Renovating the Abandoned House — 3
'I can actually beat those things, right?'
The longsword had cracked, and the cat's power had weakened. It had thrown a nyang-nyang punch at Lee Ho-young, but it had barely registered as a hit at all.
Worse, the body the cat evil spirit currently possessed was that of a kitten.
'With a body that tiny, can you really take on the lesser gods those people serve?'
At my words, the cat flicked its tongue out and licked its nose.
"You'll be fine, because your power is strong, Master. In exchange, I need to seal an imprint with you."
'An imprint?'
"That's right."
The cat extended its claws and pricked my ring finger.
The sharp tip of its claw sank into the pad of my flesh, and a bead of blood welled up at once.
"Ow!"
"To seal an imprint, we have to share blood."
"Meow!"
The cat bit its own tongue to draw blood, then mixed it with mine using its front paw.
"Purrrr... purrrr..."
With its front paw turned red from our mingled blood, the cat began washing its face. It wiped its eyes, rubbed its muzzle, alternating paws in turn — and then,
"Meeeeeeyoooow!"
It suddenly threw its head back and let out a long, ringing cry.
In that instant —
'Something's wrong with my body.'
Countless sounds flooded into my ears all at once.
The rustle of dead leaves crumbling. The whooo of a light breeze blowing. The flitter-flutter of leaves falling. The whirr of a bird beating its wings... and on and on.
Sounds I had lived my whole life without ever even registering were suddenly audible.
'Did I get cat hearing?'
The strange thing was that I could distinguish every single one of those countless sounds from one another.
And yet the noise didn't fray my nerves or make my head ache.
'My sense of smell has changed too.'
I could catch the scents drifting through the air. The smell of dew-soaked leaves, of insects living in the soil, even of the charcoal I'd burned in the yard yesterday as it absorbed the moisture and crumbled apart.
My vision seemed sharper as well.
Especially my dynamic eyesight — the sight of cat fur rippling in the wind appeared to unfold in extreme slow motion.
When I tilted my head back, the wingbeats of birds crossing the sky, even grass seeds riding the wind, all seemed to play out like slow-motion film.
'Looks like I've gained a piece of your abilities?'
"The imprint is complete, that's why. Nyahahaahaha."
The cat split its mouth into a wicked grin, bristled its fur to the full, and glared at the Janggu Player.
"We should deal with that one first. He's got three evil spirits attached to him."
'Oh! I can see them!'
Evil spirits that had been invisible moments ago now stood out plainly.
A spirit with a chicken's head, a spirit shaped like a rat, and a human evil spirit with the small frame of a child — all three clung to the Janggu Player's body like a second skin.
'And now I can suddenly see things like this!'
"Well, you see..."
The cat's explanation went something like this.
All spirits go to great lengths to avoid being detected. If they reveal themselves, they risk being used by stronger spirits or evil spirits — or, carelessly, being devoured.
The reason the cat evil spirit had shown itself to my eyes was, apparently, that it had known my spiritual vision had opened and chose to reveal itself of its own will.
"I showed myself because I was asking for help. I wanted to get out of there."
That was why the Former-Former Village Chief and the White Porcelain Grandmother had appeared to me.
Each of them had come to me exactly once, and never shown themselves since.
'Then these lowly spirits being visible is because of the imprint?'
"Correct. Your spiritual vision has fully opened. Congratulations."
'Damn it all!'
Which meant from now on, even spirits hiding out of sight would be visible to me?
"You've grown stronger. So have I. That's a good thing."
"Meeeeyoooow!"
Suddenly, black smoke surged up out of the white cat's body.
The cat's body, now emptied of the spirit, went limp. The black smoke swelled like a balloon and began to take shape.
The cat evil spirit raised its front paws and rose to stand like a human, transforming into a black-robed figure straight out of a martial arts novel.
'Like a Goguryeo general.'
A man nearly 190 centimeters tall, with long black hair hanging loose, gripped a longsword in his hand.
'Yeon Chumo?'
"I tried copying my original master's form. You're my master now, so I'll remove the curses first."
The black-robed figure charged at the Janggu Player and began swinging the longsword.
The moment the chicken's head was cleaved from its neck by the blade, the Janggu Player convulsed as if electrocuted.
"Uhh, uuuugh. Wh-what — what is this? Blegh!"
The Janggu Player vomited up dark red blood.
When the rat-shaped evil spirit tried to counterattack, the black-robed figure drove the longsword deep into its belly.
"Aaagh! Bleeeegh!"
"Why... why is this happening?"
The shaman came running over to check on the Janggu Player — and her neck suddenly snapped backward.
It was because the black-robed figure had seized the deserter bastard by the hair.
"Twenty of my soldiers died because of you. Even after I sentenced you to hang from a pole and become carrion for the crows, you lingered in the nine heavens as a wandering wretch — and this is what you've been doing?"
Long claws extended from the black-robed figure's hand and closed around the deserter's throat.
He was attacking the lesser god attached to the man's body, but the shaman, feeling the same pain, thrashed and clawed at her own neck.
"Aaaaaagh!"
In the meantime, I spotted the rat-shaped wretch fleeing toward the abandoned house.
"That's private property! No trespassing!"
The cat evil spirit was far too busy right now. It had to fight the human-shaped wretch and the deserter bastard at the same time.
And then —
Ring-a-ling! The shaman began shaking her bells, summoning the spirits to her.
Hissssss. A gray fog-like mass came pouring down from the mountain.
'Should I help?'
"Just catch that damn rat. The thing's too quick — if it escapes, we'll never catch it. And then your curse can't be lifted either."
'Got it.'
As I sprinted off to chase the rat-shaped evil spirit, the cat evil spirit slipped smoothly into the shaman's mouth.
Ring-ring-ring! The shaman, now seized by the cat evil spirit, shook her bells even harder and chanted incantations.
'It feels completely different from before.'
Stronger, somehow.
Hissssssss. The gray fog descending from the mountain was a horde of centipede evil spirits.
Countless centipede spirits swarmed over the Janggu Player's body.
"Bleeeegh! Aaagh! Aaaaagh!"
The centipede evil spirits burrowed into his eyes, nose, and mouth.
Deonggideok deongdeoreoreo. Kunggideok kungdeoreoreo.
Unbuckling the drum from his back, the Janggu Player beat it while muttering in a mournful, eerie voice.
"Too many legs — I have to cut them off. They're poisonous, I tell you. Cut them now! I must cut off every single leg."
Was the Janggu Player casting a curse on himself?
The human-shaped evil spirit coiled itself around the man's limbs.
Crack. Crick-crack.
The Janggu Player's arms and legs bent the wrong way. Collapsing in a heap, he kept up his curse even as his arms twisted at sickening angles.
"Hurry and cut them! Too many legs, I said!"
Ring-a-ling!
The shaman with the cat evil spirit inside her blinked her eyes wildly, flung the bells away, drew a blade from her ritual implements, and swung it at the deserter bastard.
When he tried to flee, she pulled out a talisman and set it alight.
Whoosh! The burning talisman fluttered through the air as it burned away — and fire bloomed across the deserter's body as well.
Aaaaaagh!
As the man writhed in torment, the shaman suddenly doubled over and vomited blood.
'Grisly.'
It looked as though once the lesser gods were destroyed, the shaman would breathe her last soon after.
'That side's nearly finished.'
Inside the abandoned house, chasing hard after the rat-shaped evil spirit.
Before leaving for Seoul, I had cut down all the grass in the yard and torn off every door panel, stacking them off to one side. Which meant a single turn of my head gave me a clear view of the whole interior.
'Where is it?'
No matter how carefully I scanned the place, there was no sign of the rat-shaped evil spirit.
Exactly one place still had a door on its hinges — the kitchen. My eyes stopped there.
The rat-shaped wretch seemed to be hiding in the kitchen.
'Can I actually beat a wretch in a fight?'
Gulp. My throat went dry.
Sure, my spiritual vision had opened and I was stronger now, but I doubted I could fight like the cat evil spirit did.
And yet...
'You said the guardian serpent lives in the kitchen, didn't you.'
Since becoming the owner of the abandoned house, I had gained health and wealth. There had been events I could only call pure luck, and I wanted to protect the guardian spirit of this land in return.
'Let's do this.'
I grabbed a plank that had fallen off its doorframe like a club, gripped it tight, and flung the kitchen door open.
In that instant, the rat-shaped wretch lunged at me.
'Die — just die already!'
I swung the club with all my might, but it was like a complete whiff — no sense of impact whatsoever.
Squeak! Squeak-squeak!
Being a rat evil spirit, its movements were blisteringly fast. It scattered like smoke, re-formed, and bared its sharp fangs.
The wretch's fangs grazed my arm. A hot, throbbing pain flared up.
"You little rat bastard!"
I threw the club away and reached out with my bare hand to grab the rat-shaped wretch.
Its fangs had touched my body, after all — so couldn't I catch it too?
Shudder!
The wretch was actually caught in my hand.
It felt like clutching a lump of cold, clammy mud. I seized the creature by both its ears and tore with all my strength.
Squeak-squeak! Screeeech!
The wretch's ears ripped clean off. Seizing the opening, it bolted for the door on the far side of the kitchen — only to slam flat against it, body squashing like paper.
Right at that moment, the great serpent coiled out of the firebox and wound itself around the wretch, tight and unrelenting.
Squeak! Screeeech!
The wretch shrieked that it was dying — and the more it screamed, the tighter the serpent wound its coils.
Ssssssss.
The great serpent, thicker than a grown man's forearm, opened its jaws and began swallowing the wretch headfirst.
'It's like watching a wildlife documentary.'
In a flash the serpent had swallowed the rat-shaped wretch whole. It lifted its head and looked at me.
So that's what a serpent's face looked like. It was an enormous snake.
'Ah — hello there.'
I swallowed hard and gave a small bow.
"Thank you for guarding this land all this time. But I'm afraid you'll have to move somewhere else now. I'm going to demolish the kitchen and remodel it."
As if it could understand what I was saying.
"If you grant me this space, I promise I'll live here in gratitude, always."
A long while passed. Then — ssssssk. The serpent unwound its coiled body and slipped away through the back gate, vanishing from sight.
'It really left?'
I opened the back door. The serpent was already gone — apparently headed for the mountain.
Why was it that only now did I truly feel like the owner of this house?
A little later, emergency responders arrived and carried off the shaman and the Janggu Player.
The flutist and the gong man, who'd been filming everything on their phones from start to finish, were told they had to come to the police substation for a drug test.
'They'd assumed the shaman and the Janggu Player were high on something.'
They'd suddenly rolled their eyes back and started mutilating themselves — what else could anyone suspect but drug addiction?
The cat evil spirit returned to its original body and let out a rumbling purr.
"It's been so long since I cut loose like that. I feel amazing, nyaow."
'Cut loose?'
"Tormenting wicked people is a joy, you know. It's one of my hobbies."
The cat evil spirit was terribly keyed up, but its possessed body was too frail, and it soon drifted off to sleep.
"Goodness me, what in the world is all this? Lord have mercy — why would outsiders come barging onto someone's private land and raise such a ruckus?"
The Village Head came running, apparently startled by the sight of the ambulance heading toward the abandoned house.
Only after I calmly explained the situation did he let out a sigh of relief.
"Yunho, my boy — you're not hurt anywhere?"
"No, sir, I'm fine, but..."
"Excuse me — Mr. Kim Yunho, was it? We'll need you to come with us for questioning."
A patrol car pulled up and stopped, and an officer carefully requested that I accompany him. Apparently I had to go down to the substation and explain how all this had happened.
The Village Head nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Our Yunho is the victim here — where do you think you're ordering him off to? I'm the village head, and I'll vouch for our Yunho myself!"
"Well, th-that may be, but..."
"You're Gyeongsu's third son, aren't you? Gyeongsu is my junior by a good stretch. He grew up getting properly chewed out by me, I'll have you know."
"Oh my, is that so. My apologies, sir."
"Now that you know, be on your way. Our Yunho is the pride of this village, I tell you!"
The most important man of all. The Village Head stuck his thumb up in my direction.
And that wasn't the end of it — he stood up for me too, the poor soul who'd been through hell thanks to a shaman since the dead of night.
If this wasn't the locals' privilege, what was?
In the end, thoroughly dressed down by the Village Head, the officers trudged off.
"But still, Yunho my boy. I could believe the shaman and her gang went mad and hurt themselves doing some crazed ritual... but what about that cat? Cats can't live in our village — so how in the world..."
The Village Head looked at the cat nestled in my arms, suspicion flickering in his eyes.
"That's true, isn't it? I heard cats can't survive around here because of the Hwanggu ghost?"
"That's exactly why I'm saying something's strange."
I wrapped the sleeping cat in my coat, careful to shield it from the cold wind, and said,
"Looks like our village might be changing."
"O-our village?"
"Maybe it's turning into a place where not just people but cats can live well too — instead of a place so haunted that folks can barely hold on."
At my words, the Village Head's eyes churned with turmoil.
"Do you... do you really think so?"
His voice trembled.
"Lord, I hope so. No — I believe it will happen. With our Yunho fixing up a house and living here, other young folks might even move in, you know."
"Yes, sir!"
"Haha. Just imagining it makes me laugh. Say — you haven't eaten breakfast yet, have you? I made rice with fresh chestnuts in it. Come have a bowl with me."
Every time I heard chestnuts thudding down from the trees, I'd thought, I've got to gather those and make chestnut rice someday.
And today, I was finally going to taste it.
My stomach growled fiercely, but there was somewhere I needed to stop first.
"Um, about that..."