Did a ghost show so much as its nose merely because they searched the mountain blindly?
Of course not.
Haje might have been a Gap Grade Messenger, but Wonhyeok was a scholar whose most strenuous exercise in his life had been carrying books while cleaning his room.
As a result, this sudden mountain climb left him panting disgracefully, using every rock and tree around him as a walking stick.
“P-please... Could we not go a little slower?”
“Clerk, how do you intend to work as a Messenger with such poor stamina?”
“I am a civilian who has not even awakened...!”
When Wonhyeok protested, Haje merely clicked his tongue. Wonhyeok felt wronged.
‘Are all Messengers originally that vigorous?’
The world was a bewildering place, and since Ghost Gates opened, there had been countless strange individuals.
Perhaps that was why Haje, who had been active for nearly sixty years, could still fly about so energetically regardless of his age.
“There is nothing here.”
“Ugh!”
After all that effort following Haje, it turned out to be another wasted trip.
As befitted a mountain where the sun vanished quickly, the surroundings had already begun to grow dark.
“Perhaps we should return soon....”
“Are you afraid of mere nightfall when a Gap Grade Messenger is with you?”
“I am not afraid of nightfall. We cannot see what is ahead.”
“Hmm.”
At Wonhyeok’s words, Haje thought for a moment, then suddenly plopped down where he stood.
Wonhyeok looked at him in confusion.
Dressed entirely in black, Haje was difficult to distinguish even from the piled undergrowth.
“Why are you suddenly sitting down?”
“Let us rest for a moment.”
“I am grateful for that, at least.”
Wonhyeok immediately sat down as well. Catching his breath, he let his shoulders droop. At last, he felt as though he could live again.
It was still early spring and the weather was chilly, but Wonhyeok felt hot from moving about so much.
However, less than a gak after he sat down, Haje sprang to his feet.
Wonhyeok looked up at him in alarm.
Strangely, even though Wonhyeok was looking from below, he could not see Haje’s face beneath the veil.
Instead, Haje’s golden eyes tilted sharply.
“Let us go.”
“Pardon? Y-yes.”
Wonhyeok hurriedly rose and dusted off the hem of the robe he had been sitting on. Haje, apparently frustrated by how slowly he moved, suddenly lifted him and slung him over his shoulder.
In an instant, Wonhyeok found himself about to be carried off by a rogue. He cried out in alarm.
“Wh-what are you doing?!”
“Be quiet, Clerk.”
Then the scenery around them began to change in a blur.
For a moment, Wonhyeok thought Haje was using a Ground-Shrinking Art, folding the earth as he ran. But that was not it. He was simply running very quickly.
‘Then why did he not travel this way the entire time we were on the mountain?! Why did he make me suffer like that?!’
Wonhyeok could only shed tears inwardly and hang quietly over Haje’s shoulder.
A short while later, the village came into view through his half-upturned vision.
“Th-those people!”
As night fell and the sun slipped behind the mountain ridge, the village women quietly emerged outside.
Each held a fire poker, sickle, hoe, or something similar tightly in her hands.
Haje climbed a tall pine tree and crouched down to look over the village. Wonhyeok held his breath as well and twisted his body as much as possible to secure his view.
“What are they doing?”
The women looked like hunters. Had they decided to hunt the ghost themselves, unable to trust the Ghost Gate Messengers who had gone to the mountain...?
When the women entered one house in the village, Haje spoke.
“I told you this was a case where people killed, did I not?”
“Pardon?”
The instant Wonhyeok asked that, a man came tumbling out into the yard with a loud crash.
But the women who had been posted in the yard immediately subdued him and covered his mouth so he could not shout.
“...!”
Their movements were practiced. Wonhyeok felt a chill run down his spine.
The women did not use the blades they carried, but whenever the man struggled, they raised them to threaten him.
At last, one woman struck the man on the head and knocked him unconscious. Then they turned him over and put something like medicine into his mouth.
After carrying the limp man back into the room, the women exchanged looks and quietly dispersed.
The entire scene explained what was happening.
“...It is not one person’s doing. The whole village... is working together to kill the men.”
“Yes. Tomorrow morning, the village head will likely come to us again and plead that the ghost has killed another man.”
Wonhyeok recalled the body he had seen during the day.
If there had been wounds caused by a blade, Haje and Wonhyeok would have noticed.
The body had been clean, but its skin was bluish in places, with hints of purple....
And then there was what the women had just forced the man to swallow.
‘They are killing people with poison.’
If this had truly been going on since before Wonhyeok and Haje arrived, the women must have previously killed without hesitation using blades.
That was easier, and judging from their movements, they seemed far more accustomed to using blades than poison.
‘The Messengers are visiting, so they have to create signs of the ghost’s actions. But it cannot look like a person did it. That is why they began using poison.’
Then Haje suddenly leaped down.
Wonhyeok barely swallowed his scream, clutched Haje’s clothes as though they would tear apart, and whispered.
“Ah, ah, why are you doing this?!”
“Quiet. It is the ghost.”
At those words, Wonhyeok immediately covered his mouth.
While Wonhyeok had been thinking, he had wondered why Haje had kept looking around from the tree. Had he been searching for the ghost?
The ghost was once again wandering near a hidden child.
It was surely trying to abduct the child.
‘Wait. Then what are the women’s bodies in the reservoir, and what is that ghost?’
As Wonhyeok narrowed his eyes at the question that had suddenly occurred to him, Haje spoke with an oddly pleased tone.
“It looks exactly as you described, Clerk.”
“Did I not tell you so?”
“I did not know your dog eyes were truly open.”
“......”
Wonhyeok decided to hold his tongue.
What could he say to Joseon’s greatest Ghost Gate Messenger, whom he could not even defy? He would only burn himself up inside.
At that moment, faint lightning formed at Haje’s fingertips.
When he threw it at the ghost, it struck the ghost squarely on the head before it could dodge.
However, perhaps the blow had not done much harm, for the ghost began to vanish swiftly in perfect condition.
Seeing that, Wonhyeok asked in alarm.
“Is the ghost powerful? How can it be fine after being struck by a Gap Grade Messenger’s ability?”
“Should we not find the children? First we make it run, then we follow.”
“How?”
“Can you not see this? Is it a problem with your eyesight?”
After saying that, Haje began running after something. Wonhyeok, once again hanging from him like baggage, asked.
“Is there something there?”
“There is a faint trail. We have to follow quickly. Otherwise, it will fade even if you strain your eyes to see it.”
At those words, Wonhyeok forced his eyes wide open and stared at the ground despite the blurred scenery rushing past him.
What could there possibly be to see...?
Then Wonhyeok saw something faint, like frost.
It was a pale trace, as though someone had lightly sprinkled bluish salt along the road. It was identical to the trail the ghost had left the night before!
Just as Haje had said, perhaps his dog eyes had poor sight, because he had to strain them terribly to see it.
Once they entered the mountain, Haje began charging recklessly through the brush like a wild beast.
‘Are a Gap Grade Messenger’s eyes different too?!’
Then Haje stopped abruptly.
At the sensation of his body pitching forward from inertia, Wonhyeok hurriedly grabbed Haje’s clothes like a lifeline.
For some reason, the Ghost Gate Messenger’s clothes were taut as though they could not stretch any further, yet they would not tear.
“Found it.”
Haje’s voice rang ominously.
THUD.
Haje threw Wonhyeok down onto the ground, then shot forward like lightning.
Suddenly rolling across the dirt, Wonhyeok saw the sight before him and felt all the complaints he had been about to make disappear.
A ravine in the mountains, its rock walls exposed, resembled a small fortress.
At its center, Haje instantly surrounded the ghost with lightning and imprisoned it. Wonhyeok could not even see how he had done it.
Perhaps unable to resist a Gap Grade Messenger’s power, the ghost stood still as though nailed in place, letting out weeping sounds.
“The children!”
Wonhyeok saw children lying unconscious inside the ravine.
Avoiding the lightning Haje had cast, he hurried over to them and let his shoulders drop in relief.
Fortunately, the children had their eyes shut and were breathing softly, as though they were sleeping soundly.
Just as they had guessed, no children had died.
Then something struck Wonhyeok’s foot.
It was a completely rotten fruit, its upper part cut away....
“This is not an ordinary sonmalmyeong.”
【Sob, sob, sob....】
Haje looked at the ghost trapped within the lightning as though calculating its worth.
Wonhyeok suddenly raised his head. Only then could he see the ghost’s appearance clearly again.
A white hwalot and a mourning hood. A trace of moisture.
Then Haje spoke.
“Several dead women are mingled within it. The moisture... Yes. The bodies in the reservoir were yours.”
Though he said that, Haje seemed to have expected this all along. Wonhyeok stared blankly between Haje and the ghost, then met Haje’s golden eyes.
“What are you doing? You should be recording this.”
“Ah, yes, yes!”
Wonhyeok hurriedly took out his ledger and wrote down what Haje had said. Even so, his head felt as though it were spinning.
It was true, as Wonhyeok had witnessed, that this ghost had abducted children.
But it was the village women who killed the village men. This ghost had nothing to do with that....
Then why had the ghost abducted children?
And....
【Where are you... Where are you....】
【Will you leave me to spend this night alone...? Where are you....】
For a ghost that appeared to want children, its delirious mutterings were far from ordinary.
Then Haje put the ghost into a gourd flask. The village’s trouble was settled in an instant.
When had he even taken out that gourd flask?
‘Is there any uncanny power or wicked spirit that could trouble a Gap Grade Messenger?’
Then again, if such a thing existed, that would be troubling in its own way.
As Wonhyeok continued writing, Haje looked around the area. Then, as though he had expected it, he clicked his tongue.
“There is no Ghost Gate here after all.”
“Th-thank goodness.”
“Well, if we tell the village head that, she will probably make a thoroughly sour face.”
Wonhyeok asked Haje.
“What do you intend to do about the villagers killing the men?”
“What do you mean, what? Leave them alone. Our work is done, so we only need to explain this one to the village head.”
As he said that, Haje loosely shook the gourd flask holding the ghost.
“Then our work in this village is finished.”