V1S2C8

“Kang-soe, little brother. Kang-soe!”

“…Hyung-nim.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just for a moment. I’m dizzy.”

His head was spinning wildly. Kang-soe frantically insisted he wasn’t faking it to get out of walking—he really felt sick. His breathing was shallow, all strength drained from his limbs, and his body ached terribly, as if physically warning him not to go any further. Realizing Kang-soe was truly unwell, Yeom-gon didn’t say a word. He stroked Kang-soe’s cheek and back comfortingly, then pulled out his bamboo canteen and held it to Kang-soe’s pale lips.

“Drinking this will make you feel better.”

The sloshing water inside was cold and fragrant, but Kang-soe didn’t want to swallow anything. When he shook his head, a genuinely concerned voice followed.

“Do you want a piggyback ride?”

“…Oh my. No, I’m fine.”

He intended to say he would walk after resting a bit and that Yeom-gon should go on ahead, but he abruptly clamped his mouth shut. Being left alone reminded him of the mud snails. He’d already emptied his bladder; what if the snails came and he had no salt or urine to ward them off? A sudden, gripping fear seized Kang-soe.

Besides, when else will I get the chance to mess with him?

Carrying a grown man was hard enough, but Yeom-gon would have to carry his own heavy bundle too, so Kang-soe figured the nobleman would struggle mightily. He snickered inwardly at the thought. When Yeom-gon offered again, Kang-soe pretended to reluctantly accept and climbed on. Wrapping his arms around Yeom-gon’s neck and pressing against his back, he felt Yeom-gon hoist him up effortlessly, showing absolutely no sign of finding him heavy.

Still, once he starts walking, he’ll get tired and groan.

Suffer a little, Kang-soe thought, remaining quiet on Yeom-gon’s back as he began to move. But the moment they headed up the slope and the burned field came into full view, all the strength vanished from Kang-soe’s body once more. It felt as though invisible entities were viciously stabbing his skin with needles. Cold sweat poured down his face, and his limbs trembled violently against Yeom-gon’s back. Like a man who had witnessed an unspeakable horror, he was paralyzed with terror, tears welling uncontrollably in his eyes.

A burned field. No—more accurately, it used to be a burned field. Untouched for what seemed like ages, it was now wildly overgrown with tall weeds, and at the far end stood a single, ramshackle hut cobbled together from random scrap planks. From inside the dark opening, something poked its head out.

A chubby man—stark naked, his sweat-drenched, grotesque body moving with agonizing slowness. He held a rusted sickle and tried to cut the overgrown weeds, but how could such sluggish, clumsy movements possibly cut anything? There was no crisp sound of slicing stalks—only dull, heavy thuds against the earth.

You fool. You absolute fool. Who cuts grass like that? Normally, those sharp words would have leapt from Kang-soe’s mouth, but they remained lodged in his throat because his sheer terror refused to subside.

“Are you more afraid of that man, or of me?”

“…Why bring that up right now?”

“Because it is an important matter, of course.”

“Why is it important?”

Ridiculous.

Yeom-gon didn’t explain why it was important, merely smiling pleasantly as always. Then he resumed walking. As they cut across the overgrown field and headed down the path behind the hut, three or four burly men happened to be walking up, snickering among themselves. Seeing them, Yeom-gon clicked his tongue in disdain.

“Still haven’t come to their senses.”

The men snickered as they walked, but their pace was impossibly slow. Just as Kang-soe thought that even he could crawl faster than them, they had already reached the bottom of the slope. By then, his violent trembling had subsided and his supernatural fear had vanished. Lulled by the gentle, rustling breeze, Kang-soe’s eyes slowly closed.

***

Kang-soe must have dozed off, his body utterly spent.

When he snapped awake, he realized he was no longer on Yeom-gon’s back. Though the sun had yet to set, the daylight pouring down was so blindingly fierce that it cast the surroundings into a deceptive pitch black. Staring up at the swaying canopy of leaves, he rubbed his eyes, his joints popping and cracking as he stretched out his stiff limbs.

Where was he?

Kang-soe blinked, his vision still a blurred haze. A pleasant breeze washed over him as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, tempting him to simply surrender to sleep once more. Nuzzling his head against his pillow, he drew a slow, deep breath.

The ground beneath him was damp dirt—so where on earth had a pillow come from? Startled, his eyes flew open. As he shot upright, a familiar face swam into view. Whose lap had he been using as a pillow?! Cold sweat instantly slicked his spine.

“Brother Yeom-gon…?”

“Are you awake?”

When Yeom-gon casually suggested he could have slept longer, Kang-soe frantically shook his head. He was wide awake now. Slapping his own cheeks to force his eyes open, he asked why Yeom-gon hadn’t woken him, but received no answer. Yeom-gon was busy weaving a rope out of pitch-black straw. His technique was incredibly clumsy, but given the impressive length he had managed to produce, Kang-soe realized he must have been out for quite a while.

“Did I sleep long?”

“I suppose.”

The leisurely reply grated on Kang-soe’s nerves. Hadn’t the man been rushing frantically just before Kang-soe nodded off, insisting they were out of time? When he pointed this out, Yeom-gon simply nodded in agreement.

“That is why I am weaving this rope.”

“What does being in a rush have to do with weaving a straw rope?”

“It is necessary. However, I am making dreadfully slow progress…”

It was highly questionable whether this was even the correct method. Yeom-gon looked like a man who had merely glimpsed the process once; his form was terrible. Blinking at the sad display, Kang-soe offered to take over.

“Can you weave?”

“Of course.”

I could do a better job using my feet. Snickering inwardly, Kang-soe took the rope from him. Glancing to the side, he spotted a massive pile of the black straw. A brief wave of regret washed over him, but his hands moved diligently nonetheless. As the loose, sloppy strands transformed into a tight, evenly braided line under Kang-soe’s touch, Yeom-gon watched in apparent fascination and offered generous praise.

“Well, if it’s just weaving straw…”

He tried to act nonchalant, but the praise didn’t sound bad at all, and Kang-soe’s cheeks twitched with a suppressed smile. As he diligently twisted the strands, he realized he had never seen straw like this before. It wasn’t rotten, yet it didn’t look charred black by fire, either. If it had been burned, it would have turned to ash and crumbled, rendering it impossible to weave. The more he thought about it, the more highly suspicious the material seemed.

“Where did you get this?”

“Why, I gathered it from the roof of the house we visited before the well.”

Assuming he meant the charred ruins, Kang-soe looked up, and Yeom-gon nodded to confirm.

“If it was straw from a roof, it would be thoroughly rotted, so how could it be woven? Stop joking around.”

Kang-soe demanded the truth, but Yeom-gon adamantly insisted he was being entirely serious.

“I saw with my own eyes that the entire house was burned pitch black, so what are you talking about?”

“I am telling you, I gathered it from the roof of that house. If you truly do not believe me, you may go and check for yourself.”

“Then how can burned straw be woven without crumbling to ash?”

Liar. As Kang-soe pouted, Yeom-gon denied it once more.

“It was not burned by fire.”

“Then what scorched it?”

Did the sun scorch it that black? As Kang-soe grumbled, the corners of Yeom-gon’s mouth ticked upward.

I should stop talking back. Feeling a sudden prickle of anxiety, Kang-soe lowered his head. Only then did Yeom-gon’s smile soften. He opened his bamboo canteen, took a sip to wet his throat, and continued.

“It is tangled with han. But even that will meet its end today or tomorrow. The heavens decree it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean Divine Punishment.”

“Divine Punishment…”

The image of the tavern owner crawling on the floor flashed in Kang-soe’s mind. Losing one’s human intellect to become a lowly beast, sluggishly crawling through the mud every time it rained—if that wasn’t divine punishment, what was? But earlier, Yeom-gon had called it a curse, and he had mentioned resentment then, too. When Kang-soe searched his memory and asked, Yeom-gon nodded.

“That is the resentment of the woman.”

Her sorrow had grown so immense, so towering, that it had expanded to blanket them all. Smothered beneath its weight, they had no choice but to suffer that fate.

“So there is a separate Divine Punishment coming? Other than turning into snails?”

“Yes. And you likely saw the reason for it as well, little brother.”

“What could I have possibly seen… Huh?”

What did I see? Just as Kang-soe was about to retort, he abruptly stopped. The burned field. He remembered the burned field—the wildly overgrown weeds, the naked, sluggish man, and the small hut. And the men they had passed on their way down.

His hands stopped weaving. His breath hitched.

“The resentment is still growing. It has nearly reached the heavens.”

A great disaster was about to strike. Hearing those words made Gangsoe’s heart plummet into his stomach. He was about to ask what that meant, but instead demanded to know why they were weaving the rope.

“If their sins are washed away, will not the resentment be washed away alongside them?”

A torrential rain would fall to cleanse it all. Hearing this on such a piercingly clear day felt entirely unbelievable, but Kang-soe silently continued his work. Even handling the black straw, his hands remained free of soot. He wove through the massive pile, yet the resulting rope wasn’t incredibly long. Neatly coiling the bundle, he handed it over. Yeom-gon took it and tied one end to a large wooden bucket he had procured from somewhere.

“Is it wrong for the resentment to be washed away?”

Was he asking if she shouldn’t meet her end like this? At Kang-soe’s question, Yeom-gon merely nodded. Then, he beckoned for Kang-soe to follow. Trailing behind him, they arrived back at the charred well. Yeom-gon dropped the wooden bucket down the shaft. Why put such a massive bucket into a dry well?

As Kang-soe clicked his tongue, the rope continued to unspool deeper and deeper. Wondering just how far down it went, he stepped forward to stop him, but the rope kept descending.

“What do you keep lowering? It doesn’t seem like such a deep well.”

Whether Kang-soe tried to stop him or not, Yeom-gon kept releasing the line. He let it drop until only the very end remained in his hand, then immediately began hauling it back up. He pulled with considerable effort, but when the wooden bucket emerged, it contained barely a handful of water. Remembering that he had urinated down there earlier, Kang-soe took several large steps back and laughed nervously.

“I am wandering the world in search of my bride.”

“…”

“Searching for my bride, who was snatched away by a monster bird with a five-foot tail and a five-foot beak before she could even cross the threshold of my home. The flower palanquin she rode in was crushed beneath that monster’s claws, and her fragments scattered across the earth. My boots chase that monster to gather them.”

“That…”

“That flower palanquin was no ordinary thing. Occasionally, the fragments emit a strange power.”

“What kind of strange power?”

“Well. They tend to cling to strange, unnatural things.”