Yunhwi, who was in Baekyeongji, looked gaunt.
Baekyeongji lay close to the capital, the complete opposite of the isolated village Seonghwi had overseen. People were always coming and going.
“Another dead end....”
Harassed day and night by unclean things, dark shadows had settled beneath Yunhwi’s eyes. His complexion was poor, but his resolve remained firm.
He tried, no matter what, to grasp even the smallest clue—who exactly was the one standing behind Seonghwi.
Soone who could command nonhuman beings so freely should have been a shamaness of considerable renown, and yet he could not uncover her identity. The uncertainty gnawed at him.
“I’m telling you, it’s true!”
Just then, a drunken old man tried to push past Yunhwi’s guards from sowhere nearby.
“What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Just a drunkard—please don’t concern yourself.”
“It’s true! I’m telling you it’s true!”
The old man, as if bursting with frustration, hurled the liquor bottle clutched in his hand. Clang—! A sharp crash rang out.
“There really was a shamaness who swallowed an entire village!”
The old man, who had sought out Yunhwi as he investigated the shamaness, poured out his resentnt.
“Wait. Don’t stop him.”
There was sothing here. Yunhwi sensed it. This old man would yield a clue.
“When I was young, I lived in a tiny village near Jinchyeonji. It was a very small village.”
The old man spoke through tears. There had been a shamaness in the village—her divine power so great that when drought struck she brought rain, and when famine threatened she made the land fertile.
“If her power was that great, why did she stay stuck in a place like that?”
“It was her husband’s hotown. That place. After wandering all her life, she wanted to settle down and put roots in the ground.”
The shamaness devoted herself to tending the village, but even those who had once adored her gradually began to fear her, unable to see her as the sa kind of human. The power she wielded was not human.
“After she got pregnant, the villagers grew even more afraid. They didn’t know what kind of monster would be born, or whether it would be friendly to us. So even said she must’ve eaten human essence and that’s how the child got in her belly.”
The old man sniffed with his red nose, then broke down in sobs.
“But it really was a monster! Yes! I went to visit a cousin in the neighboring village near Jinchyeonji for a few days, and when I ca back, the village was gone—just gone. It had to be that shamaness bitch and her child, swallowing it whole! The village! My wife, my precious children...!”
Yunhwi furrowed his brow. If this man’s words were true, then the enemy’s power defied imagination.
After all, an entire village had been swallowed—and yet not a single whisper of it had reached his ears until now.
“What was the na of that village?”
“I don’t know.... Maybe it ate all my mories too—I can’t rember.”
“But you’re certain the village was located right beside Jinchyeonji?”
“I told you it was! But it’s strange—no matter how many people you take there, you can’t find the road. It’s like it never existed. Like it was never there at all....”
Perhaps even every mory of that village had been erased entirely. Yunhwi pressed his lips together.
“Then what is it that remains in your mory?”
The old man, who had been wailing, answered with vacant eyes.
“She said... when the baby was born, she’d give it that na. Whether it was a boy or a girl, she said she wanted to give it that na no matter what.”
From far away ca the clashing of gongs and the beating of drums, a chaotic din.
In this pitch-black world, beneath moonlight shining on the river,
the flowing waters go on their way.
Though heaven’s decree is already set,
the road before is still long and distant.
It was the lively song of a traveling troupe.
“Yeomga.”
Yeom of fla, ga of jade.
Yeomga’s na had not originally been Yeomga. It was the na of the child she had lost her mind and killed with her own hands.
A na she had given, wishing for a life that would shine brightly. And yet, a na she would never be able to call—or hear called—again for the rest of her life. She took the na of the child she could not let go of and made it her own.
Each ti she was called Yeomga, she must have chewed over that na again and again, clutching a heart that burned as if she had swallowed a mass of fla.
Yeomga, this mother will surely avenge you.
The clowns of the troupe were drawing closer. In ti with the song, thud thud thud thud—footsteps rang out.
Even if black clouds fill the sky and nothing lies ahead,
still, the moon rises bright.
“You must go.”
The child at the front of the troupe spoke as he looked at Yunhwi. Startled by the troupe’s sudden appearance, the guards who had been hiding stepped forward like a wall, but the child showed no sign of surprise. It was as if he already knew Yunhwi was soone of noble status.
As though he had heard of Yunhwi’s identity from sowhere.
The song they sang, too, was a tune wishing safe return for one departing on a long journey.
“Do you know who I am?”
The child did not spare the guards a glance, keeping his gaze fixed solely on Yunhwi.
“The ti has co, Your Highness.”
* * *
The mont Yeomga’s spell was barely broken, what spread before their eyes was a vision of hell.
“What in the....”
Myungdo and Seoryeong froze where they stood. Piles upon piles of rotting corpses lay stacked high. Young and old alike had their eyes rolled back, their gaping mouths crusted with dried blood.
It was a miserable sight, as if soone had slaughtered their very lives.
Seoryeong slowly approached them. The maggot-infested corpses looked as though they had been dead for only a few months.
The insects that had been writhing as they devoured flesh scattered in all directions with a sssshk— sound at Seoryeong’s appearance.
In that instant, Seoryeong realized sothing.
“This is strange.”
She lifted the clothes of one of the corpses.
“Be careful. They were surely sick with so kind of disease.”
Myungdo imdiately caught Seoryeong’s hand as she did so. As if unable to tolerate her touching sothing filthy, he wiped her hand with his own clothes.
Bite marks covered the exposed arm of the corpse. Seoryeong traced her fingers over nearby wooden pillars, their surfaces roughly gouged as if by scratching.
Nothing was intact. It was as though soone had gnawed at them.
On one damaged pillar, sothing had been carved, sared with blood.
Baekyeongji.
“They didn’t die from disease....”
“....”
“They starved to death. Slowly, over a very long ti.”
A hidden, isolated village. People so starved they had to carve up even the pillars of their hos to eat. In a place where not a single blade of grass remained, they clawed at each other, trying to devour one another, until every last one of them died. Why had Yeomga created such a hell?
“...Is it a curse maiden?”
Beside Seoryeong, who stood dazed, Myungdo spoke first. Looking closer, each corpse was missing a finger.
“Heeheehee.”
Just then, a child’s laughter echoed from sowhere. The two turned their heads as if entranced.
“Heeheeheehee.”
One, two, three.... Children in filthy clothes were giggling as if amused. Despair flickered across Seoryeong’s face.
“No!”
The children ran—too fast to catch. As Myungdo was about to dash after them, Seoryeong urgently grabbed his arm, clinging to him.
“They’re all dark spirits....”
The children were running en masse toward sowhere.
“Are they heading to where Yeomga is?”
“...Yes. It was written on the pillar. Baekyeongji.”
A place with heavy foot traffic—perfect for spreading a plague.
At that mont, a small cloud of dust stirred from the ground. Like fog that had concealed this place, it thickened, growing dense.
Then the corpses that had been sprawled across the ground began to rise.
Myungdo drew the sword at his waist. He stood firmly in front of Seoryeong, guarding her so that no one could touch her. The sharp blade was aid at things that were no longer human.
“Pointing a sword won’t matter. Their target won’t be us.”
What they wanted was not the lives of the two standing here.
“Isn’t this a child-ghost talisman?”
“That draws the soul out of the corporeal spirit and uses it. It has no physical form. But look at them....”
What Yeomga had created—she who was human yet not—were beings that had died, and yet had not died.
“What Yeomga made... is an army that can never die.”
The corpses, too, began running swiftly. This ti, in the opposite direction—toward the palace. Myungdo’s face went pale as he understood Seoryeong’s words.
Dark spirits that spread plague.
Undying ghosts that could never be killed.
“Pull yourself together. We don’t have ti for this.”
Seoryeong grabbed the stunned Myungdo and pulled him close, eting his eyes.
As if this were the last ti. As if they were about to part.
“Listen carefully. Go to the palace. Every curse has a way to break it. There will be an object Yeomga uses to bind their souls. You have to find it.”
Myungdo could not say a word, only stared at Seoryeong. Calm and resolute, that expression upon her cool face—
The sa expression she had worn when they first t. The face of soone prepared to die.
“Break the undying ghosts. Then attach these talismans to the foreheads of the fallen corpses and burn them. I’ll go after the dark spirits and erase them myself. Understood?”
Seoryeong pulled out a handful of talismans from her robe. She closed her eyes briefly and recited an incantation. Myungdo still could not take his eyes off her.
His eyes reddened, shimring as if tears would spill at any mont.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let a rebellion happen. Okay?”
If I go, then you—? Myungdo could not bring himself to ask. His trembling throat tightened, as if refusing to let her go like this.
Seoryeong forced the talismans into Myungdo’s hand. The rustling sound was heartbreakingly loud.
“Go.”
“....”
“I said go. I poured all my remaining divine power into those talismans. Go.... Only after you leave can I break the binding.”
The mont the binding was broken, Yeomga would sense her location. If Myungdo remained here, it would be dangerous.
“...If you take that path, your life will be in danger.”
The words spoken by the child of the troupe ca back to her. It was all right. She could save Myungdo. Seoryeong looked up at him and smiled brightly.
“Don’t make that face, okay?”
“...You—”
“Co get . I’ll be waiting in Baekyeongji.”
A lie. Seoryeong was better at lying than anyone. And so this ti as well, she calmly spoke words she did not an.
“I won’t kill Yeomga. Like you said... I’ll seal her divine power and keep her alive to the end. I won’t trade my life for it. Ever.”
Yeomga’s divine power far exceeded what Seoryeong had imagined. To face her, she would have to risk her life.
“Here. Give this back to when we et again.”
Seoryeong untied the white cord bound around her arm. She tied the five-blessing cord embroidered with lotus flowers around Myungdo’s arm instead.
With her small, white hands, she turned Myungdo’s body—and then gave his back a gentle push, as if telling him to go.
At last, tears spilled from Myungdo’s eyes.
“Go. Run. There’s no ti.”
She turned and ran in the opposite direction, leaving Myungdo behind. Listening to Seoryeong’s footsteps, Myungdo staggered forward.
He didn’t even have the strength to run. The road he had to walk alone, leaving Seoryeong behind, felt unbearably bleak. Tears stread endlessly. He clenched his teeth so hard his jaw muscles bulged. His eyes burned red.
“You asked what my na was!”
Seoryeong stopped mid-run and shouted.
“My na is Seoryeong! Seo of auspicious, Ryeong of chi!”
At the sound of her voice, Myungdo stopped as well. On the desolate road, the two stood facing opposite directions, like mirror images.
The distance between them was small—yet it felt as though they would never et again.
“Long ago, Jeongan gave that na...! Back then I pretended to hate it! I told her not to call that! That even if she didn’t na , I already had one—I lied!”
With his back to Seoryeong, Myungdo closed his eyes. He bit down hard, trying to endure, but the tears would not stop.
“Because until then, I didn’t have a proper na! I was afraid I’d look foolish if I liked it too much! And when I missed the timing, I couldn’t bring myself to ask to be called that later—it was too embarrassing!”
Myungdo bowed his head deeply.
“...Anyway, my na is Seoryeong!”
She finally gave him the na she had kept hidden until the end.
“Goodbye! Live a long, long life!”
As if shouting a final confession, Seoryeong ran again, leaving Myungdo behind. After listening to her footsteps for a long while, Myungdo slowly lifted his head.
His eyes had changed. He was no longer a man shedding tears of farewell. With the gaze of soone who had made an unbreakable resolve, Myungdo sprinted forward.
He had to reach the palace. As Seoryeong said, he had to find the thod to break the curse, destroy every undying ghost, burn them all—and then go back for her.
Because they had promised. Because Seoryeong had, for the first ti, promised she would not die.
It was a promise that must be kept. A promise that must never be broken, no matter what. He ran like a madman, his robe flaring behind him.
Not for ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) rebellion—but for love.
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