‘It’s shameless, but I have to try.’
Seoho decided to act brazenly. Just as much as he had disliked the shaman, she probably disliked him too.
Because he was the person who suddenly came late at night, cursed, kicked the door, shouted, and vented his anger on her.
But there was no one else he could think of besides this person. Seoho knocked on the closed door.
After waiting a bit, the door opened and a middle-aged woman came out. It was a face he had seen before. The one who had guided him during his first visit.
“Ah, um….”
The middle-aged woman looked at Seoho without saying anything, then opened the door wide.
Knowing it was difficult to enter without an appointment, his worries about how he could meet that shaman became pointless. The middle-aged woman let Seoho into the house quite naturally.
The woman looked back at Seoho, who stood rooted to the spot as if nailed down, as if telling him to follow. Seoho let out an awkward breath and followed the woman.
‘That room.’
The middle-aged woman slightly opened the room’s door and stepped aside.
Seoho was following the disappeared woman’s retreating figure when he moved his steps at the sign of a presence heard through the gap in the open door. As he entered the room, the shaman with red eye makeup looked up at him and said.
“I knew you’d come.”
Seoho’s eyes widened as he asked back.
“…You knew I’d come?”
The shaman casually gestured to the seat in front of her. Seoho sat on the cushion and asked urgently.
“Then do you also know why I came?”
“No, tell me.”
It seemed both skilled and not. Seoho quietly looked at the shaman, then opened his mouth at the shaman who raised her eyes as if urging him.
“Strange things are happening at my house.”
“Strange things?”
“I hear crying sounds every night. I can’t sleep. Strange drawings appeared on the wall.”
The shaman snorted.
“Your patience must have worn thin.”
“Pardon?”
The shaman looked Seoho up and down.
“It’s trying to take you away.”
“Take me away?”
“It’s a cunning one. It wants you to follow voluntarily.”
Seoho couldn’t understand at all what this shaman was talking about.
“Voluntarily….”
At Seoho’s words, the shaman wrinkled her brow as if disgusted and spoke sarcastically.
“That’s why it’s crying as if begging you to listen.”
“Th-then what should I do?”
Sharp, blazing eyes made up in red glared at Seoho as if staring him down. And she asserted as if stating an obvious fact.
“I told you your fate cannot be changed.”
Previously, those words had made him very angry, but strangely today he didn’t feel that bad. Seoho, who had been blinking, asked.
“Then must I follow?”
“Yes, there are no more connections tied to you in this place.”
Something about her words was strange.
“What does that mean? In this place.”
“I cannot say more than that.”
Seoho thought for a moment, then voiced his guess.
“Does that mean I’m going to die?”
The shaman answered briefly.
“Here.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
The shaman looked at Seoho as if he was strange.
“You’re calm, unlike last time.”
Seoho smiled slightly. Actually, it was something he himself had been feeling too.
“Because now I don’t particularly think I must survive at all costs.”
When his parents first passed away, he was angry at this woman and vowed to live diligently, but as time passed, that didn’t work out well.
He had no thoughts of killing himself. But he also didn’t think he had to survive somehow. At such an answer from Seoho, the shaman asked back.
“Then why did you come?”
“Still, doing something is better than making no effort at all. So I won’t be ashamed in front of my parents.”
If he just died like this without any effort, he would surely get an earful from his parents. That he thought he was all grown up but was still a little kid who hadn’t graduated from his parents.
The shaman hesitated for a moment, then opened her mouth.
“…I can’t guarantee that life there won’t be bad. But you’ll meet someone to spend your whole life with. Because you’re firmly connected by a red thread.”
“Pardon?”
“No, it’s wrapped around and around so you can’t cut it. How obsessive. It’s a very greedy one.”
The shaman looked into empty space as if lost in thought, then took something out from her bosom and threw it to Seoho.
“Still, I suppose I can help you once.”
Seoho checked the item he caught in confusion and looked at the shaman as if absurd, asking.
“…A silver dagger?”
It was an item that was rarely seen nowadays.
“There will be a moment when you need it someday.”
The shaman pointed at the silver dagger in Seoho’s hand and said.
“Choose then.”
Seoho had no idea what he should say.
“…That.”
“If you don’t want to follow in any way, use it.”
Seoho let out a deep sigh and answered.
“I told you I don’t understand what you mean?”
The woman waved her hand dismissively as if annoyed.
“I can’t say any more… Kheok.”
Suddenly the shaman covered her mouth and her body jerked greatly. Seoho was startled and stood up, approaching the shaman.
“Are you alright?”
As Seoho caught the staggering shaman, the shaman coughed loudly once more.
“Kkeullok.”
A little red blood flowed between the gaps of her fingers. Seoho looked at the open door and said.
“If you’re sick somewhere, that person earlier….”
Then the shaman pushed Seoho away.
“I’m not sick. It’s because I said too much.”
The shaman continued.
“If it’s a good match, you’ll live well. So just accept it. It’s your fate.”
Seoho unconsciously answered.
“I really hate that word, fate.”
The shaman chuckled.
“I don’t like it much either. Being a shaman is my fate too.”
Seoho quietly looked at the shaman, then stood up. It seemed he had heard everything he needed to hear. And somehow he felt it was time to leave now.
“…I’ll be going. Here’s the payment.”
The shaman didn’t refuse and received the white envelope.
“Hmph, you did bring it.”
“Yes. Is it not enough?”
“It’s fine.”
Seoho left the room with the shaman behind him. When he opened the front door, the middle-aged woman standing outside the house looked at Seoho. Seoho spoke to that middle-aged woman.
“Ajumma, that person….”
Then the middle-aged woman cut off Seoho’s words.
“Student.”
“Yes?”
The middle-aged woman looked at Seoho with dry eyes, then said coldly.
“Don’t come again.”
“Pardon?”
“Don’t come again. It’s bad for Seonnyeo-nim.”
The middle-aged woman pushed Seoho aside, then entered the house. Seoho was pushed by the woman and awkwardly stepped back, then slowly moved his steps.
How far had he walked? Suddenly the shaman’s house door opened forcefully, and the middle-aged woman began sprinkling coarse salt around the house.
Seoho turned around and watched that scene, then let out a small laugh. Whatever it was, it seemed his fate was truly unfortunate.
* * *
Puti, who was serving in the imperial palace having received the glorious grace of Emperor Rosetta Borealis of the Great Borealis Empire, took a deep breath.
Puti had always lived satisfied with his position. And for good reason, because he had reached almost the highest position a commoner could attain.
‘Of course, naturally.’
The one and only attendant who served the great emperor praised by the people and nobles at close range!
Of course, the reason he initially got that position was because he didn’t know much so he didn’t interfere in the emperor’s affairs this way and that, and because he was younger than the emperor so he couldn’t even dare to try to give advice, but Puti was still satisfied with his position.
‘Everything is thanks to His Majesty’s virtue!’
Puti had only just turned twenty and was a young person with a bright future still having places to rise to.
So Puti’s job satisfaction was at its peak, and his loyalty to the emperor who had raised him to such a position overflowed.
But lately, such a Puti was having slightly outrageous thoughts.
‘His Majesty has lost his mind.’
It was a bit difficult to actually evaluate that he had lost his mind, but to Puti it looked like he had lost his mind. Puti took another deep breath and entered Rosetta’s room.
Even though the sun was high in the sky, the emperor’s room was dark and gloomy, with not a single ray of sunlight coming in.
‘That’s why the other servants don’t want to come in.’
The emperor paid no attention to Puti entering the room and was only looking at the splendid and beautiful mirror.
Puti swallowed the sigh rising from within. Sighs were only possible when outside the room. A sigh in front of the emperor—Puti was a capable attendant who knew how to distinguish between what should and shouldn’t be done.
Puti killed his sound as much as possible and approached behind the emperor who stood almost clinging to the mirror. If one only looked at his appearance, the emperor looked like he was enchanted by his own beauty and couldn’t take his eyes off the mirror.
In fact, among those who didn’t know the truth, there were quite a few who thought so. And most of those who thought so showed reactions that they knew it would be like that.
‘With that face.’
The empire’s Emperor Rosetta was a person who had no interest in women and always rejected the subjects’ pleas to take an empress with the same words.
‘I cannot seat someone uglier than me beside me.’
