Honbul: Flame of the Soul

In the quiet forest stood six human figures and a single shadow.

They were the intelligent ghosts in veils, and the leader wearing the Fool mask. Paehyeon turned his head and looked at the leader. The eyes barely visible through the mask were impossible to read. There was no telling what he was thinking.

Ssshhh...

A gust of wind swept past.

“Byeoksadan, protect the Bangsangsi.”

Everyone bowed their heads.

“Let’s go.”

The night when their fates would collide had begun.

Kang Ibin was staring out the window with a gloomy expression.

It was late in the evening, on the cusp between Saturday and Sunday. Ibin sat in a café not far from headquarters, chin propped in one hand, a straw between her lips as she stared blankly outside. Beyond the glass window, pedestrians came and went along the street.

Today was a rare day off. Yet even on a day meant for rest, her mind was nowhere near at ease.

The atmosphere at the Office had been terrible lately.

“......”

Ibin, who had been gazing out the window, let out a long sigh and lowered her head.

For several days now, Jaegyeom and Chief Yoon had been out of contact and had not appeared at headquarters. Jaegyeom had vanished like this a few times before, but Chief Yoon was not the kind of person who abandoned his post so irresponsibly. He might seem easygoing at a glance, but he was exacting about managing himself, and he always handled his share of the work with precision.

It had not been long since he had returned from the island, gravely injured. That incident had left Yoon Taehee hospitalized for a time, and his absence had remained like trauma for the team members.

“Did something happen to him?”

“Could it be... like last time again...?”

For the past several days, the team members had waited anxiously for Chief Yoon to contact them. They had called him dozens of times, but his cell phone was turned off. In the end, Team 1, unable to stand the anxiety any longer, had gone to see Seok Juryeon yesterday. They thought they should go out and search for Chief Yoon, since no one could reach him.

But what came out of Seok Juryeon’s mouth was completely unexpected.

“He won’t be coming in anymore.”

“...What?”

Ibin asked blankly.

“What... what do you mean?”

“He said a while ago that he was quitting.”

It was the first they had heard of it. Every member of the team stared in disbelief. Until now, he had never shown even the slightest sign of it. They joked around with him and were familiar with him, but they knew Chief Yoon had an invisible wall around himself. Even so, Ibin was forced to realize all over again that she knew nothing about Chief Yoon.

“Th-that can’t be right.”

The team members denied it. Even if he had talked about quitting, he was not so irresponsible that he would resign overnight without saying a word. Something must have happened. Yet Seok Juryeon was indifferent about Yoon Taehee’s departure.

“Then why didn’t you stop him?”

Ibin spoke with disbelief written all over her face.

“You should have refused it. How could you just... without even telling us...”

“Why would I have to stop him?”

“...What?”

“Do you think the Office of Narye will collapse just because one person is gone?”

Seok Juryeon said that if Chief Yoon did not show up, she would process his resignation.

That was all.

The members of Team 1 could not say another word and had no choice but to return to the office. Seok Juryeon did not seem to want Yoon Taehee, who had left without a word, to come back. Nor did she seem to regret his absence.

Looking at Seok Juryeon, Ibin felt an indescribable disappointment and anger. How could she let a subordinate go so easily, when she knew better than anyone how hard Chief Yoon had worked and how much of himself he had given?

But when she looked back, she had felt this emotion once before.

Leave the one who got caught, and the rest of you get out.

After the incident at the Yeum Arts Center, Ibin had spent her days in mental anguish. That incident had made Ibin, who had once lived with such vitality as a Naja, grow quieter and quieter, as though she were working through some dull workbook.

And now, she heard ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) that Chief Yoon had quit without a word.

Had the Office of Narye abandoned Chief Yoon?

Perhaps, like last time, they had handed him over somewhere...

For the past few years, she had lived with pride in being a member of the Office of Narye.

But recently, for the first time, Ibin had thought about quitting.

She no longer wanted to stay on a team without Chief Yoon. The other team members felt the same. They had met through work, but that was not all they were to one another. There was such a thing as an invisible bond between people.

Just as Ibin sighed again, wondering how she was supposed to live a life that was no longer the life of a Naja...

Something shot past the large glass window. Ibin frowned.

“What, is something going on today...?”

A moment earlier, a swarm of stray ghosts had rushed down the street.

This was already the fourth time today.

In the past, even on a day off, she might have immediately chased after them to drive them off or annihilate them on sight. But at some point, she had begun letting more of them pass.

The streets around Jongno held a clear, pure force, making them an especially forbidding place for ghosts. In their line of work, it was an area with security as good as the front of a police station.

That was why weak stray ghosts and wandering spirits usually hid in basements or inside buildings.

But today, she kept seeing them roaming through Jongno in swarms, almost as if they were parading.

It was obviously strange, but Ibin’s thoughts did not quite reach that far.

Ibin sighed and went outside. It was late on a weekend night. The streets of Jongno, packed with companies and office buildings, were bustling on weekdays, but relatively deserted on weekends.

Ibin trudged down the street in silence, then lifted her head. Far away, she could see the dark slopes of Mount Bugak.

But a blue fire was flickering on the slope of Mount Bugak.

“Huh?”

Ibin rubbed her eyes. A large blue flame was rising from the place where the beacon mound had once stood. It looked as though a signal fire had been lit. Though she had lived here for years, she had never seen anything like it.

Long ago, each mountain had beacon mounds where signal fires were lit. They had been used to send messages when an emergency or problem occurred. Now, they had long since become nothing more than monuments.

“Wh-what is that?”

Ibin was flustered. It was unmistakably a blue flame. She looked around, but the people on the street were all hurrying on their way. That meant it was invisible to everyone else.

Her intuition told her she had to report it to the Office of Narye. Since it was her day off, she had not brought her pager with her, so she turned on the cell phone she had briefly switched off earlier to watch a movie.

In just those few hours, an enormous number of missed calls had come in.

They were from her team members.

Ibin’s face stiffened.

It was then that an unknown sense of foreboding washed over her.

A swarm of stray ghosts was walking toward her from the opposite direction. This was already the fifth time. Ibin stopped and watched as the stray ghosts passed by her.

They were the same ones she had seen earlier.

The stray ghosts were hopping along with their arms spread wide, repeating the same words as though humming a song they had learned somewhere.

“The Office of Narye is collapsing!”

“The Office of Narye is finished!”

“The Office of Narye is collapsing!”

“The Office of Narye is finished!”

...Huh?

Ibin felt a strange fear.

Before she knew it, she was walking toward headquarters.

Fortunately, it was not far.

She began running toward headquarters, passing Jongmyo Square and the park.

In the distance, she could see the firmly shut gates of Jongmyo.

Like Confucian academies, local schools, and shrines, it had a three-doored gate, and Jongmyo’s outer gate was also divided into three sections. The reason a gate was divided into three was to separate the passage of gods from that of humans. The central gate, the Spirit Gate, was the gate through which spirits passed, so the living did not use it, and it was usually kept closed. People entered through the right, the east, and exited through the left, the west. The same rule applied to Naja.

But that very central gate, which should have been firmly shut, was wide open.

...What is this?

She had a feeling something was wrong.

Ibin gasped and quickly entered the grounds of Jongmyo. She hurriedly closed the open gate. It gave a heavy, aged groan.

Why on earth had the gate been open...?

Could something have entered...?

But this was the shrine of the Joseon royal family. Jongmyo was not a place for the living, but a sacred space for the dead. It was not somewhere evil things could carelessly set foot.

Just in case, Ibin turned her head from side to side and scanned her surroundings.

When she looked left, she saw a quiet pond. When she shifted her gaze to the right, she saw a ticket booth that looked like a small hut. Ahead of her lay darkness, and a stone path stretched straight forward.

The stone path, paved with flat stones, was divided into three lanes, and a small sign had been placed along it.

It was called the Three Paths, and the central path was the Divine Path, said to be the road along which gods traveled. One of the first things Naja learned when entering and leaving Jongmyo was that they must not walk on that path.

Ibin’s gaze reached the end of the Spirit Path.

But on the path in the darkness, someone was standing.

Ibin’s eyes slowly widened.

She could see a back clad in a red traditional overrobe.

When Ibin called out, the figure slowly turned his head and looked back.

A twisted Fool mask.

And a sword in one hand.

“...Chief Yoon?”