The Sword That Hunts Its Grudge

The Moritake clan (森武家) had been a family of sake brewers, and they had raised their own private band of warriors to protect the trade. Supplying drink meant getting caught up in territorial feuds — getting robbed, getting shaken down.

According to the Moritake side of the story, their strong warrior band brought a measure of order among the rival factions, but politically the family stayed neutral. They had simply devoted themselves to their role as merchants.

Lee Ho-young finished his brief explanation and looked at me.

"The hangwae you mentioned, Sunbae-nim, appears to have been a direct descendant of the Moritake family — someone forcibly conscripted for the Imjin War who then surrendered to Joseon."

"Even within Japan, there were those who criticized Toyotomi Hideyoshi for launching the invasion. Novels and travel journals with hangwae as their heroes were actually published as books and became quite popular."

At my words, Lee Ho-young took out a letter and held it out to me. It was written in Japanese, a letter sent from the Moritake family.

"When I sent them photographs of the Japanese tantō, they confirmed it bore their family crest, and this is the letter they sent back."

I reached out and picked up the letter.

I never studied Japanese, though?

Yet the words slid off the page into my mind as smoothly as if I were reading Korean. Was it the discerning eye the White Porcelain Grandmother had given me? She had lived through the days of Gyeongseong, so she must have known Japanese.

Or perhaps one of the souls I had guided to the afterlife had been a Japanese language instructor who left me a parting gift on the way down.

Wow. Reading a foreign language fluently without ever studying it.

I had poured more than twenty years into English and still couldn't have interpreted a single live meeting. Which led to a thought — a firm resolution, in fact.

I absolutely have to start sending English-fluent ghosts — talented English speakers — down to the afterlife as gifts!

Anyway, the letter read as follows.

Condensed, the rest of the letter said this: the family had commissioned the most celebrated swordsmith of the age and had the blade forged. And there were surviving records showing that the head of the family who had sailed for Joseon had settled there for good. The brother who had carried the family in his sibling's stead was their direct ancestor — and they wished to buy the sword.

I folded the letter and handed it back.

"That couldn't have been easy for him. When the mobilization order came down, the head of the family could easily have sent his younger brother to the battlefield in his place."

"Wow, Sunbae-nim — you read Japanese too? I was forced to learn it for business, so I hired a private tutor."

"It just... sort of happened."

I glossed over it vaguely, took a sip of tea, and opened my mouth again.

"In any case, the fact that the head of the family went to war himself — I'd say it was partly to protect the family's honor, but mostly because he cherished his brother."

"I think so too. He may have judged that his sickly younger brother would never survive a war."

"If our guess is right, then this hangwae was a truly remarkable older brother... and a remarkable husband."

In those days, fine sake in Japan was sometimes likened to gold. The head of a family that had brewed and sold the good stuff for generations would have commanded wealth and power in equal measure. And yet he had handed that seat to his younger brother and walked onto a battlefield himself.

People who make sacrifices no one else can make — we call them heroes.

It occurred to me that perhaps it was precisely his upright nature that had led him to become a hangwae at all.

When the Japanese samurai first landed in Joseon during the Imjin War, the government armies had fled and the government offices stood empty. The samurai rejoiced at having won a war without spilling a single drop of their own blood.

And then — what was this? Peasants, women, children, even monks hurled stones and resisted to the very last. Stunned by the sight, the samurai committed it to record as a cultural shock.

In Japan, it hadn't mattered who sat on the throne. Whoever was strongest became lord, and following that man was simply the natural order of things.

Joseon was different. An army might roll in and declare it would rule from now on, and the people would resist until they died. If a man fell, his son would take up the fight, and his son's son after him.

They even wrote that the people vowed to keep fighting as ghosts after death. What kind of nation does that? Some samurai were genuinely shaken.

Seeing that, maybe the hangwae had been unable to help regretting being dragged into the war. Maybe he found this land called Joseon wondrous — maybe he found himself wanting to live here.

And then, suppose he met a beautiful woman and fell in love? The family was already his brother's to inherit. Then I will live here, in Joseon, with the woman I love. No doubt that was how he decided.

My guess will be right.

When I had touched the Japanese tantō, Lady Wolyeong had appeared in the visions that flashed through my mind, and she had loved the hangwae deeply. She had worried over her husband leaving on a long journey, and shyly told him that if he returned safely, they would go to Hanyang together.

I finished the thought, lifted my head, and spoke to Lee Ho-young.

"As for whether to sell the sword... I think we need to ask Lady ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wolyeong first, don't you?"

"Ulp! A-aaah. Yes. Of course, that's right."

Lee Ho-young had evidently forgotten all about the vengeful ghost, because he jolted upright in his seat so hard his rear left the cushion entirely.

"Th-that's the thing, though."

Lee Ho-young pressed his lips together and forced the words out with difficulty.

"We still haven't found the katana."

"...I thought you handed it over to the National Forensic Service."

"A staff member on duty at the NFS carried the katana home with him. He collapsed from severe blood loss, fell unconscious — and since then, the sword has vanished without a trace."

"That's a problem."

I had only just barely soothed Lady Wolyeong down. If the katana was lost forever, wasn't she going to torment me next? A cold shiver crawled up my spine. She was the kind of vengeful spirit who would repeat the same plea over and over until she drove a person mad.

What do I do?

I was frowning, turning the problem over, when a sudden thought made my head snap up.

"The katana is a cursed sword. And Lady Wolyeong is the vengeful spirit who poured the curse into it."

"Yes, that's right."

"So then! If we narrow down who Lady Wolyeong held the grudge against, shouldn't that tell us where the katana is?"

"Sunbae-nim, you're an absolute genius!"

Lee Ho-young clapped his hands so loudly the room rang, practically bouncing in his seat.

"Incredible! That never even crossed my mind!"

"Well, we can work through it together from here. There were originally two swords in the coffin with the mummy — a katana and a wakizashi. Lady Wolyeong kept the wakizashi, and the katana belonged to the hangwae."

The letter from the Moritake family had given the hangwae's name: Moritake Shoichi, ninth head of the clan. Shoichi had strapped on that katana and set out on a long journey to carry out his duty.

And he most likely died without ever returning to Lady Wolyeong.

Which would be why she became a vengeful spirit in the first place.

"Dig up every record you can find about the hangwae and get me Moritake Shoichi's Joseon name. He became a Joseon warrior, fought against the Japanese army, and earned military distinction — there will be records."

"Find the records and identify who his enemy was. Is that it?"

"Exactly. We need to find out why Shoichi died. If someone framed him and had him killed — then right now, that katana is out there hunting for the descendant of his killer."

Lady Wolyeong's soul, bound as it was by grudge, could never stray far from that Japanese tantō. If the tantō were destroyed, her soul would share the same fate.

But a curse was something else entirely. The rituals shamans claimed could flay the flesh from a man — striking a specific target through a curse doll and a curse talisman had nothing to do with physical distance. A curse was malice given form; it laced a person's fate with misfortune.

"We have to find the katana before the cursed sword completes its revenge. That's the only way Lady Wolyeong can release her grudge and pass on to the afterlife."

"Understood. I'll throw everything I have into uncovering Moritake Shoichi's Joseon name and how he died. Because if anyone found out it was a cursed sword and broke it—"

Lee Ho-young shuddered violently.

"Aaah. I don't even want to imagine it."

A fortune in the deal gone up in smoke, to say nothing of being attacked by a vengeful spirit. And what if, once the katana finished its revenge, Lady Wolyeong — who had briefly latched onto Moon Sung-il — turned its point his way?

"Uuugh. We'd better hurry."

"The good news is, they say with medication they can slow the dementia's progression."

It was a call from Ms. Han Mija, just back from the hospital checkup.

"That's wonderful. Was she assigned a hospital room?"

Grandma Mak-sun had to be admitted — she was scheduled for upper and lower endoscopy the next day. Thanks to Moon Sung-il pulling strings, they'd been given a VIP room.

"Yes, they're telling us to go up to the room now."

"Please bear with it just for today."

"Bear with it? What on earth are you talking about?"

Ms. Han Mija nearly leapt out of her skin. Not only had I arranged a special allowance, but Moon Sung-il had dispatched a secretary to handle all the hospital paperwork.

"Secretary Kim takes care of everything — the admissions, the meals, all of it. There's nothing left for me to do, so I just sit beside Grandma and chat with her, since strangers make her uneasy."

"That is hard work. Thank you, always."

After promising to pick them up when tomorrow's tests wrapped up, I headed for my parents' house. I'd originally planned to pay my New Year's respects when the holiday actually came, but somehow here I was, a full month early.

Well, I can always come again in a month.

Selling the meteorite had brought in three billion won. And if the Bihwarok — the ancient secret records Lee Ho-young had entrusted to me for appraisal — sold as well, another fortune would land in my lap.

Making money has gotten awfully easy.

Cracking the cipher hadn't been hard, either. It came down to what the royal inspector who wrote the Bihwarok had scrawled at the very end.

That line — written in a fury, the ink splattered as his brush tore across the page — turned out to be the key to the cipher. Analyze those words against what the inspector had said in life, and the pattern emerged: for every horizontal stroke, he added one vertical line and one dot; for every vertical stroke, two horizontal ones.

Which meant that once every passage in the ancient volume was fully deciphered, secrets the powerful had buried for centuries would stand exposed before all the world. Prestigious families who'd traded on their famous names since the Joseon era — families that had, in truth, bought and sold offices like cabbages at market. Dynasties whose ancestors topped the state examinations at Sungkyunkwan — by tampering with their scores.

But the truly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lethal one has to be the contract killings, doesn't it?

In Joseon, when a murder occurred, examiners performed autopsies and kept written records as a kind of forensic investigation. Royal inspectors were even dispatched to audit whether those murder investigations were being handled properly.

And if the investigations had been honest, would the inspector have needed to write his records in cipher?

Now picture some venerable family sitting on a history foundation or the like — and it turns out their fortune was built on murder. What then?

They'd come running with briefcases absolutely stuffed with cash to buy the Bihwarok, that's what.

How much to sell it for, and to whom — that was Lee Ho-young's department. All I needed was for my thirty percent cut to land in my account.

Before heading home, I bought some premium hanwoo beef and gifts for my parents. The new year was almost upon us, and I'd made real money besides — I wanted to spoil them a little.

"Oh my, Yunho-yah! Your face has gotten so much brighter!"

"He has, hasn't he? Our son could be a celebrity."

"You both look healthier than ever yourselves. Seems the wild ginseng did its work."

It really did seem to have. Mother and Father both looked far more vigorous than before.

"Haha, well, we're hiking and traveling every day — how could we not brighten up?"

"Your father's taken up piano lately, you know."

"Piano?"

"Mm-hm. And I'm doing painting."

Now that he was retired and the children were out on their own, my parents had decided it was time to pick up hobbies.

"Is that painting there Mother's work?"

A canvas I'd never seen before hung in the living room.

"Yes, that's mine. Terrible, isn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it?"

"Not at all! It's wonderful. If this is your first painting, aren't you practically a genius?"

"Oh my. Hohoho. So our son knows how to butter up his mother."

Catching up over dinner with my parents after so long away — there was nothing sweeter in the world.

And then.

We had finished dinner and were chatting over fruit when the news came on. I was in the middle of telling my father about the farming school when my head whipped around toward the television.

What? A Japanese sword?