The 43rd Test of the Shaman Father on the Island
With the broadcast camera rolling, more equipment began to be brought in and reinforced around him.
“This is a low-frequency vibrator and a brain-wave monitor.”
“......?”
“If we use these devices, will they interfere with your ability to see spirits?”
“Not at all.”
Kang-to cut him off at once.
In the meantime, two inspectors had gone inside to examine the room.
“We’re measuring for blue mold. There are many accounts of people seeing spirits in places rich in ergot fungus and other blue molds.”
As Anderson explained, the inspectors reported that everything was in order.
Then they approached Kang-to and attached a series of sensors to him. It felt almost like undergoing a full-scale brain-wave and electrocardiogram examination at the same time.
“Indoor temperature is twenty-two degrees Celsius. Humidity, fifty percent.”
Room data began appearing on the screen. The atmosphere was thick with the feel of a scientific test.
When the preparations were complete, the materials were laid out on the table.
[Forty-odd remains lined up in a row, ten black-and-white portraits of individuals, and keepsakes such as a notebook, a wallet, photographs, and a pistol.]
It was all the equipment needed to draw a line through Kang-to’s fate.
“Chairwoman Song.”
Once Kang-to was ready, Mitchell on the screen began to speak.
“Mitchell.”
Song Ji-na, standing behind Kang-to, answered the greeting.
“We’ve brought in an extraordinary man.”
“I hope I can still hear that at the very end.”
“Then let’s move to the other room.”
“Understood.”
Song Ji-na ended the conversation there.
“Beopsa Kang-to.”
Song Ji-na looked at him.
“Don’t worry about me.”
“There’s something else I should tell you.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll be watching live from the screen set up outside too.”
“Ah...”
“There’s someone else as well.”
“......?”
“Chairman Lee came.”
“What?”
“He is the one involved, isn’t he?”
“......”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, we can send him away.”
“No.”
Kang-to drew a line there.
“Fighting.”
Song Ji-na held out her hand. Like she did with Sol-bi, she gave him a light high-five.
Smack.
Then she left the test room.
His biological father.
He had come to watch.
With that single remark, Kang-to’s fighting spirit flared bright and hot.
“Beopsa Kang-to.”
Mitchell’s voice continued from the screen, this time in English.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you speak English.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve heard the test rules, I assume?”
“Yes.”
“We thought it would be best to show you the actual remains, but since you said that wasn’t necessary...”
“That’s right.”
“As Anderson explained, the materials on the table are the remains of British soldiers who died in the Korean War. So, although we are using photographs, we’ll begin after observing a moment of silence.”
“Of course.”
“The remains photographs came from a mass burial, so they’ve been numbered. There are twenty in all, and all you need to do is match each number with the corresponding portrait.”
“......”
“You can use the keepsake photos for reference.”
“Yes...”
“How much time would you like?”
“Ten minutes will be enough.”
“Did you just say ten minutes?”
“Yes, ten minutes.”
Kang-to drove the point home.
On the screen, Mitchell and the Monorama staff could be seen tilting their heads in confusion.
It was far too short a time. But that was their perspective. For Kang-to... ten minutes really would be enough. He wasn’t trying to show off by rushing them. This wasn’t an outdoor scene but photographs. There were fewer variables to interfere with him. That was why he didn’t need much time.
“Very well. We’ll set the timer for ten minutes. However, there is one condition attached to this mission: once you make a selection, you cannot reverse it. So please judge carefully.”
“Understood.”
“Then we’ll begin. Anderson.”
At Mitchell’s call, Anderson started the timer.
“Beginning now.”
With Anderson’s call, the timer began to run.
It made no sound. That was due to the special equipment.
The room’s air had been purified, the ordinary vibration maintained, and even the slightest condition that might affect the brain had been excluded.
Spirits.
They were souls.
Kang-to stared at the photographs of the remains. The instant his gaze entered them, his spiritual resonance changed in an instant.
It was divine possession. The Monorama staff watching live felt their own gaze shift as well, all because of the frequency.
“How much is it?”
When Mitchell asked,
“Just a moment.”
Team leader Harris’s eyes stayed fixed on the frequency as well.
[18.9 Hz]
The low-frequency vibration had stopped there.
“Look at Anderson.”
Harris pointed to the local bureau director, Anderson, who was watching on-site.
“Huh?”
Mitchell’s gaze wavered. He was taut with tension.
When the camera closed in, sweat showed on his forehead. His skin had tightened so much that gooseflesh had broken out across it. He was chilled to the bone.
But still—
“The set temperature and humidity haven’t changed.”
Harris could not take his eyes off the screen. The reason for the goosebumps was simple enough: fear.
When a human being enters a state of extreme tension, the tiny muscles beneath the skin contract as part of the body’s preparation to raise its temperature.
It was the same mechanism that makes a hedgehog bristle its spines. In other words, Anderson was under tremendous strain.
“The temporal lobe is being stimulated.”
This time it was Ian beside Harris. In his sixties, he was a living witness to Monorama’s history and a veteran acknowledged by all.
He, too, began to focus. He had known countless mediums and psychics. He had even once filmed a man who claimed to be Dracula’s incarnation, surviving on blood alone.
Most of them showed responses in the temporal lobe.
The temporal lobe governed sight and hearing. From a neuroscientific perspective, it made sense to watch the temporal lobe. Electrical seizures there occurred frequently between two and four in the morning. Moreover, many of the experiences people called supernatural clustered in that time window.
The same applied to low-frequency vibration. People exposed to it allegedly saw ghosts. 18.9 Hz was that vibration. Anything below 20 Hz could not be heard by human ears, yet it could alter intuition and pull a person toward the world of ghosts.
This also lined up with shamanic thought. Low-level spirits projected themselves into human consciousness through that wavelength. Higher-level ones materialized themselves by externalizing the qi around them. That was why the ghosts people saw so often lacked a crisp, solid form.
Kang-to was watching a small, faint ball of light. A soul flame. Since there were too many remains in a single photograph, he began with the soul flames themselves.
Hoo.
In the meantime, Kang-to had moved past both the low-frequency vibration and the temporal-lobe disturbance. He had achieved a perfect resonance with the Supreme Heavenly God, reaching such immeasurable depths that he transcended scientific measurement altogether.
“Mitchell.”
Harris pointed at the meter.
“......”
Mitchell’s expression stiffened completely. The low-frequency reading had vanished, and the temporal-lobe response had returned to normal.
But Anderson had not. His gooseflesh surged to the limit. Trapped in a fear that had gone too far to turn back, he clenched his fists and dragged in shallow breaths.
Then, in that instant—
Blue veins seemed to rise in Anderson’s eyes.
“Zoom in on Anderson’s eyes.”
At Harris’s command, the on-site camera complied.
“Hah.”
A sigh escaped the mouth of the battle-hardened veteran Ian. The eyeballs were twitching. That meant he was experiencing sheer, desperate terror.
Because of the spirits.
Kang-to’s possession was feeding the soul flames. The faint lights were beginning to take shape.
“Kevin.”
“Nicholas.”
“Charles.”
It was April, and the men were gathered on a battlefield ridge, encouraging one another.
Soldiers who had survived the barrage of the Chinese army had assembled at the ridge of Maeong-ri. Even after orders to retreat had been given, they were the heroes of a glorious last stand, willing to fight the enemy to the end. They were preparing one final assault to break through the layers of encirclement closing around them.
Kevin pulled out a notebook. On it, he wrote the morning of April 25, then added one more line.
[I hope I can go home.]
Nicholas was looking at a family photograph. In it, his wife Anne was holding their four-year-old daughter. He hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days.
And yet the moment he looked at that picture, the exhaustion and hunger faded away.
I love you.
Nicholas’s final act was to kiss the family photograph.
Captain Charles checked the bullets left in his pistol—three rounds remaining. The others in the unit were nearly out of ammunition as well.
If things went on like this, annihilation was inevitable. So they were on the verge of making one final breakout attempt.
Morning Calm.
When Charles lifted his head, a calm morning light was breaking over them.
All troops... advance...
Charles’s command fell. It was an escape operation aimed at breaking through the weakest ring of the encirclement. The British soldiers charged heroically into the trap.
Blood redder than the morning glow sprayed in every direction. The spirits of the fallen soldiers followed behind the comrades still fighting on, as if refusing to leave them. Even after death, they still wanted to go home. That was human nature.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
The gunfire and smoke began to recede.
Total survivors: sixty-seven.
That was the number of British soldiers who broke through the encirclement. Heartbreakingly, Kevin, Nicholas, and Captain Charles were not among them.
Kevin was hit by a mortar round at the vanguard, Nicholas was cut down by enemy gunfire just before he could escape the encirclement, and Charles was shot while running to save Nicholas.
“Captain.”
“We go together.”
When Nicholas held out his hand, Charles took it. At that warmth, Nicholas’s eyes closed. It wasn’t home, but the fact that they could go together was comfort enough.
And so the two of them drew their last breaths. The forty-odd remains that had fallen as such heartbreaking corpses—when Kang-to sorted their spirits, he found thirty-three Chinese soldiers and ten British remains.
Those ten spirits stood before Kang-to.
Kang-to rose from his seat and saluted them first. No one watching live in Britain, nor Anderson standing nearby, could see them—but Kang-to could. The salute was solemn, and sublime.
After that, he lined up the photographs according to rank. Spirits did not need ranks, but it was a mark of respect for men who had perished in a foreign land as soldiers.
Next came the names. Starting with Charles, he wrote them down one by one. His expression had moved beyond telepathy and into a state of egolessness. The aura rising from Kang-to’s body was the embodiment of reverence and grandeur.
In the meantime, the ten-minute timer stopped.
“You have exceeded the allotted time.”
Harris looked at Mitchell.
“Wait.”
Mitchell held him back. The camera zoomed in on Kang-to, and one by one, the names began to appear.
“......?”
In an instant, Harris recoiled.
“Ian, did we hand over the casualty list?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
Harris opened the tablet screen. The comparison list of remains they had brought up appeared there.
“Doug, Paul, Luke, Victor, Stuart, Eric, Delroy, Kevin, Nicholas... and...”
As Harris traced down the list of remains, he went slack-jawed at the final name Kang-to had written.
“Captain Charles...”
Harris shot to his feet, unable to breathe properly.
Knowing nothing of this, Kang-to finished matching the remains with the list and had even set the keepsakes in order. Only after that did he glance at the clock.
Plop.
As a cleansing tear fell from Kang-to’s eye, the lights in the verification room brightened.
“Anderson.”
Kang-to called to Anderson, who was still observing. Anderson had yet to recover from his tension.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes...”
Only then did Anderson shake off the chills and rise. Still looking dazed, he stared at the camera.
He had been terrified, but he remembered one thing clearly: ten minutes had passed. So he waited for headquarters’ decision.
“Beopsa Kang-to.”
Mitchell’s voice came through.
“Yes.”
“First, the agreed ten minutes have passed.”
“I see.”
Kang-to replied. He had forgotten time in the majesty and solemnity of the spirits’ final stand.
“Furthermore, you wrote names that were not part of the option set. Do you believe those names are correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you do that, even though it violated the option?”
“Because the sacrifice of those remains was so noble.”
“Even though that could have caused the verification to be rejected?”
“There were ten sets of remains. They died for the Republic of Korea. I could not fail to treat them with the respect they deserved.”
“Are you certain the names you matched are correct?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Then we’ll convey our decision.”
Mitchell gave Harris a look. Harris was the team leader for Monorama, so it was his call.
“Hoo.”
After forcing his ragged breathing under control, Harris held up the remains list to the camera and shouted, “This is completely insane. He got the remains matching right, and even the names—every single one, without a single spelling error. Stay right there. We’re going to come up with a plan and fly out as fast as we can.”
Clap, clap, clap.
Then came their standing ovation.
It was a thunderous applause for Kang-to’s divine presence and uncanny gifts. It went on and on, refusing to fade.