Inheritance #2
The pastor ordered a drink at the café. I was already in the middle of the gathering and had a beverage in front of me, so there was no need to order anything else. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood to eat.
What I really wanted to know had nothing to do with dessert. I had never imagined that Pastor Cheon Ae-soo and my mother knew each other. Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered her saying her hometown was Gaeryong City. So she hadn’t simply come back to her roots and taken a job here after all?
I kept stealing glances at the man sitting across from me in the café corner. Broad shoulders, solid build. Early fifties. He looked like a retired firefighter, cop, or soldier. If he hadn’t been wearing a clerical collar, no one would have pegged him for a pastor. Just look at those traps. I doubted ten of me could take him down.
“You’ve grown so much,” Pastor Cheon Ae-soo said. “Last time I saw you, you were a tiny baby no bigger than my fist. Time really does fly. How is Chae-yeon these days? I heard she’s been struggling.”
A friend of my mother’s. Someone who knew me as a child… After everything I’d been through these past few days—fighting ghosts, suffering every kind of misfortune—it was only natural that suspicion flared first. He wasn’t trying to trick me, was he?
I gave a safe answer. “Mother is doing fine.”
“Is she?”
He pulled out his phone. It was the latest model I’d seen in an ad when I took Mom’s phone in for repairs. He turned the screen toward me.
1st Yeonggwang Church High School Youth Group Gaeryong Mountain Retreat
In the photo, several people held up a banner, smiling brightly. They looked around my age, but the years had left their mark.
“See? This is your mother, and this is your father.”
“……”
“Still don’t like talking about your father?”
I glanced around the café. People chattered nonstop. It was a little late for spring, yet the air conditioning made the place feel uncomfortably warm. The glass I’d been awkwardly sipping from now held nothing but ice.
“Yeong-won, I’m truly sorry about what happened to your father. Chae-yeon went through a lot after that day too. Still, I hope she can pull herself together and build a new life. Everyone deserves a chance at a fresh start.”
Everyone deserves a chance at a fresh start…
The words made me think of the deaconess’s story. According to Jeong Seok, a criminal who had slit a female high school student’s throat and never paid for it was hiding right here in Yeonggwang Church.
The moment the thought hit me, my mind sharpened. If I let Pastor Cheon Ae-soo keep controlling the pace, I would only end up revealing my entire hand. I needed to stay calm.
I took a slow breath inside my chest. Maybe it was the effect of the newly acquired Strong Heart trait, but I steadied myself faster than I expected.
“Pastor, I have one question. How long have you been at Yeonggwang Church?”
“I’m the founding pastor.”
“I heard… before the church was built, there used to be some kind of shrine tree. Is that true? I’m writing a report on Gaeryong City’s history.”
The report was a lie, but I felt no guilt. Survival came first. I needed every scrap of information I could get.
“There was a large tree. A very ominous one. Construction had to begin, but no one would cut it down. They said they’d be cursed. So I took an axe and a chainsaw and cut it down myself.”
“Oh.”
“The desk and chair in my office are made from that shrine tree.”
If it had been me, I would have been too terrified of a curse to do something like that. The man had no fear at all.
“Then what happened to the head shaman who served the shrine? There must have been one, right? What became of her?”
“Shaman?”
Pastor Cheon Ae-soo frowned. The pastor actually asked me the question back.
“Why bring up shamans? They’re not the sort of people you want to get close to. Most are frauds who follow misguided spirits. Don’t concern yourself with them.”
Of course a pastor wouldn’t enjoy talking about shamans. It was the expected reaction, so I used the excuse I had prepared.
“I heard my friend Ju-hui’s maternal family were shamans for generations. If she hadn’t started going to church, maybe she would have become one too. That’s why I was curious… Of course, I know shamanism is all tricks and lies.”
“Lies, you say. Not everything is a lie. The Bible speaks of ghosts, demons, and Satan entering human bodies to deceive and mislead people.”
“I see.”
“Do you know the most vicious spirit of all? The spirit of suicide. Those entities drive people to despair until they take their own lives. The head shaman of the shrine hanged herself at school.”
A shaman who hanged herself at school. Just as I suspected—the native Gaeryong shaman had been the bell ghost I saw at Yeongji High.
“Did she kill herself because the shrine tree was cut down?”
“No. The church was built after her suicide. I bought the land when it went on sale. That was roughly sixteen… seventeen years ago. She was very young. Twenty, I think.”
Twenty? The numbers didn’t add up. Yeongji High School was built forty years ago. Wouldn’t the shrine shaman who clashed with Yang Ju-hui’s grandmother have to be much older?
“Was she a different shaman from the one who fought Ju-hui’s grandmother during the school’s construction? I read about it in the former mayor’s autobiography. Here.”
I pulled the book Jeong Seok had given me from my bag and showed the pastor the relevant passage. He looked at it and gave a dry chuckle.
“My, you’re even reading the former mayor’s memoir? Very dedicated to your assignment. All right. The one who fought with Ju-hui’s grandmother was most likely the mother of the shaman who committed suicide. There was quite an age gap.”
“Ah.”
“Opinions were sharply divided when the school was being built. I remember it well. The Japanese shaman and the original head shaman were at each other’s throats—literally waving knives and threatening to kill one another. The entire project nearly collapsed.”
“Really? The book says a new shaman performed a suppressing ritual and the construction finished safely.”
“That’s right. The head shaman who opposed the project suddenly passed away. No known cause. She simply died. Remember this—the woman had a very young daughter. That girl eventually followed her mother and became a shaman… and then she hanged herself too. Why do shaman daughters always choose the same path? Tsk.”
So that was the story. Then one last question.
“Do you know why the shaman killed herself? Was she searching for something?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know the details. At the time she hanged herself, I was ministering in Seoul at Gwanak First Presbyterian Church. A magnificent building, like the walls of Jericho.”
He stroked his chin. I instinctively knew he was dodging my final question and lying. Even Pastor Cheon Ae-soo told lies. Which meant he was just an ordinary adult. And all adults lie.
“What on earth were you talking about with the pastor for so long?”
On the way home after leaving the church, Yang Ju-hui seemed dying to know why I had spent so much time with Pastor Cheon Ae-soo. I answered honestly.
“About my mom. Turns out she used to be part of the high school youth group here.”
“For real? So your mom was in the youth group when she had you?”
…….
Well, when you put it that way.
I felt awkward and tried to dodge. “Hey, Yang Ju-hui. Why the dad joke?”
“How is that a dad joke!”
“Anyway, we also talked about the shrine shaman. The one who fought your grandmother suddenly died of unknown causes. And her daughter became a shaman too, but hanged herself at Yeongji High School.”
“Wow. What kind of story is that? It’s horrible.”
Yang Ju-hui frowned in clear distaste. When I thought about it… the native shaman family had lost their power struggle against the outsider Japanese shaman—Ju-hui’s grandmother—and the entire bloodline had been crushed.
Ju-hui’s maternal family had seized the local shaman position, gained the Cheon family’s backing, and prospered. But then her older sister Yang Do-hui went missing somewhere inside the old school building, the family fell apart, and by the time it reached Ju-hui herself… she had become a delinquent who snatched cutter knives from other kids.
Suddenly I was curious. “Hey… what happened to your maternal grandmother?”
“She got dementia and passed away a few years ago. She started suffering from it at a surprisingly young age, so Mom had a really hard time. She lived with us, but after my sister disappeared she only lasted a little while longer.”
I see. It had been a surprisingly informative Sunday.
The Cheon family that once owned the grand mansion. The battle between shamans. Female students disappearing from Yeongji High School. The Nightmare Corridor. It felt like every piece was connected.
Then what was I—Ha Yeong-won—in all this? A complete outsider. I still couldn’t understand why someone like me had obtained a bizarre status window and was now fighting ghosts.
In the end, the only option was to explore the Nightmare Corridor further.
On the way home I told Yang Ju-hui about it.
“I don’t really get what you’re saying. So it’s like that game we played last time?”
“Pretty much. Except there are way more ghosts. You’d better steel yourself. You might actually piss your pants. Still, you’ll come with me, right? We might find your sister.”
I was bursting with motivation. Nightmare Corridor Exploration Team—Ha Yeong-won, Jeong Seok, Yang Ju-hui. Let’s go! There was still one spot left, though… I couldn’t exactly bring someone like Jeong So-jin or Kim Geon-ho.
I checked the message I had sent Yu Da-hee.
The “1” showing it hadn’t been read was still there. I thought about calling but decided it might come off as too obsessive.
“Hey, Ju-hui. Let’s meet in the dream later.”
“Ugh, that’s so cringy.”
After walking her home, I headed back to my apartment. Tonight I was definitely making a second attempt at the Nightmare Corridor.
With that thought in mind, I started up the stairs—only to freeze. Something pitch-black was crouching on the dark fourth-floor landing right in front of our door.
“Shit—!”
I nearly jumped out of my skin. It felt like I leaped two meters straight up. No exaggeration—if I hadn’t had the Strong Heart trait, I might have died of a heart attack.
Another ghost?
As I recoiled in shock, the motion-sensor light on the fourth floor clicked on, revealing a familiar face.
“Wait… Da-hee?”
“……”
The suspicious person crouched in front of my house was Yu Da-hee.
She spoke softly. “…Yeong-won. Can I sleep at your place tonight?”
“Sleep over?”
Looking closer, she wasn’t even wearing shoes—just stockings on the bare floor. And for some reason she was still in her school uniform.
“Da-hee, what the hell happened?”
“I ran away from home.”
Oh shit.
“How long have you been waiting here? You could have at least messaged me.”
“Since this morning. My phone… got confiscated the second I got home yesterday. So I sneaked out.”
My head spun. She had been waiting here from morning until evening? We must have missed each other while I was at church.
Then suspicion crept in. The richest, most beautiful girl in the region runs away and waits in front of my house like a soaked puppy? That only happened in dreams or delusions.
“You’re not a ghost or anything… right?”
I had used up both bottles of Faint Perfume, so the effect that hid me from ghosts was still active. But there was always the chance of a what-if.
The motion-sensor light clicked off again.
In the sudden darkness, Yu Da-hee whispered, “…You caught me?”
“Mom!”
“Puhuhu! I’m joking. Yeong-won, you’re really funny.”
The light clicked back on. I felt like I’d been bewitched by a fox, but Yu Da-hee was laughing brightly.
“Someone told me ghosts are dead souls, so their hearts don’t beat. Yeong-won, if I’m that scary, why don’t you touch and see if my heart is beating?”
She hid both hands behind her back and pushed her chest forward beneath her school vest. My vision went hazy. A female high school student was telling me to touch her chest to confirm whether she was a ghost or not. Did that even make sense? Wasn’t this development way too convenient for me?
Maybe I was dreaming. Or maybe this was another high-level trap. Either way, I had to check.
“Then… I’m really going to check, okay?”
Slowly… I reached out my hand.