Ch.89089 – Confucian Ghost 2

# 089 – Confucian Ghost # 2

Yang Juhui generally had an easygoing personality.

Of course, she also had a prickly, cat-like side, but as long as you didn’t touch her sore spot, she was mostly laid-back.

That’s why Jeongseok and I, who weren’t used to women because of our all-boys school background, could talk comfortably with Yang Juhui, occasionally cracking jokes and laughing together.

But today, Yang Juhui seemed as if someone had not only stroked her sore spot but thoroughly messed it up, making her completely irritable.

“There are too many women!”

For a woman to complain about there being too many women.

It was obviously because of her quirk.

Right, today we were gathered because of this quirk.

I tapped the table to lighten the mood.

“Anyway, one of you three needs to keep the quirk for a while. I’ll remove the other person’s quirk as soon as I earn enough points, but you’ll have to wait a bit.”

In our current situation, where random matchings could happen anytime.

Living with a quirk was like carrying a time bomb.

Who would I put the bomb necklace on?

In other words, we needed to force one person onto a precarious plank suspended over waters infested with sharks.

As everyone started eyeing each other nervously, Jeongseok raised his hand.

“I’ll keep the quirk. Let Bong Jiyeon and Yang Juhui be free of it.”

“…Really? Hey, you might be saying that because you’re not thinking straight right now.”

I wondered if love-struck Jeongseok was trying to sacrifice himself for Bong Jiyeon.

When I spoke seriously, Jeongseok also put on a serious expression.

“I’m being serious. This is an opportunity for me to research quirks. We don’t actually know much about these quirks. And look at me. Do I look abnormal?”

I looked at Jeongseok.

Compared to Yang Juhui and Bong Jiyeon, who looked anxious like they were on drugs, Jeongseok’s attitude hadn’t changed much.

Jeongseok’s unchanged attitude, with or without the quirk.

In other words, Jeongseok’s usual obsession with Bong Jiyeon was already no different from having a quirk.

At this point, it was impressive.

“Hey, I’ll definitely find a way to cure your quirk no matter what.”

Jeongseok was an indispensable strategist for me.

If he went crazy like Kwon Suho, I would never be able to overcome the Nightmare Corridor.

The same went for Yang Juhui.

Though she now looked like a drug addict… the truth was Yang Juhui could have escaped using the talisman I gave her.

She gave that talisman to me and asked me to remember her.

Yang Juhui’s brave ability would be a great help in overcoming the corridor.

So in the end, was Bong Jiyeon the only useless one?

Bong Jiyeon! Get out of my pirate crew! I wanted to say that, but I couldn’t because I was conscious of Jeongseok.

Jeongseok said:

“So, you don’t see ghosts these days? Fighting ghosts is a good way to earn points, right?”

“Well… I don’t see them much these days.”

The ghosts that used to bother me weren’t appearing much lately.

It was fortunate for me, but also unfortunate in a way.

To think I’d consider not meeting ghosts unfortunate.

As I was thinking how strange this all was, Bong Jiyeon spoke up.

“If you can’t see ghosts, why not go find them? Like when we found Gu Hyena’s body at the mountain cabin. Can’t we just go to places where ghosts appear and defeat them?”

Boing-!

I felt like a spring had popped in my head.

Bong Jiyeon continued:

“I’ve been interested in fortune-telling and talismans lately, so I looked into it. Ghost hotspots? I researched places like Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb. Places that boost love fortune? You know?”

Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb!

The place where a dancing, laughing ghost appears!

In other words, it was like a dungeon where high-level ghosts appeared.

“…You want to go there? I heard even shamans avoid that place…”

At that moment, Yu Dahui trembled.

She seemed reluctant.

But I thought it was a great idea.

A ghost that even shamans avoid.

That meant it was a powerful boss ghost.

And I needed such a boss ghost!

“…The second floor ghosts are really tough. If I had powerful ghosts in my mercenary corps, they might help us tackle the second floor ghosts.”

We needed powerful ghosts and lots of points.

Hunting ghosts by traveling around—

Like a Pokémon trainer traveling nationwide to collect Pokémon!

It was a brilliant idea.

I never thought Bong Jiyeon, whom I considered useless, would come up with such an idea.

“Bong Jiyeon, you can stay in my pirate crew.”

“What are you talking about? Hmph-.”

As Bong Jiyeon snorted disdainfully, Yang Juhui glared at both of us with fiery eyes.

I should first remove everyone’s quirks except Jeongseok’s.

Anyway, today was Saturday.

Weekend.

I said to Teacher Hong Miri:

“Then, Teacher, let’s all go to Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb right away!”

Ghost exorcism, capture, and point acquisition!

Let’s go!

# # #

“Um. Are you sure this is okay?”

I asked Teacher Hong Miri, who had rented a van, with slight concern.

Teacher Hong Miri was a novice driver who had only recently started driving.

I wondered if it was okay for her to suddenly drive a van that seated more than ten people.

We had to take the highway.

If something went wrong, we could all be done for.

Going to catch ghosts only to become ghosts ourselves.

“Hey, everyone get in!”

But Teacher Hong Miri was confident.

Eventually, we all got into the spacious-feeling van.

I sat in the passenger seat, with Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui sitting behind me, and Jeongseok and Bong Jiyeon in the very back.

Yu Dahui giggled.

“It feels like we’re going on a field trip…!”

Field trip?

I suppose it could be seen that way.

Though I wasn’t sure if going to Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb to meet a terrifying ghost could be considered a field trip.

Soon, Yu Dahui added a few more words.

“Later, we should definitely visit the pond at our villa! They say there’s a water ghost there too!”

Is talking about a water ghost appearance something to be so cheerful about?

Soon, Yang Juhui snapped at Yu Dahui.

“You crazy girl. We’re not going on a pleasure trip, you know? And Lady Jang Huibin’s ghost and the water ghost are rumored to be ghosts even shamans avoid, so why are you giggling about meeting them!”

Yang Juhui’s words were a complete fact-bomb.

Even the always-smiling Yu Dahui frowned.

But not knowing how to get angry, she just moved her lips a few times before shutting them tightly without saying anything. She was sulking.

Yu Dahui’s emotions were easier to read than I thought.

I used to think Yu Dahui was a girl with many secrets and hard to figure out, but now that I understood her better, few people showed their emotions as easily as Yu Dahui.

Come to think of it, Bong Jiyeon was also an easy-to-understand type.

“Hey! Why are you crushing our Dahui’s spirit! Since we’re going to a scary place anyway, it’s better to go with a good mood! Don’t you know that good is good?”

Bong Jiyeon appointed herself as Yu Dahui’s lady-in-waiting.

People are really easy to understand.

Of course, Bong Jiyeon was only kind to Yu Dahui.

“Hey! Jeongseok! It’s cramped! Move over there! And you’re hot, so stay away!”

Bong Jiyeon still disliked Jeongseok.

Jeongseok moved away from Bong Jiyeon, looking dejected.

Come to think of it, Jeongseok had once suspected Bong Jiyeon in the principal’s office, causing his likability to plummet below zero. But since everyone had forgotten about it, it was as if it never happened.

Perhaps that was fortunate for Jeongseok.

However, even though Bong Jiyeon acted like she disliked Jeongseok, she was also the first to notice when Jeongseok had been replaced by a ghost in the science lab.

Could Bong Jiyeon actually like Jeongseok?

As I was thinking about this, the car started moving.

Geographically, Gaeryong Metropolitan City was located in the center of South Korea.

That’s why it had excellent transportation and roads extending in all directions, making it convenient for traveling here and there.

Being from Seoul, I thought Gaeryong Metropolitan City, famous for being boring, was only known for Jeongsimdan bread, but it had more good points than I expected.

Even a metropolitan city is still a metropolitan city, I guess.

“Soft soft my heart—

Clear as a stream—

Flowing flowing stream—”

“What’s with songs these days? Tsk.”

Teacher Hong Miri clicked her tongue at the song but seemed to be in a good mood.

Honestly, it was fun driving on the highway with music blasting from the car audio.

Even Yang Juhui, who had earlier scolded Yu Dahui saying “We’re not going on a pleasure trip, you know?”, was singing along to the loud music and enjoying herself.

“Hey! Play another song! Try playing Nfinity Love too!”

Honestly, it felt like we were on a trip.

Boys and girls mixed together, driving on the highway under a teacher’s guidance.

Though filled with fear and horror, if I thought of this as a scene from youth, it felt quite romantic.

We stopped at a rest area for lunch, eating ramen and sausages, buying some walnut pastries, and before we knew it, it was lunchtime. We were getting closer and closer to the place where Lady Huibin’s tomb was located.

Looking at his phone, Jeongseok said:

“Lady Huibin Jang, Jang Ok-jeong was a concubine of King Sukjong of Joseon, and she became even more famous after appearing in historical dramas. Maybe because she was a woman with such strong energy, they say a tree grew through a rock at her tomb.”

Jeongseok’s brief history lesson.

The story was that Lady Jang Huibin was such a fierce and terrifying woman that she died after being given poison.

There were very strange stories about jealousy, court slander, and so on.

After listening to the story, Yang Juhui clicked her tongue.

“Isn’t King Sukjong, who had multiple wives, more of a problem than Lady Jang Huibin? If Sukjong hadn’t been with multiple women in the first place, none of those things would have happened, right?”

“At that time, it was customary for kings to have multiple wives for succession. You can’t understand that time with today’s moral standards. I heard that Joseon kings deliberately let their women fight each other.”

Letting women fight each other to consolidate their power…

These were stories I couldn’t understand.

The important point was that Lady Jang Huibin was synonymous with an extremely strong-willed woman.

A strong-willed woman…

I glanced at the people sitting in the back through the rearview mirror.

Soon, my eyes met Yang Juhui’s.

“What. What is it.”

“……”

I felt like I could understand King Sukjong’s feelings a bit.

Why are there only strong-willed women around me?

As I was thinking this, Jeongseok added:

“At some point, a superstition spread that Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb helps unmarried women with their love lives. They say if you bow at the tomb and dance the crane dance, your love fortune improves. It’s about receiving energy.”

There are all sorts of stories.

That’s what I thought, but Jeongseok’s impression was a bit different.

“Bowing and dancing. I think it might be a form of necromancy. It’s an act of summoning a ghost from the tomb. I don’t know if it will work or not… but the probability is high. The real problem comes after summoning the ghost.”

A ghost so powerful that even shamans avoid it.

To exorcise and capture such a ghost after summoning it… we needed some kind of plan.

And I couldn’t use my trump card, the dinosaur ghost, anymore.

Thinking about it again, I really missed the dinosaur ghost.

If I had the dinosaur ghost, I could have easily conquered the hellish second floor of the Nightmare Corridor.

Wait… should we be going to a site with dinosaur fossils instead of Lady Jang Huibin’s tomb?

Didn’t dinosaurs become ghosts after dying? Did the meteor ghost kill all the dinosaur ghosts?

Anyway.

My thoughts had wandered.

“…Teacher, you’ll help us somehow, right?”

“What? I don’t know much about that. Not about exorcism.”

Teacher Hong Miri, whom I had been counting on, shook her head.

I had been secretly hoping that Teacher Hong Miri would fight and defeat the dancing, laughing ghost, so it was a disappointing moment.

But… with the strong-willed Yang Juhui and Yu Dahui, the daughter of a shaman, maybe we could manage somehow.

With that feeling, we arrived at the cemetery while the sun was still high.

We had to pay 1,000 won to enter the area with various tombs.

I was relieved they didn’t forbid us from entering, as I had feared they might.

Though it was a tourist site, it was quiet, perhaps because there was nothing to see except tombs.

There were a few young women who seemed to be visiting Lady Huibin’s tomb like us.

Were they trying to receive love fortune?

“This is it.”

It was a rather modest tomb for someone said to be a notorious villainess.

But… it felt eerie somehow, even in broad daylight.

Maybe the ghost stories were true.

With that thought, I asked the girls:

“Then bow at the tomb and do the crane dance.”

Time for pretty girls to do the crane dance.

Honestly, I was looking forward to that as much as the ghost.

“You have to really imitate a crane!”