Chapter 33

“…Hello.”

Murmuring his greeting, Wonhyo recalled the last time they met before the vivid, supple, sticky memories from his dreams.

It had been right after that damned artificial respiration.

His eyes darted aside. Out of habit, he checked the gauge of ghost-qi accumulated within him.

At over 70%, it wasn’t a safe number by any means—but even if he turned into a beast again today, it wouldn’t be disastrous.

Cheongmun returned the greeting and stepped closer to the spot where Wonhyo had been seated. After sweeping a glance around their surroundings, his gaze locked against Wonhyo’s.

“You said you found a lead. I don’t sense anything myself.”

“Ah… I stored it in my inventory.”

Wonhyo tilted his head, then took out the bagged school uniform pants. The wrinkled black plastic crinkled as Cheongmun’s eyes fell to it.

Gloved in dark half-palm leather, Cheongmun’s hand received the bag from Wonhyo.

“Clothing?”

“Yes.”

Undoing the tied knot, he pulled out the ashen trousers. Cheongmun’s eyes narrowed.

“Something belonging to the suspect?”

“Oh, no. Not the vengeful spirit’s.”

Wonhyo waved his hands quickly.

“These… aren’t theirs. In the bag, there should also be a torn piece of business card. That’s the important part.”

He did not want to touch it again—the qi gauge was already too high. He directed Cheongmun instead, pointing into the bag with a finger.

Cheongmun retrieved the shredded card from beneath the pants.

“This?”

“Yes.”

From Cheongmun’s fingertips, black currents of energy rippled outward. The small scrap pulsed with the residue of a vengeful ghost, immediately sealed within a palm-sized cube.

Seeing Wonhyo’s expression tighten, Cheongmun calmly pulled out a vial from his inventory—finger-length, swirling with pale blue liquid.

“Holy water?”

“Not from outside. Acquired within the Tower.”

Blessed not by God, Buddha, or Allah—but by some deity from another dimension—the liquid was scattered across the cube.

Though poured into midair, the water did not fall. Instead it dispersed like mist, weaving into a thin cerulean membrane sheathing the cube’s surface.

From within, though only blue was cast, the interior glimmered faintly red. The ghost-qi recoiled slightly, enough that Wonhyo’s eyes brightened.

“…You’re blessed with good fortune, aren’t you?”

It was the kind of holy water he wished he could have stocked himself.

“Has the energy been masked?”

“Yes… somewhat.”

And he wondered—if he used that water to ink talismans, wouldn’t the effects be magnified?

“Is it difficult to obtain?”

“Not exactly. But quantity taken out is limited, and demand high.”

That meant expensive. To Wonhyo, there was little difference between “hard to obtain” and “too costly.” He slumped his shoulders, swallowed the urge to covet, and instead turned the conversation to the matter at hand.

“Anyway—this card.”

Prompted, Cheongmun studied the fragment through the cube. At first glance it looked like a typical church flyer.

“It’s a talisman.”

Narrowing his eyes, Cheongmun asked, “You mean this symbol here?”

“Yes. A kind of curse. Prevents a person’s soul from passing on to the afterlife. I don’t know the full text—the upper portion is missing—but the energy I sensed matches the aura I felt from the vengeful spirit.”

Cheongmun thoroughly examined the torn advertisement-sized fragment.

“It says, ‘Save us.’”

“The religions tied to the Bible are mainly Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism.”

“And with cult sects spawned from them too numerous to count.”

Between sects labeled heretical and cults blurring the lines, there were easily hundreds. Even on a larger scale, over twenty major divisions existed.

From their eyes, Wonhyo himself would be heretic, cultist, and fraud.

Still, he kept his commentary to objective observations.

“And… it’s an item.”

Cheongmun’s gaze fell from the card piece back to him.

“The creator isn’t identified, but definitely an awakened individual.”

Cheongmun’s expression hardened.

“In Korea’s Special Bureau database, the only registered Awakened who can manufacture talismans is you, Mr. Yun. So either this was made by an unregistered, or someone concealing a skill.”

He expelled a short breath.

“Still, if it’s an item, we can trace it. This kind of print-stock card requires industrial processing. That means printers—leads we can chase.”

Though many printers had folded, with effort they could be tracked. Nation-wide, if necessary.

Talismans issued as functioning items by printing presses— distasteful, but workable.

Cheongmun made a mental note, then returned the bag. Wonhyo stopped him instantly.

“No! The trousers should be checked too!”

If there was more than one clue, Cheongmun obliged— with a flick, raising the pants into the air.

“Didn’t you say they don’t belong to the suspect?”

“Not the suspect. The… victim.”

Cheongmun’s eyes pressed hard, demanding explanation.

“As mentioned—the card interferes with a dead soul passing beyond.”

“So you said.”

Wonhyo pointed at the trousers.

“That card came out of this pocket. And inside the trousers—not a vengeful spirit, but another soul was attached.”

Cheongmun tilted his head.

“You mean someone else was caught by this curse-item?”

Wonhyo nodded.

“Yes. But here’s what I realized—binding requires a soul. And souls must exist first.”

The curse yanked a dead man’s ankle, rooting them to the living world. Without someone dead, it couldn’t apply.

“But the trousers showed a ghost, while the talisman held traces of the vengeful spirit. The curse-item is one use only.”

So it could not have been split.

“When the curse gripped the vengeful spirit—around the time the suspect, I mean the killer, died—another ghost tied to these school pants had to be present. Either nearby, or freshly dead, and close enough to slip this card fragment into the pocket.”

Cheongmun understood.

The trousers’ owner must have still been alive when the vengeful spirit was alive. For the torn item to be placed in the pocket, proximity and life were required.

Thus, when the vengeful spirit died, the one tied to the trousers was the dead soul.

“Meaning—the culprit must have died close to the murdered victim, for their souls to be ensnared together.”

Tracing only the pants to locate the victim would take time.

And even with fingerprints or forensic trace, if they belonged to a minor—mandatory prints existed only from age fifteen and up. Below that age, nothing would surface.

“Could you view this trouser-owner’s soul, like before?”

If even partially shackled by the curse, it might be possible.

Wonhyo tilted his head.

“…Right now?”

“Can you?”

“No. Not immediately. Preparations are needed first.”

Cheongmun frowned. “Last time, you showed it instantly.”

“That was different. The spirit lingered there, already present. This time, it must be summoned. That requires time, conditions, and proper alignment of the day.”

Only traces clung to the garment; no entire ghost was still embedded.

“And a summoning has to meet timing and omen. Plus…”

Wonhyo’s eyes flicked toward Cheongmun’s lips before veering away.

He wanted to say “Plus, I’m afraid you’ll force emergency measures on me because of how high my ghost-qi gauge is right now.”

That thought dredged up nights of indecent dreams— leaving him feeling the need to push Cheongmun away.

The obscene, desire-soaked fragments spilling from his unconscious every night filled him with shame.

“…So there’s still a chance today you’ll transform as a penalty?”

Wonhyo sighed.

“…Today it’s a chicken. A chick, actually.”

A chick still breathes air through lungs after hatching. At least his survival wasn’t imperiled.

He subtly stepped back, just a foot or two, wary.

Mentioning the curse penalties, if Cheongmun suddenly insisted on “testing” again, he feared being grabbed.

Sooner or later he would have to perform a ritual, but it wasn’t good for now.

Cheongmun’s steady gaze met his, reading the defense lines in his expression.

His heartbeat hammered.

In his dreams too, this was how it had happened—silent eye contact, and then those hands had seized him, lips forced against his.

It had never actually happened in reality. Yet his body tensed.

His lips dried. His throat burned. His fingertips tingled like current ran through them.

A body expecting something even while his mind despised it—Wonhyo wanted to slap himself across the cheek. But worried he would look suspicious, he restrained himself.