The Shoe Bag
This was no ordinary vengeful spirit.
To the spiritual eye it appeared as a single creature — yet condensed within it were the souls of no fewer than several dozen dogs. Animals melted away so thoroughly that not even their shapes remained, they drifted around the dog demon like heat haze.
"Manager Kang?"
Even with Lee Jin-pyeong calling out to him, Kang Hyeong-seok couldn't move.
At some point the dog demon had turned to face him, and now he was meeting its gaze head-on.
An animal spirit. Even reborn as a vengeful spirit, its instincts survived — the instant he looked away, the thing might lunge.
"What is it?"
Kim Yeong-jun was looking at Kang Hyeong-seok as though something were wrong with him, and he had just started toward the restaurant entrance when—
Tup. Squelch. Lips crushed back so far that teeth and gums stood fully exposed drew upward — and the dog demon smiled.
Its eyeballs, rolled white, jittered back and forth until they fixed on him.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip! The Spitz spirit bristled the fur along its back and barked, sharp and shrill.
And then— tok. Reflexively, Kang Hyeong-seok lifted the dish of salt.
Shwaaak! He flung it at the dog demon. Fine grains fanned out across the air, some of them striking the creature.
It was neither coarse ritual salt nor salt that had been consecrated with a blessing. But salt was still salt — it ought to carry the power to drive off the unclean. Yet the salted dog demon merely stopped moving and stood where it was. Instead, its head swung toward Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Manager Kang, what are you doing?"
Lee Jin-pyeong asked, unable to make sense of the sudden action, and Kang Hyeong-seok rose to his feet.
The moment he picked up his bag with the shaman bells and the Divine General Blade inside, the dog demon padded away beside the restaurant.
"Hoooh." The dense cloud of ghost-miasma thinned.
Only then did Kang Hyeong-seok pour out the breath he'd been holding; wiping cold sweat from his face, he shook his head.
"It's nothing. I must have seen wrong. Don't worry about it."
Spitting the excuse out, he apologized to the restaurant owner and stepped out front, then swept his eyes over the surroundings — the dog demon was nowhere to be seen.
What the hell kind of thing is that…
He had seen plenty of dog-linked spirits in his life. The Spitz attached to Lee Jin-pyeong at this very moment was one such being — but never once, not until now, had he seen anything like that dog demon.
What on earth had they done to earn a grudge from a thing like that?
Kim Yeong-chan and Kim Yeong-jun.
He turned his gaze on the two of them. Kim Yeong-chan's face had frozen stiff, as if he suspected something; Kim Yeong-jun looked utterly oblivious.
"Why? What's wrong?"
We'll talk later.
Kang Hyeong-seok swallowed the words and turned to Lee Jin-pyeong.
"Assistant Manager Lee, get home safe, then."
"You're not coming with us?"
"I'm going to see a friend nearby, then I'll head in."
He had to pull these two away from Lee Jin-pyeong, and right now.
"Ah… yes."
"It's late, so hurry straight home, Assistant Manager Lee. Don't stop off anywhere on the way."
Wearing a smile, Kang Hyeong-seok guided Lee Jin-pyeong toward the subway station as he spoke.
"I know how much all this has weighed on you. You did genuinely well today, so put it out of your mind and get some real rest. Resting is part of the job too."
Lee Jin-pyeong's face stayed as blunt as ever, but every ounce of his feeling seemed to have pooled in his eyes.
"Thank you, Manager Kang."
"Get home safe!"
Lee Jin-pyeong bowed his head, offered brief farewells to Kim Yeong-chan and Kim Yeong-jun, and set off for the subway station.
The moment he was gone, Kang Hyeong-seok walked straight up to Kim Yeong-chan and spoke.
"I saw it. Just now."
"I'm sorry — what?"
"I said I saw it. That's why I threw the salt."
Kim Yeong-jun, standing right beside them, watched with a face that asked whether this conversation had derailed somewhere. But explanations had to come later; Kang Hyeong-seok pressed on quickly.
"We need to get your son home first. I'll come along, and we'll start by finding the cause."
"Th—yes, yes. Thank you."
The air between the two men, and the way they spoke, had changed utterly from moments ago. Kim Yeong-jun's brow furrowed.
"Dad, what's with this guy?"
"Stay quiet. We're going home first."
"Come on, I finally came home after all this time — I was supposed to see my friends—"
"I said we're going home!"
Stung by his father's shout, Kim Yeong-jun turned a dazed face to Kang Hyeong-seok.
"What is this? What's going on between you two?"
"For now, do as your father says."
"Wait — wait a second. Don't tell me…"
Something seemed to come back to him; Kim Yeong-jun knitted his brow and glared at Kang Hyeong-seok with poison in his eyes.
"You're no office worker at all, are you? I thought it was weird, you suddenly telling us to come to a meat restaurant of all places — it was all planned out, wasn't it? You're the one who had Dad do all that strange stuff. Admit it!"
Kim Yeong-jun spat the accusation out like a threat.
Every word of it was true. But there was one thing he didn't know: Kim Yeong-chan's fear was no groundless worry. The thing was real — and if it were left alone, something terrible was certain to happen.
"Unbelievable. Dad! How long are you going to be jerked around by this superstition crap? Get a grip! Get a grip! Do you know how sick and tired I—!"
Crack! A clean, ringing sound, and Kim Yeong-jun's head snapped around; he stared at Kim Yeong-chan, unwilling to believe it.
"D—Dad?"
"You little bastard! He came all this way to help you — and that's the best you can say?!"
Kim Yeong-jun's eyes wavered, something catching in his throat, his chin quivering.
"Sh—! Seriously! It's all superstition! Get a grip, please! Pleeease!"
He shrieked loud enough to make passersby flinch. Even the restaurant owner came bolting out in alarm, and Kim Yeong-chan, apologetic, waved him back inside.
Only after the owner had confirmed it was a father-and-son quarrel and withdrawn, sending them a worried glance, did—
"Mr. Kim Yeong-jun."
Kang Hyeong-seok let a slow breath out through his nose and spoke, eyes on him.
"I owe you an apology — for the slap you took because of me."
"…What?"
Kim Yeong-jun gave him a look of sheer incredulity, one bigger than the slap itself had earned. Kang Hyeong-seok continued in a low voice.
"Your father is desperate. I know he hates shamans, but there's no time for any of that right now."
Passersby stole glances at them and went on their way; a crowd got off at the bus stop nearby.
An utterly ordinary scene in front of an apartment complex. Into it, Kim Yeong-jun forced words that belonged nowhere near ordinary life, lips trembling.
"What kind of con is this shaman bastard running."
"Hey!"
A look alone was enough to quiet Kim Yeong-chan's shout. Kang Hyeong-seok turned his gaze to Kim Yeong-jun — and nodded, as though he understood.
"You must have resented it bitterly, your father going off to the shrine houses. It started back when you were in elementary school, didn't it?"
"What…?"
Kim Yeong-jun's shoulders flinched hard enough to see; he looked at his father, appalled. But Kim Yeong-chan had never told him a word of it, so he could only stand there, thrown.
"There was a time your father hid a talisman where you'd find it, wasn't there? Without ever saying a thing. That's why your friends teased you, too."
"Wh—what? H—how do you know that?"
Kang Hyeong-seok held his tongue for a beat, then opened his mouth.
"The shoe bag."
At those offhand words, the blood drained from Kim Yeong-jun's face.
And then Kang Hyeong-seok raised his hand. Empty — nothing in it at all. But memories can be shared.
And so Kim Yeong-jun felt it: a shoe bag, hanging from Kang Hyeong-seok's curled fingers.
"What's this? Hold on — Yeong-jun, there's something weird in your bag."
"Stop…"
In front of the restaurant where even breathing felt impossible, Kang Hyeong-seok kept his eyes on Kim Yeong-jun and spoke on.
"What is it? What is this? I don't know. It came out of Yeong-jun's shoe bag."
"Please…"
It was a memory no one but the one who lived it could ever have known — a memory even Kim Yeong-chan didn't possess. The one Kim Yeong-jun most wanted buried, the very reason he had come to hate shamans, unknown to every shaman he had ever seen.
Rustle. As Kang Hyeong-seok's fingers moved, a sound that should have been impossible to hear seemed to sweep past their ears.
"A talisman."
Kim Yeong-jun nearly crumpled where he stood.
Children have a cruel streak; the smallest trigger can tip into ostracism. For Kim Yeong-jun, that trigger had been the talisman his father hid in his shoe bag.
"Wh—who are you? D—Dad, what the hell is this guy?"
Kim Yeong-chan's face said his voice was jammed shut too — there was even fear in it. Kang Hyeong-seok alone remained perfectly calm.
"I only took a brief look. I'm sorry if it startled you."
The sincerity in his voice was genuine. Kang Hyeong-seok lowered his hand, watching Kim Yeong-jun.
"We're out of time. We have to go."
Kim Yeong-jun poured out a low groan, and Kang Hyeong-seok pointed toward the apartment complex.
They had to go. Now.
Kim Yeong-chan understood. Heaving breaths as though he'd swallowed something scalding, he began to walk.
Beep beep beep beep. Tiruruk! Kim Yeong-chan tapped the passcode into the digital lock and opened the door.
It was the home of a typical middle-aged man living alone. The place wasn't small, but the tidying had clearly lost the battle, and the ventilation was worse — a damp, stale stench hung thick in the air. It smelled of the instant ramyeon he'd almost certainly boiled the night before, which said everything.
Clack. Kim Yeong-chan closed the door and dropped his gaze, embarrassed; Kang Hyeong-seok murmured his apologies and stepped inside.
"Do you sense anything?"
Instead of answering Kim Yeong-chan's question, Kang Hyeong-seok set his bag down. Then, under the curious gazes of father and son, he drew the zipper open.
Wararang. Two sacred implements: the shaman bells, and the Divine General Blade.
The moment they came out, Kim Yeong-jun shrank back a step in horror, and Kim Yeong-chan's lips pressed into a hard line.
So he really is a shaman.
Not a fake — a genuine one. The man Kim Yeong-chan had spent his whole life praying to meet, just once, now stood there with sacred armaments in hand: Kang Hyeong-seok.
"It's night, so I will keep this quiet — but the two of you must stay silent as well."
Caught in Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze, the two nodded before they knew it.
Warang. The shaman bells rang out at once.
Standing in the living room — the very center of the house — Kang Hyeong-seok rang the bells toward the front entry while the hand holding the Divine General Blade moved in small, measured strokes.
"Heaven and Earth, be made clear and bright —
the heaven and the earth, the great cosmos — unclean.
The yin and the yang — unclean.
The sun, the moon, the stars — unclean.
The White Tiger of the Upper Gate — unclean.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter, the four seasons — unclean.
Day and night — unclean.
The threefold unclean, the fourfold unclean."
⟨ The Purification Scripture ⟩
Reciting the Purification Scripture served to drive out whatever energy might still be lingering inside this house. At the same time, he had to sweep away the turbid residue — to seize the true shape of the dog demon entangled with this family, and to learn why it had marked this household. Why, of all people, Kim Yeong-jun.
"The coming and going of men and women — unclean.
The Three Plagues that ride the earth — unclean.
Wandering shades and striking shades, the prowling imps — unclean.
Ghosts of dead women, the things in dark waters — unclean.
The five directions and their five rulers — unclean."
Warang! Warang! Warang! Warang! The scripture rose to a fever pitch, and the shaman bells peeled the energy away, strand by strand.
Suffocating under it, the two subjects of the rite — father and son — squeezed their eyes shut; Kim Yeong-chan above all was gulping for breath through his mouth.
"Within the village and without — unclean.
In the east, the Azure Ruler — unclean.
In the south, the Crimson Ruler — unclean.
In the west, the White Ruler — unclean."
Kang Hyeong-seok's recitation began to slow. The mistlike uncleanness was being washed away — and what had been invisible was starting to surface.
"…Boss."
"Y—yes?"
"Boss, how did your parents pass away?"
"…I'm sorry — what?"
His body still facing the front entry, Kang Hyeong-seok turned his head to look at Kim Yeong-chan.
"Were dogs involved in their deaths as well?"
Kim Yeong-chan's face went dead white.
"H—how could you know that?"
Kang Hyeong-seok pointed the Divine General Blade at the center of the living room.
To the father and son, nothing was there. But to Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes, it was perfectly clear.
Grrrrrr! Arf! Arf! Arf! Arf!
An old woman was imitating a dog — her eyeballs rolled bone-white, just like the dog demon he had seen outside the restaurant.
Trousers fouled with her own waste, teeth bared, she crawled on all fours back and forth across the floor.
She was Kim Yeong-chan's mother.