Gong No-sa Is Coming
"Mr. Kim, I distinctly told you that the prevailing opinion within Cosmos favors using the anomalies. And in spite of that, that remark of yours—'trust me'—sounds to me very much like an instruction to betray Cosmos. Am I wrong?"
"No, you heard me exactly right. Shall I repeat it, just in case? Betray Cosmos and come over to my side. Ah, one caveat—you'll need to betray us without getting caught, stay at Cosmos, and serve as my double agent while you're at it."
"Ha! Are you hearing yourself right now?"
Yoon Chang-sik burst into a laugh of pure disbelief—a sneer that said, you honestly expect me to accept terms that absurd?
"Um... Yi-yeon, I mean, even for you, that's—"
"He's my son, and a stubborn one at that, so talking to him like that will only—"
"Didn't do so hot in school, did you?"
Yoon Soo-ah I could understand, but why was Baek Gong-ju of all people lecturing me?
You're practically our prisoner, you know?
That said, I wasn't making such an outrageous demand without anything behind it.
"In exchange, Mr. Yoon Chang-sik, I will grant you the wish you've dreamed of your entire life."
"...My wish?"
"Yes. The very wish that drove you into Cosmos in the first place."
"...How could you possibly know about that?"
The reason I knew Yoon Chang-sik's most private desire was the faith I'd received as payment from Princess Bari.
Astonishingly, mixed into that faith was faith that had come from Yoon Chang-sik himself.
And not just any faith—profoundly strong, profoundly deep devotion.
The kind of depth that could never be built by someone who merely believed in a god.
It pointed to only one conclusion.
Yoon Chang-sik had once been a shaman who served Princess Bari.
And by reading that returned faith through the Art of Resonance, I had come to understand what kind of man he was—and what he longed for.
"Cooperate with me and betray Cosmos, and I will build you the world you desire—a world where psychics no longer have to be sacrificed."
Yoon Chang-sik was a genius who appeared perhaps once in several centuries, even within the Yoon clan—one of Korea's most storied families of spiritual power.
That brilliant talent won him the favor of countless gods, and in the end it earned him the selection of Princess Bari, the apex of Korea's shamanic pantheon.
But his extraordinary gift became his tragedy instead.
The gods who possessed his siblings looked upon Yoon Chang-sik's talent and burned with jealousy toward Princess Bari.
They drove his brothers and sisters—humans who had become their vessels—into inescapable corners and killed them deliberately.
All so they could break their contracts without paying a price, compete with Princess Bari, and claim Yoon Chang-sik for themselves.
Six of his ten siblings died in the process.
When Yoon Chang-sik learned the truth, his rage was inevitable.
"Why did you not protect them!? Aren't you the god of shamans!?"
He raged at gods who used humans as pieces on a board and discarded them like worn-out rags when they were no longer needed—and at Princess Bari, who had known the truth and still failed to shield his family.
And at the end of that rage, a question took root.
Why must psychics, simply for being psychics, throw themselves into a burning war against the anomalies?
Why did the clan insist this was their sacred duty?
Why should the exceptional sacrifice themselves for the ordinary?
After long agonizing, Yoon Chang-sik abandoned the gods and walked out on his clan.
Baek Gong-ju thundered at him, demanding to know whether he feared divine punishment—but to a man who had lost his siblings to the gods' schemes, the words could not possibly land.
And Baek Gong-ju, who had likewise lost her own child to the gods' caprice, was in no position to condemn him harshly, either.
And so the man who should have been the future of Korean shamanism renounced the gods and left the country.
Then long years passed, and when he finally returned to Korea—
the future of Korean shamanism was not what awaited him there. It was Yoon Chang-sik, executive director of Cosmos.
Independence of humanity from the gods.
And a world where psychics need never be sacrificed.
To achieve those two goals, the place Yoon Chang-sik had chosen was Cosmos.
"But I imagine Cosmos, the place you joined chasing those ideals, didn't sit well with you either."
"...Then tell me, Mr. Kim—can you create a future that satisfies me?"
"Of course. At the very least, I'm a damn sight better than the sort of people who'd build their future on the backs of anomalies."
"Then say it. Tell me how you intend to fulfill my wish."
"The matter of the gods will resolve itself without us lifting a finger—"
One look at the exchange between Princess Bari, Izanami, and Lady Toho made it self-evident that the heavenly gods were already done for.
Leave them alone and they'd die a natural death on their own.
Which left only one real problem: how to create a world where psychics didn't have to be sacrificed.
"That would be—"
I put the solution I'd conceived into words.
Yoon Chang-sik went silent for a long moment, as if he couldn't believe his ears—and then—
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
he exploded into laughter.
"Yes! If that's truly possible, then there'd be no reason left for psychics to live as sacrifices at all! Excellent! What a magnificent idea!"
Apparently the solution I'd come up with had struck him exactly the right way.
But the levity didn't last. Yoon Chang-sik's voice returned to dead seriousness.
"The question is whether you can actually do it."
"You're the one who called me the destined vessel who'll write a new law at the end of the age. Losing confidence in your own eye?"
"No. I have it. Yes—I trust my own judgment."
That was, in its way, an agreement.
"Then—!"
"Yes. I admit it. What I desire lies closer to your world than to Cosmos's. I will betray Cosmos as you ask and serve as your double agent."
Yes!
It worked!
The gamble I'd taken—reading Yoon Chang-sik's memories through Princess Bari's faith—had paid off beautifully.
"But let me draw the line in advance. I am investing in your potential, nothing more. If you break your promise—or if you disappoint me—"
"Grill me or boil me, do as you please."
I answered without a flicker of hesitation.
Because the solution I'd offered Yoon Chang-sik was something I'd been turning over in my mind for years.
Now, then—time for the main event.
"There are two things I want from you right now, Mr. Yoon Chang-sik. The first is Cosmos's objective."
I knew Cosmos wanted to seize the initiative in the new age that would follow the end of the world.
The question was what kind of world they intended to build with that initiative in hand—specifically.
"...I don't know the answer myself. Cosmos, first and foremost, is an organization with Chairman Jung Tae-min at its apex; every department merely functions as a component. None of us knows what the others are doing. The only person who knows everything is Jung Tae-min alone—in other words, not a single soul inside the company knows what kind of world Jung Tae-min intends to build with Cosmos's power."
So it all came down to Jung Tae-min's whims.
"Then my second question. How much do you know about the locations of the doors to the Outside that Cosmos has secured?"
"The doors to the Outside are graded from one to three. What I know extends only down to Grade 2."
"That's fine. Tell me everything you have."
"...Do you intend to churn those places up the way you did the Cosmos Medical Center? That won't be easy, you know."
Yoon Chang-sik explained that the door at the Cosmos Medical Center had been a low-tier Grade 3, which was why it had been guarded by almost no one.
For reference, a door's grade was measured by the amount of energy leaking through it—and apparently, any door observed directly was equally dangerous regardless of grade.
"Doesn't matter. Frankly, isn't this a good thing for you, Mr. Yoon Chang-sik?"
"Good—for me?"
"Yes. Consider it your chance to verify whether the cocky young pup who's been running his mouth actually has the power to change the world."
"...Haha! Fair enough. If you die here having accomplished nothing, then that will simply be the end of it. Oh, and one more thing—if you fail and die, kindly carry the story of my betrayal to your grave with you."
"With pleasure."
Not that it meant much, given that Baek Gong-ju, Yoon Soo-ah, and Baek Dong-sik's boy [POW] were all listening in on this call anyway.
"One last question. Does Jeong-myeong-gyo also have doors in its possession?"
I called it a question, but it was really a confirmation.
The priests who had been channeling the anomalies' power into their own bodies made it a foregone conclusion that they'd secured doors of their own.
"Yes, that's correct. Within Seoul, in fact, they likely hold more doors than we do."
That answer settled it for me.
This war at the end of the age was, in the end, a contest over who could secure more doors.
Cosmos and Jeong-myeong-gyo were the ones who kept the doors open and sought to exploit their power.
And I was the one who intended to close them.
'No—maybe it isn't just Cosmos and Jeong-myeong-gyo.'
There was no telling who else might have secured doors to the Outside and put them to use.
The power from Beyond was a dangerous force that eroded human beings into anomalies—but it was also an inexhaustible wellspring of spiritual energy.
Just as I had neutralized that power with the Azoth, there was nothing strange about other factions purifying it and putting it to work.
Look at Cosmos and Jeong-myeong-gyo—weren't they exploiting it to great effect right now?
"I've just sent you a file compiling the current locations of the doors."
"Received."
With that, I had a rough picture of the board.
"That seems to conclude your questions, so allow me to offer a few pieces of advice."
"I'm listening."
"Do not underestimate Jung Tae-min. He is a dangerous man. Cosmos regards the Medical Center as low-priority, and since you haven't publicized the connection between yourself and the 'hospital that eats people', they seem inclined to watch how events unfold—but the moment you touch a Grade 2 door or higher, or strike Cosmos head-on, everything changes."
"I have plans for that, so don't worry."
"And my second piece of advice: Gong No-sa is on the move."
"What do you mean, 'on the move'?"
"He is bringing in psychics from overseas in large numbers—assassins and violent criminals for hire."
"......"
"You can guess why, I trust?"
Yeah. I could guess just fine.
I'm sure he'd love nothing more than to kill me with his own two hands.
But if he came at me wielding the Hwacheomchang, I could simply seize control of it.
And he couldn't stash the spear somewhere else and come after me empty-handed, either—not after he'd already earned the Hwacheomchang's ire. He'd be too anxious that it would slip free of his control the instant it left his grip.
So hiring assassins was the answer he'd landed on, huh?
'Come at me, then. Come as many as you like.'
As long as none of those hired killers happened to be Special Grade, they didn't scare me.
"I would advise you not to let your guard down. Your skill is unquestionably superb—an ordinary assassin wouldn't stand a chance against you. But can you say the same for the people around you?"
The words hit me, and for a moment I couldn't respond.
The people around me.
Choi Eun-ha. Tsukumo Momo. Lee Ha-ram. Kim Han-su. Yu Min-seo.
The bonds I'd stumbled into by getting tangled up with anomalies.
What if the assassins came for them?
'I'll need to make separate arrangements for this.'
"Thank you for the advice."
"Think nothing of it."
And so the long conversation with Yoon Chang-sik came to an end.
We slipped back out of the Inner Space.
The moment we did, Baek Gong-ju placed a call. The receiver was picked up before the first ring had even finished.
Kang In-hyuk's flustered voice came pouring through the receiver of Baek Gong-ju's phone.
"B-Baek Teacher!? What on earth is going on!? That—that existence impersonating you—what in the world was it!?"
Apparently the Bureau people had been shown footage of me as well—footage of the Changeling that had been occupying Baek Gong-ju's seat.
"Aigoo, poor old-timer. His ears are going to fall clean off."
"...Hm? Teacher, is something wrong with your voice—"
"Quiet. Send me every last member of Team 1, right now."
"B-but Teacher, all of Team 1's personnel are currently assigned to the politicians—"
"Pull every one of them. I'll take full responsibility. Now."
"...Understood!"
Baek Gong-ju's iron resolve wrung a firm answer out of Kang In-hyuk.
Hanging up, she turned to me.
"The petty cleanup, this old woman will handle. So you go tend to the heavy matters, hm?"
"Leave it to you, then."
"There we go, there we go."
...No matter how many times I saw it, a ten-year-old pipsqueak talking like a granny just did not compute.
"Soo-ah, you'll be staying close to Mr. Kim here, in case anything comes up."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"What!?"
I stared at Baek Gong-ju in open shock, but she was utterly unbothered.
"What's there to be startled about? What you just pulled was as good as throwing the first punch at Cosmos in broad daylight. There's no telling when they'll move to retaliate."
"But that was based on what Yoon Chang-sik—"
"That's his speculation, not confirmation, is it not? Enough arguing—take the girl with you. With a Bureau agent at your side, even Cosmos will think twice about laying a hand on you."
"...Well, if you put it that way..."
Baek Gong-ju wasn't wrong—again—so I decided to go along with it.
Whereupon she drifted up beside me, jabbed me in the ribs with her elbow—poke, poke—and muttered under her breath.
"Well now, if you two spend enough time together, take a shine to each other, and end up getting up to this and that... this old woman won't stand in your way."
"Grandma!"
So apparently I was now going to be living under the same roof as a beauty who could make any guy my age's eyes go wide.
But my attention was fixed somewhere else entirely. My heart wasn't racing; I didn't feel the least bit nervous.
'The cognition is fully gathered.'
Lü Dongbin. Solomon. Niccolò. Paracelsus.
The golden narratives left behind by four great souls.
And I had gathered enough cognition to inscribe one of them.
Today, I would write one of them into this world.
