Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“Anyway, my guess is, if you °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° see fewer flowers, you fail.”

The bleached-haired examinee was not the only one who had reached that conclusion. Everyone’s thoughts were bound to run in the same direction. Before long, the order had moved on, and the exam was already up into the thirties. The examinees who had received red all looked as if they sensed they had failed, their faces bleak with despair. The ones who had received blue, on the other hand, were all smiles.

“Next. Baby number 38. How many?”

Examinee number 38 had gone white as a sheet and said nothing. His anxious eyes trembled. After waiting a moment for an answer, Shim Gijeong asked cynically,

“Are there so many flowers that you’re still counting?”

Examinee number 38 swallowed hard.

“S-seven. I can see seven flowers....”

Shim Gijeong stared straight through him with her arms crossed.

Then examinee number 38, who had been standing at attention, suddenly jumped into the air.

“Aaagh!”

A scream rang out from nowhere. What was that? Jaegyeom and the bleached-haired examinee exchanged looks.

“It itches! Ugh, it itches so much!”

Examinee number 38 started screaming and running around the conference room. He had been perfectly fine only moments before, but now red hives had broken out all over his body. They itched so badly that even standing still was impossible. He shrieked and clawed wildly at himself. At that, Shim Gijeong rose.

An ominous voice flowed from her purple lips.

“Baby, I told you you’d be punished if you lied.”

Shim Gijeong snapped her fingers.

Examinee number 38’s number tag turned pitch-black.

Not red. Not blue. Black.

As soon as the tag turned black, the front door of the conference room opened, and a tired-looking Naja came in. The Naja let out a long yawn, then caught examinee number 38 as he ran around the room.

“Examinee number 38, disqualified from stage one.”

With a weary face, the Naja dragged the examinee out.

“......”

“......”

“......”

The atmosphere in the conference room froze cold.

“You saw that, right? Babies, that’s what happens when you lie.”

Shim Gijeong sat back on the table.

“You know that water you downed earlier? It’s because you drank that. You can think of it as roughly the same principle as a lie detector. Sweat, pulse, breathing, blood pressure. If your physiological responses spike all at once, you break out in hives. Of course, if you piss yourself, it’s over.”

The liquid brought in from the Purification Unit had been made by brewing all kinds of medicinal herbs and mushrooms. At Shim Gijeong’s explanation, Jaegyeom narrowed his eyes. It seemed examinee number 38 had realized he would receive red because he saw too few flowers, then lied to avoid failing.

“Leaving the exam results aside, a baby who can’t even trust themself has no right to be here. Babies, haven’t you spent your lives lying and saying you couldn’t see what was right in front of your eyes? Don’t do that here. A Naja needs guts.”

Shim Gijeong barked in her husky voice. “All right, next!”

The exam resumed.

The bleached-haired examinee, who had been watching the situation, shook his head and whispered to Jaegyeom.

“I knew it. I was wondering what they were relying on to just let us say whatever we saw.”

He toyed with his piercing and added,

“It felt strange that they showed the results openly while all the examinees were watching. If someone wanted to, they could fake it. I figured there was no way it would be this sloppy. They’d already set up a device of their own. I knew it wouldn’t be easy.”

Jaegyeom, who had been listening silently, propped his chin on his hand with a disgruntled look.

Seriously, Naja are just...

If that was how it worked, they could have told us in advance. They really are shady. It’s not like they’re testing people or anything. Oh. They are testing people... anyway. Still, it’s not like they should toy with people. I don’t like a single one of them.

Jaegyeom felt sorry for examinee number 38 in several ways.

After that, the exam proceeded smoothly.

The ratio of those who received red and blue on their number tags was exactly half and half. It was easy to guess that half the examinees would be eliminated in stage one. Yoon Taehee had called it a “rite of passage” as if it were nothing, but for inexperienced gifted people, the threshold felt fairly high.

Before long, the order had circled around to Jaegyeom.

“All right, next! Last row, come out.”

Ugh. I’m nervous as hell....

The bleached-haired examinee took a deep breath and rose from his seat. Jaegyeom, who had the very last number, trailed along behind him.

“Let’s both pass.”

As they lined up, the bleached-haired examinee clenched his fist and whispered. Jaegyeom nodded without a word.

“Is baby number 77 the last one? The last row has seven people.”

Shim Gijeong crooked a finger.

The examinees in the seventies, standing in a line in front of the screen, took one step forward and stepped onto the masking tape on the floor at the same time. Jaegyeom looked down at his feet to check whether he had stepped on the line properly, then slowly lifted his head.

“......”

The moment his gaze reached the screen, Jaegyeom’s face hardened.

The screen that had looked purely white from where he had been sitting now displayed a vivid, high-resolution image. The bleached-haired examinee beside him seemed just as shocked. But there was no time to marvel in peace. The bleached-haired examinee quickly began scanning the screen.

“Then we’ll go in order from baby number 71.”

Shim Gijeong jerked her chin, her hands shoved into her pants pockets.

“Done counting? How many?”

The examinees began to answer.

“I can see five flowers.”

Examinee number 71 spoke with a smile.

“...I can see three flowers.”

Examinee number 72 lowered his head.

“I can see seven flowers.”

Examinee number 73 squared his shoulders.

Shim Gijeong’s hands moved busily. One by one, the colors of the number tags changed, and each change brought joy or despair.

At last, it was the bleached-haired number 76’s turn. The disappointment was already plain on his face.

He hesitated, biting his lip, then—

“O-one flower....”

In the end, he could not continue and dropped his head. Shim Gijeong flicked her finger mercilessly. His number tag turned red.

Jaegyeom was looking at him in bewilderment when Shim Gijeong tilted her head.

“Last one. Baby number 77.”

Jaegyeom flinched and hurriedly threw his gaze back to the screen.

His eyes scanned the blue meadow in the photograph at high speed. No matter how many times he looked, it was the same. He tried rubbing his eyes. He tried squeezing them shut and opening them again. What he saw did not change.

“......”

For a long time, Jaegyeom could not open his mouth. His eyes were shaking violently. Silence settled over the conference room. Everyone was looking at him. Even the bleached-haired examinee, who had been hanging his head in disappointment, glanced up at Jaegyeom.

“Baby. Are there so many flowers that you’re still counting too?”

The question she had tossed at examinee number 38 like a joke now flew toward Jaegyeom. Cold sweat ran down his spine. He felt as if he slightly understood why examinee number 38 had made that choice. As the silence stretched on, Shim Gijeong checked her wristwatch.

“I... don’t see a single flower....”

In the end, Jaegyeom confessed the truth.

Was he still counting because there were so many flowers? No. It was the exact opposite. No matter how hard he looked, he could not find even one flower. Truly, no matter how much he looked, he could not believe it. He almost suspected everyone had conspired together.

At Jaegyeom’s answer, the conference room grew noisy.

Until now, Jaegyeom was the only one who had said he could not see even one flower. Every answer had fallen between one and eight flowers.

Jaegyeom had naturally expected to see eight. Or more than that. There’s no way my eyes aren’t opened.... But he had never imagined he would see no flowers at all. Even the bleached-haired examinee had found one.

“Not a single flower?”

Shim Gijeong stared fixedly at Jaegyeom, then snapped her fingers.

Jaegyeom’s number tag turned red.

When he confirmed the color, Jaegyeom was dumbfounded.

I failed? Who do you think you are? You worthless little pieces of shit....

Jaegyeom glared at the screen, his fists trembling.

“Okay, stage one is over. Everyone, return to your seats.”

The last examinees standing in a row left their places one by one. But Jaegyeom was so stunned that he could not make his feet move. To destroy the Office of Narye, he had to become a Naja. There was no way he could fail here, and he could not afford to fail. Jaegyeom suddenly wanted to grab Yoon Taehee by the collar. He had said it was just a rite of passage, so how had this happened... Had he been tricked again? You played me again. You absolute son of a bitch, I’ll just....

“Come on, Seventy-Seven....”

The bleached-haired examinee weakly led Jaegyeom away as he stood rooted to the spot with a vacant expression. Jaegyeom followed, huffing with rage. The bleached-haired examinee let out a deep sigh and whispered, “You can retake it. It’s okay.”

“You retake it,” Jaegyeom snapped.

Until not long ago, he had hated the idea of becoming a Naja... but life really was unpredictable. He had never dreamed that he would end up in a position where he wanted to become a Naja but could not.

“Seventy-Seven. But, you know, at this point, aren’t you basically ordinary?”

Just then, the bleached-haired examinee whispered in a small voice.

“I mean... if you’re basically no different from ordinary people, there’s no reason to be in a rough place like this. If your eyes are so closed that you can’t even see one flower—”

Jaegyeom, who had been following him back to their seats, stopped dead.

“Hey, I’m... seriously so fucking baffled....”

He had never heard anything like that in all his life. The bleached-haired examinee had brought it up as if he were giving thoughtful advice, but Jaegyeom was so dumbfounded he almost laughed. If I were ordinary, do you think I’d be living like this? I wish I were.

“Yeah. I guess the deer ate all my flowers.”

Jaegyeom muttered, still seething. The bleached-haired examinee patted his shoulder as if he understood and was trying to soothe him. Jaegyeom was knocking his hand away when—

“Wait. Baby in the yellow clothes over there.”

Shim Gijeong stopped Jaegyeom as he returned to his seat.

Jaegyeom and the bleached-haired examinee flinched and looked back. Shim Gijeong, who had been sitting on the table, slowly rose.

“What did you just say?”