episode_0018

It felt quite good to hike for the first time in a long time.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been suffering from a lot of things over the past few days, but the moderately warm weather and the sound of the grass and trees shaking in the cool wind made me feel at ease.

You can hear the sound of a babbling stream, and a squirrel passes before your eyes. The cute sight made me smile, and I didn’t really feel like I was going to a very dangerous place.

How long has it been since I entered the mountain? At some point, I saw a large tile-roofed house in front of me. The tile-roofed house surrounded by a large stone wall was an old-fashioned Hanok, like something you would see in an old historical drama.

When I took a quick look around, I could see how well it had been maintained until recently. The exterior walls were clean and the roof tiles peeking through the door looked unbroken.

Is your grandmother taking care of it? Just as I was about to open the door with that thought in mind, the door opened by itself with the sound of old hinges squeaking.

I had to go inside, but the strange phenomenon that was already occurring made me feel chilled. Still, the moment I made up my mind and was about to enter the door, a small girl’s head peeked out from the door and looked at me.

I was so surprised by the girl who suddenly jumped out that I couldn’t help but scream. To the point where I think it might be in the top 3 most surprising moments in my life.

The girl with long, flowing hair looked at me closely, and when I froze in shock and didn’t react, she immediately exposed her entire body.

“Hey, who are you?”

The girl, looking at me with her hands folded behind her back, was beautifully dressed in a colorful jeogori, a red skirt, and flower shoes. She looked as if she had come from the past.

I was very surprised when a girl came out of a house where I thought no one would be there, but upon closer inspection, I noticed that the girl had good complexion and an overall lively appearance, so she did not look like a ghost.

“I am here to run an errand. Why is our pretty little girl here? Are there any other adults?”

But if a little child is here, is it okay to play hide and seek? Among the things my grandmother told me, there was nothing about children…

“Me? I’m alone now. There was someone who was originally taking care of me, but something came up and I had to come down for a while!”

The girl came up to me, put out her right hand and grabbed my arm. When I saw him smiling brightly and trying to take me somewhere by giving strength to his hand as if telling me to follow him, my caution eased a little.

“You said you came here to run an errand, right? I saw several people. People like that!”

“I see…Then do you know what errand I am running?”

“Yes. Are you trying to play hide and seek? Until now, there have been many people like my brother.”

This kid knew exactly what he was going to do without me telling him. Gradually, the thought that the child was not an ordinary person became a certainty.

I wasn’t yet sure if this kid was God, but one thing I knew was that he was definitely an important person. Either in a bad way or in a good way.

“Hey, did you bring something delicious?”

The girl who was dragging me through the garden looked at the envelope and asked. I momentarily wondered if I could show the contents to this girl, but decided that it wouldn’t hurt to win the girl’s favor.

“Yes. I brought meat and fruit to give to God as a gift.”

“Hey, but didn’t you bring something else besides that?”

The child who had been walking forward for a while turned around and looked at me. The child who came up to me and sniffed the envelope shook his head once as if this wasn’t happening.

“It definitely doesn’t smell like meat or fruit, it smells something different and delicious… Are you hiding something from me?”

Sniff, the child seemed to be circling around me, sniffing, looking for something he thought I had hidden.

Even though I raised my hand and gestured that there was nothing, the child, who continued to look around as if he was suspicious, stood in front of me again and was held in my arms with an expression that showed he knew something.

“Ah, I think I know something. Your brother’s body smelled good.”

Growling – The child’s stomach signal that he was hungry rang so loudly that even I could hear it.

When I heard that sound, the sight of the child rubbing and sniffing in my arms seemed somewhat pitiful. Is it not possible to eat even the most insignificant things in a hanok in the mountains like this?

“…Kid, what is your name?”

“Me? Umm…Please call me Myeongdo or Myeongdo.”

Myeongdo, Myeongdo… It was definitely a name I had heard before somewhere, but I couldn’t remember it. I rummaged through the envelope, determined to ask my grandmother about the existence of Myeongdo when I finished everything.

“Myeongdo. If you’re hungry, would you like to eat an apple?”

I took an apple out of the bag and brought it to Myeongdo. It was one of the precious fruits that saved my life, but I wasn’t strong enough to pass by a starving child right in front of me.

“Is it okay if I give you this?”

“Yes. God will definitely know. If it’s not enough, I can bring it back later, so don’t worry.”

“Hmm. Your brother is definitely different, different.”

Myeongdo took the apple with his right hand and moved his small mouth eagerly to gnaw on the apple. I couldn’t help but smile as I saw him eating like a squirrel I had seen before coming here.

“Hey brother, I will only follow you until here. All you have to do is go inside a little bit and start playing hide and seek.”

While nibbling on an apple, Myeongdo raised his hand, which was covered by his jacket, and pointed inside the main building. I nodded, stroked Myeongdo’s head once, and walked inside.

“Brother. By the way, who sent you here?”

Myeongdo’s voice came from behind. Unlike the cheerful voice from before, the low voice that seemed to scratch my soul to the bottom was enough to stop me in my tracks.

“That…Grandma sent me to play with God.”

“Isn’t that grandmother living down here?”

I gave a silent yes. I had doubts from the first time I saw the bright map, but now I know for sure. God is brightness.

And the fact that for some reason, that god does not have a good opinion of the grandmother he is said to have served.

It suddenly started raining in a clear sky. A thunderstorm struck loudly, dark clouds began to slowly cover the sun, and the bright place suddenly became dark.

“That blood relative has come to me again. I never get tired of it.”

This time the voice came from right behind me. Unlike the brightness that reached my heart, the cold voice coming down from above was filled with deep resentment, so just hearing it made me feel like I was gripped by a primal sense of fear.

“Ah…”

A large shadow fell on my face. When the world went dark for a moment and then became bright again, I was standing inside a candle-lit room.

Make sure to hide it, let your hair boil.

A bright voice came from afar. At the same time, the candle went out and the plastic bag I was carrying tore open on its own, spilling out its entire contents.

A pear rolled down among various pieces of meat. I carefully picked up the boat and walked as far away from the voice as possible.

It was clear that there was something between God and my grandmother that I didn’t know about.

Realizing that this was not a relationship where I was simply served and cared for, I decided to focus on surviving first and put that fact in the back of my mind.

“Hey, by the way, what is God’s name?”

Three people were walking briskly in a place far away from the hanok. In the wrinkled old man’s hand, he held a kitchen knife with a black blade.

“That’s right, mother. I’ve never heard of it either. Are you a mountain god? I only heard that he was a dangerous and powerful god, but I never heard his real name.”

“…Saetani.”

The faces of the two young women suddenly hardened. The woman in shaman clothes opened her mouth as if in a daze, and the woman in easy-to-move clothing trembled with her hands as if full of anger.

“Mother…Are you, by any chance, referring to the fetal ear?”

“That child is a mistake and responsibility that I must resolve. It would be absolutely impossible for me alone, but if the young person takes just a little more time, I can solve it.”

“Why! You didn’t tell me in advance, right?”

When the old man turned around, he saw a woman with a face full of anger, as if she would attack him at any moment. If a woman were to attack him now, he wouldn’t be able to resist and would die.

“If you say that, you won’t let the child go, right? I’m sorry for deceiving you, but it’s not a lie that if the job is completed successfully, the hospital issue will be resolved.”

“That’s not what’s important right now!!”

The woman threw one of the amulets she was holding at the old man. The amulet grazed the old man’s cheek at a speed that made it hard to believe it was made of paper, causing blood to flow down his wrinkled face.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry. But if you kill me now, the child will die too, so please give me a little time.”

“Damn, damn…!”

A woman dressed beautifully in a shaman’s uniform patted her back and comforted her as she trampled the ground in anger. The woman also momentarily glared at the woman in shaman clothes, but after a moment, she softened her gaze.

“…Mother, I will listen to the details after this incident is over. I thought they might have called me for something, but this is what happened.”

The old man indifferently wiped the blood flowing down his cheek and resumed walking. The old man’s blood was already making the razor-blue kitchen knife shine red.