Katon Village
In the clearing where not even the sound of breathing could be heard, Hwanin watched with cold eyes as the donkey-headed man trembled under Isilite’s restraint.
One of the five bastards who had raped and murdered the woman’s soul turned out to be none other than the son of the village Sado—the man responsible for the entire town.
The fact that his appearance barely differed from what Hwanin had seen in the vision suggested the crime had not happened long ago.
He fixed his gaze on Prisold and his wife, who stood frozen between the urge to step forward and the terror of remaining still, their souls seeming ready to flee their bodies, and spoke.
“I had intended to ask your understanding for skipping the usual courtesies due to the urgency of the matter. As it happens, one of the suspects in that urgent matter is right here.”
Urgent matter? Suspect?
Prisold could not suppress the thick anxiety rising in his chest and asked in a trembling voice.
“S-Soul Master… w-what do you… mean by that? M-my son is a suspect…?”
“I will explain shortly. For now, arrest the people drawn on these parchments at once.”
Prisold took the five sheets of leather parchment Hwanin held out. The moment he confirmed the descriptions, the corners of his eyes quivered. His own son was mixed in among the village troublemakers.
And with a father’s instinct, he grasped the whole story.
I… I told that boy not to hang around with those scum!!
Beside him, Kantwi checked the sketches as well. His plump cheeks trembled with the force of his scowl before he summoned the young men of the village patrol who had gathered nearby.
“You lot—form groups of four and bring in Usprey, Plapa, George, and Finny right now.”
“Uh… Elder, what’s… going on?”
“What’s going on?! They’re murderers who killed someone and buried the body in secret! The Soul Master has confirmed it, so hurry up and drag them here!”
“Huk. Y-yes, sir!!”
Prisold’s vision swam as Kantwi’s raised voice reached him.
His throat locked; no words would come. In his place, Prisold’s wife, too terrified to seize the Soul Master himself, clutched at Kantwi instead and asked in a voice thick with fear.
“M-murderers? Kantwi, what are you saying? Are you telling us our son killed someone?”
Hwanin answered for him.
“Your son and four others worked together to rape and murder a woman, then secretly buried her body in the riverbed. The soul of that innocent woman is on the verge of becoming an Akryung. She may even turn into a Honjae right here.”
“H-Honjae?”
“Is that bastard Aint out of his mind?!”
“Aint, you little shit! What the hell were you thinking when you did that?!”
“Explain yourself!”
“Explain!!”
At the word Honjae, the gathered crowd began to show signs of frenzy.
Aint, who had been drooling from pain and terror while pinned to the ground, wet himself under the fury and killing intent pouring from hundreds of people and begged his parents to save him.
“I-I…! M-Mom! Dad! Save me!”
But nothing changed.
Prisold knew that standing in the path of the rage of more than a hundred villagers could bring disaster upon them all.
There had to be some misunderstanding, he told himself.
He knew how timid and cowardly Aint was—his second son, the youngest of six children.
The boy had probably just fallen in with the village’s lowlife thugs and some misunderstanding had arisen. Yes, that was it. He would simply watch and step in at the right moment to clear things up.
So he soothed himself, sending his wife and remaining children a look that warned them not to act rashly. Just as the crowd’s voices grew louder—
“Kantwi! We’ve brought them!”
Four bound men arrived in the hands of the patrol. All of them looked as though they had just been dragged from their beds, completely ignorant of what was happening.
That ignorance lasted only a moment. The instant Kantwi spoke, the four of them turned as pale as condemned men who had just been told today was their execution day.
“Soul Master. We have brought every one of the men you named.”
The mention of a Soul Master as the reason they had been dragged here meant their crime had been exposed.
Seeing Aint—whom they had pulled in as insurance—lying there as well, the four of them knew they were finished.
“S-Soul Master? Did he say Soul Master?”
“Then that means they found out what we did?”
“You fucking bastard! You said we’d never get caught!!”
“You piece of shit! You agreed to it too, so why are you only yelling at me?!”
They began cursing and fighting among themselves. The crowd fell silent, too stunned to speak.
Thud! Thwack!
The patrolmen who had dragged the four in raised their clubs with viciously twisted faces and smashed them across the skulls.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, running your mouths and fighting?! Shut up!”
Kantwi judged the present situation—hundreds of people teetering on the edge of chaos—to be dangerous.
Even the patrolmen beating the murderers with clubs were being swallowed by the crowd’s rage.
If hundreds of villagers lost themselves to excitement, the Soul Master’s safety would be at risk.
“Listen, all of you. Quiet down and calm yourselves. You stand before the Soul Master. Get a hold of yourselves.”
Silence spread once more.
The patrolmen mid-beating, the village thugs receiving the beating, and the crowd that had swollen past five hundred all stopped what they were doing. They even quieted their breathing as they stared at Kantwi and the two figures in white robes.
When the crowd had fallen completely still, Hwanin approached the thugs.
The dog-headed thug, blood streaming from his nose, opened his mouth toward Hwanin in a tense voice.
“U-uh… S-Soul Master. There’s been some kind of misundersta—khak!”
Crack!!
The canine-kin took the Soul Stick full in the face, spat teeth from his snout, and crumpled.
The crowd stirred for a moment, then let out a short, satisfied cheer.
“From this moment on, anyone who opens their mouth will be considered unwilling to enter the Garden of the Gods. Open it only if you are prepared for that.”
……….
Threatened with being barred from the Garden of the Gods, the thugs clamped their mouths shut like clams. The gathered crowd, the Sado couple and their children standing nearby, Kantwi, and even the bereaved families of the nine souls who had attained enlightenment that day all sealed their lips just as tightly.
Hwanin was thoroughly irritated.
He had told Kantwi he wanted to go “quietly,” even emphasizing the word quiet—yet somehow that emphasis had been taken in the opposite sense.
As a result, far too many people had gathered, forcing him to worry about his identity remaining hidden. The whole situation was a nuisance.
Ordinarily he preferred simply to convey the words of the souls and speak on their behalf. At most he might resolve the lingering grudge of a Honjae like the one in Yulkam.
But now a single careless word could spiral into something troublesome.
Having vented a little of his accumulated irritation by smashing the canine-kin’s face, Hwanin spoke in a low voice stripped of all emotion—different from his usual tone.
“You remember Marte, the brown-fox-headed man, do you not.”
The thugs squeezed their eyes shut. That reaction needed no further confirmation.
“Everyone. Please bring these men and follow me.”
After making the request of the patrolmen, Hwanin set off toward the river. The crowd parted left and right like the miracle of Moses, then slowly trailed after him.
Upon reaching the riverbank where the blackened woman’s soul had stood, Hwanin described the exact spot to Kantwi. Kantwi immediately ordered the patrolmen to dig into the riverbed.
They fashioned thick, wide planks into a V-shape to divert the current and began excavating the earth at speed.
Kantwi himself joined the work. Before long a sack large enough to hold a person emerged, and silence once again spread through the murmuring crowd.
When the half-rotted, waterlogged corpse was revealed inside the sack, voices of rage erupted.
“Ugh…….”
“We’ve been… drinking corpse water this whole time……?”
“You sons of bitches!!”
“Those fucking bastards for real!”
“Kill them!!”
The thugs looked resigned. Until they had been dragged to the riverbank they had still been terrified yet scheming for a way to live—never imagining the location would be known so precisely.
“Damn it.”
One of the thugs, trembling in despair, muttered under his breath and drew a knife hidden in his sleeve.
Isilite, every nerve focused on Hwanin’s safety, saw it and immediately shielded him with her body—
Thuk—
“Ghk…….”
The thug had driven the knife into his own heart.
Had the past version of himself ever imagined that the blade he carried for show would one day pierce his own heart?
The crowd recoiled in horror at the sight of a man fleeing into death from extreme fear—yet what followed made them swallow dry breaths of pure dread.
From the tip of the Soul Stick the Soul Master extended, the thug’s faint soul thrashed as though caught in a snare, visible for all to see.
“Ugh, aaaaah…… aaaaagh……! Save…… save me……!”
As the crowd flinched at the soul’s screams, Hwanin asked quietly, forcing the words out with coercive power.
“Is it true that you and your friends raped and murdered that woman, then buried her body in secret.”
“Y-yes. We…… did…… it…… aagh…….”
“Why did you do it. Who was the dead woman.”
“Her boyfriend…… said he was tired of her…… told us we could play with her…… We didn’t know we’d kill her…! I swear……! I don’t even know who she was……! Forgive me……!”
Hwanin sealed the soul’s mouth with coercive force, then turned his gaze upon the remaining three thugs—whose eyes had gone completely dead—and the Sado’s son.
“Have you killed anyone else besides that woman. If so, confess everything.”
“N-no! There isn’t!!”
“W-we’re just stupid fools who got carried away with looking cool! A-after that we never caused any more trouble, we just—just!!”
“Uwaaaah! We’re sorry! Please spare us……!”
The thugs screamed incoherently, their reason clearly consumed by terror. No one watching could believe they were lying.
Of course not.
A friend with whom they had spent twenty years playing the same filthy games was dead—yet not even allowed to die, thrashing in agony before their eyes.
For worthless village trash who could never even become proper gangsters or hoodlums, that sight was more than enough to paralyze reason.
When Hwanin pointed the Soul Stick at them, the thugs shrieked.
They crawled desperately toward him, clutching at the hem of his robe and begging for their lives, but the patrolmen recoiled in horror, clubbing their heads and dragging them back by the legs.
Thwack-thwack! Clang—! Crack!
“You bastards! Who the hell do you think you’re crawling toward?!”
“These fucking lunatics for real?!”
Hwanin raised a hand to stop the beating and spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.
“Forgiveness is not within my authority. That decision belongs to this person.”
Having spoken those quiet words, Hwanin pressed the Soul Stick against the blackened woman’s soul and pushed a stream of warm energy into her.
He had steeled himself, yet this time no memories came flooding in.
Moments later the woman’s soul appeared in midair, still bearing the exact appearance she had worn at the moment of her rape and murder. The surrounding temperature seemed to drop a full five degrees; a chill settled over everything.
It was hard to believe hundreds of people stood in that place—the atmosphere had grown so cold.
When Hwanin lowered the Soul Stick and stepped away from the thugs, the patrolmen too let out strangled screams and fled into the crowd.
It looked less like they ran and more like they escaped.
Hundreds of people clutched their chests against the sensation of their hearts being squeezed as they watched the blackened woman’s soul begin to sob.
The sound raised gooseflesh on the skin and made knees threaten to buckle.
“Whyyyyyy…… whyyyyyyy……….”
“Ghk… huaah…….”
“Uwaaah…….”
“…Huk…….”
The woman’s white limbs began to wrinkle again; her hair writhed as though it would fly wild.
Seeing her about to turn into an Akryung once more, Hwanin sighed inwardly and spoke.
“Calm yourself.”
“Huuuuuuh…….”
“One more step and you will become a Honjae.”
“Huuuuk…….”
Under the coercive force of his words the woman’s soul regained human form. She covered her blackened face with both hands and sobbed.
“I…… can’t……. I can’t do it……. Just holding it back…… is already so hard…….”
“…….”
“Soul Master, please…… punish them…… for me……. Punish them…….”
Punishment, was it.
If it had been up to him, Hwanin would have preferred to take a Celtic stone axe and simply lop off the thugs’ heads then and there.
But he could not do such a thing with hundreds of eyes watching.
He approached the village Sado—who looked as though he had aged five years in a matter of moments—and spoke in a heavy voice.
“In a village I once passed through, a Honjae had taken root.”
Still locked in silence, hundreds of pairs of eyes focused on Hwanin.
He briefly recounted his experience in Yulkam, then asked the Sado.
“Even people who lived together like family, building their village as one, still carried out exemplary punishment against those they considered family. What punishment will you impose upon these criminals.”
“…….”
“That woman’s grudge has reached its limit. If you hand down some absurdly light sentence, I believe you can imagine what a woman filled with such resentment might do.”
“Th-that…….”
“Should the grudge deepen and she become a Honjae, she may spread calamity at once without any period of maturation. I ask that you make a wise decision.”
The calamity of a Honjae.
At the words that left Hwanin’s mouth the crowd stirred once more.
The Sado looked at his youngest son, who was weeping rivers of tears and staring up at him as though begging for his life. His own heart felt as though it would burn away to nothing as he asked weakly,
“W-what…… what am I supposed to do…….”
“In cases such as this, what sentence is normally handed down to the criminals.”
This was not a matter of one or two people. Five men had raped and murdered a single woman, then buried her body in secret.
That alone warranted beating them nearly to death and casting them out of the village. Applying the special aggravating clause for defiling a soul and endangering the village meant hanging them, dismembering the corpses into five parts, stuffing the remains into sacks, and dumping them dozens of kilometers from the village.
At the site of the hanging an Ilail flower garden would have to be planted and tended for the next twenty years as follow-up.
An investigation into the truth? A high-ranking Soul Master capable of soul-summoning had already called forth the soul and verified the facts. Further investigation was meaningless.
“…….”
“Simply carry out what you are thinking right now.”
“S-Soul Master!”
Prisold called out to Hwanin in desperation, but—
“Do you intend to exchange the life of one son for the lives of the thousands who live in Katon Village.”
“……!”
“Those thousands include your wife and your other children.”
Under that voice as cold as ice, Prisold collapsed without a sound.
The sentence was carried out with lightning speed.
Though dawn had not yet approached, the crowd woke even those who had been sleeping and gathered them in the square. The village carpenters and anyone with skilled hands assembled and constructed a gallows in the blink of an eye.
It was not a drop-style gallows that broke the neck with the force of the fall, but a suspension type that strangled the condemned.
And it took only a single hour before a large executioner’s block was brought out beside it as well.
Under the eyes of five village elders, the three thugs and the Sado’s son stood side by side upon the gallows. One of the elders recited the crimes before the thousands of villagers, and the sentence was carried out.
Clunk.
The stools supporting the four men’s feet were kicked away. For more than five minutes the hanging men thrashed, fouling themselves, before their movements gradually ceased.
Afterward the corpses of the dead criminals had their heads and limbs severed upon the executioner’s block, were stuffed into sacks, loaded onto a cart, and escorted by patrolmen straight out of the village.
“…….”
The woman’s soul, who had watched the entire process in silence, began to sob once more, letting out a ghostly wail.
The villagers who had been watching the execution flinched. Had her grudge still not been fully resolved even after every one of her enemies had been punished and killed?
But the woman was not weeping from resentment.
The blackened color of her soul gradually cleared until at last it shone as pure as a blue sky.
While the villagers gasped in wonder, the woman’s soul—now a clear blue—even had her clothing turn clean. With tears still brimming in her eyes she bowed deeply to Hwanin.
“Thank you, Soul Master. You resolved a grudge I myself did not even know I carried…….”
“Those who committed the crime have paid the price and attained enlightenment, ascending to the heavens. You too must cast aside any remaining attachments and enter the Garden of the Gods.”
“Yes…….”
The nameless woman’s soul offered a faint smile… then scattered into powder far brighter than any of the other souls, rising slowly into the sky.
While the villagers’ gazes followed the trail of light that painted a milky way across the night sky, Hwanin reached toward the nine blue droplets of light the woman had left behind.
Ordinary souls had left four or five bright grayish-white orbs.
Does the difference in the number of orbs hold some meaning?
As Hwanin’s right hand approached, the blue light orbs that had been wavering as though lost of direction naturally seeped into his palm.
“…….”
Hwanin had obtained yet another technique.