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“…Why would you ask such a thing?”

“I feel it is something I must know before we proceed.”

“If you absolutely must know… the snails are disgusting, but you, Hyung-nim, are terrifying.”

Yeom-gon threw his head back and laughed.

The booming sound was so loud Kang-soe half-expected the sky to rumble in response. Glancing up nervously, he watched as Yeom-gon finally stopped laughing and began lightly massaging the back of his neck again.

“There is one thing I neglected to tell you this morning, little brother.”

“Ugh… What is it now?”

The grip on his neck was rougher than before. Ouch. Kang-soe let out a pained groan, prompting the hand to loosen its crushing pressure.

“Why are you dragging this out? Just say it.”

“Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times, and acting once is better than seeing a hundred times. Believing it was better for you to experience it firsthand, I allowed you to wander down your chosen path. However, deciding it best to avoid unnecessary misfortune, I waited for you here at the crossroads.”

What is he…

Why is he speaking in such convoluted idioms?

As Kang-soe stared blankly, Yeom-gon finally explained what he had meant to say that morning.

“As you pointed out, little brother, I could have warned you in advance but chose not to, so your suspicion is entirely justified. Once this current matter is resolved, I will explain my circumstances fully. Please, do not cower in fear prematurely.”

“This current matter?”

A bad feeling washed over him. He had felt it since the moment he first laid eyes on Yeom-gon. Would hearing the man’s story really make things better? Demanding to know what was going on, Yeom-gon simply pointed down the sloping path. What about it? Kang-soe asked, eyes wide.

“Do you recall the path we took to get here?”

“Of course I do.”

It had been pitch black, so his memory was slightly fuzzy, but how hard could it be to navigate a village the size of a palm? He answered gruffly, but his eyes followed Yeom-gon’s pointing finger. A low hill. A path that curved back on itself in a tight loop. Something was profoundly wrong, but unable to pinpoint what, he merely scratched his neck in frustration.

“You couldn’t escape earlier, could you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did it not feel as though the path was blocked? As if you were wandering in circles in the exact same spot?”

“…I suppose it did.”

He didn’t want to admit it, his voice trailing off, which caused one of Yeom-gon’s eyebrows to arch. Having just told him not to be afraid, Kang-soe nodded to show he was merely startled, prompting Yeom-gon to continue. The pale hand fluttered like a white cabbage butterfly, tracing the shape of the mountain and the winding path. His fingertip drew continuous, spiraling circles—tracing the mountain trail, spinning round and round.

It looked exactly like the inside of a snail shell.

“If we follow this path down, we will reenter the village shortly.”

Yeom-gon explained that Kang-soe’s chosen route was a trap, a spiraling illusion, and that he had waited at the true intersection because he knew the shortcut. He concluded that the villagers’ transformation into snails was undoubtedly connected to this bizarre geography.

“Th-then what do we do?!”

Oh god, I’m going to lose my mind. This man knew everything all along and was just toying with him. As Kang-soe glared resentfully, Yeom-gon offered a serene smile, completely ignoring his mounting fury, and spoke in a soothing tone.

“First, we must hear the rest of the story. Since you, little brother, haven’t heard a word of it, I will recount the beginning, and that salt merchant over there can finish the tale. It seems his tongue has grown heavy, making it difficult for him to speak.”

As Yeom-gon finished, the old man cautiously peeked out from behind the charred ruins. He must have been cutting weeds; he held a fistful of grass in one hand and the menacing, blue-tinged sickle in the other. He rubbed his aching lower back, and as his shirt shifted, Kang-soe gasped—the old man’s exposed back was covered in grotesque, lumpy, spiraling welts. Ignoring Kang-soe’s shock, Yeom-gon instructed him to listen closely and began the tale.

“This story concerns the daughter-in-law of this very household. What should we call her? Ah—’Snail Bride’ has a nice ring to it. Very well. I shall tell you the tale of the Snail Bride.”

◇ ◇ ◇

There was once a slow-witted, sluggish fool.

He had a proper name, Deokman, but even his own parents refused to use it. Born premature at seven or eight months, he walked around with a perpetually vacant expression, drool sliding down his chin, a constant source of grief for his family. Mocked mercilessly by the village every single day, he eventually moved away in his twenties, building a crude hut on the outskirts and attempting to survive by slash-and-burn farming.

His clumsy hands ruined harvests, leaving garlic and potatoes to rot in the ground, but he clung to his miserable life as best he could. Yet past the age of twenty, no maiden would even look in his direction. He was destined to die a lonely bachelor—everyone believed it, and the Fool himself accepted it. Until one fateful day.

With the monsoon season approaching, the Fool climbed the mountain to gather firewood, only to spot something bobbing in the stream. Initially, he thought it was a large white gourd, but upon closer inspection, he realized it was a woman—or rather, half of one. Horrified, he stared as the mutilated woman begged him to save her. In his simple mind, he proposed a trade: he would save her if she agreed to be his wife. When the woman consented, he fished her out of the water, carried her to his hut, bandaged her terrible wounds, and fed her.

The woman was missing both arms and both legs, and possessed only one eye. A horrific, jagged gash tore down her back, yet miraculously, she still drew breath. She communicated that she hadn’t been born this way but had lost her limbs in a terrible accident. Pitying her tragic state, the Fool reasoned they were a perfect match—two wretched souls relying on each other. Giggling happily, he cared for her, and then something impossible happened: flesh began to bud from her severed stumps.

Limbs sprouted like growing branches. The long, jagged wound across her back sealed itself shut. A fresh eyeball bloomed in her empty socket.

Once fully healed, she was revealed to be a breathtakingly beautiful maiden. A promise was a promise, and the ecstatic Fool rushed to tie his hair into a topknot, declaring himself a married man. Though his hut was isolated, travelers occasionally passed by, and seeing the village idiot sporting a married man’s topknot, they asked in bewilderment.

“You haven’t even taken a bride. Why are you wearing a topknot? You can’t just tie it up for fun.”

“Why can’t I? I took a wife, so putting up a topknot is only right. I’m a married man now!”

The villagers laughed at the absurdity, but right then, his new bride approached carrying his midday meal. The Fool puffed out his chest and declared, “This is my wife.”

Curious to see what kind of desperate woman would marry such a fool, the villagers turned to look—and were struck dumb. She was unimaginably beautiful. Her lustrous, dark hair was elegantly pinned back, and though her traditional skirt and jacket were worn and humble, she wore them with such immaculate grace she seemed ethereal, not of this world. Shocked, the villagers rushed down the mountain to spread the gossip, which finally reached the Fool’s mother, prompting her to visit the remote hut.

She assumed it was a cruel prank, but finding the stunning woman residing in her son’s home, she was flabbergasted. Are you holding a wedding without even informing your parents?! She scolded him fiercely, but the Fool only offered his trademark vacant grin. Rumors of her beauty were true; they said he had found a mate far beyond his station. But there was a catch. The beautiful bride was entirely mute.

“Wait a moment. Didn’t you say the bride begged the Fool to save her?”

“Indeed. But it seems the Fool was the only one who ever heard her speak. Fascinating, isn’t it?”

The mother-in-law wasn’t thrilled about having a mute daughter-in-law, no matter how pretty her face. Still, believing her son would die alone, she swallowed her complaints, deciding it was a blessing he had found someone. Forgetting her years of abusing him for being dim-witted, she offered her grudging blessing. However, demanding the respect due a mother-in-law, she ordered the bride to prepare and serve her morning meal every single day. Without a single gesture of refusal, the bride arrived at dawn every morning to present the breakfast tray.

The parents-in-law lived inside the main village. The sight of the beautiful, silent daughter-in-law making the long trek every dawn without complaint quickly earned her a reputation as a paragon of filial piety. The men who had mocked the Fool’s marriage soon changed their tune, whispering jealously that such a divine creature was wasted on an idiot.

She may be mute, but for that fool to hoard such a kind, beautiful woman? It defies the laws of heaven.

A toxic resentment brewed among the local men. At first, it was just jealous whispers behind closed doors, but those whispers festered, birthing cruel, escalating harassment.

Human hands groped her flesh like leeches, sucking her blood. But was it merely red blood they drained? No. They were draining her very life force. Unable to scream for help, she was bound hand and foot and subjected to horrific abuse.

June. The season the chestnut flowers bloomed, their heavy scent mingling sickeningly with the stench of blood. Only when the evening sun bled red across the sky and shadows stretched long did the men finally feel a twinge of fear. After beating her into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp, they dumped her on the mountain and fled.

If that had been the end, it would have been a mercy.

But as the woman desperately tried to rise and drag herself home, she tumbled down a steep ravine. Her arm twisted backward. Her leg snapped. A jagged tree branch impaled her eye, bursting the socket.

The villager who stumbled upon her mutilated body recoiled in horror and alerted the Fool. This ignorant husband didn’t even think to carry her to a physician; he merely laid her broken body on the floor of their hut. The entire village assumed the half-dead cripple would succumb to her wounds within days.

Yet, impossibly, fifteen days later, the Fool’s bride rose from her sickbed.

She didn’t just rise. Her burst eye had healed. Her shattered limbs had mended. She stroked her smooth skin and walked with a light, graceful step.

Beautiful bride. Beautiful bride.

Her lustrous hair neatly pinned, she sat by the stream washing clothes—a vision of absolute perfection. Her dewy, flawless skin shook up the hearts of all the local bastards, making the village women’s eyes narrow into vicious, resentful slits.

And then, tragedy struck again.

Some shameless bastard dragged the Fool’s bride away by force and raped her—right near the Fool’s own hut. Witnessing the struggle, the Fool ran over and beat the man mercilessly, not fully understanding the assault but knowing his wife was being tormented. Anyone with eyes could see the rapist was at fault, yet it was the Fool who faced the magistrate’s wrath. Accused of lying to the authorities, he was sentenced to five lashes.

“How is this a lie?!” He gathered the villagers, begging them to testify, but they all stood like deaf-mutes, lips tightly sealed.

“Making such a fuss. As if it’s something to be proud of.”

“He’s lucky it was only five lashes. We have to maintain peace in the village.”

Oh, my poor backside. My poor backside.

The bride wept. The husband wept. Only the mother-in-law stomped her feet, her heart burning with furious indignation. Still, this was the only woman willing to live with her half-wit son, so she endured the humiliation. However, her husband’s behavior suddenly changed. He, who had always despised his idiot son and banished him to the outskirts, abruptly declared they needed to “help” the struggling couple and began visiting the hut daily. Once or twice was understandable, but his constant visits raised her suspicions.

Following him one day, the mother-in-law witnessed a sight that shattered her world.

A wrinkled, dark leech was greedily sucking the life out of her pristine, white daughter-in-law.

The sky turned black. Sparks danced behind her eyes.

Why had the villagers kept their mouths shut? Because that wrinkled, dark leech wasn’t acting alone.

Beautiful bride. Beautiful bride.

Sitting there with her hair perfectly pinned, how could anyone call her a simple country wife? So beautiful. So lovely. Pinned down by all four limbs, toyed with like an object—the sight made vomit rise in the mother-in-law’s throat.

Amidst the tangled mass of heaving flesh and hot, panting breath, her drunken, foolish son slept soundly, snoring away, completely oblivious to his home being desecrated. Ignorant of the village mocking them, pointing fingers behind their backs.

It was June.

The heavy, musky scent of chestnut flowers suffocated the air.

Filthy whore. Dirty slut. I’ll deep-fry that bitch in shit-water.

Watching her daughter-in-law surrounded by a swarm of leeches, the mother-in-law felt a revulsion so profound she couldn’t contain it. She couldn’t murder a living human, so she bided her time—but soon, the bride’s belly began to swell. What had she planted in her womb? Though her frame remained terrifyingly frail, the mother-in-law instantly recognized the signs.

That mute. That whore. That filthy bitch.

In her belly.

She was carrying a leech in her belly.

Ah, I see. This bitch isn’t human either. Not human. Something lower than the basest insect—a vile, corrupted thing.

Curses spewed from the mother-in-law’s lips, bile rising in her throat. On a pitch-black summer night in June, she summoned her daughter-in-law to the main house. Tossing a freshly sharpened butcher knife at her feet, she ordered her to kill herself. The bride vehemently shook her head, rubbing her hands together in a desperate plea for mercy, but the older woman’s patience had evaporated.

Fine. If you won’t do it yourself, I’ll do it for you.

As the mother-in-law lunged with the blade, the bride turned and fled.

She sprinted through the swallowing darkness. Being young, she was far faster than the old woman, easily outdistancing her. Furious, the mother-in-law grabbed a fist-sized rock and hurled it. Throwing stone after stone at the fleeing figure descending the slope, one finally found its mark with a dull, heavy thud.

Another.

After a few more strikes, the sound of a body collapsing echoed through the night.

Racing down the hill, she found the bride sprawled in the dirt. Shoving the body, she rolled it down the slope like a slaughtered pig. The mother-in-law chased the tumbling corpse, and whenever it stopped, she violently kicked it further down. Only when the body wedged tightly into a deep ditch, unable to move, did she turn back.

Yet, strangely, the next day, the body was gone.

Marching to her son’s hut, she found the bride lying there in the exact same battered state she had been in the ditch. The foolish son simply laughed his vacant laugh, eating meat and drinking liquor, blindly believing she would wake up in a few days. Barely able to afford gruel, where had he gotten meat and liquor? He had grown fat and bloated, sweating profusely in the summer heat, radiating a sour, rotting stench that made her gag. Hearing approaching footsteps, she instinctively hid herself, watching as three or four men entered and loosened their robes.

They didn’t just loosen their robes. They loosened their filthy mouths. And their filthy hands.

Hiding in the attic, peering through a narrow crack, the mother-in-law watched as the bride—who had kept her eyes shut the entire time—finally opened them. Unable to speak, only ragged breaths escaping her lips, her gaze locked onto the mother-in-law. Those pitch-black eyes widened, then narrowed into terrifying, elongated slits. Oblivious to the monstrous transformation beneath them, the panting men were nothing but fools. The bizarre, shifting eyes slowly drifted toward the attic door, stopping just inches away before seamlessly retracting into her skull. In that frozen second, the bride’s lips parted in a silent whisper.

The mother-in-law couldn’t decipher the word. But looking at the writhing men and her son sitting nearby, stinking of rot, she no longer saw humans.

They were monsters wearing human skin.

Filthy whore. Bitch whose skin I’ll peel off. Die. Just die.

Once the men left, the mother-in-law crept out and hacked her daughter-in-law to pieces. But horrifyingly, the pieces kept trying to fuse back together. She clearly severed the shoulder, yet it reattached. She severed the head, yet it fused back to the neck.