Corner Man Urban Legend [3]

Three days after I'd been sealed inside the Corner Man's alley, life here turned out to be surprisingly tolerable.

For one thing, I didn't have to go to work—well, more accurately, I couldn't—and anything I needed, I simply helped myself to from whatever shop was handy. The sleeping situation was a bit of a hassle, since the alley had no one-room flats or officetels to speak of, but a sleeping bag liberated from a nearby camping shop solved that neatly enough.

Better still, the efficiency of my Seven Animals Frolics practice was excellent inside the Corner Man's alley. Thanks to that, in a mere three days my Do-ryeok had grown to the point where I could shrug off four of the Corner Man's attacks at full health.

So with eating, sleeping, drinking, and training all accounted for, every spare minute went into drawing talismans. And outside of that eat-sleep-draw rotation, there was exactly one thing left to do.

Taking care of Yoon Soo-ah.

"Um—excuse me, but…"

"The restroom, is it?"

She gave a silent nod.

"Take my hand."

Having lost both her eyes to the Corner Man, Yoon Soo-ah needed someone's help even for the most ordinary routines of daily life. And in the Inner Space the Corner Man had made, there were only the two of us.

She seemed to feel guilty about it, doing her best to ask for nothing at all, but meals and biology were simply non-negotiable. So I walked her to the restroom and waited outside the door. After a while, she emerged.

"…I'm sorry. Every single time."

"If you're that sorry, pay me back generously later."

I said it with a shrug, like it was nothing—but she couldn't see the shrug, and the reassurance evidently didn't land.

"I'm utterly ashamed of myself… I'm supposed to be a Paranormal Administration Bureau officer protecting civilians, and all I've shown you is this pathetic display…"

"Stop that. Why is your self-esteem so low? You might think you're no help at all, but you're helping plenty."

That was no empty compliment. Over the past few days I'd wrung a mountain of information about the psychic world out of Yoon Soo-ah, and for someone like me, ignorant of how the industry actually operated, it had been an enormous windfall. Even setting that aside, simply not being alone in a place like this was comfort enough.

"Besides, you're still a rookie, aren't you, Miss Yoon? Rookies make mistakes, and rookies receive help. Both are allowed."

That was the part that had shocked me most when I'd learned about her. Yoon Soo-ah had been with the Bureau for less than three months. At a normal company, someone that green wouldn't even have peeled off their intern badge yet—and they'd thrown her into a situation where her life hung by a thread.

Either they're desperately short on talent over there, or the Paranormal Administration Bureau is even more of a dumpster fire than I imagined…

"Thank you for saying that, 'Ji-woo'."

"Not at all. I was only stating facts."

I gave a wry smile at the alias, still unfamiliar in my ears.

Day five in the Corner Man's alley. Perhaps because I'd spent the entire day doing nothing but drawing talismans, my brushwork had visibly improved—and along with it, I'd developed something of an aesthetic eye for them. Which meant I could now judge the true worth of the talisman Yoon Soo-ah had used.

The quality on this is insane.

Even against the finest talisman I'd ever made, hers was superior by a wide margin. Come to think of it, that was probably exactly why they'd sent her out—a single sheet in hand—to exorcise the Corner Man.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

If even a talisman like that couldn't exorcise him, can mine?

I shook my head. Probably not. I had far more talismans in quantity, sure, but talismans aren't simple tools whose power adds up in honest arithmetic, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and some depreciation kicks in too—no matter how many you throw, brute numbers only get you so far.

But it didn't matter. Because the core of my plan wasn't the talismans' power. It was their coverage.

One week after being sealed in the Corner Man's alley, at last every preparation was complete. All that remained was to call the bastard out.

"I will take that role, if you please."

Yoon Soo-ah volunteered herself as bait. I shook my head.

"There's no need to spare my feelings—!"

"It's not about sparing your feelings."

"I'm sorry?"

"The single best part of an operation that took a whole week to build—I can't let you run off with it."

"…Ji-woo."

"Don't worry. I'm confident I'll win."

With that, I soothed her and sent her back to the café.

"Hoo…!"

Alone in the alley now, I steadied my breathing, hardened my resolve, and turned my head.

Time to settle this.

Beyond the widely known spot-the-difference rules, the Corner Man's alley harbored a few hidden rules of its own.

But the most lethal of those hidden rules was the Rule of Digestion.

With each passing day spent inside the alley, a victim's spiritual energy was slowly drained away into the Corner Man. It was a rule designed to dispose of prey that had fallen into despair and simply stopped doing anything.

And yet, despite that rule, the prey that had entered this time had held out for a full week. The first victim, who had been all but dead on arrival, had even survived the Rule of Digestion thanks to the powerful spiritual energy radiating from the second one.

Going one step further, the second victim—by some means no one could fathom—wasn't being drained at all. Quite the opposite: she was siphoning off the Corner Man's own energy, the very energy that had formed the Inner Space.

For the Corner Man, this was a catastrophic loss. The maximum number of prey it could drag into its hunting ground at once was two. So long as either of those two remained alive, it could take in no new victims. In other words, if the prey that entered first simply refused to die, the Corner Man starved. And worse, one of them was devouring its spiritual power in return.

Then why not just go find the prey and kill them? you might ask. It couldn't. The Corner Man is an urban legend that ambushes people who turn their head the wrong way in a looping alley. Unless the prey broke that rule, the Corner Man could not attack them of its own initiative.

It may seem absurd, but that is precisely what Narrative Coercion is.

Still, even that long fast was finally coming to an end. The prey had turned to look back in the wrong alley.

The hunt had begun.

"Ugh, damn it…!"

A face peeked out from around the corner. Its features were perfectly intact, and yet something about it was deeply, uncomfortably inhuman.

"No matter how many times I look, I can't get used to it. What did you do with the face parts you stole—boil them into soup? Why not swap out that revolting mug of yours already?"

Whether it was enraged by my words or merely obeying the laws of its own legend, the man at the corner began scrambling up and along the wall with grotesque, insectlike movements. The distance between us—over seventy meters—collapsed to a dozen paces in two seconds flat.

And this, right here, was the moment I'd been waiting for.

Crackle-crack-crack!

Sparks burst from the Corner Man's hands and feet, and its body was flung violently back off the wall. The wall of the shabby three-story commercial building from which it had been rebounded was papered edge to edge with talismans—yellow sticky notes covered in red marker.

And that was my trump card, prepared for exactly this moment.

"Since I couldn't know which part of the wall you'd climb, I papered the whole thing with talismans. It was a royal pain, let me tell you."

WHAM!

Rumble-rumble-rumble…

The flung-back Corner Man rolled across the pavement.

But that was something that should never have been able to happen. Because the Corner Man's urban legend contained this passage as well:

The Corner Man could not dodge so much as an exorcism talisman, because it was always pressed against the wall—when hunting its prey, and even when under attack. The reason it clung to the wall so desperately was that being unable to leave the wall was part of its own story.

So what happens when you forcibly tear such a creature away from its wall?

Shhhrrrrk—!

Cracks spiderwebbed across the Corner Man's entire body as it lay sprawled on the alley floor. The power granted to it by Narrative Coercion had been extreme—and so, in equal measure, was the risk of violating that narrative.

But the Corner Man was not yet dead.

Stagger… stagger…

On a body of cracks and crumbling fragments, it began crawling back toward the wall.

"Where do you think you're going!"

I flung myself at it and grabbed hold.

Squirm, squirm.

But even with its body breaking apart from violating its own narrative, this bastard's strength was no joke! If my Do-ryeok hadn't lent me superhuman force the way it had back when I escaped that cult, I'd have been dragged away in an instant.

Stagger… stagger…

RRRRNGH!

"Your gimmick is a knockoff of Room 7. Your attack pattern is a knockoff of Red Mask and the Hong Kong Grandmother. And the ones that've cropped up lately—the Diss Man and Slender Man knockoffs—in all my life, I have never once seen an urban legend that was nothing but a walking pile of stolen parts like you."

I didn't know whether the thing could understand human speech, but I spat out every word like a round fired in anger, bottling up a week's worth of frustration. By now the Corner Man's body was already half-collapsed. One decisive blow from here would finish it.

The Six-Kang Warding Talisman had little effect. Which meant…

Whum!

Still gripping the crumbling Corner Man with both arms, I reared my head far back—then, with my Do-ryeok pooled in my skull, delivered a full-force headbutt.

CRUUUUNCH!

Like a rotten stump brought down by a sledgehammer, half of the Corner Man's face shattered and scattered. In the same instant, all the strength left its body.

Thud.

I looked down at the Corner Man, now incapable of movement, and spoke.

"Next time, try reincarnating as an urban legend with some originality. Namu Amitabha."

-!!!

The Corner Man flung its remaining half-mouth wide open as if in threat—

Crack-crack-crack!

—and then its entire body disintegrated into powder and was gone.

"…It's over."

Thud.

Drained by the tension and the final contest of strength, I sank down where I stood.

"Is—is it really over?"

Hearing my voice, Yoon Soo-ah stepped out of the café on unsteady feet.

"Yes. I believe so."

"Ah—my eyes…! My eyes, they're starting to see, just faintly…"

"That's a relief."

With the urban legend exorcised, the senses it had stolen were evidently returning as well.

Krrrk.

At that moment, cracks suddenly began spreading through empty air. It was the collapse phenomenon—the Inner Space the Corner Man had formed dissolving as it merged back into reality.

"Well then, Miss Yoon, I'll be on my way."

"I'm sorry—w-wait, please! You haven't even received your reward for all of this—!"

"Don't need one. I did it to save my own skin. What reward?"

"Even so, you can't just walk away! Ji-woo, you awakened your psychic abilities through self-study, correct? I've said this before, but the mystical and the anomalous are two sides of one coin. A person with talent like yours will inevitably become entangled with that many more anomalies!"

"You're suggesting I take a competent psychic as my master, then?"

"That won't be easy either! The world will be crawling with people who covet your talent, or want to exploit it!"

Typical of this country, honestly. When a talented rookie appears, nobody reaches out a hand to pull them up—instead, what swarms out of the woodwork are people determined to stomp them back down before they rise, or to milk that talent for themselves.

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"Join the Paranormal Administration Bureau! The Bureau can not only shield you from anomalies, it can provide the proper training to put that talent of yours to real use!"

Yoon Soo-ah said it with conviction blazing in eyes that still couldn't see him properly. But the offer was not remotely sweet.

It hadn't even been six months since my discharge. And now they wanted me to belong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the state again?

I had no idea what the atmosphere inside the Bureau was like, but I'd had my fill of organizational life. And frankly, from where I stood, working for the Paranormal Administration Bureau and being used by other psychics were six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Yoon Soo-ah, standing there right now, was living proof of it.

I didn't want anything grand. I just wanted to live long, healthy, and happy. A life in the Bureau, where every single case meant gambling with your life, was not the road for me. If I could manage it, I didn't want to be tangled up with them at all.

The truth was, I'd expected a situation like this from the start—which was exactly why I'd given a false name instead of my real one. The Bureau is a state agency; hand over your real name, and there was no telling how they might track you down.

"Wait, just a moment—!"

Shing!

Right on cue, the Corner Man's domain collapsed and fused completely into reality. People materialized out of nowhere onto a street that had been deserted, and I slipped naturally into the crowd.

"Oh my, what is all this?"

"Why are there so many sticky notes stuck all over the wall?"

"P-please don't touch them! Please don't touch them!"

Letting Yoon Soo-ah's voice fade behind one ear, I pulled out my phone. The screen was plastered with unread texts and missed calls. And the most recent message contained a dismissal notice from my convenience store boss, along with a note that only the wages for the shifts I'd worked this month had been deposited into my account.

Well, fair enough. I had gone AWOL for a week straight.

"So what am I going to do for a living now."

Really, life doesn't come easy.