Honbul: Flame of the Soul

The successful candidates gathered around the table at the front.

There was still some time left before orientation began. It seemed the break had been made on purpose, so the successful candidates, exhausted from the exam, could catch their breath. At last, they relaxed and rested.

The tension had drained out of everyone.

They had gotten somewhat familiar with one another while taking the later stages of the exam, so the stiff, awkward mood from stage one had begun to fade little by little. The successful candidates exchanged greetings one by one and introduced themselves.

Then a man with long, narrow eyes stood up and raised his voice.

“Uh, everyone? Since we still have time, why don’t we introduce ourselves?”

His name was Hwang Seungsu.

Hwang Seungsu walked to the front of the screen as if he were the host. He looked used to standing in front of people and taking control of a situation. Smiling, Hwang Seungsu slowly looked over the successful candidates.

“We’ll be seeing each other often for the next three months. I think it’d be good if we each took a turn and gave a quick introduction. What do you think? Everyone all right with that?”

Hwang Seungsu seized the mood in the conference room in an instant.

The successful candidates nodded in agreement. From the position of people who could simply go along with it, it was easier if someone stepped up and got the ball rolling. The friendly bleached-haired «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» examinee even responded loudly with, “Sounds gooood!” But one person alone, Jaegyeom, sat there indifferently, with an expression that said he could not care less either way.

Hwang Seungsu spoke with overflowing confidence.

“I’ll go first. My name is Hwang Seungsu. I’m a recommendation candidate. My older brother is a senior Naja in the Exorcism Unit. So, well, naturally, I’m aiming for the Exorcism Unit too.”

After volunteering to go first and finishing his introduction, Hwang Seungsu gestured with his hand.

“Let’s go clockwise.”

Following Hwang Seungsu’s lead, the successful candidate seated beside him awkwardly rose from his chair. He smiled stiffly and gave a small bow.

“My name is No Byeongjun. I’m twenty-seven, and I’m aiming for the Purification Unit.”

When No Byeongjun finished introducing himself, someone cautiously clapped. The other successful candidates followed suit, applauding and saying, “Nice to meet you,” and “Good to meet you.”

No Byeongjun sat back down amid the now warmer atmosphere.

Just as the next person was getting up from the chair—

“Excuse me, Byeongjun.”

Hwang Seungsu suddenly spoke.

“Yes? Me?”

“Were you from the apprentice track?” 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

“Oh, yes. That’s right.”

“Ahh, I see.”

Hwang Seungsu nodded with a self-satisfied smile.

“I was just curious.”

Up to this point, everyone brushed off Hwang Seungsu’s question as nothing important.

The successful candidates continued introducing themselves in order. Some revealed their background on their own, like Hwang Seungsu, while others, like No Byeongjun, did not. Mentioning one’s background was merely optional.

But whenever someone finished an introduction without saying where they came from, Hwang Seungsu threw in a question as if he were adding a correction.

“Semin, you entered through recommendation, right?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

“Haha, because you pulled out the metal ball in stage two.”

“Oh. Yes...”

“What about you, Hyeonsong? Apprentice? Recommendation candidate?”

“Mm. I’m from the apprentice track.”

“Ah, right. Stage three got a little dicey for you, didn’t it?”

The warm atmosphere gradually began turning strange.

There was something vaguely snobbish about his insistence on checking everyone’s background. It felt as if he were dividing people into sides and ranking them. It overlapped with the way ordinary people made a fuss over school ties or regional connections.

Most recommendation candidates, like Hwang Seungsu, were often blood relatives of Naja. Talent had been passed down through blood, and since they had Naja in the family, many had naturally learned how to handle ghostly force or were well versed in the knowledge of this field.

Of course, there were always exceptions—people who were complete strangers with no blood relation at all. Jaegyeom was one of them.

Whenever Hwang Seungsu saw a recommendation candidate like himself, he acted visibly pleased and made blatantly familiar remarks like, “Who recommended you?” or “Ah, Lead Naja Shin from the Ritual Implements Department? Lead Naja Shin is in the same cohort as my brother.”

And to those from the apprentice track, he added little pieces of advice like, “Image training is important when handling ghostly force,” or “Try meditation if you want to open your ghost-sight.”

The ones from the apprentice track gradually began to feel offended.

Before long, it was the bleached-haired examinee’s turn to introduce himself.

Hwang Seungsu stopped in front of the bleached-haired examinee and opened his palm toward him. The bleached-haired examinee reluctantly rose in an awkward half-stand.

“I’m Im Hyomun, and I’m aiming for the Covert Division.”

“Hyomun, were you perhaps from the apprentice track?”

As expected, Hwang Seungsu’s question followed right after.

Standing with his weight cocked to one side, the bleached-haired examinee toyed with his piercing and stared hard at Hwang Seungsu. His gaze was aggressive.

“Excuse me, but why exactly are you asking that?”

The bleached-haired examinee did not bother hiding his displeasure.

“What? I’m just curious, that’s all.”

“That’s what I’m asking. Why are you curious? We all started from different places, but we’re all first-exam successful candidates now, so what’s your reason for picking that apart? Seriously childish. Act your age.”

The bleached-haired examinee shot back in an irritated tone.

He was usually gentle and lively, but he did have a bit of a temper.

The mood turned cold in an instant. Hwang Seungsu’s face, which had been wearing a constant smiling curve until now, stiffened slightly. Hwang Seungsu forced himself to smile and opened his mouth.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to...”

“Oh, really? Then I won’t.”

The bleached-haired examinee answered roughly and dropped back into his seat.

Silence passed for a moment.

Hwang Seungsu, who had been humiliated in front of everyone, was left with no face to save.

“Haha, if you were uncomfortable, you could have said so. We were finally getting to know each other as the same cohort, so why react so sensitively? Do you have some kind of inferiority complex?”

Hwang Seungsu let out a laugh and brushed it off lightly.

Jaegyeom, who had been sitting with his body leaned against the back of his chair and his mind blank, raised his eyes slightly.

There was a barb in the words Hwang Seungsu had tossed out like a joke.

At that moment, the bleached-haired examinee shot up from his seat.

“Hey. Say that again.”

“What? Hey? You?”

Hwang Seungsu strode closer with a vicious expression.

“You little thug. Who the hell are you to talk down to me when we just met?”

“If you want polite speech, act your damn age.”

Hwang Seungsu grabbed the bleached-haired examinee by the collar.

The bleached-haired examinee refused to back down and reached out, grabbing Hwang Seungsu by the collar in return. Faced with the sudden situation, the successful candidates inhaled sharply in panic.

“You’re an apprentice, aren’t you? Looks like I hit a nerve.”

Hwang Seungsu raised the ends of his words mockingly and shoved the bleached-haired examinee.

The long table slid diagonally with a CLATTER.

The look in the bleached-haired examinee’s eyes changed completely.

“Hah. Look at this bastard.”

He looked ready to lunge at any second.

At the ominous air, the frozen successful candidates hurriedly began pulling the two apart, telling them to stop. Jaegyeom propped his chin on his hand and watched the situation with an indifferent expression.

The quiet conference room became a mess in no time.

Because of that, no one noticed when the back door opened and someone entered without a sound. The rear of the conference room was dark, with the lights turned off.

The tall shadow made no attempt to stop the newcomers’ commotion. Instead, it pulled out a chair in the last row and sat down with its legs crossed. Its gaze, which seemed to be searching for someone, came to rest in one spot.

“Our lord is dressed in forsythia yellow.”

Inside the noisy conference room, the amused murmur was buried without a sound.

*****

“Yeah, go on. Hit me. Hit me already.”

“Why? You gonna run and tell your brother?”

Hwang Seungsu and the bleached-haired examinee clutched each other by the collar and carried on their war of nerves.

The successful candidates were busy trying to stop the two from colliding. Somehow, the recommendation candidates had gathered around Hwang Seungsu, while those from the apprentice track had attached themselves to the bleached-haired examinee as they tried to pull the fight apart.

“Please, calm down. Both of you, okay?”

“Why are you doing this on the first day...?”

Hwang Seungsu muttered a sneer.

“An apprentice has some nerve, crawling up like that.”

Jaegyeom looked at Hwang Seungsu with sharp, prickly eyes.

No matter the age or place, people like that always existed. People who worked hard to split groups apart and seize superiority. People who believed they were different from others, treated that difference as grounds for discrimination, and did whatever they could to climb up by stepping on someone else’s head.

The more Jaegyeom watched Hwang Seungsu’s behavior, the more he overlapped with someone else.

With his arms crossed placidly, Jaegyeom muttered a top-tier curse in his head.

What a Lee Juyeol-type bastard...

Jaegyeom had no intention of joining their fight, and he did not particularly want to stop it either.

He had no reason to take anyone’s side.

It had nothing to do with him anyway. In Jaegyeom’s eyes, both the bleached-haired examinee and Hwang Seungsu were nothing more and nothing less than Naja. He had no desire to get dragged into Naja business, nor to become involved with Naja any more than necessary.

I just need to do my own job properly.

That was what Jaegyeom thought.

“Oh, come on! Would you both please stop already!”

Then one of the successful candidates burst out in anger.

“What are you going to do if someone sees? If we get dragged down because you caused trouble on the very first day, are you going to take responsibility? What if they revoke everyone’s pass!”

If they revoke everyone’s pass.

If they revoke everyone’s pass...

If they revoke everyone’s pass...

The words embedded themselves in his ears and circled through his mind like an echo.

At last, Jaegyeom’s expression went rigid.

What? No. These rotten bastards... How dare they block my path!

Jaegyeom, who had spent the entire time sprawled in his chair with a bored face, shot to his feet. All at once, enthusiasm surged through his whole body.

“Stop. Hey, stop. I said stop.”

Jaegyeom quickly grabbed at the bleached-haired examinee’s clothes and pulled.

But the bleached-haired examinee, who had a temper of his own, did not even pretend to listen and only kept huffing.

Nice words would not work.

“Hey, I told you to stop!”

Jaegyeom deeply furrowed his brow and stamped hard on the bleached-haired examinee’s foot.

“Aaaaagh! My little toe, aaagh!”

The bleached-haired examinee screamed, collapsed to the floor, and grabbed his foot.

At last, Hwang Seungsu and the bleached-haired examinee separated.

The apprentice-track candidates who had been holding the bleached-haired examinee back hurried to support him with flustered faces.

“Why, why did that happen? Are, are you okay?”

It was the vicious kind of pain that felt like smashing your foot into a threshold...

“Seventy-Seveeagh, why my foot...”

Jaegyeom tapped the bleached-haired examinee’s back a couple of times.

“There. It’s fine.”

At the dignified consolation, not even an apology, the bleached-haired examinee was dumbfounded even while protesting the pain.

No, the person whose foot got stepped on was supposed to say it was fine. If the person who stepped on the foot said it was fine...

For the moment, it was a ceasefire.