Honbul: Flame of the Soul

The instant the Black Oblivion Bird perched on the back of Yoon Taehee’s hand leapt into the air, an arrow sprang from the tautly drawn string at the same time.

Jaegyeom’s ghostly force had exploded out of control in a single burst, shattering every spell that had been binding him.

The Black Oblivion Bird shot toward its target like lightning, but the arrow was faster by far.

“Ugh!”

Struck by the incoming arrow, Yoon Taehee was flung back into a tree.

Leaves came drifting down with a loud crack.

With his back against the trunk, Yoon Taehee slid slowly to the ground. The mask on his face had been knocked crooked, making him look ridiculous.

“Chief... Yoon, why are you...”

Still coughing lightly, Yoon Taehee turned his head and looked at the Black Oblivion Bird.

The bird was flapping busily as it pecked at the crown of Lee Youngshin’s head with its beak.

Face blank, Youngshin looked up at Taehee from where he lay sprawled on the dirt. His wide eyes shook violently. His expression looked utterly disbelieving.

Because Jaegyeom had broken the spell, Youngshin too had been released from his immobilization.

But he could not shake off the Black Oblivion Bird.

He had been blighted, and he no longer had the strength to move so much as a fingertip.

Without even the chance to resist, Lee Youngshin lost consciousness.

Every Naja had gone down to the arrows.

The only one still awake was Yoon Taehee.

After pecking away Lee Youngshin’s memory, the Black Oblivion Bird flew safely back to Taehee.

Yoon Taehee, his arm hanging limp at his side, slowly opened his palm. The bird opened its beak and spat out a black bead containing the memory. Taehee crumpled the paper bird and the bead together in one careless fist, then casually dusted off his hand.

At last, a deep silence settled over the mountain.

The boy who had collapsed when his legs gave out slowly lifted his head.

Red ghostly force was coiling around his body.

He raised a hand and wiped away the blood gathered at the corners of his eyes.

“Mesan. Come here.”

Mesan, who had been lying flat on the ground in silent despair, pushed himself up. With tottering, unsteady steps, he came hurrying toward Jaegyeom.

“My lord, your ghostly force, ah...”

Mesan could not even bring himself to say that he would heal him. He could only reach out helplessly with both hands.

Jaegyeom stared blankly at those tiny hands, trembling uncontrollably, then first cut the thin cord tied around Mesan’s wrist.

Then he added shortly,

“It’s fine.”

There was no way it was fine.

Even if the bleeding stopped right this instant, once the berserk state had begun, it would not stop.

Only when his strength was completely exhausted and he lost consciousness would the rampage end, and then his lord would spend days wandering at death’s door.

Mesan hurried into healing at once.

But Jaegyeom brushed his hands aside and rose to his feet.

“Later.”

There was still something left to do before he could be healed.

Picking up the fallen bow, Jaegyeom started walking toward Yoon Taehee, who sat against the tree.

This was not over yet.

Yoon Taehee was sitting there carelessly, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his back against the trunk.

Looking down at him with emotionless eyes, Jaegyeom roughly seized the arrow lodged in Taehee’s shoulder and yanked it out.

A small groan escaped Taehee.

With one hand, Jaegyeom grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright.

“......”

“......”

As though speaking to himself, Yoon Taehee murmured,

“It’s my first time seeing red ghostly force. It’s beautiful....”

The moment the paper bird had launched into the air, Jaegyeom had broken the spell and freed himself from the restraint.

So even if the bird had come flying at him, he would have had more than enough time to evade it.

And yet the paper bird that was supposed to strip away memory had flown instead toward a fellow Naja on Yoon Taehee’s own side.

“Talk.”

Jaegyeom spoke without expression.

“About what?”

“An excuse. Or last words.”

A faint laugh slipped out from behind the mask.

Yoon Taehee lifted one limp arm and straightened the crooked mask on his face.

“What do you want to hear?”

“What the hell was that just now?”

“Just... a trick.”

At the lazy answer, Jaegyeom’s face turned even more savage.

“I told you that if you stood on my side, I’d stand on yours. So I thought... if I stood on your side first, maybe then you’d feel like standing on mine. I tried one last little trick.”

In a gentle voice, Yoon Taehee asked,

“Well? Did it work at all?”

“No. Not even a little.”

Jaegyeom’s answer came cold and immediate.

“Right. Then I guess that can’t be helped....”

Taehee let the words trail off evenly.

“Fine. Call it a mistake.”

“......”

“Let’s say I made a mistake.”

“......”

Just as Jaegyeom’s brow tightened slightly, Yoon Taehee slipped a hand inside his suit and pulled out the square case again.

At once, Jaegyeom’s red ghostly force churned ominously.

Even though the hand clutching Taehee’s collar tightened hard enough to crush it, Taehee silently tore off four slips of paper.

He blew a breath into them.

Four Black Oblivion Birds were born.

“In the name of the Naja, I confiscate the night.”

As Yoon Taehee moved his lips, the four Black Oblivion Birds flew past Jaegyeom and scattered in different directions.

Each paper bird headed for a different Naja lying sprawled nearby.

The Naja let their memories be gnawed away without a sound.

Jaegyeom watched the scene in silence for a moment, then slowly turned his head. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

“......”

He was staring viciously at the eyes visible behind the mask when—

“Ah. I made another mistake.”

The tone was unnatural no matter how one heard it.

“Unlike our lord, I can’t see very well in the dark.”

At that shameless excuse, Jaegyeom let go of his collar and hurled Yoon Taehee to the ground.

Taehee grimaced as he landed hard on his backside.

He braced himself with one arm behind him—

and the sharp tip of an arrow came for his face.

Jaegyeom had drawn the bowstring all the way to his chin and was aiming straight at the dead center of Taehee’s mask.

“You fucking bastard. I told you not to push me.”

The ghostly force burning red around him looked vicious and murderous.

Yoon Taehee was defenseless.

The arrow wrapped in red ghostly force looked as though it would pierce the mask and bury itself in his forehead at any second.

With Jaegyeom’s ghostly force already in full berserk, there was no way to block the arrow if he loosed it.

“You die here by my hand.”

“Are you going to? Go ahead.”

Yoon Taehee laughed soundlessly.

“If I’m such a poor vessel that I can’t even make one person properly take my side, then I’ve got no regrets about dying here. What great thing was I ever supposed to accomplish later...”

He answered in a self-mocking voice.

At that moment, Mesan, who had been standing behind them in utter agitation, ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) ran forward and clung to Jaegyeom.

“My lord! Please, stop, stop....”

Jaegyeom could not understand what Yoon Taehee was really after.

He was certain Taehee had to be hiding something.

He had stayed back until now, only pretending to join the fight at the very end, and then at some point he had turned his back on his fellow Naja and brazenly thrown in with Jaegyeom instead.

At first Jaegyeom had thought Taehee might simply have sent the paper bird at the wrong target.

But that, too, had only been a ploy to win his favor.

Whatever Taehee’s true intentions were, Jaegyeom wanted none of his help, and he felt no gratitude toward him.

Taehee was the one who had set all of this in motion, and now he was trying to play the savior.

It was poison first, medicine afterward.

“Move.”

“M-my lord...”

Jaegyeom shoved Mesan away with a merciless hand.

“It changes nothing whether he wipes the memories or not. Threatening me wasn’t enough for him. He kidnapped you too and tried to use you. So I’m going to kill him. I don’t want to get any angrier, so move.”

Mad fury gleamed in Jaegyeom’s eyes.

Mesan faltered in panic, unable to decide what to do, and then, as if making up his mind, grabbed the hem of Jaegyeom’s clothes.

“But, my lord, this man...”

Hesitating, Mesan cast a sidelong glance at the mask beside him, still wearing the same unreadable expression.

No matter how he looked at it, it was not a face that inspired trust.

Even when he had first heard the whisper, he had only half believed it.

“This man... protected me, when things were dangerous.”

If he had not stepped in and bought time himself, Mesan’s ankles might already have been cut off.

Because of that, his lord had been able to come for him before it was too late.

He had not joined in the others’ attack.

He had not harmed his lord either.

Of course, that did not mean he had actually helped much.

Still, in the end, he had turned the paper bird on his own comrade.

Because of that, Mesan had begun to think the words the man had whispered to him might possibly have been true.

“...What do you mean by that?”

At Mesan’s unexpected words, Jaegyeom’s grip on the bowstring loosened just a fraction.

“I-I mean, he told me, secretly, just me...”

Mesan began hesitantly.

“‘I promise I’ll send the little master back where you belong. If things go quickly, within three months. It won’t take long either way. I’ll make sure you get back safely.’”

“‘...L-liar.’”

“‘I’m not lying. Those people are going to take the little master to a place called the Office of Narye. And anywhere from three months to a year later, the little master, the spiritual creatures they’ve captured, the spirits, all of them will be released. So if you can just hold out safely for a little while, you’ll be able to go back. Because....’”

Because, because...

Mesan cut himself off.

Suddenly it struck him too late.

This was supposed to be a secret. Was he really allowed to say this?

But the man in front of him said nothing. He merely sat there quietly, listening as Mesan repeated the whispered words back to his lord.

“Because... what?”

Having listened in silence, Jaegyeom narrowed his eyes.

Mesan glanced cautiously at Yoon Taehee, fidgeted with his fingers, then lowered his gaze.

In a tiny voice, he said,

“He said... the Office of Narye is going to fall....”

“What?”

A minute distortion passed over Jaegyeom’s eyes.

Without lowering the bow, he turned his head and looked down at the ridiculous traditional mask sitting there so meekly.

In a gloomy voice, he asked,

“Why is the Office of Narye going to fall?”

“......”

“Answer me.”

“......”

Their eyes locked exactly.

Yoon Taehee gazed silently at the blood smeared around Jaegyeom’s eyes like tears, then finally opened his mouth.

“Rats are swarming everywhere. No matter what you do, you can’t win, and no matter where you run, they follow, so you can’t even escape. Do you know the only way to get away from rats when it gets like that?”

Instead of answering, he tossed out an absurd question of his own.

Jaegyeom only glared at him with his lips pressed shut.

Brushing back the hair that had fallen across his forehead, Taehee answered himself shortly.

“I become one of the rats too.”

A faint crack appeared in Jaegyeom’s expression.

“What does that mean?”

“Do you hate me that much?”

The question veered so sharply off course that Jaegyeom’s face darkened again.

“Why? Because I’m a Naja?”

Dropping his gaze, Yoon Taehee murmured as if thinking it through.

“Then if I quit being a Naja, will you like me a little?”

As he asked, he leaned his head slightly aside and glanced over the Naja strewn across the ground behind him.

The mountain after dark was silent.

Far away, faintly, came the yipping cry of some animal.

“That’s right. The Office of Narye is going to fall.”

Looking up at Jaegyeom, Yoon Taehee added,

“Because I’m going to break it.”