Evelyn was baffled. ‘What? A jewel he couldn’t get?’
“Ah…Ah, ah…” The demon wearing red armor dragged himself closer while groaning. “Oh…oh…” Then he threw away the string in his hands and flew up. He stood right in front of the witch, hanging on the wall with her hands tied to the chain, and couldn’t hide his admiration.
“After all this some time, we finally met again…” As if he was caring for a precious jewel, he caressed her skull carefully. Evelyn immediately tilted her head away, feeling a natural repulsion to this being.
—Don’t touch me. Go away.
Whatever she said, the demon continued to caress her all over.
“You only have bones left now…but my heart still swells in remembrance of your past beauty,” the demon said in a choked voice, and even his eyes seemed to water. At this point, Evelyn felt something strange. She didn’t know who this person was, but it sounded like he knew her. He didn’t seem to have only heard her name, but actually had seen her in person, or else there was no way he would say she was beautiful just by looking at her skeleton, all bones and no flesh.
—Who are you?
“Huh? Do you not remember me?” The demon sounded shocked. “I can’t believe it! I know thousands of years have passed, but how!? I have never forgotten you for a moment whether I was dead or alive!”
Thousands of years? Dead or alive?
“L-Look at me carefully and think about it.” He clutched onto her skull with both hands. “Do you still not remember me? Are you going to still say you don’t know me? You ended your life upon wishing not to be mine…my lovely witch.” The demon quietly whispered.
Eveyln gasped. ‘No way…’ A figure she had forgotten for long came back to her mind, and inside her skull’s dark, empty eye holes lit two orbs of purple light. They wavered like flames in the face of her opponent. She had wondered why she felt such a deep repulsion toward this figure, and she knew the exact reason now.
—You!
“Yes, it seems you finally remember me.” The demon sounded satisfied. Hearing this, the glow in Evelyn’s eye holes became more intense. She gritted her teeth and glared like she wanted to kill him in this instance. How could she forget him? He was the one who tormented her during her time alive and eventually led her to her death.
—Zepar…!
* * *
“Disgusting?” Apoline asked like she didn’t understand. Ru Amuh tilted his head. He couldn’t detect anything with his synesthesia, and Noel was the only one who felt the same as Chi-Woo. As a hero with a priestly background, her mood had slightly worsened as soon as she stepped into this place. For some reason, she felt an indescribable sense of evil.
After collecting his breath, Chi-Woo scowled. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he definitely felt a banquet of disheveled neoks tangled up like yarns at the center of this area. Unable to escape from here, they were running wild and wailing. Chi-Woo didn’t know what to think after taking a glimpse of such a heinous creation. First of all, it didn’t seem to be something done by a water ghost, but whoever did this had done it with the same goal and in a way a water ghost would.
After reaching this conclusion, Chi-Woo looked crestfallen. He thought he would be able to find a solution if he came here in person, but it was hopeless.
“How is it? Hm?” Jin-Cheon quickly asked as Chi-woo’s expression darkened.
“…It’s not good. The situation is more difficult than I had expected,” Chi-Woo replied with a sigh.
“Is there really no way?” Jin-Cheon asked pleadingly.
A method? There was only one, which was to seal this area tightly and back away. They must not touch the circle at any cost. That was the only method. On Earth, Chi-Woo had faced something like this during the time he went around following his mentor. Once, they received a request from a shaman and went to an abandoned factory in the mountains. The factory closed down after a large fire and had been vacant for a long time. It looked ominous even from far away. They went inside and found a door leading to the basement, but his mentor didn’t open the door and instead stared at it for a long time. Then he clicked his tongue quietly and turned around. On their way back, Chi-Woo asked why they were leaving without doing anything.
[There’s nothing we can do there.]
His mentor said in a low voice.
[It’s not because of the fire. Even before the fire, the factory had been a place where vengeful spirits gathered. There are loads of them in the area, and one of them is particularly awful. I don’t know for what reason it is like that, but it’s like a snake, deadly from head to toe.]
[What can we do when words won’t go through them other than to back away? If you ever see a place like this, don’t do anything as foolish as entering and trying to solve the problem. This isn’t something two people could deal with. There are at least other options to consider since the place is on the ground; were it underwater, there would be absolutely nothing to be done.]
[You are asking what options? Hmm, the best method is to move a large military base to that area. And as yang energy from the soldiers permeated the place for decades, the vengeful energy would fade to some extent. Then we could try going to the basement and clearing the area.]
[Of course, many innocent soldiers would die or suffer in the process…]
At least the factory on Earth had been on the ground, but this place was a swamp full of water. Entering would be the same as covering one’s body in blood and jumping into an ocean full of sharks. Chi-Woo needed to tell the rest of his team to leave as fast as possible, but he couldn’t. There was the matter with the witch, and they had to do something after coming all the way here. Although he felt reluctant, Chi-Woo spoke in the end.
“Could you dig a hole in the ground?”
“Huh? Dig a hole?”
“It doesn’t have to be wide, but it has to be deep.”
“I can do at least that much!” Happy to do something, Jin-Cheon and his brother began to dig, and Ru Amuh joined them. While they worked, Chi-Woo opened his bag. He took out a bowl made of organic materials and poured in some rice newly grown this year.
“Is this enough?” Jin-Cheon asked after digging so hard that his face was covered in dirt. Chi-Woo nodded and moved. The muddy hole was starting to get filled with murky water. Chi-Woo placed both feet into the pool and dropped a bowl wrapped in cloth and thread like he was throwing a fish hook. With a splash, the cloth-covered bowl disappeared into the muddy water.
“What are you doing?”
“A neokgari,” Chi-Woo said succinctly as Apoline asked.
“Neokgari…?” Apoline didn’t say anything else; Chi-Woo appeared very focused.
‘What?’ Chi-Woo chewed on his bottom lip. Usually, he would know the ritual was a success if he retrieved the bowl and found the rice inside replaced with body parts such as fingernails; bodily fluids counted as well. However, only Abis’ neok was taken from her, and her body was still breathing, so there was really no way of knowing if his neokgari was a success. That was why Chi-Woo had thrown the bowl into the water, not expecting much to happen. He had just done the ritual thinking he had to do something.
‘Was it always this deep?’ The thread he had cast continued downward. It sank and sank until the thread tightened, and Chi-Woo felt someone pulling it. Pip. Chi-Woo instinctively pulled the string back and was shocked to see it break as soon as he felt a resistance. Chi-Woo quickly got out of the hole and looked down at the thread. The rest of the expedition team looked serious; they all knew the bowl wasn’t heavy enough to break the thread. In other words, someone was pulling at it intentionally from the other side.
“There really seems to be something,” Nangnang murmured carefully.
“One more time. Let me try one more time.” Chi-Woo opened his bag again in shock.
“Be careful. If there’s anything strange, tell us,” Apoline said, sounding worried.
The second attempt ended in the same way. After reaching a specific depth, the thread broke. Assessing the estimated depth at which the thread broke, Chi-Woo made his third attempt. But this time, he pulled right before he thought the thread would break.
“!” He suddenly felt someone grab his ankles and yank.
“Ah!” Chi-Woo’s head was thrown back as his body got sucked in.
“Teacher!” Having been on high alert, Ru Amuh quickly clutched onto Chi-Woo and pulled him back. If Jin-Cheon hadn’t also jumped in, Chi-Woo would’ve been completely sucked in. Chi-Woo barely managed to get out of the hole and collected his breath.
“Boss! Are you okay… Uh, uh…” Nangnang approached him and stammered. Apoline also looked pale. There were deep handprints on Chi-Woo’s ankles, as if someone had clutched them tightly. Chi-Woo clenched his teeth. Where he’d stepped into, the water should only reach his calf at best, but he was soaked up to his thighs.
“I should’ve been more careful.” There were quite a number of shamans who got into incidents while trying to perform a neokgari, because they had to go inside the water in person. He could’ve been in serious trouble.
For now, Chi-Woo pulled back his thread. It didn’t get cut off this time, and the bowl came along with it. The cloth wrapping the bowl had been shredded apart, leaving only small pieces behind, and the rice inside had disappeared without leaving a single grain. All he got back was a bowl plastered in mud.
“What happened? Did it work?”
“No.” Chi-Woo shook his head at Jin-Cheon’s question.
“Then what happened?”
“It’s mocking me,” Chi-Woo said bitterly while looking at the empty bowl.
“Mocking you?”
“Yes, it’s saying it has no intention of returning the neok and telling me to eat shit.”
Jin-Cheon looked at a loss for words, and Nangnang was also speechless. But Nangnang soon flinched, jerking his head up to look around.
“What’s that?” Nangnang asked. He suddenly heard the murmuring of hundreds of people coming from their surroundings at once. And even though there was no wind, the thick cluster of reeds began to shake. Chi-Woo soon picked himself up. The expedition team also gathered and stood back-to-back. They all felt in that instant that something evil and ominous was gripping this place.
The reeds shook harder as if they were laughing at them, and the chorus of murmurs became more severe. There arose a great tension as if something was about to explode!
“It’s coming!” Ru Amuh shouted while something popped out among the reeds and collided with the whirlwind Ru Amuh had generated with a swing. At the collision, their ‘attacker’ disassembled and scattered everywhere. Noel wiped her face and scowled.
“Mud?” She didn’t even have time to inspect it when long shadowy figures began to shoot out from between the reeds. All members of the expedition team became busy fighting them off. Individually, they weren’t strong, but the numbers were the problem. They were popping up non-stop at astonishing speed. To make things worse, it was almost impossible for the heroes to sight their opponents beforehand and react accordingly with their vision obstructed by the reeds.
“Urgh! Uggggh!” In the end, the young man protecting Abis got hit. Mud blanketed him from the front, and he tried to wipe it off. “Ugh? Ah! Ahhhh!” But he suddenly dropped his sword and began to wail like a beast.
“Damn it! The reeds are getting in my way!” Jin-Cheon cried out, unable to spare a hand to help.
It was then Apoline said, “Burn.” Hwaaaaaaa! A brilliant flame shot up and quickly spread due to the dense concentration of plants. A ring of fire soon formed around the expedition team and ate away the reeds.
“Don’t move! Stay still!” The battle entered a temporary stage of reprieve as Noel wiped the mud from the young man’s face. As the reeds burned away, the whole swamp came into view. It was boiling. Large bubbles burst, and mud shot up to form humanoid figures. There were some that didn’t even resemble the human form, but the crucial point was that there were over a thousand of them, and more were emerging. Without resting, Apoline raised both arms into the sky and spread her hands above her head. Then spheres of lights the size of pebbles formed at the end of each of her fingers before scattering in all directions. The moment the spheres touched the flames, there was a loud burst.
“Sonata of the Flame.”
Bambambambambam!
A series of fancy explosions with great, individual destructive power occurred. And it happened more than once. A series of explosions and brilliant light blinded their vision. By the time the explosions settled down, and their vision came back to normal, their surroundings were thoroughly cleared. All reeds beside the ones at the farthest edges had been burned, while the unidentifiable mud monsters were all gone.
“Wow…” Jin-Cheon gaped, while Ru Amuh sighed in relief.
“Hmm?” Then he looked around and blinked. The young man also calmed down, and Noel lifted her head to look around. Then she let out a piercing scream.