Song of the Tiger [10]
Bukhansan, once again — this time after everything was over.
"Um... Teacher? What exactly did you mean by 'comforting the San-gun's soul'?"
We were resting halfway up the mountain when Min-seo asked, looking puzzled.
"Right, I was wondering about that part too."
"Me too."
Momo and Kim Han-soo chimed in as if they'd been dying to ask.
"Seriously? You're asking me now?"
All three had followed me in silence, so I'd assumed they either didn't care or had roughly pieced things together on their own...
"Well, if Kim Do-sa says we're going, we go~"
"If Kim Do-sa, of all people, says we're heading up, you figure there's a reason and tag along, that's all..."
"Good grief, you're not elementary schoolers who'd follow a stranger for candy. Watch out for scams, people. Heave-ho! We've rested long enough. Let's get moving — I'll explain on the way."
"Uuugh... but I want to rest more."
"Cut me some slack. After being unconscious for over a week, it feels like every muscle in my body has dissolved."
I coaxed the three whiners back to their feet and started climbing again.
"The first thing that struck me as odd was when the Bukhansan San-gun appeared."
The tenth year of King Sunjo's reign, the year of Giyu — 1809 by the old calendar.
Just as I'd told Jeong-in, this was already the nineteenth century.
The killing blow to Korean tigers was undeniably the "pest extermination campaign" of the Japanese colonial era. But by this point, the forests were already being stripped bare, and the tiger's bloodline was slowly drying up.
And yet, out of nowhere, a mountain god appeared on Bukhansan?
"Something about it just felt unnatural."
"That's... definitely true."
"Hmm, as a half-Korean, half-Japanese person, I'm not sure how to comment on that."
"...Then what exactly is this kid?"
Kim Han-soo pointed at the San-gun perched on his shoulder, straddling a tiny wooden horse.
"Well then, here's a question for you all: what was Joseon like during the tenth year of King Sunjo's reign?"
"Ahem. I received my formal education in Japan, so..."
"Hmm..."
"Look, I can understand Momo not knowing, but Kim Han-soo, aren't you supposed to know this?"
"Ahem..."
Kim Han-soo turned his head away, embarrassed, and Min-seo spoke up.
"Sunjo's tenth year would be around the 1810s... That's when a nationwide famine and drought struck Joseon. We learned about it in school as an example of the Little Ice Age."
Fitting for a graduate of the prestigious Seonhwa High — the school even the president's granddaughter attended (though it's not prestigious anymore, it's a notorious hellhole). Min-seo nailed it precisely.
"Exactly. Temperatures were swinging wildly, and above all, rain — the single most important thing for farming — would either pour down like madness or not come at all. For an agricultural nation like Joseon, it was the worst possible time."
And in an era before modern science, there was one thing people always did in situations like that.
"They held a sacrificial rite."
As it happened, East Asia also had a long tradition of a specific rite involving tigers — the so-called Tiger Rite.
"A tiger rite?"
"What's that?"
"Sacrificing to a tiger?"
"No, the opposite. You sacrifice with a tiger — or to be precise, you offer up a tiger's head."
Since ancient times, tigers had been regarded as the dragon's eternal rival — the dragon and tiger locked in ceaseless combat, as the old saying goes. And since everyone knew dragons commanded the weather...
Hurl the head of the dragon's rival into the water, and the terrified dragon would surely make it rain!
And the Bukhansan San-gun, it turned out, had originated from exactly this Tiger Rite. That was probably why, oddly enough, the power to summon rain figured so prominently in his legend.
The group's reactions to the story were all over the place.
"Hmm, isn't that logic a bit of a stretch?"
"Poor tiger..."
"Wait... don't tell me the San-gun is the tiger they sacrificed?"
"Half right."
Back then, any tiger caught in a hunt had to be sold to the state — and by all accounts, they paid well. Poaching or privately disposing of one was treated as a serious crime.
"Also, the Tiger Rite was never officially performed, not even during King Seonjo's reign."
"Then... it wasn't government-sponsored? Someone — an individual or a group — poached a tiger or hunted one privately and performed the rite themselves?"
"That would have been nearly impossible too. Remember what I said? By the early nineteenth century, the tiger's bloodline was already running dry."
Hunting one of the few remaining tigers to hold a secret rite, when the population had already collapsed — that difficulty level was far too high. If the state had organized it, maybe. But for an individual or a private group? Not a chance.
"Besides, the country was in chaos from famine and drought. Nobody had the resources to go tiger hunting in the first place."
So whoever intended to perform the rite came up with a cunning workaround.
They would substitute the tiger with the most venerable, never-omitted offering in the history of sacrifice.
That offering was a human being.
"A hitobashira... a human pillar?"
"Ugh..."
"Then don't tell me the San-gun was..."
"Yes. A child offered up in a tiger's place, for the Tiger Rite."
They would abduct a child born in the Year of the Tiger to stand in for the tiger itself. Starve the poor thing for days on end, as if crafting an artisan's masterpiece. Force the child to mimic a tiger's cries instead of human speech. Then, when hunger had pushed the child to the very edge of death, they would drag him away, cut off his head, and submerge it in the water.
And there you have it — one improvised Tiger Rite, complete~
In other words, the Bukhansan San-gun had never been a tiger at all. He was simply a child sacrificed long, long ago, who attained divinity through generations of worship by a single family — and through a fabricated legend.
That was also why the Chang-gwi had been utterly unable to influence him or be influenced by him. He was never a tiger to begin with — what could the Chang-gwi possibly have done?
Jeong-in had simply picked the wrong target from the start.
"B-but that makes no sense!? If getting a tiger's head is a crime, then human sacrifice is an even bigger crime!"
"True. But the famine and drought had people flooding from the provinces into Hanyang, where conditions were slightly better. The roads were overflowing with displaced refugees."
Snatch one tiger-year child out of that flood of wanderers, and no one would ever notice.
"But... but..."
"Grrr?"
Kim Han-soo was desperately trying to poke holes in my story. The San-gun — the actual victim, mind you — looked so worried that he reached up and patted Kim Han-soo's head to soothe him.
The reason Kim Han-soo was so desperate to deny my words was obvious. If my story was true, then the prime suspect — the person who abducted an innocent child, abused him, cut off his head, and submerged it in water — was...
"We're here. Let's go in."
I led the group over the central gate and into the San-gun's Inner Space.
Then we made for the valley beside the central gate, there within the San-gun's domain.
Nokjeok-dong Valley.
One of the waterways flowing into the interior of Bukhansan Fortress.
"I thought long and hard about why, of all the gates, the central gate happened to be the condition for entering the San-gun's Inner Space."
The reason was simple.
The head they'd cut off for the rite had been thrown into Nokjeok-dong Valley — right beside the central gate.
"If the head had still existed in the real world, it would have been discovered ages ago. The fact that it wasn't means..."
"...The San-gun's head is still somewhere in this valley, inside the Inner Space?"
Without being told, Kim Han-soo kicked off his shoes, rolled up his trousers, and plunged into the stream.
"Hyaaah!! It's freezing!"
That reaction gave me solid confidence my deduction was right.
"Don't be so dramatic about it."
I followed suit — shoes off, trousers rolled — and waded in after him.
"Ow, ow, ow, that is COLD!"
The cold was beyond unreasonable, so I grumbled my way through it, then channeled my Do-ryeok out into the stream.
Whoooooosh!
Heat radiated outward from me, and bit by bit, the water's temperature shifted to something almost pleasantly warm.
"What is this, Ice Age?"
"Call it Hot Age."
While we traded pointless banter, Momo and Min-seo pulled off their shoes and socks and stepped into the valley too.
"More hands are better than fewer, right?"
"I-I'll help too!"
And so the four of us searched the valley together.
Frankly, if I'd wanted this done fast, I could have just summoned Fey and been finished in a moment. But something told me that the effort of searching — of wandering this stream by hand — would itself be a small offering to the San-gun. So we combed the valley inch by inch.
At some point during the search, Kim Han-soo drifted over beside me.
"...This scene would've gotten way better reactions if you'd streamed it. Why'd you end the broadcast?"
"Because I know the difference between what should be streamed and what shouldn't."
"Ha... great instincts for content."
"Then let me ask you something. Why are you suddenly talking to me informally?"
Kim Han-soo had always addressed me with the utmost politeness — Kim Do-sa-nim, this and that. But the Kim Han-soo who'd returned spoke to me casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"...Fine, Lee Ha-ram's younger than you, so that's whatever. But I'm older than you. What's the point of honorifics?"
"Then why were you using them until now?"
"...Because you saved me from the lonely ones."
"And now that debt's expired?"
"...If I've decided to stake my life standing next to a guy Cosmos has marked, then a debt like that should count as squared, shouldn't it?"
"......"
That was the answer Kim Han-soo hadn't been able to give me back then.
"I mean to be a help to you this time. Not that I know how much good I'll be. Still, I'm your elder — there has to be something an old man's good for, right?"
"...You've got a way with words."
And so everyone who had heard my story that day had gathered once more at my side.
...It didn't feel bad at all, actually.
With this, the Anomaly Strike Team had its full roster of six.
Come to think of it, I should invite Kim Han-soo to the Coil channel too.
...Ah, wait. It cost 100 million won for every single member I invited to the Coil channel, didn't it.
"Ahem. Kim Han-soo, while you were gone, we sort of... set up something like a group chat."
"Oh, invite me too."
"We will, but it's not an ordinary group chat — it's a special item, so it costs a bit of money."
"Money? How much?"
Truly the elder of the group — he doesn't hesitate where it counts!
"Well, it's—"
Hold on. Could I pad the number a little? It's not like Kim Han-soo knows what it actually costs. Same as back with the lonely ones — this old man has a surprisingly poor sense of money.
"No, it's—"
"Teacher! Over here, over here!"
The very moment I opened my mouth to name my inflated price, Min-seo shouted.
Rushing over, I saw it — through a gap hidden between the boulders of the stream, something gleamed: white as fresh snow, smooth to the eye, utterly unlike the other rocks around it.
"This is... that's it, right?"
"Almost certainly."
I heaved a boulder the size of a grown man clean off the ground and tossed it aside. A few more stones cleared away, and the thing beneath them finally revealed itself.
A human skull. Unmistakably smaller and more fragile than an adult's.
"......"
Kim Han-soo approached in silence.
As if from this moment on, this part was his role, and his alone.
I stepped aside and gave him the way.
With trembling hands, Kim Han-soo lifted the skull that had lain hidden beneath the rocks — the San-gun's skull.
"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry..."
Tears streaming, Kim Han-soo apologized to the small skull.
How could he not?
Of everyone who might have cut off the San-gun's head and performed the Tiger Rite, the most likely culprit was Kim Han-soo's own ancestor. The oral traditions that contradicted the truth passed down in his family, the sheer strangeness of the Hofungdang enshrining a sacrificed child... Anyone who knew the circumstances would have found the Hofungdang and Kim Han-soo's ancestors deeply suspicious.
When I first glimpsed the San-gun's memories through resonance, I'd suspected the very same thing.
But...
So that wasn't it after all.
"Grrrowl!?"
Dozing on his wooden horse, the San-gun jolted awake at the sound of Kim Han-soo's sobs, flustered — and then, belatedly, laid eyes on his own skull. His eyes went wide.
For a long moment he simply stared at it, dazed. Then he reached out and gently, tenderly patted Kim Han-soo's head.
"It's all right."
"Huh!?"
"Don't you worry. The one who killed me was not your ancestor. Rather, your ancestor was a good man — he punished the wicked shaman who killed me, planted a tree in my memory, and honored me ever after."
The San-gun spoke fluent human speech, as if all his years of growling had been an act.
"So don't cry, child."
Like soothing a weeping boy, the San-gun hummed a slow, rambling melody as he patted Kim Han-soo's head. And Kim Han-soo suddenly felt that the tune was somehow familiar.
He was an only child in a single-parent home. Whenever his mother was late coming home from work, he often fell asleep alone, loneliness pressing on his chest. And in those nights alone, drifting through half-dream, he would always hear a faint, gentle voice singing.
He'd chalked it up to the way childhood memories warp and blur.
But that wasn't it at all.
"To think the boy who slipped off to the PC bang with money meant for his workbooks grew into such a fine young man. Remarkable."
"...You've been watching me this whole time?"
"Only when you were in Oi-dong. My sight reaches no further than that."
The San-gun scratched his head, a little embarrassed.
"You've grown up beautifully."
Perched on his wooden horse, looking down at Kim Han-soo's face, the San-gun broke into a wide, radiant smile.
"Ugh... hck, ugh!"
At the sight of it, relief and gratitude surged up, and Kim Han-soo burst into tears all over again.
"Aigoo, where do all these tears come from."
With those tiny hands, the San-gun wiped them away.
Watching that heartwarming scene, I felt a weight lift off my chest.
So they weren't the ones who made the sacrifice after all.
It made sense. If Kim Han-soo's ancestors had truly performed the Tiger Rite and were controlling the San-gun under the pretense of appeasing his vengeful spirit, then the line would have taken its revenge long ago — even in I-seon's generation, which had inherited no spiritual power at all. And even if they'd refrained, Kim Han-soo would have been the child of their enemy. There'd have been no reason to risk everything to save him.
"Now then. Hand me that skull for a moment."
"Huh? Oh, sure."
I sprinkled the alchemic silver I'd brought over the San-gun's small skull, inscribed a Wonjin array of grievance-dispersal across it, then dusted the whole thing with powdered gemstone.
And then—
Crack-crack-crack-krak!
The skull melted away, then hardened again — into the shape of a pristine, snow-white curved jade.
"Wh-what did you just do!?"
"Built him a new body."
"...A body?"
The San-gun was an inherited spirit, passed down through generations of hereditary shamans. Having dwelt in so many hosts, he'd accumulated little lived experience of a human frame — and the strain a body places on a spirit was something no one had ever had cause to consider.
He might be fine for a month or two, but if it went on longer, the odds of harm in every possible way were high.
Even I-seon's delirium, back when she'd tried to channel him by force, proved the point. Part of it was that she lacked spiritual aptitude — but a far bigger part was that she'd tried to force an inherited spirit, one who had almost never known a human body, into her flesh.
"R-right?"
"Right. Everything I did, I did with a plan. Here — take it."
I handed Kim Han-soo the curved jade, formed from the San-gun's skull.
An object crafted through alchemy from the body he'd borne in life — it would serve as his new vessel more than well enough.
"Ta-da-da-daan~ A round of applause, everyone! Kim Han-soo has class-changed from Fake Shaman YouTuber to Real Shaman~!"
"What is this, Dragon Quest?"
Kim Han-soo snorted despite himself, a helpless grin breaking through.
And at that very moment—
Ring.
"A text?"