Honbul: Flame of the Soul

The three paper birds shot toward the men like bullets, as if they had been waiting for the moment. The terrified underlings flailed their arms through the air as though swatting at gnats.

“Wh-what is that?!”

“Ugh—g-get away from me!”

The three Black Oblivion Birds scattered around the heads of the three men and viciously raked at their crowns. Though they were nothing more than paper birds, the pain that tore through their hair felt exactly like a real bird was attacking them. The whole thing was so absurdly unreal it almost made them wonder if [N O V E L I G H T] they were dreaming. By then, all three were already half out of their minds.

The underlings thrashed violently, trying to beat the paper birds away, but their movements gradually slowed. Their vision blurred more and more, and the strength began to drain from their legs. Then, one by one, they started to stagger before collapsing to the ground, starting with Yamsaengi. It all happened in an instant.

Their work done, the three Black Oblivion Birds came fluttering back to Yoon Taehee. As if he had been expecting them, he opened his palm. Perched there, the birds opened their beaks and gagged.

What the paper birds coughed up were tiny black beads, each no bigger than a grain of millet. These beads were the harvest of a single night’s memories, pecked clean out of a person. When morning came, the men would wake as if from an ordinary sleep and return to their daily lives, having forgotten everything that had happened the night before as completely as if the film had been cut.

“Good work.”

Yoon Taehee whispered gently. As though they understood him, the paper birds tapped their beaks against his palm, ticklish and light, rubbing their little heads against his hand. A Black Oblivion Bird could carve out no more than the memory of a single night. And even that only worked the first time. It would not work twice on the same person, which meant each person could only ever be targeted by a Black Oblivion Bird once.

It was a tool that came with the limitation of being single-use in exchange for its powerful effect, but everything had its strengths and weaknesses. Even so, for ordinary people who got swept into situations they were never meant to witness, there was nothing handier than a Black Oblivion Bird. Yoon Taehee slowly curled his hand into a fist. Inside it came the dry, papery sound of something being crushed. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

He stepped past the sleeping underlings and walked toward the oil drum where a fire had been lit. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he shook the Black Oblivion Birds and the beads into the firewood burning inside it. The blazing flames steadily devoured the strange fuel. Before long, all of it would be ash.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but these ones had seemed more affectionate than the last batch.

Yoon Taehee gazed quietly into the flames as he murmured to himself.

“That’s a little disappointing.”

It was a short while later that he finally moved again.

*****

Kim Seonghun was sitting cross-legged in a dark corner of the warehouse.

At some point, his closed eyelids slowly began to lift. He had sensed a faint presence. It had been hours since he had sent all his men away and shut himself inside the warehouse. A furrow twitched between Kim Seonghun’s brows as he sat there without moving so much as an inch.

Just as he was staring at the door, the old wooden panel creaked open with a long, unpleasant groan. A man in a mask stood beyond it, motionless. Unlike the underlings from before, Kim Seonghun showed no particular surprise at the sight of him.

“Who are you?”

Kim Seonghun spoke at last after a long silence. But the man said nothing. In the eyes visible beyond the mask, there lingered a smile with no obvious meaning.

“I asked where you came from.”

“Of all people, why’d you have to pick someone like him?”

Instead of answering, Yoon Taehee abruptly scolded him. And before Kim Seonghun could say a word in return, he continued at once.

“It’s common knowledge that Jugyeong Construction has been pouring money into a golf resort project lately. Brand-new construction company or not, they pulled in local government investment and neatly landed the contract. So now they’re hard at work carving up an entire mountain and putting up buildings. Trees, rocks—they’re clearing out everything in their way. But what bad luck. They touched the wrong rock.”

Kim Seonghun silently watched Yoon Taehee as he went on in that easy tone.

“And it seems that rock just happened to be one that had stood deep in the mountains for centuries. Maybe it was even a stone people in the old days used to pray to. Old natural things tend to gather spiritual force, and if people worship them on top of that, they more than qualify as a vessel for a spirit to inhabit. People today would laugh it off as superstition, of course.”

Slowly, Yoon Taehee raised a hand to the mask he was wearing.

“When you disturb an old tree or a boulder, you’re supposed to hold a rite or use talismans to soothe the spirit so it won’t take offense. The president of Jugyeong Construction probably ignored all that. Older construction firms usually go through with the rite just in case, even if they don’t fully believe in it. To a younger man, how ridiculous must that have looked? In the end, that was what caused all this. The precious young master of Jugyeong Construction had been ill for a long time, so his body was weak. The force holding his soul in place had thinned out, which made him a perfect target for something looking to vent its rage. Having lost its vessel, the spirit entered the body of a passing human, then approached the boy and stole his soul.”

When he finished speaking, Yoon Taehee removed the mask and revealed his face.

“Well, that’s my scenario. What do you think?”

Dim moonlight spread softly across his face. The moment Kim Seonghun saw the striking face that had been hidden behind the mask, he rose to his feet and straightened. Then he strode toward Yoon Taehee in long steps. Yoon Taehee did not so much as blink at the closing distance. When their eyes met head-on, Kim Seonghun, who had remained silent the whole time, let a faint smile touch his lips.

“Excellent as always, Taehee.”

Kim Seonghun bent one knee and bowed his head.

“Well... I usually am.”

With one hand, Yoon Taehee ruffled the front of his hair where the mask had flattened it and curled his lips into a grin. Then he held out the mask in his other hand toward Kim Seonghun. A silent order to carry it. Kim Seonghun accepted it with the ease of someone very used to doing exactly that.

“When no word came from you no matter how long I waited, I thought some kind of problem must have come up.”

“Really? The tug-of-war ran a little long, so I got delayed.”

“And did you manage to secure your vacation?”

“Of course. Who do you think set the whole thing up?”

It had to be a situation serious enough that none other than Chief Yoon Taehee had to step in personally. At the same time, Yoon Taehee had to happen to be away from his post, and it was important that the one with nothing to lose—Yoon Taehee—be the one in the position of “granting” the favor.

It had been a perfect scenario for extracting exactly what he wanted.

“I had heard Director Seok Juryeon was no ordinary woman. And yet you still managed to lead her right where you wanted.”

“We’ve known each other for years. Director Seok cares fiercely about her people. If their livelihoods were about to be put at risk, there’s no way she’d sit still. At the same time, she’s not the type to trust other people easily, so she won’t gamble. She’d use someone she could trust completely to get the job done. And in a dangerous situation where she has to silence everything perfectly without letting the higher-ups catch on, the card she’d reach for is painfully obvious, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That would be you, Taehee.”

At Kim Seonghun’s prompt response, as though he had been waiting for the cue, Yoon Taehee let out a quiet laugh.

“You really are good at this.”

“What do you mean?”

Kim Seonghun played dumb. Flawless to the very end. Still smiling faintly, Yoon Taehee reached out and gave his back a friendly pat.

“You must be tired. Come out now.”

He jerked his chin. After spending nearly two full days inside a human body, he had to be exhausted whether he said so or not.

“Why’d you have to go into someone like that, anyway? A body that goes around punching innocent people and doing filthy things can’t exactly have clean energy.”

“There wasn’t anyone suitable.”

The whole thing had to happen on Yoon Taehee’s day off, so there had been no time to waste. He had hurriedly entered the first human he could catch, and then a pack of useless little lackeys had shown up from nowhere and started trailing after him. Thanks to that, Yoon Taehee had ended up having to deal with people who had never been part of the plan. Not that Yoon Taehee seemed to mind.

Kim Seonghun prepared to leave the body. If he came out too abruptly, the man would collapse on the spot and the body might be damaged. Wanting to avoid injuring the body he had borrowed, Kim Seonghun slowly lowered himself to the floor.

“Just come out. If a thug gets hurt, he deserves it.”

Yoon Taehee rudely kicked Kim Seonghun’s leg with the polished toe of his shoe.

“Actually, now that I think about it, maybe I should break one of his wrists.”

“......”

Even so, the man was still someone whose body had been taken by force... Kim Seonghun looked troubled. Yoon Taehee was kind by nature, but sometimes he could turn strangely cold.

“I’m joking. If I break it now, you’ll feel it too.”

Yoon Taehee lifted one eyebrow and looked down at Kim Seonghun lying on the floor. Kim Seonghun closed his eyes. A moment later, something like dark smoke began to seep out from the pit of his stomach. What had first drifted loose like black mist gradually took shape, until at last it rose up out of Kim Seonghun’s body. Once the intruder was gone, Kim Seonghun’s body went limp. It would take him three days to come back to his senses.

What emerged from Kim Seonghun’s body was a man with long, straight hair falling to his waist and old-fashioned robes of the kind one might only see in a historical drama. Every time he moved, the fine silk garments fluttered around him with his motion. The body wrapped in silk looked strong at a glance, but there was one subtle detail that set him apart from Yoon Taehee, Kim Seonghun, and the three underlings outside.

He had no shadow at his feet.