Seowoo, who recognized it as the hairpin that had been holding up Do Seonhwa’s hair, was dumbfounded. Just as he was worrying whether it was okay to throw a hairpin at someone’s face like this, a very eerie scream burst out from the man.
[Aaaaaaaaaah!]
The man, who fell as soon as the hairpin pierced him, rolled around on the ground. But the cry he let out rang out as if torn like a broken recorder, and then even the man’s face began to burn away. Beyond the level of rotting darkly, his body disappeared entirely.
……This was a phenomenon that couldn’t be seen as human.
Seowoo was flustered by the strange phenomenon appearing from the man. While he quietly looked down at the man, Jin Gwangmin, who had barely caught up, panted heavily for breath.
Having witnessed the situation just before, he asked as if it were absurd.
“Wait, you saw the ghost, didn’t you?”
He didn’t know how to understand the act of giving a ghost a double thumbs-up, but at any rate, Seowoo had clearly recognized the existence of the ghost. Moreover, judging by his unsurprised reaction, he must have been seeing them all along.
“……I didn’t know this was a ghost.”
“When it looks this bizarre?! A fur coat in June, and wearing it inside-out at that!”
“Fashion is a matter of personal taste……”
“Acting in reverse is a characteristic of ghosts! The world of the dead is inverted from the world of the living!”
At Jin Gwangmin’s exasperated outcry, Seowoo felt a bit wronged. He hadn’t known that background, but compared to modern fashion shows, wearing clothes inside-out wasn’t even that unusual, was it?
‘Hey. Do you happen to see strange things, I mean…… like ghosts?’
However, on the other hand, the things he’d seen recently came to mind. The person lying on the stairs at the lecture hall entrance, the person who had climbed the tree in front of the cafeteria, and even the strange people he’d encountered on the way to school yesterday.
Could all of that have been ghosts?
Strictly speaking, Seowoo hadn’t denied the existence of ghosts. Since he let everything pass with ‘That could happen,’ he didn’t assert that ghosts absolutely didn’t exist, but the truth was he didn’t see them as definitely existing either. He’d accepted the logic denying ghosts as plausible too—you could say it was an attitude like Hwanghui Jeongseung.
So he’d thought all the strange things he’d seen until now were just because he’d gone crazy. He’d even thought that he’d finally lost his mind, and that he’d held out quite a while at that.
“Huh, so it’s not that he can’t see ghosts, but that he’s been seeing them all along and just didn’t think it was strange.”
Jin Gwangmin sighed deeply. While he looked at him strangely, saying it was the first time he’d seen someone accept it like this, Do Seonhwa stroked her chest in relief.
This was an opportunity to prove they weren’t a cult.
“This is a hairpin made from dongdoji. The branches of a peach tree that grew facing east are spiritually powerful, so they’re used to drive away ghosts.”
In the Annals of King Sukjong, you can find records of driving away petty ghosts with peach tree branches before the king’s procession, and in Yongjae Chonghwa, you can also confirm records of making rain with dongdoji and beating ghosts to expel them during the palace’s evil spirit exorcism rituals. Peaches have been considered spiritually powerful fruit since ancient times and were often used as tools for protective magic.
Do Seonhwa explained as thoroughly as possible and, above all, in a kind tone while clasping her two hands together tightly. Looking up at Seowoo in a pose reminiscent of a cat from a certain movie, she pleaded.
“Honored one, can you spare us some time now?”
***
Seowoo made a choice he normally wouldn’t have made. He decided to go to HN following Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin, who were practically strangers.
Since something that overturned his perception had occurred—that what he’d been seeing were ghosts—he decided to make a decision opposite to what he’d normally do.
While following them, Seowoo imagined a traditional house located deep in the mountains. Since they said they hunted evil spirits, shamans naturally came to mind, leading him to picture the stereotypical image commonly seen in media.
However, the place they arrived at was in a quiet city outskirts, but the building was so tall you had to crane your neck back to see it. The building had a glass facade with the alphabet letters HN attached hugely, and the entrance was quite fancy too.
In some ways, it made sense since it was a business with deep history, but he felt a bit put off. It was because he felt a strange obsession from the alphabet letters.
Confirming that Seowoo was staring up at the building, Jin Gwangmin explained.
“Externally, we disguise ourselves as a construction company. It’s the most appropriate company for cleaning up buildings destroyed while fighting evil spirits, plus it’s good for selling off decent land.”
The reason was that they could hide the noise generated during the process of hunting evil spirits by putting up barriers saying ‘under construction,’ and it was also possible to purify and manage curses dwelling in places after spending a long time on them.
Thinking it was quite reasonable, Seowoo recalled an earlier memory. Come to think of it, on the business cards the two had shown at the library, it was written in alphabet letters as HN, but they had called it ‘Heun.’
Perhaps when you go in there and say ‘I came to request something from Heun,’ you get guided to a separate meeting room. An organization name only used among those in the know.
Do Seonhwa spoke with a sigh.
“Aah, I wish our company had someone with the ability to restore collapsed buildings to their original state just by touching them.”
Seowoo looked back at her curiously while imagining that ability in his mind. It was quite a power like from a novel, but perhaps there really was someone with such an ability in this industry.
However, Jin Gwangmin shook his head back and forth.
“There you go with strange talk again. That’s just nonsense from something you saw in a dream, so ignore it.”
“I’m telling you they really exist somewhere! They were called the Sun! No, was it Hamster?”
“Director, it’s time you accepted that you have nonsense dreams too.”
“You bastard!”
Jin Gwangmin quickly hid behind Seowoo, avoiding Do Seonhwa’s hands. Then, leading them to hurry inside, Seowoo followed in a daze.
Inside the building, people were moving around busily. They just looked like ordinary office workers and the space didn’t seem particularly special either, but as he followed Do Seonhwa inside, he gradually felt something strange.
Do Seonhwa swiped her key card and entered the interior. Since companies of considerable size strictly manage entry, he watched without much thought, but the act of swiping the card repeated several times. It wasn’t that the machines were placed at short intervals either.
Could a building be this deep?
Even more, as they went further inside, the air seemed to gradually become clearer. Though it felt like digging into an abyss, his body also became lighter.
Only after the number of card swipes reached a full seven times did Do Seonhwa stop. Seowoo looked around in a daze.
It was quite a different space from the outside. Though the office was set up like a typical company, talismans were piled up on the desks, stone tablets carved with strange patterns were visible, and there were also numerous objects presumed to be ritual implements like sacred swords and spears.
On the deep crimson wall, the Chinese character ‘痕 (Heun)’ was written large and elegantly in a soft golden color.
“Is this a space only Heun personnel can enter?”
“Yes, that’s right. We told you we’re an organization that aims to balance the two worlds, right? Our work is to erase the traces the dead try to leave on this world, but the work we do also shouldn’t remain in the ordinary world. We have to prevent unnecessary confusion.”
“You could say we’re an organization that works in the shadows while aspiring toward the light.”
At the words Do Seonhwa and Jin Gwangmin poured out in turn, Seowoo nodded slowly.
Suddenly, he recalled how his friends had said this morning that all the posts on the university community board had disappeared. They’d said it had been noisy until dawn with commotion occurring at the science library, but when morning came, everything had been erased without a trace—could Heun have been behind that? It seemed to be a more secretive and full-fledged organization than he’d thought.
While Seowoo looked around with interest, Jin Gwangmin glanced at Do Seonhwa. Lowering his voice completely, he conveyed his question almost with lip movements alone.
‘Did this person really purify it?’
He felt anew that this person knew absolutely nothing about ‘this side.’ Actually, if he knew even a little about this industry, there’s no way he wouldn’t know HN.
Since he’d questioned whether ghosts even existed in the first place, it was natural, but the gap between them felt large once again. Could this person, who looked at everything like talismans and ritual implements so unfamiliarly, have really used purification power? Was it possible to remove a curse from an object while knowing nothing?
At Jin Gwangmin’s gaze full of doubt, Do Seonhwa only raised her index finger to her lips. After warning him not to say useless things, she first guided Seowoo to sit in Team 2’s office, then the two of them quickly moved outside alone.
And so, about 10 minutes passed…….
“Please punish me for doubting Your Honored Highness.”
Jin Gwangmin knelt before Seowoo.
Dongdoji (동도지) – peach tree branches that grew facing east, used for spiritual purposes
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