“That could be…”
Gwi Bosal slowly nodded his head. With the ritual having failed, it wouldn’t be strange even if everything they’d prepared had been ruined. What was truly strange was something else.
The failure of the ritual wasn’t something he couldn’t understand. It had been a spell difficult to succeed with in the first place, and the client had been impatient, so they’d proceeded somewhat hastily.
However, Gwi Bosal couldn’t quite understand why he himself had taken such a major hit. Since it was such a high-risk spell, he’d thoroughly prepared for failure.
No matter how great a success, it wasn’t more important than life. It wasn’t meaningful enough to accept damage to his shamanic abilities. So he’d paid as much attention to his own safety as to the spell itself. So that even if it failed and the client took a hit, the shock he would receive would be minimized.
But look at his state now. He’d nearly died. He was still unconscious as if fainting for half the day, and spirit channeling was even impossible. Either the god he served had taken a hit or was trying to leave, and neither option was easy.
He could guarantee this wasn’t simply a problem of mistakes being made in the process of performing the spell. It was clear that someone—someone with energy strong enough to overwhelm the abilities of the gods Gwi Bosal served—had intentionally interfered and broken the spell.
But who on earth had done such a thing? Gwi Bosal had put the most effort into security in this ritual above all else. Aside from himself, his adopted son Museok, and the client, no one knew about this matter.
Museok was a boy who would follow death itself if he commanded it, so there was no room for suspicion, and the client’s life was at stake so he couldn’t have acted recklessly. Then who on earth had noticed this ritual?
Gwi Bosal, who felt deep fatigue despite having been awake for only a short while, closed his eyes and spoke.
“Does your god respond?”
“I feel a faint sign, but he doesn’t give a proper answer. It’s as if…”
“As if?”
“It feels as if he’s afraid of something…”
“Hmm…”
Gwi Bosal let out a long groan. Museok’s words also ultimately had aspects that aligned with his own feelings. There might be a powerful force behind Cheon Jieon that couldn’t be easily challenged.
Then why hadn’t they responded at all while they’d been casting spells on Cheon Jieon and damaging his life force? If they’d wanted to protect Cheon Jieon, it would have been safer to stop them before the ritual even began.
To wipe them all out at once? Or because they’d only noticed their existence after the ritual started? No matter how he thought about it, there was no hypothesis that fit perfectly. That’s why he was afraid. The opponent had completely blocked him, but he didn’t even know who they were. An opponent whose identity was unknown was the most frightening.
“Until I’ve completely recovered my energy, don’t try to move rashly either.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Tell that person not to act recklessly either, and tell them not to come visit for the time being. Just watch from afar to see if there are any changes around Cheon Jieon, and if there’s anything suspicious, just call.”
“I’ll do that. Father, please focus only on recovery for the time being as well.”
Gwi Bosal closed his eyes while hearing Museok’s worry. In any case, seeing as no one was storming this place immediately, they probably hadn’t discovered this side’s existence in detail either. That meant there was still a chance to fix things.
He mustn’t be impatient. Perhaps the opponent was waiting for them to panic and rampage on their own. At a time like this, it was right to first curl up and carefully gauge the atmosphere.
“You can’t sleep yet, Father. I’ll prepare a meal.”
Seeing Gwi Bosal with his eyes closed, Museok added and hurriedly left the room. In that room left alone, only cold and gloomy silence remained.
***
“Yes, yes. I understand. I won’t do anything suspicious either, so please… please don’t say you’re quitting this job. I’m begging you like this.”
The man held his cell phone with both hands and repeatedly bowed to the person on the call. Even though the other party clearly couldn’t see that appearance, the man’s gestures were beyond polite and even looked servile.
He had no choice. If they pulled out now, there would be no one left in this world to help the man. The man had to cling to Gwi Bosal by any means necessary.
“Yes. I’ll do that. Don’t worry, and if Teacher Gwi needs anything, please tell me anything.”
The man, who continued with words of entreaty several more times after that, finally ended the call after a long while and let out a deep sigh. These days, one day felt exactly like a thousand years. When he suddenly looked at the mirror hanging on the wall, he saw himself with bloodshot eyes looking as if he’d aged ten more years.
“All I can do is beg others… to be this incompetent…”
A voice soaked in bitter resentment echoed in the quiet room. The failure of the ritual hadn’t just dealt a blow to Gwi Bosal. The man who had been waiting only for this moment had also nearly lost everything from this failure. Just thinking about that time, the man felt pain as if his heart had been thrown to the ground and trampled.
The fortunate point was that there was still a chance remaining. If he couldn’t even try again, the man would have had no choice but to choose death in the end as well.
“Teacher Gwi needs to recover quickly…”
The man muttered. Retry or whatever—nothing could be done with Gwi Bosal lying in bed barely holding on like this.
The man plopped down on the sofa and bowed his head, clutching both hands together as if praying.
In the eyes of those who didn’t know, the man would have seemed to lack nothing, but in reality, his life had been hell all along.
He’d done anything necessary to end this misfortune. He’d spent tens of millions of won to receive a name reading that supposedly gave good energy and even changed his name, and lived avoiding anything that brought bad luck, anything he was told not to do.
Yet when he heard at the end of all that that unavoidable death awaited him, who could truly understand the despair the man felt? If someone who knew the only answer appeared before such a person and offered a lifeline, what kind of person could refuse to cling to it?
“Never, I’ll never give up.”
The man wiped the tears that had soaked his cheeks and spoke with determination. It was at times like this that he needed to steel his heart. Now was not the time to cry weakly. He had to pull himself together and find and accomplish any method that could end this hell.
Even if that meant going against the Natural Order and committing an inerasable sin, the man didn’t care. He had something he absolutely had to protect, even if his body fell to hell.
***
“……”
Mua stared blankly at the water falling to the floor for a long while. Every time water droplets splashed on his bare body, goosebumps rose along his forearms.
Mua soon slowly reached out his hand and caught the water in his palm. Soon, an unfamiliar sensation spread throughout his entire body.
Was it good, bad, unpleasant, thrilling?
Confusing emotions that couldn’t be explained in a single word surged through him. Human skin, the temperature touching his skin, the feeling of water. He couldn’t even remember now whether his human self had liked all these things.
On one hand, having such vivid sensations again felt like a kind of curse. He’d spent so much time trying to forget humans, human emotions, human pain, and yet to become human again overnight.
Mua bit his lip hard. Then, surprised by the sharp pain he felt from his lip, his shoulders flinched and he let out an empty laugh. When he was human, life had been so painful that he’d been extremely numb to pain, but now he was reacting even to biting his lip, which was absurd and pathetic.
“I need to go back quickly…”
This was exactly why he needed to solve this case and return to being a Grim Reaper as soon as possible. Before he became more accustomed to a human body, and thus before he assimilated even to human emotions, he had to return to the Afterlife quickly.
Mua resolved to somehow find a way to contact Sangmyeong and slowly stepped under the pouring water. He didn’t bother thinking about how it felt to have water soaking his entire body.
***
“Well, that does seem like the best option… I’m just worried about you continuing to live with that guy.”
“I’m worried about that too.”
“Should I give him a warning?”
Suchan, who had heard about what happened yesterday from Jieon, spoke in a worried tone. Jieon shrugged with a skeptical expression.
“Would a warning work on a bastard who writes talismans with blood from morning just to act?”
“Ha, that’s true. It might just provoke him more.”
“I knew he was a crazy bastard originally, but this… this seems like he’s become a complete psycho on an entirely different level.”
Jieon complained. It was natural that he’d found stalker Shin Mua, who was obsessed with him, terrible. But after the accident, he was, how to say, creepy in a somewhat different way than before. If the previous Shin Mua had been disgusting and irritating, now he was bizarre to the point of even being a little scary.
“Before, at least I could predict what that bastard would do, you know? Ha, but now I really don’t know. What he’s trying to do by acting like that.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to at least start with a separation even if you don’t divorce? I’m really getting worried hearing your story.”
Suchan’s expression became even more serious. He was genuinely worried about how much more insane things Shin Mua might do from here. Crudely speaking, who knew if Mua might come at him with a knife saying ‘If I can’t have you, I’d rather kill you!’
