Class Is in Session
"Yes. Hearing what you've told me has set my mind at ease considerably. The moment day breaks tomorrow, I must send word ahead to Magistrate Choi's household."
"You mean Magistrate Choi's house?"
"The kindness shown by the proprietress and the people of this village truly strikes the heart. Working without a speck of personal gain, purely for the honor of the Magistrate's household — that is something no fortune in gold could buy. Priceless, in a word."
Seoryeong delivered a compliment that would make the proprietress's shoulders swell with pride. And sure enough, a bright smile spread across the woman's face.
"If my sister is to recuperate in this village, I must first find someone to entrust her to. And hearing you speak, the madam of the Magistrate Choi's house seems the perfect fit."
"My lord, have you truly settled on this place?"
"I have. As it happens, the remote roads near this village have been opening up of late."
At Seoryeong's ready answer, the proprietress nearly danced with joy. As the two of them stepped out of the tavern, she bowed and bowed again, not stopping until they had shrunk to the size of dots in the far distance.
Myeong-do turned his head slightly toward the retreating tavern keeper and asked in a low voice.
"The creature is not human, is it?"
At the sharp question, Seoryeong nodded with something like approval.
"Yep. A claw demon — a jogwi."
The eldest son of Magistrate Choi's house was not human. A jogwi — a demon that devours a person's fingernails and toenails and then takes their shape, becoming that very person down to the skin.
That was what the eldest son was now.
He had not become a new man.
He was simply a beast wearing a human mask.
"How do you wish to proceed?"
Having witnessed Seoryeong's methods during the Virgin Ghost incident, Myeong-do had learned to ask before charging in. His mind was as quick to learn as it was sharp.
"Oh, I'm serious about paying the Magistrate's house a visit. So run yourself into a sweat and get me silk clothes. Something worthy of my exquisite taste! The most expensive thing this backwater has to offer. Oh, right — a norigae ornament goes without saying, and a daenggi ribbon and rings too. Got it?"
Myeong-do stood rooted to the spot as Seoryeong sauntered away. When she glanced back and fixed him with a look that demanded to know what he was waiting for, he spoke through a stiff face.
"...You mean to... disguise yourself as a woman."
"A disguise?"
"However skilled you are at swindling, impersonating a woman runs a high risk of being found out—"
At those words, Seoryeong's expression turned perfectly serene. Then she walked straight back to Myeong-do, and —
"Ugh...!"
"Cut the nonsense and buy the expensive stuff! If I don't like it, I'll keep sending you back to the market until you bring something I'll actually wear. Understood?"
She drove her heel into his shin. Leaving the writhing Myeong-do behind her, Seoryeong strode forward without a hint of hesitation.
"A claw demon, hm..."
From inside Seoryeong's robe came the soft sloshing of the gourd at her breast — the gourd brimming with human blood.
Once every tavern scene had been shot and the sun had sunk below the horizon, the Strange Tales team moved locations for the next setup. This time it was an indoor stage where an enormous crane stood waiting.
Once again, they were shooting several scenes out of order. Because this sequence relied on wire work, the entire crew was locked in with concentration.
If anyone gets hurt, even slightly—!
The action required wasn't wildly difficult, but one wrong step — one rolled ankle — and everything would fall apart.
The teaser for Top Class, Strange Tales' rival drama, was due to drop any day now. With SBC already running an aggressive viral campaign, a faint, restless anxiety had crept its way even onto the Strange Tales set.
"Director Kang! Wire check, please!"
Even Kang Han-seong, the martial arts director from If You Try, It Works Action Academy, had come out to the set. As he adjusted the wires running along Yeo-reum's thighs, he offered one last reminder.
"Just like you practiced, got it?"
"Got it, Master!"
Yeo-reum flashed the martial arts director a grin and bounced a few times on the balls of her feet.
I've seen plenty of actors nail it in rehearsal and then choke on the actual set.
Kang Han-seong was watching over her with two, three times his usual vigilance. As he cinched the harness straps at her waist, he asked, "Anything digging in?"
"Honestly, I can't tell. Whether it's digging in or not..."
"Does it feel about the same as at the academy? I'm asking because the hanbok might bunch up."
While Yeo-reum tilted her head in thought, Kwon Jun-hyeok was adjusting his own harness with practiced ease.
"Um, Director? Could mine go a little tighter—"
"Yours is set exactly like last time."
"It's pinching, though..."
Days of alternating between diet management and action training had left Jun-hyeok's harness pulling taut against his frame. He checked over the adjusted rig, and sensing his moment, he suggested Yeo-reum give hers a double check too. It was a posture that said, loudly, when it comes to action, I'm the senior here. He was doing his best to look wire-savvy.
"If you overtighten it, it restricts blood flow. If you can't tell whether it's digging in, do a check during rehearsal — see whether your breathing below the chest gets cut off. The compression's completely different."
"Oh — thank you."
"Don't mention it. Fellow rookie to fellow rookie."
Jun-hyeok let the words fellow rookies land with extra weight, the corners of his mouth climbing with pride.
Wasn't it just the other day that punk was bawling his eyes out every night with a wooden sword in his hand...
The martial arts director very nearly said, Strictly speaking, you're the only rookie here — this is the kid who sobbed about the wires bruising the insides of his thighs not two months ago — but swallowed it. It was his own small way of preserving the boy's dignity.
"Rigging check complete — bringing in stunt costume—!"
The wire team finished their final inspection of the lines running to the crane and its supports, called over the stunt costumers, and ran a rehearsal.
The movement itself was simple: Seoryeong and Myeong-do scaling up onto the roof, then sneaking into the Magistrate Choi's residence.
"Yeo-reum, let's run a quick test before we move! Loosen up your legs and float up like you're soaring — just like we did at the academy."
Seoryeong had to look far lighter than Myeong-do. It wasn't enough merely to hang from the wire; she had to command her center of gravity midair and hold her balance. Only then would the performance be complete.
"Alright — one, two—!"
The martial arts director's voice rang across the soundstage. And on three, Yeo-reum lifted into the air.
"Nice!"
He beamed and tilted his head back to look up. Yeo-reum hung there without a tremor of movement. Using the harness lines across her arms and chest, she held her upper body perfectly straight.
"Okay! Then, Director Jjang — we'll start rehearsal from the wall-kick climb!"
The martial arts director rapped his knuckles against the wall Seoryeong and Myeong-do would be scaling. A durability check, of sorts. If the person hanging from the wire flailed a foot and lost their balance, the set could conceivably come apart.
If she doesn't sell the rebound from her own body, that cat-like quality will never truly come alive.
Seoryeong didn't just have to climb this wall — she had to drift lightly over Myeong-do's head on the way up. Which meant the risk of Jun-hyeok taking a hit to the face was substantial.
On paper it was a simple, almost cheerful little scene. But the labor poured into filming that single one-second shot was beyond imagining.
Still, they're handling it better than I expected.
It helped that neither Yeo-reum nor Jun-hyeok had slacked off on practice. Their timing meshed beautifully.
"First test complete—!"
Every time the two of them ran a test, the team had to keep careful count of which run it was. The first pass: kick off the wall and use the wire's rebound to climb. The second: fine-tune the movement to the camera angle. The third: crawl across the rooftop with weightless, featherlight motions.
"All ready!"
At last, every preparation was finished. No more rehearsals. This was the moment Strange Tales' first true action scene would be committed to film.
"Aaand—"
Seoryeong soared upward as though the wire didn't exist at all. A leap of immaculate lightness, utterly clean.
Before anyone noticed it happening, the thought of the Top Class teaser had been wiped clean from the minds of every Strange Tales crew member watching Yeo-reum.
An elegant violin swelled through the dark, and out of the shadows a hotel lobby came into view. A heavy male narration rolled over the image.
—Everyone loves money. Money, money, money...
Clunk. The doors of the conference hall swung open, and they looked enormous. Chandelier light flooded the space, decked out in gleaming gold marble. The slow, deliberate tread of a man's shoes echoed through the interior.
The violin quickened. On screen appeared a middle-aged man in a black suit, flanked by bodyguards.
Rising to meet him from the far side of the room, an old gentleman in a black hanbok got to his feet.
Tap. Tap. Tap...
His cane cracked against the floor like a commander's orders, matching the rhythm of his limping stride. The instant the two men's eyes met, the violin fell dead silent. In the heart of that vast conference hall, a battle of nerves began — sharp as drawn blades.
—Money. You do know how it's really made, don't you?
The scene changed. High in the sky, a drone swept across a panoramic view of Macau. The music had already picked up again where it left off, the bow skimming dangerously, precariously across the strings like a sprint at the edge of a cliff.
—I'll show you how.
Inside a lavish Macau casino, mountains of chips changed hands among the gowned and tuxedoed.
—Are you betting, or sitting this one out?
A blonde dealer asked with polished courtesy. The man with a cigar clamped between his teeth gave a lazy nod to the lackey beside him in his loud, flashy print shirt.
—Betting.
Dressed like a third-rate street thug, Ju Jun-seo declared his wager with complete ease of manner — then swept every last chip in front of him across the felt. The dealer waited for the moment, then announced it.
—No more bets!
Whirrrr— the roulette wheels spun. Slowly, the dealer revealed the hand.
—Straight flush.
Ding. One wheel stopped spinning. The woman in the evening gown across the table seized her own hair in both hands.
Ding. Another wheel stopped. The old man seated on the diagonal kicked back his chair and hurled his cards to the floor.
Ding. The final roulette came to a halt.
The boss Ju Jun-seo served pushed his sunglasses up and spoke.
—Royal straight flush.
The cards in his hand were the strongest hand there was.
—The proper way to make money.
Jackpot. A bona fide, once-in-a-lifetime jackpot. The pot that had climbed without end now belonged to a single man. At his elbow, Ju Jun-seo raked in the chips with a vile grin. Across the vast casino floor, the jackpot burst, the champagne burst —
KRAKOOM!
A bomb went off.
Gangsters pouring out of a burning building, shot with unnerving polish. The whole thing reeked of money, gloriously, absurdly so. Every tiny detail of the teaser seemed to whisper the same message: this drama is a blockbuster.
Somewhere along the way, one violin had become many, the luxurious melody spreading without end. The refined, elegant score stood in exquisite contrast to the vulgar men on screen.
THUD!
With a weighty final note that slammed the screen shut, the title card rose.
"Oh my..."
Reporter Wi's mouth hung open as she watched the freshly released teaser. The junior reporter beside her let out a sigh of awe along with her.
"Say what you will, that's one hell of a production pick.... isn't it...?"
"Uh... yeah."