The Ledger Thief
So-hee, the Monthly Messenger, was stunned. She nearly dropped the curved blade clutched in her hand.
The living could never see the reapers. Life and death, yin and yang—they stood upon completely different boundaries.
Yet right now, every scrap of common sense she had known collapsed because of the strange man who had appeared before her eyes.
"...I'm not going crazy, am I?"
"No."
Hae-dong's answer came at once. His voice was every bit as shaken as So-hee's.
"You saw it clearly."
A man dressed in neat traditional hanbok. Clothing almost never seen in this day and age. It wasn't as if they were living in the Joseon era.
The man's appearance, running so thoroughly against the times, only made the sense of wrongness sharper.
"Haa... I should've just taken a taxi."
He was busily picking up the apples that had spilled when the bag tore open on the ground.
"What a mess."
He was ignoring the reapers so thoroughly that it almost seemed the moment their eyes had met might have been an illusion.
"...Or was it?"
Hae-dong tilted his head and muttered.
"I'm sure our eyes met."
The man kept trying to scoop the apples and other items back into the torn bag. The harder he tried, the more things tumbled out onto the pavement.
"Ah. Forget it."
At last he lost patience, stood up in irritation, and turned away, leaving the scattered belongings right where they lay.
Anyone looking would have said he was thoroughly fed up after a sudden accident.
"Hold it."
That was when Ganglim Doryeong, who had been watching the scene in silence, spoke. The man kept walking as if he hadn't heard a thing, still fuming under his breath.
"You can't just leave trash lying around."
Ganglim Doryeong picked up a single apple and lightly lifted his foot. In the next instant he was standing directly in front of the man.
One step. In the blink of an eye he had crossed a considerable distance—movement no human common sense could explain.
"Don't you think?"
Ganglim Doryeong bit into the apple and spoke with easy leisure. The man stopped walking at once. Or rather, it looked less like he had chosen to stop and more like something had forcibly held him in place.
A power that mocked the natural order. And even that was only one of Ganglim Doryeong's minor tricks.
"...Thank you."
The man swallowed dryly once and accepted the apple. His face stayed composed, but his pupils trembled finely.
Anxiety and fear that no amount of effort could hide. Ganglim Doryeong observed the man's behavior and opened his mouth again.
"Seeing us and then simply walking away isn't very polite, is it?"
"..."
"How can you see us?"
"..."
"Answer."
"...How could I dare interfere with those who carry out the public business of the Underworld?"
Ganglim Doryeong fixed the man with a quiet stare. The unspoken pressure said, Go on. Keep talking.
"And perhaps it is because this body serves the gods. This is the first time something like this has happened to me as well. I was startled and committed a discourtesy. I apologize."
"For someone claiming that, your behavior was rather rough."
Ganglim Doryeong took another bite of the apple as he spoke.
"That is precisely why I am nothing more than a pitiful sentient being trapped in endless reincarnation, is it not? One who has never attained enlightenment and lives merely as a slave to the seven emotions."
Ganglim Doryeong narrowed his eyes and looked the unknown man up and down. The gaze was thick with the will to pierce straight through to the man's true nature.
"Is that so? Serving the gods, you say..."
A mudang can see reapers.
At first hearing it was the sort of claim that might make a person nod along.
But Ganglim Doryeong knew better. No matter how powerful a mudang might be, they could not see reapers.
"Nonsense."
They were special beings who enforced the laws of Myeong-gye. They were neither so shoddy nor so light that a mudang's eyes could catch them.
Not once had they ever met a living person's gaze. Even the most powerful manshin who had once shaken the entire eight provinces of Joseon had been no exception.
What on earth is this?
Yet this man was different. It was only natural that Ganglim Doryeong found the presence in front of him strange.
"How dare you stand before me and—"
"Serving the gods, you say? Which ones?"
Ganglim Doryeong asked with a short, derisive laugh. His entire posture radiated confidence that he had already seen through the man's lie.
"...I serve the Supreme Emperor, called the Father of Heaven—source and sovereign of all things between heaven and earth."
"What?"
At the unexpected answer Ganglim Doryeong's face hardened in an instant. Beside him the two reapers who had been listening quietly sucked in sharp breaths.
"Ha."
The man's lies had gone far beyond the pale. Whose name did he dare utter so freely?
If he knew the current state of the Heavenly Venerable, he would never have been able to spit out such words. In circumstances like these, the claim that he had taken on a disciple made no sense whatsoever.
"Playtime's over."
The air around them sank cold and heavy. Yin energy flooded the area; people instinctively gave the place a wide berth. Soon it was so quiet that not even an ant would have dared pass by.
"The truth is— Hhk!"
Suddenly the man clutched at his own throat. He began to wheeze and thrash as if he were being choked.
"Speak properly. So that I can underst—"
What?
The moment he tried to tighten the grip further around the man's throat, an unknown force simply blocked Ganglim Doryeong.
The harder he poured power in, the fiercer the resistance that pressed him back. It was a thoroughly unpleasant sensation he had never experienced before.
"Tsk."
The man urgently pounded his own chest. In this situation it was as good as a protest: What kind of answer do you expect me to give like this?
"Khhk, kuh..."
When the power was withdrawn the man collapsed where he stood, gasping for breath. After a long fit of coughing he managed to continue with difficulty.
"I-it's the truth. Am I not the proof of it myself?"
Ganglim Doryeong said nothing, simply looking down at the man.
Ah.
That was when he felt it—an alien energy from the man, or rather, one so familiar it made his skin crawl. It had been so faint he had failed to notice it until now.
Ganglim Doryeong let out a hollow laugh of pure disbelief. There was no way he could have failed to recognize it. Though its nature differed from the force that had blocked his power earlier, this one was crushingly familiar.
Got you.
"Ledger thief."
"Pardon...?"
Hae-dong, the Sun Grim Reaper, tilted his head and asked again.
"Doryeong-nim, why the ledger all of a sudden?"
"This guy. The one who stole the ledger."
"I-is that true?"
"Yeah. I can feel it. Once I grabbed him, turns out he was a real prize catch."
Thud!
"Aagh!"
The words had barely left Ganglim Doryeong's mouth before So-hee, the Monthly Messenger, stomped hard on the man's chest. She shoved him flat onto the ground and laid the gleaming edge of her curved blade against his throat.
"Hand it over. Where's the ledger?"
"N-noona..."
"You think Doryeong-nim saw wrong?"
"..."
"You thought you could throw the heavenly order into chaos and we wouldn't notice? Do you even understand what you've done?!"
The man, who had been stammering, squeezed his eyes shut. Then, with a look that seemed to have abandoned everything, he opened his mouth.
"Yes. I know."
"Awfully confident, aren't you? Shameless, even."
Ganglim Doryeong cut in.
"I know that disturbing the heavenly order is a clear crime. But I do not regret it."
"What?"
"Because I saved a life that was meant to live. The wicked enjoy every luxury and strut about, while the good suffer unjustly and are dragged off to Myeong-gye, do they not?"
The man shouted as if pouring out every grievance that had been festering in his chest.
"Is it any wonder people say Heaven takes the good ones first?!"
"Which is why punishment is meted out according to the sins committed in life. And it's far more cruel and terrible than anything you can imagine."
"Ha!"
The man let out a scornful laugh at Ganglim Doryeong's words.
At that arrogant attitude So-hee's eyes flew wide and she started to move her hand, but Hae-dong hastily caught her arm from the side.
"So has the living world improved even a little? Not in the slightest. The world only grows more corrupt, and people only grow more selfish."
"That's exactly why you keep repeating the cycle of reincarnation. With nothing but that short-sighted view of yours—"
The man cut Ganglim Doryeong off and shot back,
"Is this truly the fair and strict law of a proper underworld?"
Ganglim Doryeong's mouth closed tightly.
Is this truly the fair and strict law of a proper underworld?
For an instant a memory flashed through his mind—someone asking him the exact same question long ago.
But it had been so long that he could not quite recall who it had been. Ganglim Doryeong tried to dig after the memory, then shook his head.
That wasn't important right now.
"The ledger. Where is it?"
"..."
"Shall I make you talk the hard way?"
"...It's at my house. An object imbued with the power of strange gods and spirits..."
"For someone who threw the heavenly order into chaos, you're quite the coward. Get up right now and lead the way."
"Before that..."
The man glanced furtively behind him as he spoke. There lay a departed soul, left bound tightly with ropes.
"Shouldn't guiding the departed to the underworld come first?"
"That's none of your business."
"So then, at midnight tonight—after you have finished your duties—please come to my house. At that time I will gladly hand over the ledger."
The man glanced at the apple Ganglim Doryeong had bitten into and added,
"I believe this much is fair repayment for a single apple. Don't you agree?"
"Ha..."
He had never imagined that an apple eaten without a second thought would come flying back like a boomerang.
He'd been had. Or more accurately, he'd fallen into a trap of his own making.
If you accepted hospitality, you had to grant a corresponding request.
It was an unwritten rule the reapers had observed for ages. There were plenty of old stories about reapers who received lavish treatment, granted a request, and ended up causing all sorts of incidents.
I need to revise my evaluation of this man.
If he had demanded the ledger simply because of the apple, or asked to have all his accumulated sins erased, Ganglim Doryeong would have refused without a second thought.
Without the slightest concern for the consequences. Yet the man had only set the condition that they visit at midnight. That was no great request.
He had thought the fellow a fool, but it turned out he knew how to work a few clever angles after all.
"Coming at night isn't such a difficult request, is it? I, too, have no further intention of using the ledger to disturb the heavenly order—"
Ganglim Doryeong gave a short laugh and answered the man.
"Birth date and time. And your name."
In effect, acceptance of the proposal.
"D-Doryeong-nim!"
"You're just going to let him go like this?"
The reapers at his side cried out in shock. Releasing the ledger thief just like that was unthinkable.
"What choice do I have? What, you want my seat?"
"That's not what I mean!! Seriously! Why did you have to eat that?! Something that could've been finished easily is going to take a whole detour now!"
"The apple was tasty."
"Doryeong-nim!"
Ignoring her furious shout, Ganglim Doryeong turned his gaze back to the man.
"Well?"
The man calmly recited his birth date and time, then finally stated his name.
"...My name is Kang Tae-jun."
"If you're lying, I won't let it slide."
"I have never told a lie up to this moment. As you said, I'm a coward."
The man looked up at the reaper with unwavering eyes and answered quietly.
"So I will be waiting. Tonight at midnight. With the ledger."