Slender Man.
One of America's most famous urban legends.
An anomaly so firmly lodged in the public imagination was likely to be quite powerful.
And when I opened my senses to feel its energy, a formidable force was indeed pouring from beyond the cordon.
That was when it happened.
《A delicious… smell…. Take me… over there….》
The Divine Spirit, who had only repeated that he was hungry until now, suddenly had much more to say.
Do-jun cautiously approached the motel across the street.
“SKREEE!”
“It's a proxy! They're proxies!”
Near the police tape, people who appeared to be guests, transformed into something like zombies, rushed at the officers.
Proxy.
Puppets whose minds had been seized by Slender Man, moving according to its will.
‘Wow…. They really exist.’
It was strange to see with my own eyes something I had only encountered in internet horror stories.
Then a dozen or more heavily armed exorcists stepped forward.
“Begone, evil spirits!”
“Hyaaaa!”
CRACK—! CRACK—!
They splashed holy water over the proxies' bodies and swung hammers to knock them unconscious.
The proxies dropped without much of a fight.
‘…Maybe I don't need to get involved.’
Once that round of commotion had passed,
《Closer… go closer over there….》
I followed the Divine Spirit's urging and cautiously approached the police tape.
One of the exorcists snapped at me.
“Hey, Asian! It's dangerous here, so get back to your room!”
“Ah, I'll just watch from here. I'm a kind of exorcist myself…. I thought I might be able to help.”
He was a large man with blond hair.
He looked as though he ought to be a wrestler rather than an exorcist. His brow creased sharply as he said,
“An exorcist? Ha! Cut the bullshit and get lost. Everyone knows how good Asian exorcists are!”
“That's a bit harsh.”
“Are you leaving or not? We're about to start the operation, so stay out of our way!”
Just then,
SMASH!
A window broke, and something burst out of it.
“Tzzzzzz.”
“I-it's out!”
“Surround it!”
A towering figure, easily three meters tall.
A suit and a pale face without a single facial feature.
Grotesquely twisted joints and tentacles extending from its back.
Sinister energy poured fiercely from its entire body.
Do-jun smiled.
‘That bastard's pretty strong.’
The next instant,
“Ghurk…!”
Fresh blood spurted like a fountain.
The scene descended into chaos.
The exorcists panicked, splashing holy water and chanting spells, but the evil spirit began slaughtering them without a care.
“A-aaaah! Shoot! Shoot it!”
BANG! BANG! BANG-BANG!
Even the police started firing their handguns wildly.
Do-jun frowned as he watched.
‘Why are these people carrying out an exorcism with no plan at all?’
Unlike the work he had done at Blue Tile, there seemed to be no plan or system in place. It felt as though they had simply thrown people at the thing and hoped for the best.
CRUNCH—! CRUNCH—!
“Aaaagh!”
The exorcists fighting it had their arms severed and their bodies hurled backward.
Now and then they used the holy magic America boasted of, but it was nowhere near enough to overcome Slender Man.
Then,
“Ghhhk! Ghurk!”
Slender Man lunged at the blond exorcist who had told Do-jun to get lost and seized him by the throat.
With that overwhelming strength, it would snap his neck and kill him if this continued.
‘…I didn't want to interfere.’
“No Evil Spirits of the Five Directions Shall Enter This Path!”
I tossed a talisman from inside my clothes into the air, and the paper burst into flame.
It became a blue arrowhead and struck Slender Man's body.
“SKREE?”
Slender Man flew backward, landed, and cocked his head.
‘…That barely did anything.’
I had fired it intending to pierce its chest in one blow, and that was all the reaction I got.
The exorcists stared at me in surprise.
I put on the mask I had brought and covered my face.
Slender Man switched targets and charged at Do-jun.
“SKREE! SKREE!”
It attacked alongside the proxies it controlled, extending its long arms and legs.
‘Thunderbolt Hand!’
‘Five Thunder Divine Incantation!’
I burned the talismans I had prepared and met its attack head-on.
But the limits of what I could do were obvious.
Without divine power, my counterattack could not deal that thing much damage.
At this rate, I would run out of talismans and die.
Besides….
《Hungry…. I am hungry.》
The Divine Spirit inside my belly was still talking about something else.
Excuse me, Divine Spirit. Could you stop talking nonsense and lend me some strength?
‘I guess I have no choice.’
I gritted my teeth and drew the energy up from my lower abdomen.
I was about to use my life force, my Innate True Qi, to fight it.
Then….
“Tzzzzzt!”
Slender Man surged straight toward me, pouring out ominous energy from its entire body.
At that moment….
《How laughable.》
“Huh?”
My spirit jar suddenly vibrated.
Above my body rose an enormous phantom that seemed poised to swallow the night sky.
It was a beast larger than dozens of grown men put together, with streaming blue fur and the shape of a storm.
When it opened its eyes, the air around us grew as hot as a desert wind.
“W-what is that?”
“Goddamn….”
The exorcists' Bibles trembled wildly, and the cross pendants around their necks bent toward Do-jun as though bowing, regardless of their owners' wishes.
From the heart of the storm, the beast stretched out a forepaw as though swatting away a bothersome fly.
BOOOOOOM—!
A storm swept through with a deafening roar.
Slender Man and the proxies were torn apart and disintegrated without a trace.
‘Well, I'll be damned. It can do that?’
When I came to my senses, a huge crater had formed in the middle of the road.
Shock filled the faces of the police and exorcists around me.
An Asian man had appeared out of nowhere and destroyed Slender Man in a single blow.
The blond exorcist I had saved a moment ago approached and asked,
“Who exactly are you, sir?”
He had suddenly become polite.
After thinking for a moment, I answered,
“Me? I'm an exorcist, same as you.”
“…Y-you're incredible. I've never seen anyone with skills like yours.”
Fear and awe mingled in their manner.
He asked again, cautiously,
“Excuse me, but may I ask which organization you belong to?”
“Why should I tell you? I don't even know who you are.”
“I-I'm… Michael, the guild master of Riverside 14 and a Grade 7 Exorcist. C-could you be… a Named Exorcist?”
A Named Exorcist.
The term referred to an exceptional exorcist outside the ordinary Grades 1 through 9, one assigned a separate code name by the American Department of Exorcism.
I had heard that information about them was kept strictly confidential.
“I have no obligation to tell you.”
I replied coldly and strode off with my head high.
“Whoa….”
“H-he's a Named Exorcist.”
“I've never seen one before.”
I heard the exorcists talking behind my back.
There was nothing to gain by revealing my name or letting any information slip here.
Information had a way of spreading. It was only a matter of time before it crossed the Pacific and reached Blue Tile, the covert unit under the South Korean president.
‘Those ruthless bastards won't sit still if they hear I'm making a name for myself.’
I knew Blue Tile also had plenty of covert agents stationed in America.
Quite a few of them could be called monsters.
If they caught me out now, things would get complicated.
Then a thought occurred to me.
‘Hold on… couldn't I use this situation?’
An Asian man had appeared out of nowhere and displayed remarkable power.
And these people mistook me for a Named Exorcist.
If I used that to my advantage, I might be able to do something with it.
“Oh, right. You said your name was Michael?”
“Yes, sir! What can I do for you?”
“What was the payout for this job?”
“Why do you…?”
The unexpected question left the exorcist looking dumbfounded.
“Hurry up.”
“S-Slender Man… between the city hall reward and the association's payment, it's about two hundred thousand dollars.”
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Roughly three hundred million won.
The moment I heard that….
‘I'm jealous.’
That was how I honestly felt.
South Korea had never officially acknowledged the existence of evil spirits or malevolent ghosts, and their exorcisms were carried out solely through a covert organization.
As with everything the state handled, the pay was stingy and the treatment uncertain.
Killing that one thing would earn them almost as much as I had made in a year as a Special Class Exorcist.
So this was what America, capitalism's standard-bearer, was like.
I made a quick decision.
I had done something I had never expected to do, so I might as well get paid what I was owed.
“Seventy percent.”
“Pardon?”
“I'll be fair and leave thirty percent for your cleanup costs. I won't ask for more, so pay me in crypto or cash.”
At this brazen demand, the exorcists exchanged glances for a moment.
‘He's a Named Exorcist…. We'd be in trouble if we got on his bad side.’
His overwhelming power, his refusal to reveal his identity, even his demand to be paid in cash.
Everything about him seemed to announce that he was a Named Exorcist.
Michael spoke.
“J-just a moment, sir! I'll bring it right away!”
He gave orders to his subordinates, who brought over a bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills and handed it to me.
One hundred and forty thousand dollars, about two hundred million won.
I had earned that… in less than an hour.
***
A little later.
“Huuuuuh….”
I let the hot water from the motel shower wash over me.
After washing away the blood and tension under the stream, I threw myself onto the bed wearing only a towel.
“I really thought I was going to die.”
I looked up at the ceiling and let out a hollow laugh.
The heavy pressure I had felt from the enormous spirit jar in my lower abdomen was still unfamiliar.
Facing Slender Man with an empty vessel that had lost all its divine power had made everything seem bleak. Yet I had not only survived the crisis, I had also come away with far more than expected: two hundred million won.
“They certainly pay well here. I guess this really is the home of capitalism.”
Memories of Korea flashed through my mind.
Even when I had been with Blue Tile, traveling to stop disasters on a national scale, they would whittle down my compensation under one pretext or another, hazard pay included. To receive this much, I would have had to write dozens of pages of reports and wait a month.
Compared with the days when I had been exploited in the name of patriotism and service, this place was a gold mine.
‘If I play this right, I can grow much faster than I thought.’
I had heard about it.
After America and several other countries recognized the existence of evil spirits and malevolent ghosts, the market value of capable exorcists had soared. The very best, the so-called ‘Named Exorcists,’ were said to earn more than one hundred billion won a year.
Then what if I regained the abilities I had possessed in my prime?
Becoming truly rich would be easy.
‘But there are still plenty of things I need to sort out first.’
First, I had to find out who had taken up residence in my spirit jar.
I closed my eyes and looked inward, into the heart of that vast vessel.
The magnificent being that had torn the evil spirit apart in an instant just now lurked there.
A mysterious spirit who remembered neither his name nor what deity he was.
《CRUNCH, CRUNCH, GULP.》
He was ravenously chewing and swallowing the soul of Slender Man, whom he had just eaten, as though enjoying a lavish feast.
He was wild and powerful, overwhelming to sense.
Even I got goose bumps.
If I had not borrowed his strength, I probably would have had to sacrifice five years' worth of my Innate True Qi to face Slender Man just now.
I waited quietly for some time.
《…BURP.》
As the meal ended, the sound of his satisfied belch echoed through my mind.
《That was a fine meal, child. It has been a long time since I ate so well. Though it did not taste very good.》
I asked cautiously,
‘So, Divine Spirit, who exactly are you?’
《I told you, I cannot remember. When the medium who housed me died, I lost both my name and my true name in the aftermath.》
A bitter note entered the Divine Spirit's voice.
《But do not worry. As I eat the sustenance you bring me and regain my strength, my memories will return. Then my power will grow greater still.》
I was stunned inwardly.
The strength the Divine Spirit had shown for a moment earlier was in no way inferior to the White Tiger Spirit I had served in Korea.
And that was not even his full strength?
‘The American style, I guess…. Everything's on a different scale.’
What if I helped this Divine Spirit grow even stronger?
A glint came into my eyes.
Kang Do-jun Great Again.
The American Dream itself was within reach.
If I earned money, built my power quickly, and used both to draw close to America's political and business circles and expand my influence, even the bastards at Blue Tile would not dare touch me.
Excitement surged through me.
Those Korean bastards had used me and thrown me away.
The time it would take to get my revenge on them had just been cut short by at least a few years.
My thoughts raced.
‘Change of plans.’
I took out the old parts and fitted new ones in their place. Before long… a new picture came together.
I reached a conclusion quickly.
‘I'll start with work in the shadows.’
It was the choice most likely to speed up both my earnings and the Divine Spirit's growth.