’t belittle them. My grandfather wanted me to someday live a peaceful, happy, ordinary life without scars.
To fulfill his final wish, I didn’t need to make any great sacrifice. If anything, it would probably benefit my future self more than harm me. It wasn’t difficult—relatively easy, in fact—so there was no reason I couldn’t do it, if all it required was a bit of effort.
At least that much—if not as much as my grandfather loved me, then in my own way—I cared about him.
“That’s why this ring is very precious to me. And why I need to think of it as precious.”
At my words, the spirit fell silent. He looked like someone who had something he needed to say but couldn’t. Solomon’s lips moved aimlessly before he finally took a deep breath and glanced at me.
“Solaya… actually, that ring—Gabriel—”
“This is the only thing that connects my grandfather and my parents to me. Maybe it’s because I’m still immature, but I don’t feel any real affection toward my parents. I didn’t before, and I don’t now. I don’t know about the future. But if I treat this ring as proof that my parents loved me, I feel at least a little more connected to them.”
I tilted my head, then corrected myself more precisely.
“At the very least, it gives me a reason to believe that I feel that way. And this kind of tangible, easy-to-understand ‘evidence’ is extremely important to me. Without it, it’s hard for me to truly feel things.”
That was the truth. Defining it that way and engraving it in my heart mattered more than whether I genuinely felt it.
“I might have been born a cold, unfeeling person, but I don’t see the need to take a heartless stance even in matters where I don’t have to. Treating the ring as something precious is the minimum human effort I can make.”
“That…”
After groaning for a while, Solomon finally managed to speak.
“No. Never mind.”
He lowered his gaze, looking oddly deflated, then gently tapped the bridge of my nose.
“Old age makes one talk too much.”
Then Solomon smiled softly. His bearded young face wore the expression of an old man well past eighty. Once again, he reminded me of my grandfather.
“I only meant to ask if you’d lend me the ring so I could return it as quickly as possible. But you’re right—my proposal lacked consideration. I’m sorry. I’ll find another way.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Hm?”
The spirit stared at me in astonishment.
“What did you say?”
Armchair theorizing. I could have left it unresolved, since it wasn’t a question that demanded an answer. But I looked straight at him and shrugged.
“There’s only a month left until vacation ends. Let’s start. How do we summon Vassago?”
The spirit’s pale silver eyes widened, then he smiled gently, his face kind.
“To summon a demon, you must know their true name. A name symbolizes existence. Without clearly understanding that existence, you cannot call them forth from the unknown darkness.”
He spoke as if reciting a poem or natural law, whispering,
“Thus, you must call it in their own language and pronunciation, not one translated into human speech. Our first step, then, is to find the book of unauthorized names—the Lemegeton. I suggested Vassago as the first contractor because I am the one who gave him his name. In other words, I can tell you his true name without the book.”
“King Solomon gave demons their names? Sir, honestly, that doesn’t inspire much trust.”
“By giving a name to a wandering mass of thoughts, he became bound to me. And I created the gentlest and wisest of demons.”
Solomon closed his eyes and murmured softly.
“Yes. His name is ‘Vassago.’”
The sound was strange. The word traveled through the ring, spread slowly, and struck my brain directly, producing an odd vibration. The hem of Solomon’s robe fluttered, then settled.
“For those with spiritual sensitivity, ‘renown’ itself becomes ‘power.’ Thus, bearing the third name when listed in order, he is the third most powerful among demons. Among them, he is called the ‘Prince of the Wise.’”
I lowered my gaze, quietly watching the white robes drifting like clouds around his small body, then responded honestly, without holding back.
“I’ve been thinking this since you brought up ranks, but demon-related titles really aren’t very relatable.”
Solomon, who had suddenly put on airs only to say something unconvincing, ended up laughing awkwardly.
