Sweep the Real One into the Underworld
I'd wondered why, among all the retainers Kato Kiyomasa kept at his side, the records made no mention of Tachibana.
Turns out Tachibana was here all along.
The reason I'd recognized him at a glance was Shoichi's letter. Tachibana stood beside the carts loaded with gold, dressed in the white robes favored by the ancient onmyoji sorcerers. Later, when a cart wheel gave out and he tried to hide the chests of gold, he stood at the mouth of the cave chanting an incantation.
So then he simply walked into his own barrier.
Had he believed Kato would one day come back for him? Or perhaps he'd meant to unravel the barrier himself and step out one day. Even twenty years after the Pacific War ended, a Japanese soldier was reportedly discovered digging tunnels on a Philippine island, still shouting banzai to the Emperor.
A revolting, stubborn cockroach of a man.
There was something both chilling and monstrous about Tachibana's obsession — a man who had thrown away his very life to carry out Kato's orders, guarding the treasure through all those long centuries. But for me, it was nothing to celebrate.
First, Abe had succeeded in breaking an ancient barrier. Second, the cave held riches so immense that Tachibana had guarded them in person for hundreds of years. And third — I could now give that thieving lackey of Kato's the beating he so richly deserved.
"Come here. I swore I wouldn't let you off easy, even if I had to meet you in the underworld itself."
He was the enemy who had plundered Joseon's treasures and slaughtered countless innocent civilians. I would make him regret, down to his bones, the day he ever set foot on Joseon soil.
"No. 1! Attack!"
[Got it!]
Having fully recharged by devouring the Chinese water ghosts of Paroho Lake the night before, No. 1 swelled his body to an imposing size. Abe raced through incantations, hurling talismans to seal the barrier shut so Tachibana couldn't slip outside. Meanwhile, I tore the talisman from my own body and charged straight at him.
Behind my back, the Netherworld Gate yawned open, and a violent gale began to swirl.
"Not yet!"
I couldn't simply send Tachibana's soul off to the afterlife — not just like that. Spinning rapidly in place, I forced the Netherworld Gate to snap shut.
So that actually works.
My swift rotation left the Gate no room to open fully. In that moment, No. 1 engulfed Tachibana's body in a shroud of black smoke — apparently planning to roll him around, play with him to his heart's content, and then swallow him whole.
Tachibana, it seemed, had no intention of going down so easily. He began to chant, and the black shroud billowed upward, blotting out the sun. Bright midday suddenly turned dark. The world around us had changed without my noticing.
It was deep night now, and Japanese-style buildings spread out across the slopes below. Tachibana had cast an illusionary barrier to fight on ground of his own choosing. Masked samurai came whirling down from the air around me — I stood on a mountainside beneath a floating red rooster — and landed in a ring. From the bough of a massive ancient tree, Tachibana flared the hem of his white robes and laughed in a strange, grating voice.
"Today, you die where you stand."
The moment his words fell, the samurai raised their swords as one and rushed at me.
"We'll see about that."
I had already experienced the barrier Abe had cast over Ugok 5-ri — a concealment barrier that shut out outsiders, and an illusionary barrier within it that trapped intruders in a maze. Once its conditions were met, that barrier had vanished like smoke. I had no idea what conditions Tachibana had set for his, but one thing was certain: all of this was illusion.
"A little trick like this won't kill me."
I watched the samurai's blade sweep toward me with a calm, easy smile on my lips. And then — shrak! — the sword grazed me, and a lock of my hair drifted free. A warm liquid ran down my cheek, and only afterward did a stinging pain crawl along my nerves.
"Blood?"
[Did you think an illusion couldn't take your head off? Fool.]
Tachibana tucked talismans between his fingers and chanted. The papers caught fire, crumbled to ash — and before those tiny flakes could even touch the ground, each one became a samurai. The ten-odd samurai from before had swollen into dozens, every one of them leveling a sharp blade at me, killing intent radiating off them as they readied their charge.
"So I can die inside an illusion?"
[Hahahaha. Indeed you can.]
"Is that a fact?"
I flashed Tachibana a grin. "Then a thing that already died once and became a ghost — I can kill it again, can't I?"
[You would kill me?]
"Yes."
I snatched the nearest samurai's sword, coiled my body tight, then exploded upward into the air. The borrowed blade swept past Tachibana's ankle — a strike that should have severed it clean, yet Tachibana stood there untouched.
[Hahahaha. Still think you can kill me?]
Behind him, another Tachibana bloomed into being. Beside that one, yet another identical copy.
[Try killing me.]
[The real me is right here.]
[Kill me, if you can.]
Dozens of samurai seethed across the ground while new Tachibanas multiplied around them. I raised my spiritual awareness to its peak and muttered,
"I expected more from an ancient onmyoji sorcerer. This is honestly pathetic."
[Enough lip. Find the real me.]
"Do I really need to bother?"
The Diamond Sutra says it well.
All conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow — like dew, and like a flash of lightning. Thus should you regard them.
Everything made in this world, every phenomenon born of conditions, is like a dream. Like an illusion, like foam on water, like a shadow. Like morning dew, like lightning. Do not cling to essence.
Even in a human life there's no need to cling to essence — so why on earth would I chase the "real" one inside an illusion that has no substance at all?
I focused my mind and threw open the Netherworld Gate at my back. Only one thing in this place deserved to be dragged into the afterlife: a ghost.
Haah!
I charged into the throng, sword raised high.
"The real one gets swept into the underworld — and the fakes stay behind!"
Just as I'd guessed, the false samurai and counterfeit Tachibanas conjured by the illusion remained in place, unmoved, as I passed through them.
[GYAAAAH!]
The real Tachibana shrieked as the Gate's pull seized him. I stretched out my arm, hauled him free of the suction, and dragged him in front of me.
Crack!
My blade flashed, and Tachibana's arm came off.
[AAAGH!]
"So you can feel pain? You must be quite the accomplished sorcerer — making a ghost suffer and die even inside your own illusion."
I seized Tachibana's throat in one hand and hauled him up with all my strength.
[Ungh! You will never defeat me.]
Tachibana chanted furiously, flinging his remaining hand outward to loose a talisman — but that arm was severed before the paper ever left his fingers.
"You should've moved your body instead of flapping your mouth."
[AAAGH!]
"What, you can't throw talismans without arms? Then I can finally relax."
The illusionary barrier buckled, and its edge began to tear.
[Master, you okay?]
No. 1 ripped open a slit in the barrier and poked his face through. And when Abe's chanting echoed in through the gap, the illusion collapsed even faster.
[Who... who are you?]
Both arms severed, his throat clamped in my grip, Tachibana demanded the answer with eyes bloodshot scarlet.
"The man who's sending you to the underworld. But first — you and I are going to have a little chat."
I beat Tachibana down. The Joseon soldiers and commoners who had died by this creature's schemes, the righteous militias who rose against the invaders — I owed them at least a measure of payback.
[St-stop it... stop! AAAAGH!]
Tachibana's spirit began to splinter into fragments.
"What's this? Why are you so pathetically weak? You survived centuries inside a barrier — shouldn't that have made you an SS-rank sorcerer by now?"
[Master, give him to me. I'll play with him a while and then eat him.]
I tossed Tachibana's limp spirit over to No. 1, who clamped his jaws around it and began tearing into him.
[AAAGH! AAAAAGH!]
As Tachibana's spirit dwindled toward nothing, the barrier that had sealed us off from the outside world dissolved completely.
"The cave."
It was the very cave I'd seen in Shoichi's letter — an entrance so narrow a single person could barely squeeze through, opening into a space roomy enough to hold every chest those carts had carried.
I pushed aside the pile of stones blocking the entrance. Pearly dust rose in a pale cloud, and at last the mouth of the cave revealed itself. I shone a light inside.
The chests that had held the gold had rotted away beyond recognition; only stones furred with dirt and dust remained visible.
Are those... gold ingots?
Beside them sat what looked like a gourd-shaped vessel, and what appeared to be a bowl.
[Whoa, there's gold in here?]
No. 1 — who at some point had finished chewing up and swallowing every last scrap of Tachibana — seeped into the cave and whipped up gusts of wind, sending the dust flying. The gold gleamed sharp and clear.
"Found it — the treasure!"
Shoichi's letter had told me the carts were loaded down until their wheels sank, so I'd known what was here. But seeing it with my own eyes, I couldn't close my mouth. My heart pounded like a drum.
"I found the treasure!"
It was electric. Like nothing I had ever felt, a thrill shuddered through me, and I stretched both arms straight up into the air.
Back in Seoul, Moon Sung-il quietly arranged for a security firm to move the gold ingots and treasure. As it turned out, he had already purchased the land in the area. When a Seoul man bought a plot the owner had never been able to sell, the man had apparently asked what kind of development was planned. He would live and die never knowing his own land had held a cave packed with gold ingots and a golden Buddha — so there'd be no trouble from him.
Going by the market price of gold alone, the ingots shipped to Seoul were said to be worth tens of billions of won. The golden Buddha, the golden gourd vessels, and the golden bowl were all Goryeo-era artifacts — beyond any valuation. Rumors had long circulated about the fortunes of gold the Japanese had hidden around the world, and plenty of treasure hunters had actually set out in search of it.
And I'm the one who actually found it.
"Honestly, I never imagined it would be this much. We found so much more gold and so many more artifacts than expected that my heart is still pounding and my hands are still shaking."
Back in Seoul, we were gathered in the reception room of Moon Sung-il's Hannam-dong residence.
"Without your abilities, Mr. Kim, this treasure would have stayed hidden forever. So I'd like to hear your thoughts first. What should we do?"
"The golden Buddha, made in the early Goryeo period, should be designated a cultural heritage item and passed down to future generations."
"That does seem the right course."
Moon Sung-il appeared to share my thinking. Of course, the only things I was willing to part with were those taking the form of cultural artifacts — the Buddha, the golden gourd vessels, the golden reliquary holding the sarira of a Goryeo monk.
"But donating them is out of the question."
"Naturally. Golden artifacts have been traded before. It never made the news, but payment is made according to the weight of the gold."
Wow, that is genuinely stingy.
"That said, I'll do everything in my power to negotiate the highest possible compensation."
Moon Sung-il's eyes gleamed, as if to say, trust me on this.
"Yes, I'm counting on you. And since Shoichi's letter is what led us to the golden Buddha, tell them we want to renegotiate the terms for the letter as well."
That Shoichi's letter be kept near Lady Wolyeong. That it be formally recorded that he never betrayed Joseon, but fought for her to the very end. That once the examination of Lady Wolyeong's remains was complete, she be cremated and given a proper burial. And one more thing.
"As for the remaining ingots — everything besides the golden Buddha and the artifacts worth preserving — let's treat them as if they never existed."
The ingots, melted down from raw gold, would be split between the three of us.
Of everyone, Lee Ho-young was the most delighted by my proposal.
"You truly are wise, Sunbae-nim. I think that's exactly the right call!"
Moon Sung-il shot him a sideways glance.
"I see you were terrified I'd insist on donating the ingots to the Cultural Heritage Administration too, Representative Lee."
"Hahaha. Well, you two are just so righteous."
We all carried on, giddy, trading thoughts back and forth. I humored the conversation while glancing over at Abe — because he was looking at me with an expression that said he had a great deal to say, having been such an enormous help this time.
All right, all right. Just wait a moment.
I let the excitement in the room settle, then spoke up.
"Mr. Moon — the arrangement you and I agreed on. It's still moving forward as planned, isn't it?"