You Can't Run Forever
I came down off the mountain and walked into the city. Getting so much as a hello out of anyone was harder than it had any right to be.
"Haa. Finally, I get to sleep in my own bed."
The misery of the last few days came rushing back. To find her, I had pinned the house's location from the setting bible, torn across the Taebaek Mountains like a lunatic, kept watch through the nights, and gone without a single wash. All of it, just to meet her.
"I got lucky..."
If a phantom thief's intuition was a real thing, then thank god for it. I had sniffed out a place hidden tighter than a grave. Something about a stretch of the mountain had felt wrong, and when I went to look, jackpot. I charged in, giddy, and very nearly died at the hands of the owner.
"...Should I take comfort in the fact that I at least wrung a promise out of her?"
She had been far more unyielding than I expected, and I had no idea what to do about it. Those eyes, brimming with killing intent, had turned the backs of my knees to water. The smile around the stem of her long pipe was less pretty than it was chilling.
"But why couldn't she understand a word I said?"
The first time we met, I had greeted her and explained the whole situation. She had demanded to know what nonsense I was spouting, and then she had simply been furious.
"Was she just annoyed with me?"
If someone barged into my house uninvited, I would be angry too. I wouldn't kill them, though. And she had heard me out at the end, so maybe it didn't matter.
"I've got the appointment. What am I supposed to bring?"
She was someone who had lived alone not for a handful of years, but for centuries. She had no desire for things at all. Food was the safe choice, wasn't it?
"If I show up with something that hits hard, she'll like it."
Even when she had come down into society to meet the protagonist, she had been helpless before food. A lifetime of nothing but rice and the vegetables she grew had left her palate starved. An immortal could survive on that alone, but an immortal was still a person. Before a meal, everyone was equal.
"Good. Sweet, salty, spicy—I'm bringing all of it."
Just as the protagonist had done. I would tame her with food. I was never getting crushed under a boulder again.
"God, that was awful."
The memory sent a shiver through me. Unlike in the original, her power had not waned. It was the same as with Sword. I had met her in her prime, and the scale of that strength belonged to another dimension entirely. She was, in effect, Korea's other strongest.
"Think Heaven might lend me a hand...?"
She had come to the protagonist's aid under Heaven's guidance. I hoped it would be the same for me.
"Time to go home."
Maybe it was the new house, but the corner of my mouth kept climbing. A bed roomy enough for three, and me rolling around in it—nothing in the world could beat that.
"Nothing but good things from here, right?"
I checked the time on my phone. At this rate I was going to miss the subway. Out in the provinces, one wrong connection and I would be getting home in the dead of night.
"Should I just catch the bullet train?"
I had money to spare. No point pinching pennies.
"Mom. That man over there."
"Shh! Don't look at him!"
The kid had said something while staring at me, but the mother at their side dragged them off.
"...I'm not some random mister."
If they were going to call me anything, they could at least call me Phantom Thief.
The next day, I climbed the mountain with my arms loaded down—fried chicken, pizza, spicy rice cakes, and more food than any one person ought to carry.
"The scenery changed?"
I was climbing the same path, and yet there was no trace of yesterday's battle. The trees and boulders split by lightning were gone. So was the ash the fires had left behind. Even the earth that had been torn inside out had vanished. Not a single mark remained.
For a moment I thought I had lost the way. But a phantom thief's intuition kept signaling, over and over, that something was hidden here.
"So she really is an immortal."
To erase every last trace like that—it was an ability uniquely alien, even within this world.
I picked my way along with care, so the food wouldn't spoil, and at last a broad field opened before me. A field, in a place buried under trees. A small clearing might have been one thing, but a stretch this wide could only be artificial. And yet it looked perfectly natural, as if no human hand had ever touched it.
At the center of that field, a woman sat on a rock with a long pipe between her lips. Crimson hair spilled down to her waist. She wore the sort of robes you would see in a historical drama, the front loosened open to the swell of her chest. The indifferent gaze she turned up toward the sky seemed sunk in some private sorrow, and that only deepened the mystery of her. When those half-lidded eyes swung toward me, my heart gave a hard, sudden kick.
This woman. The only immortal upon the earth, and the protagonist's master.
Hong Yumin.
The moment she saw me, Hong Yumin's eyes narrowed.
"...Unlike yesterday, you have at least come looking something like a person."
"...I am a person, though?"
What was she talking about? I had been born from my mother's belly, gone to college, and lived a perfectly human life. These days I was a phantom thief, but still.
"...And you can understand what is said, besides."
"...I'm not sure I follow."
Was she so ancient that modern Korean sounded strange to her?
"...No. Enough."
Hong Yumin descended slowly through the empty air, as if she were walking down a flight of stairs.
"Whoa."
That was actually impressive.
"...Hmph."
She flicked a glance at me, caught in the middle of my admiration, and turned her back.
"Follow. You are a guest in name, at least. I shall receive you."
"Thank you."
I followed her. And she was walking straight at the trees.
The moment Hong Yumin drew close enough to strike them, the trees slid aside of their own accord. In the comic I had thought, so that's the sort of ability it is. In person, my eyes nearly fell out of my head.
Wherever her foot came down, nature opened a road. The shifting of the trees was a bow from the waist. The trembling of the branches was a show of respect. Stones rolled together to lay a firm path, and the wind rose to brush away even the unpleasant dust. She looked, for all the world, like a king of nature, and the sight stirred something close to awe. She walked on as if it were only natural.
Then the world around us brightened, and a house appeared. A hanok of timber, stone, and tile, and yet it did not feel ruinously old. If Dan Miryu's house was a modern hanok, this one was tradition with mystery laid over it.
"Enter."
"Yes."
When I looked back, the path we had walked was gone. I followed her inside.
She opened the paper-screen door, and the scent of wood rushed out to meet us. Beams set in careful order embroidered the ceiling with an old, stately grace, and the wooden floor wrapped my feet at every step, soft and warm. Hong Yumin lit a flame on her fingertip and blew it gently away. The drifting ember stopped at the center of the ceiling and flooded the room with light.
She sat before a low desk, cross-legged in the old floor-sitting way. I sat across from her. Hong Yumin drew once on her pipe, then fixed me with a sharp eye.
"...So. I have received you as a guest. What is your business?"
For a guest, the hospitality left something to be desired. But what could I do? It was the owner's house.
"Before that, would you eat something first?"
I brought out what I had prepared. Half spicy-glazed chicken, half plain fried. Pineapple pizza. Spicy rice cakes, blood sausage, and fish cakes. Spicy braised pig's feet. And a spread of other dishes besides. A fragrance that ruined your health and bought you happiness stabbed straight up my nose.
"...What do you think you are doing?"
Hong Yumin's brow twitched.
"Food I prepared. I don't know if it'll suit your taste."
"...I have no need of it."
As if swallowing her anger, Hong Yumin drew on her pipe. And yet the eyes she had opened, just a little, were aimed at the food.
Heh. I know exactly what you like. That's why I came.
I set the boneless chicken, made for easy eating, close in front of her and poured cola into a paper cup.
"For the sake of the gesture, couldn't you try just one bite?"
"...Ridiculous."
That cold, indifferent poker face wavered. However indifferent she might be to the world, she could not be indifferent to food. And all Hong Yumin had eaten until now was rice and grass. She must have had meat, once, in the deep past, but she wouldn't even remember it.
"...Tsk!"
She made no effort to hide her displeasure. Then, as if to say this was the only indulgence I would get, she put the chicken on the fork into her mouth.
I smiled on the inside. It was the very same brand of chicken she had eaten for the first time in the original. Back then, Hong Yumin had said this:
I never knew a flavor like this existed.
Come on. Fall for the taste of chicken...
"...Now speak your business."
Hong Yumin set the fork down. There was none of the lovestruck mess of a woman lost to chicken. Only the look of someone who had observed the bare minimum of courtesy, arms folded.
This isn't working...
The plan had failed. Half the fun of the story had been Hong Yumin going soft and silly over food. Was it because then and now were different situations?
"...Thank you for eating."
"...Hmph."
Hong Yumin gave a small nod, as if that were quite enough. I had done everything I could do. Linger any longer, and I would only be asking for her anger.
"I only have one matter."
"...And what is it?"
"Would you consider coming down into society and taking up work?"
Hong Yumin snorted.
"Ha! And that is all you came to say?"
Her face said she had seen dozens like me, and found every one of them laughable.
"...Pitiful. I shall never set foot in the mundane world. Never."
With a rattle, Hong Yumin flicked a finger, and the paper-screen door behind her slid open on its own.
"I have heard enough. Begone. Do not come again."
She rose from her seat.
"I'll get rid of the thing you sealed."
She stopped dead.
"...So you mean to spout nonsense as well."
"Akho. The Evil Tiger."
"...!"
Hong Yumin swayed, faintly. I looked her straight in the eye.
"How much time do you have left?"
Your life.
"...Get out."
A low rumble rolled through the house. No—through the earth itself.
"...I will not ask how you know. So leave. This instant."
"...How long do you intend to just leave it shut away?"
The pressure blew me clean through the wall. I hit the dirt and rolled, graceless as could be.
"Insolent wretch! A mouth is not a license to run it as you please!"
I stood, brushing off the soil. Hong Yumin stared at me, a rough power pouring off her in waves.
"You can't live your whole life that way."
"What could the likes of you possibly know?!"
They came on like a tide. Waves of fire, water, wood, earth, and stone. Dodging was impossible.
But—
"I didn't come here because I don't know."
An encirclement with no escape means nothing before a phantom thief. I was standing at her side as lightly as a falling leaf.
Hong Yumin's eyes went round. Before she could sweep that hand through the air, I caught it.
"...Let go!"
"How long do you mean to keep running?"
Hong Yumin went still.
Nothing is solved by running alone. Hong Yumin's pupils shook, wild and unsteady.