TFN C87

Chapter 87

The prison’s on-site doctor and nurse arrived swiftly, checking the suspect’s vitals before transferring him for further examination.

In the silence that followed the storm, Wonhyo handled the aftermath. He took out packets of salt and red beans from his inventory, handing half to the guards and the rest to the detectives.

“Before you leave this place, sprinkle it on your body. Do it again before you reach home, and on your car tires too. If you’re taking public transport, then don’t worry about it.”

Beyond that, there wasn’t much else he could do.

“And this— I’ll be taking it with me.”

He pointed to the dolls bound with golden cords.

The detectives looked uncertain.

“We can’t use that as evidence, can we?”

“No,” Wonhyo replied plainly.

Without his spiritual power, they were nothing more than haunted dolls.

Who among them could pull an animal spirit into the visible realm like he did? Not even his mother or sister could manage that.

“I see… Then may I ask what you plan to do with them?”

“I’ll perform a memorial rite,” he said simply.

He could have sent them straight to the afterlife, but those things had devoured human lives. They needed to be cleansed completely before they could be released anywhere.

『You are exposed to strong “malicious energy.” (…in progress… 56.7%)』

He wouldn’t be able to do it alone. He’d have to borrow his mother’s strength.

Wonhyo stared at the talisman hanging from the golden cord.

Like before—with the vengeful spirit—he couldn’t block all of the miasma, so touching it was dangerous.

To store it in his inventory, he’d have to handle it directly, but that would spike the contamination rate instantly. He could already imagine how ugly that would get.

He hesitated, fingers twitching helplessly, when Cheongmun stretched out his hand.

Summoning a cube, Cheongmun enclosed the dolls within it and lifted them into the air.

“Will it work if I store them in my inventory instead?”

“…Yes!”

Wonhyo hadn’t even considered that. If someone else could safely carry them, all the better.

It did mean Cheongmun would have to accompany him to his mother’s shrine later, but that couldn’t be helped.

Wonhyo took a long sip of lemon sparkling water and sighed.

The air around the detention center wasn’t foul, exactly—just thick with a stagnant heaviness. Negativity clung to the place like dust, sharp-edged and uneasy.

The farther they drove, the lighter it felt. The air outside tasted sweet in his lungs.

After picking up drinks from a drive-through, Cheongmun merged back onto the main road.

The detectives had returned to headquarters, promising to contact him if anything new came up.

Wonhyo watched the detention center fade from view along the riverside road, his eyelids drooping with fatigue.

“What do you think will happen to him?”

“The suspect?” Cheongmun asked.

“Yes.”

“He’ll probably have access to a lawyer now. There are two possibilities,” Cheongmun said calmly. “He could plead diminished responsibility—claim dissociative identity disorder caused by possession—and be released under psychiatric supervision after treatment. Or he might confess and serve time, though his attorney will likely fight for a reduced sentence.”

“So it’s a matter of denial or acceptance,” Wonhyo murmured.

For an ordinary person, it was an impossible situation to bear.

He turned away from the window.

“Even if he insists it wasn’t him, I doubt he’ll escape the consequences of what he’s done.”

“You mean divine punishment?”

“Not exactly. More like karma,” Wonhyo replied. “Whether human or animal, killing in that form passes down the line. The curse doesn’t die with you—it follows your bloodline.”

If the sins were truly one’s own, that would be simpler. But this—this was hereditary calamity.

It wouldn’t vanish just because he chose to look away. The wise thing would be to face it. Yet someone who flitted from fortune-tellers to tarot readers probably lacked that kind of wisdom.

“He’ll live and die alone, I suppose,” Wonhyo said softly, taking another sip of his drink. The melted ice made it even colder.

“Oh—by the way,” he added suddenly. “The system reacted to the last thing that came out.”

Cheongmun glanced over.

“Magic again?”

Wonhyo opened his status window.

“No, not exactly. It’s still analyzing. I don’t know why it’s taking so long.”

That was new. It had never stalled before.

“When it was an ‘item’ last time, the system responded immediately,” he continued. “Maybe there’s less data on spells than on talismans—but this time, it’s the opposite. It’s like it’s struggling to find the right match.”

He frowned. “Whatever it’s hiding, I wish it’d just tell me all at once.”

It would be nice if the corrupted text finally restored itself too.

He’d hoped meeting the culprit might bring more clues, but aside from the lingering suspicion that the same person behind the vengeful spirit incident was involved again, there wasn’t much.

“Are you free on the seventeenth?”

“The seventeenth?” Wonhyo opened his phone calendar.

“Uh… yeah, that’s Monday. No plans.”

It was the week of Eulyu—the Rooster—an auspicious day, one where exposure to negative energy wouldn’t be harmful.

“And with the dungeon-born bird flu dying down, there’s no risk there either,” he added dryly.

“Good,” said Cheongmun. “Then I’d like to ask a favor that day.”

“…Do we have to go far?”

“No. We’ll stay in Seoul.”

Wonhyo blinked. “Do I need to prepare anything?”

He suspected it would be spirit-related—something requiring talismans or exorcism tools.

Cheongmun merely shrugged. “Hopefully nothing. But it might be similar to what happened at the Mapo apartment.”

Wonhyo’s eyes narrowed. “Mapo… where the vengeful spirit appeared?”

“Yes.”

“…Is there a reason I’d need to go there again?”

The timing made him uneasy. The request hadn’t come after the vengeful spirit case—it came right after meeting a possessed murderer.

Cheongmun’s lips curved in a faint, crooked smile.

“Hopefully not. But I have a feeling we might.”

Wonhyo pressed his lips together and let out a long sigh.

“I’ll bring whatever I can, just in case.”

He’d been given a chance to settle an old debt—to repay what he owed. He couldn’t waste it.

He made a mental note to check his stock of talisman paper and plan out which ritual tools to craft. At least it wasn’t tomorrow—he needed a day to recover.

He’d burned through most of his energy. With the heater’s warmth melting into his bones, he’d nearly dozed off before realizing they were near Hongje Station.

Instead of heading toward Seoul Station, they’d taken the inner ring road north before looping back down.

Thinking of his mother’s house near Inwang Mountain’s Guksadang shrine, he stretched his sore body.

Despite it being the weekend—normally a quiet hour—traffic had slowed.

When the car stopped at a red light, Cheongmun glanced over.

“By the way, how much corruption have you accumulated?”

Wonhyo covered a yawn with his hand and opened his status window.

“…Sixty-two point nine percent. The cube blocked most of it, so it didn’t spike.”

For all the spirits he’d handled, being under eighty percent was impressive.

“Sixty-three percent…” Cheongmun mused.

“Why?”

When their eyes met, his tone was mild but deliberate.

“When we arrive, you’ll have to take the dolls out of the inventory. That level’s… precarious. It might spike once they’re exposed again.”

“I mean, maybe… but that’s fine, isn’t it?”

He tilted his head, puzzled.

Cheongmun steered smoothly as he spoke.

“Wouldn’t it be safer to lower the level before we get there?”

“…Huh?”

Wonhyo flinched, caught off guard. His eyes darted nervously.

Cheongmun looked entirely unbothered, as though he’d just suggested shaking hands.

Had he not heard it himself, he’d have thought it was a misunderstanding.

Wonhyo swallowed hard, staring at the road ahead as they passed Muakjae.

“Uh… there’s no need to do that right now, is there?”

He blinked rapidly, words tumbling out. “You could just use your skill again like at the visitation room.”

It had startled him the first time, but it had worked perfectly. Why not again?

Cheongmun raised an eyebrow. “My skill only blocks miasma—it doesn’t purify. It won’t reduce what’s already built up.”

“Blocking’s enough,” Wonhyo said quickly.

He wasn’t planning on leaving again soon.

His mother’s shrine could handle the rest. And even if it couldn’t—well, that wasn’t exactly his problem.

At his refusal, Cheongmun nodded lightly. “Understood.”

The car slowed, turning into a narrow lane by the address Wonhyo had given.

Cheongmun glanced out the window, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth.

“Quite a different atmosphere from your place, Mr. Yoon.”

Unbuckling, Wonhyo laughed.

“I don’t serve anyone at home. Here, there are plenty of beings to attend to.”

The shrine, set along the path up to Guksadang, looked like an old traditional home at first glance—but the details made its purpose clear.

White paper charms hung in garlands across tiled roofs connecting multiple buildings, and beside the gate stood a sotdae pole draped with five-colored cloth.

Wonhyo dialed his sister.

—“Wonhyo?”

“Yes, nuna. I’m out front.”

—“Good. I’ll come open the gate.”

He hung up and stepped out of the car.

Cheongmun followed, circling around to join him before the wooden gate.

“Will someone open it from inside?”

“Yeah. The lock’s… a bit old-fashioned.”

No keypad or electronic system—just a thick wooden bar across the door. Cheongmun chuckled under his breath.

Creaaak—

The gate opened with a rough scrape.

“Wonhyo.”

His sister appeared, eyes glowing faintly with a red-tinged aura.

“Come in.”