It's a Dragon!
Kang Hyeong-seok waited for Lee Nak-yul's response—or, more precisely, for the Imoogi's response. He did not yet know what choice she would make. But he did not believe she would choose wrongly.
Plop. Plop.
Water droplets clinging to the cavern ceiling fell into the lake, scattering dizzying ripples across its surface. And when those ripples slowly stilled and faded away, Lee Nak-yul finally spoke.
"...I have committed so many sins."
"I know."
She had taken life. That was the sin Lee Nak-yul could never wash clean.
"You have suffered. Sins can be forgiven through repentance, and through action."
Lee Nak-yul would have to pile up good deeds in their place. So very, very many of them. For so very, very long.
"Please—do not let despair devour you."
Lee Nak-yul's eyes drifted to the bones behind Kang Hyeong-seok. Then to the eggshells. Then back to him.
"Can I be forgiven?"
"If that is what you wish."
"Then... can I forgive?"
It had been humans who destroyed the Imoogi's family. And as hard as it was to be forgiven, forgiving was harder still. For an Imoogi to become a dragon was like a human becoming a Buddha—possible only when the heart was set free and its shackles cast off. Could she truly do it? Her eyes were asking.
"It is possible—if you can forgive."
The answer rang through Lee Nak-yul like a deep tolling bell. She squeezed her eyes shut, and after a long moment gave a heavy nod.
"I will entrust your family's funerals to the villagers. I will see to it that they pray for you in earnest—so please, forgive them in return."
Lee Nak-yul's face crumpled, and tears spilled from her tightly sealed eyes. That was her answer. Lee Nak-yul had made up her mind.
"Let us go. To the sea. To the place where you belong."
She buried her face in her palms and wept, her sobs strangled low.
Kang Hyeong-seok gathered the bones and the eggshells into the clothes he had shed and bound them up with care. Then, carrying only his ritual implements, he walked on ahead to the lakeshore. The lantern left behind cast a faint glow over Lee Nak-yul as she wept.
Rrrip! Swish—rrrip! Kim Jae-sik was unspooling rolls of toilet paper. Bewildered but obedient, the youth association president and the village chief passed them out to the villagers one by one. The people seated in the village hall were covering their eyes with towels torn into long strips, or with wads of unspooled toilet paper.
"We're the only ones left now," the village chief said, and Kim Jae-sik's hands went still mid-unroll as his gaze slid past the window.
The windows had been plastered over with newspaper and toilet paper, but fine slivers of gap remained where the covering fell short.
"Now we cover our own eyes."
"Wh-what on earth is all this for, sir?"
Kim Jae-sik moved his gaze from the youth association president to the people of the village.
"The Imoogi is about to ascend to heaven."
"P-pardon?"
Several villagers flinched hard at the shoulders, and the youth association president cried out in alarm.
"You must not look. Not under any circumstances. If even one of you sets eyes on the Imoogi, the calamity will never end!"
There was one thing Kim Jae-sik deliberately left unsaid. If even a single person glimpsed the Imoogi and called it a snake, everything would come to nothing. The Imoogi would fail to become a dragon. And she would be left with a han all over again—the bitter regret of having failed, once more, to become one.
"Hold firm, everyone! You must not open your eyes! And above all, you must not look outside!"
"Haah..."
The old man everyone called Mr. Kim exhaled a breath thick with dread. Kim Jae-sik gave him a troubled look, tore off more toilet paper, handed it to the chief and the youth association president, and at last covered his own eyes as well. More than anything, he was afraid that even the smallest problem might befall Kang Hyeong-seok.
KRA-KA-BOOOM!
Lightning split and thunder rolled over the sea, and Kang Hyeong-seok stood watching it all with the Sacred Shaman Bells in one hand and the Sinjangkal in the other. The typhoon had drawn very close.
Shaaaahhh—! The rain fell in sheets so thick he could scarcely see a hand's length ahead. Bare-chested, he felt every falling drop sting where it struck, and it took effort just to keep his eyes open. And still Kang Hyeong-seok stared out at the sea, drawing breath after breath until his chest heaved.
Lee Nak-yul had to become a dragon. He had to help her do it.
Wra-ra-ra-rang! The Sacred Shaman Bells rang out, clearer and louder than he had ever heard them. The hour was creeping past 11:30 at night. Ja-si—the hour of the Rat. The sacred hour, when spiritual energy swelled to its strongest; the boundary where yin and yang crossed paths, where the darkness of night met the growing light of dawn. A prayer offered now carried that much greater power.
Wra-ra-ra-rang!
"The Supreme Lord Lao proclaims the Scripture of the Numinous Sovereign's Wondrous Truth. Supreme is the Great Dao of the Primal Ultimate; Supreme are the Thirty-Six Venerated Canons."
All divine spirits of heaven above and earth below—
"The Supreme Lord Lao, the Jade Emperor Sovereign, the Venerable God Houtu, the Great Emperor of Purple Tenuity of the Northern Pole, the Purple Tenuity Sovereign Who Presides over Life."
Grant us your aid.
"Lord of the Left Assistants, Lord Dokgang, Lord of the Three Bureaus, Lord of the Four Saints, Lord Who Dissolves Calamity, Lord Who Rescues from Suffering, Guardian Lord of the Left, Guardian Lord of the Right."
Now a sinner deep in sin begs forgiveness, forgives those who wounded her, and seeks to ascend to heaven.
"Lord Wolbae, Lord Bommyeong, Lord of the Nine Luminaries, Lord of the Sun, Lord of the Moon, Lord of the Wood Star, Lord of the Fire Star, Lord of the Earth Star."
Pave the road before her.
"Lord of the Metal Star, Lord of the Water Star, Lord Rahu, Lord Ketu, Lord of the Five Dippers, Lord of the Eastern Dipper, Lord of the Western Dipper, Lord of the Southern Dipper."
Help bring an end to the calamity that has swept over this village.
"Lord of the Northern Dipper, Lord of the Central Dipper, Lord of the Southern Dipper's Six Offices, Lord of the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper, Lord of the Twenty-Eight Mansions."
This I pray.
"Twelve Lords of the Primal Stars, Lords of the Ten Directions, Lords of the Natal Stars—in heaven, the Numinous Duke of Responsive Unity; beneath the earth, the Seventy-Two Spirits."
Answer this prayer, and open the gates of heaven.
That was when it happened.
SHWOOOSH—! The sea, drowned in darkness, churned and heaved. Kang Hyeong-seok shook the bells hard and watched the water boil. WHOOOOM—! A savage wind came screaming in, driving the rain sideways and howling through his ears. It blew so fiercely that even Kang Hyeong-seok could barely stay on his feet.
Thud.
Sinking down onto one bent knee, Kang Hyeong-seok kept ringing the bells toward the heavens.
And then—
KRAKOOOM! The seawater began to rocket upward. A waterspout—a phenomenon in which a violent whirlwind dragged the ocean itself up into the sky, and the people of old had called it the sight of an Imoogi climbing to heaven. And they had been right.
Flash! KRAKOOOM! Shaaaahhh—! Amid the lightning and thunder and the rain falling in torrents, Kang Hyeong-seok saw it with his own eyes, clear as day: a colossal Imougi rising toward the heavens.
Wra-ra-ra-rang! Shaking the bells, he swayed hard as the wind caught him—but he steadied himself at once, fixed his eyes on the ascending Imoogi, and opened his mouth wide. There was one thing left that had to be done for her to become a dragon.
"It's a dragon!"
KRA-KA-BOOOM! A bolt of lightning lit up the ascending Imoogi—and thanks to that light, he could see it. Legs budding from her sleek, serpentine body.
"It's a drago-o-on!"
Kang Hyeong-seok screamed until his throat felt ready to tear, ringing the bells with everything he had. Now horns were sprouting from the Imoogi's head, and a long mane was growing along her spine.
"IT'S A DRAGO-O-O-ON!"
Three cries. And the Imoogi became a dragon, complete at last. The dragon reached the heavens.
With his head tipped back as far as it would go, Kang Hyeong-seok could make out a massive shape moving among the clouds. Other dragons—coming to greet Lee Nak-yul, newly become one of their own. It looked for all the world as though she had just gained a new family, and Kang Hyeong-seok laughed, a laugh pushed out on the back of a breath.
Please—please, lay down that sorrow, and be happy.
For a long time. For a very, very long time. Become a dragon, wash that sin away, and find happiness to match all the unhappiness you have endured.
Wra-ra-ra-ra-rang! Ringing the bells, Kang Hyeong-seok pressed his palms together and raised them to the sky.
KRAKOOOM! KRRAKOOOM! The thunder still rolled, but the rain was thinning now—as if there were no longer an Imoogi left to call it down. The curtains of rain were dying away, stream by stream.
Clatter.
It was dawn. That was when Kang Hyeong-seok came back to the village. He had offered prayer and invocation without pause the whole night through, and now he returned to the hall with his face drained bone-white and set down the bundle of clothes that held the bones and the eggshells.
"M-Master Paksu!"
"Aigoo, aigoo...!"
The villagers packed inside the hall tore off the towels and toilet paper covering their eyes and came rushing over. And before them all, Kang Hyeong-seok undid the bundle—the clothes he had knotted up like a wrapping cloth.
"Heok!"
"Wh-what is this?"
"What in the world... aigoo, my word..."
Kang Hyeong-seok looked at Kim Jae-sik—stiff as a plank, and yet his eyes said plainly, you've been through hell—and opened his mouth.
"This is the cause of everything."
"Why, you—!"
Someone, fury naked on his face, started forward with long, hard strides. But Kim Jae-sik caught him at once, and Kang Hyeong-seok went on in a level voice.
"It was an Imoogi that had lost her family."
The enraged man planted his raised foot back on the floor, and the fury in his narrowed eyes slowly drained away.
"And that Imoogi has forgiven what was done to her."
Kang Hyeong-seok bowed his head to the villagers, his gaze grave and earnest.
"So I beg you—please, forgive her as well."
Had anyone but Kang Hyeong-seok said those words, the villagers would never have listened. But the depth of his sincerity—and the simple fact that he was a paksu, a shaman—made it impossible to dismiss them out of hand.
"...So it's over?" the village chief asked, his voice hoarse and squeezed low, as though worn down to nothing.
"Yes."
"And the Imoogi won't come back?"
"She has become a dragon, so she will not return. And who knows—she may even come to protect this village."
Kang Hyeong-seok looked into the faces around him. Some were burning with anger. Some sagged with relief. Some were sunk in a tangle of conflicted feeling, and some simply stared, as if wondering whether any of this could really be possible.
"Good. That's all that matters."
The chief spoke as though releasing a long-held breath, then bowed deeply toward Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, truly."
The chief's gratitude was genuine—the man before them had ended the calamity that had swept over their village. And with the chief, the highest among them, leading the way, the others let their own feelings soften. Some had lost family. Some had lost precious livestock. What was done was done; hard as it was to accept a disaster like this, the Imoogi who had been its cause was no longer here.
"We have received a kindness we can never repay, Master Paksu," the chief said, his voice trembling faintly.
Kang Hyeong-seok bowed his head to him and spoke.
"There is a favor I must ask."
"We will grant anything. Just tell us everything you need."
"When you hold the funerals for your dead, I ask that you hold a funeral for these as well."
In the end, everyone here had been a victim. True, the villagers themselves had never laid a hand on the Imoogi—it had been their ancestors who did that. But those ancestors were still their family, however distant, however long ago.
"Hnnnnngh..."
The chief let out a long, deep groan, squeezed his eyes shut, and then nodded with effort.
"...We will."
"That is enough. With that, this village will be safe."
The words had scarcely left Kang Hyeong-seok's mouth. Thud. The chief bowed low to the ground before him, and every man and woman standing in the hall bent deep at the waist. It was the villagers' tribute of respect to the man who had stopped their calamity.