Honbul: Flame of the Soul

The Leader headed for the Main Hall.

Normally, a Naja had to enter the Main Hall through the East Gate, but unlike usual, he moved toward the South Gate. The South Gate was known as the entrance for gods, and Naja were forbidden from using it. Paehyeon, Saero, and Black Emperor walked ahead of the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} Leader, clearing the path.

Yoon Taehee swung the central gate wide open and stepped into the Main Hall.

The stone-paved area around the Main Hall was vast and open. A long spirit path stretched through the center, and the spirit chambers stood in a long row. The vicinity of the Main Hall was in utter chaos. The dregs soldiers created by Hyeongwoon and the Naja had become tangled in individual battles.

The dregs soldiers modeled after the Leader’s appearance caused tremendous confusion among the Naja. The Naja near the South Gate spotted the Leader, but because they were occupied fighting the “Leaders” right in front of them, they could not block Yoon Taehee’s path.

Yoon Taehee strode across the spirit path that cut straight through the devastated Main Hall. Fierce shouts and the clash of blades rang out from every direction.

Black Emperor, Saero, and Paehyeon formed a circle around Yoon Taehee, guarding their master and opening the way.

Now and then, Naja who recognized him lunged forward. But just before they could attack, their movements stopped.

Daga was hiding in the distant forest, picking off those who approached the Leader like a sniper. From afar, he supported the escort by cutting away their thoughts with his straw cutter.

“Leader, look only ahead.”

The hem of the red robe fluttered with every step.

When a talisman flew in from somewhere, Saero swung his arm and neutralized it. When ghostly force brushed past them, Paehyeon swung his sword and deflected it. Whenever a barrier or formation was triggered beneath his feet, Black Emperor immediately spread the Leader’s shadow in a circle.

The intelligent ghosts’ mission was to bring Yoon Taehee safely to the front of the Office of Narye.

Since Jongmyo was a space for the dead and a place where spirit tablets were enshrined, even an intelligent ghost could endure it if they borrowed a human body. But no ghost could set foot inside the Office of Narye.

Therefore, the only one who could enter the Office of Narye was a human Naja.

Only the Leader.

Once the Leader was sent inside the Office of Narye, clearing the surrounding area would be up to the intelligent ghosts.

The intelligent ghosts guided the Leader to the front of the twentieth chamber of the Main Hall.

Yoon Taehee reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out the entry key hanging from his neck.

“Master Taehee, please return after becoming the true Bangsangsi.”

Black Emperor, Saero, and Paehyeon knelt on one knee and bowed their heads.

The moment he inserted the entry key, light flashed through the gap in the door.

He threw the door wide open.

Bright light poured into eyes that had grown accustomed to darkness.

Yoon Taehee had lowered his head for a moment and was slowly opening his eyes when he faltered at the unexpected sight before him.

The brightly lit lobby of the Office of Narye was empty.

It was a desolate scene, cold enough that not even a passing ant could be seen.

Yoon Taehee reached behind him and closed the door.

Thud, thud, thud.

The sound of his heels striking the marble floor echoed with every step.

The moment he reached the middle of the empty lobby,

“...How gracious.”

Yoon Taehee slowly closed his eyes, opened them again, and spoke languidly.

“I didn’t expect you to come out to greet me like this.”

Until just a moment ago, not a single person had been visible.

Yet in the blink of an eye, Yoon Taehee was surrounded.

Masked figures were pointing their swords at him from every side.

“Disarm yourself immediately and surrender.”

Well-honed blades hovered close enough to pierce his neck at any second.

Eight people had appeared without a sound, all wearing masks. They were all chief Naja of the Exorcism Unit.

Yoon Taehee, holding a sword in one hand, seemed to shrug before his eyes flickered slightly.

“I repeat. The ringleader of Byeoksadan must disarm himself immediately and surrender.”

The solemn warning rang out once more.

“And if I refuse?”

Yoon Taehee tilted his head slightly and provoked them in a flat voice.

A moment of silence passed.

The tip of a blade came close enough to touch his Fool mask.

“Stop.”

Then a low voice came from behind them.

“Everyone, sheath your swords.”

At the short command, all eight swords were withdrawn in an instant.

Yoon Taehee turned his head and looked back.

A frowning expression, bulging eyes, and a grim face that looked both angry and full of rage.

It was the Scholar mask.

Yoon Taehee slowly scanned the person wearing the Scholar mask from head to toe. She wore low-heeled flats, and a large old scar remained on the top of her foot.

“...”

The corners of Yoon Taehee’s mouth slowly curved into an arc.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you wear a mask.”

Yoon Taehee casually moved the hand holding his sword behind his back and stood at ease.

“Unit Head Seok.”

As he turned his body, indifferent eyes stared at Yoon Taehee from behind the Scholar mask.

“Everyone, withdraw.”

Seok Juryeon ordered the chief Naja of the Exorcism Unit to step back.

“I will deal with him myself.”

Those words meant they were not to interfere in what was about to happen between her and Yoon Taehee.

“But—”

“Unit Head!”

At that, the chief Naja stepped forward and protested, but,

“It’s an order.”

Seok Juryeon did not back down. Her attitude made it clear she would not say it twice.

“No one is to intervene.”

From a distance, the Fool and the Scholar faced each other.

“...”

Seok Juryeon had hoped Yoon Taehee would simply disappear like this and never return.

She had hoped he would forget everything and fly away somewhere far from here.

It would have been fine even if she never saw his face again.

It would have been enough to think that he was living well somewhere, having forgotten it all.

But in the end, Yoon Taehee was standing before her eyes.

Wearing the Fool mask, symbol of the Exorcism Unit, and dressed in the Leader’s robe.

In truth, she had wanted to ask from the moment she first noticed.

Why he had plotted such things.

Since when he had harbored such feelings.

And what had made him become this way.

But she had never managed to ask, not even once. Because she knew that the moment she put the question into words, there would be no turning back.

Instead of asking why, she had sent him signals several times.

Do not regret this.

Go somewhere no one knows you and live while forgetting everything.

“Do you have anything to say?”

Seok Juryeon spoke in an indifferent tone.

“I have plenty to say.”

Yoon Taehee, his hands clasped behind his back, bowed his head and let out a smirk.

He suddenly remembered a day long ago, when they had gone to choose masks.

Back then, Seok Juryeon had been a chief Naja, and Yoon Taehee had been a rookie Naja who had just entered the Exorcism Unit.

That day, out of countless masks, the one Yoon Taehee chose was the Fool mask.

Seok Juryeon had asked him why, of all masks, he had chosen the Fool.

“Just because,” Yoon Taehee had replied, offering only a quiet smile.

“Do you know what I was feeling when I chose this mask back then?”

The foolish Fool, always grinning for no reason.

“Have you ever thought about it, Unit Head?”

The Fool, who does not leave the Scholar’s side even though he can live freely.

“Why the Fool does not leave the Scholar.”

The Fool, whose eyes are smiling, but who exists forever incomplete because he has no chin.

“I thought about it every day.”

The Fool is planning to take revenge on the Scholar. He is waiting for the chance to kill the Scholar with his own hands. The real fools are the people who take the Fool’s smiling face at face value.

Yoon Taehee raised his hand and slowly took off his mask.

“I have been waiting only for this moment.”

The Fool, who had lived a long time holding his breath, finally revealed his bare face.

The child who knew nothing but how to hold his breath while trapped inside a chest was no longer here.

“Unit Head, don’t you remember me?”

At the low question, Seok Juryeon’s eyes distorted slightly.

“You remember Yoon Wonjung, the Naja from the Talisman Unit, don’t you?”

It happened in the span of a split second.

Yoon Taehee did not miss the tremor in Seok Juryeon’s eyes behind the mask.

—Juryeon, did you kill them all?

Seok Juryeon’s eyes slowly widened.

“...”

The hand holding her sword began to tremble faintly.

“You...”

Seok Juryeon remembered it.

The hostility and hatred planted like blades in the young Yoon Taehee’s eyes.

She had felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu when she first saw the boy who had followed her into the convenience store. Since he was a child who had followed her around because he wanted to become a Naja, she had thought perhaps they had crossed paths somewhere at least once.

Or perhaps she had seen, for a moment, her own past self in him like a reflection in a mirror.

The Director had once said,

“Juryeon, you have never once gone against my will.”

But in truth, there had been one single act of defiance.

Over a decade ago, there had been a prophecy.

Around that time, the Director had been desperate to uncover the meaning of the prophecy. Then, one winter day, a report came in that a large blue fire had broken out in the mountains.

Because fire ghosts swarmed the area, it was a place where great fires broke out every season, and a Naja had been stationed there under cover.

They said it was a phantom fire that burned everything, yet remained invisible to human eyes.

Upon receiving the news, Seok Juryeon took the Director’s order and headed to the village.

And that day, Seok Juryeon discovered a pair of eyes staring blankly up at her from inside a dark chest.

It was the child Yoon Wonjung was supposedly raising.

As far as Seok Juryeon knew, Yoon Wonjung had no family. He had said he had lost his only son in an accident, and she had heard that he had taken in an orphan to raise.

The moment she met the eyes of the child hidden inside the chest, Seok Juryeon saw her own childhood, trapped inside a dark storehouse.

At the time, the Naja of the Covert Division who had gone undercover as a community center employee claimed the child was gifted, but there was no clear evidence.

Seok Juryeon was swayed by one tiny uncertainty.

If he was Yoon Wonjung’s family, then there was a high chance he was gifted by blood. But they had clearly said the child was an orphan.

Because of a passing moment of hesitation and pity, Seok Juryeon ultimately could not kill the child that day.

Fire was spreading everywhere anyway.

Before long, this entire house would burn down and disappear.

Even if he safely escaped the room where the flames were rising, the child would not be able to live a proper life.

Even if she could not save the child curled up inside the chest, if she just closed the chest as it was...

If she could simply close her eyes and walk past, pretending she had seen nothing...

That was her first memory of disobeying the Director’s order. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

“You were...”

Seok Juryeon muttered blankly, her eyes wide.

“It was you...”

“Yes, it was me, Unit Head.”

Seok Juryeon was both his enemy’s minion and his savior.

More than anyone, Yoon Taehee knew that Seok Juryeon was nothing more than a pathetic, ordinary human being.

That was why Yoon Taehee could not forgive Seok Juryeon.

He knew she could not sleep without medicine.

He also knew the source of that shadow that followed her around in the form of a headache.

Yoon Taehee always thought it would have been better if he had not known.

“Why did you do that?”

“I...”

Seok Juryeon struggled to move her lips, but in the end, she could not continue.

If he was asking why she had done such a thing, why she had killed Yoon Wonjung, she could only answer that she had merely followed orders.

That was why Seok Juryeon could say nothing.

Because in the end, she had not defied that order.

“I was curious about that. Why you didn’t kill me then. Why you left me alive.”

Seok Juryeon did not know the reason either.

The feeling of not wanting to kill a young child.

It could only be called a heart that was simply too ordinary.

A heart any person might have.

Bare-faced now, Yoon Taehee slowly spoke.

“Unit Head.”

It was a strange feeling, as if something inside him were swelling up and collapsing at the same time.

He had always wondered.

What kind of expression would you make if I told you I was that child you spared back then?

On the day the moment of mercy or hesitation you showed returns as a person and points a blade at your throat, will you kneel before your own vice?

When the time comes for your kindness to betray you, will you resent me, or will you regret your past self?

“Will you die by my hand?”

Suddenly, Yoon Taehee felt as though he understood.

The heart of a boy who had no choice but to walk a long road in search of the teacher he both hated and loved.

And the sorrow and inevitability of having to drive a blade into him.

Their swords clashed without ghostly force.