TFN C30

Chapter 30

He narrowed his eyes and peered into the shop. Two middle-aged women were rummaging through the piles of clothes, while the shopkeeper sat watching a drama on a tablet, seemingly unconcerned whether customers came or went.

Wonhyo cautiously stepped inside, fetched one of the chairs stacked in a corner, and sat down.

He had visited secondhand clothing shops like this a couple of times with his sister, so without hesitation, he began digging—pulling clothes from the bottom and tossing them to the top of the pile.

Men’s and women’s clothes were separated, but within each, shirts, pants, and coats were all mixed together.

The energy he sensed was from the men’s pile, which was thankfully smaller than the women’s. Relieved, he continued his search.

After pulling and tossing for dozens of times, he uncovered two decent T-shirts and set them on his knees. Then, as he reached in once more, his hand snagged on something.

Carefully, without tearing the fabric, he pulled out a pair of grayish trousers.

Not a suit pant.

Rubbing the cloth between his fingers and checking the waistband, Wonhyo confirmed it was part of a school uniform.

『You have come into contact with powerful “ghost energy.” (…Processing… 23.7%)』

The system’s warning confirmed he had found what he was looking for.

Even so, though the pants carried a vengeful aura, the surge wasn’t so violent as to force him to drop them immediately.

Puzzled, he frowned.

There was something else mixed in with the ghost’s energy.

Like a pungent perfume that overwhelms every other smell—except faintly, underneath, like shampoo lingering beside it, another aura trickled through.

It was practically two spirits clinging to a single object.

Wonhyo recalled the vengeful spirit he had seen before.

He didn’t know how much of the video evidence the Bureau’s analysts had uncovered, nor whether that spirit’s form reflected its age at death.

But he was certain it was not of school age.

Even if a ghost’s form appeared as a child, if the deceased had been sixty or seventy at death, traces of those years usually remained in some form.

Even dementia patients, whose minds regressed to six-year-old memories, only wandered briefly in childhood form.

So it was suspicious that a school uniform pant carried the trace of a vengeful spirit when that spirit had clearly not died as a student.

“Young man. Are you buying those pants?”

Lost in thought, Wonhyo flinched and turned.

One of the middle-aged women—her arms loaded with dresses and cardigans—was standing beside him, peering at the pants in his hands.

Noting his startled gaze, she chuckled self-consciously.

“No, it’s just… they look a lot like my kid’s uniform. If you don’t need them, I thought I’d take them.”

Blinking rapidly, Wonhyo folded the pants neatly and placed them on his knees.

“…I do need them.”

Though she looked slightly disappointed, the woman quickly turned back to digging through the pile he had overturned.

Wonhyo rose carefully, avoiding contact with her.

Two shirts and one pair of pants.

His sister had warned him to be cautious with transactions, and though it irked him to hand over even 1,000 won apiece for clothes steeped with ghost-qi, he couldn’t risk them in someone else’s hands.

Transferring 3,000 won to the owner’s account, he packed the clothes into a bag and stepped out.

Glancing back, he saw the woman now sitting in his chair, thoroughly searching the men’s pile.

“A son, huh…? She doesn’t have one in her fate chart.”

Sometimes, even if fate didn’t grant a child, people still bore sons or daughters. But those bonds were tenuous, sometimes snapping suddenly.

Better not to bring in items of unknown origin.

Swallowing the warning climbing his throat, he pressed his lips tightly shut and walked away.

What needed finding had been found.

Other people’s households weren’t his concern, and prying only meant trouble.

A rest area for visitors appeared down the way. Just a small bench, but empty. He walked over.

There was even a vending machine. Fetching a bottle of water, he pulled one of the talismans from his belongings.

Folding the paper, he stuffed it deep in his mouth and washed it down with water.

Edible ink and paper had been used, of course, but it still tasted foul.

Heat spread through his body—proof of the charm activating within.

He took another talisman, gripped it, and pulled the pants from the bag.

As soon as they left the plastic, his system flared its warning again.

“There really is something…”

This time, he inspected the pants more closely, flipping them inside and out.

No unusual traits for a school uniform pant, except the pocket.

They had a watch pocket sewn inside like on jeans—a small, tucked-in pouch invisible from the outside.

Feeling over it, his fingers paused. Something was there.

Opening the watch pocket, he drew out a sheaf of crumpled paper.

Not a receipt. Thicker, sturdier—like a business card.

And immediately, his system confirmed it.

『You have come into contact with powerful “ghost energy.” (…Processing… 33.7%)』

From just the 20% range, the gauge surged upward.

Holding it away from his body, he examined it.

It was a torn business card, two-thirds remaining, with the words “…Save us” visible.

Not many organizations spread cards with such inscriptions, except churches—or pseudo-church cults pretending as much.

But Wonhyo’s attention settled not on the words, but the symbols surrounding them.

Printed in silver on a white background, faint lines formed a design.

It was bugak, the base sigil often drawn beneath a talisman’s main script.

There were at least twenty distinct bugak designs he knew, with countless variations in symbol or script too many to fully catalogue.

But this one was unmistakable—one of the few used to invoke power directly into action.

It was a script calling on Gucheon Hyeonnyeo and Taesang Nolgung (ancient Taoist deities) to activate the talisman’s energy. And combined now with a phrase invoking the Christian “Lord God,” it stirred both familiarity and unease.

There was no official stance on what attitude a shaman should take toward cults, but to outsiders both were dismissed as “charlatans.”

But cult or not, the real issue was elsewhere: that a supposed church card contained part of a talisman’s structure.

His eyes roamed the ragged edges, hunting for any surviving clue: to whom it had been dedicated, with what vow or plea.

『Knowledge registered in “All Methods Return to Origin” is responding.』

His skill—used to catalogue and craft talisman-items—reacted.

『Tracing for similar talisman forms…』

After a brief loading lag, a list appeared.

『Talisman of Disaster Prevention (3), Sudden-Death Prevention Talisman (11), Baeksa-Mugi-Bu, …Wangsaeng-Bu detected.』

Among the results, the word Wangsaeng-Bu (Rebirth Talisman) made him look harder at the business card.

The first were all defensive against disaster, misfortune, or calamity. But the Wangsaeng talisman was different.

It was like a passport for a dead soul’s journey beyond—to help them cross over to the afterlife.

Flicking his wrist, he summoned Gi-myeong, his white paper fan imbued with pure energy, and laid his other hand atop the card.

『You have come into contact with powerful “ghost energy.” (…Processing… 44.4%)』

The alert rang in his ears, but he ignored it, peeling at the faint traces layered beneath the vengeful spirit’s powerful aura, with each wave of his fan.

The ghost energy surged, rapidly filling him.

『You have come into contact with powerful “ghost energy.” (…Processing… 72.5%)』

Just when he thought he might be overwhelmed, a tiny, fragile flicker surfaced.

Jaw clenched, he yanked his hand off the card and scrubbed it violently against his shirt as if to wipe away filth.

A torrent of curses tore up his throat.

『A new partial talisman has been registered. – Curse (36)』

Though incomplete, the system had recorded its data.

Eyes pounding with pain, he squeezed them shut.

“So that’s why it flagged a Wangsaeng Talisman.”

What he had uncovered was a perverted form of that sacred seal: a curse that twisted the rite meant to guide souls to the afterlife, instead shackling them to the world of the living.

And more…

He stared at his system.

Up to now, only item-grade talismans—his own creations—were registered as data.

His mother’s and sister’s talismans contained divine power, but were never treated as “items.”

He remembered those early days after awakening, when he had to craft items himself, over and over, feeding their records into the system.

The only difference: “items” were talismans born from his own hand.

Like weapons forged by other awakened artisans, they had crafting success rates and strict usage limits.

That had always been his unique skill—creating talismans as “items.”