Chapter 43
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: Magu Kang Areum 1
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“Hah!”
Kang Ibi jolted awake with a start while lying down. For a split second, it felt like her breath was cut off, and she clutched at her neck—it was fine.
“You okay? That looked like a pretty bad shock.”
Aerin spoke up, a hint of alarm on her face as Ibi burst into a coughing fit the moment she woke. Once the coughing subsided, Ibi blinked through her hazy mind and looked around.
They were inside the Flower Mugwort Tea House. She was stretched out on the sofa, surrounded by all four members of the Ghost Bridge Society.
“W-what happened? I was definitely...”
A sudden flash cut through her mind. A chilling glint slicing across her throat. A sinister man looking down at her with a mocking sneer.
“What time is it now? What day?”
Everyone stared at her like she’d lost it. But Ibi ignored them, whipping her head around frantically. Then her smartphone tumbled out from under her skirt hem.
She snatched it up and lit the screen. The date and time popped up immediately.
October 31st. Sunday. Just past 9 a.m.
“...”
As Ibi froze, Aerin darted anxious glances her way.
“Did she hit her head? This is on me...”
Ibi sat up on the sofa. She stroked her neck thoughtfully, then pressed her forehead and closed her eyes.
“Hey, what’s wrong, sis? Bad dream or something?”
“...Yeah. I think it was a dream.”
A moment later, Ibi lifted her head. She looked straight at Nati and spoke in a grave tone.
“A really bad dream.”
Nati’s face hardened for a second, then shifted to one deep in thought.
He knew what “bad dream” meant coming from her.
“What happened in that dream?”
“I died.”
“Who did?”
She licked her lips once, then said it again.
“I died.”
Haewon, off to the side, reacted with clear confusion.
“Isn’t dreaming about dying pretty common? I’ve even dreamed I actually died for real.”
“My dreams are different. Since I was little, ghosts and monsters have tormented me in my sleep. And the next day, whatever I saw in those dreams would crawl into reality... Those dreams have this weird vibe to them—I can feel it. And until now... I’ve never dreamed of dying.”
Ibi shot to her feet as she spoke. Her voice grew more heated.
“I don’t know. This one felt different from the others too. It wasn’t some blurry vision. Everything was vivid—too vivid!”
She grew more agitated as she talked. Memories flooded in like a tidal wave.
“It wasn’t like I died and woke up a day earlier... It kept looping. Tonight... Halloween. No one noticed, but this one night kept repeating endlessly.”
It felt like the fog in front of her eyes had finally cleared. How had no one noticed this until now? How many loops had it been? Ten? Twenty?
“...Tell me more. I’ll decide whether to believe you after.”
“It started right after I snapped out of it... from this exact moment. The very first time, what happened was...”
Ibi plopped back down on the sofa. She pieced together her memories clearly.
“I got up all composed and mature about it. Mina tried to comfort me, but I didn’t need it. And I admitted to everyone that I’d already figured out the boss was pranking me but played along anyway.”
“Don’t bullshit us.”
“Coming from you, zero credibility.”
Nati told her to keep going. Grimacing, Ibi racked her brain for every detail.
“Then the boss said it was the last one left and gave me some strawberry cake.”
Mina shot Aerin an expectant look. Aerin shook her head firmly.
“Not giving you any.”
“You’re ruining the future right now!”
Mina fumed about blocking future knowledge leaks, but Ibi pressed on.
What happened after were mostly trivial little things, nothing major. Still, Ibi explained everything she could recall in as much detail as possible. The story neared its end.
As she described grabbing her umbrella, stepping out, and getting murdered by some thug in the alley before she could even leave it, Ibi paced by the door.
It was just a dream she was recounting, but an uneasy chill settled over her. She could almost feel that creepy, cold blade grazing her neck again.
“Remember what the killer looked like?”
Nati asked. Ibi thought for a moment and shook her head.
“Couldn’t see. And it wasn’t like I was out of it or anything—he had his face covered.”
“Wearing a mask or something?”
“Yeah.”
“One of those hole-ridden hockey masks? Like the white mask that slasher from the old horror flick wears.”
Come to think of it, she vaguely remembered a slasher like that in some old horror movie. Ibi nodded ambiguously, then realized something odd and asked.
“How’d you know that?”
“It’s right behind you.”
“...Huh? Mommaaa!”
Ibi whipped around without thinking and screamed bloody murder as she bolted toward the back of the shop.
There, beyond the glass door, was a pale, milky mask. Its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. In one hand, it gripped a glinting blue knife, tapping rhythmically against the glass. Tap, tap.
“...”
While Ibi fled, Nati strode calmly toward the door. He came face-to-face with the masked man, nothing but glass between them.
“Never seen anything like this before. Did it really jump out of a movie? Nah, couldn’t be. Movies are just movies.”
Muttering to himself, Nati suddenly flung the door inward with a flick of his hand.
“Why’d you open it?!”
Ibi yelled, but Nati paid her no mind. He stood there, door wide open, staring the masked man down. Observing him.
Shwoooo.
Rain poured fiercely outside. The man out there was soaked through, water splashing inward. Nati’s pant legs started dampening too.
Even with the door open, the man didn’t come in. Or rather, he seemed to want to, but couldn’t get past Nati.
Cold sweat trickled down Ibi’s neck as she watched, breath held. The mask hid his face, but that man was definitely staring right through her.
Why?
To kill her again?
Then the man raised his knife high. Aiming for Nati. But Nati’s fan shot out faster, batting the blade far away.
Disarmed, the man writhed grotesquely for a moment. Soon after, his body blurred like smoke, scattering on the wind. In the pitch darkness outside, it melted into the shadows.
“No ordinary guy. Not ordinary at all... but something’s off. Obviously not from a movie, and that’s not even a real hockey mask. Just some cheap costume shop knockoff...”
Nati trailed off mid-mumble. She couldn’t see his face, just his back, but he seemed unusually rattled—very uncharacteristic.
His hand shot out urgently, grabbing the glass door and slamming it shut. He called out sharply to Aerin.
“Aerin! Lock the door!”
It sounded odd since he was closest to it, but Aerin got the message instantly. She grabbed the calligraphy set from the corner.
Dipping a brush in ink at random, she scrawled something on paper and flung it into the air. The paper sailed across the room as if drawn by an invisible hand, sticking perfectly to the center of the door.
Nati let out a small sigh.
“That buys us a breather.”
The knife-wielding guy was long gone—why the fuss? But the question answered itself soon enough, with a thunderous boom.
BAM!
Ibi flinched. At the same instant, the man reappeared on the glass.
No—something was different.
The mask still covered his face, but his whole body was even more grotesquely twisted than before. He plastered himself to the transparent glass like a spider, squirming like smoke.
For a moment, it looked like his body had multiplied into dozens. Half right, half wrong. The man on the glass was still there, but ominous black mist-like clumps now enveloped the entire shop, squeezing in.
The mists soon split apart, each forming a limbed human shape that stuck to the glass and pounded away.
“Fuck, that scared me!”
Mina jumped. The shadows surrounding the tea house battered the glass noisily.
Any normal glass would’ve shattered instantly under those blows, but the window held firm without a single crack. Thanks to Aerin’s paper talisman?
Mina burst out laughing this time.
“This human glass is tough!”
“Be honest—you don’t speak Japanese, do you?”
The commotion finally died down after a while.
About 40 minutes had passed since Ibi woke up.
Nati muttered softly. His voice was quiet, but everyone heard.
“New moon oni.”
A few seconds later, as if he’d realized something, he yanked the door handle again.
“Where are you going?”
Ibi grabbed his other hand without thinking. Why was she doing this? Had that shadow thing bewitched her? Nati didn’t seem the type...
Glancing around nervously, she saw Aerin looking uneasy too.
“Where to?”
“Just up ahead.”
“What’s that mean? Something weird out there?”
“Right in front of us. Something big’s bugging me.”
“...Like what?”
“No idea. That’s why I’m checking. Hostile, maybe?”
“What kinda nonsense is that? Isn’t it that thing from before?”
“Nah. Definitely different.”
Aerin finally relented and let Nati go. He threw open the door and stepped out into the pouring rain.
“Wait!”
But Ibi, worried, followed without a second thought.
She thought she’d caught up right away, but Nati was nowhere in sight. After scanning around, she spotted him under a streetlamp dozens of meters away.
“Hey! Nati!”
She dashed over and caught up. Nati didn’t budge, just stared up at the streetlamp, conversing with someone.
“...Who are you? You’re no local yokai.”
A reply came from atop the streetlamp. A cold, haughty woman’s voice.
“Told you, I’m visiting from a neighboring city. This mess caught me off guard too. Is Woncheon City always like this?”
Nati fell silent for a moment.
“Young body... but a soul as old as mine. Maybe older.”
“...”
“Doesn’t seem like some run-of-the-mill yokai either. Who the hell are you? Why are you here?”
“Like I said, just sightseeing. Got caught up in this crap. Remembered that tea house seemed off, so I came to check it out.”
Ibi squinted, trying to make out the woman talking to Nati. But the streetlamp’s glare and the backlighting reduced her to a round silhouette.
Small build, odd rounded outline—she wore a baggy hoodie. The rest was hard to discern, not just from the backlight.
She was dressed head to toe in black. Hood pulled low, and some cloth like an eyepatch over her eyes.
Black too, with white geometric patterns stitched on. Folded into a triangle and bound over her eyes like an inverted pyramid, the sharp tip covering her nose bridge.
A bit of bare skin showed below, but it was enough to cover her whole face.
Petite frame, crouched atop the streetlamp like a beast. Knees up, hands gripping the pole between her legs.
The next moment, the eerie woman hopped down from the streetlamp. Ibi startled, but she landed lightly on the bare ground like a bird and stood up. No injuries from a drop two or three times human height.
“I’m a magu.”
With that, she pulled away the cloth covering her face. Then the hood.
A blunt but surprisingly cute face appeared. Above her thick bobbed hair, two triangular things poked up from either side of her crown.
Organs no human would have. Like a canine’s, two pointed ears perked straight up atop her head.
“Call me Kang Areum if you want.”
