Black Boatman (1)
Choi Yeon froze in shock.
He had stabbed first without a second thought, figuring it was a fair fight, but the man just laughed.
Thud!
The sound of bones snapping echoed as the man’s neck twisted a full 180 degrees backward.
Choi Yeon nearly snapped his own eyes open in surprise.
…It was a problem. Stabbing someone who broke their own joints and then turned to look at you—would that even work?
No matter how strong a necromancer, this went far beyond the realm of humans.
“Annoying,” Choi Yeon muttered.
The man gave him a greeting. The gaze of the one who had stabbed him in the back was deep and heavy.
“You.”
“……?”
“The fox the child was waiting for—the one who would stop me.”
“…My name is Choi Yeon.”
“What does the name of a mere living thing matter?”
You’re not a living thing, are you?
Choi Yeon opened his mouth to argue but just shrugged his shoulders once. Thinking about it again, he really wasn’t. The man standing right in front of him was.
Maybe I’ll just waste some time.
“Well, first let me ask—why did you come all the way to Daejeon?”
“To burn the tree.”
“The Guardian Tree? Why would you do that?”
“You’re funny. You know how terrifying it is and you’re pretending not to?”
“Terrifying…? Our definitions of the word seem a little different.”
Choi Yeon drew his dagger as he spoke. While he moved with caution, the man’s neck cracked with every step.
It was enough to make anyone who saw it feel sick, and Park Chae-eun suddenly felt worried.
When his eyes passed over everyone else, the man’s mouth opened. He had made a sound like breaking bones, yet he looked perfectly fine.
He didn’t seem alive at all.
“Don’t bother. You already know, don’t you? I can no longer stop your legs.”
“I wasn’t even thinking of stopping them. I was going to cut them off.”
“Ah, how foolish. Living thing!”
The man raised his hand.
Black skulls began to gather at the tips of his fingers like specks of ink. The sound of slicing through the air was a scream.
Choi Yeon, standing close, didn’t dodge. He cut them down.
He could have dodged. He didn’t because he had to protect the people behind him.
If he unfolded the barrier with Park Chae-eun’s artifact, it would have been easy to block, but the child clearly wasn’t controlling it properly.
He wasn’t sure it would protect others either. He and Ko Sung-yoon hadn’t entered the barrier that day, so there was no need to gamble.
“…All right, you’re confident you can cut them. I didn’t know you could divide a blessing in two.”
Huk! Whoosh, huk.
Black skulls gathered at the tips of his fingers like night dew. They screamed and sliced through the air.
Choi Yeon cut them down one by one with his dagger.
“What a funny trick…”
Whoosh!
A skull hung in the air. The man’s face remained calm despite the words.
His composure gradually disappeared and he kept pushing forward.
How long could he keep this up?
The man thought that and reached out his hand at the same time.
Dududuk! The body collapsed. The skulls that had been gathered like fruit scattered.
The face, which didn’t understand what had happened, poured out black liquid from every hole. The scattered skulls looked as if they had melted together.
After wiping the black liquid with rough hands, the man answered immediately.
“Is this… poison?”
“Yes. It’s poison.”
Choi Yeon looked at the student who had answered correctly with pride.
Did the man know?
He had caught the back, but had only blocked the magic and not counterattacked, and had already dealt with it.
If the man had noticed, he would have done something else, but he hadn’t picked up even the slightest hint.
He had guessed that was the case.
The man was far too relaxed. Even when stabbed in the back with a dagger, even now with flesh peeling off from the venom.
He observed the collapsed form as if it were not his own body. Now?
“…But you should only have used paralysis drugs, right?”
“Correct. This is actually a poison I was given.”
“Given? Who in their right mind would give you such a strong poison as a gift?”
“There is one. I don’t know if it was a man or a woman, but they sent it to me.”
“…….”
“Like I said, it was poison I received as a gift today, so it’s my first time using it…”
A warning from a letter floated through his mind.
The poison manufactured by the partner had warned to be careful when using it.
Seeing the flesh fall from the stabbed area and black liquid leaking from the hole, he had clearly suffered a setback for not following the warning.
I wonder what kind of gift this poison was.
If he had used it at any random time, he probably would have received a massive punishment for overkill. No, he definitely would have.
Still, he had clearly seen the effect of the poison sent by the Trainer today. Choi Yeon felt extremely satisfied.
“Thank you.”
“……What?”
“Thanks to you, I finally got to feel its effect. I was curious.”
“Hah, hah… Fox. How dare you treat me as an experimental subject.”
“Is there a problem? You’re the one who’s doing well.”
“Hah. I am—”
“Yes, see you later.”
Choi Yeon cut off the man’s neck with a swing. Just like the skulls he had cut earlier, the head rolled and fell.
The man glared at Choi Yeon with wide eyes, but with no vocal cords or lungs, communication was difficult.
Still, Choi Yeon knew what he was going to say. He was probably going to say that he was not like them, something like garbage.
“Yeon, Yeon-i hyung?”
Ko Sung-yoon’s voice came from behind, both arms wrapped around Park Chae-eun to shield her eyes. It seemed he thought Choi Yeon had killed the man.
The other Nubyeok member looked just as startled.
Of course. Thinking about it, the sight of the child was never a pleasant one.
“…Don’t be surprised. This is an embodiment—”
“You are the customer who made me dance instead of you, doll. There is nothing different between us.”
The man’s voice came from somewhere.
Black liquid gathered in the air like steam.
“Huh?” Choi Yeon clicked his tongue.
Even though the embodiment had been useless, it was still connected. It really was a necromancer famous nationwide.
“It’s still here?”
“I have a question.”
“I’m listening.”
“Fox, how did you know this was an embodiment?”
“When I stabbed it with my dagger. It didn’t feel like I had stabbed a person.”
“Ah. Indeed.”
The skull shook up and down. He was probably nodding.
Choi Yeon added.
“And I believed it. That someone who had been on the run for over ten years would be stupid enough to come all the way here without reason.”
“Here? What’s so special about a backwater town like this?”
“What? Daejeon isn’t a backwater town, it’s a metropolitan city.”
“…….”
The skull’s eyes narrowed quietly.
You got it, so answer the question, it seemed to say.
“Should I answer? You came here as an embodiment because you judged that way.”
With that said, Choi Yeon looked up. It looked like Baekgak, the giant horn weapon of Choi Heeseok, who had jumped from high up, was falling.
Boom!
When his two legs hit the ground, the skull shook like a candle in the wind. Ignoring the large figure of Choi Heeseok looking down, he spoke.
“…You’re misunderstanding. It’s nothing more than being bothered.”
“Ah. Is that so?”
Choi Yeon answered brightly. Even though he seemed to be believing every word, suspicion was felt instead.
He then looked around.
People whose faces he knew were arriving one after another. Nubyeok had come at the head of Cha Jae-hyeok, and then…
“…….”
From the dusk, Song Jong-in stepped out. Without the Amhyanghoe, alone.
At that moment, all eyes turned to Song Jong-in. Anger? Sadness? Or both…? His face, filled with complex emotions, approached Song Jong-in.
“…….”
However, the skull was disappearing. The black liquid evaporated and rose into the air, which Choi Yeon watched quietly.
Drip.
Song Jong-in silently observed the embodiment. It didn’t take long.
“It’s an embodiment.”
“Yes.”
“You suffered, it must have been difficult.”
After saying that briefly, Song Jong-in turned around. Choi Heeseok called out seriously to the back that said there was nothing to do.
“Jong-in. Where are you going now?”
“…To find the thing.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“To control an embodiment, it has to be nearby. It should be in this area, so if I scour the place—”
“Wasted effort.”
“What?”
Song Jong-in sharply turned to Choi Yeon. The man who had been sharing fruits with him at the Daejeon Stream was nowhere to be seen.
Hik!
The child’s startled cry faintly echoed in the park. Even in front of the Black Boatman, he was calm, but the child trembled at Song Jong-in’s anger.
It was probably because he felt sadness as well, not just anger.
“…What did you say?”
Song Jong-in’s aggressive energy immediately subsided.
The junior explained calmly and calmly to the senior who had misheard his words because of intense emotions.
“I know the location.”
“Wha…?”
“So there’s no need to waste effort scouring.”
“The location… detected… right now?”
“Well, it’s a bit different. I saw the mana connected to the embodiment and saw it returning to the owner… That was all.”
“……!”
Choi Yeon spoke as if it were nothing.
However, the faces of those who understood the meaning, including Song Jong-in, were filled with astonishment.
What was the annoying point of a necromancer using an embodiment? That it was hidden and difficult to track, that fact.
Just saying that the mana connected between the two sides was seen was easy, but normally it couldn’t be seen.
Because the hiding spell was also cast, it was difficult to see the trace of mana.
If the connection had been clearly visible, even the Black Boatman would not have been able to escape for over ten years.
“…The junior really has good eyes?”
“If you want to use someone else’s expression, it’s not bad for squinty eyes.”
“Puhaha!”
Song Jong-in burst into laughter. He had returned to the man who had shared fruits with him.
While listening to his laugh, Choi Yeon turned his gaze. The mana that had risen in black steam had been heading toward the mountain not far from the park.
That mountain was definitely…
***
The summit of Sudo Mountain was quiet.
Not a single breeze was blowing as if it had frozen, and only cool air was slowly crawling up from underground.
Twisted obsession stood leaning against the ground after uprooting broken regrets.
At the center of it, Gang Do-hyeon stood holding an old lantern.
Uwoo, uwoooo!
He looked back at the things emitting strange sounds with deeply sunken, dark eyes.
“Go away, you dead things.”
In the empty eyes of the dead things that had been looking at the sky, light slowly began to rise.
It was turquoise.
The light gathered from regret and obsession loyally turned toward Gang Do-hyeon. It seemed like it was begging.
Like a savior, the old lantern was extended forward.
“Go. While going to Seo-Daejeon Park, accept all living things as your comrades…”
Gang Do-hyeon trailed off.
He lifted the robe he had been hiding and listened deeply. Between the long hair that had grown long enough to cover,
Whoosh, whoosh.
…The sound of breathing was heard.
Only the dead things stood on the summit, and the living things’ breath could be heard.
It was not an idiot sacrifice who had mistakenly put a foot wrong. The steadily heard breathing was not noisy, not chaotic.
It was quietly ascending the summit.
“…Amazing.”
Gang Do-hyeon, spitting out admiration, soon had familiar faces in his eyes.
The hunter he had seen ten years ago and the hunter he saw today.
“God. As expected, that guy is under your arrangement?”
Gang Do-hyeon’s prayer fell to the ground, and the two hunters’ breaths were close.
Was it the mood?
It felt like a response. It looked like a trial sent by God.
Then. If that was the case…!
“Yes, yes…! I will gladly do so!”
The Black Boatman laughed cheerfully.
---
“Go away, you dead things.”