The next day, Yugeon decided to go see the Imugi alone.
His younger brother had told him not to go see the Imugi alone, but well, how would he know if he kept his mouth shut? And although he’d met the Imugi twice while fully conscious, he didn’t get the feeling it would harm him. After the first day he went to find the Imugi, hadn’t it stopped calling him out at night?
“I’ll be back.”
“Yeah, be careful.”
Yugeon saw his younger brother off in front of the old market and opened the store.
For now, he planned to stay obediently at the old market until 11 o’clock. And at 11 o’clock, he was thinking of going to find the Imugi. From 11 to 1 o’clock. During that time, people would be eating lunch and resting, so there was hardly anyone who came to the old market.
Having safely gotten through the morning, Yugeon came outside at 11 o’clock, looked around once to see if there were people nearby, then locked the store door, put up a note saying he was away for a moment, and headed to the rear of the island.
Avoiding people’s eyes and safely arriving at the rear of the island, Yugeon looked up at the endlessly stretching mountain path. Two days in a row, having to go this rough path. He sighed involuntarily, but Yugeon resolutely began climbing the mountain.
As he climbed the mountain path and thought about it again, the statement that they didn’t use outsiders’ children as sacrifices was also strange. At least one of the children’s parents would definitely be an outsider, right? Does it mean they don’t use children born to outsiders as sacrifices, that is, children who have outsiders as mothers?
It was also hard to understand what it meant that what was built up on the land belonged to the Imugi, so they had to bind the Imugi, and to do that, they used children as sacrifices.
‘Little kids don’t know the word dragon.’
Jeongyeon’s words came to mind.
Wasn’t it said that the way for an Imugi to ascend to heaven was either to ascend avoiding people’s eyes, or for someone who saw it ascending to call it a dragon?
They only use young children as sacrifices and don’t teach them the word dragon?
They have to bind the Imugi to this land?
Does it mean they’re deliberately using young children who don’t know the word dragon as sacrifices to bind the Imugi to this land?
Yugeon slowly stopped walking.
“Come to think of it… when did I start knowing the word dragon?”
He couldn’t remember when his learning first began. He also couldn’t remember the beginning of learning the word ‘dragon.’ He’d learned this and that throughout his life, and there were many cases of “oh, so this exists,” but he had no memory of seeing the word ‘dragon’ and thinking “oh, this word exists too.”
“……”
Yugeon blankly stared into space, then closed his eyes while listening to the heavy sound of rain ringing in his ears.
The sound of pouring rain, the clamor of thunder and lightning. Taking advantage of the darkness to ascend…
“Cough!”
The fragment of memory that had been rising hazily as if about to surface scattered like smoke with a single cough. Yugeon covered his mouth and coughed a few more times, then frowned and looked up at the mountain path. And he began to move his legs. Though the path he had to go was so endless he couldn’t see the end, his two feet that began moving again were hurrying more than at first.
Arriving at the crater, Yugeon caught his breath for a while because of the coughing that burst out mixed with his rough breathing, then began heading down toward the lake. As he walked toward the lake while looking around, he heard a swishing sound of something sliding on the ground behind him. When he turned around, the giant Imugi was standing behind him.
“…I came alone as you said.”
The bright yellow eyes looked straight down at Yugeon. It seemed to say it knew.
Yugeon swallowed his dry saliva and turned around completely to face the Imugi directly.
“I have… something I want to ask you, Imugi-nim.”
The Imugi’s tall head came down a little. It seemed to be telling him to speak.
Yugeon seemed to hesitate for a moment, but soon opened his mouth.
“Why… do you want sacrifices?”
The Imugi’s eyes narrowed. It looked just like it was smiling.
“Do you think I want sacrifices?”
“? Then… are you saying you don’t?”
“It’s you who want to offer sacrifices.”
“We… are you saying the islanders are voluntarily offering sacrifices?”
“Yes.”
He couldn’t readily believe it.
“Why… why? Why would the islanders?”
“Because humans are a greedy species. Especially you Lees even more so.”
The Imugi raised its head that had been lowered again. The gaze contained in the bright yellow eyes was cold. The Imugi asked while looking at the confused Yugeon.
“Can’t you believe it?”
Yugeon looked up at the Imugi with an uneasy face and nodded. How could he believe that the villagers were voluntarily making human sacrifices of their own children?
The Imugi turned its head toward the village.
“Then why aren’t you rejoicing?”
“Pardon?”
“About the sacrifice returning alive instead of dying.”
Yugeon had a blank face. It felt like he’d been hit in the head. The Imugi lowered its head to meet Yugeon’s eyes.
“You weren’t relieved, you were anxious.”
If the human sacrifice had been forced, the first anomaly would have been a frightening and anxiety-inducing matter. But if it repeated twice? Wouldn’t it be normal to hold hope that they might escape, and to expect it in the third time as well? Rather than being anxious and deliberately finding something that could be the culprit to resent, ostracize, and torment…
No, why don’t they leave the island in the first place? Why do they tenaciously remain on the island, even offering their own children with their own hands to an absurd existence called an Imugi? Moreover, on an island where the soil and water are rotting…
“E-excuse me! Then, why did you make the island’s soil and water rot?”
“Its lifespan has simply run out.”
“Pardon?”
“The island’s lifespan is ending. This island was never a place where people could live in the first place.”
“Do the island… people know too?”
Instead of answering, the Imugi blinked its eyes once slowly.
“But why don’t they leave the island…?”
“Didn’t I say? You are a greedy species.”
“Then, what was the reason you spared me in the first place?”
“……”
“What’s the reason you didn’t accept the next sacrifice either?”
“……”
“No matter how much it’s the islanders’ greed, isn’t it because you accepted them that they kept offering sacrifices?”
“……”
“But the reason you suddenly aren’t accepting sacrifices is…”
“Because I no longer need them.”
“Pardon?”
“Because you’re here.”
The Imugi’s answer was deeply bewildering. Yugeon looked at the Imugi with a confused face and fell silent, then asked slowly only after a long while.
“…By any chance, did I call you a dragon?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Yugeon just shook his head silently.
“You were delirious with fever and not in your right mind…”
The Imugi, muttering quietly, looked at Yugeon’s chest area once with its bright yellow eyes, then passed by him. When Yugeon belatedly turned around, the Imugi’s figure had already disappeared.
The sound of silver grass swaying in the wind sounded just like the sound of rain.
That day, fortunately, his younger brother didn’t find out that he’d been to the Dragon Pond. Until they got off work together, ate dinner, washed up, and went to bed, Yugeon conversed with his younger brother normally, laughing and chatting, but his head was full of the conversation with the Imugi.
Right before falling asleep, he tried to recall the night he went up to the Dragon Pond as a sacrifice, but there was still nothing he could remember.
* * *
It was a leisurely afternoon. Seeing the heat haze rising from the scorchingly heated ground, it seemed to be a particularly hot day. From the hackberry tree in front of the store came the loud buzzing sound of cicadas crying.
Yugeon, who had been sitting blankly at the counter with the electric fan on, suddenly looked outside and bolted upright.
“Why again?”
The naked Imugi in human form was standing outside again. Yugeon hurriedly ran out of the store, looked around once, then approached the Imugi.
“Why, why are you here again?”
He thought it had come with something more to say, but the Imugi just stared at him silently without speaking. Though its face was covered by its hair so he couldn’t see its eyes, he could tell it was looking at him.
“And, and please wear some clothes when you come! Or just come in your snake form…”
Yugeon busily kept looking around. He wondered what would happen if someone came. He himself was embarrassed and didn’t know where to put his eyes, but if the villagers spotted it, there would be trouble.
If someone asked ‘Who is that naked man?’, wouldn’t he have to answer ‘This is that Imugi-nim’? The dignity of the Imugi that had reigned over the island would instantly become that of a naked flasher.
“Clothes?”
“Yes, clothes. Don’t you have clothes?”
“I don’t need them.”
“No… it’s not that you don’t need them… Should I bring you my younger brother’s clothes? I think they’d roughly fit…”
“…To others.”
“What are you doing?”
Cutting off the Imugi’s voice, a familiar voice suddenly interjected. Yugeon looked behind the Imugi with a face drained of color. Junghyeok and Seyeong were approaching.
Yugeon glanced at the Imugi with a completely stiff face. The Imugi also turned its head to look at the two people.
The two approached with faces asking what he was doing here, stood next to Yugeon, looked once at where the Imugi was standing, then looked at Yugeon again.
“Me, give me a cola.”
“I’ll take cigarettes.”
“?”
Yugeon looked at the two people and then the Imugi once as if puzzled. The two showed no reaction even after seeing the naked Imugi. As if they couldn’t see it.
“Um, you guys…”
As Yugeon pointed at the Imugi with a bewildered face and tried to say something, Junghyeok fanned himself with his hand and put his arm around Yugeon’s shoulders.
“What are you doing alone in the middle of the road on such a hot day? You’ll get heatstroke.”
“Uh, huh?”
“Hurry, cola!”
Junghyeok began dragging Yugeon away. Seyeong also followed the two with a smile.
Yugeon looked at the Imugi in confusion, and the Imugi watched Yugeon moving away for a moment, then began to follow slowly.
