Requiem of Subdued Souls

Chapter 43 – Lion Dance (11)

Seol Young wasn’t interested in how the others looked at him.

He only looked at Baek Eon, Song Ok, and Hyo Wol, who were near the musicians’ side.

Memories of the four of them secretly meeting and doing all sorts of fun stuff when he was a kid came to his mind.

He averted his gaze as he felt a warm sensation in the corner of his heart.

“You have suffered so much. Amitabha.”

Do Cheol cleaned up the lion mask, which fell to the ground.

“It was stabbed here and there, but I will bring it with me and sew it up. Actually, these days I am a bit attached to sewing…”

As he said that, he hugged the mask close to him. It was so large that he had a hard time lifting it.

The Demonic Sword, which fell beside him, had already faded. In the first place, it wasn’t a real object as it was already destroyed a long time ago.

When the Demonic Sword disappeared, the pain in Seol-Young’s hand vanished. He could feel the wound healing without having to do anything.

“In this way, this supernatural calamity has been solved.”

Seol Young concluded by reporting to the Governor.

This time, many people watched the end, so they didn’t have much to say. However, Seol Young had one question in mind.

So he approached Zaha.

“I used this sword well.”

Since they were in front of so many people, he gently gave Sa Daham’s sword back to Zaha.

“Ah. Right. I forgot.”

Zaha calmly took it back.

‘Why did he lend it to me?’

As a result, it ended well, but why?

And he thought,

‘Maybe…’

Seol Young stared at him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“…”

Seriously, he thought they should talk about it, but not here. So after looking at him with confused eyes, he turned to the Governor.

And then…

“Ah! Seol Young-rang!”

Do Cheol ran to him.

“I was thinking about telling you this, but then I completely forgot about it. Do you know that there is a monster in your room?”

Seol Young was taken aback for a moment. It was completely unexpected.

“A monster in my room…?”

“You didn’t know either? Amitabha. It is a good thing that I remembered.”

Do Cheol said with a serious face.

“Didn’t I escape danger by hiding under the altar in my dream? Hwarang Seol Young said that it was Buddha who saved me, so I just moved on from it, but now that I think about it, it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then?”

“It is true that Buddha hid me right under the altar. But the monster in the closet in your room helped me. It hated the sound of a monk praying, so he opened his eyes in anger when he heard me praying.”

Hearing this made him think.

The unidentified object—that wooden thing he got from the GO rooms—was wrapped in a talisman.

And that was inside the closet Do Cheol was talking about.

The issue about the monk was so urgent that he had set it aside for a while.

But it opened its eyes?

“It had eyes?”

“Yes. But only one eye was open, and it made a horrifying sound.”

“But it helped you, monk?”

“Yes. Thanks to that, I was able to escape from the dream without being noticed by the fake monk. Isn’t it such a good monster?”

“…”

Seol Young thought with a strange look on his face.

‘I need to check that out first.’

The Sword Dance had ended.

“In the end, we ended up being fools again.”

Seo Geom, the leader of the Blue Dragon True Troops, bent down and picked up the black drumstick. Then he approached Baek Eon and handed it to him.

“Baek Eon-rang, how did you know?”

“Hmm?”

Baek Eon made an expression as if saying that he didn’t know what it was about.

“Seeing the evil spirit rampaging, a bad thought popped into my head, and then I just got carried away, and my hand slipped.”

He answered back with a gentle face.

And at that time…

“Great-rang!”

Gyeon Yun, the third member of the Blue Dragons, called him with a strange face.

“What?”

“Take a look at this.”

He took the arrow that Seo Geom had shot and returned it. As he witnessed that, his expression changed.

The arrow was cut in half.

He clearly saw Baek Eon’s drumstick hitting the arrow, and the stick was still intact, but the arrow was cut?

He looked at the part of the cut, and it was smooth.

Who cut it cleanly? It could have been cut before the stick touched it. And there were only two people here who could do this.

One of them was the Governor who watched it happen.

Seo Geom’s face contorted.

“How do I interpret this?”

As soon as Seol Young returned to the dorms, he went straight to his room. He opened the closet, took out the bag, and brought out the stuff in it.

All of the talismans that were written had been erased, like they had done their duty.

And he carefully unwrapped them.

A round black shape could be seen through the paper. After a while, he was able to unravel everything, and the face of a fierce monster appeared.

Someone carved the monster from a hard ebony piece. It looked worn with time, as if one would even wonder if a carving existed.

But its expression still looked clear.

One of its eyes was open, and a tooth was protruding out. It looked like it would roar at any moment.

‘What is this?’

He didn’t know.

He could only tell that it surely had a powerful face. It was dozens of times larger than the piece of wood he had been carrying around, thinking it was a wooden tablet, and it was in perfect shape too.

It was quite effective even with that, and he thought that this would help him cause serious wounds to anyone.

‘Wooden Ghost Face Mask.’

Seol Young decided to call this thing that.

When he held it in his hand, rather than heat, he felt a cool energy. And unlike what he felt from looking at its face, he felt refreshed from touching it.

He felt better.

Seol Young sat with his back against the wall.

Following the monster mask in the village, the painting, and now the ghost of a fake monk in the shape of a sword, all of them happened in reality.

And sooner or later, another ghost story would appear and happen in reality.

He was already sure of it now. But at least this little room of his was quiet.

‘Let’s take a rest for now.’

Seol Young closed his eyes.

The resentful face of the old woman glaring at him, the image of Sa Daham practicing the sword technique, the screams of a person, and the image of the Demonic Sword drenched in blood….

Every scene was being erased in his mind. His head slowly turned to one side as fatigue hit his body.

Soon, Seol Young fell asleep.

… how much time had passed?

When he suddenly came to his senses, it was dark.

Where is this?

He looked around in shock and confusion.

The moonlight was bright, and the roofs, pillars, and buildings all shone in silver. It was a palace or a pavilion-like structure.

There was no such place in the Moon Palace. And this was a place Seol Young had never visited before.

‘Where am I?’

He stared into the darkness, but he couldn’t see anything, and it felt as if a veil was blocking it.

He felt that this was an ominous sign.

‘I need to get out of here quickly.’

He continued to walk, looking for an exit. And at that time…

Suddenly, someone’s back came into view.

Seol Young’s eyes widened.

Now, in the darkness, there was someone walking right ahead of him.

Her black hair, which reached her waist, was swaying from side to side, and on the back of her head, there was a fancy hairpin that looked like a crown. The beads hanging from both of its ends swayed lightly.

‘That woman!’

He felt it now.

The woman walked quickly, and she continued to go forward. It looked like she would disappear if he blinked an eye in this darkness.

“Wait!”

Seol Young hurriedly went after her.

“Who are you? What is your identity?”

Their distance began to get shorter. And the beads on her hairpin could be heard clacking. He could even see a small pattern engraved on her neck.

Everything felt so vivid.

‘Don’t lose her now.’

As the woman turned into a corner, he reached out and grabbed the hem of her dress.

“Who are you?”

The woman turned around. At that moment, Seol Young gasped.

Talismans were stuck on the woman’s face. Dozens, or maybe a hundred, all covered her face. And the meaning of this was clear.

Countless shamans had already tried to exorcise her, but no one succeeded. This woman was not an ordinary ghost. There was not even a name for this kind of evil spirit in this world.

His entire body went cold.

Seol Young couldn’t move as if a sword was pressed onto him.

‘I have to let go.’

But it was already too late when he thought about escaping. A black mist began to rise from the woman. And then he heard a sharp sound.

‘Crazy voice.’

In the agony of wanting to dig out his ears, complex shapes began to emerge in the darkness.

Round things and pillars spread endlessly in the darkness, mixing and changing.

Everything expanded infinitely, and at the same time, he felt imprisoned. It was like a huge flower with too many petals, and he was in the center of it.

Mandala.

Mandala of Darkness.

The whisper in his ears grew louder and louder as the souls buried in the darkness began to speak to him.

[Run!]

Seol Young opened his eyes, and his entire body felt cold, as if he had bathed in ice. And it was as if the blood in his body had stopped flowing.

‘What did I just see?’

It wasn’t a dream. Through the process, he looked into the existence of another world once again.

A terrifying figure with so many talismans over her face.

But that didn’t matter.

Seol Young looked at his hand, and the Wooden Ghost Face Mask trembled.

Suddenly, its other eye was now open. And with both eyes wide open, he was reacting intensely.

‘Same.’

How should he interpret this?

Seol Young felt confused. When he tried to figure out Zaha’s identity at the tomb, he saw a unique demonic qi.

And it felt intense and terrifying, even to him.

Up until now, he had seen countless spirits in the world, but none with such an aura.

But it was the same thing. He felt the same energy from Zaha, like that strange shadow he saw.

It was darkness that could eat everything.

It was something he hadn’t seen elsewhere.

Equivalent.

Both belonged to the same world.

What did it mean?

Seol Young mumbled.

“… another?”

The Great Heavenly Pavillion must have surely gotten this revelation.

-Why are you leaving a mark in the Hwarangs? Supernatural calamities will continue to happen one after another! It will be a catastrophe in the end!

This prophecy changed Seol Young’s fate.

However, he didn’t pay much attention to it because he thought it was wrong.

But what if it wasn’t wrong?

‘What if the protagonist of the revelation was someone other than me?’

It was a thought he had never had until now.