chapter 34
34 – Heoju #3
“But is it true that everyone who serves evil spirits can display superhuman strength like that? You said that a strange man was shot but was fine.”
“Not everyone who serves a demon becomes a superhuman. If you serve a trivial demon, all you get is riches or slightly increased physical abilities. If you are fine even when you get shot, you must be serving a famous demon.”
It was an interesting story. According to Sarah, the power given to a medium varies depending on the type of ghost. Even after being shot, the gunman quickly stopped bleeding. The power given to the gunman was assumed to be strong physical ability and resilience.
“I’ll take a look at my notes first.”
“Let’s see together.”
I opened the notebook where my father’s story was recorded. As a father who exorcised a variety of things, including ghosts, monsters, and demons, there were naturally records of engagements with psychics. In the note, it was written how the psychic was subdued.
[…] There are psychics who cast spells. Among the mediums, those who were weak could be easily suppressed using firearms or cold weapons. However, there were cases where psychics who served magical ghosts could not be suppressed with ordinary weapons. This was because they had special abilities.]
[To subdue special spirit mediums, you must burn the sacred object that contains the ghost. For example, in the case of shamans, they are weapons such as fans and bells, and other items that possess ghosts. If the spiritual object is destroyed, the mediums lose all their power and lose consciousness.]
New stuff.
It was literally an object with a god in it.
Sarah, who was reading the note next to her, nodded her head.
“If we burn the sacred object, we can definitely subdue it. It’s like forcibly breaking the link between the spirit medium and the ghost.”
“What if a ghost is inhabiting the medium’s body? Then should the medium be burned?”
“The possibility of that happening is slim. Because a person’s body cannot withstand the presence of a magical ghost. Shamans also use weapons instead of the body as a link to the spirits. Strangers wearing masks also carry sacred objects like weapons. “You probably have it.”
The stronger the power of the ghost, the less able the human body can withstand. It was trustworthy because Sarah personally verified it. Quite a long time has passed since the masked man began his activities. However, since his body and mind were fine, he was said to have possessed a divine object.
“It’s a new thing….”
“It could be a mask, a knife, or a coat. In any case, you have to meet it in person to know the identity of the new object.”
“I guess so. Let’s go patrolling.”
I spoke to Sarah first.
Sera looked at me with a smile.
“Didn’t the captain tell you earlier not to walk around at night?”
“The more you tell me not to do something, the more I want to do it.”
“hehehe.”
Sera’s smile deepened.
“Jinwoo is not good at being a good boy.”
“I ate it.”
“That’s why I like it. Come do something bad with me.”
He was also a childhood friend. He wasn’t forced to follow me because I asked him to go on patrol. If I hadn’t said it, Sarah would have said it first. Because she was the kind of girl who, when a guy was curious, she would do anything to solve it.
She sometimes imagined things like this.
I was wondering what would have happened if we hadn’t met in the third grade of elementary school. Still, it seemed like she would have met Sarah someday. She encounters it while exploring a haunted house with a story in her neighborhood.
“I’ll take the right amount of equipment.”
“It’s better to bring a school bag. A duffel bag will be noticeable to the police.”
Sarah and I went out carrying a bag containing a sword and a lump of rock salt.
From that day on, we started patrolling late at night.
*
About three days passed and it was Friday.
Almost a week had already passed since the knife attack occurred at the camping site.
However, the masked gunman has not yet been caught by the police.
Now, rumors like ghost stories were circulating among the residents of Seungcheon-gu. There was a rumor that a pure white mask was seen passing outside the house. A female student in the same class as us also said she saw a pure white mask.
A female student in her classroom told the kids around her what she had witnessed.
“I saw it yesterday! I saw it when I went out to take out the trash at night.”
“What?”
“A masked killer! He was standing in the parking lot of my apartment building.”
A female student wearing her glasses opened her mouth with a scared expression.
“The masked criminal was pointing his finger towards the apartment. I was going to report it to the police right away, but the criminal was pointing his finger higher and higher.”
A masked man appeared at the apartment complex.
The gunman said he pointed to the apartment with his finger.
“At first, I couldn’t understand what the criminal was doing. But the finger that was going up suddenly stopped. Uh, do you know where it stopped?”
“Where?”
“It was on the floor where our house was! That’s where my finger stopped! It turns out I was counting the floors…”
The female student immediately reported it to the police. However, the masked gunman disappeared before the police arrived. There were quite a few residents who said they had seen a pure white mask like this. The unfortunate thing was that I did not witness it myself.
I spoke to Sarah who was sitting next to her.
“…Sera. Why can’t we see the monster? They’re even patrolling on purpose.”
“I guess the timing isn’t right. Well, I guess the gunman hasn’t left our neighborhood yet.”
Three days passed, but we did not witness the masked assailant. Even though I was deliberately patrolling at night, sightings were coming from the wrong direction. The good news was that no murders occurred for three days.
After school, it was night.
Sarah and I went on patrol and returned to Hyehwadang around 1 a.M.
“Is today also a waste of time?”
“It’s a shame.”
Today was Saturday.
I thought it would be a shame to sleep like this.
“Shall we watch a movie and sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Sera, I’ll buy some snacks from the convenience store.”
I bought snacks at a nearby convenience store.
I returned to Hyehwadang carrying a bag full of snacks.
It was when I took off my shoes and entered the house.
Unlike when I just left, the kitchen was a little messy.
‘Huh?’
I saw the refrigerator door slightly open. There was a large apple with a big bite on the kitchen table. There was also leftover ice cream. That Häagen-Dazs was bought by Sarah to eat.
“If you’ve eaten, let’s clean up.”
I closed the refrigerator door and cleaned up the food on the table. However, Sarah was not seen around. She asked me to watch a movie with her, but I wondered where she went.
“Is it Sarah?”
I looked around the house for a moment. As I listened quietly, I heard the sound of water coming from somewhere. It was in the bathroom. Is Sarah taking a bath now? After all, he’s a kid who really likes washing.
“…….”
No.
I only thought that way for a moment.
I opened the refrigerator door wide again. The refrigerator, which contained a lot of food ingredients, had several empty compartments. Snacks such as fresh fruit, containers of side dishes, and chocolate have disappeared. It was such an amount that it was impossible to imagine that one person could have eaten it in an instant.
‘Are you a thief?’
A masked monster came to mind. Almost a week has already passed since I ran away. Since the gunman was also human, he would have wanted to remove body odor by eating or washing.
━━ Shoot aaa
The sound of water could be heard faintly.
The thing in the bathroom right now could not have been Sarah.
I took out the military knife from the bag I was wearing. While holding the knife, he moved quietly so as not to make any sound. I walked down the long hallway of Hyehwadang and arrived in front of the bathroom.
I quietly turned the doorknob and opened the bathroom door. The sound of water falling continued to be heard from inside. Now was a good time to attack the intruders. I walked forward, clutching the hilt of the sword tightly.
It was the moment I finally entered the bathroom.
A voice like a scream almost burst out of my mouth.
“Huh…”
Shower booth made of opaque glass.
Inside the booth, a silhouette that looked like a girl was taking a bath. Looking at her body, it was clear that it was Sarah. The girl’s silhouette moved beyond the steam-soaked glass.
‘Wow.’
The prediction was wrong. It was definitely Sarah who was taking a bath in the bathroom right now. The glass was opaque, so I could only see the silhouette, but my eyes couldn’t be fooled.
It was the body of a gravure model.
Perhaps because of her mixed Western blood, Sarah, who became a high school student, had an amazing body. It wasn’t for nothing that the teacher asked her if she was a model on the first day of school. It’s a fact that I knew because she was a childhood friend, but she was more amazing when she wasn’t wearing it than when she was wearing it.
The silhouette seen beyond the shower booth was fantastic.
‘Anyway, it wasn’t.’
Her face turned red for no reason.
That was when I quickly turned my head.
Sera’s voice was heard from the shower booth.
“Who’s there?”
“Me, it’s me.”
“No, it’s Jinwoo….”
“I never came here because I wanted to. It seems like there are people other than us in Hyehwadang right now.”
“You mean someone else? Are you talking about Jinwoo’s lecherous devil?”
“Absolutely not.”
I quickly explained why I had no choice but to enter the bathroom.
“Someone stole the food from the refrigerator. There are traces that you just ate fruit and ice cream. That’s not what you ate.”
“I didn’t eat anything.”
“That’s right! Get dressed quickly and come outside.”
The explanation has been completed. Fortunately, the intruder never came near the bathroom. Sarah’s ears perked up. She knew that if an intruder had come nearby, Sarah would have noticed it first.
“Huh.”
I came out of the bathroom and stood guard in front of the door.
She thought she would stay here until Sarah came out.
At that time, the sound of her footsteps rang out at the end of the long hallway. Even though Sarah and I were here, we could hear her footsteps from afar.
A pure white mask appeared at the end of the hallway with the lights off.
I saw a strange man wearing a traditional mask.
“Were you there?”
I asked out loud, but there was no answer from the assailant.
The gunman had a heavy backpack on his back. It was a backpack containing food stolen from Hyehwadang.
The gunman looked at me and took out a sashimi knife from inside his coat. An eerie sound rang out from the knife coming out of the sheath.
━━Sereung
The theft of food was not the end.
That gunman was planning to steal our lives as well.
I took a step forward holding the military sword.
A gunman holding a sashimi knife ran towards me. I also ran towards the gunman. In the long hallway connecting Hyehwadang, the gunman and I swung our swords at each other. In the blink of an eye, the martial arts knife and the sashimi knife clashed in the darkness.
The sound of swords clashing echoed through the hallway.