Terminal
"Gluttony... Great Demon... what?"
Wolryeong voiced her confusion, unable to make sense of a single word Ino or Legion had said.
"Exactly what it sounds like. I was cursed by a Great Demon—not just any ordinary demon."
Ino introduced herself as a human cursed by the Great Demon of Gluttony, staring straight into Wolryeong's brown eyes, which had gone blank with shock.
"Th-then... Ino, do you suffer every time the sun goes down too...?"
Just as Ino was about to answer, Legion stepped in.
"That varies from person to person. The way a curse manifests is different for everyone."
At the same time, Legion rolled up Ino's sleeve and revealed her forearm. A large tattoo reading IV was etched into her skin.
"A number? What's this?"
Still held by the arm, Ino answered Wolryeong's question.
".....I die in four years."
".....What?"
Ino pulled out her smartphone, opened her photo album, and selected a few pictures of her forearm from among the Japanese-filled gallery to show Wolryeong.
"I received the curse two years ago. At first it was VI, then V, and now IV. See?"
Taking the phone, Wolryeong asked in a trembling voice.
"Th-then... this is the curse you received? A terminal life.....?"
"That's right."
Legion, who had been watching the two, sat down beside them.
"We exorcists all carry our own curses, and we move with our own goals."
He held out a hand to Wolryeong across from him.
"What do you say, sister? Why not become an exorcist with us, and try to undo your own curse?"
As the clock edged toward two in the morning, Wolryeong and Ino rode in an ambulance whose bumper was caked with blood.
"What are you gonna do about this blood? You can clean it later."
Wolryeong nodded vaguely, gazing at the crescent moon hanging amid the glittering forest of buildings.
"Wait, then what about old man Legion? Who cursed him?"
Suddenly remembering that Legion had never introduced himself, Wolryeong asked.
"Mr. Legion has never said exactly what curse he received."
"What the hell, that old geezer. He just went on and on about everyone else."
Wolryeong replied with a sulky look. Ino glanced at her and smiled.
"Still, the fact that he taught us a way to live doesn't change. You thought so too—that's why you said you'd become an exorcist."
".....That's true."
Looking at Wolryeong, whose mood had grown even more subdued, Ino spoke as if something had just occurred to her.
"Oh, right."
Wolryeong turned toward her.
"This is a bit embarrassing, so I haven't told anyone....."
"You actually get embarrassed about stuff?"
At Wolryeong's reaction, Ino snorted a laugh and continued.
"Actually, my curse—I have to eat at least once every six hours. At least twice a normal person's meal."
Ino began talking about the curse she had received from the Great Demon of Gluttony.
"What happens if you don't eat...?"
Gripping the steering wheel with the arm that bore the mark of the curse, Ino answered.
"I die."
Wolryeong stared at her without a word. Sensing the atmosphere had grown even heavier, Ino panicked.
"Ah, this isn't certain... it's just something I feel instinctively. That it would probably be like that, is what I mean."
An awkward silence filled the ambulance once more. A cool dawn breeze drifted in through the half-open window.
"Hey, Ino. This might be a bit rude to say, but....."
"Hm?"
Ino turned her head. The two gazed into each other's eyes.
".....I'm jealous. That you can die."
Bang—
At the same moment as Wolryeong's words, the ambulance slammed into something—something in the shape of a person.
Ino slammed on the brakes in shock; the impact sent Wolryeong's head cracking against the seat.
"Wh-what...?!"
Opening the driver's door to check on whatever they had hit, Ino covered her mouth in horror.
"This... isn't a person."
The human-shaped thing that had struck the ambulance, its spine snapped cleanly in half, rose from where it had collapsed on the cold road, bending its body in grotesque angles.
"Evil spirit.....!"
Ino immediately dropped into a combat stance. The evil spirit that had hit the ambulance twisted its spine back into place with both arms and spoke.
".....Bring me Legion."
Ino formed a horn shape with her fingers and pressed it to her forehead. Bright golden light began to envelop her body.
"That's not happening."
Having briefly lost consciousness from the impact, Wolryeong slowly opened her eyes.
What appeared before her was Ino, her neck gripped by a blood-soaked figure.
".....Ino?"
"Save... me... Yoon... Wolryeong....."
At the tips of Ino's trembling fingers, golden light still flickered—proof that she had not fully transformed.
Wolryeong hurriedly shoved open the passenger door and stumbled toward Ino and the evil spirit.
"Wh-who are you."
Still clutching her waist from the earlier impact that had not fully faded, Wolryeong demanded.
"Bring me Legion.....!"
With those words, the evil spirit hurled Ino at Wolryeong. The two of them tumbled across the asphalt together.
They groaned from the collision; Ino recovered first and whispered urgently.
"That thing is an evil spirit with a grudge against Mr. Legion. Hold out without telling it as much about him as possible."
"Hold out...?"
"Yeah. It'll probably attack with full force. Just hold out until I prepare the exorcism."
With that, Ino sprinted toward the back of the ambulance, leaving Wolryeong alone.
"Ah, no. Even if you suddenly tell me to hold out....."
Bang—
"Fuck, that scared me...!"
The evil spirit's arm stretched grotesquely and threw a punch; the fist grazed past Wolryeong's ear by a hair's breadth.
Without even time to collect herself, Wolryeong forced her body upright and prepared to face the thing.
"Where... is Legion?"
With the evil spirit's words came a second punch. At a speed invisible to the eye, the fist punched straight through Wolryeong's abdomen.
"Gaaah.....!!"
Even with her gut impaled, she forced herself up and advanced step by step. Seeing that, a chilling smile spread across the evil spirit's face.
"You... you're immortal."
One step. Two steps. Three. Reaching right in front of its face, Wolryeong answered.
"Yeah, you bastard. Please just kill me already."
The arm embedded in her abdomen changed form once more. A sharp awl shape erupted from her gut and punched through her entire body.
"Gaaaaah!!!"
Heart, throat, one eye, and her whole belly pierced, Wolryeong screamed in agony and threw a punch at the evil spirit.
"Wh-what."
Her full-powered blow smashed into its face—yet the evil spirit did not so much as flinch.
With a smile that looked ready to tear its mouth apart, it used its free arm to rip Wolryeong's arm clean off.
Blood sprayed like a fountain from her shoulder socket. She groaned through the pain.
Still impaled from head to toe on the awl-shaped arm, Wolryeong gritted her teeth and held on.
"This much... won't kill me....."
Pouring blood from every wound, she seized the evil spirit's body.
"And you... can't escape....."
Bang—
No sooner had the words left her mouth than something punched through both her head and the evil spirit's at the same instant.
Her skull shattered. She collapsed. The sound of dark-red blood raining down filled her ears.
"You conscious, Yoon Wolryeong?"
Wolryeong opened her eyes in a pool of blood on the asphalt.
Ino stood before her holding a crossbow.
".....Didn't die this time either."
Wolryeong said it while gazing at the crescent moon, which looked red through the blood in her eyes.
She turned her head, looking from Ino to the evil spirit's corpse and back.
"That thing... I hit it with everything I had, and it didn't even flinch."
Ino, who had been poking the corpse with her foot, answered.
"Of course. Ordinary physical force doesn't work on evil spirits. You're lucky your hand didn't shatter."
Then her gaze fell on Wolryeong's tattered fingers.
"Ah... they already did....."
Wolryeong gave a laugh of pure disbelief. Ino picked something up from the ground.
"It's a silver stake. I use it as a last resort when my ability doesn't work....."
She held the stake, now corroded by the evil spirit's dark-red blood, and looked at it with open regret.
"By your ability, you mean that wild boar from before?"
"Yeah. I tried to transform earlier, but this thing was too fast."
Wolryeong rose on stiff limbs and approached them. The evil spirit's arms had somehow returned to their original shape despite its shattered head.
"Why was this thing looking for old man Legion? What kind of grudge does it have?"
She poked the corpse with her foot the way Ino had done.
"I don't know either. But Mr. Legion has been doing exorcist work for a very long time, so it's not hard to understand that a lot of evil spirits hold grudges."
"That makes sense."
Ino pulled thick gloves from her pocket, slipped them on, and grabbed one of the corpse's arms.
"For now let's load this into the car. Help me out."
Wolryeong looked from the gloves on Ino's hands to the corroded silver stake.
"Wait a sec—where are my gloves?"
Ino answered with a slight smile.
"I didn't prepare any. You're fine anyway, right?"
Shaking her head, Wolryeong took the opposite arm. The moment the blood touched her bare skin, a faint pain flared and her flesh began to peel in tiny flakes—Decay.
"I... ugh... do feel pain, you know. Show a little respect."
With self-deprecating humor, Wolryeong endured the now-familiar agony and helped Ino haul the corpse.
"But why are we loading this? Can't we just leave it?"
She stared at the body now lying in the back of the ambulance.
"Um....."
Ino hesitated.
"What is it."
Wolryeong knocked on the ambulance door, urging her to spit it out.
".....This isn't an evil spirit. It's a person."
"What...?"
Leaving Wolryeong's expression of disbelief behind her, Ino gazed at the distant forest of buildings and continued.
"All evil spirits and demons..... can't maintain their own forms for long in this world."
"So what you're saying is....."
"Yeah. 'This' is a human possessed by an evil spirit."
She pointed at the corpse—no, the corpse of the human who had been under possession.
"Then we just....."
"That's right. We just killed a person."
"Explain it so I can understand, fuck."
Wolryeong's face began to twist with rage.
"All exorcists kill for the sake of exorcism."
Ino added the next words without regard for her reaction.
"Without a single exception. You, me, and Mr. Legion too."