“S-someone died?”
Wonhyeok looked at the village head with an ashen face.
The village head spoke calmly to Wonhyeok and Haje.
“Yes. It seems the ghost claimed a victim last night. The wife is currently tidying the body and the area around it.... She must hold a funeral, after all.”
“For a village that has been struck by ghosts so often, I have not seen many houses in mourning. How long are the funerals usually held?”
“A three-day funeral.... There are so many bereaved households that the period has naturally grown shorter.”
“A three-day funeral?”
Wonhyeok looked startled by the village head’s words.
Of course, if each funeral were conducted with full propriety, the entire village would be a house of mourning by now. Even so, a three-day funeral?
‘Is that not against propriety? Unless it is a burial delayed beyond a month.... Is even that considered too long?’
The era of Ghost Gates had brought great social upheaval. The class system had been overturned, and the standards for rites of passage had been shaken, but one thing remained unchanged.
When it came to showing propriety to one’s relatives, people wished to make it as grand as they could afford.
Now that the Ghost Gate era had made resources plentiful and food and ornaments more colorful than ever, people held three-day funerals for their own family members?
Noticing Wonhyeok’s inward surprise, the village head hurriedly explained.
“The village atmosphere is already unsettled. There are houses that have lost children as well. If too many households are holding funerals in a situation like this, it will poison the living too.”
“I want to see the man who died. He has not been buried yet, has he?”
Before Wonhyeok could reply to the village head, Haje spoke. The village head hesitated, then nodded.
Without further words, Haje and Wonhyeok prepared themselves and headed to the house where the man had died.
As they walked there, Wonhyeok wore an awkward expression under the prickling gazes he felt from the people around them.
He quickly complained to Haje.
“This feels terribly uncomfortable.”
“Indeed. I wanted to sleep in, but why is something happening from the morning? Fortunately, the house where the man died is close to our lodgings. It has saved us some trouble.”
“That is not what I meant....”
Could the ghost have taken the boy and then killed the man? Remembering what had happened yesterday, Wonhyeok grew gloomy.
As they passed, a group of women headed toward the fields carrying hoes and shovels.
Watching them, Wonhyeok murmured to Haje.
“Even though they are unsettled because of the ghost, they are not neglecting their fieldwork.”
“They have to eat and live.”
The golden curve of Haje’s eye, visible beneath the black veil, gleamed narrowly.
“There may be another reason as well.”
“?”
They soon arrived at the house where the man had died.
Haje strode inside without hesitation, opened the latticed door of the men’s quarters, and clicked his tongue.
“Smell that.”
Following behind, Wonhyeok unconsciously covered his mouth and nose, then turned his head away from the room.
The acrid smell of a corpse had already begun to rise.
Wonhyeok barely suppressed the urge to retch and sat beside Haje. He had to keep records, after all, so he too needed to look over the body and exchange opinions with Haje.
Leaving Wonhyeok behind, Haje approached the corpse and seemed to glance at the woman sitting beside it.
“Did you see when he died?”
The woman flinched at Haje’s strange appearance, but answered calmly.
“N-no. In truth, my husband and I have been using separate rooms....”
“Why? It does not look as though there are many spare rooms.”
As he said that, Haje looked at the child standing outside the latticed door, lips tightly pressed together and hesitating.
Following Haje’s golden gaze, Wonhyeok turned his head as well.
The child appeared older than fifteen. Still young, but not like the carefree children who ran about brightly in a village where ghosts wandered.
‘This house had two rooms.’
They were not a noble family, so one room must have been for the child and the other for the married couple.
If the woman had not shared a room with her dead husband, she must have stayed in the child’s room. But the child was not that young anymore.
The woman spoke.
“My husband was not of sound mind before he died.”
“Is that true?”
Haje asked the child outside the room. Startled, the child fled without even answering properly.
Haje snorted.
“The child is shy.”
“...Please do not tease them....”
By this point, the woman looked at Haje as though she suspected what he was trying to do.
Wonhyeok would have reacted the same way if a Ghost Gate Messenger who had come to investigate a dead man suddenly began teasing a child for no reason.
“Does the ghost not take children around that age?”
“Pardon? W-well, I do not know....”
At Wonhyeok’s question, the woman became flustered.
Haje stared intently at her, then finally gestured for her to leave.
“We will look into things by ourselves, so step outside for a moment.”
“Yes, yes....”
The moment the woman hurried out, Haje showed no thought of examining the corpse. Instead, he began opening every drawer in the room, starting with the writing desk.
Wonhyeok was startled, but when he saw the drawers were empty, he sighed and rebuked Haje.
“Why are you opening another person’s cabinets? Are there traces of a ghost in there?”
“No. I was wondering if they had hidden any gold. You said the villagers’ cloth looked expensive.”
“...Excuse me?”
“I understand, so be quiet.”
Seeing that Wonhyeok was about to nag, Haje immediately came over and sat beside the corpse.
Then he suddenly asked Wonhyeok.
“You cannot see anything, right?”
“Pardon? Should I be seeing something?”
Wonhyeok looked at the corpse with a flustered expression, but it was merely a dead person. There should not have been anything more or less to see.
The only thing that concerned him was how quickly the corpse might decay.
At those words, Haje nodded and snapped his fingers.
A bluish, lightning-like object flew from his hand and stuck to the latticed door.
It was a talisman.
“What did you do?”
“Soundproofing. Now, let us talk. Why do you think this man died?”
“Pardon? Surely, the ghost....”
“Look carefully.”
With no idea why, Wonhyeok lowered his eyes to the corpse again.
The deceased lay quietly asleep, his bluish lips sealed in silence.
No... Was that truly all?
The peculiar sense of discord Wonhyeok had felt while looking over the village began to prickle at him again.
“...Come to think of it, this is strange. There are no traces of the ghost. The sonmalmyeong I saw last night left frost wherever she passed.... Yet there is nothing here, strangely enough.”
Normally, those afflicted by ghosts were said to be steeped in ghostly aura. Its form and manifestation differed from ghost to ghost.
Even though he was not a Messenger, Wonhyeok, with his dog eyes, should have been able to notice it.
For a moment, he wondered whether his dog eyes had somehow been cured. But he had seen the ghost only last night. That could not be.
Or had he simply never seen ghostly aura before and failed to recognize it?
But if that were the case, Haje would not have bothered asking him.
At Wonhyeok’s words, Haje nodded.
“Right. Just as you cannot see it, I cannot feel any ghostly aura at all. Even if it were not clear, there should be a faint trace left behind. And that woman earlier. Did her behavior not seem strange?”
“Pardon? In what way.... Do you mean her sharing a room with her grown child? It may appear strange, but if this man was mad while he lived, it is not impossible to understand.”
“Not that. Think about what you asked her.”
At Haje’s words, Wonhyeok tilted his head in bewilderment.
“I looked at the child... and asked, ‘Does the ghost not take children around that age?’”
“And her answer was, ‘I do not know. How would I know?’”
That was not quite what she had said.
Still, Wonhyeok asked doubtfully.
“Perhaps she truly did not know?”
“While ghosts are taking children? Even if that were true, should she not answer with a little more concern? You see, I have heard the lines of parents afraid that their children may disappear many times.”
Haje smiled coldly.
Then, as though truly imitating an anxious parent, he recited earnestly.
“‘I do not know yet. So far, children up to that age have not been taken. Could mine be in danger?’ Or, ‘I am so worried that I share a room with my child.’ And so on....”
Haje only shrugged at Wonhyeok, who was staring at him blankly.
“Usually, when a petition comes in and a Messenger is sent to investigate, every petition has exactly one thing in common.”
Haje propped his chin on his hand, elbows resting on his crossed legs beside the corpse.
“They want the matter resolved. Not for the whole village to act evasively like this.”
In other words, Haje was saying that the woman’s attitude was unlike that of a household or village suffering harm from a ghost.
Once Wonhyeok understood, the scenes he had seen throughout the day yesterday passed through his mind one after another.
“...If they seem suspicious like this now....”
“Then they have something weighing on their consciences. The prime example is this man.”
Haje pointed at the corpse with his hand wrapped in black silk.
“A person killed him.”
The case was heading in an entirely different direction.
Wonhyeok had many things he wanted to ask Haje.
But Haje immediately left the room and began walking through the village, so Wonhyeok had no choice but to follow him in silence, lest the villagers overhear.
Haje and Wonhyeok returned to the guesthouse earlier than they had yesterday.
“Even if this village truly has some ulterior motive or another incident, they would not dare act recklessly in front of the Haje.... Was it intentional that you did not properly show your Messenger plaque to the village head?”
“Yes. They only needed to recognize it as a Messenger plaque, so I showed them only the reverse.”
As Haje said that, he took out his Messenger plaque and showed it to Wonhyeok.
The front was engraved with ‘Gap Grade Messenger · Haje,’ while the back bore the words ‘Ghost Gate Messenger Plaque.’
His planning went this far? By now, Wonhyeok felt as though he had been dragged here for something Haje could resolve alone.
‘Well, was that really wrong? It was Haje, after all.’
He was the Messenger with the longest career in all eight provinces of Joseon. Perhaps Wonhyeok only needed to work diligently as his accompanying inspector and keep records.
As Wonhyeok thought that, Haje spoke.
“Now we have one thing to do.”
“W-we must uncover the truth of the case!”
Wonhyeok unconsciously clenched his fist and cried out solemnly.
Haje looked at him in silence for a moment.
“No.”
“?”
“We need to catch the ghost and find the missing children.”
“......”
Th-then... What about the case...?
Haje rose, taking the blankly blinking Wonhyeok with him.
“Come. There is a mountain near the village, so we will search there first.”
Wonhyeok followed after him in a muddle.
No... So what about the case...?