episode_0060
by fnovelpia“Sera! Mirror!”
“Why the mirror?”
I quickly pointed to the bronze mirror with my finger. Sarah looked at the bronze mirror she was holding in her hand and her eyes widened. Now, Sera could see the two monsters reflected in the bronze mirror.
“Ah. There were birds and something green walking around.”
“Can you see it too?”
“Yes.”
The bronze mirror reflected a huge bird and a blue-skinned man mixed in the crowd. It’s not that I saw something wrong, Sarah was also seeing the same thing.
According to the notes, the bronze mirror had the power to reveal hidden things. It wasn’t all about finding the path to ghosts. The bronze mirror was also capable of reflecting the true appearance of a monster whose identity was hidden.
It meant that the huge bird and blue man reflected in the mirror were the real faces of the female boss and the young man. Those men and women were not people, but monsters disguised as humans. This was my first time seeing a monster pretending to be a human.
“Let’s chase it.”
We chased after the female boss and the young man. The appearance of the male and female monsters disappeared for a moment as they were obscured by the countless crowds of people. After rushing through the crowd, we were able to spot a ghost man and woman walking in the distance.
The female manager and the young man were walking towards a Chinese restaurant on Junghwa Street. It was a store run by them. The female manager and the young man went inside the store and started working again. I found out the specific location of the two monsters. As long as the store was running, most of the female boss and young man would be inside the store.
There were too many people to attack the monster right away.
Sarah asked me.
“What should I do? Should I go inside the store and set off the fire alarm?”
“No. There is no need to move quickly.”
It would be possible to pull the people inside the store out by setting off the fire alarm, but then the movements of the female manager and the young man would become unpredictable. They haven’t noticed that we’re being followed yet. It would have been better to wait until night and wait until there were no customers in the store.
“Just wait until people are gone.”
There was a cafe on the street across from the Chinese restaurant.
We went into the cafe and sat down by the window on the second floor. It was a good location to monitor the employees working at the Chinese restaurant. It was suitable to wait until business was over and no one was there.
We ordered coffee and talked quietly.
“I never knew that the store owner and employees were monsters.”
“That’s why. If I hadn’t brought a bronze mirror, I wouldn’t have known.”
Legends about monsters that could transform into humans were common. It wouldn’t be surprising if there were monsters living in the 21st century’s urban centers and pretending to be humans. Since it wasn’t a ghost, the EMF meter didn’t respond. If we hadn’t brought a bronze mirror, it would have taken time for us to see the monsters’ true appearances.
“What you saw earlier was a bird and blue skin, right? Let’s do a search.”
Sarah and I searched for legends about various monsters on our phones. One of our favorite mystery blogs had articles detailing legends about monsters.
Sarah, who was browsing the blog together, found an article about a new monster.
“Jinwoo. I found a new monster kidnapping children.”
“What is your name?”
“It’s a great job. It’s a monster from Chinese legend, and it has a habit of marking children with blood before kidnapping them.”
“It leaves a mark with blood… ?”
I read the text Sarah showed me on her phone. It was an article about Gohyeokjo, a monster in Chinese legend.
A new form of youkai that kidnaps human children.
The fishing team put blood on the clothes of the child they were kidnapping, an act of marking their prey in advance.
Even in Chinatown, something strange always happened before children went missing. There was unidentified blood on the children’s clothes. If the true identity of the female president was Go Heok-jo, I could understand why there was blood on it. A mark was placed on the child before kidnapping it. The kidnapper who was kidnapping children in Chinatown was a female business owner.
“The female president is indeed Gogoekjo.”
“Right?”
“The act of marking with blood is very clear.”
I nodded to Sarah. As for the new youkai that kidnaps children, there was also a Japanese one called Ubume. However, Ubume and other new youkai were not marked with blood. The identity of the female president was Gogoekjo.
“Then what is an employee?”
“I don’t know about that.”
The identity of the female manager was confirmed, but the identity of the young employee was unknown. Speaking of the blue-skinned youkai, it was so widespread that it was impossible to determine its identity.
However, the female boss and the young employee were always hanging out together. It was more correct to think that it was a monster collaborating in the kidnapping of the female president. The kidnappers in Chinatown were a two-person group.
“Jinwoo. Is there anything missing in your notes? Something like a way to catch a big fish.”
“There is no record of hunting a high-fishing bird. There must be one or two Chinese monsters.”
There was no record of hunting for high-catching birds in the notebook. There were so many different types of monsters in Chinese legend that even my father could not hunt them all. Hunting down the high-flying fish and the blue-skinned monster had to be solved on our own.
After ordering coffee and snacks and chatting, it was already night. The Chinese restaurant we were monitoring closed before the cafe that was open late. Through the window, I could see employees closing the shop inside the store.
“Looks like it’s deadline.”
The employees of the Chinese restaurant cleaned up the store and came out. However, the female manager and the young employee saw the employees off and went back into the store. The two of them stayed behind and cleaned up after themselves.
The time to attack the monsters was now.
Right now, the only people inside the two-story Chinese restaurant were the female owner and her employees.
“Let’s go, Sarah.”
We packed our bags with our gear and left the cafe.
*
Twelve points.
When we arrived near the store, most of the lights inside the Chinese restaurant were turned off. Judging by the faint light coming from inside, the female manager and the young man have not yet left this place. The front door of the store was locked. We walked around the store and looked for an entrance.
When I went back to the back of the store, there was another door.
I slowly turned the door handle.
━━Grudge
The handle turned and the door opened slightly. When I looked inside, I saw a kitchen. It was a back door connected to the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
“… It’s Sarah. It opens here.”
Sarah and I took out our equipment from our bags before going in. We had a Geumgangjeo that we received as a gift from Princess Hongryeon. It was a magical weapon that could fire lightning. Sarah held the diamond and illuminated the front with a flashlight. I held a diamond sword and tied a military sword to the belt around my waist.
Sarah signaled that she was ready with a hand gesture.
I opened the door of the store.
The lights were off and there was no one in the dark kitchen on the first floor.
Sarah and I entered the store, making no noise. There was nothing particularly special in the kitchen. It was the moment we were about to enter the store where the table was.
I heard the familiar voice of the female president.
“Jang Geol. Do you remember the kids you saw today? There’s a boy with curly hair and a girl with silver hair.”
“… … .”
Inside the store, I saw the female manager and a young employee sitting at a table. The female manager was talking, but the young employee did not respond. Even when the two were alone, the female boss was the only one talking.
“Listen while eating. Don’t you think those look really delicious? The skin is good and the flesh is soft so you can chew it.”
The female manager smiled and spoke to the young employee. The young waiter sitting at the table was holding a metal bowl and scooping something up. We peeked our heads out to see what they were eating. As soon as I saw the food the young man was eating, I almost made a noise in surprise.
It was a bug.
The iron bowl the young man was holding was teeming with the corpses of various insects. Corpses like flies, spiders, mantises, earthworms, and bees. The young man ate the insect corpses from the bowl with both hands like a barbarian.
The lady boss continued her story without paying attention to the young man’s appearance.
“You can eat those kids more deliciously than bugs, right? They’re like kids on a trip, so they don’t know when they’ll return home. Let’s hunt right now.”
The young man nodded and accepted the lady’s offer. Those monsters were planning to hunt us. The way the lady boss looked at me during the day was unusual, but it was all because she had an appetite.
They were monsters who enjoyed eating human flesh.
“I need to take care of myself before going to the auction house. Hehehe.”
I had no idea what the auction house was talking about. But we made the right decision to attack the monsters tonight. If we hadn’t taken action first, we would have been the ones attacked.
The female manager and the young man had not yet noticed that we had arrived. After Sarah and I exchanged signals, we raised our diamond swords and aimed at the female boss and the young man. The female boss and the young man were seen having a conversation with their backs turned.
There was no warning to the monsters.
We recited a spell to shoot lightning.
“Vajra.”
“Vajra.”
Electric current flowed through the two diamond vessels. As the electric current bounced between the Geumgangjeo’s claws, the dark surroundings became brightly lit. The female manager and the young man, who saw a sudden stream of light, turned around.
“What is it?”
It was an unexpected surprise attack.
The female boss and the young man paused for a moment.
Electricity was released from our adamantine gun, which was aiming at them.
━━Pazizik
A shock struck the young man’s body. There was a hole in my chest and smoke was flowing out. The young man sitting at the table stumbled and fell to the floor. But the lady boss was different.
The moment the lightning was released, the female leader threw herself with amazing reflexes. A stinging bolt of electricity passed through the female manager and punched a hole in the wall of the store.
The female manager, who had escaped the shock, spoke to us.
“Ah… It was you guys? I was already looking for it.”
Sarah and I walked out to the store holding a diamond jar. The lady boss looked at the Geumgangjeo we were holding and smiled. The young man fell to the floor, but he didn’t look particularly scared.
“Is this a piece that shoots lightning? They had dangerous items for children.”
I had no intention of chatting leisurely with a monster.
I aimed my Geumgangjeo and asked the female manager what I needed to check.
“Where is the girl in school uniform? You kidnapped a girl not long ago.”
The female boss and the young man kidnapped a girl a week ago.
It was a middle school girl named Blind. He could still be alive.
“If you don’t answer, I’ll shoot you. Don’t be foolish.”
“Well… . Where do you want to be? There is one person who saved it as emergency food.”
If it’s emergency food, does that mean they’re still alive?
The lady boss called out to the young man while speaking vaguely.
“Jang Geol. What do you think?”
It was right then.
Something strange happened to the young man who was lying on the floor. The red scar on his neck opened and his head was torn from his neck. If the head had been separated, it was natural for it to die. But the young man did not die.
The young man’s torn off head flew to the ceiling.
The ears on either side of the head flapped like wings.
It was only then that we were able to notice the young man’s identity.
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