The English Officer the Island Village Shaman Dad Was Missing
Wait.
Kang-to’s spiritual voice flew out toward the souls. They were already gone—only traces left behind after their ascent. If not for the resonance of the Supreme Heavenly Spirit, even Kang-to would not have been able to see them.
Wait.
Families are waiting for you.
Think of those families.
He chanted the spiritual voice again and followed the lingering traces of the souls. One by one, they scattered on the wind. Their shapes faded away around the rocks.
“Ugh.”
Kang-to clutched at his face and collapsed. He had pushed himself too hard, and all the strength had drained out of him.
“Beopsa-nim!”
The documentary crew rushed over and supported him.
“Leave me be,” Kang-to muttered.
“Back up,” Harris said as he stepped forward. He knew Kang-to now. He was human, yes, but he possessed the ability to communicate with the gods. He couldn’t be treated like an ordinary man.
“The meter?” Harris turned to the equipment man.
“Huh? It’s working properly now.”
“And the frequency?”
“It’s returning to normal. The stimulation in the temporal lobe is fading too.”
“......?”
Everyone’s breathing grew careful, as though they had stepped into the borderland of the gods.
“Hoo.”
With a deep breath, Kang-to pushed himself upright.
“Everyone, stand back. This is where the remains are buried.”
At his warning, the others retreated a few steps.
“Beopsa-nim?”
Excitement flickered across Harris’s face.
“There are eleven in all. It looks like a rock rolled down and sealed the pit. That must be why the pine roots had lifted a little.”
“British soldiers?”
“It seems so.”
“Wow.”
“Team leader.”
“Wooooow.”
Harris, unable to contain himself, punched the air. Anyone else would have waited for verification before getting this excited. But this was Kang-to, so he didn’t harbor the slightest doubt.
“Camera position,” Harris said, suddenly all business.
“Verification begins.”
No sooner had the camera been set than the order came down from Team Leader Harris. The excavation team began detailed work centered on the area Kang-to had indicated.
“Be careful. The soil has a clay-like composition, so there may be decayed remains.”
Samson, who had finished analyzing the nearby soil, warned them. Beside him, Ailee had already finished preparing for sample extraction.
Everyone held their breath. Even the wind around them seemed to do the same.
“It’s coming out.”
About thirty minutes later, the first recovery came to light: remains tangled in pine roots.
When the rusted steel helmet was lifted away, a skull and hair were revealed. They brushed away the earth and bits of stone layer by layer, carefully restoring the remains. When Samson handed them over to Kang-to, he set them reverently on white paper and entered into resonance. The camera and analysis equipment focused on him.
Who was it?
Who was the owner of these remains, sleeping dead on a battlefield in a foreign land?
As he increased the resonance of the body spirit, a faint spark of soul-fire rose from the decayed bones.
He strengthened that soul-fire with the body spirit’s power, and it became a transparent spirit. It would not remain long. The remains had already been sent on.
[Winston Zugg, Corporal]
“Waaah!”
As Kang-to delivered the gongsu, Lisa, who had been preparing the cross-check, let out a cheer. He was one of the dead from Hook Ridge. His name had not been disclosed to Kang-to in advance.
Now it was Ailee’s turn, the master of genetic analysis.
Hair, molar teeth, and femur bone were collected and put through a preliminary test.
Ailee’s DNA analyzer was the latest and most powerful model on the market. It could work with microscopic samples, which made it perfect for a situation like this.
From that point on, the team’s attention was fixed on Ailee’s results.
While everyone held their breath, Dr. Ailee came down to camp with the good news.
“It matches.”
The lineage DNA brought from Britain matched exactly.
“Yes!”
Everyone embraced and shared in the emotion.
The excavation team, emboldened, picked up speed. Stripping away topsoil, fallen leaves, and sediment, they went about a meter deeper before a mass of skulls was exposed.
“......”
The excavation team stood there, stunned. It was the condition of the remains. They had been found with their backs turned to one another, or kneeling with their hands bound and fingers intertwined. Since their faces were toward the ground, they had clearly been shot while kneeling.
“It looks like they were sprayed with gunfire at point-blank range.”
Samson’s explanation, after confirming bullet wounds in the back of the skull and around the shoulders, was grim in its own way.
As if to support the analysis, dozens of guns and shell casings were also recovered. The prisoners had been shoved into the pit and sprayed with bullets.
Kang-to learned the rest through gongsu.
British prisoners massacred in the pit. As the shelling continued, the ridge was shaved away and soil slid down. A weakened section of ground gave way, and a rock rolled down. It came to a stop here when it caught on a large pine tree.
It had, by sheer chance, sealed the pit, which was why no one afterward—neither herb gatherers nor wild greens foragers—ever noticed it. Fallen leaves and soil had layered over every gap, sealing it shut.
“Everyone.”
After separating the personal effects, Kang-to stood before the documentary crew.
“Dr. Samson would like to experience the spirits of the remains. If anyone would like to try as well, come forward.”
At Kang-to’s words, Harris and Lisa volunteered. He placed the keepsakes in their hands and entered resonance.
“Focus,” Kang-to said.
The moment he descended into spirit possession, the three participants also met the souls. The sensors attached to their bodies moved in step with Kang-to’s.
“......?”
The equipment team watching this had already gone pale.
“Hah.”
When the spirit experience ended, the three of them were speechless. It felt as though they had visited another dimension. Kang-to even proved that much.
“Write down the name of the spirit you saw,” he said.
At his instruction, the equipment team handed out paper. The names written by the three participants were all different. The one thing they had in common was that all three were on the list of war dead secured by the documentary team.
“Match.”
That test passed too. The results matched the remains-and-effects combinations Lisa had analyzed with perfect accuracy.
“......”
Faced with Kang-to’s uncanny power, everyone could do nothing but stare blankly.
The excavation continued for four days. Even that was fast, thanks to Kang-to. It was possible because he was distinguishing the remains through the spirits.
Eleven British sets of remains.
They matched exactly. That was thanks to Ailee’s dogged effort.
From that point on, the police cooperated. In addition to preserving the site in case of any unforeseen issues, they also blocked public access.
The final eleventh set of remains belonged to an eighteen-year-old private.
He had kept a photograph of his sweetheart tucked in the breast pocket of his uniform. Perhaps even in death he had been thinking of her, because the woman’s picture remained relatively clear.
“That’s odd. It’s as if they’d all been waiting for Beopsa-nim to identify them,” Lisa said as she brushed the dirt from the photograph.
The next day, when Samson received the full identification of the remains, his smile turned slightly lonely. They had recovered eleven bodies—but, as he had half hoped, Douglas was not among them.
Kang-to pretended not to notice and let it pass. He had known already. He had known Douglas was not among those remains.
“Beopsa-nim.”
In the busy morning bustle of the documentary crew, Team Leader Jin called out to Kang-to.
“We have a visitor.”
“A visitor?”
“You should come out.”
A visitor.
No one would come all the way out here for no reason.
“......?”
The moment Kang-to stepped into the yard, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Standing before a sedan were three people: Song Ji-na and the Lee father and son.
“Beopsa Kang-to.” Song Ji-na beamed.
“What brings you here...?”
“What do you mean, what brings us? Our grandson got certified by the BBC, so we came running.”
“What?”
Kang-to turned to Chairman Lee.
“We got word from your side to Mother. They said you excavated British remains through your shamanic gongsu. And not just one or two—they say there were eleven of them?”
“......”
“Congratulations.”
Hyung-wook held out his hand. Kang-to took it.
“Impressive. And from the BBC documentary, no less?”
“Thank you.”
It was a straightforward remark, so he accepted it in kind. Unlike their first meeting, there was no trace of sharpness in him.
“I apologize for before. I came on a bit strong, didn’t I?”
“That’s all in the past.”
“That unsolved twin kidnapping case from a few days ago—that was your doing too, wasn’t it?”
“Yes...”
“Father, thank you. You gave me a younger brother with supernatural powers.”
Hyung-wook turned to Chairman Lee.
“I told Chairman Lee, and he said we should come right away. So I pretended not to notice and dragged them along.”
Song Ji-na joined the conversation.
“The lodging must be a little inconvenient. Do you need anything?” Chairman Lee asked.
“Since we’re excavating remains, inconvenience is the most convenient thing there is.”
“Okay. That was shortsighted of me.”
Chairman Lee understood him. British soldiers who had burned away as spirits in a foreign land—on such a solemn site, luxury accommodations would have been out of place.
“Well, now that we’ve seen Kang-to, let’s head back. No need to get in the way for nothing,” Song Ji-na said, bringing things to a close.
Kang-to watched the sedan recede for a long, long time.
Family.
The word felt a little more real now. It was because he had caught, however faintly, the scent of the father he had imagined.
“Beopsa-nim.”
When he went back into the pension, Harris, who had been discussing things with the team members, approached Kang-to.
“We’ve reached our conclusion.”
“Pardon?”
“Verification complete.”
“What?”
“Please be informed that the scientific proof of your shamanic practice has passed unanimously by our verification team.”
Clap, clap, clap.
Starting with Samson and Ailee, a vigorous round of applause broke out. The camera crew and excavation team joined in just as warmly. At last, it was the BBC documentary team’s official recognition.
The work on the island, the preliminary showdown at the pension, the remains of the child, the Korean soldiers, the Chinese soldiers, and now the British remains they had uncovered in the end—if anyone objected to all that, the problem lay with science, not shamanism.
Above all, the fear-inducing low-frequency range and temporal lobe stimulation had come through clearly, and the data wasn’t Kang-to’s alone. Even the spirit experiences of the team members had been a success.
While the documentary crew packed up, Kang-to climbed to the ridge. From the highest point, he looked out over the whole place. They said even deserts had waves, and ridges did too. That was why they formed peaks, large and small. Suddenly, that thought overlapped with Chiluijae.
The second hill.
At Chiluijae, it granted wishes. Which hill here played that role? He intended to call Douglas’s spirit one last time from there.
On a spring day warm with sunlight, yellow blossoms shimmered between the second and third hills.
Kang-to walked down the slope. It was Adonis amurensis. It had pushed up through the lingering snow in the shade. Adonis amurensis was the herald of spring, and before long the whole ridge seemed as though it would be washed in fresh green.
Looking at the yellow flowers, he took out Douglas’s photograph.
Captain Douglas.
An officer who had warmly taken in his green recruits like chicks beneath his wings. The battlefield was no nightclub. So he trained them harshly.
But in one corner of his heart, he was full of affection for his rookies and soldiers. Perhaps he was, quite simply, the very image of the Wellington Regiment that Britain was proud of.
“Beopsa-nim.”
Team Leader Jin came down along the ridge.
“Is it a spirit?”
“No. I just found some late-blooming Adonis amurensis...”
Kang-to pointed to the yellow flower.
“Ah, so that’s Adonis amurensis? Living on an island must mean you know your plants too.”
“There’s only one flower that pushes up through the ice.”
“You’re like that too, Beopsa-nim. You brought those remains out into the world.”
“Is that so?”
“About the twin kidnapping case—Deputy Commissioner Woo at Seoul Metropolitan Police was briefed. He said that alone was enough to earn your keep and told us to help you hard.”
“Earn my keep? Those kids wouldn’t have been found without you, Team Leader.”
“And yet... you look a little off.”
“Do I?”
“The BBC documentary crew is leaving in high spirits after getting their result, but the one person at the center of it—the Beopsa-nim—isn’t... You’re not uncomfortable, are you?”
“Your instincts are sharp, like a detective’s.”
“So I was right?”
“It’s because of the letter Dr. Samson showed me.”
“The letter?”
“It was from the family looking for the captain who died here. I was hoping maybe one of the eleven would turn out to be him...”
“Beopsa-nim.”
“Yes?”
“You did more than enough. There’s no guarantee that every British soldier who fought in the battle at Hook Ridge is buried here.”
“Still...”
“Let’s go. Looks like the British team’s finished packing up too.”
Team Leader Jin pointed toward the pension.
“You go on ahead. I’ll catch up in a bit.”
He answered quietly and looked back at the photograph.
[Captain Douglas]
One last time.
Looking at the photo, he summoned the spirit. A tiny spark of soul-fire rose up. Even that was faint, so he had to concentrate, and then concentrate again.
Something else entered his focused vision. A white animal spirit shimmered beside the Adonis amurensis. A water deer. Had it come to see spring flowers too?
No, that wasn’t it. The water deer was interested in Douglas’s soul-fire. In an instant, the languid, dim spark swelled a little brighter.
The white spirit of the water deer watched, then moved along the slope. It seemed to drift farther away, then looked back at Kang-to.
Come here.
Hurry.
It seemed to be saying that.
Douglas’s spirit followed the water deer.
“Beopsa-nim?”
Team Leader Jin called out, but Kang-to couldn’t hear him.
The water deer’s white spirit stopped before a cliff facing Sami-cheon. At that moment, Douglas’s spirit brightened softly.
“......?”
Kang-to’s hair stood on end. That meant... that meant Douglas’s remains might be nearby.
The guess proved right. Other spirits appeared. They gathered around Douglas’s spirit. There were four in all—pale, faint, but unmistakably British soldiers.
My God.
With Kang-to’s gasp, the white spirit of the water deer vanished.
Fssshh.
He quickly began clearing the slope. Between the sliding stones and earth, the traces of a trench appeared. When he pulled away a few rotten wooden planks,
“......!”
Kang-to’s breath caught in his throat. There it was—the same color as the decaying timber, indistinguishable at first glance from the rotting planks. It was no different from the remains that had been found beside the pine tree.
And then...
Before the dizzying Kang-to, the spirit of Captain Douglas gently settled atop the recovered remains.