Chapter 6
Chapter 6
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 006
Chapter Title: If You Fall Asleep, You Die (4)
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The soe-pari sprayed a foul stench and acidic solution in every direction each time their backs burst open.
When they were set ablaze by the torches, their oily bodies lit up the surroundings like candles.
A short whine escaped as the Black Dog collapsed to the floor.
Beasts without hands could only fall defenselessly to the swarm of soe-pari.
The old woman pulled mugwort, salt, and some unidentified dried herb powder from her pouch and sprinkled it on the burning soe-pari. Acrid smoke billowed up.
Thanks to the powder the old woman had scattered, the smoke enveloped the coffin like a fog.
"Filthy flies like you should stick to rotting corpses, you wretched things!"
The old woman smacked a soe-pari off her face with her palm, bursting it.
Her swollen cheek had three or four holes punched into it, pus oozing out.
Chased by the smoke, the swarm of soe-pari clung to the ceiling, their wings creating a racket.
The brief respite allowed the man to let out a sigh.
"Granny, if you had something like that, why didn't you use it sooner?"
"How was I supposed to know if it'd work on those things? I would've used it earlier if I did. What do we do now?"
She glanced up at the swarm clinging to the ceiling.
Once the smoke thinned, they'd surely come back down.
"Damn it! Bodhisattva, when did you say those exorcists you mentioned would arrive?"
The merchant wiped the acidic solution from his hands on his pants and asked.
Faint smoke rose from his trousers.
"They said they were in Seoul when I called earlier. I thought we'd just have to deal with the ghost gate by then, so we scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I'll call them again now."
Na-rae answered in the old woman's stead.
The merchant sighed as if there were no other choice.
"No helping it, then. We'll have to survive first."
A mournful bell toll rang out again from downstairs.
The merchant hurriedly pulled out his phone and dialed somewhere.
The toll from below grew louder bit by bit.
It sounded even more sorrowful than before.
"This is Hong Sang-in. I'd like you to come to where I am right now."
The merchant's tone was remarkably polite, suggesting the person on the other end held high status.
Byung-su listened closely to the merchant's call.
A woman's refined voice came through the merchant's phone.
The swarm's noise drowned out most of what she said, but it was clear she was a young woman.
"Yes, there's a ghost gate here just as expected. But there are some tricky things too. Yes, thank you. We'll wait."
The merchant ended the brief call with a smile on his face.
The man and the old woman eyed the smiling merchant suspiciously.
The old woman tossed more onto the fallen soe-pari around the coffin to stoke the smoke and asked,
"Who might that young lady be you're speaking so politely to? Did you come here expecting a ghost gate?"
"Is that really important right now? Our priority is dodging that swarm of soe-pari."
As the merchant replied calmly, the mournful tolling stopped.
Just then, the soe-pari's wingbeats halted too, leaving the room silent.
"Truth is, I had heard there was a ghost gate here. But if I'd known it was this dangerous, we wouldn't have come alone. Anyway, priority is still dodging the soe-pari. Soon, someone very dangerous but helpful will arrive."
"A dangerous person?"
Byung-su asked back, and the merchant replied with a troubled expression.
"Someone I met in England. The line between good and evil is pretty blurry with her. Still, she won't refuse my request. I helped her once. Why'd you drag us here for your story without any real preparations?"
Byung-su shot back, exasperated by the merchant's reproach.
"You and the Bodhisattva were my preparations."
Squeak... squeak...
Something heavy was slowly climbing the wooden stairs.
Byung-su pressed his hand to the floorboards.
Vibrations rattled up through his hand as the floor trembled.
He turned to the man and asked,
"Was there this kind of vibration when we came up?"
The man replied calmly to Byung-su's question.
"You're not a cow, are you? No way you'd cause vibrations like this."
Byung-su lifted his hand from the floor in confusion at the man's out-of-left-field answer and thought,
'Is a cow coming up now?'
* * *
The creaking climb halted midway up the stairs.
Byung-su held his breath and checked on the group.
Everyone stared silently at the stairs, tense.
Crack.
A crack split the floorboards from the stairs, stopping in front of the group.
Trrring, trrring.
An old rotary phone bell rang out.
Startled by the dial-tone ring—not a cellphone—the group turned toward the sound.
It came from the counter beside the stairs.
Trrring, trrring.
Byung-su grabbed a torch and moved toward the noise.
Na-rae handed her torch to the merchant and followed Byung-su with the camera, filming.
"Team Leader, what's with the phone? Who's calling?"
Byung-su pressed a finger to his lips and whispered in response to Na-rae's question.
"Shh! I've answered calls like this before. At a crematorium and a suicide mountain... Anyway, I'll take it."
He approached the counter cautiously, eyes on the stairs beside it.
At any moment, something seemed about to leap up from the dark stairwell.
Byung-su reached the counter and held the dust-covered receiver to his ear.
His expression darkened instantly.
After listening briefly, he carefully set the receiver down and returned.
The old woman asked the grim-faced Byung-su,
"What'd you hear?"
"Breathing."
"Breathing? That's all?"
She asked again.
Apparently, just breathing seemed odd to her.
Byung-su nodded at her question and said matter-of-factly,
"Yeah, just breathing. And that phone... the line's cut, as expected. It always rings without a line."
Silence fell after Byung-su's reply.
The old woman broke it with a shout at Byung-su as he brushed dust from his hand.
She'd clearly done it loud enough for whatever was on the stairs to hear.
"In a haunted house abandoned over twenty years, a working phone would be weirder. Why answer it!"
Byung-su nodded in agreement at the old woman's sharp words.
"You're right. I won't next time."
Na-rae shuddered at their exchange and thought,
'They're right, but a call on a broken phone is still scary. The granny's a shaman, fine, but the team leader has no fear.'
Crack crack!
The floorboards cracked again.
"Ah, this is really annoying. Come on if you're coming. What're you doing? Testing us?"
The old woman's irritated yell echoed through the floor as the cracking stopped.
By now, the smoke around the coffin was thinning.
The old woman rummaged in her pouch to stoke it.
No materials left.
Once the smoke cleared, the soe-pari swarm would attack again.
A chill wind blew through the broken window, scattering what smoke remained.
Buzz buzz, buzz buzz buzz—the soe-pari's wings beat once more.
With the eerie wind, thuds sounded as something fist-sized and heavy flew through the broken window and hit the floor.
It sailed precisely through the window like someone had thrown it from outside and landed.
More followed, reaching over a dozen.
Too dark to make out shapes, but they crawled across the floor toward the group.
As the fist-sized things approached crawling, a mocking snort came from the foot of the stairs.
The chill wind blew again, scattering the smoke.
The smoke that had shielded the group cleared away.
The soe-pari swarm dropped from the ceiling again, wings beating toward them.
"Damn it, they're coming down again!"
At the merchant's urgent shout, the group raised torches overhead to defend.
Mooo, an old cow's bellow echoed from the darkness.
"A cow's moo?"
Byung-su shone his torch around.
No sign of a cow or any large animal.
Mooo—another bellow, then a cacophony from all directions.
The moos from the dark didn't just rattle the group—they halted the soe-pari swarm mid-dive.
"Is this the cow you mentioned earlier?"
Byung-su asked the man, who replied incredulously,
"You think a cow flew in through the window?"
Byung-su wanted to ask more but swatted a soe-pari diving at his eye, cutting the talk short.
The swarm focused on the man again.
Even as he answered, his torch busily fended off the soe-pari.
They dove at faces and necks without dodging the swung torches.
Fiercer and faster than before.
The Black Dog had long collapsed; the frail old woman dropped her torch and fell too.
Her face and neck were riddled with soe-pari proboscises, yellow acidic fluid leaking out.
Na-rae tried chasing them off to save her, but the soe-pari on the old woman's face and neck wouldn't budge.
A cluster circled Na-rae's head, then dove for her pale nape.
Byung-su swung his torch just in time to block them.
The swarm veered toward Byung-su's face.
One hit his wide eye.
"Argh!"
It stung like a rock; he screamed, and two flew into his mouth.
Ptoo! He spat them out in horror.
Only one hit the floor.
Stepping on it burst its back with a pop.
Something crawled down his throat; he gagged and retched, but it felt past his esophagus.
Suddenly, the old woman shoved her fingers down his throat, inducing vomit.
He heaved, spewing a mass from deep inside onto the floor.
A soe-pari tumbled out amid the sour vomit.
Na-rae stomped the trembling soe-pari shaking vomit from its wings.
By then, two or three more had latched onto Na-rae and the old woman's faces, stabbing proboscises into skin.
Byung-su recovered after retching and peeled the soe-pari off their faces.
Another cluster circled his head and dove.
Mooo—the old cow's bellow shook the floor, and with thuds, fist-sized things leaped up from the floorboards.
They jumped as high as the group's heads: big mouths with blunt, rock-like bodies, thin legs disproportionate to their bulk, and webbed feet.
The merchant raised a torch to check, but the intense poison they emitted made him collapse to the floor.
The group crouched low under the heavy toxin cloud, barely catching breath.
"Toads."
The man, perched on the coffin catching his breath, spoke.
Dozens of toads devoured a swarm diving at the group.
The dozens of soe-pari, engulfed in toxin, fell twitching legs.
The toads that had leaped hit the floor with plops and immediately flipped, springing airborne again.
Hmph—a snort echoed from the shadowed stairs again.
Hard to tell if man or woman.
"Snorting that loud'll make snot fly from your nose. Better be careful. Hehehe."
A woman's refined voice came from the toads' direction.
Click-clack, click-clack—she approached across the floorboards from the dark.
Her figure emerged bit by bit in the torchlight.
Black suit matching the darkness, pale face, red hair glowing in the flames.
Tallest person on this floor by far.
"Emel!"
The merchant called her Emel, overjoyed.