Chapter 3
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 3
Chapter Title: Head in the Box (3)
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“What? He’s dead?”
Taeju asked in surprise.
Jeonghan’s friend was still too young to die.
“Yes. He passed away not long after burying that capsule. From the flu that was going around at the time. None of us saw it coming. No one did.”
“That must have been devastating. He died while you were all still students.”
Jeonghan gave a wry smile in response.
“Yeah, it hit us pretty hard back then. But now everyone’s come to terms with it.”
It was a tragic loss.
But cold as it might sound, it wasn’t the key issue anymore.
“Still, this puts us in a tough spot.”
Taeju made a troubled face.
“We’ll have to put our guesses about the box on hold for now.”
“On hold?”
Jeonghan asked in alarm, wondering if this was really the end.
“We can’t speculate any further about the box. So now we need to turn our attention to the identity of that head. But that’s not something I can handle.”
Taeju raised both hands in surrender. Jeonghan looked flustered, but Taeju gave a slight smile.
“Don’t worry. If this place was just me working alone, it wouldn’t be called an office.”
Jeonghan nodded without thinking at Taeju’s words.
“Then… where are the others?”
“One’s on vacation right now. The other’s probably off handling something somewhere else.”
“Uh… so no one else is coming?”
Jeonghan tilted his head.
“No, isn’t there someone right behind you?”
“Huh?”
Jeonghan turned around to see the woman who’d been drinking coffee waving at him.
She was the one he’d dismissed as just another customer at first.
“Hello. I’m Yousia Ara.”
* * *
If you asked who dressed the most stylishly among the office staff, the answer was Sia, hands down.
With her short bob haircut and black suit, she looked at first glance like a young, successful CEO straight out of a drama.
But one thing subtly shifted that impression.
The flashy accessory dangling from her left wrist.
Her outfit made people think the moment they saw her:
“She’s no ordinary person.”
It was baffling how he hadn’t noticed her when he first walked in.
While Jeonghan was still caught off guard, the woman picked up her cup and slid naturally into the seat next to them.
“Um, this is Sia, right? What does she do here?”
It was Sia, not Taeju, who answered Jeonghan’s question.
“Think of her as an expert in this sort of thing. There aren’t many people better than her when it comes to spells or monsters.”
The woman who’d introduced herself as Sia smiled with confident poise.
She exuded pride just sitting there.
“You’ve been listening to the story so far?”
At Taeju’s question, Sia nodded.
“Of course. I’ve got a pretty good idea already. Though there are still some unanswered questions.”
Sia turned to Jeonghan and asked point-blank.
“I have a few questions.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Did the head look human?”
It was such an odd question that Jeonghan blinked in surprise.
“Huh? Look human?”
“Of course it looked human, but there must’ve been something a little off. Take your time and think it over—tell me the details.”
Jeonghan mulled over Sia’s words.
Recalling the head’s appearance was easy; it was still vivid in his mind.
But it wasn’t a pleasant memory, and his face twisted in discomfort.
“The head I saw… it was a man’s. I was too shocked to remember the features clearly, but it seemed pretty hairy.”
“Hairy.”
Sia nodded, murmuring agreement.
“The hair was normal enough, but the beard was thick. Like a bandit’s beard, you know?”
“What about the skin tone?”
After a moment’s thought, Jeonghan answered Sia’s question.
“It was just phone flashlight, so not perfectly clear, but it looked like regular human skin.”
Sia listened to Jeonghan intently, her expression serious.
“So, aside from the fact that it was just a head, there were no other oddities.”
“…That’s the weirdest part.”
Jeonghan said, sounding baffled.
“Of course it’s weird. But if we’re judging by monster standards, a lone head isn’t that unusual. If anything, the fact that it was indistinguishable from a human head otherwise is what stands out.”
Sia paused thoughtfully before continuing.
“Most yokai have features that set them apart from humans. It’s to instill fear just by their appearance.”
For instance, eyes with reversed whites and pupils, or no pupils at all, or bizarre horns—things that are creepy on sight.
“The form of a monster is shaped by necessity. But the head you saw was completely human-like. That means it wasn’t a being born to frighten people.”
“I fainted the second I saw it! And you’re saying it wasn’t meant to scare…?”
Jeonghan scowled. It didn’t terrify him like before, but it was still no pretty sight.
“Not having scaring people as its purpose doesn’t mean it can’t be scary. If it wasn’t frightening at all, it wouldn’t be called a monster. What I mean is whether its origin was to instill fear or not.”
She wasn’t criticizing his fear.
But looking at the whole situation, it didn’t seem like a deliberate act of harm.
“In the end, the neck just popped out when the box opened, the eyes met yours by chance, and all it did was tell you to keep a promise. Hard to see any real malice there.”
Jeonghan frowned a bit but couldn’t find a good counterargument.
“So what you went through definitely qualifies as a monster tale, but its goal wasn’t to torment you.”
“…So the head was no big deal? I didn’t need to be that scared…?”
Jeonghan mumbled, looking deflated, like he’d lost some confidence. Sia seemed a touch flustered, and Taeju smoothly jumped in.
“That’s not what she means. It just wasn’t intended to scare from the start.”
Taeju rubbed his chin, pondering how best to explain.
“Even if these yokai aren’t out to frighten people on purpose, they don’t exactly go out of their way to be considerate either.”
“What do you mean by not considerate?”
“They’re not trying to scare, but they don’t mind if you get scared, so they don’t bother being careful about how they do things.”
“That’s a perfect way to put it—not considerate.”
Taeju spoke kindly to reassure Jeonghan, who was smiling awkwardly.
“Fear depends a lot on the situation. The fact that it was a mountain at midnight probably made it way scarier. Any place like that is creepy enough on its own.”
Jeonghan nodded at Taeju’s words.
“If the same thing happened in a familiar spot in broad daylight, it wouldn’t be nearly as frightening.”
Hearing that, Jeonghan felt some tension ease.
“So I wasn’t unusually cowardly.”
“You just had the bad luck of meeting it at that time and place.”
“Yeah.”
Jeonghan’s expression softened. But curiosity sparked as he asked.
“So, how bad are the ones that really set out to terrify people?”
“The ones truly committed to scaring humans are horrifying even in daylight. We’re used to them, but I wouldn’t go looking for a peek.”
Jeonghan shook his head at Taeju’s offer to share more if he wanted to hear.
With Taeju’s words seeming to wrap things up, Sia spoke again.
“I was a bit thoughtless. Sorry about that. I got a little eager.”
It hadn’t been intentional, but she’d essentially called him a scaredy-cat, so Sia dipped her head slightly. Jeonghan waved it off hurriedly.
“No, no, it’s fine. But eager about what?”
“I think I know what you encountered.”
Jeonghan’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Really?”
“I don’t make empty promises.”
Jeonghan swallowed nervously before asking.
“Then… what was it that I saw?”
“What you met was a dokkaebi. I’m almost certain.”
Sia declared it with clear, unwavering eyes. Taeju reacted with disbelief.
“A dokkaebi?”
Sia shrugged helplessly.
“What can you do? It really is. But the dokkaebi I’m talking about isn’t the broad sense—it’s the classic kind from later folktales, like in the storybooks.”
Jeonghan looked confused, not following their exchange.
Sia smiled faintly at his expression and asked.
“What comes to mind when you think of a dokkaebi?”
“Uh… horns, a club, that sort of thing?”
Sia nodded.
“That’s the popular image. But dokkaebi actually encompass way more than that. They’re a kind of mystery in themselves.”
In old times, people blamed dokkaebi for anything strange. Anything incomprehensible got labeled as dokkaebi. Calling something a dokkaebi basically just meant it couldn’t be understood.
“That’s why Taeju finds it ridiculous. Saying something’s a dokkaebi doesn’t really mean much in the end.”
Sia continued her explanation.
“There’s a lot to say about dokkaebi, but I’ll skip the unimportant bits for now. Let’s talk about human-like dokkaebi—the classic image you mentioned.”
“The classic dokkaebi?”
“You said you don’t remember the face clearly. That’s a hallmark of the dokkaebi from later folktales. The stories say ‘after a dokkaebi passes, you doubt if it was even human.’ The face doesn’t stick, and even recalling it feels alien.”
It doesn’t seem so different from a human while you’re seeing it. Only afterward do you realize it was a dokkaebi.
“So that’s why you asked if it looked human….”
“Exactly. If it looked exactly human yet the memory’s fuzzy, that’s evidence it was a dokkaebi.”
Taeju stood up, sensing the explanation dragging on. Sia said casually.
“Ice.”
“In this chilly weather…”
Taeju shook his head as he headed to the coffee machine.
Jeonghan asked.
“So, because it looked human, it’s a dokkaebi?”
Sia shook her head at his question.
“That’s just one piece of evidence. There are more dokkaebi traits.”
If that voice belonged to a dokkaebi, then demanding he keep a promise was a dokkaebi’s request.
“It told you to keep your promise and didn’t harm you. That fits a dokkaebi perfectly.”
“Ah… it just told me to keep the promise and didn’t do anything else….”
Sia nodded at Jeonghan’s words.
“That’s how dokkaebi are. At least not outright evil. Think of the old hunchback story.”
In the tale, the dokkaebi are far stronger than humans and casually do things impossible for people.
“Dokkaebi do bizarre things. They remove the hunch so cleanly, it’s beyond modern surgery.”
“And they even pay for it.”
Taeju chimed in while brewing the coffee. Sia smirked at him and went on.
“With that kind of power, they could just take the hunch. Humans are no match. Beating up or killing an old man to snag it wouldn’t be hard.”
The dokkaebi threatened, but never proposed an unfair deal.
They differ from humans in many ways, but that’s why they can’t be written off as purely evil.
“They’re pranksters, and those pranks can be plenty threatening to people, but they don’t exist just to harm us.”
Jeonghan thought for a moment before saying.
“If dokkaebi are like that, it makes sense to suspect one. But I’ve never made any promise with a dokkaebi.”
He still sounded puzzled. Sia replied confidently, as if she’d already considered it.
“Another dokkaebi trait: they’re bad at telling humans apart. Classic example—they call everyone ‘Kim Seobang.’”
“Oh! My last name’s Kim too.”
Jeonghan cracked a light joke, seeming more at ease. Sia smiled faintly.
“Yeah. Most common surname, so ‘Kim Seobang’ it is. The nickname varies by region, but they still can’t distinguish people well.”
No telling if it ties to humans forgetting dokkaebi faces, but dokkaebi don’t differentiate humans either.
“So that voice was telling me to keep someone else’s promise.”
As Jeonghan pieced it together, the mystery started unraveling, which fascinated him.
“Without the box, it’s not 100%, but the circumstances line up a lot.”
Jeonghan nodded. Hearing it out, he was convinced the thing speaking to him was indeed a dokkaebi.
“But if the dokkaebi mixed up people, how do we know whose promise it was?”
“We don’t know exactly who yet, but we can narrow it down. Since it came from the box, it’s reasonable to assume it’s one of the people connected to the box.”
Jeonghan nodded instinctively, then startled.
“Wait… so one of my friends made a promise with a dokkaebi?”
“Yes. One of your friends made some kind of promise with a dokkaebi.”
Sia gazed steadily at Jeonghan as she said it.
“Do you have a friend who seems like they’d get along with a dokkaebi?”