Chapter 187

Once, Kwon Do-heon had asked.

"By that logic, do things like gumiho exist among Dokkaebi too?"

To which Cha Do-hyeon had answered.

"There aren't any in Korea, but there are in Japan."

So he'd said.

And now, at long last, Kwon Do-heon had been forced to witness a counterexample to that very answer.

"—The tail had nine—nine! A person who looked like a fox no matter who was looking!"

"Calm down first and at least explain the situation."

"Do I look like I can calm down right now?!"

"At this rate the story can't progress, kid."

"Is the story what matters right now?!"

Kwon Do-heon was ultimately silenced only after Seome gave his crown a vigorous pecking. Having barely regained his composure through his senior's forceful physical discipline, Kwon Do-heon laid out what he'd experienced the day before.

Having heard the whole account, Kwon Seung-jae let out an awkward, hollow laugh.

"Well now, so what you're saying is…."

"There was a gumiho among the staff."

"That's certainly a strange turn of events~"

Kwon Seung-jae, propping his chin on his gun barrel as was his habit, turned his gaze to the Director, whose face likewise said she'd just heard something preposterous.

"Now, Director, is this right? I was under the impression there were no gumiho left on Korean soil either."

"They've been gone for ages, you fool."

At the Director's brusque reply, Cha Do-hyeon dragged a large hand down his tired face.

"I can't figure out how things are turning out."

It was rare for Cha Do-hyeon to show overt fatigue, and the sight was unfamiliar. Hong Gyeong-yeon, who had in the meantime fetched Kwon Do-heon and wedged him between himself and Lee Seon-hae to check for injuries, asked with a look of surprise.

"Did you not sleep well last night?"

"Yeah, something like that. Bad dreams."

"It's not that you've been concretely affected by the hotel in some negative way?"

"If there'd been a real problem, I'd have said so already."

Cha Do-hyeon grinned as though he'd never looked tired, stroked his chin, and asked.

"Writer Hong, do you know much about gumiho?"

"Oh, um. Enough to know."

"The fact that you're not backing away tells me you know quite a bit."

"The oldest record of the gumiho is the Shanhaijing—the Classic of Mountains and Seas."

Kwon Do-heon, who was being held in place by Lee Seon-hae while she checked him over, furrowed his brow and asked.

"Shanhaijing? What's that?"

"Don't they teach it in school? It's an ancient Chinese geographical text of mythology."

Hong Gyeong-yeon added his own accessible explanation for the benefit of the ordinary high-schooler whose frame of reference differed from the assembled adults.

"Roughly speaking, the original text goes like this. 'In the Land of the Green Hills there lives a fox; its form is that of a fox, and it has nine tails. Its cry is like that of an infant, and it devours people. He who eats of it shall be warded against malevolent energy.' Something along those lines."

"I haven't slept properly, so my brain is basically fossilized. Could you put it in simpler terms?"

"It was an auspicious beast."

The Director, who had been listening, nodded and chimed in.

"A symbol that appeared when the king was virtuous and ruled well. There is a passage about 'devouring people,' true, but that was merely a formulaic description for bizarre monsters of the era. It was a far cry from the sinister image we know today."

Kwon Seung-jae, too, added what he knew with the ease of a renowned consultant in the field.

"Nowadays the image varies from country to country across East Asia. You know Daji, nephew?"

"Daji… uh… the beauty that toppled kingdoms…?"

"You've got at least that much. In a Ming Dynasty novel, the gumiho was given concrete form as 'Daji,' the figure who bewitched King Zhou of Shang and brought the dynasty to ruin. So, how to put it."

Director Lee Seon-hae tidily summarized the conclusion.

"At its root, the overwhelming impression is of 'the source of all evil that destroys the state and existing order.'"

"What is this—who are you people? Why does everyone know this except me?"

At Kwon Do-heon's grumbling, the owl Seome, perched atop his head, let out a deep, sigh-like "Sigh." The Director, catching the exasperation in that cry, regarded Kwon Do-heon with an ambiguous expression.

"Good grief, what are we to do with this lump of flesh? Turn him loose in the Gaps as he is, and would he last even a week?"

"Why the sudden brutal curse?"

"The Gaps are long past his point of no return, yet his head's too innocent to survive."

"What kind of world is it where you die for being a bad student??"

Cha Do-hyeon cut in with a wry smile.

"All right, the knowledge gap is severe, so I'll at least explain the difference between Japan and Korea."

"Am I really the stupid one here? Isn't it that these people know an insane amount?"

"In Japan, the gumiho is a symbol of catastrophe wielding overwhelming magical power, one that merged with indigenous beliefs to take on its own divinity. In Korea, the gumiho is closer to a symbol of 'the desperate yearning to become human.'"

Cha Do-hyeon continued his explanation without so much as blinking at Kwon Do-heon's protest, and Director Lee Seon-hae tidied his words.

"Rather than unconditional evil, the focus is on narrative tragedy."

"I don't know if it's just because I'm Korean and biased, but the Korean gumiho does seem the most human of the bunch."

Cha Do-hyeon nodded readily.

"That ferocious yearning once served as the backbone for a classical labyrinth called 'The Fox Sister.'"

"Oh, I know that one."

"The story too?"

"Honestly, just the name."

Having blurted it out and then belatedly feeling embarrassed, Kwon Do-heon tacked on one more line.

"I mean, it's not that I know nothing… I know it's some story about siblings. And that the whole family gets destroyed."

"That's roughly knowing it, I suppose."

Cha Do-hyeon looked at him as though impressed he knew even that much.

"In brief, it's a Korean classical folktale about the cruelty of a fox—a predator that wears the skin of family and destroys the community from the inside. And yet in the end, the fox sister, who'd grown arrogant, is struck down by the third son."

"Am I really going to have to study fairy tales to survive a labyrinth?"

"It's not just Korea. It's common for classical labyrinths to borrow the names of famous fairy tales or novels to frame their narrative."

"The 'White Crow' isn't a fairy tale, though…."

"Knowing at least the context of why a given labyrinth was defined by a particular name makes finding a strategy route far easier than going in blind with nothing—wouldn't you agree?"

Having said that, Cha Do-hyeon slipped in one more remark.

"That said, the more you know, the more easily you can be offered up."

"This is maddening—what am I supposed to do?"

"It's luck of the draw. The Gaps have always been that kind of world."

"What an irresponsible cosmology."

"Did I build that cosmology?"

Cha Do-hyeon shrugged lightly and continued the lecture.

"Anyway, about that labyrinth called 'The Fox Sister.' Academia speculates that it was born from the primal terror that 'a cursed, foreign blood has infiltrated deep into our innocent bloodline and is masquerading as family'—emerging around the time Joseon, after the Japanese invasions, began to obsessively fixate on genealogies and lineage to re-establish the order of the household."

"It goes all the way back to the Imjin War?"

At Kwon Do-heon's astonishment, Lee Seon-hae blinked.

"I'm more curious about how 'the desperate yearning to become human' and 'the primal terror that a cursed, foreign blood has infiltrated our innocent family' are connected."

Cha Do-hyeon stroked his chin and answered flatly.

"Mimicry. That's the link binding those two concepts."

"Mimicry?"

"Right. The Korean gumiho doesn't come openly to demolish a nation like some towering catastrophe. Because it wants to become human, the first thing it does is try to slip into a human group."

He flicked his fingers lightly through the air, as if sketching a picture.

"It hides its tails, dons the skin of a pitiable newborn daughter, and crawls its way into the most insular community of all—the 'family.'"

"……."

"So scholars say it likely took the form of some other kind of Dokkaebi before it acquired the narrative of 'The Fox Sister,' but, well, no one knows for certain."

He lowered his hand and continued.

"From the fox's perspective, it was a desperate mimicry to become human. But from the perspective of the Joseon aristocrats, obsessively staking their necks on the legitimacy of their lineage and genealogy—how would it sound?"

"It would sound like an invisible, cursed blood has already infiltrated deep into our bloodline and is pretending to be family."

"Exactly. The deceitful terror that my most beloved sister might in fact be a predator who will devour the entire household. Or the suspicion that, if not the sister, then some other family member might have slipped into the fold the same way."

"Ah…."

As Lee Seon-hae nodded in understanding, Cha Do-hyeon gave a wry smile and wrapped up.

"The monster's most desperate yearning collided head-on with the human community's most primal terror. The contradictory chain of cause and effect tangled together, and what was born from it is the narrative of the labyrinth called 'The Fox Sister.'"

"I think I get the general idea."

"So, circling back to what I was saying earlier…."

He pressed down on his throbbing temples and went on.

"Around the end of Joseon—the nineteenth century or so—when society grew chaotic and contact with other nations increased, it's speculated that the fox crossed over to Japan. The 'arts of taking life' it had mastered in Korea combined with Japan's distinctive 'yokai culture'… hmm, so if I were to summarize the essence…."

As Cha Do-hyeon trailed off, as if reluctant to say it aloud, the Director cut cleanly to the point.

"A blood mage."

"Is there nowhere without blood mages?"

"They're usually pretty rare, but this place has an unusual concentration—I'm surprised too, you brat."

The Director clicked her tongue and continued.

"The consensus is that she acquired the proper trappings of a 'formal blood mage' after crossing to Japan. Around that time, evidence was also found that she'd wormed her way under the wing of the classical labyrinth 'Count Dracula.' Japan was the East Asian base where the Count had his most active exchange."

"So The Fox Sister was a real, existing entity?"

"No, you fool. The identity of an already-existing classical labyrinth simply had the title of the folktale 'The Fox Sister' applied to it for our convenience—the narrative concept that overlapped the most was assigned to it."

Having said this, the Director added.

"Of course, by now, it may well have devoured even the very essence of that 'Fox Sister' tale entirely."

"Oh, so you don't even know that?"

"Do you think a Sensitivity Bureau civil servant is some immortal sage who knows everything?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders.

"The headquarters crowd might know a thing or two, but I don't. Labyrinths are so willful… some of them actively roam around on their own feet, others get subsumed by stronger labyrinths without even a name, and then there are gentle ones that just sleep and do nothing."

"There are gentle labyrinths that just sleep? That sounds less scary."

"They're 'gentle' in name only—once you get unluckily caught up in one, it's the afterlife just the same. This one or that one, living people are nothing but punching bags. Labyrinths are practically natural disasters to begin with, so don't even think about poking your nose in."

As if still not reassured, the Director added.

"And don't be stupid enough to get caught by a Dokkaebi that's developed a bit of self-awareness and thinks it can charm people."

"Seriously, nothing in this world comes easy."

And around that time, the Director's face darkened.

"But if this is real, then, hah… this is…."

"Why, what is it?"

"It would mean that the Count is gathering his disciples."

The Director stroked her chin.

"If what he really saw was 'The Fox Sister,' then this is only the beginning."

The "senior disciple" who had been stationed at the base closest to the Korean Peninsula, among the Count's disciples, was none other than The Fox Sister.

"Surely that old codger has too much pride to have summoned only native Korean Dokkaebi. It's highly likely he woke up and called every last fundamentalist hibernator holed up in Europe too, and thinking about it that way, this situation is a bit…."

"See? I told you I can't figure out how things are turning out."

Cha Do-hyeon looked tired again. His face said he was losing his mind.

"There's no way the Count moved his senior disciples without a plan."

"What are senior disciples?"

"Villain executives."

"Ah."

"There must be a clear intention, but no matter how I rack my brain, the only reason I can think of right now is the 'Grand Banquet Hall banquet' coming up soon. The Count definitely blathered about welcoming them to his kitchen."

By any common sense, it shouldn't make sense.

"Right now, the venerable 'Count Dracula' has bowed his head and entered a newborn labyrinth estimated to be barely five years old."

"And if things really are heading that way…."

The Director's face sank grimly.

"……."

"Um, what? What is it? Why so serious?"

"…Velmareth…."

The living blood god.

"The Devil, that bastard—did he actually… succeed?"

How dare he pull that kind of bluff? The Director's expression turned fierce.

* * *

In the midst of the suddenly grave atmosphere.

"……."

"You look like you want to ask something else."

"Can a fox become a vampire too?"

"If you study Blood Magic excessively enough, what you become is a vampire, so it's more or less possible."

"Can a fox even learn Blood Magic?"

"If you start digging from there, you'd have to study the infinite possibilities of Dokkaebi from the ground up—interested?"

"I think I just understood everything."

"Then all's well."

In the space between Kwon Do-heon and Cha Do-hyeon's somewhat scatterbrained exchange,

"Sigh."

Only the owl Seome, huddled atop his head, let out a peculiar sigh as though she were sick of the entire world.

* * *

"So,"

Lee Seon-hae asked.

"What state is our Yeon-woo in right now?"

"Oh, is that what's important?"

"Leave the assassination expert out of this—I'm asking about the kindergartner's condition."

"Good heavens, how cold of you."

As Kwon Seung-jae feigned a sulk, Hyeon Si-gyeong beside him silently patted his shoulder. The Director paid neither man so much as a glance and kept her eyes fixed on Lee Seon-hae.

"Explaining this means the conversation has to detour through 'The Devil' for a moment. That bastard had many a notorious anecdote, but among them, he's said to have performed a ritual called the 'Crimson Core Commentary.'"

"Crimson Core Commentary? The meaning, that is…."

Lee Seon-hae's eyes rolled briefly as she assembled the Chinese characters, and then she spoke carefully.

"Annotations of the crimson heart…?"

"Oh, you got that right off the bat?"

The Director narrowed her eyes with apparent surprise and interest.

"Most people who don't know, upon hearing those four characters, assume it means 'curse dissolution.'"

"Should I feel honored? So it's not that—it's 'annotations,' isn't it?"

"That's right. Annotations."

At the two women's exchange, Kwon Do-heon muttered.

"What are they even talking about…."

"I believe the Director meant it in the sense of 'undoing a curse,' while the Director of Photography meant it in the sense of 'explaining in an accessible manner.'"

"I still don't get it."

"That can happen."

Hong Gyeong-yeon nodded in solidarity, but the two women had already begun talking among themselves, leaving the oddly deflated men behind.

"So what is it? You mentioned 'The Devil' just now—it's connected?"

"It would be, so I suppose I need to start with the one originally created in Europe."

"Considering the Count came from Europe and the Crow came from Europe, it's quite chilling."

"That's why we always joke that Europe is the origin country for demons. Well, anyway."

The Director continued.

"That 'Crimson Core Commentary' is a name forcibly twisted into a translation from the perspective of Chinese character culture—the original, formal name is different. It's called 'Annotations of the Crimson Core,' and if you translated it literally, it would be 'annotations on the crimson core.'"

"Crimson? But if that's the case…."

"Looks like you've caught on—it's a mistranslation."

She stroked her chin and added.

"The 'crimson' being spoken of here isn't the red of the heart—it refers to 'blood' outright."

* * *

"……?"

The General Manager was, for once, visibly taken aback.

"The Crimson Core wasn't the heart?"

"Oh dear, how vexing!"

The "Guest Without Taste" wore a look that said his pride had been stung. That, too, was a rare sight.