Chapter 135: Rumors (3)

Su-myeon was genuinely flustered.

What did she mean, was he human? What kind of nonsense was that?

Sitting side by side with Ryang on the wooden porch of the thatched house, Su-myeon felt Ju-hee and Han-su glancing at him.

After sweeping his gaze over the Governance agents and related people seated around the tables spread throughout the underground garden, Su-myeon regained a little of his composure.

Right. This wasn’t what he had started this conversation for.

...Still, it felt like he needed to hear this story through to the end before moving on to the next one.

“What do you mean by that? If I’m not human, then what... what do you think I am?”

“No, well, even to my eyes, thou dost more or less look human....”

When Su-myeon asked in obvious bewilderment, Ryang awkwardly scratched around the base of her broken horn.

What did she mean, more or less human?

“I mean the story about thy grandfather. It simply cannot be true.”

Ryang had her own reason for bringing this up.

“This house where I last stayed disappeared more than fifty years ago.”

She herself had spent quite some time wondering whether something was wrong with her memory, or whether something had become distorted during the years she had been trapped.

She had spent several days settling herself here, steadily establishing a space of her own.

She had interacted with the humans staying here and bestowed favors upon them, strengthening her own causality.

“And yet my memories remain unchanged. That means there is nothing wrong with them.”

As Ryang continued explaining, Su-myeon pressed his lips tightly together.

He was just as confused by what she was saying.

“And in truth... no matter how capable a dokkaebi I may be, I should not be able to manifest in reality with a body this perfect. And yet....”

Ryang gestured toward her left eye.

The eye she had practically extorted from Su-myeon.

“...It seems this is what made it possible.”

One of Su-myeon’s eyes.

That alone had contained enough power to allow Ryang to physically exist in reality.

And because of that, the more Ryang thought about it, the stranger it seemed.

What ordinary human could possibly possess this kind of power?

“When thou released the Samshin before, thou saidst it ended after thou hadst a single dream.”

“......The Samshin?”

“Ah, did I not tell thee who she was?”

The one at that hospital.

At Ryang’s addition, Su-myeon briefly thought that maybe he would rather stop listening here.

But in the end, he naturally found himself remembering the mysterious woman he had met in his dream.

The dream filled with the sound of children laughing, and the experience afterward where all of his injuries had been healed.

So what she was saying was, that woman back then had been the so-called Grandmother Samshin he had heard about before?

“I feel like I probably didn’t need to know even that much. Well, now I know because you told me.”

At Su-myeon’s words, Ryang waved a hand and scooted closer to him.

Until now it had not felt especially real, but only then did Su-myeon fully realize it.

“No. Thou needst to know more, Han Su-myeon.”

One of Ryang’s eyes, staring at him from right in front of his face, had originally belonged to Su-myeon himself.

The dokkaebi who now possessed that eye stared at him and whispered.

“No matter how I look at thee, thou art no ordinary human. Something about thee is different. Hadst thou not already felt it thyself?”

Su-myeon could not deny what Ryang said.

Even to himself, there were already more than enough peculiarities surrounding him.

The strangest one was the UTG game that only he could see, knew about, and remembered.

But Su-myeon had come up with his own hypotheses in an attempt to rationalize it somehow.

For instance, what if all the people who had made and developed the UTG game itself had fallen into ghost stories?

Then it would not be strange for the materials they had left behind online to disappear as well.

And the people in the Governance had never been very interested in games in the first place, so perhaps they simply had not known the game existed at all.

‘...That’s why I asked Song Jae-min about it again.’

When Su-myeon heard that he was a mystery YouTuber, he had hoped that perhaps Jae-min might remember the game.

Unfortunately, he had seemed not to know it either.

And as for the Governance having the exact same abbreviation, UTG.

‘It could be a coincidence.’

But that was too naive a thought.

If he approached it with reasonable suspicion, could Director Jang Bok-eum perhaps have some connection to the original creator of the game?

If he reasoned along those lines, it was not an entirely inconsistent theory.

Jang Bok-eum was clearly someone connected to ghost stories as well, which meant everything could be tied together around them.

In any case, that was as far as Su-myeon’s reasoning had gone so far.

“......That shaman, Baek Sa-rin, said something like that.”

After retracing his thoughts, Su-myeon spoke again.

“She said I give off a similar feeling to Director Jang Bok-eum. You saw Director Jang Bok-eum too, didn’t you, Ryang?”

“Ah....”

Ryang let out a sound as if she had realized something at Su-myeon’s words, then soon tilted her head again.

“Both right and wrong.”

Damn it, I could give an answer like that too.

Feeling a little frustrated, Su-myeon asked again.

“Could you give me a more precise answer, if possible? If I do something bigger for you, would you be able to answer me?”

AI gets smarter if you subscribe, too.

Was a feast on this level not enough to unlock a higher-performance answer?

At Su-myeon’s words, Ryang narrowed her eyes and stared steadily at him.

“Dost thou know whence dokkaebi such as I draw our power?”

Su-myeon shook his head.

Honestly, faced with such a completely unrelated answer, he wanted to say he did not care.

But fine. She must have a reason for starting with this.

When he waited patiently, Ryang continued.

“We are born of necessity.”

Ryang spoke with unusual firmness and composure.

“We are a power brought forth by nature itself in order to protect itself. Naturally, humans are included within that nature as well. When the power of humans is weak, we sometimes aid them.”

And conversely, when humans are strong, they interfere with them.

That was how Su-myeon understood it, and he nodded along with Ryang’s explanation.

In other words, they became stronger whenever balance had to be restored for various reasons.

Whether it was the Samshin, dokkaebi, or those supernatural beings called ‘spirits’ whose true nature he did not know, they were all born according to principles like those.

But.

“Ghost stories are unknown things within which beings such as we cannot wield our power. Phenomena that are not natural. I was trapped within one for a long time, lost and wandering.”

Listening to Ryang’s increasingly long explanation, Su-myeon frowned slightly.

No, so the conclusion is....

“So basically, right now... you’re saying you don’t really know because those two reasons mean you aren’t all that powerful at the moment, right?”

“Why, thou! Must thou trample upon an elder’s dignity so thoroughly before thou art satisfied?!”

At Su-myeon’s blunt words, Ryang snapped angrily at him.

Hearing that inexperienced, youthful voice, Su-myeon felt somewhat deflated himself and burst out laughing.

I don’t even know what I was expecting.

Somehow, none of his questions had been resolved, and he only felt more confused, but Su-myeon nodded.

In any case, this had not been his original purpose.

“Well, fine. Anyway. Do you like today’s feast?”

“Mm! Yes. It is not bad, for now.”

Her mood did not seem to have soured, and Ryang was swinging the feet dangling beneath the porch.

She appeared quite pleased with the underground space bustling with people looking around.

“There’s one thing I’d like to ask of you.”

Taking advantage of the atmosphere, Su-myeon carefully brought it up.

“Even humans, when they get roommates, usually establish rules between people who share the same space.”

At the word rules, something changed slightly in Ryang’s gaze.

Was all that coaxing and pampering still not enough?

“So thou wouldst establish rules for me as well?”

Ryang’s words sounded somewhat sharp, and Su-myeon hurriedly added,

“It’s meant so we can get along well together for a long time. And in return, if there’s anything you want to ask of us, you can tell us too.”

“I have nothing in particular I desire.”

The prim way Ryang said it was irritating enough that Su-myeon pressed his lips tightly together.

I really don’t get along with kids.

She isn’t actually a kid, but still!

What should he say to avoid offending her while coaxing her a little more?

I should’ve told Ju-hee to come do this instead.

While Su-myeon was thinking that, Ryang, who had been staring blankly at him, gave a sly little smile.

“Then I shall make thee my rule.”

Ryang suddenly stretched out a hand and pointed directly at Su-myeon as she continued.

“If one considers it, wert thou not the one who gave me this space, and also the one who brought me into reality?”

Once again, she was not entirely wrong.

Strictly speaking, this building was not even his, but it was true that he was the one who had allowed her to stay here.

And in a way, Ryang’s proposal actually seemed beneficial to Su-myeon.

After all, it meant Ryang would listen only to him.

‘...Or does it? Did I just get myself tied down?’

If things went this way, it did seem like it would be difficult to step away even after he found his parents someday.

But that was a matter for some unknown point in the future.

The more reasons there were for it to absolutely have to be him, the better.

Because then, even if he made a slightly selfish choice, it would be easier to be forgiven for it.

“...All right. Then can I take that as a promise that you won’t do anything I consider unacceptable?”

“Yes! Can I not grant thee so small a thing as obeying thy words? I am a dokkaebi who knows what gratitude means.”

Watching Ryang answer innocently while picking up a pumpkin pancake with her bare hand and eating it gave him an odd feeling.

He could not quite tell whether this had gone well or not.

Still, it was not as though he had gotten nothing out of it at all.

At the very least, one thing seemed certain now.

There was some commonality between Director Jang Bok-eum and himself that he did not understand.

If so, perhaps it would actually be better to ask him directly and openly about it.

Or perhaps it would be better to simply remain ignorant and avoid getting any more involved.

“I think thou wouldst do well to take greater care of thyself.”

Ryang added that as Su-myeon got to his feet.

“...I don’t exactly throw myself around recklessly. I’m already fairly careful.”

At Su-myeon’s response, Ryang shook her head.

“Dost thou not remember? I was searching for one suited to my purpose, and that person was thee.”

One of Ryang’s eyes was the blue eye that had originally belonged to her.

That blue shone especially brightly.

“Dost thou truly think I am the only one who sees thee that way?”

No.

She wasn’t.

Bell had already said something similar to him.

Perhaps the reason Alice regarded him as special and sought him out was connected to the same thing as well.

“Perhaps word of thy existence hath already spread farther than thou imaginest.”

Why was it that only he had been given something called a Heartphone?

How was he able to use it to communicate with other ghost stories, gather Rose Coins, and share causality with them?

He did not know the cause or reason behind any of those special qualities.

“If there are so many uncertain elements surrounding thee, and this Jang Bok-eum also troubles thee, then there is one thing thou canst do with certainty. Would it not be better to settle matters clearly before thou leavest?”

It was as if Ryang had seen straight through Su-myeon’s intention to deliberately choose not to get involved.

At her pointed remark, Su-myeon sighed.

“You’re saying it would be better in the long run if I properly talked with Director Jang Bok-eum and cleared up the things I’m wondering about before I go, right?”

Still picking at pancakes with her hands, Ryang nodded.

“Of course. Who knows? Perhaps that fellow knows something even I do not. And perhaps it shall become a clue to thy peculiarity.”

If he learned the truth clearly.

Then he might also learn why Alice was targeting him, so it certainly could prove useful.

Watching Ryang chatter away like that, Su-myeon took out his phone.

[Director Jang Bok-eum]