The Iron That Found Its Master
"That... thing, you mean...?"
"I did bring something back from Geumjinsa Temple once, did I not."
Cheong-geum, thoroughly flustered, finally managed to get the words out.
"T-Teacher, that—"
"Bring it here. I have already thought everything through."
Bowing her head, Cheong-geum rose from her seat. As she did, she began stealing glances — not at Lee Geum-kyeong, but at Kang Hyeong-seok.
What's going on?
What on earth was Geumjinsa, and what could Lee Geum-kyeong possibly intend to give him? Kang Hyeong-seok looked at her with a face that wanted answers, but she merely sipped her tea in silence.
A moment later, with a soft clatter, the box Cheong-geum had brought was set down between them. It was a square container wrapped in cotton cloth, the fabric faded so badly that the thing looked decades old. What caught the eye most of all were the Chinese characters written on the inside of the wrapping.
Tracing the characters with his thumb as he read them slowly, Kang Hyeong-seok lifted his head.
"It's the Demon-Subduing Mantra."
A mantra for driving out wandering spirits. He couldn't even begin to guess what this might be, but Lee Geum-kyeong only made a small gesture: go on, untie it. With a careful face, he began slowly working the knot loose.
Paulownia? No — birch.
He had suspected as much from the moment he saw the Demon-Subduing Mantra. The box itself was made of birch, the wood that repels spirits, which only sharpened his curiosity about what lay inside.
Kang Hyeong-seok glanced once at Lee Geum-kyeong, then dropped his gaze back to the box.
Open it. Her eyes were saying exactly that, unmistakably.
Swallowing drily, he carefully pushed back the lid — and the tension drained from his face.
"Do you know what it is?"
Kang Hyeong-seok looked at her and shook his head.
"Not with what I know, I'm afraid."
"It is Uncheol."
At the answer, tossed off so casually, Kang Hyeong-seok's face froze. Cheong-geum, catching a glimpse, already wore the look of someone who knew exactly what this was. Flustered, he fixed his stare on the black lump with its pitted, uneven surface.
Uncheol...
A meteorite. More precisely, a mass of iron that had come from outer space — and at this size, it looked like something that could fetch anywhere from several thousand to a hundred million won. And this was what Lee Geum-kyeong had shown him.
"It seems it has only now found its master."
With a slow, gentle motion, Lee Geum-kyeong stroked the Uncheol with a hand etched vividly by the years, and smiled faintly.
"The abbot of Geumjinsa once told me to pass this on should the right person ever appear. A full twenty years later, it has found its master at last."
"Teacher..."
"It is no ordinary Uncheol."
She stared at him with eyes carrying that peculiar gleam unique to a shaman.
"I am told it was embedded in birchwood when it was first discovered. Yang energy heaped upon yang energy — it is bound to be of great help to you."
Kang Hyeong-seok seemed to lose his words entirely.
There are a number of objects that drive out spirits. Among them, the most widely known is birchwood, and the finest of all is birch struck by lightning — for it is believed to hold the energy of heaven itself, of the thunderbolt. If mere birchwood was so potent, then what of Uncheol, which was nothing less than lightning made flesh?
"...It is too heavy a thing. I don't believe this is something I should have."
"False modesty. If not you, then who in the world could hold it?"
"Teacher."
"I have thought this ever since the day I performed the Sin-nureum-gut for you."
Gazing down at the Uncheol as if tracing old memories, she went on.
"Rather than sit idle with this old woman, it is worth far more for it to go to you and light up the world."
Lee Geum-kyeong was human too, and there had been more than a few times she had wanted to use this Uncheol herself. But she never had. Every time, she remembered the decision she had already made — that the master of this iron would be Kang Hyeong-seok.
"My heart feels light. Everything in this world has its season and its ripe moment — and at long last, this Uncheol's time has come."
For a long while, Kang Hyeong-seok held her gaze without a word. The emotions gathered there were deep and many — pride, admiration, and the earnest hope that this gift would serve him well on the shaman's road ahead.
Drawing a long breath through his nose, he gave a quiet nod.
"I will not let you down."
"Of course. That's how it should be."
Lee Geum-kyeong spoke with a smile at the corner of her mouth, and Kang Hyeong-seok reached out toward the Uncheol. In that instant, goosebumps rippled up his arms. It was only a thing in a box, yet it felt warm — as though he were taking a person's hand.
This was no ordinary object. It carried an enormous energy.
With a grave expression, he lifted the Uncheol — and in that same instant, a bizarre sensation surged up through him like a bursting waterfall. His sight plunged into darkness. His senses dulled. His body no longer felt like his own.
Startled, he whipped his head around for Lee Geum-kyeong and Cheong-geum, but they were nowhere to be seen.
Chaeng-chaeng-chaeng-chaeng! Warang-warang-warang-warang! Dung, du-ung!
The sound of traditional Korean instruments, heard once before somewhere. The very same sounds from his dream were ringing out around him.
Feeling the blood in his whole body freeze solid, Kang Hyeong-seok stared into a darkness that had, at some point, swallowed his surroundings whole.
Kung-kung-kung! Dung! Piriririri! Chae-ae-ae-ang! Chang!
Only the warmth of the Uncheol in his hand told him this was still reality.
"...Momjusin."
From the darkness, the Momjusin revealed himself — drenched in blood, just as before. A vicious reek of gore stabbed at his nose, and the music pounded at his ears and his body from every direction.
With eyes stretched wide, Kang Hyeong-seok looked upon the deity — sacred shaman bells in one hand, a blade in the other.
"Why... why do you do this?"
The Momjusin gave no answer. Shrouded in black mist, his face hidden even now, he simply gazed at Kang Hyeong-seok.
"I have lived by your will. I received your revelation to seek the Sinjangkal, and I have come all this way."
He waited for a reply, but the deity kept his silence, as he always did.
"Please, grant me some word — any word. Only then can I understand."
It was the very moment his heart burned with desperate longing for an answer.
The blade in the Momjusin's hand rose. The instant he saw the scarlet blood dripping from its edge, Kang Hyeong-seok lifted his head.
"...Pardon?"
Something had definitely been said.
"What did you just say? Please, say it again."
He asked in a rush, but the voice that had sounded moments before came no more. Instead, the Momjusin's blade shifted slightly, pointing at Kang Hyeong-seok's hand — or more precisely, at the Uncheol it held.
"You mean this? Is that it?"
Before the question had even left his lips, the deity turned the blade upside down.
The hilt.
Gripping it inverted, as if offering the sword over, the Momjusin held the pose for a long moment — then vanished, just as he had appeared.
The mist dispersed. His vision brightened, and the sound of the instruments faded away with it.
"...Seok-ah."
The faint voice drew closer and closer.
"Hyeong-seok!"
At the grip seizing his shoulder, he snapped back to his senses and scanned his surroundings, gasping for breath.
It was the shrine hall of Lee Geum-kyeong's compound.
"T-Teacher?"
"Are you all right?"
Swallowing drily, Kang Hyeong-seok looked around again. Cheong-geum stood there, startled, clutching a water kettle, and Lee Geum-kyeong was right in front of him, gripping his shoulder. Apparently, Cheong-geum had been about to douse him with the water.
The kettle passed hands wordlessly; he drank several deep mouthfuls, then ran a hand down his face.
"A possession... a possession just occurred."
"A possession...?"
"Yes."
He asked her whether she had known it was happening; Lee Geum-kyeong shook her head, her face rigid.
"A great god is a great god. To descend without my sensing a thing..."
Then a sudden thought struck him. What if that earlier experience hadn't been a dream at all, but a possession as well? If only the crow hadn't pecked at the window, might he have received the Momjusin's message directly?
Kang Hyeong-seok's face had gone somber when Lee Geum-kyeong addressed him in a low voice.
"What did your Momjusin say?"
"The same as before. He spoke no words, but he showed me the hilt."
Two possessions. One message. Each time, the Momjusin had extended the hilt toward him.
"I believe he is telling me to arm myself with the Sinjangkal."
Kang Hyeong-seok studied Lee Geum-kyeong's pressed-shut lips. The only one who could judge whether his answer was right was she. He waited in a low and humble state of mind for her judgment — and at last, her lips parted.
"Your words seem true."
Cheong-geum, whose eyes had briefly met Lee Geum-kyeong's, flinched in surprise — then nodded, her expression one of careful agreement.
Then came the rest.
"For him to stay silent all this while and only now appear like this — I would say your Momjusin, too, is telling you that the time has come."
This would be his second divine artifact.
A Sinjangkal forged from Uncheol would be no ordinary thing. It was a sign that the moment had arrived — a summons to take the blade in hand.
"I shall introduce you to a fine blacksmith. He made my own ritual implements long ago — he will be more than capable of working Uncheol."
Kang Hyeong-seok's eyes went wide; after a brief moment of fluster, he bowed his head.
"Thank you, Teacher."
"Show it to me once it is done."
"Yes, Teacher!"
Kang Hyeong-seok answered with a smile.
"So that's how we ended up going to Gangneung?"
Vroooom.
From the passenger seat of the moving car, Shin Jeong-ah struck up a conversation, her chin propped on her hand. It was Kang Hyeong-seok's car, cruising down the highway.
"Yes. But are you really sure you're okay with this?"
"Honestly, a trip like this? I'll take it."
Shin Jeong-ah smiled, bright and clear as the sea off Gangneung, and rolled down her window. They hadn't even reached Gangneung yet, but maybe it was just his mood — the wind sweeping in seemed to carry the smell of the ocean.
"Ahh, what a relief. Honestly, I was so worried this time would turn into another one of those weird cases."
"Haha, come on now. What could possibly happen?"
"Hahaha. Ri...ght?"
As the saying went, it was always the "surely nots" that got you. But even knowing that, he couldn't shake the feeling that this time really might be different. They were on their way to ask the blacksmith to forge the Sinjangkal from the Uncheol, after all. Nothing seemed likely to happen, and even if something did, it was hard to imagine it amounting to much.
"By the way, have you tried calling him?"
"Actually, I've been calling again and again. He won't pick up."
If anything weighed on his mind, it was probably just this. He had the address, so finding the place was no problem. But the calls never going through left him oddly, disproportionately unsettled.
"Don't sweat it. You said it's been ages since the teacher last contacted him, right? The number might have changed."
"You think so?"
"Of course! My mom lost her phone once, years back, and wiped out every contact she had. Older folks do that all the time."
He sincerely hoped that was all it was.
Kang Hyeong-seok kept his eyes on the road, the corner of his mouth curling up.
Vroooom.
And so they left the highway behind, driving on toward the point the navigation indicated.
The second divine artifact.
Toward the place where the blacksmith who would forge the Sinjangkal lay waiting.