Clearing the Overgrown Path
The path leading to the abandoned house where the Former-Former Village Chief had lived was so overgrown with weeds that a snake could have slithered out at any moment.
I grabbed the brush cutter I'd bought a while back.
People lose their eyes to flying stones doing this, so I'd better suit up completely.
I armored myself in goggles and protective gear to keep my face, arms, calves, and feet from getting hurt.
"All right, let's get started."
Whiiirrr.
The sound of the brush cutter's blade spinning made my ears ring.
Tak-tak-tak. Startled by the vibration and noise, grasshoppers scattered in every direction, and the rich scent of cut grass soaked deep into the abandoned field.
'How strange.'
As a Seoulite, I knew absolutely nothing about wild grasses.
And yet, every time the fragrance of the freshly cut grass brushed past my nose, the names of the plants came to me.
"A sharp, herbal bitterness—that's mugwort. A tangy, acrid smell, that's horseweed. A faint sweetness, evening primrose. A fishy bitterness, bindweed. That strong fishy odor is lamb's quarters, and that rank, sour stench is ragweed..."
Why on earth did I know all this?
It was seriously bizarre.
This was an ability in a completely different realm from the sharpened five senses I'd gained when I bonded with the cat.
I was categorizing wild plants I'd never known into neat columns, down to their uses, no less.
"Miyaaaong!"
The cat flailed about, kicking out with its front paws to catch grasshoppers.
Just moments ago it had been dead asleep, as if it had fainted—it had woken up around the time I finished breakfast and had been trailing after me ever since.
"Hey, you okay? You seem sick. I told you to stay in the car."
[I'm hungry.]
I had fed it some soft-boiled egg yolk, but apparently that hadn't been enough.
"I'll stop by the township center later and buy you cat food. Don't eat grasshoppers—they'll mess you up. You could get parasites."
[I want what you bought me last time, when we went to teach Kim Chang-soo a lesson. The sweet stuff.]
"Cake?"
[Yeah!]
"No way. That time you were sucking the nutrients out of it as a spirit form. You're in a possessed body now."
[I can just slip out of the possessed body to eat it.]
"You and your appetite, honestly. Fine, I got it—so no more grasshoppers. If your possessed body gets sick, it becomes my problem."
The livestock clinic in the township center specialized in house calls, so you couldn't just walk in for an examination anytime.
The county seat with an actual animal hospital was an hour away by car. Two hours round trip, plus the examination itself—that meant three or four hours gone.
I bent down, looked the cat straight in both eyes, and said, "You're basically my familiar spirit, which means you owe me absolute obedience. Got it?"
[A familiar?]
"That's right. It means you're an evil spirit bound to me. Step out of line and I'll terminate the contract."
[O-okay. Just buy me lots of cake. Uwaaah! A dog! It's the Hwanggu ghost!]
The cat's fur bristled, its back arched into a bow, and its fangs bared.
Haak! Haak!
Some scrawny little thing hissing away—as if the Hwanggu would be scared of that. Still, I couldn't help thinking it sure put a lot of effort into pointless theatrics.
"You wait here."
After warning the cat not to follow, I pressed on, cutting through the grass as I went.
Oh. So this is why the house wasn't visible.
It wasn't that the house couldn't be seen from below simply because it sat halfway up the hill.
The walls had collapsed, leaving only the foundation of the roof, and it was hidden away among heaps of stone.
The Hwanggu had been sitting and gazing at the house site, and as I drew near, it slowly rose to its feet.
At some point, the Hwanggu had turned into an old man wearing a Saemaeul cap.
"You can see me, then?"
"Yes, sir."
Ever since my spiritual vision had fully opened through the bond with the cat, I had been able to see the countless spirits and ghosts wandering the village.
What was stranger still was...
That I wasn't startled at all.
I could simply feel that they were all weaker beings than I was.
Just as no one is frightened by a rock, the wind, or the trees—I had simply come to see the beings that had always been there. That was how it felt.
And so I grew curious. That was the reason I'd come looking for the Former-Former Village Chief.
"Why have you been wandering the nine realms instead of passing on?"
I wanted an answer, no matter what.
"You knew, even back when you were village chief, that countless spirits drifted through this village. It troubled you all your life, didn't it?"
"Haha. To think you can see clear through to every hardship I endured while I was alive. You're a remarkable young man, truly."
The Former-Former Village Chief settled himself at an angle on the pile of stones and went on.
"I was never someone with special powers like you. My dreams were just restless, and I saw things now and then—nothing more."
With a faraway look in his eyes, the old chief gazed down at the village.
He had devoted his entire life to working for this village, and even after being reborn as the Hwanggu, he had wanted to keep serving its people.
Then he had been caught, killed, and eaten—and still he hadn't given up.
One man's obsession had crossed death and rebirth, roaming the village as a ghost.
And he was slowly turning into a malevolent spirit.
He didn't exist only as the old man in the Saemaeul cap, or as the Hwanggu.
After my spiritual vision opened, I had sensed traces of a dark spirit lingering around this hill.
It didn't possess the same raw power as the cat evil spirit—but how long would it stay that way?
An evil spirit grows stronger when it feeds on human fear and pain.
The reason I had been wary of the cat spirit was that fear—of it outgrowing my ability to handle it. Though that was no longer the case.
The cat had become a familiar I could wield completely.
The Former-Former Village Chief was different. His obsession with the village ran too deep.
An earthbound spirit and a malevolent spirit at once—he could eventually have turned this village into a cursed place where no one could live.
I have to send him on to the afterlife, once and for all.
Even as I steeled my resolve, the old chief continued his lament.
"For the village's sake, I once summoned a powerful shaman and held a ritual. Because of that, even more stray spirits came flocking in."
Blood began dripping from the old chief's ankle, his face contorting.
"I watched bad things keep happening to the village because of my mistake, and I regretted it... but it was already too late. Ugok-ri was always a well where ghosts gathered. And on top of that, I'd drawn in stray spirits. Of course it became a disaster."
"That's exactly what I'm trying to tell you. In the end, even you are wandering as a ghost, harming the village."
Transformed into that grotesque figure—face of the Hwanggu, body of a man—the Former-Former Village Chief could not deny my words.
No, he couldn't deny them.
Every villager knew the Hwanggu ghost had been appearing.
Most of the elders knew that the Former-Former Village Chief roamed about wearing his Saemaeul cap—and they pretended not to.
Because the moment they spoke of it aloud, they feared they'd be struck down.
The living, closing their eyes and stopping their ears because of a ghost, living as if they were already dead.
"Sir, entrust the village to me and to Village Chief Park Dae-hyung now, and please go on to the afterlife."
"...And if I say I refuse, will you destroy me?"
"Do I have that kind of power?"
"You do. You could annihilate me—ghost or evil spirit alike."
The Former-Former Village Chief rose to his feet.
"One wave of your arm, and something like me would simply cease to exist."
"...Is that so?"
"It is. Merely standing face to face and speaking with you like this, I can feel the threat."
Well, he wasn't wrong—I had been able to tear a rat-shaped evil spirit apart with my bare hands.
The Former-Former Village Chief glanced back at his house, now nothing but a mound of stones, and spoke with a bitter expression.
"Open the way for me. Then I'll go to the afterlife."
"Open... the way?"
"There is always a door to the afterlife behind you. Simply step aside, and I will walk there on my own two feet."
I shifted a few steps to the side. At once, a chill wind gusted up from behind me.
Smells like a damp cave.
The cave-air rushing in, the damp, clammy chill—it felt as though a whirlpool were swirling behind my back.
The Former-Former Village Chief walked toward me and laid a hand on my shoulder.
"I was so terribly tired. Can I truly rest now?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, then. I'll be going ahead."
As the old chief moved past behind me, the wind's swirling vortex spun faster and faster—then stopped dead.
The traces of the evil spirit that had settled on the hillside vanished without a trace, too.
Did he really go?
I slowly turned my head. Nowhere could I find any trace of the Former-Former Village Chief.
There's an afterlife behind my back? What is that supposed to mean?
Every time I unraveled one mystery, another was thrown at me.
Who on earth was I?
Just as that question took hold of me—
"Miyaaaong."
The cat, which had been hiding in the grass, came padding over.
[You even guided his soul to peace. That's incredible. Did you learn that from a webtoon too?]
"Did I send him to peace? I'm not even a Buddhist."
[Sending an evil spirit off to the afterlife— that's what it's called! You know that!]
"Hey. I told you not to eat grasshoppers!"
When I spotted the grasshopper clutched between its front paws, I frowned.
"You want to live as a stray? Fine, then we void the contract and you can go live in the mountains. Or shall I just send you to the afterlife instead?"
[I'm sorry.]
The cat released the grasshopper it had crushed under its claws.
***
"Hey there, Yoonho, young man!"
By the time I came down from the hill, Carpenter Jang was waving cheerfully from a truck passing beside my car.
"You're here early?"
"I'm late, if anything—had to stop by the township office. Thanks to your friend, the paperwork's spotless, so we can start repairs right away."
When renovating an abandoned house, you're supposed to file a report with the township office and obtain a permit. Go Min-seok had apparently handled all of that without a hitch.
Carpenter Jang was in high spirits at being spared the tedious legwork.
I couldn't let the opportunity slip, so I asked him to take on the repair of Mak-sun Halmeoni's house as well.
"Per our discussion yesterday, start with tearing down the walls and flooring. And Mak-sun Halmeoni's place too, please."
"For her place, I filed the report today, but the permit will take time, so I'm thinking of tackling the water tap, the fence, the yard, and the storage shed first. She said the drainage is shot and the soil's rotting."
"Yes. It reeks a bit, and the flies and mosquitoes swarm around."
"Don't you worry. I'll turn it into one handsome garden."
Carpenter Jang declared boldly that he'd fix up not only my abandoned house but Mak-sun Halmeoni's place beautifully as well.
"I'll head into the township center for a bit. Should I pick up some dumplings for a snack?"
"Dumplings, yes! But you don't have to fuss over snacks every time. We'll sort out our own meals."
"It's the first day on site, so just today, let me treat you."
"Haha, all right. Drive safe!"
Vroom! With that, Carpenter Jang drove the truck toward my abandoned house.
Today's just demolition, so I don't need to stick around, right?
Once the demolition was done and the real construction began, I planned to lend a hand.
The more sweat I put in myself, the more attached I'd grow to the house—that's what I figured.
***
Arriving at the township center, I stopped by the Nonghyup to withdraw some cash.
In the countryside, there were simply more occasions for cash than cards.
"Two million won, please."
Whatever the village elders had said to her about setting us up, Teller Seo's cheeks flushed scarlet on both sides as she handed over the cash.
"Thank you, have a good day."
Just as I slipped the cash into my bag and turned to leave, Manager Gong rose from his desk and struck up a conversation.
"I hear the house repairs have started. You're really going to live in Ugok-ri?"
"Of course. Outsiders spending money here—that's what helps the local economy, isn't it?"
I tossed his own words from before right back at him.
"Ahem. W-well... haha. That's actually why—there's a great new product I'd like to introduce you to."
"You do realize that locking money up in an installment savings account does nothing for revitalizing the local economy? It's in Econ 101."
At my words, Teller Seo ducked her head and stifled a laugh.
"I'll be going, then."
I headed straight to the hardware store next and bought the things I needed right away: a sickle, a pickaxe, and a long pole for harvesting persimmons.
The persimmon trees on the back mountain behind the abandoned house were heavy with fruit on every branch—all Daebong persimmons, which meant I had to pick them before they softened and split.
After running my errands, I headed for the livestock clinic. I'd called ahead, and it turned out a calf had just been born, so the veterinarian was available for examinations.
"So this is the cat the Village Chief of Ugok 1-ri mentioned?"
The veterinarian looked at the cat in my arms with curiosity.
"Cats don't do well in Ugok 1-ri, you know."
"That's what everyone keeps telling me. Which is why this fellow is about to become the neighborhood's Cat Number One."
"Haha. So, what's the cat's name?"
He'd need to create a medical record for the cat, and a name was required for that.
"He doesn't have one yet... let's go with Number One."
"Pardon?"
"Miiya?"
The veterinarian and the cat both stared at me in astonishment.
"If I called him Whitey, he'd get confused with the milk cows or the goats. How many cats in the whole country are named Number One, anyway? Probably just a handful."
"I'd wager none at all."
"All the better, then."
Perhaps because my resolve as his owner was so firm, the veterinarian typed "Number One" into the record.
"Let's see here, Number One. Why, you're a male, aren't you?"
"Miiya?"
"Ah, got the peanuts. You do plan on getting him neutered, right?"
"Miyaaa!!!! Miyaaa!!!!"
As the cat threw a fit, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck to hold him still and asked, "Is there any way we could skip the neutering?"
"Then he'll go into heat and cause all sorts of problems. But before that, we need to run a few tests first. If he catches panleukopenia—that contagious disease—his life is in danger. So we'll start with a blood test, then dewormer, then eye drops..."
"M-miyaaayaong."
[I'm scared of shots! I don't want to be neutered! Somebody save me, Master!]