1440 - Chapter 20

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 20
Watching Sugyun, Yeonsu considered the matter.
What he felt beyond the window was neither a young girl nor a laughing Vengeful Spirit. They were other lesser spirits that had attached themselves from a place where Spirit Disturbance had occurred.
Likely Sugyun had not been targeted by the Vengeful Spirits precisely because he was the only person who had not touched the Offering Table.
What the two Vengeful Spirits cared about most was not the Cinnabar Drawing drawn in blood, nor the incense sticks lit with such devotion. It was the Offering Table. Only that.
Yet one man had picked it up and eaten from it, while another had shattered it—not out of malice, perhaps, but shattered it nonetheless. How great must that rage be, and what joy to have found targets to torment.
That these two had remained unharmed so far was thanks to that alone. But safety was not an ending.
The energy circling outside Sugyun’s house had clearly been brought back from that place. And Duhee still woke screaming from nightmares every single night. Yeonsu could see the shadow of the Vengeful Spirit clinging to both his shoulders, draining his vitality.
Yeonsu rose from his seat and attached a Talisman to each of the four corners of the room that he had stepped upon. Against the white wall, the yellow paper gleamed strangely, holding hints of red lines.
“With this, you won’t feel the gaze anymore. Every few hours, take a small pinch of this salt and eat it, then drink fresh water afterward. And in the evenings, eat only a light meal of grain.”
As Yeonsu held out a small jar of salt, Sugyun took it from his hands.
“About that……”
Sugyun caught Yeonsu as he turned to leave. His voice was faint, but it carried resolute determination.
“I’ll take it. Whatever bad thing comes to Jin-hyung, I’ll accept it.”
At those words, Yeonsu fixed his gaze directly on Sugyun’s eyes.
Eyes that had curved gently and appeared soft suddenly sharpened, and though Sugyun was startled for a moment, he met that stare straight on. He needed to prove that his resolve was unwavering.
After holding his gaze in silence for a long while, Yeonsu quietly turned away. As he stepped through the entrance, the heavy iron door closed behind him. Through the closing door, Sugyun and Duhee’s bewildered eyes met.
Thud. The room was sealed off from the outside world once more, yet the air no longer pressed down upon Sugyun as it had moments before.
“Haa……”
Sugyun exhaled a sigh—relief and anxiety mingling—as he wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face.
“Jin-hyung……”
“Is that all? You’re really just going to leave Sugyun like that??”
Duhee followed Yeonsu as he strode across the parking lot with long legs, asking his question. Yeonsu confirmed the sacred implements once more in the trunk and nodded.
“Right now, there’s no immediate danger to Sugyun. The urgent matter is Jin-hyung and you.”
“Me? I’m in danger too?”
Yeonsu closed the trunk with a soft click and held Duhee’s gaze—looking down slightly at him—before speaking. His tone was flat, yet the content was anything but.
“Duhee. The dreams aren’t just painful anymore, are they?”
“……”
At Yeonsu’s words, Duhee clamped his mouth shut and stepped back. Yeonsu opened the passenger door for him and gestured him inside.
“Alongside the fear and pain you feel in those dreams, there’s an ecstasy that comes when you make contact, isn’t there?”
Yeonsu’s gaze traced slowly down Duhee’s body from head to toe. Duhee, unsettled by that look, hurried to fold himself into the passenger seat.
Rather than elaborate further, Yeonsu immediately pressed the accelerator toward Goeam Elementary School, where they had picked up the Calamity.
***
More than a month had passed, and the elementary school had fallen back into silence—the tents and tables that Duhee’s group had set up now abandoned in place.
Buffeted by wind and rain for a month, the tents were soiled and wrinkled. The rotted food scraps had been eaten away by wild animals, so mercifully the stench was not overwhelming.
The first place Yeonsu’s gaze went as he stepped from the car was the jungle gym against which Jin-hyung and Sugyun had posed for photographs.
The once-colorful jungle gym had lost its paint entirely, now appearing ominous instead. And that ominousness came from more than just weathered, faded coating.
“Can you see me?”
A little girl sat atop the jungle gym, swinging her legs back and forth. Yeonsu’s dark eyes fixed upon her and stared intently.
The girl, knowing that Yeonsu could see her, laughed with delight—yet she did not dare to draw closer.
“Can you see me?”
Yeonsu did not answer the girl’s delighted question, instead retrieving his implements. He carried a Long Sword in one hand and a Large Ritual Fan in the other, then instructed Duhee to stay in the car.
“Remain here. My companions will arrive shortly. Inside the vehicle is safest for now. If you were to come with me, the Vengeful Spirits who know your face would follow with delight. That’s why I left Sugyun behind as well. So don’t move until I’ve assessed the situation and return.”
“Y-yes……”
Duhee was anxious about being left alone in this vast sports field, but he reluctantly nodded.
A young male shaman—so young he seemed barely past Duhee’s own age. At first, Duhee had distrusted him, but he had watched as the man visited Sugyun and cleanly dispelled the uncomfortable heaviness that hung over his room.
Even to Duhee, who understood nothing of such things, the change was immediate—the room became bright and light. The shadow that had darkened Sugyun’s face seemed to lift as well.
And when he had gone to find Jin-hyung, the man had identified the hospital room where Jin-hyung lay without Duhee even having to tell him.
He must have ability. So if I do as he says, it should be all right.
With that thought, Duhee watched through the windshield as Yeonsu walked toward the school’s main gate.
The main gate stood shut as if it had never been opened. Yet Duhee’s group, fleeing in panic, could hardly have closed the gate politely behind them.
Before the gate, fallen leaves had been swept into a neat pile in one corner. Yeonsu gazed at this, running his fingers over the pendant hanging from his Long Sword.
The black pendant bore long tassels that reminded him of the hair of that man in the separate building. As Yeonsu rubbed the jade ornament of the pendant, he let out a long, low whistle.
“Wheee–, whew–.”
“Me?”
The little girl from the jungle gym had crouched at Yeonsu’s feet and looked up at him.
The girl was very small. Could she have been ten years old? She wore a summer dress, its design somewhat different from those currently in fashion, yet it did not seem as though centuries had passed.
“That’s right. Now let’s hear your story.”
Saying so, Yeonsu raised the ritual fan skyward. The little girl rode the fan—which now served the role of the Spirit Descent Rod—and mounted Yeonsu’s body.
In that instant, Yeonsu’s vision changed. From a height far lower than his own, as he pushed open the door before him, small white hands that were not his own came into view. They were the girl’s.
Her lowered vision was murky, imprecise. Like pulling out only what she had stored away, the memories worn thin with handling, the edges of everything frayed and unraveling.
***
The heat was oppressive. Even as the sun sank toward the horizon, the thick, humid air clung to her skin like a second layer.
She peeled away the hem of the one-piece dress her mother had bought her, unsticking it from her body as she climbed the stairs. Probably her sister was in that empty classroom somewhere, running through her acting scenes again.
Mom and Dad scolded her sister for chasing some silly dream of becoming an entertainer, but she didn’t see it that way. Even someone as clueless as she was could tell her sister was the prettiest person in all of Seoksong.
Her sister had won first place in the Seoksong High School popularity vote, and she was even class president now. As far as she could see, there was no one as beautiful and clever as her sister.
Small feet pattered up the stairs, one step after another. She remembered the torrent of nagging her mother had unleashed earlier.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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