Ch.213213 – Dancing with the Devil 2

# 213 – Dancing with the Devil # 2

After several hours on a boat from Busan.

Following a long drift across the sea, we finally arrived in Japan.

“We could have gotten here much faster if we’d taken a plane.”

After staring at nothing but ocean scenery for hours, I finally felt alive stepping onto solid ground. As I stretched my aching body, Dahui grabbed my arm.

“Isn’t this kind of thing romantic in its own way? Traveling by boat has its own unique charm and appeal.”

She had a point. I’d been on plenty of overseas trips by plane, but traveling by boat was a refreshing experience even for me.

It would be embarrassing for someone with the title of “Pirate Captain” to have limited experience on ships. I made a mental note to use boats more often as I looked around.

“What are we supposed to do here? Every time I go abroad, my mind goes blank.”

I’m twenty-five years old. I’ve had my fair share of overseas travel experiences. I’d made it a point to travel outside the country about once a year to see more of the world.

Of course, rather than visiting major tourist destinations like the US, Europe, Japan, or China, most of my trips were to exotic ancient civilizations like the Mayan ruins in Guatemala or Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

The reason I visited such places was to see if there might be connections to other worlds like the “Nightmare Corridor,” but most trips ended in disappointment.

Flutter-

I looked at the business card Jeongseok had given me. The address seemed to point to some temple in Japan. We should probably head straight there.

“Let’s rent a car and go. I have an international driver’s license.”

While I was looking into renting a car in Japan, Yang Juhui grumbled.

“We finally come to a foreign country and all you want to do is work? I heard there’s a delicious gyukatsu restaurant around here…”

Gyukatsu?

Since we hadn’t come here for fun, I wondered if we’d have time for such things. While I was contemplating this, Dahui pulled my arm and shot a retort at Yang Juhui.

“Juhui, you go eat gyukatsu. Yeongwon and I will visit the temple. And after that, we’ll all go to Disneyland together!”

I hadn’t planned on going to Disneyland at all.

The two girls started growling at each other with me caught in the middle. Finding the situation troublesome, I quickly rented a car and followed the navigation system to a temple.

On the way, there was another argument about who would sit in the passenger seat, but that was nothing new. In the end, Dahui won rock-paper-scissors and took the seat next to me.

“Hehe, Yeongwon, aren’t I amazing? I’ve won 51 out of 100 matches.”

“What are you talking about! I’ve won 51 and you’ve won 49. Can’t you do math?”

Why do they always fight whenever they meet? I suddenly imagined Congressman Jeongseok working hard to amend the law to allow polygamy, and us having a joint wedding ceremony.

Could we actually live together?

Though I was born because of the desire for a ‘family,’ the thought of creating my own family didn’t really resonate with me.

At twenty-five, I personally didn’t think I was old enough to get married yet.

Whenever I say this, my mother, who wants to see her grandchildren, always scolds me saying, “I had you when I was eighteen!”

Once, when I was pretending to be sophisticated while drinking alcohol (which I’m not good at), Jeongseok told me:

—Honestly, I’m not sure about marriage.

Wasn’t Jeongseok the romantic knight who dreamed of living with Bong Jiyeon? Even he seemed to have many thoughts when faced with the prospect of marriage.

Perhaps men are inherently frightened when marriage looms on the horizon.

“Ah, my Disneyland…”

Dahui, who had been sightseeing through the window, looked very disappointed as the urban landscape receded into the distance. Following the navigation system for quite some time, we arrived in a quiet rural area of Kumamoto Prefecture.

A land full of rice fields, farmland, and mountains.

Since the road was unpaved and difficult to drive on, we took only our phones and walked along a deep mountain path. After about an hour of walking,

we arrived at a very old gate pillar in the middle of the mountain, beyond which stood what could be called a shrine or temple.

“Oh.”

Yang Juhui flinched as if she had noticed something.

“It looks similar.”

What did she mean by similar? Actually, I knew the answer. I thought it looked similar too. This hidden temple in the middle of an unnamed mountain resembled the “Buldansa” on the third floor of the corridor.

Of course, there were differences.

While the temple on the third floor of the corridor had been entirely red and crimson, this temple was visibly worn down. You could only get a “sense” that it had once been painted red, as the paint had peeled off.

“…Is there something here?”

Yang Juhui was tense.

Considering our struggles in the temple that looked just like this one, it was hard to stay calm. But the address on Jeongseok’s business card pointed here.

As we stood in front of the temple, unable to decide what to do, a woman wearing black clothes with a white headpiece approached us.

“━━─?”

She said something to us.

It was Japanese.

“Ah! A foreign language! I don’t understand!”

Swish-swish-swish!

Yang Juhui hid behind me. Though she was a brave woman who feared nothing, she was very uncomfortable when foreigners spoke to her in foreign languages. To be honest, I felt the same way.

“Hoeeet!”

As I was panicking, Dahui asked.

“Ano…”

Dahui was good with foreign languages, including Japanese.

But this time, it seemed we wouldn’t need to hear her fluent Japanese.

“Are you visitors from Korea?”

It was slightly awkward but gentle Korean. I was amazed to find someone who could speak Korean in a foreign country. This is why becoming an advanced nation matters.

With strong soft power, there’s less need to study foreign languages.

# # #

The temple was called Buldansa.

A familiar name.

“This temple was created long ago to honor unnamed gods. Now it’s a forgotten place with few visitors, as you can see from its dilapidated state.”

The woman introduced herself as the temple’s caretaker. She seemed to be somewhere between forty and fifty years old, though it was hard to gauge her age with only her white face visible due to her attire.

We were served tea by the caretaker. It was flower tea brewed from summer flowers growing at the temple. It had a nice fragrance but tasted bitter.

“Ugh.”

When I frowned at the astringent and bitter taste, the nun chuckled.

“Perhaps this taste is still too early for young people.”

Maybe when I get older, when I become more of an adult, I’ll come to appreciate such bitter tastes. It was hard to imagine. Anyway, we had reached our destination.

As I was thinking about how to bring up our purpose, the nun spoke first.

“You know, you…”

The nun’s eyes were directed at Yang Juhui.

As Yang Juhui, who was holding her tea and smelling it, met the middle-aged woman’s gaze, the nun’s face colored with various emotions.

“You look so exactly like that person, it’s as if time has stopped… When I first saw you, I thought that person had returned…”

“By ‘that person,’ do you mean Junko? This woman’s name is Yang Juhui, and she’s the granddaughter of a woman named Junko.”

I explained carefully.

The woman nodded.

“Yes. Junko was a woman who stayed at this temple. She was like a sister to me. So she had a granddaughter. I thought she might have married since she was popular with men…”

The woman’s eyes seemed lost in old memories.

“She was so beautiful. Like a flower blooming in the brightest sunshine of summer. She was from a different world than shy and quiet me back then.”

Since she resembled Yang Juhui enough to cause confusion, she must have been an exceptionally beautiful woman.

I tried to imagine what this temple looked like when it was still populated.

“A person from a different world… That’s how she felt to me. Always surrounded by many people, yet her eyes seemed to be looking somewhere else.”

Junko, Yang Juhui’s grandmother, had spent her childhood here and lived until she became an adult.

Thanks to her easygoing personality and beautiful appearance, she was easily liked by people.

But the nun thought she seemed somewhat lonely.

“I thought it might be the loneliness of leaving her homeland. After all, I heard she was originally from Korea. But thinking about it now, it wasn’t homesickness. As I’ve grown older, I think it was the loneliness of not being understood. You said you’re her granddaughter. Which man did your grandmother marry?”

“Well… I don’t know… I’ve never heard stories about my grandfather…”

“Perhaps he was a yokai or something similar.”

“Huh?”

Yang Juhui made a strange sound.

Well, she’d just heard that her grandfather might have been a yokai, so it was natural to be shocked.

Soon, the nun explained like a teacher providing an answer.

“Junko was someone who could see things that others couldn’t. She didn’t show it or make it obvious, but that’s what I think. Because I… I saw it that day.”

When the nun was still a young girl.

One day, she woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom. But she was afraid to go alone because of recent ghost rumors.

“At that time, I saw Junko near that pond, under the moonlight, seemingly fighting with something… or perhaps dancing. It was such a beautiful sight that I let out a gasp…”

She had been caught watching Junko from hiding.

“I thought I would be scolded, but Junko just patted my head. She told me I didn’t need to be afraid of going to the bathroom anymore… But I, I ran away.”

The nun said she still regretted that day. The very next day, Junko left the temple.

“I ran away simply because I was embarrassed to be patted by the older sister I admired. I’ve worried that she might have misunderstood, thinking I disliked or hated her…”

That incident had been like a thorn in the nun’s heart for a long time. She seemed genuinely concerned about it. Now that Junko had passed away, the person who could answer that concern would be…

“She probably didn’t misunderstand like that. My mom often tells me I have a similar personality to my grandmother. If it were me, I wouldn’t have thought much of it. My grandmother was probably the same.”

Yang Juhui said, her face slightly reddening with embarrassment. Hearing this, the nun’s expression finally relaxed, as if relieved.

I thought it was an interesting story, but I felt it was time to bring up the main reason we came here.

If we continued like this, we’d spend the whole day reminiscing.

“Excuse me, we actually came here for something related to Junko. Was there any being whose name Junko might have taken? Like a demon, ghost, or yokai?”

“…A demon?”

“I know it might sound foolish, but we’re serious.”

“As a follower of Buddhism, I don’t think it’s foolish. It’s just that hearing that name reminds me of something. This temple serves unnamed gods, and…”

Swish-

The nun pointed to the pond.

“Come to think of it, Junko once told me there was something interesting deep at the bottom of that pond. It might be related, but it’s getting late today.”

It was 10 PM.

Too late to do anything.

“Please stay the night. Will the ladies share a room? Or do you plan to share rooms as couples? Which one is this gentleman’s girlfriend?”

“Both of them.”

I answered seriously.

The nun was greatly surprised, exclaiming “Oh my!” before blushing and chuckling.

“You’re more impressive than you look. Is this what they call young people’s mischief?”

“Despite appearances, I’m faithful. And these two aren’t my only girlfriends.”

“Eh…”

It was difficult to expect understanding of my faithfulness.

As I was ruminating on my loneliness, the nun said:

“That face reminds me of Junko. It’s the face of those who aren’t understood. Thinking about it now, Junko might have had an unconventional love too…”

“Is that so?”

“In any case, it’s best not to wander around after 11 PM. I’ve heard there are bears or something similar in the area recently. Deer carcasses have been found. It’s dangerous.”

Slide-

We laid out futons on the tatami room and lay down. It had been a tiring day in many ways.

I was thinking about investigating the bottom of the temple pond tomorrow when I heard a clock chiming somewhere. Dong-dong-dong-dong.

It was announcing 11 PM.

Soon, there was a commotion from the garden, which was otherwise quiet except for the sound of insects.

—This smell, Junko has returned.

—Let’s eat Junko!

—Argh! We can’t enter the temple because of the talismans! There must be a gap somewhere!

So it wasn’t bears but strange creatures roaming this mountain.

Slide-

I quietly opened the sliding door so as not to wake the women lying in the futons and went out to the yard.

Grotesque ghosts were wandering around the temple, and they were quite frightening to look at.

“Are these the low-level ghosts like those on the first floor of the corridor? Sorry, but I’m way past the level where you could pose a threat to me. Therefore, all of you will have to become my points.”