After-School Cleanup

The super-grandma—tall, muscular, dressed in a sharp suit with tinted sunglasses—introduced herself as Baek Gong-ju.

The name rang a bell.

She was one of Korea's top-tier spiritual practitioners, the kind Giselle Breed had only ever claimed to have transferred into the Paranormal Administration Bureau. Honestly, it made sense. A genius-grade anomaly, and an incident where one of Solomon's 72 demons had nearly descended? Of course a top-ranking practitioner would show up. Though if she was going to come, she could have come a little sooner—showing up only after the whole thing was over, what was that supposed to be about?

"T-Teacher Baek!"

"Grandma!"

The Bureau personnel who'd come back from the I-myeon along with me swarmed around Baek Gong-ju and started relaying the situation. Kang In-hyuk and Yoon Soo-ah in particular fell over themselves singing my praises.

"It was all thanks to Kim Do-sa! The barrier that stopped the transformation, the purging of the anomalies within the school and the rescue of the survivors, and even the prevention of the Great Demon's descent—every last bit of it is Kim Do-sa's doing! Truly, a Vajrayana master of Esoteric Buddhism is different in everything he does!"

"Yes! Grandma, the only reason we made it back alive is entirely thanks to Kim Do-sa!"

"Well... I've got plenty I'd like to ask, but first off... Kim Do-sa, you say, and a Vajrayana master?"

"Yes. Is there a problem with that?"

"...No."

Baek Gong-ju, showing a thoroughly sensible reaction, then set about wrapping up the Seonhwa High scene alongside the Bureau reinforcements who'd arrived as backup. Not that there was much to wrap up—most of the victims had already transformed into anomalies or been slaughtered by those who had, and even the corpses of the dead had vanished along with the I-myeon.

"...How could You inflict such a cruel fate upon these children, I ask You..."

Baek Gong-ju's lament seeped into Seonhwa High, which had swallowed hundreds of lives. After that, she and the Bureau continued searching for the still-missing President, but he remained nowhere to be found, and in the end they had no choice but to withdraw. I, meanwhile, had been quietly trying to slip away in the confusion.

"Kim Do-sa, was it? You appear to be the key contributor to this incident. Would you come along for questioning?"

"And if I say no, will you let me go?"

"Hahahaha! What a brazen young man! This case involves a genius-grade anomaly capable of wiping an entire city off the map. You really think I'd just wave you on your way?"

Believe me, I wanted nothing more than to bolt, but both the situation and the opponent were bad. Baek Gong-ju was a spiritual practitioner on the same level as Gong No-sa, that ancient hag. Which is to say: Special Grade. Sure, I technically had the Fire-Tipped Spear in hand, but—

I burned way too much power exorcising Seire...

For that matter, the spear no longer felt anything like as potent as it had during the exorcism. Above all, if I threw down here, that would be the exact moment my nice, ordinary daily life got its service terminated. So, in the end—

"...Fine, let's go."

"Good, I like how fast you agreed."

Contrary to my expectation of some interrogation room in some prison-like facility, the place Baek Gong-ju took us was a luxury hotel in the heart of the city.

"Don't tell me the questioning happens *here*?"

"It does. Why, you got a problem with it?"

"If you're asking whether I mind, of course not. I'm just curious why here of all places."

"Simple enough. People caught up in a genius-grade anomaly invariably suffer aftershocks—in themselves, and in the people around them. In that sense, a hotel makes an excellent isolation facility. By the time you reach the top floors you're over a hundred meters above the ground, so the odds of the damage spreading to your surroundings drop dramatically."

"So the taller the building, the better."

"Something like that."

After the survivors were interviewed one by one, the official record of this genius-grade anomaly was compiled.

As you can see, every part involving Yu Min-seo had been cleanly excised. By me, deliberately. I was the only one who knew she'd been involved in this incident at all. There was no reason to drag a victim into needless trouble. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is bury what you know and look the other way.

Once every interview was finished, Baek Gong-ju requested a private meeting. In the top-floor suite serving as the Bureau's temporary headquarters, I sat down with her alone.

"First, let me apologize on behalf of the Paranormal Administration Bureau for failing to do its job. And thank you for saving everyone—the Bureau people, Deva, the other survivors, and my own granddaughter besides. Your actions saved not only them, but the countless lives that would have been lost afterward."

Baek Gong-ju bowed her head.

"I only did what I had to in order to survive. There's really no need to bow your head like that."

"Rare to meet such a modest young man these days."

"You flatter me."

"Though... Team 3's leader tells me you're a Vajrayana master of Esoteric Buddhism. Might I ask what became of your teacher?"

The apology was just an icebreaker—small talk before opening the real subject. Yep. There's the main event. I shook my head.

"My teacher did not wish his karma and connections to pass down to me. Mr. Kang In-hyuk calls me a Vajrayana master of Esoteric Buddhism, but my teacher never once told me who he was or what lineage he belonged to. I'm afraid I can't give you an accurate account of my background."

"Hmm... and this teacher of yours...?"

"He departed, saying he had business to attend to with his comrades. It's been over five years now."

"Five years..."

All lies, of course. Now that I was entangled with the Bureau whether I liked it or not, I needed a background story convincing enough to satisfy them—one that wouldn't invite excessive wariness, yet wouldn't make me look like an easy mark either. And Kang In-hyuk had conveniently mistaken me for a Vajrayana master entirely on his own. I took that misunderstanding and ran with it, actively fabricating the backstory you just heard. Keep the teacher's identity vague, so the Bureau could never tell whether his faction would be friendly or hostile toward them. Introduce the mysterious "comrades," so it seemed I wasn't merely some lone prodigy's disciple but had ties to some organization of unknown purpose. In short: the nuance of a man you don't treat carelessly. For a lie I cooked up during the car ride to the hotel, it was honestly pretty solid.

"Hmm..."

The bluff had clearly landed, because Baek Gong-ju's questions grew noticeably more careful. She was probably assuming my shrouded-in-mystery teacher was a Special Grade like herself. Fair enough—no one with a shred of common sense would ever guess I was actually a total newbie who'd self-taught off some bizarre internet site.

"This is unrelated to the anomaly case, but... I gather you run a YouTube channel and do streaming?"

There it was—the most sensitive question of all. So they'd been monitoring ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠me to that extent, too, huh.

"It's the only trade I know, so I started it to make a living."

"I see... Well, this incident wouldn't have made usable footage anyway. Just—keep it reasonable, will you?"

Despite all my bracing, her reaction was surprisingly lukewarm. But it wasn't hard to understand. It's not like self-proclaimed shamans and spiritual practitioners are a rarity on the live-streaming scene. Not all of them are the real deal, but a few surely are. They operate openly without issue, so there was no reason I should be singled out and shut down. Above all, as I've said how many times now: anomaly phenomena do not register on cameras. Even when something does get recorded, the footage comes out warped and twisted. Videos like that, no matter how you use them, draw nothing but:

'Whoa!! So spiritual practitioners and ghosts are real!!'

rather than:

'God, the compositing and CG on this is painful.'

To the people whose job is keeping the mystical and the anomalous hidden, a guy like me hawking distorted footage from behind a camera lens simply isn't worth the concern. The far bigger threat is someone who uses spiritual power to charm crowds into a full-blown cult.

'Of course, if I started openly broadcasting that mysticism and anomalies are real, they'd regulate me in a heartbeat...'

"I'll be mindful of it."

"And... any interest in Bureau work?"

"I'm the type who avoids making enemies wherever possible."

"...Tsk! This is exactly why organizational roots matter..."

Baek Gong-ju clearly knew all about the hostility spiritual practitioners harbored toward the Bureau, and she didn't push any further. And just like that, I drew my line with the Bureau far more smoothly than I'd ever feared. Not too close, not too far—about as distant as any run-of-the-mill spiritual practitioner.

So the private meeting wrapped up, and just before I left—

"Oh, that reminds me. Did you ever find the President?"

"...Not yet. The Bureau, the police, everyone's mobilized for the search, and there's not so much as a whisper."

"What will you do when you do find him?"

"Kill him."

Whoa. He'd certainly committed atrocities worthy of universal condemnation, but the man was still the sitting President of South Korea. Was she really allowed to just say that?

"Is that... allowed?"

"What, want to lecture me about the President's immunity from arrest, young man?"

Baek Gong-ju chuckled and sank back into the suite's most expensive sofa.

"It's true the President enjoys immunity from arrest. And there isn't a single law in this country that defines the practice of sorcery as a crime. Viewed from that angle, this country's legal code has actually regressed from the Joseon dynasty. However—"

Over the rims of her tinted sunglasses, her eyes gleamed sharp as blades.

"The President isn't the only one whose sorcery goes unpunished."

In other words: Baek Gong-ju intended to kill the President with sorcery herself.

"Well, it works out nicely, honestly. Before these old bones of mine fall apart completely, it's high time I did a little housecleaning around the family."

Um. Noble sentiment and all, but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'd appreciate it if you saved the menacing talk for after I've left the room.

"The President."

"Hm?"

"You don't really need to worry about that."

"...What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's Daesudaemyeong, isn't it? A life swapped for a life."

At those words, Baek Gong-ju's eyes flew wide open—then she pressed a hand to her own forehead.

"...Pfffft—hahahahahaha! I really am getting old, to have missed something that obvious!"

Leaving her chuckling behind me, I stepped out of the room.

The victims of the Seonhwa High incident were all put up for one night's stay at the hotel. It served both to check on their health and as a containment period—a safeguard against the aftershocks of a genius-grade anomaly spreading to the surrounding area. Naturally, Yu Min-seo spent that one night in a top-floor suite as well.

"Wow..."

Having finished her examinations and her interview, Min-seo stepped into the room and gasped at the nightscape of Seoul spreading beyond the suite's panoramic window. She had never once seen scenery this beautiful in her life. She'd grown up poor under a widowed mother. And that very background had become the seed of Lee Min-hee's bullying.

Her family was poor, but Min-seo had entered Seonhwa High on a full scholarship. Min-hee had gotten in on the weight of a grandfather who happened to be President, and her grades scraped along the bottom. Because of that president's-granddaughter pedigree, plenty of people who would never say a word to her face quietly compared the two girls behind their backs. A long tail gets stepped on eventually—the comparisons found their way to Min-hee's ears. And from that day on, Min-seo's hell began.

The ironic part? Until then, Min-seo hadn't even known Lee Min-hee existed. Just...

'I heard the President's granddaughter goes to our school~'

'Oh, really?'

...That much was the entire extent of what Min-seo knew.

Min-hee's bullying was vicious. Hitting, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cursing, sticking out a foot to trip her, laughing with her friends about her in places where everyone could hear. What was even more agonizing was that no one stopped Min-hee, and no one helped Min-seo. Worse still, the very people who'd supplied the fuel for the bullying by comparing the two of them would snicker as they watched it all unfold from the sidelines.

So was that why? She never said it out loud to anyone, but...

'I'm happy...'

Min-seo was so, so happy that the people who'd turned their backs on her suffering had paid the price. Because all this time, she had thought: I wish Lee Min-hee would die—and everyone at this school who looked away while she tormented me, every single one of them, I wish they'd die too.

What she didn't know was that this secret desire of hers had shaped the very form in which Seire granted wishes.

Bzzt.

"Oh—Mr. Kim Do-sa..."

Min-seo smiled. The ones she hated were dead, and the hero she'd admired without end had saved her. In this moment, Yu Min-seo was happier than she had ever been in her life.

The Seonhwa High staff office, emptied of every living soul.

"Huk!"

A man materialized there without warning. His name was Lee Jin-seok—President of the Republic of Korea, the inhuman beast who had made living sacrifices of his own son and granddaughter through Daesudaemyeong.

"Huk! Huk! Th-the anomaly—it's been dealt with, hasn't it?"

Cold sweat pouring down his face, Jin-seok scanned his surroundings. Then he fished a small wooden box out of his breast pocket, no bigger than a cigarette pack.

Shff.

He lifted the lid. Inside lay the mummy of a child smaller than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his own palm. A mummy of a child so tiny—conceived, yet not even fully formed into human shape—was in itself a powerful anomaly. And this wooden box was a cursed tool refined from that fetal-mummy anomaly, one that artificially generated an I-myeon.

This was the man who had kept himself alive by drinking dry the lives of his son's household and his granddaughter. Naturally, he carried anti-anomaly cursed tools on his person at all times, and this was one of them: an exceedingly rare tool that, the instant its bearer was swallowed by an I-myeon, hid them away inside the I-myeon forged by the fetal anomaly. A treasure among treasures, won by funneling hundreds of billions in bribes and under-the-table profits to a certain religious organization.

"Damn it... do you have any idea how much I spent to acquire this... and it's gone after a single use..."

The fetal mummy inside the box was half-shattered, its function utterly destroyed. And it wasn't alone. Every anomaly-defense tool the President possessed had broken, as though bound by prior agreement. Which was, of course, only natural. He had escaped from the I-myeon woven by Seire, Demon Prince of Solomon's 72 demons. Truthfully, he should have been grateful the thing had held out as long as it did.

"Calm down... I am Lee Jin-seok, President of this country... a setback this size is nothing... Yes. First I'll contact Deva, and then..."

At that moment.

"...ther."

"Huh?"

"Grandfather."

"Father."

"Father."

Familiar voices. His granddaughter's voice, and those of his son and his son's wife.

But it was impossible. The granddaughter—perhaps. But his son and his wife were dead. They had willingly given their lives for the future that President Lee Jin-seok would build for the Republic of Korea. So why, all of a sudden, were their voices—?

Then it struck him. Something was... something was wrong with the air. Hadn't he escaped outside once the anomaly was resolved and the I-myeon collapsed?

Jin-seok hurried toward the staff office window.

There lay a world dyed entirely in blue.

Just before the I-myeon collapsed completely—at the instant the Fire-Tipped Spear Kim Yi-yeon hurled pierced through Demon Prince Seire's chest—there had been a world painted over in blue.

"...What's going on? Why is everything around me this color?"

Lee Jin-seok, ignorant of the circumstances, could hardly be expected to understand why the world looked so blue. And just the same, Jin-seok did not understand what Daesudaemyeong truly meant.

He had always vaguely imagined it as a sorcery akin to the Blood Absorption Technique of the murim—something that simply drained a target's lifespan. But Daesudaemyeong differed from Blood Absorption in its very mechanism.

Daesudaemyeong. To substitute for a life.

Jin-seok had handed his doomed lifespan to his son and his wife, and stolen the lives they were meant to live. And after them, Min-hee. He stole Min-hee's life-to-come and dumped a doomed lifespan onto her in return.

What Jin-seok had overlooked was this: Min-hee's life-to-come had not been her natural lifespan in the first place. And she wasn't simply fated to die—her soul had been mortgaged in a bargain with a demon, forever barred from reaching anywhere beyond death. And Jin-seok had stolen that life.

At the end of a stolen, rotting thread of life, there is no heaven waiting.

"Grandfather..."

"Father..."

"Father..."

Jin-seok finally understands. The voices drifting from far down the corridor—from somewhere beyond it—are not human voices.

He bursts out of the staff office at a dead run. He sprints down the corridor in the direction opposite the voices. But...

"What?"

After sprinting the length of the corridor, he arrives—back at the staff office door.

"Grraaagh!"

Letting out a beast's howl, Jin-seok ran, and ran, and ran. But...

He could not leave the staff office by so much as a single step.

"Ha, hahaha... hahahahahahahaha! This is a dream...! It has to be a dream!"

Gasping breaths that stank of rot, Jin-seok laughed. And as if to answer him—

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Eeheeheeheeheeheehee!"

"Kikikikikikikikikik!"

the things beyond the corridor laughed too. Then, in a single instant, the laughter cut off dead. At the same moment, the darkness beyond the corridor came rushing in and swallowed Lee Jin-seok whole.

"U-UWAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Trapped in a darkness devoid of anything at all, Jin-seok panicked and thrashed. And then—

Splat-splat-splat-splat-splat!

The darkness vanished, and the meat that had once been Lee Jin-seok scattered across the floor.

"We've arrived on scene! Hrk—!"

By the time the Bureau staff, alerted to the anomaly and monitoring Seonhwa High, reached the site, all that remained was the fresh-minced remains of a man who had been alive mere moments before.

The scattered mincemeat was Demon Prince Seire's polite expression of refusal.

Even among souls, it seems, there are some who turn away even a demon.

Tok, tok, tok.

"So it went there in the end after all."

I nodded as I read over Lee Jin-seok's fortune, drawn at the Gwiyeokjeom parlor. Having stolen the life of a granddaughter swallowed by a demon, Jin-seok's ending had been decided long ago.

"M-Mr. Kim Do-sa!"

Just then, from far off, Yu Min-seo came waving as she approached. I pocketed the divination slips and waved back.

Time to bring a very long day to a close.