The Dokkaebi's Wager
Ten at night. Still no sign of anything strange.
I did a full lap of the museum, following the training I'd received earlier. Getting to wander the halls for free was a pretty nice perk, honestly — and with nothing better to do, I even caught myself reading the exhibit placards in detail.
Patrol finished, I returned to the guard room, poured myself a coffee, and stared at the monitors. Time crawled.
Probably around the Hour of the Ox.
Ghosts that start slinking about at the Hour of the Rat usually hit their wildest stride around the Hour of the Ox, between one and three in the morning.
Tick.
The second hand ticking away in the guard room. I glanced at the clock — eleven o'clock. The Hour of the Rat had begun.
I grabbed a flashlight and stepped out.
Prehistoric section first. A stretch of half-naked wax figures — Paleolithic and Neolithic — lined with the comb-pattern pottery, chipped stone blades, and polished stone tools I'd been sick of looking at since school-day history class. The Paleolithic figures were wrestling a beast; the Neolithic ones knelt on the ground, grinding stone.
Why is it that every museum in the country has the exact same exhibit layout?
I swept the flashlight over the display once and turned to head for the next section.
Scrrrape.
A sound like stone grinding against stone, from behind me. I stopped mid-step, turned slowly, and shone the light back on the exhibit.
...
The Neolithic figure that had been grinding away at its stone now had its head raised, glaring straight at me. I frowned faintly and turned my back on it.
Nothing happened in the Gojoseon, Samhan, or Buyeo sections. The trouble started when I crossed into the Three Kingdoms era.
Kikik.
Every one of the tiny Silla clay figurines I'd seen on the CCTV footage had turned to face me. Something about a general figurine grinning like that is a bit much, honestly.
Dum-dum, give me gum-gum.
I recited a famous line from that one movie in my head and kept walking.
...It's not showing its true face yet. Just playing around, I suppose.
After that, the pattern was more of the same. The smile on a Buddha statue curving a little wider, another snicker from somewhere in the dark, something standing just behind my reflection in a display case's glass.
Normally, things like this stop pestering you if you don't react...
Apparently this one intended to pester until it got one. I finished the eleven o'clock patrol and headed back to the guard room.
"Hm."
The clock on the guard room wall had stopped dead. The time on the computer was frozen at eleven PM.
It's escalated its pranks.
I couldn't hide my bewilderment. This was nothing like what the director or the guards had described — nothing at all. The clock wasn't moving, and the computer's clock showed no sign of ticking forward either.
It felt exactly as if a barrier, a ritual formation, had been laid over the whole building. Something this strong had to be a fairly powerful — and fairly old — entity.
Which meant the time was just about ripe.
I picked up a plastic bag and left the guard room.
Kikik.
Ignoring the laughter, I looked the place over, then sat down cross-legged in the wide-open space at the center of the museum.
A dokkaebi.
Unlike the lesser ghosts and spirits that move on little more than instinct, a dokkaebi is a spirit that has earned a proper rank and manifested into the world. It carries something of the land god, the local guardian deity — which means you can't just try to smite it on sight.
Simply put: a freewheeling divine deadbeat that lives to have a good time.
Come to think of it, I half suspect even P***ro is a dokkaebi.
I undid the plastic bag and laid out rice wine, buckwheat jelly, and slices of boiled pork in seconds flat, then cracked apart a pair of wooden chopsticks.
I swallowed dry, then spoke quietly to whoever might be watching this little tableau.
"A day that really calls for a drink, wouldn't you say?"
Dammit. Laid out like this, even I want a drink. Should I just play dumb and scarf the whole spread down myself?
Then, from the far end of the museum's darkness, came the sound of footsteps. Thick fog that had seeped in from somewhere billowed across the floor.
The footsteps were unmistakable, yet nothing could be seen. Only a sinister dokkaebi fire, floating in midair.
Ah.
So some old-timer got drunk on the job as a night guard and woke this thing up.
I clutched my head.
The dokkaebi fire that had been whirling through the empty air came drifting toward me. The voice that rose from the flame belonged to a middle-aged man, brimming with dignity.
"You must have had a hard time of it, not letting a single drop touch your lips for so long."
— "That's it! You know a thing or two! Kheheheh. Now, bring out the drinking table at once. I shall let you stay here in comfort."
"Hold on."
I held out a hand toward the dokkaebi fire. Even when a deity like this is present, a human can't lay a finger on anything unless they offer the tribute with their own hands. I looked the flame dead in the eye and let the corner of my mouth curl.
"Actually, there's something else I'd like to ask of you."
— "What is it? Offer tribute, and I shall hear you out. Refuse, and I shall punish you."
Well, negotiation means giving a little. I held out the buckwheat jelly and a cup of rice wine. Before my eyes, the wine went glug-glug down, and two lumps of jelly vanished.
— "Mmm! Delicious. Yes. This is the taste!"
Exclaiming its delight, the dokkaebi fire drifted closer.
— "Now, speak. What is this favor of yours?"
"Don't touch the things in this museum, and keep quiet from now on. Don't torment people, either."
— "Ha. I refuse. What fun would there be in staying here, then?"
"You're being a nuisance, so behave. I'll have a word with the director about buying offerings like this and bringing them regularly."
Swooo.
The dokkaebi fire drew closer still.
— "And if I refuse?"
"I came to pay my respects with both hands full. Is this any way to answer that?"
— "Granting favors is at my discretion. Offer up that rice wine and meat, and my mind might be moved to change."
This time I offered the boiled pork together with the wine. Both vanished before my eyes the instant I set them down.
— "But no. It won't do. Your attitude is wanting. A graceless whelp, jabbering away in rough speech at your elder."
"...Ha."
— "I shall overlook that insolence on account of this jelly and wine. Be grateful you're leaving with your skin intact. Now, offer up the rest of the tribute and clear off!"
At that, I began packing the food back up. The dokkaebi fire, watching its drinking table disappear, wavered in alarm.
— "You there! Did I not tell you to offer up all the tribute!"
"Why would I? You didn't grant my favor."
— "Insolent wretch."
And in an instant, the dokkaebi fire was right in front of me. From the flame came a strange, oppressive weight that a fire had no business carrying.
— "Looking closely, I see not a hint of fear of this elder in you. A strange creature, you are."
Sniff, sniff.
The sound of something taking my scent.
— "A familiar scent, yet a strange one... Even a human with opened spirit-sight ought to tremble at the sight of me. So you've been carrying something odd about with you."
The dokkaebi fire was the dokkaebi's eye.
Beneath it, the face of something vicious warped the very air as its outline surfaced.
— "Kheheh. You don't even know what price that power will one day demand of you. Shall I teach you some manners, young one?"
Even looking at that face, strangely enough, my brow didn't so much as twitch.
"You're the one who needs the lesson in manners. Running wild in someone else's building, tormenting people."
I pointed my chopsticks at the dokkaebi fire and spoke like a schoolteacher delivering a lecture.
— "KHAHAHAHA!!"
The dokkaebi's laughter boomed through the space. It sounded, at moments, like a great beast's roar.
— "Someone else's building, you say. What a laughable thing to say, young one."
Thud.
The sound of something enormous being set down upon the earth.
— "This elder has dwelt upon this land far, far longer than your kind can imagine, toying with humans all the while."
Rrrrumble.
The whole place began to shudder, as if an earthquake had struck.
— "What I call my land is my land, and what I call my house is my house. Do you truly imagine yourselves fit to order this elder about?"
"Says the thing squatting in what humans built. My, but you do talk a lot."
— "Do I not frighten you? With a thought, I could flatten the likes of you into fish jerky this very instant."
"Fish jerky, my foot. You're bored out of your skull too — you're just pleased you finally caught someone, aren't you?"
What did it make of that answer? The vicious, twisted face abruptly changed, and its mouth curled upward.
— "Kheheheh. It has been an age since I met a human with this much gall."
Apparently it rather liked me. After an eternity of nothing but humans fleeing in terror, one who stared it in the eye and refused to run must have been a delight.
— "Very well, then. Let us make a wager."
A dokkaebi is a seasoned street hustler. When one of them proposes a wager, the winner and the loser are usually decided before the game even begins.
Either it throws the match on purpose to bestow its fortune — or it crushes you, thoroughly.
So which would I be?
"What are we betting?"
— "If you win, you shall have your way, and I will keep quiet from now on. I shall even grant you the luck of wealth, that money may rain down upon you. But if I win..."
Swooo.
Within the blue dokkaebi fire, a pair of bright yellow eyes rolled.
— "You shall offer yourself to me as tribute. I will flay your skin for a fine pair of trousers, play with your soul for a thousand years or so, and when I tire of it, eat you. There. Doesn't that sound right?"
Whooooosh.
A chill wind swept through the museum, though every door in the building was shut.
"So what's the wager?"
— "A simple wager, and a fair one. One you could even win, if you do well."
THUD!
Something stamped the ground. And then, centered on the spot where I'd laid out my drinking table, a red circle was drawn across the floor.
— "If you can step beyond that circle, you win. I shall set no time limit. But if you cannot leave... you understand?"
"A bit old-fashioned, but fine. Let's play it."
I rose slowly from my seat. The dokkaebi fire rolled its eyes, watching my every move.
"Shall we begin?"
I walked, plain and simple, toward the circle's edge.
And sure enough, no matter how far I walked, the circle's rim didn't come a single step closer — it only receded. It felt as though the very act of my walking was stretching the space itself.
— "What seems to be the trouble? The edge of the circle is right over there."
...
And then, from behind my head, the dokkaebi taunted me.
— "Hand over all that tribute, admit your defeat, and I shall let it slide this once. Now clear off, and never show yourself here again."
"Well, see, I think you're the one who ought to admit defeat."
— "What?"
I pointed down at my own feet. Naturally, at some point, they had stepped clean outside the red circle.
The authority of the god you carry decides the hierarchy between sorceries. And apparently, my god ranked a good deal 'higher' than that dokkaebi.
The dokkaebi fire spun in circles around me, flustered.
— "Th-that's impossible...!"
"You did say I could win if I did well. Now, a promise is a promise?"
— "This cannot be!! What trickery have you worked, you wretch!!"
Curiously, the dokkaebi seemed far more outraged that its sorcery had failed than that it had lost the wager. It had probably been looking forward to watching me wander in circles inside that ring, making a spectacle of myself. Too bad for it.
"Keep your promise already. And don't be sore about it."
— "You wretch!! I shall see with my own eyes just what manner of thing it is you're leeching off!!"
Suddenly, the dokkaebi fire bored straight into my chest. It happened so fast there was no time to stop it — no time even to flinch.
"...Huh."
And that was the end of it.
The raucous voice, the strange phenomena, the creeping fog — all of it vanished, as though it had never existed at all.
A dreadful darkness fell silent, swallowing everything around it.
And in that landscape, night snow was falling.
There was no ground. There was no sky.
Only the void, somewhere in the between.
Whoooooo.
The wind blew. Powdered snow scattered on it.
The dokkaebi watched the snow scatter.
Stars.
What the dokkaebi had taken for snow
was thousands, hundreds of millions of stars.
Then the wind that blew — whose was it?
Someone's breath.
And the moment it understood that vast, distant benevolence, the dokkaebi's existence began to crumble, slowly, like ash.