Traces of the Soul
“P-please, spare me!”
“You should have thought of that before you betrayed me.”
Jin Chae-won spoke with icy indifference as she swept her sword through the air.
Shlick!
The traitor's head hit the floor.
He had been a loyal subordinate at her side for years—an executive she had trusted without question. Right up until the moment he betrayed her.
'So there really was a traitor after all.'
If the masked man calling himself the Silver Wolf hadn't warned her that day, the Black Market would have taken a devastating blow.
'Who on earth is he?'
At first, she'd tried not to think about him. But as concrete evidence of the traitor kept surfacing, her curiosity about that man only grew.
'I wonder when that information will arrive….'
On the surface, the Black Market kept every client's identity strictly confidential. Only up to a point, of course. The market's high-ranking officials all knew their clients' details by heart—it was how they weeded out the ones who needed to be filtered out. This latest betrayal had come about because someone had tried to play games with a client's information and gotten caught.
“Director.”
Just then, a woman entered through the door. She was one of Jin Chae-won's closest aides—the appraiser responsible for verifying the authenticity of the Black Market's wares.
“What is it?”
“We've found the Silver Wolf's handler, as you requested.”
“Who is it?”
“Rabbit.”
At those words, Jin Chae-won's eyes went wide. She knew Rabbit very, very well.
“Don't tell me it was Won-ae?”
“I was shocked myself when I found out.”
Rabbit's real name was Jin Won-ae—the one and only daughter of Jin Chae-won, Director of the Black Market's Korea Branch.
“How would you like us to bring her in?”
“It would be nice to see her face after so long.”
Hearing her answer, the appraiser left the room.
'Won-ae, the handler? I never imagined it.'
It was a coincidence that could almost be called fate. The person who had saved the Black Market had been handling business for the Director's own daughter.
'I should tell Won-ae to get to know this Silver Wolf properly.'
“How's it going, Cheongun?”
“Hmm… I cannot yet say.”
Meanwhile, the Silver Wolf—benefactor of the Black Market—was busier than ever. He was searching for the conditions his partner needed in order to evolve.
'There's way too little information about imugi….'
Even digging through old novels and historical records, nothing concrete turned up. All he found were the same legends: that when an imugi completes the orb, it becomes a dragon and ascends to heaven. Nothing but shell of a story, hollow at the core.
“You don't know anything either, Cheongun?”
“I do not.”
“Right….”
Cheongun had spent almost his entire life alone. The one of the Primordial Humans he'd glimpsed briefly at his birth had very nearly been the first and last human he would ever see.
'And there's no one I can ask about this.'
The imugi was officially registered in the database as an A-rank boss monster.
'They'd drag him off to a lab.'
Revealing Cheongun to the public would have to wait until he'd made a name for himself.
'Maybe I should go find an actual dragon?'
The problem was that dragons had mostly been hunted to extinction—there were barely any gates left where one lived as a boss.
“I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.”
“You have no need to apologize.”
Truthfully, the most frustrated one here was probably Cheongun himself. An imugi was, in essence, a being born for the sole purpose of becoming a dragon. How agonizing must it be, knowing he could never evolve?
“Let's at least finish clearing this gate.”
“Very well.”
With that, Cheongun finished off the boss monster he'd been pinning down.
Boom!
Gate "Rapapa's Forest" has been closed.
Experience points have been settled.
LEVEL UP!
“Oh.”
He'd cleared an A-rank gate, sure, but he hadn't expected to actually level up.
'Well, I'll take it.'
In the time he'd spent hopping from gate to gate searching for Cheongun's evolution conditions, he'd already gained five levels.
“Ha….”
The problem was that in all those five levels, he hadn't learned a single thing about those conditions.
'If only one of the First Humans had left something behind—'
And then the thought flashed through his mind.
The Primordial Humans created hidden pieces because they wished for their successors to grow stronger.
'So wouldn't they have passed down the imugi's evolution condition too?'
Absolutely. If they wanted their descendants to grow strong, then of course they would have left that knowledge behind.
“I need to get there. Now.”
I slipped back into an empty alley, checked for any signs of life around me, and opened a gate into Cheonji.
“Contractor?”
Startled by my sudden appearance, Cheongun looked at me in surprise.
“Cheongun, come with me. Quickly.”
“Understood.”
Cheongun followed me down into Cheonji. Before long, the entrance to the hidden piece came into view.
“Whoa….”
The entrance was blown wide open, as if a massive explosion had torn through it. The lake that had once sat there was gone without a trace.
“Let's go down.”
“Why do you return to that place so suddenly?”
“To find your evolution condition.”
“……!”
At my words, Cheongun followed me inside without another word.
Splash!
With the lake caved in, water had pooled across the cavern floor. I hurried along the path, heading deeper inside.
“The shrine's fine.”
Thankfully, the water hadn't reached the shrine—aside, of course, from the damage I myself had inflicted with my footwork.
“So this is where That One dwelled?”
“By the way, the 'That One' you keep mentioning—you mean the Primordial Human, right?”
“Yes. Their name was—”
Cheongun stopped mid-sentence, his face crumpling. As if he'd bitten into something rotten.
“What's wrong?”
“I cannot remember the name.”
“What?”
“I know not why, but That One's name will not come to me.”
That being meant a great deal to Cheongun. The first human he had ever seen. The one who had given him his mission. The one who had given meaning to a life that had been, until then, nothing at all.
“Why….”
Even I could see the crushing sense of loss written across his face.
“Look, until recently, I didn't even know the Primordial Humans existed.”
I spoke up, trying to ease his grief.
“Beings old enough to be called 'primordial'—they should have left records behind, shouldn't they?”
“Indeed….”
And yet, strangely, the Primordial Humans had left no records at all—not even a whisper of legend.
'Then again, even the God-Demon-Human War was wiped from the record.'
Until the Great Cataclysm, we'd regarded gods and demons as nothing more than figments of imagination.
“What if something deliberately erased every record concerning the Primordial Humans?”
That was as far as my speculation could go.
Demons and angels still remembered the God-Demon-Human War. Only we humans had forgotten it. And in the process, the Primordial Humans who had ended that war vanished from our memories as well.
“Someone erased the memories. That's the only explanation that holds up.”
“That cannot be….”
“You're an imugi, so your existence itself wasn't forgotten—only the name was taken from you.”
At my words, Cheongun gave a slow, silent nod.
The Primordial Humans. If their memories had been wiped, the ones who'd lose the most were us humans.
'My guess is it was the gods or the demons who did it.'
Before the God-Demon-Human War, humanity had been livestock. We were the ones who drove out gods and demons and claimed the land for ourselves. To any other beings, that would have been a bitter pill to swallow.
“Anyway—let's focus on your evolution.”
“Very well.”
“Who knows? Once you become a dragon, your memories might come back to you.”
If he was reborn as a higher being, there really was a chance he could reclaim what he'd lost.
We talked as we walked, until at last we reached the chamber.
“This the place?”
“It is.”
It looked about the same as the last time we'd been here, same location, same layout. Back then, everything had been so desperate that I'd had no time to look around properly.
“Well then—shall we hunt for treasure?”
“Found it!”
How many hours had it taken? I couldn't remember anymore. All I knew for certain was that we'd searched for at least five.
“Truly, That One was a remarkable being.”
“You're telling me.”
To find this information, we'd had to solve every single puzzle in the chamber. Pressing a specific part of the mural painted on the ceiling, rotating the altar, snuffing out candles in order—it was a puzzle stuffed to the brim with every conceivable contraption for which the word 'complicated' was an understatement, all thrown in seemingly at random.
“Now then—shall we see what it says?”
If we'd solved that whole puzzle only to find a note saying 'Better luck next time,' I'd have brought this entire space crashing down. Even Cheongun, who'd spent the last few hours praising that human to the skies, seemed to sense this was something different; he fell silent, tongue clucked, waiting.
“To the future descendants who read these words….”
- If someone is reading this now, it must mean my legacy reached you safely.
And if you have found this book, I trust you also made a pact with that child without incident.
The passing of my legacy. The pact with the child. Up to this point, your path has been the same as mine.
I, too, obtained the Orb of Emptiness—the treasure I left behind—and formed my contract with the imugi.
What matters is what comes next.
- So now I shall give you the information you will need most of all.
That child is unlike ordinary imugi.
Instead of gathering the power of nature into the orb, the child requires the souls of creatures hostile to humankind.
Creatures hostile to humanity.
The obvious candidates were monsters. But no matter how many monsters we killed, the orb never showed the slightest sign of forming.
- Not the base souls of common monsters—the offerings must be at least demonic beasts or Angel Pow grade. Gods, angels, and demons are better still.
If you, my contractor, have slain a demon, then the trace of its soul will remain. Absorb that trace, and forge the orb from it.
“Trace of the soul?”
That was a new one on me.
I'd never even heard the term before my regression.
“Cheongun, do you know what it means?”
“I cannot say precisely what a trace of the soul may be, but as I read these words, I perceive something upon your body, contractor.”
Cheongun had found something my own senses had missed.
“Let's finish reading first. Then we'll absorb it.”
“Agreed.”
- This is all I can leave for my successor, here and now.
Seek out the ruins of my companions someday. There may be others who, like me, left something behind in their own sanctuaries.
And remember this well: the future of humanity rests in your hands.
And with those final words, the text ended.
'I know that already, thank you very much.'
I never wanted to feel that sensation again—the one I'd felt in the moments before my regression. The one that taught me, down to my bones, just how powerless I was.
Still, seeing it written out in black and white made my shoulders weigh a ton.
“Whew. Well then—shall we make an orb?”
“Are you well, contractor?”
Cheongun asked, evidently bothered by how strange I'd looked a moment ago.
“I'm fine. Thanks for worrying about me.”
But right now, the orb mattered more than my state of mind. When I said I was fine, Cheongun quietly stepped back without another word. His expression said he didn't like it one bit, but there was nothing to be done.
“Then let's begin.”
I crossed my legs, closed my eyes, and pushed my senses to their limits, peering deep into my own body.
“Then I shall begin as well.”
With those words, Cheongun started drawing the traces of souls out of me, one by one.