Businessman Kim Manchun worked day labor until he was forty.
With the money he saved, he opened a restaurant at forty-one and hit it big.
He married his restaurant manager wife at forty-three.
“…I had my child when I was forty-five. You might think I’m just saying this, but she was a daughter who was… a blessing no matter where you looked.”
Kim Manchun’s wrinkled gaze turned to the picture frames hanging throughout the large mansion.
The frames were filled with photos of a girl in a white ballet uniform smiling brightly.
「Winner」
「Bukyang Youth Ballet Competition」
Trophies everywhere, too.
“When my daughter turned twenty, she started dating a boy. She never told us much about him… but my daughter started acting strange after she broke up with him…”
After breaking up with her boyfriend, Kim Yeonseo apparently holed herself up in her room like a burrowing animal.
She gradually stopped going out.
Eventually, she wouldn’t even join the family for meals at the dinner table.
“At first… I thought the pain of heartbreak was just too much for her. I figured she’d heal with time. That she’d pick herself up and move on. Everyone goes through that phase…”
But she didn’t.
His daughter Yeonseo’s condition only got worse.
“My daughter…”
Chairman Kim Manchun wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand.
His hands were thick and rough, testament to all those years of day labor.
Those hands were trembling.
“My daughter comes out every dawn… and rummages through the refrigerator. My wife was leaving food outside her door, and I thought that wasn’t enough… but then…”
Kim Manchun’s refrigerator was always stocked with fresh ingredients, raw and uncooked.
“She was eating… raw meat. My daughter. And that’s not all. One night, I felt a strange presence and woke up to see Yeonseo holding a knife… just staring at us while we slept…”
Grin-.
She was smiling, baring her white teeth.
“That smile… I can’t get it out of my head. It was like she wasn’t my daughter anymore!”
Chairman Kim Manchun called in renowned shamans recommended by his acquaintances.
But his daughter’s condition only worsened.
“Every night, my daughter talks to someone. Her room doesn’t even have a phone, let alone a computer or TV! And if you listen closely… it’s not just her voice you hear!”
Chairman Kim Manchun was terrified.
In the end, he exercised the sharp decisiveness unique to a self-made man.
He decided to lock his daughter in the cold basement.
The place with the meat cold storage room.
Chairman Kim Manchun said he could only check whether Yeonseo was alive or dead through that thick steel door.
And he kept it firmly padlocked at all other times.
“But lately… I feel like my daughter is watching me. Even though she’s chained up tight. I don’t know how that’s possible… but if this continues, even my wife might be in danger…”
Chairman Kim Manchun buried his face deep in his palms.
He was deeply worried, and one of his younger employees posted his situation online.
And that’s what I saw, which is why I’m here.
“Well, this is a textbook possession case.”
A man in his mid-forties wearing a leather vest snorted.
With sunglasses on and a bandana tied around his forehead, chewing gum like there’s no tomorrow, he looks like the kind of guy who’d ride a massive motorcycle down a desert highway in an American movie.
Beside him, a woman in a white dress was patting her face, touching up her base makeup.
Pat pat pat-.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH—!!!”
Just then, a scream echoed from the basement again.
A scream loud enough to tear the throat out.
I’d never heard someone shriek like that in my entire life, and my blood ran cold in an instant.
Unlike me, however, the Terminator-looking leather jacket guy just snorted.
“Tch, that petty spirit’s screaming like the world’s ending now that it’s met its match. So Kim Manchun, the pay is four big bills like we agreed, right?”
At that, the woman who’d just finished her makeup curled her lips.
“You think it’s your match it’s scared of? It’s because of that Young Master over there. Even ghosts know. Who’s here sitting in this very spot right now-.”
Click, clack-.
The woman walked across the marble floor, her heels clicking with each step.
She gently lowered herself onto the sofa in the center of the living room.
“I did think my luck’s been good lately. Never expected the Young Master to show his face for such a crude Twilight-Tier request. Think I’ll get a chance to see that famous skill of yours?”
Across from her, a man in a suit sat leisurely drinking tea.
Slurp-.
His face was the palest I’d ever seen on anyone, and his features were well-proportioned.
Tall, with broad shoulders.
Honestly, I thought he was a celebrity.
And at this moment, I figured out the dynamics of this room.
The Terminator guy and the dress woman are probably Magicians.
They didn’t treat the owner of this mansion, Kim Manchun, with much respect.
In a way, they even seemed to look down on him.
But toward that young, handsome ‘Young Master,’ they acted like they were conceding a step.
‘Young Master, huh… like some chaebol’s son or something?’
As I wondered.
Click-.
The young man called Young Master set his cup down on the saucer.
Then he rose smoothly from his seat.
“I used to visit Chairman Kim’s restaurant often, so of course I’ll help. And since we’re at it, how about we introduce ourselves? I’m Yu Gain. Call me whatever’s comfortable.”
His bright smile was refreshing.
This handsome bastard!
Making my heart flutter for no reason!
Imagine how the women feel.
The woman in the white dress furrowed her brows into an inverted V shape like a fan at the front row of her favorite idol’s concert.
Whether she’s crying or laughing.
“Gain, that explanation was way too short. Don’t you need to talk about your family or something? For the record, I’m Jo Sena, a director at Marina Entertainment.”
“I’m Choi Janggun, a Male Shaman working out of Yeonnam-dong. My main magic types are Spirit Medium and Ritual. I can handle the others decently enough, but not as well as those two.”
Magic. Spirit Medium. Ritual.
Unfamiliar words popped out and drilled into the neurons of my brain.
As I wondered if magic had types too, I felt everyone’s gaze turn to me.
“Ah, I’m-.”
“Kim Manchun! Let’s see your daughter first. That’s the stairs going down to the basement, right?”
“Ah, yes…”
The Terminator guy who introduced himself as Choi Janggun started walking toward the basement.
It felt like he deliberately cut me off.
At that, the woman in the dress who’d introduced herself as Marina Entertainment director Jo Sena sneered.
“Honestly, you gotta know Male Shamans have no manners. Talking down to everyone.”
She said that, but.
Jo Sena also had no intention of hearing my introduction, it seemed, as she followed Choi Janggun to the basement.
I’d vaguely sensed since entering this mansion that they didn’t think much of me.
I’ve always been pretty quick on the uptake in that regard.
But what really surprised me came next.
Yu Gain approached me and extended his hand.
“You’re the transfer student, right? What’s your name?”
My little sister once went to an idol fan signing event, and she said her heart was pounding when the idol reached out to shake her hand.
That’s exactly how I felt right now.
Not that I want to admit it.
“I’m Ha Yuseong. But why does everyone think I’m a transfer student?”
“Because the only people who wear cooking foil inside are transfer students. Also, those two are second-gen and third-gen respectively, so they look down on and dismiss transfer students. That’s just how this industry is.”
“Here I thought they were jealous of how handsome I am.”
“Ha, yeah. Could be that too.”
Yu Gain laughed, ha ha-.
At that moment, my blood actually ran cold.
This guy, laughing that hard at my lame joke, how good-natured is he?
Easily amused? No, wait, is he gay?
So I quickly shook off Yu Gain’s hand and took a step back.
Yu Gain wiped the laughter-moistened corners of his eyes with his index finger and said.
“Well, let’s have a good day today.”
He didn’t seem like he was just saying that to be nice.
This guy, handsome as all that, has a personality to match?
No way, right?
I heard that handsome guys receive nothing but kindness from the world, so they see it as this happy, goodwill-filled dreamland and end up becoming good and kind people themselves.
Is he really like that?
‘Man, the world’s so unfair!’
I felt a bit wronged.
But what surprised me even more was Boribori’s attitude.
Round and round-.
Boribori circled around Yu Gain as if searching, looking him up and down.
…On guard?
No, it felt different from that. Boribori’s tail was swaying gently side to side.
That gentle sway is the stage when Boribori shows curiosity and interest.
I can tell that much by now.
“What? Did something drop over there?”
Yu Gain looked around himself.
He couldn’t see Boribori either, it seemed.
So I decided to give a simple answer.
“My charm.”
“Then let’s pick it up quick. We need to head down to the basement too.”
# # #
Opening the basement door, it was a winter wonderland.
The frost settled coldly over everything, and it was freezing.
“This was originally a cold storage room, right?”
Jo Sena, still in her sunglasses, put a cigarette in her mouth and flicked it alight with a sizzle-.
Whoosh, she blew the smoke out, and it fluttered through the air in the shape of a butterfly.
‘How the hell did she do that?’
The impressive trick made the back of my head itch with curiosity.
The Terminator-looking Male Shaman Choi Janggun also clicked his tongue, tch-, as he looked around.
“This ain’t a fridge, it’s a full-on freezer. Big as a house, too. Temperature’s… about minus 2 degrees. A spirit this strong brings the chill with it. Tch.”
Shhhk-.
The handsome Young Master Yu Gain also pulled out gold-rimmed glasses with transparent lenses from his inner breast pocket.
They looked like the magnifying glasses old men wear, but somehow they suited him perfectly. It was weird.
“…I can see a few.”
Yu Gain was looking at the floor.
Wondering what he could see a few of, I looked down at the floor too, and there were what looked like sneaker sole prints.
Each one had a different shape.
Yu Gain explained to me.
“You look for spirit footprints. You should get yourself a pair of glasses like these. There are things you can see better through a lens.”
“Pointless explaining to a rookie.”
When Male Shaman Choi Janggun snorted, an awl-like determination shot up from deep within me.
I didn’t do anything to make that man dislike me.
But he dislikes me anyway?
Fine, then I’ll give you a good reason to dislike me.
“I’m young, so I see real well without those. It’s my own personal training method to not rely on tools.”
“Yeah? Then tell me where these footprints here lead.”
Choi Janggun pointed at the empty floor.
The corners of his mouth were curling up crookedly. He’s trying to test me and mock me.
“There are no footprints there.”
“Oh-?”
“The footprints go from here, to over there.”
I pointed with my hand at the path of the footprints closest to me.
Male Shaman Choi Janggun’s mouth gaped open like a startled goldfish.
Just as I was thinking that served him right, Yu Gain took off his glasses.
“Impressive, seeing them without glasses? Maybe I should try too.”
Whether he was putting force into his eyes, a sharp inhale sounded.
Sweat beaded on his forehead and gathered at his chin.
In this cold storage room near minus 2 degrees, he was focusing so intensely that he broke a sweat in an instant.
This guy, what the hell is he- I was slightly stunned.
“Ha, this is way harder than it looks.”
Even as he exhaled heavily, pff, Yu Gain’s eyes were tracking the footprints.
Seems he managed to see them without the glasses.
Yu Gain said.
“The footprints split into two, left and right. If we follow them, we’ll probably find Chairman Kim’s daughter, Yeonseo. One of the two could be a trap to lure us.”
“Tch, then let’s split up. I’m going this way!”
Male Shaman Choi Janggun strode off to the left.
At that, Jo Sena, who’d been holding a cigarette, veered right.
“I don’t like that guy, so I’ll go this way. Young Mas… Gain, which way are you going? Want to come with me?”
“I’ll go left. I’m a little worried about that ahjussi.”
“Ha, so I’m going with this guy then?”
Jo Sena looked at me and frowned.
What’s with you, I don’t like you either.
More than that, in my eyes…
‘There are three sets of footprints, though?’
Besides the left and right, there was a set of footprints extending down the center.
Compared to the larger footprints, these were relatively small, probably a woman’s.
No one else seems to notice.