[I’m not sure if the target is you or that guy Cheon Jieon, but anyway, there are things around you that interfere with the flow of energy.]
Mua blinked his eyes rapidly. He’d inwardly been suspecting Cheon Jieon and Shin Mua, but if Sangmyeong’s words were true, it meant one of the two was clearly connected to this matter.
[It’s woven so elaborately—even those tricks were so cleverly concealed that it was hard to find them. Whoever it is, they’re no ordinary person.]
Well, that’s why they did something as absurd as putting a Grim Reaper of the Afterlife into a human body.
[Investigate the house first. There’s a bunch of wrong things here, and it seems we can find out other things once we remove them.]
Mua nodded his head enthusiastically. He didn’t actually nod—that’s what he meant in his heart. Sangmyeong, who had been quietly looking down at his pitiful appearance only rolling his eyes here and there, added in a voice full of concern.
[Be careful. Since we don’t know who’s involved yet, they said to move as cautiously as possible. Don’t take this lightly, engrave it in your mind. And don’t rashly act on your own again, okay?]
Sangmyeong was genuinely worried about Mua. Even when he was a Grim Reaper, he’d been an old-fashioned guy famous for being reckless, and on top of that he was a well-known human-hating Grim Reaper. For such a guy to suddenly have a human body again overnight, his insides must be a mess.
So Lord Yeomra’s worry was considerable, concerned that he might suddenly rush forward at this point and commit something dangerous.
Sangmyeong repeatedly urged Mua, who couldn’t answer.
[Move as carefully as possible, please. Don’t just wildly dig around anywhere just because it’s suspicious. Lord Yeomra kept urging me too. To warn you not to act rashly. You understand, right?]
Mua sneered inwardly. He’d do well on his own, but both that guy and the old man have worries as their destiny. For reference, ‘old man’ was Mua’s own affectionate nickname for Lord Yeomra.
For a blood clot who’d only rolled around in the Afterlife for a hundred years to match up to Lord Yeomra, the head of the Afterlife, like this—there was a reason for Lord Yeomra’s warning not to act rashly. Though Mua didn’t acknowledge it.
[Anyway, I’m going. Ha, when will I be able to have a proper conversation with you? I’m frustrated too. Do well.]
Your mouth is the only thing alive when you can’t even help. With Mua’s grumbling as the end, Sangmyeong disappeared, and only then did Mua let out a big breath and was released from the sleep paralysis.
He’d gotten used to sleep paralysis by now so it wasn’t particularly difficult, but the pressure felt physically was different as his breathing was labored. Mua organized his thoughts with an expressionless face while catching his breath.
He still hadn’t properly grasped the problem, but today’s news from Sangmyeong had at least made some progress. At least they’d found out that there was a problem with this house, hadn’t they? That the house was the problem meant the owners of the house were connected to this matter. It meant that everything hadn’t happened simply because of an accidental incident.
Since he’d been so at a loss until now, just uncovering that seemed to open up his breathing a bit.
“Who on earth could it be…”
Mua’s voice sank low in the quiet room. Cheon Jieon and Shin Mua—in the end, the suspect was one of the two. Of course, there was the possibility that both were involved, but judging from Jieon’s attitude of almost loathing Shin Mua, it didn’t seem like the two had joined forces to plan something together.
Mua carefully looked around the room shrouded in darkness. In fact, he’d thoroughly searched this room on the day he came to this house, but he hadn’t found any particularly suspicious corners. Then was the culprit Cheon Jieon? Mua’s eyes glinted palely in the dawn air.
Whoever it was, whatever they’d hidden, he had to find it as soon as possible and escape from the human world. What Mua wanted was still, only that.
***
“What are you doing?”
Cheon Jieon’s nerves had been on edge since morning.
“What are you doing making such a racket!”
It was because of Shin Mua constantly wandering around here and there in the house.
“Mind your own business.”
Even to repeated questions, Shin Mua answered to mind his own business while constantly poking around here and there. Unable to stand it anymore, Jieon suddenly blocked his path and asked sharply.
“In my house, who are you to tell me to mind my own business or not?”
Honestly, even he thought it was a bit childish, but this wasn’t the time to worry about that. In an already extremely suspicious situation, he couldn’t ignore Shin Mua doing strange incomprehensible actions.
“Tsk, really troublesome.”
But whether Cheon Jieon spoke strongly or not, Shin Mua, who seemed completely unaffected, only clicked his tongue like an old man and grumbled. At that indifferent attitude, even Jieon, who had been on edge, lost his momentum.
“The one really troubling people right now is you, you know?”
“If it’s necessary, I’ll tell you on my own, but you can’t even wait a moment.”
“Whatever, so what is it? What are you looking for?”
Before he knew it, Jieon’s voice was tinged with fatigue. Mua turned around and stared up at him intently.
Was Cheon Jieon exceptionally suspicious right now?
Not really.
But could he trust Cheon Jieon?
He couldn’t do that.
In short, it meant it was ambiguous. Whether trustworthy or suspicious, if it were clearly either way, Mua would take a more firm attitude too. The problem was that everything about Cheon Jieon was ambiguous.
But he couldn’t dawdle anymore. He needed to clash with him in some way. If he did nothing to avoid danger, in the end nothing would happen.
“You!”
Mua suddenly pointed his finger at Cheon Jieon and opened his mouth. At the suddenly changed momentum, Jieon unconsciously closed his mouth. Mua glared at Jieon as if to bore through him and spoke.
“Do you believe in superstitions?”
“What, what?”
Jieon unconsciously stammered and took a step back. It was because he was momentarily flustered when Shin Mua literally glared at him as if to ‘devour’ him.
When he inflated his presence like this, Jieon’s heart helplessly shrank every time. He couldn’t understand why himself. Meanwhile, Shin Mua approached Jieon one more step with a coldly hardened face.
“I asked if you believe in superstitions.”
At the second question, a chill even ran down his spine. Jieon couldn’t understand at all how this was happening.
Shin Mua wasn’t acting particularly threateningly. Even if he was really acting threatening, it wasn’t a situation where Jieon, who was overwhelmingly taller and bigger, should feel threatened.
Yet Jieon felt a powerful warning his instinct was giving. It felt like becoming a herbivore in front of a predator. Pride or whatever—he didn’t even have the leisure to think about such things. At the strange sensation of his soul shrinking, Jieon barely opened his mouth.
“What nonsense all of a sudden? Why would I believe in superstitions?”
Considering the situation where the person before him insisted he was a ‘Grim Reaper,’ it was quite a provocative answer. However, Shin Mua didn’t seem particularly bothered. Instead, he asked something else.
“Was there no shaman coming and going to this house? Or a shaman you’ve met?”
Mua carefully observed Cheon Jieon each time he spat out a question. What was important now wasn’t the answer coming from his mouth but unconscious actions or looks in his eyes.
The reason he’d risked danger and brought up superstitions was because he wanted to see a raw reaction from the flustered Cheon Jieon.
Cheon Jieon immediately frowned.
“Talking about shamans. Why are you being like that again?”
“Hmm.”
“Because I don’t seem to believe you, you’re trying to drag in a shaman?”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t go ‘hmm hmm’ and speak clearly, it’s annoying.”
Jieon muttered in a voice full of dissatisfaction. Bringing up nonsense first and then going ‘hmm’ while acting like he was thinking something important was pathetic.
No matter how he looked at it, he was just a rude and insignificant human, yet being cowed even for a moment by such a guy hurt his pride.
“You’re the one who should answer clearly.”
But when Shin Mua closed the distance again and made direct eye contact, his heart sank with a thud once more.
When humans face a being they can’t handle, instinctive fear naturally arises, and that wasn’t a reaction that could be controlled by human will. However, Cheon Jieon didn’t know that fact.
“I asked if there’s a shaman you’re close with around you.”
For Cheon Jieon, it was truly a strange moment. He’d clearly heard Shin Mua’s voice, but strangely it didn’t feel like he’d opened his mouth to speak to him. It felt like a sound generated in the air was hitting him.
“Answer.”
At the last words like a warning, Jieon’s eyes trembled. He almost sat down on the floor from the inexplicable pressure.
The moment when he’d encountered Shin Mua eating alone in the kitchen the other day came to mind. Like that time, strength drained from his entire body and his heart was squeezed tight. Jieon clenched his fist and bit his lip hard, feeling as if squeezing out his last strength. Only after feeling sharp pain did his frozen body loosen.
“Hey, how would I know? I don’t believe in that stuff.”
Jieon answered as if it were nothing. But even the voice he’d produced rang in his ears, so he couldn’t be sure if he’d seemed composed.
Every time this happened, he felt like he was facing an unknown fear. Shin Mua had been a difficult person to deal with even before the accident, but that was simply because he was crazy, not because his very existence was frightening.
But what about the current Shin Mua? He occasionally revealed a presence that evoked fear by his very existence alone. When that happened, he really looked like something other than Shin Mua.
Possession, Grim Reaper.
Words that were too hard for Jieon to believe flashed rapidly through his mind.
