Chapter 98

Wonyo looked at him and continued speaking.

“But they’re saying that the killer used some method to excessively activate that sal-type energy. If the innate energy shown in one’s Four Pillars could expand and subside that easily, people wouldn’t be worrying about it in the first place.”

“Hearing that… it is strange that there’s nothing at the scene. If something has enough force to exert such a strong influence, one would normally expect the culprit to be carrying it on their person.”

“Exactly. Which is why, whether it was an item or something else, it feels like the culprit made contact and transferred that sal. Isn’t that why you thought the same thing and told me to track the victim’s movements?”

If it wasn’t at home, then some trace should remain somewhere the victim visited today.

Cheongmun shrugged.

“In my case, I told them to look into it because of what you, Yun Wonyo-ssi, said. If the victim bought the meat they ate, then it came from outside. And their clothes were still exactly as they were when they went out, plus the shoes left at the entrance still had damp soil or sand that hadn’t dried yet. Since there’s no construction nearby, it must’ve fallen from farther away. Under the sink, there was a shopping bag, but it wasn’t a standard garbage bag — just an ordinary plastic one. That means they definitely didn’t buy the meat at a nearby mart.”

Cheongmun turned his body and pointed toward the alley that led out from the victim’s home.

“If you go that way, there’s a butcher shop. It’s the shortest path from the subway station to here.”

Wonyo opened his mouth wide.

“It’s a seven-minute walk from here to the subway. If they stopped by the butcher’s, then it’s at least fifteen minutes. I don’t know about curses, but for skills that mentally affect others, we usually assume they hold for about an hour. Brainwashing-type skills last the longest — even an A-rank caps at fifty minutes. The short ones usually stay under five minutes. Once the time runs out, the skill’s effect disappears.”

Wonyo blinked.

“But if it’s an hour… wouldn’t investigating the previous nine incidents have revealed someone they all had in common?”

“In those cases, the animal spirit remained inside the perpetrator’s body — along with traces of the sorcery. But here, nothing. Just as you said, it looks as though everything was ‘cleaned.’”

Wonyo met Cheongmun’s gaze.

“Do you have any guesses?”

Cheongmun lowered his eyes halfway.

“There is the matter of whether a target exists for consumption. At the moment… I’m suspecting the culprit cannot achieve their goal unless they ‘devour.’”

“Huh?”

Wonyo’s eyes widened.

His mind tangled like something had suddenly burst open. Not because Cheongmun’s speculation was absurd, but because something vague and fragmented seemed to be gathering together, hinting at a shape.

“Uh… hold on… wait?”

“What is it?”

“The attacker. What I saw… besides what my uncle first showed me at the café, everything else was attackers. But what if— what if the ones who got eaten were born with guimunsal? Not the ones possessed by the animal spirit, but the ones the spirit fed on. I never sensed any demonic aura from the victims, you know? But what if, just like this victim, they were all… clean? Because their souls were eaten.”

Normally, the possessed were thought to have their ghost gates opened, so he had pushed the victims to the bottom of the list.

“You think their souls may have been harvested?”

Wonyo nodded vigorously.

“For what purpose?”

At Cheongmun’s question, Wonyo listed all the things one could do by gathering souls.

“Broadly, there are two goals. One is using the soul as-is — like a vengeful spirit. And the other is literally…”

He frowned.

“Using it as material.”

“Team leader.”

Nam, the administrative officer who came up from below, hurried toward him and knocked on the cube.

Cheongmun reduced the cube’s size and stepped outside.

“Did you secure the route?”

“There was GPS data saved on the phone, so we cross-verified it. It confirms they were handing out flyers today around Mia Station and Mia Sageori.”

Nam handed over the location data.

It included travel routes and detailed records of how long the victim stayed at each point.

After glancing toward the villa with the semi-basement room, Cheongmun lifted the tablet slightly.

“Yun Wonyo-ssi and I will handle the investigation here, so once the on-site work finishes, return to the Bureau.”

“…Understood.”

After bowing, Nam dipped his head politely to Wonyo.

Still flustered, Wonyo quickly returned the bow, and Nam left with a smile and a wave.

Watching him go, Cheongmun adjusted his glasses and lightly kicked the air.

Wonyo felt a brief jolt as he was pulled upward inside the cube, but soon regained his balance.

The cube encasing his body descended smoothly to the ground once more.

“…Are you sure I really have to go too?”

Wonyo held down his wind-tossed hair as he asked.

Cheongmun raised a corner of his mouth.

“If we find something, you’d have to rush out immediately even if you went home. It’s better to move together.”

Wonyo scrunched his nose.

“If I went home, I’d go to bed, not back out again….”

He exhaled into the wind, insisting he wasn’t curious enough to sacrifice sleep.

Flying through the quiet dawn, the wind scraped across Wonyo’s cheeks as he looked down.

He didn’t frequent this neighborhood, so the streets were confusing — he had no idea where he even was. Yet Cheongmun navigated as though he were reading his own palm.

“This is where the victim stayed the longest.”

Hands in his pockets, Cheongmun pointed with his chin at a darkened department store.

Wonyo looked at the space between the road and the building — too narrow to be a plaza, too wide to be a sidewalk.

A bad feeling crawled over him.

Damp. Murky.

Not quite the ominous aura of an abandoned house or haunted place — something mustier, thicker.

But also weirdly familiar.

He tilted his head.

“Can we go down?”

Right now, the distance and the cube’s distortion made sensing energy difficult — everything felt dispersed.

At his request, Cheongmun slowly descended.

As they neared the ground, Wonyo quickly summoned his gimyeong, transforming it into a fan to scatter the air.

A corpse smell?

Not the wet, collapsing rot of fresh decay — more like the dry, waxy scent of a mummified body.

Even sniffing around, he couldn’t pinpoint its source. But one thing was certain.

『You have come into contact with powerful guigi. (…In progress… 68.1%)』

“The system is reacting.”

At Wonyo’s mutter, Cheongmun immediately acted.

Pulling him fully into the cube, the rising guigi stabilized — and the foul odor vanished.

He shifted the fan into a bell, searching for the faint threads of energy, but nothing significant surfaced.

“Does anything stand out?”

Wonyo sighed.

“There’s a trace, but I can’t find it like this.”

After a moment’s thought, he recalled today’s daily animal of the earthly branches.

It was the Pig — midnight had already passed.

“Could you remove this for a moment?”

Cheongmun’s eyebrow lifted slightly.

“Right now?”

“Searching while under penalty will be faster.”

Cheongmun hesitated, then the cube around Wonyo dissolved.

『You have come into contact with powerful guigi. (…In progress… 79.2%)』

Before, he would have panicked at the idea of triggering a penalty — anxious, on edge, afraid someone might see him. But now, his mind was strangely calm.

He followed the unpleasant sensation crawling along his skin, keeping his range tight in case he transformed. His nose twitched repeatedly.

As he walked a few steps following the scent, the system notifications came faster.

Seeing the warning light signaling a dangerous threshold, he inspected the paving stones still wet with lingering moisture.

He would have to change clothes when he got home.

The moment he thought it, his vision twisted.

Wonyo wondered if a day would ever come when he adapted to this — but really, he just hoped he’d find the quest location soon so he could finish it. Standing around half-naked in winter air was torture.

“Ggul.”

He shoved aside his clothes and pushed his snout out.

The damp, muddled scent bloomed into a cascade of distinct odors.

Wet soil, street trees. Dry dust from who-knew-where. Cheongmun’s skin-scent nearby.

And the stench.

What had been a single lump of “corpse odor” now separated into layers.

Insect smells. The stench of flesh decaying open. A metallic-cotton odor like disinfectant pads — the type he’d smelled in shampoo or dish soap.

Even the chlorine tang of tap water or swimming pool disinfectant.

All of it pooled strongest in one place.

“Ggul!”

On short four legs, Wonyo scurried rapidly across the paving stones.

Cheongmun trailed after him with long, easy strides, carrying Wonyo’s clothes — which was infuriating, but the scent mattered more.

Following his nose, Wonyo reached the alley behind the department store rather than the front.

As Cheongmun had suspected, a tall steel construction barrier blocked off the large zone under work.

Tracing along it, Wonyo found the dumpster behind the building.

“Here?”

“Ggul—!”

This place definitely smells the strongest.

When he cried out, Cheongmun stowed the clothes in his inventory and took out a communication item.

footnote

1. Sal (살) harmful influence or ill-fortune energy in Korean metaphysics, often tied to fate charts or spiritual afflictions. 
2. Four Pillars (사주, Saju) traditional East Asian fortune-reading system based on year, month, day, and hour of birth. 
3. Guimunsal (귀문살) configuration in Saju believed to indicate sensitivity to spirits or susceptibility to supernatural influence. 
4. Guigi (귀기) demonic or spectral energy; an aura associated with malicious spirits. 
5. Iljudongmul (일주동물) “daily earthly-branch animal,” a concept in traditional calendars.