The Village That Smelled of Rotting Corpses
The troupe leader's son sat locked in his cell, staring blankly at the mask that had fallen to the floor. Right up until his death, it had been in his father's hands. The man had smiled and said that someday he'd get out, and they'd raise hell and have one wild night of fun together — he had been a jester to the very end.
But he had left only the mask behind and gone on ahead. He never came back a second time.
I'll probably die here soon, too.
The son of the performers' troupe accepted the future as though it were a simple fact. And when that happened, he would not leave laughing the way his father had. He would pour himself into that mask, become a ghost, and torment them and their descendants for generations. He would make their lives a living hell…
"Ah…."
The troupe leader's son pressed both hands over his ears, straining to endure the agony. More than his bruised and aching belly, it was the sleepless nights that broke him.
Ssss-critch, ssss-criiiiitch. The sound of insects crawling sent a chill crawling up his spine. And then—
"I'm here!"
A child's voice rang out — a voice that had no business echoing inside a prison.
His eyes snapped open. The child was clinging to the bars with both hands, weeping as it looked in at him.
"You…! Do you have any idea… where this place is…?"
His voice had cracked from going without even proper water. Dragging himself to the cell door on trembling limbs, he spoke to the child like a man laying blame.
"Didn't I tell you back at the market? Didn't I tell you not to go casting fortunes for people so carelessly…!"
"I'm sorry…. It was all my fault…."
His cracked, peeling lips moved, splitting at the corners. Blood trickled from his mouth as he rebuked the child, but in the end, all he said was:
"Go. Quickly. You can't be here."
He was still human, after all. Reduced to this state, how could he truly blame a child?
But this was a child he had raised like his own since it was barely old enough to walk.
He knew, too, that the real fault lay not with the child but with the pompous officials who had ordered his flesh cut from his body.
"We're all dying anyway, so what does…."
Clang. The sound of chains coming loose.
Someone strode in with heavy, unhurried steps, and at the unfamiliar voice the troupe leader's son gasped and snatched the child's wrist. It was pure instinct — the urge to shield it.
Creeeak—
The door of his cell swung open, and at the same moment, the blade at his throat was withdrawn. Seoryeong gave a curt jerk of her chin.
"That's enough. Come out."
"Wh-who might you be…?"
"None of your business."
Seoryeong shot Myeong-do a glance. He stepped into the cell, uncorked the gourd at his side, and handed the man some water.
As the man drank with shaking hands, the light crept back into his eyes.
"You came… to save us…?"
Seoryeong gave a short nod. The troupe leader's son bowed low to the ground in gratitude, yet even so, he found the courage to ask in a trembling voice:
"This is truly shameless of me, but — could you save the others as well?"
"Aren't you angry at this kid?"
Seoryeong asked the leader's son directly. The child, still sniffling at his side, flinched at the question.
"…What crime could a child possibly have committed? We were simply desperate, and the little one only meant to help put food on the table…."
Right up to the end, the man shielded the child. Hearing that answer, Seoryeong turned her back on them without a moment's hesitation.
By then, she was already holding the bloodstained mask that had been lying abandoned on the prison floor.
"Come out."
Clunk, clunk, clunk.
Several cell doors creaked open in the dark prison, and the imprisoned members of the troupe crawled out one by one, blinking in bewilderment. The guards who had been posted outside were all lying collapsed, unconscious.
"Chun-sam! Hey, Chun-sam!"
"Good heavens — what in the world! O-wol, is that really you…!"
The moment they recognized one another, they fell into each other's arms and wept. Seoryeong drew a talisman from her robes and began to chant under her breath — and the talisman caught fire.
"Fire! FIRE!"
"Put it out — put it out, quick!"
Screams rose from far away, screams full of agony, growing closer and closer. Through the small barred window of the prison, their figures came into view.
"Aagh, it burns! It burns!"
"What are you all standing around for! Douse it with water! Never mind my clothes — they're already ruined!"
For a moment, the screen cut to their point of view. The whole world was ablaze.
Flames licked up the rafters of the government office until they collapsed, and fire had caught even the hems of the silk robes the men were wearing.
"Ah — hot! AAAH! It's burning me! I'm a dead man!"
They thrashed wildly, flailing at the flames clinging to their clothes, and the sight of them fluttering the long hems of their robes as they spun about looked for all the world like a dance.
Like jesters of a traveling troupe. It was, quite simply, hilarious.
"I helped you this once, but I won't help you again. That's just how human greed works. Don't go casting fortunes for people anymore."
But it had all been an illusion. There was no fire. They were doomed now to live out the rest of their days tormented by a searing, scorching agony —
kicking and writhing like that, dancing for all eternity.
"Um…!"
The little child who had been hiding behind the troupe leader's son stepped toward Seoryeong.
"Before we part — let me read your fortune. One last time."
"Didn't you hear me say to stop reading fortunes?"
"I only wish to repay a sliver of the kindness you've shown us, so please don't be angry…."
"You said all you could see were the branches of a trunk, didn't you? That you couldn't see past them."
"You saved our lives, and so the future has changed once more. What you see now is an entirely new branch."
The child fidgeted, then spoke up.
"Tell me the year, month, day, and hour of your birth."
"What for? I'm an orphan. How would I know anything like that?"
"Then tell me this man's."
The child turned bright, clever eyes toward Myeong-do, who stood at Seoryeong's side.
"You two are bound deeply to one another, so your fates must be intertwined as well."
At the child's words, the two of them fell silent for a moment. At last, it was Myeong-do who answered.
"A Gapin year, a Byeongin month, a Sinsa day, born at the hour of the Dog."
The child pondered something gravely for a long while before speaking.
"…If you go down the road you mean to take, your life will be in danger."
At those words, Seoryeong froze. She was the one who had staked her life on this — why would Myeong-do be the one in danger? Her expression crumpled as if she were about to cry.
"And what road would that be, exactly, that you say such a thing?"
Myeong-do met the child's eyes as he asked. The child blinked, then shook its head.
"That much I cannot know. But a sprout of death is clearly budding. At the end of every single branch…."
"Your worry for me must run so deep that it colors what you see. You have a very loving heart, child."
Myeong-do spoke as though soothing the child. Seoryeong remained frozen where she stood. Myeong-do asked again:
"Then could you read another man's future as well? An Imjin year, a Giyu month, an Ulchuk day, born at the hour of the Tiger."
Myeong-do was asking after Yunhwi's saju. This time, the child's face brightened — a sure sign that good things were to come.
"I thank you for telling me. I will trust in that and that alone."
The child swallowed hard.
"The man whose saju you just gave — who is he? I can tell he is someone of exalted standing."
"Why do you ask?"
"Because his fate and mine are, at this very moment, briefly intertwined."
Myeong-do's and Seoryeong's eyes met.
"You have a message you wish delivered to him, don't you?"
And so the performers' troupe made their way to Baek-yeongji, while Myeong-do and Seoryeong headed for their final destination: Jincheonji. Not a word passed between the two of them.
The quiet joy of having bought themselves just a little more time together showed itself in the way their footsteps had grown slower, softer.
"…Something's wrong."
The moment they were nearly at Jincheonji, a revolting stench stung her nose. Seoryeong pinched it shut.
"What is the matter?"
"You can't smell that?"
Myeong-do had picked up no trace of anything amiss.
Which meant this was sorcery — something that only made itself known to those who carried divine power.
Seoryeong pulled a talisman from within her robes and began to chant. Chant, and chant, and chant again.
A thick fog gathered around the two of them, and Myeong-do, without thinking, drew Seoryeong behind his back. Some instinct told him that something stood before her.
Vuuuum—
From somewhere came a ringing, as though space and time itself were being torn apart. A fierce wind kicked up, and Myeong-do raised one arm to shield his face with his sleeve.
When the wind finally died down, what lay before their eyes was a grove of trees unlike any they had ever seen.
"…Now I understand why Yeomga hasn't been able to find me all this time."
It was simple, once you thought about it. Why would a being with that much divine power ever have left Seoryeong at large for so long?
No matter how strong the binding sigil on her wrist, if she had truly put her life into the hunt, there was no way she could have failed.
"I wasn't the only one dividing and spending that divine power."
On either side of them stretched a bamboo forest like a great wall, and from every tree hung strips of red cloth, fluttering in the wind.
On the tree directly before Seoryeong dangled a length of funeral rope, rotted through and through — like the entrance to a house of mourning.
From somewhere, a funeral dirge began to play. Along with the distant, hollow sound of death itself.
Seoryeong swept the rope aside with one hand and walked in.
Beyond the bamboo forest, a desolate village revealed itself — a place that, until this moment, had not existed at all.
"Yeomga was spending her power to hide this place too… that's why she could never track me down…."
What Yeomga had been concealing was not Jincheonji itself, but a tiny village lying right beside it.
A village where the stench of rotting corpses hung thick in the air.
And with that, Episode 14 of Strange Tales (Gimyodam) came to an end.
"Finally — this week is over…."
After Episode 14 of Strange Tales (Gimyodam) aired, the drama addicts of the internet could no longer live their daily lives in anything resembling a sane state.
As was always the case, the closer a drama drew to its finale, the less it gave away in its previews.
The viewers had no idea what the next week would bring; they had no choice but to survive seven days on guesswork and analysis alone. And like addicts throughout all eternity, rewatching the footage again and again and again was simply what had to be done.
Just as the thought that the end was drawing near made her heart pound, an emptiness came flooding in — a longing for a story that would never end.
And so she drifted half out of her mind through the five days that remained, until finally, at last —
the broadcast day of Strange Tales (Gimyodam) arrived.
Articles poured out one after another. The question on everyone's mind was the same: could it really break the 20% ratings mark?
The Bulpan threads were already imploding one after another before the broadcast had even begun, everyone swept up in excitement, waiting without a hint of weariness.
And at last, Strange Tales (Gimyodam) Episode 15 began.