The Dragon's Grace
Vroom!
The engine caught, and the car spat out a vigorous roar.
"Master Exorcist, sir!"
The Youth President came running and held out the bundle he'd been carrying toward Kang Hyeong-seok, who had been about to climb into the car.
"Here, we boiled some potatoes and meat for you."
"Oh, you really shouldn't have."
"Have some on your way."
Hyeong-seok bowed his head, letting his eyes carry his thanks. "Thank you. And I wish you every happiness."
"Waaah!"
He was so reluctant to see them go that it was hard to believe this was the same man who had been so guarded when Hyeong-seok first arrived in the village.
"Couldn't you stay a little longer?"
"I have to go. When it's time for a man to leave, he has to leave—doesn't he?"
To be perfectly honest, he had to be at work in the morning.
"Yes, sir... The village head couldn't come on account of the funeral. He asked me to tell you how sorry he was, and that I was to make sure you at least got this."
Hyeong-seok let his gaze drift briefly to Kim Jae-sik standing beside him, then nodded. "Thank you. Well then, we'll be off."
"Yes, sir! Anytime's a good time! You have to stop by! You absolutely have to come back!"
Hyeong-seok gave the Youth President's hand a firm shake and got into the car. Kim Jae-sik took the passenger seat, Hyeong-seok keyed in the navigation, and then he swung the wheel in a wide arc.
Vroooooom.
The rain had stopped.
The sky was blue as if it had all been a lie, not even a hard wind stirring, and the rearview mirror held nothing but clear heavens—and the Youth President, waving his arm in great sweeping arcs.
"You think he'll be alright?"
"The Imoogi, you mean?"
"No, no, the money. The money."
"Ah."
The money Hong Gyeong-soo had spoken of: twenty million won.
The village head had tried to press it into Hyeong-seok's hands, but he had refused point-blank. "It's hardly a well-off village, you know."
"Aigoo, what a shame. After all the hardship you went through."
Kim Jae-sik didn't sound all that regretful, really.
Because he knew the truth of it, too.
People had died. The cattle in the barn had died.
Twenty million won would be needed far more urgently by the people of this village than by Kang Hyeong-seok.
"Besides, what is there to worry about, Professor? You did promise me something, after all."
"I'm strapped too, you rascal!"
"Surely not that strapped, Professor."
Kim Jae-sik snickered, and then:
"Well, you're the one who put this whole affair to rest, so the villagers can finally breathe easy."
True—if it had been Hong Gyeong-soo, he would have taken the money without a moment's hesitation.
Hyeong-seok couldn't say whether the man actually loved money, but he certainly carried that image.
"But why on earth did that man tell you to stay?"
It was a mystery that remained unsolved.
Kim Jae-sik murmured it with his brows drawn together, and Hyeong-seok answered as he made the right turn the navigation called for. "There must be a reason."
"Any idea what it is?"
"I couldn't say, sir."
He gave that answer because he couldn't be certain. But he did have an inkling of the reason.
Did he want me dead?
Had he ruffled the Imoogi's temper even a little—had he treated Lee Nak-yul carelessly—Kang Hyeong-seok might well have ceased to be of this world.
What grounded the thought was the cave: a structure built so that whatever was inside could hardly make its way out. Much like the jar Hong Gyeong-soo had buried at Anmokji.
My life? Or a divine vessel? And if not that...
"What's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
Kim Jae-sik asked, and Hyeong-seok—shaking his head as if to fling the dreadful thought away—curled up the corners of his mouth and said it was nothing.
"Honestly, tagging along with you, I run into the most extraordinary things."
"I suppose that's just my lot in life, Professor."
"What was it I said, again? The reason you never built yourself a shrine hall."
Vrrm.
As he merged onto the national highway, Hyeong-seok gave Kim Jae-sik a brief glance, a faint smile playing on his lips.
"That I was to become a shaman among the people."
"And I meant it just as I said. Just as I said."
"Maybe that's why I never get a day of rest. It's starting to feel like I'm working two jobs."
"It's only two jobs if money's coming in from both."
Kim Jae-sik, as though something had just occurred to him, picked up the bundle the Youth President had given them. He set it on his lap, loosened the knot, and lifted the lid.
The first thing to greet him was the smell of boiled meat and potatoes.
"Huh."
But what had actually drawn that reaction out of him was something else entirely.
"What is it, Professor?"
"They must have been terribly grateful to you."
"I'm sorry?"
It was before Hyeong-seok could even turn his head.
Rustle.
Kim Jae-sik pulled out a wad of cash, still wrapped in a zip-top bag, that had been sitting at one end of the lunchbox.
50,000-won bills, rolled into tight cylinders and bound fast with yellow rubber bands.
"Two jobs it is."
"...Ha."
"Don't you dare say you won't take it. These are people who went to this much trouble on purpose. Turning your back on a heart like that would be its own discourtesy."
Since he was driving, Hyeong-seok stole a sidelong glance at the wad of cash held up in Kim Jae-sik's hand.
Cash that came to several million won at the very least.
The villagers, sorry toward Hyeong-seok for turning down the fortune of twenty million yet grateful beyond what words could hold, had delivered it this way instead.
How could he not know that heart?
And because Hyeong-seok's own heart beat in time with the villagers', he silently curled up the corners of his mouth.
"Think of it as their repayment—and since it's no light sum, carry it heavy on your heart."
"Yes, sir."
"And we'll eat the lunchboxes at the rest stop later on."
"Yes, sir."
It was the last day of the long holiday.
He had slept deeply, and with the great crisis behind him, his mind was at ease. A full day still remained before he had to return to work, and so Kang Hyeong-seok kept his eyes on the road, his face peaceful.
The wind feels wonderful.
Clouds hung overhead in just the right measure, and the typhoon had bent away as though it had all been a lie—there was no sign of rain to come.
As if the Imoogi, now become a dragon, were watching over them.
As if one heart, reaching another, had turned into repayment.
The sky was clear.
Psshh.
"Whew, it's roasting out here!"
Yoon-sang stepped down from the bus and trudged along, a huge bag slung over his shoulder.
Was this what happened when the rain had just passed? It was so sultry, the air so thick with humidity, that a genuine cry of "Somebody save me!" rose up of its own accord.
Whiiiir.
Batting the muggy air with his handheld fan, Yoon-sang readjusted the strap of his bag.
He had come all this way hunting for broadcast material.
"Let's see, now. Where's this village where strange things are supposed to be happening?"
Muttering half to himself, Yoon-sang kept walking, eyes on the map glowing on his phone.
At times like this, he ached to pick up even a beat-up used car.
But he was the type who poured the lion's share of his earnings straight back into his streams, so a car was out of the question for the foreseeable future.
"Ugh! And I couldn't exactly ask Hyung-nim to come along, either."
No car, and no Hyeong-seok either. He could have kicked himself for coming alone.
Still, he couldn't lean on Hyeong-seok forever.
He's already been helping out with my broadcasts lately—I can't go piling my burdens on him, too.
Above all, it was the holiday stretch.
Wishing with all his heart that Hyeong-seok got some proper rest, Yoon-sang had come down to South Chungcheong Province all on his own.
"Huh?"
But the village was different in atmosphere from the one he'd been picturing.
According to the tip, a dangerous presence haunted the place and had even taken lives—yet what he found was a perfectly ordinary country village.
"...Hm?"
Something naggingly familiar.
That feeling of striking out time after time, from the days before he'd met Hyeong-seok, came flooding back anew.
"Er, excuse me! Sorry to bother you!"
Spotting an old man making his way along with a cane, Yoon-sang sprinted over.
"Hm?"
"Um, I just thought I'd ask—did something happen in this village recently?"
"What's this, then?"
The old man looked Yoon-sang up and down, and Yoon-sang promptly unzipped his bag to show off the weighty broadcast equipment inside.
"I'm one of those fellas who does broadcasts."
"Ah, the TV?"
"Not exactly, but something like it. Anyway—something did happen around here, didn't it?"
"It did."
"Oh!"
"But it's all over and done with now."
"I'm sorry—what?"
"So why'd you come?"
Yoon-sang blinked a few times, then rubbed at the gooseflesh creeping up his forearm.
"Um, so, when you say it got resolved... could it have been some gentleman who looked like an office worker? A man, I mean."
He didn't want to be asking like this.
But Yoon-sang heard himself ask anyway, his voice gone damp despite him.
He had hauled that crushing load all the way here, walking under the blazing sun.
"I'd say so, aye...? A young shaman gentleman set it all right and left this very morning."
"Ah."
"What's the matter? Really, why did you come?"
Yoon-sang stood dazed for a long while, then bowed his head low to the old man.
The old man looked at him the way one looks at a strange creature and shuffled on past, and Yoon-sang pressed his palm over his dampening eyes.
"Ah, damn it—he could've at least dropped me a hint!"
When was he supposed to head back?
In this weather, lugging this dead weight and everything.
Hueeehhh...
Yoon-sang was so heartsore that tears actually spilled over.
Those fat tears, without question, had something in common with the rain that had fallen on this village.
Shuaaaaah, shuaaaaah.
The waves rolled in.
The typhoon had slipped past, but a fierce sea wind was still whipping up the water.
With the village—hollowed out now for the funeral—spread out behind her, Lee Nak-yul sat on a rock and gazed at the surging sea.
"I'm sorry."
Murmuring it like a penance, she pressed her palms together, then bowed her head toward the sea.
The lives lost to her, she who had been an Imoogi. Her family, who too had been Imoogi.
For all of them, Lee Nak-yul offered up a long, long prayer, and thick tears slid down her cheeks.
"I will live the rest of my days repaying my sins."
Until every life that had died because of her passed through the wheel of rebirth and was born anew. And until her own breath ran out.
She meant to keep her penance going for a very long time.
"And—thank you."
To the heavens, for granting her leave to become a dragon.
To Kang Hyeong-seok.
Without him, she would only have piled sin upon far greater sin.
And she would never have become a dragon at all.
"This is a grace I can scarcely hope to repay, but I will strive all my days to try—and so may the road ahead of you be at peace."
The lore held that whoever granted the name of dragon to an Imoogi ascending to the heavens would receive a dragon's grace.
And the one who had called Lee Nak-yul a dragon had been Kang Hyeong-seok.
"I shall stand guard over this land and over you—so set your heart at ease, and walk the righteous path."
When Heaven intends to bestow a great charge upon a soul, it first shakes that soul's heart and will, and wrings them with suffering.
It starves sinew and bone into destitution; it throws all that the soul would undertake into disarray.
All so that the flesh may grow the vigor and the strength to bear Heaven's mandate.
"So that he does not crumble beneath that pain, my blessing shall be with him."
Lee Nak-yul murmured the words as though in prayer, from the very deepest part of her heart.
And when the wind rose once more and the waves heaved and glittered, nothing remained on the rock where she had been sitting.
As if nothing had been there from the very beginning, not a single footprint marked the vast sand, either.