TFN C7

Chapter 7

Already wearied by the ghostly energy, his expression went stiff as unwelcome stares rained down as well.

“When did she die?”

Wonhyo asked straight away, his voice escaping a bit rough.

“Can’t even say hello before asking that?”

“There isn’t much time to spend.”

“Oh, really? Then let’s hurry.”

His uncle led Wonhyo farther inside. He blinked as he surveyed the surroundings.

The energy inside the home was uncanny.

The ghostly miasma that made the skin prickle was expected, but there was also an unknown stench. There were familiar notes to him as well.

The strongest smell was blood—almost metallic—but there were many layers beneath it.

It wasn’t only the smell.

His uncle, the division chief, added some explanation, but it didn’t reach his ears.

There was so much noise that human voices, paradoxically, grew faint.

And one more thing.

Wonhyo shook his head once to clear it, then loosened the stiffness in his neck as if easing muscles heavy with energy.

“Is this the person?”

That so-called shaman?

Someone asked in a tone that carried that kind of nuance, and his uncle gave Wonhyo a light jab in the side.

He did his utmost not to scream. Thanks to that, his face locked even harder, but no one would recognize it for what it was.

“May I proceed?”

Uninterested in how he had been introduced, Wonhyo looked over those present and then cast his gaze to his uncle, as if to say he would handle the work first.

It would be nice if everyone exchanged greetings.

At his uncle’s expression—distinctly that of a family elder—Wonhyo conveyed his complaint with, “I did bow my head earlier.”

In the meantime, someone else came close, making Wonhyo flinch.

“Will you be using a skill?”

A person holding something like a large camera asked in a clipped tone.

As they stood too close, Wonhyo stepped back half a pace.

The motion made the other person pause.

He glanced back at his uncle.

“May I verify?”

At the repeated question, his uncle turned to a man dressed so sharply he seemed out of place among those standing inside the home.

Wonhyo squeezed his eyes shut.

From the moment he’d stepped in and looked around, he had tried not to look at that frightening man.

Beneath the thin frames, the left eye glinting there was so unnervingly sharp that Wonhyo again considered bolting right now.

Fortunately, under his uncle’s look, the man stared into space for a beat and, unexpectedly, nodded readily.

Smiling, his uncle looked at him.

“Do you need anything?”

“I brought everything.”

With a shallow dip of his chin, Wonhyo moved toward the deceased, keeping clear of people.

“Do not touch the body. And state what kind of skill you’re using before you do.”

The voice that had been prickly from the start rose sharply.

Narrowing his eyes, Wonhyo exhaled slowly, expelling the unpleasantness within him.

The mix of voices carrying distasteful emotions made him so nauseated he felt queasy, but the priority was to finish quickly and get out.

He checked the upper area again and then fixed his gaze on the deceased lying on the floor.

He snapped both wrists into the air.

At the flick of his fingertips, a set of spirit bells and a fan popped into his grasp.

“Cheonjasing jigyusin….”

Murmuring the incantation half-swallowed by his lips, Wonhyo shook the bells three times and then fanned.

Wind infused with divine power swirled, lightly disheveling his hair.

The wind circled, gathering the energy suffused throughout the home. Mist-like haze thickened, coalescing in one place until it became a damaged talisman half-burned away.

“You can’t use skill—! …Hk!”

Someone rushing in to stop him was blocked by someone else.

Instead of looking that way, Wonhyo put out the urgent fire first.

“What is it? What’s there?”

His uncle whispered at the back of his head, but those nearby looked at Wonhyo with expressions that said they could hear everything.

He answered by shaking the bells. Then he whistled.

A birdlike trill spiraled out, and the jingling of the bells was erased in an instant.

Wonhyo whistled again.

When the third whistle faded, he lowered the bells without a sound.

He slowly tilted his chin upward.

It was a small gesture, yet people unconsciously raised their heads with him, as if bewitched.

“Good lord. What is that?”

Someone cried out, unable to hold back.

Across the pristine white ceiling paper, footprints were scattered in a clamor. Like prints stamped on purpose after stepping in black paint, the messy tracks stopped above the dead woman’s body.

Watching, Wonhyo flicked his gaze toward that same frightening man who had been staring at him so intently it made his skin sting.

Frightening or not, he had to confirm.

“Um… did you, by any chance, put your feet on the ceiling?”

The man who was asked smiled.

Why does that smile feel murderous?

It felt foolish to have spoken, but he wanted the answer.

“I have not stepped on the ceiling. May I ask why you’re asking that?”

At the denial, Wonhyo snapped the fan open.

Then he followed the tracks with his eyes—not toward the entry, but leading toward the veranda.

He didn’t know why he was stating the obvious, but he supposed he should answer.

“Because only that side didn’t come in through a proper entrance and came in through there?”

He checked again, wondering if that was why the energies were mixed.

There were two sets of traces showing entry by places other than the door; one was so strong that a bit of the other’s energy had seeped in elsewhere, so to speak.

Like calling potato chips “truffle chips” when they have 0.0001% truffle oil.

At any rate, the man’s lips curved at his answer.

At that chill-inducing smile, Wonhyo immediately lowered his eyes and turned his head away.

If not, fine.

He focused again and whistled.

As he wasn’t summoning the dead, no special preparation was needed.

“Not a skill, right?”

“No mana reaction.”

“What’s coming out now?”

As the watchers’ voices rose again, Wonhyo called it in.

A dank, dark, musty stench brushed his nose.

The smell of rotted mud.

What had extended from the ceiling spread downward.

Under the pressure of energy strongly brought to bear, Wonhyo twisted his sore shoulders.

Jingle!

The seven bells that had kept silence chimed clear as they knocked against each other.

“Crazy.”

“Isn’t that an illusion skill?”

“No mana reaction.”

“Then what on earth is that.”

Half-lidded, Wonhyo watched what he had drawn in.

Dark and darker.

A twisted thing, now only a husk, flailed its whole form toward the dead.

“Not… human, right?”

“The shape looks human, though.”

Wonhyo stowed the bells back into his inventory and kept only the fan.

“Did you summon it?”

He shook his head at his uncle’s question.

“A trace.”

What had harmed the person had vanished without a trace; this was merely scraping up the residue—yet the emotions were so rough and intense that it appeared this vividly.

What looked far too stiff to be a human arm—more like the branch of a dead, dried tree—coiled a root-like grudge, then aimed its sharp tip to stab the dead flesh once more.

Wonhyo pursed his lips and scattered the energy.

Fwee—eek!

At the long whistle, what had taken shape on borrowed divine power vanished in an instant, slipping back beyond the boundary into darkness.

“What the—? Where did it go?”

Watching the bewildered people flounder, he folded the fan.

He turned his body toward his uncle.

“The state is bad. If you take this case, be careful.”

The division chief nodded.

“That much is clear.”

“Exposed to powerful ‘ghostly energy.’ (…in progress…63.77%)”

Pressing his lips tight at the penalty meter that surged after he had disturbed the remnant thought-form, Wonhyo watched it climb.

“Exposed to powerful ‘ghostly energy.’ (…in progress…77.1%)”

Perhaps because the summoned energy hadn’t fully settled, the ghostly load spiked in moments, and the status window flushed red.

It was the state he called the warning window.

He dismissed the status window, which was blinking as if it would explode any second.

“Did you film it?”

“I recorded it for now—shall I check?”

His insides were as unsettled as the air of the room.

He wanted to open a window to ventilate, but that wouldn’t solve anything, and the red glow of the status window made staying longer chilling.

Remembering what he had in his inventory, Wonhyo steadied himself.

With energy like this, it would surely harm people; he couldn’t just ignore it.

If he left it, that would create karmic entanglement and rebound badly on him as well.

With the mindset of caring for a child playing with gunpowder beside a bonfire, Wonhyo searched for something usable in bulk.

“There’s nothing on it.”

Several black-haired heads huddled around the camera, and only now did they realize.

He gave a wry smile.

There was no way what he had drawn in would remain on a machine.

It was a reconstruction of residual energy.

Besides, since it wasn’t a skill, a camera that recorded mana flux wouldn’t capture it.

Clicking his tongue, Wonhyo first pulled a new talisman from his inventory and shoved it into his uncle’s hands.

“It’s from a hundred days of prayer. Keep it on you.”

“Ah, okay. But can’t you purify the place?”

“Not now.”

He had the equipment and materials, but his physical condition was the issue.

Wonhyo drew a deep breath at the penalty bar that had now passed 80%.

“Excuse me.”

He flicked away the approaching hand.

Perhaps stung by the rebuff, the other’s expression soured, but this was no time to worry about others.

“Exposed to powerful ‘ghostly energy.’ Leave the area.”

Footnotes:

• Spirit bells and fan: Traditional shamanic tools; bells (julse-bells) call/command energies, while the fan directs or disperses them, acting as a conduit for wind imbued with divine force.