The Final Trial (5)
Crash!
Fleeing the growing crowd of staring eyes, I ducked into the shaman's house. A faint fragrance of incense drifted through the interior.
An altar took up most of the room, laden with watermelons and assorted fruits, while paintings of figures who looked like immortals hung in a long row along the walls.
It was the classic shaman's house you'd only ever seen on television.
"Whoa..."
I was still looking around at the unfamiliar scenery when the shaman dropped to her knees again and cried out at the top of her lungs.
"Sangje-nim! Sangje-nim! This lowly servant humbly presents herself before you!!"
"No, ma'am, just hold on a second—"
Thud—!
The shaman slammed her forehead into the floor hard enough that the sound rang through the room. She'd been doing this nonstop without listening to a word I said, and it was driving me out of my mind.
"Please calm down, okay? Just get up first."
"Yes, yes!"
The moment I told her to stand, she scrambled to her feet. At this rate we weren't going to get anywhere, so I had her sit down.
"Feeling a little calmer now?"
"Yes, Sangje-nim. That you would show such care for this humble servant—I hardly know where to put myself—"
"No, stop. What's with the Sangje-nim this, Sangje-nim that? What are you even talking about?"
"Pardon? I am simply calling Sangje-nim by the title that is yours... With starlight flowing from your body like that, what else could you be but Sangje-nim? And with a celestial maiden standing behind you as well."
"Sangje—you mean the Jade Emperor? Wait. There's something behind me?"
"A celestial maiden is attending you from behind, Sangje-nim. Right at your back."
"..."
"Hmm... Oh... I see..."
The shaman stared past me with laser focus, then nodded to herself as if confirming something, her lips moving in a soft, unintelligible mutter.
A chill crawled down my spine. She had just said there was something behind me.
"C-could you be a little more specific? What exactly is this celestial maiden behind me?"
"Hmmmm— The celestial maiden is a remarkably beautiful woman. She has her face veiled with something like cloth, yet her bearing is exquisite—"
"Her face is covered?"
"Yes. And... the celestial maiden is... hmm?"
The shaman frowned as if something seemed off, then fixed her gaze on empty air—more precisely, on the space right behind my back.
I snuck a glance over my shoulder. Nothing but empty air.
The way she was reacting, though—as if she genuinely saw something—started to scare me. Could the source of that gaze I'd been feeling all this time really be a ghost?
"J-just tell me a little more. Are you talking to that... celestial maiden behind me right now?"
"Hmm..."
"Say something! If you do an exorcism, will that celestial maiden leave? Is it an evil spirit? Or maybe some kind of ancestral spirit?"
"Sangje-nim!"
Grab!
The shaman, who had been staring into empty space and mouthing words, suddenly seized my hands. For such a slight frame, her grip was iron—my hands wouldn't budge.
"Sangje-nim. The path you walk is the Way of Heaven itself. You must keep this in your heart. Do not forget it!"
"Huh? What way? The Way of Heaven?"
"Yes, the Way of Heaven! Sangje-nim, you are the Way of Heaven!"
"Ah... right..."
The shaman's eyes, locked straight onto mine, were like a tiger's. The sheer force of will pouring from those fierce pupils made me shrink back and answer before I even realized it.
"Yes. That is enough. I have nothing more to offer Sangje-nim... This servant's power is too meager, and what lies beyond is not the business of mortals."
"That's it? What about the celestial maiden behind me? Is that okay?"
"It is fine. The celestial maiden may attend and assist you, but she will not bring you harm."
"Hmm..."
The shaman said it was fine, but the idea that something unknown was watching me was far more unsettling than I'd expected—especially when I was the one being watched, with no way to look back.
Since she claimed she had nothing more to say, I got up to leave. A nameless unease clung to the back of my mind like a scrap of meat stuck between a wisdom tooth and a molar, nagging at me without end.
"Ah! I nearly forgot to say this."
"Yes?"
The shaman, who had been sitting in silence with her eyes closed, spoke.
Whoosh!
She snapped open a fan with one hand, hid her face behind it, and glared over the edge with wide eyes.
"I understand the intention, but it is exceedingly arrogant and disrespectful. Knowing when to trust is also a virtue of yours! Covering the eyes and ears will not work forever."
She wasn't talking to me. The shaman was addressing empty air—the space behind my back.
Was she speaking to that ghost she'd called a celestial maiden?
"Covering the eyes and ears? What does that mean? You said it wouldn't harm me!"
"It is not harm directed at Sangje-nim. Do not trouble yourself. It is merely a word of counsel for the celestial maiden..."
With that, the shaman closed her eyes and sealed her lips as firmly as stone. The message was clear: she would say nothing more.
I had no choice but to leave her behind and step outside.
This is fine... right?
The shaman had said the celestial maiden stuck to my back wouldn't harm me, but the unease wouldn't go away.
Maybe I should have at least asked her to draw me a talisman.
Click—!
Only when she heard the door shut did the shaman finally spit out the blood she had been holding back.
"Khuh—!"
Spatter.
A mouthful of black, dead blood poured out. She had dared, in a mortal body, to leak the workings of Heaven and offer counsel to Sangje-nim himself.
She had steeled herself for her limbs to twist and break—so ending at this much was truly fortunate.
To truly stand before Sangje-nim...
Wiping the blood from her lips, the shaman replayed what had just happened. Immortal energy so clear she could feel it even indoors!
Even deep in the mountain valleys of Jirisan, she had never sensed an aura so pure and clean.
That was why she had rushed outside—and the moment she saw him, she knew.
Star-light...
It was full of stars. A living constellation in human form.
With every step He took, star-light clung to His path. Radiance so brilliant she could not dare look straight upon His sacred form.
It was truly the visage of Sangje-nim.
His eyes and ears were covered... yet He was truly Sangje-nim.
For reasons she did not know, He had taken human shape and descended to the earth.
But the time would come.
Someday He would ascend to the place where He rightfully belonged.
And on that day, heaven and earth would be remade.
A shiver ran through her hands and feet. The shaman smiled bitterly and turned her head.
Ancestor... this girl's cultivation has been lacking. I will return to Jirisan to train once more.
This unfitting stint as a shaman ends here. She had taken it up as part of her training—and had met an unexpected person of destiny.
Heaven itself was telling her to go back.
The shaman gazed at a hanging scroll on one wall and quietly closed her eyes.
On the scroll was a man smiling at her with a mischievous, boyish grin. In the corner, written very small, was his name.
Jeon Woochi
Crunch—!
Kenelm clenched her teeth hard enough to crack them. Through the Great One, she had overheard a deeply offensive piece of advice.
What? What did she say? Arrogant and disrespectful? How dare she call me disrespectful?
Creak.
The hammer in her hand trembled and shook. That woman with the fierce eyes had looked straight at Kenelm and spoken to her.
By whatever means, she had clearly perceived Kenelm's presence and addressed her.
She has no idea what I feel, doing this...!
The Great One was the last hope left in this world. And that hope rested entirely in her hands.
Every action, every word—she had to weigh thousands upon thousands of thoughts and tremble with anxiety.
What if the Great One grew disappointed and left? What if, one day, He simply never returned? What if He grew sick of the ugliness and turned away?
I can't let that happen...
So she had covered the ugly things and shown Him only the good. Only the beautiful. Only what would bring Him joy.
In the hope that He would enjoy this world for a long, long time.
She had needed to prevent the worst possible outcome.
I have a duty...
That was what she had told herself.
...No. That woman was right...
Deep down, she had known.
That her meddling was presumptuous beyond measure.
That for one who attends to cover the eyes and ears is a terrible sin.
And yet she had done it anyway.
The Great One was the last remaining hope. She was the one charged with the mission of attending that hope completely.
She had been terrified that He might grow weary of this world, find it repulsive, and leave. And so she had dared to cover His eyes and ears.
Was it... arrogance?
Squeeze.
Her chest tightened. She felt as if she couldn't breathe.
A believer whose faith was so lacking that she had dared put Him to the test.
Overwhelmed by the fear that flooded in, Kenelm fell to her knees.
Ah, aah. My... my faith was so lacking... that I dared cover His eyes and ears and try to keep His every action in the palm of my hand...
How dreadful and blasphemous an act.
Was it the crushing pressure of knowing the last hope rested entirely on her? Had the armies of demons devouring the world made her heart so impatient?
Only now did Kenelm grasp her own sacrilege. When had she gone wrong? Where should she begin to set it right?
Drip. Drip.
No rain fell over the Sea of Souls.
On the sandbar ringed by a black ocean, she quietly shed her tears.
Stare—
I lay on my bed, blankly killing time. I'd come straight home after leaving the shaman's house, but her words kept circling in my ears.
She called me Sangje-nim...
Sangje could only mean the Jade Emperor. And the Jade Emperor was the supreme god of the heavens, wasn't he?
I couldn't figure out why the shaman had called me that, so I kept turning the reason over in my head.
Was I a god in a past life? The Jade Emperor, no less?
That was the kind of idea a fourteen-year-old with an overinflated ego would come up with. Past lives exist, and I was a god in mine? Ridiculous.
A supercar screeching to a halt in front of me with a gorgeous woman yelling, "I'll explain later—just get in!" would be more realistic.
"..."
I sat up on the bed and stood in the middle of the room.
Swoosh.
I raised my hand and aimed it at the wall. I clenched my fist as if seizing something invisible with all my strength.
And once I had it—
"Hup!"
I pulled!
"Ugh. What am I even doing."
The wall remained perfectly intact. No one had seen me, but a pointless embarrassment washed over me all the same. A grown man, getting worked up just because a shaman called him Sangje-nim.
Was the shaman just spouting nonsense?
You filter out half of what shamans and fortune-tellers say, then filter the rest twice more.
Looked at that way, maybe that shaman had just been saying whatever sounded nice.
She said the celestial maiden had her face covered with cloth, right?
A woman with her face veiled in cloth... The woman who kept appearing in my dreams lately also had her face covered with cloth.
And she'd been quite beautiful, as I recalled. Dreams made the memory hazy, but she was probably pretty.
...What is this?
Something about it felt like it almost fit together.
Bzzzt—!
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and checked—there was an alert.
Error Recovered!
The Coliseum event "Fight, and Win!" has been restored!
"Whoa, they're actually fixing the bugs?"
So the developers do work after all!