The Fraudulent Shaman
Whoosh!
Park Su-hwan, dressed in brilliant multicolored robes with a blue headband tied around his brow, scattered grains of rice across the fortune table. He fixed the arrangement with a grave expression, as if he could truly see something written there.
"Hmm…"
He let out a long, theatrical sigh at just the right moment.
"Aigoo. Please!"
The middle-aged woman seated across from him began to bow and plead with her whole body, terrified that a bad reading was about to come out.
Su-hwan watched her for a beat. Then, after drawing out the silence just long enough, he finally opened his mouth.
"It'll work out."
"R-really?"
The woman started. A thin thread of doubt still flickered in her eyes.
Su-hwan did not miss it.
"What. Sound like a lie to you?"
His face went cold in an instant.
"N-no, I'm sorry. That isn't what I—"
Even after her apology, he did not withdraw that icy stare.
"Your eyes say otherwise. Irreverent. Truly irreverent!!"
Jingle, jingle, jingle.
"Aigooo. Father, Mother. Heave—wait, no—Father—!!"
Close. He had almost slipped.
Determined to knock the woman's senses clean out of her head, Su-hwan shook the ritual bells even harder, like a man possessed.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Teacher!"
Clack!
He set the bells down and fixed her with another glare.
"My words are the words of the gods. To doubt them is to doubt the gods themselves."
"Yes, yes. I-I believe you."
What parent in this world would worry so hard over a child's future, and beg this desperately for it?
It was that desperation that had driven her all the way to a fraudulent shaman like him, clinging this hard.
"Your boy. He'll get into the university he wants. He'll land it clean."
"Hah!"
The woman sucked in a sharp breath.
"R-really?"
The only reason a man with not so much as a speck of true spiritual power could still play shaman was this: a quick eye and a silver tongue.
"Yes!"
She had said her son studied hard. That he stayed up late hitting the books.
If that was true, then his own ability alone would be enough to get him into the school he wanted.
Right. This wasn't a reading. It was simple common sense.
"But you must not let your guard down until the very end. Especially November!"
"November…?"
"That's right! That's when the college entrance exam is. You can't drop the tension until the last moment. With the effort your son's putting in now, it's more than possible—but who knows what happens as time goes on. Why?"
"Why…?"
The woman echoed him blankly.
"Because luck changes every time. How can you expect the same result when the situation isn't the same? That's just greedy. Tsk, tsk."
Su-hwan snapped open his fan and clicked his tongue.
"I'm telling you this specially, because I can see your sincerity… Watch your son's health. He could blow it right at the finish line."
"Y-yes…!? Then, is he going to get seriously sick, or… something like that?"
She had said he often pulled all-nighters studying, hadn't she?
Then of course he would wreck his body.
Su-hwan was building his fortune—no, his con—out of the information he had pulled from their conversation.
Still, there was no need to plant pointless anxiety in her.
"Not that. September. From then on, don't pile pressure on the boy. Just support him from behind. Don't nag him. Understood!?"
He barked it at her like an order.
That, too, was only common sense. September was the month of the last regular mock exam before the real entrance test.
"Good. We're done, so go on."
He let the force drain from his eyes and softened his expression as if nothing had happened. In truth, he had only stopped acting and relaxed his body, but—
"Haa…"
The woman stared at him, wide-eyed. The sudden shift in atmosphere made it feel as if a god had truly come and gone through him.
"Th-thank you, Teacher. Would I… need a talisman or anything like that?"
A talisman? Absolutely not.
If she took it to some other shaman and showed it around… they might see through him as a fraud on the spot.
"A talisman? Spend that time looking after your son instead."
He flared his eyes at her once more.
"Ah, ah. Yes, yes. I'm sorry. Just a moment."
She pulled her wallet from her pocket and held out fifty thousand won.
"…"
It had originally been thirty thousand, but as times got harder he had raised the bokchae. Even so, for a fake shaman like him, that amount was barely enough to keep food in his mouth.
Yet Su-hwan did not take the offering at once. He looked her over instead.
Hands thick with the wrinkles of a hard life.
A jacket that looked like it had been grabbed off a market stall.
Worn, fraying pants—and the socks? Those looked ready to tear through any day now.
One glance was enough to know her life was far from comfortable.
"Tsk. Forget it."
"Pardon?"
"I said I won't take it. No—I can't take it."
She tilted her head, lost.
"He says not to accept it. There."
Su-hwan jerked his chin toward the deity statue set up in the shrine. A general's image stood there, magnificent and stern-faced.
"Our General says he cannot take money from a parent who worries so devotedly for her child."
General, my ass. I need that fifty thousand just to make rent.
Su-hwan swallowed a sigh and went on.
"Come back when your son gets into university."
Even a con man had no desire to dig into a poor person's pocket for a living.
Of course, if he really wanted to keep a clean conscience, the first thing he should have done was quit the shaman act. But thieving was the only skill he had, so there was nothing for it.
"B-but they say if you don't pay the bokchae, misfortune follows. Couldn't you please accept it?"
Anxiety was rising in her again.
This is the problem. A shaman can't even offer a pure kindness.
"I saw five thousand in there earlier. Leave that and go. That enough?"
He had already noted how much was in her wallet when she opened it. Faced with his firmness, she finally fished out five thousand won, piece by piece.
Su-hwan took the money, tucked it away, and waved her out. It was an unmistakable dismissal. Still she bowed again and again with thanks before she left the shrine.
"Haa…"
He looked down at the five thousand won in his hand and heaved a long sigh.
Little by little makes a mountain, my ass.
How am I supposed to pay months of overdue rent on this?
It was barely past noon, and he had no more appointments. Su-hwan swept the scattered rice grains together and poured them back into their container.
If I'm going to have customers, at least send me rich ones.
Then I could really work them over with all the sweet talk I've got.
After roughly straightening the table, he picked up a dry cloth from the side. He meant to dust the shrine lightly.
A shrine set up in a windowless basement room. It was both his workplace and his home, but Su-hwan had never much liked the space.
Stay too long in a place this gloomy and even a healthy person would start seeing ghosts. He wanted to bolt for the door this second—but he couldn't.
"Ugh."
Every coin counted right now. He had to keep the seat warm for any customer who might wander in.
Swish, wipe.
With practiced hands he polished the statue. The figure he called "General" was, in truth, the Jade Emperor—Okhwang Sangje.
The only Eastern deity whose name he had known was the Jade Emperor, so he had more or less grabbed the statue and set it up.
Then he found out it was actually a rather high-ranking god.
If he was going to claim to be a shaman, saying he served a lofty deity sounded much cooler. So he had happily kept using it.
Even so, this was the most expensive thing in the whole shrine.
What kind of deity statue costs over five hundred thousand won… There were no used ones, so I had to grit my teeth and pay full price.
"General. No—Sangje-nim. Please send me some customers."
Su-hwan muttered as he wiped the statue.
Hmm… "Sangje-nim" still feels weird on the tongue.
"General" fits so much better. No wonder shamans keep calling on Generals left and right.
"Aigooo. General! Go fetch me one rich sucker!"
For all of Su-hwan's fervent prayers, no rich clients appeared—nor did anyone come for a reading at all.
Without lingering, he closed the shrine and stepped outside.
"Young man!"
"…?"
As if on cue, his landlady came down from the second floor. Su-hwan hid his dismay and greeted her with a bright smile.
"Hello, ma'am."
"Been well?"
"Yes. And you?"
She opened with some idle small talk. Su-hwan already knew how this conversation would end.
The rent due date was drawing near.
"Oh, right."
She spoke as if the thought had just occurred to her.
"About this month's rent—are you all right?"
"Well… I'm sorry. Not many people have been coming for readings lately. Could I put it off one more month?"
Su-hwan watched her carefully for a reaction.
"Haa… You know how many months you're behind already, don't you?"
"Yes…"
"This is a problem. Honestly, it isn't as if I've only cut you slack once or twice. From the very start… when you couldn't even find a room because you were a shaman."
That was true. What landlord wanted a shaman for a tenant? She was the one who had taken him in.
Su-hwan felt genuine apology and gratitude toward her.
"I'm really sorry… By next month I'll find a way to get it together and pay you for sure. The back rent too."
"… Just this once."
She sighed deeply, glancing at his leg as she spoke.
"Th-thank you! I'll send even a little if I can!"
"Don't bother. What money do you have? More importantly, where are you headed?"
"Just out for a short walk."
"All right. Be careful."
Su-hwan nodded and left the house.
Should I just get a part-time job…
But who wants to hire a cripple with a bad leg.
It was the lingering damage from a childhood traffic accident. He had been hit by a drunk driver, and if he had only paid for it with one leg, he might even have been lucky.
But from that day on, his whole life had twisted off course. His parents had died early from the accident and illness, and everything he touched went sideways.
A life where mishaps and disasters never stopped. It was no exaggeration to say Park Su-hwan had been born under an unlucky star.
"Haha… You're kidding. No way."
"I'm serious. So then my friend…"
"Yes, Team Leader. I'm on my way now!"
Watching people hurry off somewhere, he let out a sigh thick with envy.
Why am I…
He was drifting without direction, sunk in gloomy thoughts, when—
"Lord Ganglim. Why aren't you going in?"
A bright, cheerful boy's voice slipped into his ear.
"You think I don't want to go in? Tch."
"If we lose the dead again, what then? This time King Yama might not let it slide."
Ganglim Doryeong? The dead? King Yama…?
Not a conversation ordinary people would be having. Su-hwan, who had been walking with his eyes on the ground, jerked his head up.
Geukrak Funeral Hall
Uh…
Su-hwan was a little startled to realize he had come this far. The place was more than thirty minutes from home.
"There's a woman in there ringing bells. What am I supposed to do? Tsk. Go ride a straw cutter if you want. Why come here and make a scene?"
"Ah! So there's a shaman. Can't we just go in? We really can't lose the dead…"
The speakers were near the entrance. Three figures dressed head to toe in black suits.
A tall man leaned against a Mercedes, smoking, while a short boy and a woman stood to either side of him.
What… is this?
Su-hwan quickly ducked behind a parked car.
"That won't do. The Three Goddesses of Birth would be furious. She's someone they cherish a great deal."
The woman struck the ground once with her curved blade as she spoke. Su-hwan sucked in a breath at the sight.
Carrying something like that around in broad daylight in Seoul?
But stranger still were the people around them. Passersby walked right past as if the three did not exist at all.
In that moment, Su-hwan instinctively understood what they were.
Grim Reapers.
They're Grim Reapers! Those three!
"… Insane."
He made his living as a fake shaman under the Jade Emperor's name. Being noticed by reapers would do him no good at all.
No—before that, the real question was why he could even see them.
I'm not crazy, right? Or am I dead…
Su-hwan rubbed his eyes and patted himself down. Nothing was injured, and his mind was perfectly clear.
Did some kind of spiritual power suddenly show up?
But nothing else around him looked different. No ghosts or anything of the sort.
"Huh…"
A few pedestrians glanced at his ashen face as they passed.
Fortunately they were in front of a funeral hall; everyone seemed to take him for a chief mourner or a visitor paying respects.
"She rides straw cutters all the time and still doesn't know you don't come to a house of mourning. Look at that. Look. Because of that woman, the stray spirits can't even eat—they're starving out here."
The smoking man jerked his chin toward the funeral hall entrance, face bored.
"Poor bastards…"
"If you feel so sorry for them, shall we go help?"
The woman picked up the thread.
"No. Why would I?"
"Because it's not our jurisdiction?"
"Exactly."
"Right. Not our jurisdiction. And even I, a Monthly Messenger, am off duty right now."
"We're a team, though. You've got the ledger safe?"
Su-hwan, who had been about to slip away quietly, froze.
The ledger…?
Ganglim Doryeong spoke to the boy crouched nearby. The boy pulled an old bound volume from his sleeve.
"Yes! Right here! I've got it safe and sound~"
He fluttered the pages and gave it a little shake. Su-hwan stared, as if entranced, and murmured under his breath.
If it's a ledger a reaper carries around…
The underworld ledger.
The thing that records when people will die.
He had never imagined he would see it with his own eyes.
"Good. Don't lose it. Without that, we can't take them."
"Yes!"
"If you're so nervous, why don't you carry it yourself?"
"No thanks. Why would I, when I've got underlings?"
"But if you—"
That was when it happened.
"Hey, hey. He's moving. Run! Lose him and you're dead!"
"We're going? No! Only Lord Ganglim is!"
"Shut up!!"
Ganglim Doryeong drew a sword from empty air and sprinted into the funeral hall. The boy and the woman scrambled after him.
People still failed to notice their noisy presence. Only Park Su-hwan saw what they had left behind where they vanished.
Namely—
The Register of Life and Death
"Saengsarok…"
The underworld ledger itself.