The Stench of the Shroud
Rustle.
Shin Jeong-ah began unwrapping the box that had arrived by express courier, right there in front of Lee Geum-kyeong. It was the grand shaman's shrine hall. The afternoon sun, already leaning toward the west, kept pouring down its sweltering heat, while inside, Lee Geum-kyeong and Cheong-geum watched in silence as the wrapping slowly came open.
Flutter.
Shin Jeong-ah drew out the burial shroud and spread it across the floor. Then, with deliberate care, she searched Lee Geum-kyeong's and Cheong-geum's faces.
They had been lucky. Had the timing slipped even slightly, the fire would have kept this shroud from ever reaching them. Not that it was the sort of thing anyone could easily say aloud — the mood bearing down on the shrine hall was far too heavy for that.
"...Hmm."
Lee Geum-kyeong's lips twisted. She picked up the shroud, held it close to her nose, and drew in a deep breath. Her concentration was so absolute, so visibly total, that Shin Jeong-ah and Cheong-geum could only trade glances.
That was when it came.
"Utterly meticulous — and utterly cunning."
"Is... is something wrong?"
"It's faint, but there's ghost stench on it. That child didn't call it suspicious for nothing."
Murmuring as though to herself, Lee Geum-kyeong dropped the shroud back onto the floor with unconcealed displeasure. Then, lips pressed white, she glared down at it.
"Um... ma'am?"
"Hooooo."
Letting the long sigh drain out of her, Lee Geum-kyeong turned to Cheong-geum. "Pass the word along. If, in the course of any mourning, a shroud is found carrying so much as a trace of ghost stench — have it replaced with another."
"...Yes, ma'am."
Cheong-geum slipped out, and Lee Geum-kyeong ground her teeth, as if swallowing down a curse before it could become words.
What kind of lunatic...
Audacious was the only word for it. One only ever laid eyes on a burial shroud at a funeral home, or when performing a gut. Both were places where ghost stench was bound to linger — and this stench was so faint that anyone not deliberately attentive would pass right over it.
"Um... is it really that bad?"
"The ghost stench itself is no great problem." Lee Geum-kyeong couldn't so much as glance at Shin Jeong-ah as she fingered the shroud. "They deceived heaven. They deceived the earth. Something was committed — and committed in secret."
"Hyeong-seok did say... that it felt like some kind of curse-craft."
Lee Geum-kyeong nodded, shifting only her eyes toward Shin Jeong-ah. "Wickeder than I expected. How long has the place that made this been around?"
"Twenty years."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk."
Clicking her tongue with heavy disapproval, Lee Geum-kyeong shook out the hand that had touched the shroud as though she'd handled something unclean. "A thing without a shred of humanity has been defiling the dead for twenty years."
"Then what are we supposed to do with this—"
Just then, Lee Geum-kyeong's gaze rested briefly on Shin Jeong-ah. An ordinary civilian had no reason to let a thing like this weigh on her so. And yet the concern was plainly there — plainly, this woman was no ordinary soul.
"Don't trouble yourself over it too much."
Looking at Shin Jeong-ah's face, still bowed beneath the weight of it all, Lee Geum-kyeong eased herself into a more comfortable posture. "A curse is a curse — break it, and that's the end of it."
"Can that really be done?"
"A curse always has a purpose. Frustrate that purpose, and the chain comes apart of its own accord."
The world obeys the law of cause and effect. Because this exists, that exists; through that, something else is able to come into being. A curse is an act that shakes this causality — tilting it in one's favor, or forcing a will upon the world.
Whoever it is, they're no ordinary foe. The longer Lee Geum-kyeong chewed on it, the more meticulous — the more vicious — the deed revealed itself to be, and her molars ground together. Even with the dead as its victims, this was a curse that used human beings as its medium. What, in heaven's name, was it trying to bring about?
Brow furrowed, she stared down at the shroud and the faint ghost stench clinging to it.
"Yes, Hyung-nim!"
Yoon-sang's voice crackled from the car speaker. Kang Hyeong-seok glanced at it, then shifted his gaze out the window. The lot he'd pulled into was a quiet stretch of empty ground, well away from the factory — and yet, strangely, his heart still felt like it was bolting.
"Huh? Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"
"Yeah, I hear you."
"Sorry, Hyung-nim! I think my phone glitched for a second there. Your voice kept cutting out on me."
Hm. Kang Hyeong-seok forced a dry laugh, like air pushed out of his lungs. "It's fine. And — you remember the thing I asked about before? The Hitobashira."
"Yes, yes!"
"You turn up anything more on it?"
Kang Hyeong-seok asked it half to himself, eyes on the bluish sky beyond the windshield.
"Actually, I did a bit of digging on my own?"
"Oh?"
Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes slid back to the speaker, from which poured a voice that was, for some reason, practically preening.
"Come on, I'm pretty good at this sort of thing!"
"..."
"Turns out Hitobashira covers a really wide range? Some of them are meant to carry the offerer's sins away, but apparently there are also cases where the powerful do it to maintain their hold on power."
"...Maintain?"
"Huh? Ah — yes."
Strangely, of everything Yoon-sang had just said, that was the only word that lodged itself in his ear.
"Early on, it seems to have taken the form of human sacrifice. Then, over time, it looks like it narrowed down to foundations — like the groundwork they lay at apartment construction sites."
Saying nothing, Kang Hyeong-seok turned the keywords surfacing in his mind over one by one. Hitobashira. Human pillar. Foundation. Groundwork.
"You need a solid foundation for the building to stand sturdier, right? The greater the purpose, the greater the foundation it requires — that kind of thing."
Kang Hyeong-seok ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth. Twenty years. Twenty years of defiling the dead through a curse. And of the three hundred heads — still not one thread of a clue. And yet, listening to Yoon-sang, he felt as though something were coming into view. Like some ill-omened something, stirring faintly beyond that distant, fathomless dark.
"Yoon-sang."
"Yes!"
"Is there any chance the Hitobashira could be tied to the siksin as well?"
His patron deity had already told him as much through the bell. That the enemy he had to stand against was no human. That it was something other than human entirely.
"Not directly. But Hyung-nim — this is curse-craft we're talking about, right?"
"That's true...?"
"It's committed by people with power, for their own purposes — and siksin are what people like that keep and command. So one way or another, couldn't you say there's a connecting thread?"
Even if the Hitobashira weren't directly linked to the siksin, both came down, in the end, to the powerful acting for their own sake — which meant an indirect influence couldn't be ruled out.
He let out a slow breath and turned his head toward the driver's-side window, the back of his skull rasping softly against the headrest. There was nothing to be seen past the glass. Still, Kang Hyeong-seok fixed his gaze on where the factory had stood, pressed his lips hard together — then opened them.
"I'm going to dig into this myself."
"Huh? Oh! You're moving on this one personally, Hyung-nim?"
"Don't follow me this time."
He delivered it firmly, eyes on the window glass, never so much as blinking, and went on. "The feel of this one is just too wrong. If you're in it, it becomes genuinely dangerous."
Even as he said it, he couldn't help worrying. What if Yoon-sang went skulking after him anyway? What if he came tagging along, clinging like glue?
"Aigoo, Hyung-nim! There's no way I'd ever go against what you say!"
But apparently it had been needless worry after all. Yoon-sang sounded so utterly unbothered it made all that dread feel hollow. "I do have some sense, you know! If you're putting it that strongly, Hyung-nim, then it's clearly no place for me to be wedging myself in."
"Sorry."
"You've got nothing to apologize for! And besides — if you ever do need my help, just call anytime, exactly like this!"
Ah, this kid. Kang Hyeong-seok was kneading his blameless temple under the flood of apology and gratitude when—
"But in return, Hyung-nim, there is one thing I'd like to ask..."
"What is it?"
"So I can at least spin the tale on my stream later. Once everything's wrapped up, could you just write it up and send it my way...?"
Kang Hyeong-seok laughed like a man whose energy had drained clean out of him. Right — this was Yoon-sang through and through. And thankfully, it wasn't a heavy favor to grant. "Got it. Then I'll be counting on you, too."
"Yes sir! I'll start actively collecting tips from my viewers as well! Gangwon-do side works, right?"
The factory was there. So taking tips from that region made sense. "Right. Lend me a hand with it."
"Of course! Then good luck out there! And make sure you eat properly!"
Beep.
The call with Yoon-sang ended. Only then did Kang Hyeong-seok realize he hadn't eaten so much as breakfast. Even though the lunch hour was nearly over, at that.
Tch. His head really had been a whirlwind. Glancing down at the stomach where hunger had just come rolling in, he started the engine.
'First things first — food. Anything.'
Vroooom!
As he drove, he cast about for a suitable restaurant. He never bothered searching the navigation for famous eateries. 'Somewhere I can eat alone...' He kept his eyes out for a gukbap house — simple soup-and-rice fare — if one happened to appear, until at last he spotted it: a shabby sign with faded lettering that read Eojuk. Fish porridge.
Grumble.
Kang Hyeong-seok parked out front and stepped inside. The distinctive smell of a long-standing eatery — something like an old farmhouse — came out to greet him, and he took a seat and ordered a single bowl of the fish porridge.
Trickle.
He fetched his own water from the old-style dispenser and readied himself for a solitary meal.
Clatter.
After a span of time that felt unusually long, the earthen pot of fish porridge was finally set down before him. Kang Hyeong-seok bowed his head in thanks to the grandmother who appeared to be the owner, and lifted his spoon.
It was the very next moment.
Tap!
The owner went into the inner room adjoining the kitchen and switched on the television, and its sound began to spill out like a radio broadcast. A common enough thing — Kang Hyeong-seok paid it no attention and raised his rice spoon.
'She really doesn't skimp on the prickly ash powder.' The seasoning was good, the other ingredients all fine too — the only shame was that the spice was so overpowering. With a face just faintly mournful, Kang Hyeong-seok scooped up a heaping spoonful of the porridge and put it in his mouth.
"Police have announced that they are pursuing the investigation on the theory of a premeditated crime."
Sounded like yet another incident had broken out somewhere. A knot of unease rose in his chest, and Kang Hyeong-seok took a sip of water; the restaurant owner cranked the volume up higher.
"...The brutality of the crime has come to light, down to the mutilation of the victim's body. These inhuman acts go beyond mere depravity, sending shockwaves through society as a whole."
'Mutilated body?'
It was the kind of news that sent a chill down the spine — impossible to shrug off. All the more so because, damn it all, it called to mind the severed heads in the box from his dream.
Clack.
Spoon lowered, Kang Hyeong-seok's gaze went to the inner room. There he could see the owner clicking her tongue. And at that moment, his phone rang.
It was a call from Shin Yo-sep.