Honbul: Flame of the Soul

“What did you just say?”

“What. What did I say...?”

Shim Gijeong came closer, dragging her slippers with a scrape.

“I asked what you just said. Say it again.”

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

Jaegyeom answered, lowering his eyes with a sullen look.

“No. Not that. The last part.”

“The deer ate my flowers.”

Shim Gijeong’s face hardened, and her eyes narrowed. A strange tension ran through the conference room. The bleached-haired examinee, caught between the two of them, quietly watched the mood.

Then Shim Gijeong suddenly grabbed Jaegyeom by the arm and yanked him forward. Jaegyeom staggered as he was dragged along.

“What do you see?”

Jaegyeom was standing on the masking tape again.

“Tell me.”

Shim Gijeong’s purple lips moved. Everyone was looking at Jaegyeom. Left standing there blankly in this sudden situation, Jaegyeom looked from Shim Gijeong to the screen and back again.

“I told you, there aren’t any flowers.”

At his sulky answer, Shim Gijeong crossed her arms and said,

“Not the flowers. Tell me everything you can see.”

Jaegyeom glanced at the screen.

“I see deer.”

Shim Gijeong’s eyes flew wide.

At Jaegyeom’s answer, the conference room began to stir visibly. The examinees’ murmurs rose around them. What’s he saying? He says he can see deer. I didn’t see any. Me neither. There were only flowers. Isn’t he just trying to get attention...?

“Quiet. Babies, shut your mouths.”

Shim Gijeong warned the examinees in a cold voice. The whispering stopped short. Shim Gijeong turned her gaze back to Jaegyeom.

“What kind of deer? Explain in more detail.”

“They have white spots on their bodies. One is female, and one has antlers, so that one must be male. The female is sitting, but the male is standing.”

“......”

“......”

“......”

A deep silence settled over the conference room.

“Why... why are you acting like that?”

Jaegyeom looked around suspiciously. The atmosphere was strange. Couldn’t everyone see the deer...?

“Why didn’t you say you could see deer?”

Jaegyeom answered listlessly.

“You asked how many flowers there were.”

At last, Shim Gijeong’s purple lips curved into a grin.

“Ha!”

Smiling, Shim Gijeong turned around. The bleached-haired examinee was trying hard to figure out what on earth was going on.

Then Shim Gijeong abruptly clapped her hands together with a sharp smack.

“Uh...?”

It happened in an instant.

A change came over the examinees’ number tags. The tags that had received red because they saw fewer flowers stayed exactly as they were. But every tag that had turned blue because its owner said they saw many flowers changed to a different color.

“Babies who got blue, come back when your eyes open a little more.”

They were pitch-black.

The same black as examinee number 38’s tag when he had been disqualified earlier.

“......”

“......”

“......”

The examinees staring down at their black number tags looked as if someone had struck them in the back of the head.

As soon as Shim Gijeong finished speaking, the back door flew open. The tired Naja who had been standing in the hallway stepped inside.

“Good work.”

The Naja gave the greeting through wide yawns, then gestured sharply as if telling them to hurry up and come out.

“Um, then. Then does that mean red passes?”

Thrown off by the result that had overturned their expectations, the bleached-haired examinee asked with a bewildered face.

“That’s right. Blue fails stage one.”

I passed?!

Jaegyeom’s eyes went wide.

“Babies who got red move on to stage two. The fewer flowers you see, the better your eyes are.”

In her husky voice, Shim Gijeong explained the image displayed on the screen. Even the bleached-haired examinee, who had found one flower, had done well. His face lit up like the moon.

“Wow! Seventy-Seven! Holy shit!”

Overjoyed, the bleached-haired examinee held up his hand for a high five. But because Jaegyeom had turned his head to look at the screen, the high five was cleanly ignored. Ahem.... The bleached-haired examinee naturally withdrew his hand and started clapping instead.

I knew it. I thought something felt strange. There’s no way I failed....

Jaegyeom fiddled with his number tag. What the hell. He had gotten angry for nothing. First, he had been lounging around, snorting to himself because of course he would pass. Then he had genuinely thought, no way, did I actually fail? And after circling all the way around, he had learned that he had passed after all. Maybe that was why.

Jaegyeom felt strangely happy.

As expected, there had been a reason Yoon Taehee had called it a rite of passage. He should have just believed that from the beginning, but he had let himself get swept up in all the talk about red and blue.

“H-how did this happen?”

Just then, an examinee whose tag had changed from blue to black spoke urgently. He looked as if he could not understand the result at all, since he had naturally assumed he had passed.

“Shouldn’t blue be the passing color? You said we’d see differently depending on how opened our eyes were. Then obviously seeing more should be better, shouldn’t it?”

The examinee protested, his face full of disbelief.

“I never said seeing more was better, did I?”

“What? B-but! Then why did you give us blue? Blue is a positive color, and red is a color that carries ominous meaning. Why would you make people misunderstand—”

Shim Gijeong slowly opened her eyes, cutting off the examinee’s words.

“Baby, that depends on the person.”

Shim Gijeong rubbed a hand over her buzzed hair and added,

“What’s ominous about red? To me, red is the color of passion. Besides, in this field, common sense can twist any way it likes. Baby, you’d better start by breaking down your prejudices.”

Shim Gijeong’s face was utterly serious.

Standing beside her, Jaegyeom turned his head and looked at the bleached-haired examinee.

“You hear that? Strawberries aren’t ominous.”

The bleached-haired examinee looked back at him in disbelief. No, seriously, why do strawberries keep coming up...?

“Anyway, baby number 77. Come here a second.”

While the failed examinees trudged out of the conference room, Shim Gijeong dragged her slippers closer to Jaegyeom.

Jaegyeom was still standing on the masking tape. Shim Gijeong crossed her arms and stared at him.

“What’s your name, baby? You’re a recommendation candidate, right?”

Jaegyeom, who had been about to answer, suddenly shut his mouth.

She had clearly warned them not to reveal their personal information, yet Shim Gijeong was asking for his identity as if the exam were already over. What the hell.... Is she going to fail me if I answer? An absurd suspicion flashed through Jaegyeom’s mind, and he silently raised his eyes. Noticing his wariness, Shim Gijeong clicked her tongue and laughed.

“I thought you were pretty impressive for not seeing any flowers at all.”

Shim Gijeong looked at Jaegyeom with amusement. The boy in the yellow sweatshirt with uneven bangs looked prickly, yet ordinary.

“Out of a hundred babies, maybe one or two say they can’t see any flowers. Not seeing even one flower means you have perfect eyes. At this ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) level, it’s innate.”

At the plain praise, Jaegyeom scratched his cheek and avoided her gaze.

“But I never imagined you’d even see the deer. You startled me.”

Shim Gijeong muttered as she rubbed her bristly hair.

“A baby who sees the deer only shows up once every few years, if that. This is my third year as exam proctor, and baby number 77 is the first one who’s said he saw deer. Across the entire Office of Narye, maybe around twenty people have seen the deer in several decades....”

The examinees who had passed stage one inside the conference room widened their eyes. Attention focused on him. Admiring looks, curious looks, envious looks—every kind of gaze pricked sharply into Jaegyeom.

“Um. Excuse me, sorry to interrupt....”

Just then, the bleached-haired examinee raised a hand while reading the mood.

“What does it mean to see the deer?”

Shim Gijeong’s gaze moved to the screen.

“That photograph is special. The deer in the photograph was a spiritual creature ordinary people couldn’t see, and it liked that place. The deer died a long time ago. It isn’t actually captured in the photograph. Baby number 77 saw the deer’s afterimage.”

In Shim Gijeong’s eyes, only a faint shadow of the deer was visible. She knew there were two deer, but she could not see their markings, their posture, or their detailed shape. Even that had not been visible when she had been an examinee taking the test; back then, she had seen only one flower. But number 77 had given a precise, concrete description.

“To see an afterimage, your eyes have to be completely opened. And you can’t just hear and see ghosts. You have to be able to touch them outright. That means your ghost-sight has to be opened. It also means the vessel for the ghostly force you carry has to be large.”

At the explanation, the bleached-haired examinee looked at Jaegyeom in a daze. Seventy-Seven, who had only been talking about strawberries, suddenly seemed impressive. Jaegyeom merely fiddled with his innocent number tag with a listless expression.

It’s not that big of a deal... hm....

“Baby number 77 is probably the first person since ten years ago to see the deer clearly at such a young age. Hm. There’s a Chief Yoon Taehee in the Exorcism Unit.”

At the three syllables that flowed from her purple lips, Jaegyeom lifted his head before he knew it.

Yoon Taehee had seen the same thing he had.

Thinking that made him feel strangely moved. Jaegyeom was gazing at the screen again as if bewitched when Shim Gijeong smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“If you ever meet him later, baby, tell him you saw the deer too. He’ll probably be glad to hear it. Though he’s someone whose face is hard to see, so meeting him won’t be easy. Still, if you ever get the chance.”

After she finished speaking, Shim Gijeong raised her index finger and tapped the red number tag hanging on Jaegyeom’s chest.

The tag changed color.

The bleached-haired examinee and the others looked puzzled.

The new color was dazzling gold.

“What... what is this?”

Jaegyeom froze and looked down at his number tag.

“As I explained, seeing the deer’s afterimage means your ghost-sight is open and your vessel for ghostly force is excellent. Of course, even if you’re clumsy at handling ghostly force, that can be fixed with training. And if a baby like you fails, headquarters loses out too. So anyone who sees the deer passes the first exam on the spot. We jokingly call it the gold pass. Looks like the day came when I got to use it too.”

Gold pass?

Jaegyeom, who did not understand Shim Gijeong’s words, looked at the bleached-haired examinee. The bleached-haired examinee had a truly ridiculous look on his face.

“Baby number 77 is exempt from stage two and stage three.”

The conference room was thrown into uproar at the appearance of an early passer.

“Congratulations on becoming the first probationary Naja.”

A rite of passage.

It was exactly as Yoon Taehee had said.