Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“This... this is the robe Myojeong used to wear...”

Jaegyeom’s face had gone deathly pale.

A sudden, violent fear swept over him. The world before his eyes wavered as if he had been trapped inside a fishbowl, and reality itself began to warp. The way the edges of his vision twisted felt almost like motion sickness.

It was a bizarre sensation, impossible to describe.

“You... w-what the hell are you...?”

As he spoke, Jaegyeom backed away from Yoon Taehee.

It was an instinctive act born from fear.

An inexplicable chill and dizziness washed over him. The person before him was clearly Yoon Taehee, wearing nothing more than an outer robe. And yet, to Jaegyeom, Yoon Taehee suddenly seemed like some strange and terrifying being.

“What are you talking about? This was your teacher’s robe?”

Only then did Yoon Taehee, who had been staring intently at Jaegyeom, speak.

“This robe belonged to Saero.”

“That’s a lie. I’m not letting you fool me anymore.”

Jaegyeom’s eyes were filled with wariness and hostility.

“......”

After standing there in silence for a moment, Yoon Taehee furrowed his brow.

What did he mean, fool him?

From the beginning, Taehee could not understand what Jaegyeom was talking about. He glanced toward Paehyeon, who stood nearby, as if asking what had happened before he arrived.

But Paehyeon seemed just as bewildered by Jaegyeom’s behavior.

For some reason, Jaegyeom looked terrified.

Though Taehee still did not understand the situation, he spoke again.

“It’s not a lie. This robe really was Saero’s—”

“That robe was buried with Myojeong!”

At the sudden shout, Yoon Taehee flinched and fell silent.

“......”

After snapping so fiercely, Jaegyeom stood there wavering dangerously.

At a glance, it was obvious that he was not in his right mind. He looked as if he had completely lost his reason.

Seeing his strange state, Yoon Taehee’s expression slowly hardened.

“Saero.”

At his call, Saero appeared.

Yoon Taehee immediately questioned him.

“Where did you get this robe?”

“Yes?”

Abruptly summoned, Saero looked around with a dazed expression, trying to understand the situation.

“I mean the outer robe I’m wearing right now.”

Saero had a deep interest in clothing and enjoyed collecting old garments without owners. The outer robe the Leader was wearing was one of them.

When Byeoksadan was first formed, they had needed to hide the fact that its master was human from the outside world. The Leader had chosen to disguise himself as an ancient intelligent ghost, and to make him look like one who had lived for a very long time, Saero had selected the oldest robe in his possession and given it to him.

“W-Well... I’ve had it for so long that I’m not really sure.”

The robe’s origin was unclear.

To Saero, this robe held no more special value than a stone picked up by the roadside. It was simply one of the many pieces of clothing he had collected after they happened to come into his hands.

“How do you know this really is the robe your teacher wore?”

After a moment of silence, Yoon Taehee turned to Jaegyeom.

“Can you be absolutely certain?”

The proof was the leaf Jaegyeom had stitched onto it himself.

On the day I enter my grave, I will leave this world wearing this robe.

Jaegyeom remembered the promise Myojeong had once made to him.

A long time ago, after Jaegyeom had collapsed with a deep wound in his side and later opened his eyes, he had found a black robe covering him while he lay there unconscious.

That robe had been the only trace Myojeong left behind.

Jaegyeom had immediately set out to wander in search of Myojeong.

Myojeong, I came to return your robe.

Just as Myojeong had done for him, Jaegyeom returned the favor in kind.

He had covered the bleeding, collapsed Myojeong with that outer robe.

Afterward, as promised, he had buried him in the ground together with it.

That meant this outer robe was the garment Myojeong had worn at the moment he closed his eyes.

“This black robe was Myojeong’s favorite.”

At Jaegyeom’s trembling words, Yoon Taehee’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“But this one is red.”

“Th-That’s...”

At Yoon Taehee’s point, Jaegyeom’s eyes shook.

“Myojeong’s blood and mine mixed together, so maybe the color changed.”

“Do you think that makes sense?”

Yoon Taehee’s expression turned strange, as if he had just heard something absurd beyond belief.

His face seemed to ask what kind of nonsense Jaegyeom was spouting.

But the person who found the current situation hardest to accept was Jaegyeom himself.

Even so, Jaegyeom was certain this was Myojeong’s robe.

“Y-You’re the one who doesn’t make sense.”

And so, the final question remained.

“Tell me the truth. Where did you get this robe?”

Yoon Taehee had said he received it from Saero, but no matter how Jaegyeom thought about it, it was too strange.

The problem was that it felt far too eerily connected to be coincidence.

Paehyeon, who had learned the sword from Hwirim.

Saero, who had Myojeong’s robe.

And Yoon Taehee, who commanded intelligent ghosts.

Even if each incident seemed separate on the surface, it felt as though they were all linked together like a spiderweb.

Jaegyeom was now so consumed by fear that rational thought was no longer possible.

“I’m asking you what the hell you are...”

Jaegyeom clutched his forehead, groaning as he forced the words out.

At this point, he was confused by everything and suspicious of everything.

Yoon Taehee had said he had no parents, that he had lost his family to the director. But now Jaegyeom was beginning to distrust even that, wondering if it, too, had been a lie.

Could everyone be deceiving me?

Jaegyeom, who had been trembling uncontrollably as if struck by chills, suddenly lifted his head.

His pupils widened, like someone who had just realized something.

A thought had flashed through his mind like lightning.

Could it be? Was that what happened?

Staring into Yoon Taehee’s eyes, Jaegyeom muttered blankly,

“Myojeong is alive, isn’t he...?”

“...What?”

Jaegyeom’s voice shook violently.

“Myo-Myojeong didn’t die. He’s alive, right?”

As if everything had finally become clear, he let out a hollow laugh.

“Myojeong didn’t die. He was alive... It was all a lie, wasn’t it! Destroying the Office of Narye, losing your family, having no parents—everything was a lie from the beginning to deceive me... Myojeong told you to do it, didn’t he? Myojeong put you up to this! Right?”

Yoon Taehee was speechless.

He only stared at Jaegyeom.

“......”

Jaegyeom wrapped his arms around himself, his face twisting.

“You all conspired together to deceive me...”

Myojeong wasn’t dead.

And Yoon Taehee had approached him because Myojeong ordered him to.

It had been a scheme to destroy him from the very beginning.

Myojeong had to be watching him from somewhere.

Jaegyeom had been fooled into giving his heart to Yoon Taehee, only to be betrayed in the end.

Jaegyeom was now completely consumed by the thought that Myojeong was behind Yoon Taehee.

Otherwise, none of this made sense.

The two of them had to be connected somehow.

Myojeong had orchestrated all of this to drag him down into hell, to inflict even greater despair and pain upon him.

“Jaegyeom.”

“The fact that you actually like me, the revenge, all of it...”

Finally unable to bear it any longer, Yoon Taehee grabbed Jaegyeom by both shoulders.

“Kim Jaegyeom!”

At Taehee’s shout, Jaegyeom’s shoulders flinched.

He stared up at him with wide eyes.

In Jaegyeom’s pupils, Yoon Taehee saw anxiety, terror, and fear.

The moment Jaegyeom had considered the possibility that Taehee might be connected to Myojeong, he had lost all reason.

“I have nothing to do with your teacher.”

“......”

“Get a grip.”

“......”

“Do you hear what you’re saying right now?”

“......”

Yoon Taehee’s face had hardened frighteningly.

He had no relationship with Myojeong.

There was no hidden story like the one Jaegyeom was imagining.

And yet Jaegyeom was spouting nonsense as if possessed.

“Why don’t you try soaking the robe?”

Just then, Paehyeon spoke.

“What?”

“This man believes your robe belonged to his teacher.”

Amid the chaos, Yoon Taehee paused and looked at Paehyeon.

“If it truly is his teacher’s robe, then blood will spread from it.”

In Paehyeon’s hands was a basin he had brought from who knew where.

The strength slowly drained from Yoon Taehee’s hands, which were still gripping Jaegyeom’s shoulders.

The basin was filled with clear water.

Paehyeon was right.

This situation had begun because of the outer robe.

If this really was Myojeong’s robe, then it seemed better to let Jaegyeom confirm it for himself.

Yoon Taehee took off the outer robe and plunged it into the basin.

“......”

Yoon Taehee’s face slowly began to stiffen.

Blood truly spread through the water.

The clear basin gradually turned crimson, as if dye had been released into it.

Disbelief filled Yoon Taehee’s eyes.

Is this robe really Myojeong’s? If so, how in the world... 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“I was right...”

As if saying I told you so, Jaegyeom spoke with an ashen face.

“Th-This is strange. It’s strange... It’s strange, it’s strange—!!!”

Jaegyeom suddenly clapped both hands over his ears and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“......”

There was no way to know what had happened.

It was a mystery how this robe had come into his possession.

Yoon Taehee could understand why Jaegyeom was so shocked.

But Jaegyeom’s fear—that Taehee had been instigated by Myojeong, or had any connection to him—was absurd. Completely nonsensical.

And yet Yoon Taehee himself was just as confused.

There was no way to prove that he had no connection to Jaegyeom’s teacher.

“Saero.”

Yoon Taehee, who had been looking down at the basin full of blood, opened his mouth.

“Read the history contained in this blood.”