The Pirate
The Pirate
Natural disasters.
Calamities of heaven and earth.
Storms and upheavals.
When situations beyond human comprehension occurred, ancient ancestors attributed them to incomprehensible beings and named them "yokai."
Indeed, all major events severe enough to be recorded in history books were caused by yokai.
It wasn't until modern times that the distinction between yokai and aberrations emerged—back then, all anomalous creatures were simply called yokai.
But just as there are good and bad humans, among yokai, there were those who harmed humans and those who benefited them. However, our ancestors—who would spout nonsense like "for a sick child, feces are medicine" and force-filtered clean excrement into drinking water—lacked the discernment to distinguish between good and evil yokai.
Thus, all yokai began to be hunted. Naturally, the first to suffer were the benign yokai who had done nothing to humans.
Yokai who tended to the mountain's spiritual energy and chose coexistence with humans were wiped out in an instant. With their caretakers gone, the mountain's energy quickly became corrupted, and the number of starving commoners grew. By the time the king belatedly issued a hunting ban, it was already too late.
Yokai who had seen their parents' pelts being sold in human marketplaces began attacking villages in fury.
The good yokai weren't inherently docile or weak—they had simply chosen coexistence because of their innate high intelligence and accumulated wisdom.
But once all the peace-seeking yokai were hunted, only the hot-blooded young yokai, lacking in wisdom but brimming with aggression, remained. The outcome was inevitable: war between humans and yokai.
Yet the wise yokai had chosen coexistence for a reason.
Countless yokai who bared their fangs at humans lost their lives to the Chakyo Gapsa—monster hunters of the era.
Years of war changed the world drastically.
And the ones who suffered the most, the most pitiful and wronged, were the powerless commoners.
The age of Neo-Confucianism.
In an era where scholars spouted nonsense like "noble men understand righteousness, petty men understand profit" and treated merchants as lowly, logistics could never develop.
Thus, most commoners had to gather food from the mountains. But with the yokai gone and the mountain's energy disrupted, they had no means to sustain themselves.
Left with no choice, they resorted to chewing tree bark—
"Good heavens! What is this?"
When a farmer tried to peel bark from a pine tree to feed his family, the tree crumbled and collapsed. Upon inspection, they found every tree in the mountain had died.
With even their last resort gone, the commoners began starving to death.
Yet while the people withered away, the kingdom's coffers swelled to bursting—filled with the expensive byproducts of hunted yokai.
Seeing the overflowing treasury, the king turned a blind eye to the people's suffering and revoked the hunting ban.
Officials, never having known hunger, squandered the nation's wealth on luxury.
Amid growing despair, malevolent yokai—classified today as aberrations—proliferated, plunging the kingdom into chaos.
But heroes emerge in troubled times.
One figure resolved all these problems and restored peace to the world.
That figure was none other than the Gumiho.
And Mi-ho.
A young Gumiho, napping when she was kidnapped by unknown assailants, was a descendant of that very hero.
"Kyuuung!"
She stared at the human who had come to rescue her.
A strange man with his head wrapped in bandages.
But Mi-ho saw him differently.
Why? She had never particularly liked humans, yet her gaze kept drifting to him.
A glance.
"Kkyuung!"
When their eyes met, her fur stood on end.
As she stared blankly into his eyes—
Thud.
The bandaged man approached and picked up her cage.
Now she could see his eyes up close.
"Kyuuuung..."
At this distance, his eyes seemed ordinary.
No special power, no mystery—just a normal human's eyes.
But Mi-ho, descendant of a hero, saw something in those ordinary eyes that others couldn't.
"Hueeeeng...!"
Her tail fluffed up violently as she reached ecstasy.
While Si-woo stared blankly at the young fox who had flipped onto her back, Hyeong-seop and his junior, immobilized by shadows, exchanged hushed whispers.
"We're screwed, so screwed...!"
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean 'what do we do'? I don't know either!"
Hyeong-seop. He fancied himself a chivalrous rogue from martial arts novels—a man led more by instinct and passion than reason. Of course, to his junior, he was just a hotheaded fool.
But even the junior, who saw him objectively, acknowledged one thing about his braggart senior: he never bowed his head lightly.
No matter how strong the opponent, he always stood his ground. That was the Hyeong-seop the junior knew. Of course, this was less about chivalry and more about relying on his family's prestige, but still.
Point is, he was impulsive, hot-blooded, and wouldn't hesitate to smash what he disliked or take what he wanted.
Yet now, he couldn't even lift his head, sweating bullets in fear.
"Senior, are you scared?"
"...Shut up! He can hear us!"
"Huh? What was that? Speak up if you're gonna yell."
The junior teased him with a straight face. Hyeong-seop wanted to shout but held back—terrified the intruder, currently examining the Gumiho, might turn his attention to them. Even a self-proclaimed rogue like him lacked the courage to provoke a bandaged madman.
"I told you we shouldn't have stolen her."
"...Damn it! I didn't know it'd turn out like this!"
"...To think your intelligence was this low."
"What? You little—! He can hear us!"
"Huh? What'd you say, Senior? I can't hear you. Speak up if you're gonna yell."
Hyeong-seop wanted to smack the back of his junior's head.
But bound by shadows, he couldn't.
"Ugh... Enough joking. Think about how we're getting out of this. Can you break free with magic?"
"Are you insane? He'd notice the moment I tried. The shadows would crush me faster than I could chant."
Of course, Hyeong-seop knew that. He was just probing to see if his junior would take the risk for him.
Luckily, the junior was used to his underhanded tactics.
"Besides, that mage might look like he's focused on the Gumiho, but his attention's on us. The moment we show hostility, he'll move the shadows."
"Damn it! Then what do we do?!"
"Stay still. Beg for our lives."
"You think he'll spare us?"
"What else can we do? You wanna fight him?"
Hyeong-seop grimaced reflexively.
"Bullshit."
A mage's talent is innate.
A newborn might awaken to magic at one year old or on their deathbed. But the key is they were all born mages—only the timing of their awakening differed.
The condition to be a mage was one: being born with a magical formula. Since mages could be born among ordinary people, it was no different from being born with a congenital deformity. Magic was like an extra limb that shouldn't exist.
But the human brain rejects incomprehensible mysteries.
Thus, to accommodate this foreign appendage, a mage's brain twists and reconstructs itself. This process accelerates from the moment of awakening, and no one can predict the outcome.
But all mages share one trait:
The stronger or more unique their magic, the further their brain deviates from normal human structure.
In other words, magical talent comes with mental illness beyond ordinary comprehension.
And in the hidden, mysterious corners of the world, "genius" refers to these very lunatics.
Like the bandaged freak standing before Hyeong-seop now.
"What's wrong? Why are you shaking?"
"Kyuuung..."
"Are you okay?"
Si-woo examined the Gumiho.
Shiver.
Hyeong-seop watched him.
"...You think I'd fight that?"
"Of course not, Senior."
"You little—!"
As Hyeong-seop tried to retort, his words died in his throat.
The bandaged man—Si-woo—was walking toward them.
"Eeek...!"
"Spare us, please!"
Hyeong-seop and his junior stopped talking and pressed their foreheads to the ground, begging for their lives.
"Answer my questions."
The blunt voice from behind the bandages made Hyeong-seop nod vigorously.
"O-of course!"
"Will you spare us?"
Hyeong-seop didn't forget to glare at his tactless junior mid-nod.
"Take me to your family... No, escort me there."
"Y-yes, sir!"
Hyeong-seop nodded immediately. Of course, revealing the family's location to an outsider was far beyond his authority. If caught, he'd face severe punishment.
'Senior, are you insane?'
'We need to survive first!'
After a silent exchange with his junior, Hyeong-seop glanced at Si-woo.
With his face entirely bandaged, his expression was unreadable.
"Hurry up and guide me."
"R-right now? Ah—! Understood!"
When Si-woo twitched his fingers, the shadows restraining them shifted, lifting them into the air.
"W-we're going like this?"
"Senior, read the mood."
As the two bickered while suspended in shadow, Si-woo decided to leave.
'This wraps it up.'
He'd rescued the Gumiho and obtained keys to infiltrate the Gu Family. Since he hadn't harmed anyone, this mission was a perfect success.
'Yeah, this is how it should be.'
None of his recent jobs had been easy. Even when he avoided difficult requests, luck was never on his side. But if there were unlucky days, the opposite must exist too.
"Today's my lucky day."
Pushing away the Gumiho's tiny paws reaching through the bars, Si-woo turned to leave for his broker.
Then—a massive shadow loomed over him.
"What the—?"
Looking up, Si-woo saw a colossal sailing ship.
A wooden galleon straight out of the 16th century.
And it was falling right toward him.
KABOOOM—!
"Gyaaah!!"
"Stop screaming. It's giving me a headache."
Si-woo rode the shadows to evade the impact.
"What is that?"
Beyond the settling dust, the enormous ship stood unharmed despite the fall—clearly indicating one thing.
"Magic...?"
"Hey!!"
A figure appeared at the bow, shouting.
"Where's my treasure?!"
As the dust cleared, his appearance came into view.
A hat with a skull emblem. A cutlass at his waist. And a hook for a hand.
"That outfit...?"
Si-woo frowned at the pirate straight out of a movie.
"...Another lunatic."
"Kahaha! It's you! The one who took my treasure!"
The pirate pointed his hook at the Gumiho's cage.
Unaware she was the target, the Gumiho paid no mind to the threat of being kidnapped again. Her entire focus was on touching Si-woo.
"Not happening."
"Ahaha! Then I'll just take it!"
Flap!
The folded sails unfurled, displaying overwhelming grandeur. The Jolly Roger painted on them fluttered grotesquely in the wind.
"Along with your life!"
"That won't work."
"Let's go! Time to plunder! In the name of Wang Jik, the Great Pirate! Take everything!"
Watching this spectacle with stunned expressions were two others.
"No way...!"
"Senior, what do we do?"
"Two madmen fighting..."
"Bandage Guy vs. Pirate. This'd get a ton of views if we filmed it."
Still suspended in midair, the Gu Family members could only spectate.