“Urgh…”
Sim Seowoo barely regained consciousness. He had lost consciousness during the fall into the bottomless pit when the ground suddenly collapsed beneath him. It wasn’t the feeling of being swept away by debris in the aftermath of an earthquake—he had completely plunged into pitch-black darkness.
The situation was so chaotic and surreal that even Sim Seowoo, who had lived through all sorts of experiences and normally remained detached about most things, felt flustered. He struggled to lift his eyelids and survey his surroundings.
It was hard to make anything out clearly in the dim darkness around him, but it seemed he had fallen into some bushes. Breathing was much easier than before, so he could instinctively tell he had escaped outside the Guiyeok.
It seemed he had fallen somewhere on the mountain…
Sim Seowoo slowly raised his upper body and checked his own condition. Though his whole body ached, there were no serious injuries anywhere. Perhaps it was because he had been held tightly in a warm embrace during the fall.
He clearly remembered Cheon Yijae firmly wrapping his arms around him until the very end. Being protected in an embrace like that was also a first for him, so it felt unfamiliar. As Sim Seowoo mulled over that sensation and turned his head, his eyes soon widened.
“…!”
Cheon Yijae was collapsed in the distance.
Discovering him lying on the ground with his eyes closed, Sim Seowoo hurriedly approached him. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any external injuries from the fall, but his complexion was extremely pale.
His face had always been white enough to see his veins, but now he looked practically like a corpse.
“Is he even breathing…?”
He brought his index finger close to his nose to check—the breath was far too faint. Moreover, his face, which his fingertips accidentally brushed against, was extremely cold, making him worry. His own phone had long since been kicked away by the yokai and shattered, and Cheon Yijae’s phone was nowhere to be seen either.
While pondering what to do, he noticed a black pearl-like ornament stuck in Cheon Yijae’s dopo glinting. His outer robe was also dark gray, so it hadn’t been easily visible, but the faint glow made him notice it.
“Ah, this was the communication device, wasn’t it?”
He vaguely recalled Do Seonhwa using a communication device inside the Guiyeok. When he gently rubbed the surface as she had done from memory, a voice soon came through from the other end.
—Ch-Cheon Yijae! Sojunim!
It was Do Seonhwa’s cry. While marveling at the communication device’s remarkable function, he carefully pulled out the ornament as her urgent questions came pouring out.
—Sojunim! Why on earth couldn’t we reach you until now! I was so…!
“Ah, Sojunim has collapsed right now. I found him and…”
—Gasp, Guiin! Are you alright, Guiin? Oh my, what on earth is this situation!
He could faintly hear Jin Gwangmin calming her down from the other end, telling her to take a breath before speaking. Do Seonhwa seemed to be in a flustered state, having spent the past few hours searching for the two of them, finally receiving contact.
The situation was that both the Sojunim she needed to look after and even the new member she had personally recruited had been swept up in the collapse of the Guiyeok and couldn’t be found. For her, it seemed she had experienced her own mental state shattering along with the collapse of the Guiyeok.
Only after Do Seonhwa barely calmed herself with a deep breath could they have a conversation.
What was Cheon Yijae and Sim Seowoo’s current condition, whether there were any other yokai or ghosts visible nearby, whether any other problems could be identified, and so on. After asking in detail, she let out a deep sigh and said:
—It seems the two of you fell to a location completely far from where we were.
A Guiyeok was a virtual domain created by evil spirits based on existing space, and normally when a Guiyeok collapsed, it should connect to the original land. Even with an error, it would be within about 100 meters.
However, she analyzed that because Sim Seowoo and Cheon Yijae had been close to the Guiju who committed the self-destruction, they seemed to have awakened in a position completely far from the other members due to the aftermath. Since a Guiyeok was such a peculiar space, these kinds of problems occasionally occurred.
Still, the fact that they were at least on the same mountain was fortunate, but that alone wasn’t enough to be happy about.
—I’ve roughly tracked the communication device’s location, but it’ll take some time to get there. It’s pitch dark night right now, unfortunately…
The mountain was so vast and the terrain so rough that searching wasn’t easy. Only from the moment communication was connected could they check the communication device’s location, so Do Seonhwa, who had just now narrowed down their approximate position, let out a deep sigh. She would depart from Heun immediately to rescue them, but it looked like it would take at least three to four hours.
Soon she asked in a truly apologetic voice:
—Guiin. I’ll come as quickly as possible, so until then, could you please look after Sojunim?
“Yes, of course. Is there anything I should do? At the end, Sojunim was bitten by the yokai…”
—Ah, that should be fine. The yokai had already weakened after losing its Hyungok, so it wouldn’t have had much strength. That’s why it couldn’t take revenge on the other shamans and rushed at you instead, tsk.
Do Seonhwa grumbled irritably. She criticized that the yokai had figured out from Sim Seowoo’s demeanor that he hadn’t been a member of Heun for long—in other words, that he was the easiest target—and had rushed at him. Especially since he had been alone, separated from the other members.
Also, at the explanation that while attacks from yokai or evil spirits were worrying when they had the Hyungok, otherwise there wasn’t much to worry about, Sim Seowoo blinked.
“…But Sojunim’s condition doesn’t look good though? His face is pale, his body temperature is low. And the biggest problem seems to be that he’s unconscious right now.”
—Mmm, that’s…
Do Seonhwa hesitated before explaining.
—…Actually, it’s presumed to be because he received your purification too strongly earlier…
“Ah.”
—Even if he was deeply bitten by the yokai, as you know, Sojunim can handle most Ghost Energy…
At the end, in the process of retrieving the Hyungok from the centipede yokai, he had dug into its body directly with his hands and gotten contaminated, but even that wasn’t to a serious level. Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin happened to be nearby at that time, so they had seen his condition with their own eyes. The contamination that had only settled on his fingertips was at a level that would naturally disappear with time.
So rather than contamination, it was suspected to be the effect of strongly encountering the opposing purification power, and the only other plausible cause that came to mind was exhaustion from his earlier stubbornness.
—Since he suffered from poisoning and lightning punishment until he was purified, I think he’s exhausted. Though it is certainly strange that he hasn’t regained consciousness until now…
Although Sim Seowoo’s purification had resolved all of the contamination, poisoning, and even the lightning punishment that was estimated to have rotted Cheon Yijae’s entire arm at that time, he must have been tired from suffering alone for dozens of minutes just before that. Even in that state, he had refused purification.
However, even so, the news that he hadn’t come to his senses for several hours felt unsettling. As Do Seonhwa pondered, Jin Gwangmin sighed from the side and said:
—Huh. Now that I think about it, I think there was something more to the Gwaeoggong legend.
He seemed to be racking his memory for a while. As he recalled that when a Gwaeoggong faces a life-threatening crisis, it casts a peculiar sorcery on its final target for revenge, he soon exclaimed, Ah!
—It’s said to leave a red mark on the target’s forehead! A human marked with it will surely die!
“…What?”
—But the method to erase it was, what was it. Marital intercourse? So the official who hunted the Gwaeoggong slept with his wife that night and the mark naturally disappeared, and the child born that way was Kim Ja-jeom, so the yokai’s strong power was passed on to him according to the legend… Huh.
Only after finishing his explanation did Jin Gwangmin hesitate, as if he’d determined something was wrong. Even without seeing it, his voice trembled enough to predict that his face must have turned pale.
Actually, Sim Seowoo was also a bit flustered, so even though he already knew from looking, he deliberately checked Cheon Yijae’s face once more before saying:
“There is no red mark on Sojunim’s forehead.”
—Ah, of course not. Absolutely. It has to be that way.
This answer came from Do Seonhwa. The momentum pouring out was so urgent it was almost desperate, and she even revealed a strong trust that ‘Our Sojunim would never fall victim to such a yokai.’ It was a belief at a blindly faithful level.
Jin Gwangmin murmured quietly from the side:
—…What if it appears later though. Will our Sojunim die because he can’t erase the red mark? What marital intercourse—Sojunim hates even touching someone. Does anything he likes even exist in this world…
—Stop talking nonsense, Gwangmin-ah.
—If Sojunim passes away like this, a bachelor gh— Mmph!
It seemed Do Seonhwa covered Jin Gwangmin’s mouth with her hand, almost hitting him to silence him, making a smack! sound. Jin Gwangmin’s scream could be faintly heard.
