TFN C2

Chapter 2

Hearing that cry, the person on the other end of the line let out a low, sigh-laced chuckle and soon replied.

“Sounds like you’ve turned into a pig.”

“Oink…”

Wonhyo wanted to say he hadn’t wanted this either.

“Got it. I’ll be there soon. You’ve got location sharing on, right?”

“Oink!”

“Just wait a moment.”

Since his location was showing up in the find-my-kid app, the person who could rescue him from this situation would arrive in a few minutes.

Wonhyo quickly gathered up his pitiful circumstances and turned his body toward the culprit behind this mess.

It’s your fault!

“Oink!”

He butted the ghost—who couldn’t even grasp what on earth was happening—with his body, venting his anger.

“Wasn’t it said that one should soothe and send off the departed whenever possible? You made contact again, didn’t you.”

At his mother’s words—she was dressed in a gently glowing white hanbok, whose soft radiance gleamed like the moon even in deep darkness—Wonhyo lowered his head.

“…Oink.”

He knew he shouldn’t, yet habit moved his body.

It was a habit, so it needed fixing. Along with remorse, Wonhyo let out a sigh.

“Aw. Still, it’s cute.”

With his head bowed as if it would burrow into the earth, Wonhyo’s body dangled up into the air.

When his fore and hind legs gave a gentle flutter, the hands holding his waist and belly adroitly shifted him into a comfortable position.

Unlike their mother, who was clothed in white from head to toe, his older sister was radiant with red eye makeup and a look layered like flames; she beamed.

Sister.

“Oink.”

Perhaps understanding his call, his sister met his gaze.

What will you do about that?

“Oink?”

When Wonhyo pointed at the ghost with his snout, both his mother and sister looked that way.

Perhaps thanks to his biting down on the talisman and charging in, even though the ward that hid their presence had collapsed, the ghost was still well-fixed in place, unable to run.

“So it didn’t die here.”

Looking at a being invisible to ordinary eyes, his mother commented as if it were nothing. His sister was the same; she gently closed her eyes and opened them, her unfocused pupils circling the air.

“Looks like it died suddenly in an accident.”

“Judging by how badly it’s damaged, that would make sense.”

“Hm. I see apartments near a sixteen-lane road—not houses or villas—so it doesn’t seem like the accident happened around here. How did it end up wandering here?”

At those words, the mother closed her eyes for a moment and moved only her lips, murmuring soundlessly, then slowly lifted her lids.

“Seems it came following a path.”

A path?

“Oink?”

At Wonhyo’s cry, his mother wore a wry smile and pointed to the hiking trail behind them.

“Wonhyo, haven’t you been treading the ground for months now, saying you were offering prayers? Some of that energy remained, it seems, and it followed the traces.”

“…Oink.”

Wonhyo tried to hide his gloom, but sorrow wasn’t so easily concealed.

It was a stray or lowly spirit come to seize my vessel.

“Oink oink.”

He hadn’t imagined that purifying the ground while praying would become a means of summoning a ghost.

Wonhyo grumbled on at length, but what came out was only pig sounds. Since humans couldn’t understand pig speech, his mother and sister smiled awkwardly.

Even if they roughly caught the intent, not knowing the exact meaning made it hard to answer readily.

Since his body had become like this, that part had been terribly frustrating; but now, perhaps it was better that they couldn’t understand.

“It isn’t the flower’s fault if bees and butterflies come running to the scent of its nectar.”

I know.

“Oink.”

Words his family didn’t need to hear, he simply swallowed and let go. He understood the sentiment meant to comfort him.

His sister stroked his head.

At that patting touch, his tangled feelings settled into order.

“In any case, let’s head up the mountain now. If we’re any later, a hundred days of work will go to waste.”

At their mother’s words, his sister briefly set Wonhyo down and took a fan from a small chain bag—unsuited to a mountain path—and waved it lightly.

At the sound of a whistle like one that calls the wind, twice in succession, the dejected ghost—sitting sullenly after its drubbing—lifted its head.

“Come here.”

When the ghost hesitated as if refusing, another whistle passed over the sister’s lips.

Then the ghost, acting as if it couldn’t help itself, wavered over to the sister’s side and stuck there, glancing at Wonhyo for his reaction.

Wonhyo glared at the ghost that had made him suffer, but in the body of a mini piglet that could fit on a palm, there was nothing scary about him.

Tired of oinking without an ounce of intimidation, Wonhyo snorted and twisted his head; his sister gathered him up again and patted him.

Seeing his mood visibly improve, the sister passed him to their mother and then took hold of the ghost. She didn’t physically grab it—she held it with spiritual power—but the contact made the ghost startle.

“Let’s go.”

Their mother urged them on and headed back to the hiking trail.

A night path.

Two people who, to anyone, would look like shamans—one of them cradling a suspiciously alive pig—walked along, and the many hikers sharing the trail flinched.

Then, as one, they cast meaningful looks at Wonhyo, nestled in his mother’s arms.

It seemed they were reminded of that movie with the strikingly handsome priest holding a baby pig.

“Oink!”

Not possessed by an evil spirit, thank you.

Wonhyo poured out his indignation, but it was an explanation that would never reach them.

In the end, he glared again at the true culprit behind this whole mess.

Quest window.

At his inward mutter, a semi-transparent black-and-white window popped up.

“<Class Quest>

Due to exceeding the time limit, a stage-2 penalty is now applied.

※ Stage-2 penalty debuff: When ghostly energy accumulates, you transform into your natal animal.

Find Ghostslayer Valley and meet the boy at the entrance. (2/??)”

This damned status window was the problem.

Wonhyo sighed, and when he told it silently to disappear, the overdue quest window, which had been cluttering his view, slid away.

“By the way, Mother. Isn’t he changing forms too frequently these days?”

At the sister’s words as they followed the path upward, the mother, walking ahead, counted the days and nodded.

“That’s true. The last time he transformed was only four days ago. And it seems he changes faster now, even without much contact.”

His sister looked at Wonhyo with worried eyes.

“No matter that his human consciousness is awake, if this keeps repeating, it can’t be good.”

“These are matters conducted by Heaven; we cannot lay hands on them lightly. Still, a solution has been found.”

“Which is to climb the Tower.”

Wonhyo stifled a sigh that threatened to escape at the conversation flowing over his head.

When transformed into an animal, his human consciousness gradually grew hazy. The red he could distinguish slowly blackened until it no longer appeared as a color, and his focus shifted from sight to hearing and smell.

Before his consciousness blurred further, Wonhyo turned his head.

Before he knew it, upon reaching the summit of Uiwang Mountain, Seoul spread clearly below.

And the Tower as well.

Seoul, below the Han River. At that point which, administratively, divides Dongjak-gu and Seocho-gu, a colossal tower with no visible top thrust up.

Strangely enough, if on Korean soil, the Tower could be seen even from Marado at the southern tip of Jeju; it stood there, serenely gazing down on the land, flaunting its existence.

“Good grief. As if it weren’t enough to serve the gods as a shaman’s disciple, how did you end up awakening as well.”

Such is the harsh lot of a shaman.

Oinking as if agreeing, Wonhyo let his eyes drift shut, lulled by his mother’s warmth.

When you’re a baby, eating and sleeping and then eating and sleeping again are just the daily routine; there was no helping it.

“(Global Notice) The Tower’s 36th floor has been cleared in the shortest time (00:10:07). As a reward—”

Whether he liked it or not, Wonhyo read the unilateral notice the Tower sent, which he heard and saw even against his will, then closed his eyes.

Good for them.

Even if the notice were for the 2nd floor, he would have felt envy.

He was a production-type awakener who had to stumble at the threshold of the 1st floor—unable even to reach the floor the state recommended as mandatory for combat-type awakeners, commonly classified as hunters.

And he was a unique-ability type with no skills useful for offense.

Might as well sleep.

Even after he turned his head away from the Tower, the afterimage of the status window hardly faded; Wonhyo pushed it out and slowly sank beneath consciousness.

“Ugh! The holiday ends tomorrow!”

A woman clutched her hair—which was so greasy it made one wonder what on earth she had done, its pastel gradient of rosy pink and mint decidedly on display—and howled.

[-You’re unemployed anyway, so you’ll just lounge around.]

With only a handful of indirect lights on, the woman, who was flicking her gaze between two large monitors, let out a dry laugh.

Then she scrunched her nose at the camera perched atop the monitor, meeting its gaze.

“Unemployed—what are you talking about? I… I’m just on an extended vacation.”

[-Isn’t that what unemployed means?]

“Hey, no. Once the team gets reassigned, I’ll be out of vacation mode right away, you brats. And starting tomorrow I have to go train at the guild.”

The woman raised both hands to rub her face, as if to hide her gloomy expression.

“Wow, seriously. Just thinking about climbing the Tower again makes me feel kind of faint.”

Under her smudged lids, her eyes glistened under the lights.

[-Job or no job, go wash your hair first.]

As the chat filled with a steady stream of “true that,” the woman puffed out her cheeks.

“I washed it this morning, you pests. And this level of greasiness is just… it happens even if I only eat. It’s my body type.”

She giggled, pretending to sulk at people teasing over facts everyone already knew.

“These skills, honestly. Why did I end up with this kind.”

[-Boo, deceiver! A hunter bullying civilians!]

[-This kind! Your evasion and aggro are insane!]

The woman’s lips curled into a broad grin.

To be honest, apart from the fact that she really should wash her hair more often, they were truly impeccable skills.

[-If a tank can pull aggro well, that’s enough! Stop attention-seeking.]

In the end, the woman threw up both hands.

“Okay! Fine, fine. But I’m really not into it right now. Do you know how many bottles of shampoo I go through in a week because of this?”

If she were outside, she could at least wash. In a dungeon, when her hair got clumped, she couldn’t shower, and it was the worst.

People laughed at her grumbling.

Footnotes:

• Vessel (그릇) and stray/lowly spirits (허주/잡신): In Korean shamanism, a practitioner’s “vessel” is the spiritual capacity/body used to host or channel spirits; “허주/잡신” are wandering or low-tier entities that may try to occupy that vessel.

• Whistling with a fan: Shamanic-grade instruments and sounds (fans, bells, whistles) are used to command or lure spirits in gut rituals.

• Natal animal (일주동물): Literally “day-pillar animal,” tied to the Four Pillars (사주); here adapted as a personal totem-like animal the character transforms into when cursed/debuffed.

• Tower and hunters: Core LitRPG/gate/tower tropes in KR webfiction; “hunters” are combat awakeners, guild-affiliated, who climb a mystical Tower for clears, loot, and progression.

• Aggro and tank: MMORPG terminology; “aggro” is enemy attention/threat, and a “tank” draws and withstands it for the team.