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Meeting Yeom-gon’s gaze made Kang-soe’s stomach drop. Unable to formulate a response, his lips merely parted in silence. Yeom-gon casually dumped the meager water out of the bucket and tossed it back down the well. Splash! There clearly was water down there. Yeom-gon hauled it up several more times, but the bucket consistently held no more than a shallow puddle.

“To gather those fragments, I must resolve the desires they cling to. Some are trivial… and some are like this.”

Yeom-gon hauled the bucket up once more. Again, no meaningful result. His slightly parted lips seemed to form a curse, but Kang-soe feigned ignorance and looked away.

“This one is rather tricky, but if the timing is right, it shouldn’t be impossible. God damn it to hell.”

What started as a quiet mutter finally erupted into a harsh curse. A few more terrifying obscenities followed, too vile to repeat. As Kang-soe froze like a stone statue in shock, Yeom-gon abruptly drew his sword. His face was a mask of cold, murderous fury as he brandished the blade. Feeling an urgent need to stop him, Kang-soe lunged forward and grabbed Yeom-gon around the waist.

“Oh my god! Brother Yeom-gon, please calm down!”

“Let me go. I am going to slice that blasted mud snail into pieces.”

“The fragment! Didn’t you say you needed to find the fragment?!”

“The fragment.”

At that single word, Yeom-gon drew a massive, shuddering breath. Only after exhaling deeply several times did he finally sheathe his sword. Watching him forcibly calm himself, Kang-soe quickly changed the subject.

“What on earth are you trying to scoop up from down there?”

If he wanted to draw water, he would need a much smaller bucket. At Kang-soe’s question, Yeom-gon shook his head. He wasn’t trying to draw water; he was trying to fish out the creature hiding inside.

“You mean the snail?”

“How did you know?”

“How did I know? You literally just said it out loud.”

Does he think I’m an idiot?

Kang-soe shot him a glare, then peeked cautiously into the well. It didn’t look incredibly deep, and the sun was still shining, but he had no idea how much weight the straw rope could actually hold. Grabbing the line and testing its tension, Kang-soe figured that even if it snapped, he could probably climb the stone walls. Yeom-gon had claimed the black straw was woven with resentment and would hold, but Kang-soe knew it was just old thatch from a roof—it couldn’t possibly be that sturdy. He racked his brain for a moment. It wasn’t the sharpest mind, but it worked well enough in a pinch.

Didn’t he say it was a dry well?

“Wouldn’t it be faster if someone just went down there and grabbed it?”

“Went down?”

At Kang-soe’s suggestion, Yeom-gon nodded thoughtfully. Yes, I suppose that makes sense, he seemed to muse. Muttering in agreement, Yeom-gon stepped into the bucket himself. However, due to his large stature, only his feet fit. Standing rigidly straight inside the wooden container without even being able to crouch looked utterly ridiculous, but Kang-soe didn’t laugh.

How are we supposed to lower this into the well?

Kang-soe stepped forward, grabbed the ropes attached to the bucket holding Yeom-gon, and tried to lift it. It was far too heavy. Hugging the ropes tightly to his chest and groaning with exertion, he barely managed to hoist it a single foot off the ground. How could he possibly lower this safely down the shaft and haul it back out?

“Ah, this won’t work. This won’t work at all.”

Groaning, Kang-soe set the bucket down. He told Yeom-gon to get out, then climbed in himself. When Yeom-gon just stared blankly, Kang-soe gestured for him to try lifting it. Unlike Kang-soe’s desperate struggle, Yeom-gon hoisted him up effortlessly, as if he weighed nothing at all.

“…”

For some reason, Kang-soe’s pride felt deeply wounded. Shaking his head to clear the useless thought, he ordered Yeom-gon to lower him into the well.

“Will you be alright?”

“I’m just going into a dry well to grab a single snail; what’s there to be afraid of? The only thing I’m worried about is this rope snapping.”

“This rope will not break easily.”

It was Kang-soe’s turn to ask why, but he didn’t bother. Just look at the suspicious color of that thing. Clicking his tongue internally, he simply asked Yeom-gon to keep a close eye on his bundle of belongings.

“Do not worry.”

“You have to watch carefully to make sure no one steals it.”

“Of course.”

“And lower me down gently.”

“Yes, I will do it gently.”

He promised to be gentle, but Kang-soe still felt incredibly uneasy. As he shot Yeom-gon a deeply suspicious glare, the man described what he needed to retrieve. The snail in the well was apparently quite small. Being told ‘you’ll know it when you see it’ wasn’t particularly helpful, but Kang-soe figured he had to make do.

Does it matter who does it? As long as someone does, we can get out of here faster.

He hadn’t understood half of what Yeom-gon had rambled about, but it was clearly an urgent matter. Ah, to hell with it. Pulling the wooden staff from his bundle, Kang-soe crouched down inside the bucket. Yeom-gon lifted him up.

“Little brother.”

“Yes?”

“Be careful. You must absolutely not fall completely into the water. If you cannot endure it, shake the rope. I will pull you up immediately.”

What a strange, eccentric nobleman. I guess I just have to play along. Kang-soe brushed off the warning. Counting on his fingers the far worse things he had endured in his life, he slowly descended into the darkness. As he went down, his main thought was that the well was far deeper than it looked from the surface. Only then did he recall just how much rope Yeom-gon had unspooled earlier. Looking up, the entrance of the well seemed terrifyingly distant, making it hard to catch his breath.

As Kang-soe was lost in thought, the bucket hit the surface of the water. The sudden splash sounded as freezing as ice water. Remembering Yeom-gon’s warning not to fall in, Kang-soe reached out with his stick to probe the bottom, when suddenly, a sharp kke-kke sound echoed up the shaft.

“…!”

Feeling as though something was trying to crawl up the wooden bucket, he violently jabbed downward with his stick. A sickening sensation of piercing flesh traveled up the wood, raising goosebumps over his entire body. Kang-soe shuddered.

I’ll never find it like this.

After wildly swatting the area around the bucket with his stick, he plunged his bare hand into the water. He forcefully decided to forget the fact that he had urinated in this exact spot earlier. As he rummaged along the bottom, strange, unseen things constantly tried to crawl up his arm, but they fell off as quickly as they latched on. Ignoring them, Kang-soe swept his hand frantically. Amidst the chaos, his fingertips brushed against something hard. Assuming a snail must have a shell, he grabbed it. Instantly, an overwhelming force surged upward. Rumble! The previously calm water churned violently and began to rise, the rapidly swelling tide tasting as bitter as tears.

With one hand clutching the snail shell and the other maintaining a death grip on the wooden bucket, Kang-soe struggled desperately not to let go of either as he sank beneath the rising tide. In the midst of drowning, he saw something bizarre.

How should he describe it? It was exactly like the dream he had before meeting Yeom-gon.

A dream of sinking underwater.

But inside that dream, Kang-soe witnessed an experience that wasn’t his own. He was floating limply through the water. The reason he was drifting without the use of his arms or legs was because he had been caught in a torrential downpour.

The him that wasn’t actually him simply wanted it all to end. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to end, but he was sick and tired of everything—sick of being swept away by the water, sick of the scorching sun beating down on him. Then, someone grabbed him. A man approached with a vacuous, foolish face and smiled a sickening, idiotic grin. The man’s hands were repulsive.

Disgusting. So disgusting. Unable to speak the words, pure resentment sprouted in his chest. Completely failing to understand the silent plea to just be left alone, the man dragged him out of the water.

My bride.

Even the sound of that word was repulsive, making him turn his body away in disgust. His body was regenerating. Arms sprouted, legs sprouted. When he finally stood on the earth as a human, the fool merely giggled hehe and called him his bride again. Just as he was agonizingly getting used to it, other men appeared. Hands groping. Eyes staring hungrily.

I hate you, sitting in the hut giggling and calling me your bride. I hate you. You fool. You absolute idiot. I hate you. The unspoken resentment festered and rotted inside. Then, the mother-in-law lunged at her. The first time, she failed to kill her directly. The second time, she succeeded. She chopped her into pieces and shoved them into a clay jar. I hate you. I hate you. As the jar tipped and shattered, her resentment spilled out alongside her remains. But it was over. She had finally met her end. Just as she thought she was free, the fool came looking for her again.

The moment he saw the fool’s hands reaching into the jar, Kang-soe’s eyes flew open. He violently spat out whatever was trying to force its way into his tightly shut mouth, hacking it into the wooden bucket, and frantically shook the rope.

A dream? Was that a dream?

He couldn’t tell reality from nightmare. As he trembled uncontrollably, the wooden bucket shot upward. Until Yeom-gon hauled him over the edge and set him on solid ground, Kang-soe couldn’t regain his senses. Pondering what he had just witnessed, it dawned on him that it perfectly mirrored the Snail Bride folktale Yeom-gon had mentioned earlier.

Kang-soe slowly opened his clenched hand.

In his palm lay a crushed snail shell. He must have squeezed it too hard in his terror. Shocked, he peered inside, but the shell was empty. Panicking that he had failed the mission, he frantically searched the area and found the shell-less slug writhing inside the wooden bucket.

“…Ugh.”

An overwhelming sorrow hit him, and he burst into bitter sobs. Then, remembering the repulsive sensation of something trying to force its way into his mouth, he violently vomited. While he retched, Yeom-gon sat beside him, gently patting his back. Yeom-gon managed to decipher the broken words Kang-soe gasped out between his sobs and vomiting, nodding quietly from time to time.

In a voice barely coherent, Kang-soe recounted what he had seen in the well. The body swept away in the flood. The agonizing, suffocating lump of resentment that had built up in the bride’s chest felt as though it had been transplanted into his own, causing him to beat his chest repeatedly in despair. He shuddered in revulsion at the memory of the fool forcing his way into the jar. Dripping with tears and snot, he looked entirely pathetic, but Yeom-gon didn’t mock him. However, when Kang-soe began pounding his chest too fiercely, Yeom-gon issued a terrifyingly stern command to stop.

After crying for a long time and dry-heaving until his stomach was empty, his body felt utterly drained. Kang-soe accepted the bamboo canteen Yeom-gon offered and gulped down the water. Wiping his face, he sat quietly in the shade of a tree. Yeom-gon approached and took his hand.

He had gripped the shell so tightly to avoid losing it that his palm was sliced open. Noticing this, Yeom-gon inspected Kang-soe’s palm and scolded him for being foolishly reckless.

“Even a tiny scratch on a fingernail hurts, so what is this? Why did you hurt your own hand?”

“Did I do it because I wanted to? I was terrified of losing it. A wound like this heals if you just rub some spit on it, so it’s fine.”

The sharp shell had gouged the skin, but it wasn’t bleeding heavily. Assuming it would heal quickly, Kang-soe tried to pull his hand away, but it was impossible. The man’s grip was an iron vise, possessing the strength of three or four grown men. As Kang-soe stared at him in confusion, Yeom-gon suddenly lowered his head and swiftly licked the wound.

“…W-what are you doing?!”

It felt incredibly bizarre. An odd, fluttering sensation bloomed deep in his stomach. The unfamiliar feeling made Kang-soe unconsciously curl his toes. He tried to push Yeom-gon away, but the man wouldn’t budge. It felt as though the tongue would pierce through the wound and burrow directly into his flesh. Stop it! Kang-soe writhed uncomfortably, but Yeom-gon merely smiled strangely. Perhaps it was the oppressive heat, but Kang-soe’s face burned furiously. Not knowing where to look, his eyes darted everywhere. Yeom-gon finally stopped licking, pulled a blue cloth from his robes, and bandaged the palm.

“I do not know if saliva truly has healing properties, but keeping it wrapped should help it mend faster.”

It was certainly better than leaving the raw flesh exposed. Kang-soe had planned to wash it and apply medicine once this nightmare was over, but at a loss for words, he simply nodded.

Giving a disease and then offering the cure. If he was going to bandage it, he shouldn’t have licked it in the first place. And anyway, was it really appropriate to use such fine cloth for a minor cut like this?

Staring blankly at the blue cloth tied around his hand, Kang-soe blinked. Reading his thoughts, Yeom-gon told him not to worry about it. It was impossible not to care, but since the owner insisted, Kang-soe gave a vague nod.

Yeom-gon used water from the bamboo canteen to moisten the shell-less snail’s body.

That canteen really never runs dry.

Kang-soe had drank from it yesterday and today, and Yeom-gon had drank from it shortly before, yet the water poured out as abundantly as an endless spring. Thoroughly soaked, the slug merely writhed sluggishly on Yeom-gon’s palm. Kang-soe watched it quietly for a moment before calling out to him.

“What are you planning to do now?”

At the question, Yeom-gon pulled Kang-soe to his feet and dragged him forward by the hand.

“Where are we going?”

“The burned field. We are going to the burned field you saw earlier.”

The moment he heard the words ‘burned field,’ his breath hitched. Perhaps sensing Kang-soe’s intense reluctance, Yeom-gon refused to let go of his hand. Holding his other hand out with the snail resting on his palm, Yeom-gon cast a quick glance at the sky.

“Damn it.”

“Why? Are we out of time?”

With the sky so blindingly clear, Kang-soe couldn’t comprehend the claim that a downpour was imminent. He had been a farmer for years; did Yeom-gon think he couldn’t read the signs of rain?

Well, sometimes I get it wrong, but still.

Even so, the sky was far too clear for rain. It was a piercing, cloudless blue that looked ready to bake the rice paddies until they cracked. Meanwhile, they passed the scorched earth and ascended the slope. The path cut into the mountain was particularly overgrown with weeds. Kang-soe aggressively swung his walking stick with his free hand to clear the way. Pushing through the tall grass, they soon reached the edge of the burned field.

Ah.